Nativity Fast

[Jean-Serge]

My dear Euthymios, all calendars with things you can eat or not are not exactly the same... For example, you can see that on Russian calendars, caviar is allowed... Shellfish are things like shrimp, crabs and so on... Generally, it is admitted that you can eat them...

[GOCTheophan]

I apologize for all of this, but I am not in my right mind right now. Everytime I turn around we have these fasts and they are killing me. Orthodoxy is SO hard.

Orthodoxy is so hard....but that is because we are SO fallen.

Me probably more than you.

My hope of entering Heaven seems to decrease every week.

However Orthodoxy is not about consolation on earth.

If we dont have a broken heart, if dont feel that we fully deserve hell...than we are going about things the wrong way.

I know that I am going about things the wrong way.

Have you read the Arena?

Theophan.

[joasia]

All I see is a person who is complaining about the fact that he can't eat certain foods and he is suffering. Get over it.

There are plenty of foods to eat during the fast. Learn how to cook.

God doesn't make it difficult...we do. We are used to our ways. But, if we want to make a change in our lives and moved forward in our faith, then WE are the ones that have to make the change...not God. Because WE are far from Him.

Get a grip. Orthodox is not hard...we are stubborn.

And what is shellfish? This is never mentioned on my fast calendars. If it is allowed why don't they mention it.

You are obviously following a new calendar. It means, basically everything except fish. Nothing that bleeds. Caviar is accepted because it does not bleed. The bleeding represents the bleeding of Christ and therefore is forbidden to eat.

Eggs, of a chicken are not excepted because it comes from a meat source.

[Euthymios]

No I am not and never have observed the New Calendar. I suffer all alone because there are no traditional priests anywhere within what, a thousand or so mile radius from me?

It was Said: "Get a grip. Orthodox is not hard...we are stubborn."

My Response: No it is VERY hard when it is actually observed, and carried to its logical conclusion can be very psychologically dangerous. The problem is that most Orthodox people today are only theoretical Orthodox, not practical or actual ones. They don't live Orthodoxy. I believe Orthodoxy can cause or atleast accentuate mental illness simply because of the demands, rules, guilt and regulations its puts on people. Orthodoxy carries with it a very negative worldview. Everyone is damned to eternal hell fire just for mistakes in theology, according to the Church Fathers I have read. I personally believe people like Bishop Ignatius Brainchaninov was a sick and sadistic psychopath (like Gonzales in Etna) because of his views on delusion.

I get the impression from him that joy, love, peace, happiness, etc are all together delusions/sins, and cannot be trusted because they are demonic deceptions.

The only things that can be trusted are dispair, depression, fear, sin and guilt.

This is not a psychologically healthy position for a person to take.

Orthodoxy pushes people so far to the right that eventually they can snap and go to the other oppsosite extreme.

For example, the Rock Group KISS is comprised of former Russian Orthodox boys as is a segment of the church of satan.

I have a theory that Orthodoxy can be dangerous because the negativity and pessimism of the Holy Fathers cannot adequetly be addressed and dealt with today because there are no competent spiritual fathers who can correspond to that negativity. The conclusion is mental illness.

My psychological issues of depression, anxiety, guilt, fear and darkness all intensified a thousand times over since I became Orthodox.

The teaching of the toll houses alone is sufficient to put someone in a mental institution. How can anyone in their right mind devote themself to a God who allows a person to get to step twenty, only to be cast down to eternal hell fire?

Last month I read an article showing how the Holy Fathers taught that heretics and schismatics are going to eternal hell fire. This means that all new calendar Orthodox, Roman Catholics, evengelicals, protestants, etc are damned.

If so much was at stake, God would never have allowed the schism of 1054.

All those pius and uneducated faithful Latins are damned just because they were wrong on an item in theology? Give me a break!

Today in order to be saved, one must be a specialist in canons with preferably advanced degrees in multiple languages and church history, patristics and systematic theology.

How can anyone believe in a God or religion that teaches such a thing? How can anyone be devoted to such a sick and sadistic tyrant of a God?

A few days after reading that article on heresy (I read it from Gregory of Colorado's website), I landed in a mental clinic.

I don't blame this on that article, but I think it might have been partly responsible.

I went to a clinic during the fast because I believe the fast was starving my brain of vital nutrients and proteins.

When I first joined Orthodoxy, I thought I was getting involved in one organic and corporately united Church of the saints.

No way! Instead I got involved in a bunch of bickering, pride, schism, hate, gossip, politcs and homosexuals.

They divide because of pride and self-love. They don't realize or even care what they are doing to the laymen.

[Euthymios]

Some might respond: "just be at peace and work on your own salvation with your spiritual father."

I've heard something like this before and its ludicrous.

