Traditionnalist in the MP?

[Kollyvas]

Evlogeite
(Edward, you finally realized I wasn't what you said I was?! LOL! We all make mistakes.) I have argued in favour of resistance in the past and hold it is patristic, but I don't confuse ultramontane hooliganism with resistance. All have seen that I can be loyal to my Bishops without being uncritical. I am the first to say that the canonical order of the Church is always the most appropriate way of church administration. Concerning Elder Ephraim, curiously those who would call him a "false elder" oftentimes have little conception of what eldership is. I have outlined it all in the Elder Ephraim thread comprehensively. Interestingly, +Vitaly himself had blessed at least one monastic to enter one of the Elder's monasteries PERSONALLY. I won't belabour the point. I have documented my position. I do so daily to illustrate TO ANYONE WHO CAN READ ENGLISH that it is no longer 1984 and brezhnevism is over, and Russia is being reborn. Concerning rasputin and Tsar' Ivan IV, what is the price of tea in China now?! A certain side has always spoken mockingly of eldership in Orthodoxy--just look at what they did to St. John of San Francisco. Now, I have actively endeavoured to maintain neutrality in the +vitaly-+laurus dispute, but I have shown a bias TOWARD +VITALY and that is a mistake for which I must heartfully repent. I would hope ROCiE clerics take note of what is being done in their name and understand the hatefulness their spiritual children are espousing. I am being led to the conclusion, however, that the inmates are running the asylum elsewhere and leading people into schism, forming THEIR own church. This spiritual disease has been seen in Russia before, and the raskol endures until this day...

I was once a member of a sedesvacantes internet discussion group. I went there to see how receptive they were to Orthodoxy. I listened to all the arguments for vatican i and the authority of the chair--i informed them I was Orthodox and they felt it necessary to set a "Greek" straight. Then I dared to ask a question concerning magisterium and papal rule--I asked by what right does any group of believers presume to declare popes illegitimate and declare the chair vacant. The resulting acrimony was pronounced. They settled on asking the "Greek" to "prove the chair had to be occupied" for the Roman Catholic church to run. So much for vatican i. LOL!!! Yes, schismatic, demoniac, deceiver, ignoramus--all kinds of pretty words graced my brow. The gist of my point was that conciliarity could indeed alow them to resist their hierarch and remediate the situation but their espoused papal model would have to be jettisoned for them to make sense.

That wasn't their intent. schism doesn't want to be rational: indeed, theology does not matter, as we've seen certain synodeias have endorsed consubstantiation, ecclesiology doesn't matter, for anyone with a pen who knows someone with a miter becomes an internet pope who can over-rule ecumenical councils and condemn 250 million Orthodox Christians as "heretics," and, no, this internet pope doesn't need Canons to do it (but he will pragmatically use them to commit his self-righteous suicide), for as we've seen they are "out of date" and just get in the way (obnovlenchestvo--renovationism--was indeed condemned as heresy in the Russian Orthodox Church), and when all else fails, he will dispute evidence with epithets and reason with noise, jeers and baiting. AND SOMEONE MENTIONED kgb TACTICS?! All in the name of condemning the ecclesiological heresies of sergianism and ecumenism?! heresy isn't condemned by use of heresy: ultramontanism, renovationism, donatism with a phyletistic tinge grounded in some fantastic nostalgia is a renunciation of the very Orthodoxy in which some claim exclusivity. schismatics have a universal character and it is that they war against the Church so that they can replace it with their own monstrosity cast in their own sectarian image. That's why the spirit who possesses them crucified Christ. While those in schism from the latin heresy HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH Orthodoxy, in character they share the SAME "church" with schismatic, would be "super Orthodox," the synagogue of the abomination of desolation, "merzost' zapustenie." True resistance laments disunity and seeks conciliar resolution of ecclesiastical disputes, not a new/alternate order of pharisees in a new sanhedrin running an inquisition. Resistance HAS NO NEED of the church of the grand inquisitor. Having been positively predisposed toward +Metropolitan Vitaly, I confess ignorance of the man whom I thought was legitimate. The song being sung here by some has been heard before and I have no time for hooligans threatening people with hell over a brush stroke in an icon or prosphoral crumbs sprinkled in the hair...To borrow a word from Vladyka +Tikhon of the OCA, "such bedlam is beneath contempt and unworthy of comment..."
ORTHODOXIA I THANATOS!
Rostislav Mikhailovich Malleev-Pokrovsky

[Jean-Serge]

Kollyvas is totally right in his comments on the Moscow Patriarchate. Ofcourse schismatic Old Calendarists and these independent hoo-ha "Russian" groups, whose life is most vibrant on the internet, would have you believe that everybody in World Orthodoxy is marching gleefully to union with Rome and total syncretism. Anything positive, they must downplay, because they perceive it as a threat to their mere existence.
One only has to go to Moscow, to see great examples of Church life. Most of the parishes there have daily services, while the schimatics scowl at each other and hold synodal meeting agreeing to postpone their next meeting.
I lived in Moscow on and off for 3 years and was amazed by what I saw. Go to the city monasteries and you will find them to be bastions of traditional Orthodoxy, both in teaching and practice. Valaam is one of many monasteries that have been restored, go and see Solovki, Optina, Diveyevo, Holy Trinity Lavra. There are now over 300 monasteries now in Russia, as compared to less than 60 in 1990.
I am not so nieve as to think everything is rosy, but a Church with 80 million members, hundreds of monasteries, thousands of parishes, are going to have some problem members. But this was so before the revolution. Just being on this forum, I encounter far more imbalanced people in these off shot, pseudo-traditional groups here than anywhere else.

