I will certainly pay more attention to my tone.
They are coming out of the woodwork now...
These statements that are coming out about the pope make it very easy to see the difference between the Orthodoxy of the Fathers and the "Orthodoxy" of today. It is apparent that they are two different Faiths. How is it that St. Mark of Ephesus rejected as false that which today's "Orthodox" embrace as true? Either the Church of the past was wrong (and therefore there is no Orthodoxy) or something is very wrong today. The gradual changes over the years through participation in the ecumenical movement have resulted in a completely different "Orthodoxy" than that of the Fathers. Whatever happened to "the Faith of the Church doesn't change?"
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OrthodoxyOrDeath
Joseph,
Dostoevsky's story of the "Grand Inquisitor" sums up what is happening in our time very well.
The majority of people, according to the "Grand Inquisitor", are weak. Jesus prized freedom of faith above all else, and because he cared more for that freedom than for the happiness of people, the Grand Inquisitor rejects Jesus. The Inquisitor states that the reason the weak cannot take the narrow road to Heaven is that they are afraid of freedom, that "they can never be free."
In the three temptations talked about in the "Grand Inquisitor", Jesus is refusing to forcefully captivate the souls of men. The Inquisitor and his organization intend to "pick up the Sword of Caesar," symbolic of earthly power, and use it to captivate and rule the entire world, falsely declaring that it is in Christ's name.
Satan will do everything for men that Jesus in the "Grand Inquisitor" refused to do. He says, three powers can subdue men: miracles, mysteries, and authority. He will feed the people so there is no more hunger. Has this not happened for the most part? Don't we have 50 choices of every type of food so long as we have enslaved ourselves and carry the currency? Don't we see the miracles of technology? And finally, isn't this all only available if you have submitted to their authority and lost the "salt of the Church"? The "salt of the Church" is the same refusal of Christ to submit to the three temptations of the devil.
The new calendar churches, who have abolished fasting, confession, ect. in many places, are now starting their journey at a dizzying pace down that same road of the "Grand Inquisitor".
Last edited by OrthodoxyOrDeath on Wed 13 April 2005 9:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
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OrthodoxyOrDeath
Joseph,
We have the "bishop" who declares another religion invented by men as being equal to Christs faith. The Grand Inquisitor tried to do the same, just a small change to the faith so that people could be happy. So by extension of this "bishop's" declaration, all faiths, even non-Christian ones are good and wholesome, and are paths toward God. In reality we then have a denial that the pure faith of Christ exists in the world and all we have are equally valid collections of mens ideas. For the Orthodox, this is a denial of Christ's Church and the "salt" that preserves mens souls, and an acceptance of all the "bread" of the world, the bread Satan offered Christ in the desert described by "The Grand Inquisitor". People who submit to this "bishop's" authority and they will have this "bread" of the world.
In the "Grand Inquisitor", "For fifteen long centuries" Satan "had to toil and suffer to bring people to recognize him as a religious authority, with people willing give him their freedom. Satan says, "but now we have prevailed and our work is done, and well and strongly it is done." So Christ came unannounced [the Church] and when Satan him he threw him in prison. He said that after all these years of turning your faith into a human religion that he would not let Christ spoil it. "tomorrow I will condemn and burn Thee on the stake, as the most wicked" and everyone will willingly add fuel to the fire.
So this is what it means. That the faith has been turned into something which pleases people, and they are so happy with this, that the "salt of the Church" is gone, that they will be glad to burn Christ at the stake for trying to wake them up.
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OrthodoxyOrDeath
So this is what it means. That the faith has been turned into something which pleases people, and they are so happy with this, that the "salt of the Church" is gone, that they will be glad to burn Christ at the stake for trying to wake them up.
This is also why ecumenists accept everyone (Catholics, Protestants, Anglicans, and even have made happy in-roads to Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism) but they absolutley do not accept anyone who rejects this notion. Immediatley their "love", "brotherhood", and "tolerance" is washed away and replaced by hate and intolerance, even militant intolerance, when they are approached by true Orthodoxy, ie. Christ. Everyone can be and is a brother in "Christ", or "God" except His true followers, they are the only "schismatics" on the earth. They will open joint churches with heretics, but would sooner burn Esphigmenou to the ground than to allow them a presence.
This is why Christ was crucified the first time, because men want to follow their own desires, their own religion, and they will not tolerate anyone opposed to this. So today, Christ is being crucified all over again, and it will culminate with the ultimate crucifixion of Christ with his world-wide rejection and replacement with a new ruler.