Edward
geh8988@gmail.com

Muslims also have 5 daily services and this doe not mean they are right... Being zealous is not a proof of being rignht (Saint Paul to the Romans).

You assert 80 million orthodox faithful in Russia : it is a confusion between ethnicity and religion. The Holy Russia no longer exists : people are cultural Orthodox, that is all, like catholics in France and so on... What id the percentage of regular church goer? If you are looking for real pious people in the old countries, look in Romania, or Georgia... Just look at the dating websites full of young Russian ladies eager of marrying a westerner whichever confession he is, and you will see those young people are more interested in money than in orthodoxy...

You boast the MP demographical supremacy... But thsi supremamcy only exists thanks to persecutions against other Orthodox groups. The ROCOR, ROCIE and ROAC have never been free to open church, make mission etc... They were persecuted by the administration inherited from the communist regime which has sympathy for the mp since they have the same origin i.e comunism... Since their is no real competition and freedom of choosing his jurisdiction, then the MP data are not fair and cannot be displayed as an example...

Finally, the MP is a shicmatic organization. Indeed, it was created from 19 bishops who collaborated with Stalin whereas the majority of their peers prefered to stay in prisons or gulags... After that, thanks to that treason and further lies, it could gain the majority of faithfuls. But being the majority does not mean you are not schismatic or you are right; or maybe Saint Maximus the Confessor was wrong since he was a schismatic minority...

As regards Traditionnalim is the MP, this week, Thursday 19th in Brussels, the MP Archibishop joined in common prayer with catholics, anglican and so on for the Week of prayer for christian unity... As I said the MP deacon in 2004 commemorated the catholic archbishop of Paris..

So the MP position is highly hypocritical : saying on one hand we are traditionnalist and on the other dancing the belly dance with heretics...

I have a friend who is not from a traditionnalist jurisdiction and who went to Russia... She was not so enthusiastic as you... He met MP bishop and she thought they were really rotten and lacked of humility and simplicity and behaved like lords (which is normalfor former nomenklatura members), whereas in the parish people lacked basic christia teaching and asked blessing for everything... So maybe you can only see an aspect but should examine more deeply.

I was told that the majority of non married clergyman in the MP are pedophile pr homosexual. I would like to ask you, since you are in Russia, if this was an attack with bases or not. And by the way, do you have information about Alexey II and his taste for young and beautiful ladies? Did the Russian press issue something about this?

[Kollyvas]

scandal mongering and innuendo, based on nothing but imagination and hate...
R

[Kollyvas]

While I must admit that the discrepancies in Vladyka's positions can be startling and his "virtual" methodology many times less than edifying (not to mention his infatuation with godless, leftist politics), out of a profound sense of a palpable appreciation, I can say Vladyka is concerned with the good estate of the Orthodox Church and has such a nascent, although of late shielded and guarded, decency about him as to merit love and attention. In his case, when one appreciates intent, one is left impressed with someone who has given all and will leverage to find more for Orthodoxy. I cannot fault that no matter what rough edge my sinful mind seems to see...
R

[Cat.Timothy.]

Eldership at least as it existed in the past doesnt exist in our day, anyone like elder Ephraim is the blind leading the blind, read the Arena.

Theophan.

[Kollyvas]

The ARENA was penned in the late nineteenth century when eldership was very much alive in places like Optina. Surely, St. Ignatios of Stavropol was aware of it; after all, he instructs people to seek out elders in his work ON THE JESUS PRAYER or in his tracts on "prelest'." An elder might indeed do many ALOT of good. LOL!!! The thread on Elder Ephraim/Eldership is there for anyone to read--there one learns that Eldership is a sign of dispassion to which all are called in our ascent to theosis. Reiterating to deaf antipathy (done only for the benefit of other parties), +Vitaly himself blessed monastics to become disciples of ELDER Ephraim. But then again, we've heard these echoes before--WE REMEMBER what was done to St. John...
R

[Cat.Timothy.]

The ARENA was penned in the late nineteenth century when eldership was very much alive in places like Optina. Surely, St. Ignatios of Stavropol was aware of it; after all, he instructs people to seek out elders in his work ON THE JESUS PRAYER or in his tracts on "prelest'." An elder might indeed do many ALOT of good. LOL!!! The thread on Elder Ephraim/Eldership is there for anyone to read--there one learns that Eldership is a sign of dispassion to which all are called in our ascent to theosis. Reiterating to deaf antipathy (done only for the benefit of other parties), +Vitaly himself blessed monastics to become disciples of ELDER Ephraim. But then again, we've heard these echoes before--WE REMEMBER what was done to St. John...
R

Not as in Spirit-bearing elders who were able to demand total obediance as they KNEW the Will of God clearly.