This is what I mean when Orthodox don't apply their beliefs and carry it to its logical conclusion. Extra ecclesium nulla sallas (outside the Church there is no salvation).

They act like I can just walk across the street and enjoy the fellowship of my local parish.

No! we are traditionalists. NewsFlash: There is NO valid church anywhere within hundreds and hundreds of miles from me.

One cannot "work out their salvation" if there is no church to work it out in. One cannot work with their spiritual father if there are no spiritual father's anywhere to be found.

If so much is at stake with ecumenism, etc why would God even allow such a thing to occur? Do you people ever think these things through?

Latins are doomed to eternal hell fire just because they had the unfortunate circumstance of being born at the wrong time and in the wrong place. They were born into an environment heavely influenced with Latin theology. They have been thoroughly indoctrinated with this. But God (according to Orthodoxy) doesn't care about this. He sends them to hell anyway.

If so much was at stake, God would not have allowed a schism to occur. He loves His children even more then you do. But you wouldn't allow this. Why should we assume God would? He is the personification of love.

But Orthodox people don't really care. They're too busy "being correct" and "right."

I have another theory that some Orthodox nutts like that facist hate cult in Colorado are so spiritually depraved, that they have the need to feel above or more "correct" then other people to convince their own selves they are Orthodox. They rely on "correctness" instead of morality and ethics.

And they need to feel above, superior to and better then other people so they join obsessive compulsive religions like Orthodoxy as the medium to manifest this superiority and pride.

They don't think their views down to their logical conclusion and the reality that everyone is going to hell. They rather be "correct" , superior to and more powerful then others.

These people are sick. And I'm sick of it. They have caused me more damage.

Gregory of Colorado is a very dangerous person, spirituallty and psychologically.

And you can't correct them because they're re so deluded and full of themselves that whenever anyone attempts to enlighten them, their "orthodoxy" has a built in mechanism that protects them from any kind of criticism in that a shield of self-love/delusion surrounds them and tells them they are being persecuted by demons because they're so "Orthodox." -- the devil is persecuting them, so they reason. That is why it is next to impossible to penetrate this shiled of delusion and pride they have.

I was once visiting a traditional monastery years ago where an argument broke-out between a monk and the abbot at the end of a service. They told me this happened because they were one of the last traditional monasteries in America, it was Bright week, and the demons did it.

They assumed no responsibility. It was the devils fault.

This is cultic and sick.

They create people like me through their extreme views, then dump us off like we never existed after they realize their experience didn't work.

PEOPLE, IAM THE LOGICAL CONCLUSION OF THESE NUTTS.

I have often wondered if the traditional movements are really of God.

I did better when I had a brief apostasy into the moscow and serbian churches a few years ago.

Satan appears as an angel of light.

I have thought in the past that under the guise of "orthodoxy" and "correctness," the devil might be keeping people like me from the Divine Mysteries in the new calendar churches.

Think about that.

If old calendar traditionalism was the only blessed path of God, why would He have allowed our only local ROCOR priest to die back in 2002?

IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE.

They created me, made me the monster Iam, then dumped me like I never existed.

They told me to avoid Moscow, then they join it -- stabbing me in the back and betraying me, God and Orthodoxy.

I wrote an old aquaitance from oir old ROCOR parish.

I never heard back.

Orthodox people have no love. They are strange and very bizarre people.

I am the result of dealing with these traditionalists for years.

You don't have the problems I have because you do not observe traditionalism like I do, and you are not isolated like I am.

[Euthymios]

And yes I am angry. I have many reasons to be. I give and sacrifice over and over again for the truth and nothing ever becomes of it.

I said the Jesus prayer, for example, virtually non-stop all of last year (12 straight months) but I am in the exact same predicaments I was in 12 months ago. I've always said the Jesus prayer --no results of anykind.

Now I say two akathists a day, in addition to my morning and evening prayers, prayers before, during and after meals and my own prayers -- no results.

In 2004 I was in a state of dispair. I wrote a priest (under Bartholemew) and told him this. I explained how I felt abandoned by God and rejected.

He wrote once or twice, and never wrote again.

He never bothered to check-up on me -- this accentuated my feelings of abandonment by God and this priest knew it.

Another more local priest was made aware of this. He knew about the harm this caused me psychologically and spirituallity.

He never once bothered to check-up on me during the entire course of 2007.

I'm sorry people, but Orthodoxy made me what I am.

[Euthymios]

I Stated: They create people like me through their extreme views, then dump us off like we never existed after they realize their experience didn't work.

My Response: I meant to say experiment.

They create us and make us mentally ill, then downplay our issues and complaints because we ARE mentally ill.

They assume no responsibility.

Their fanaticism and hateful theology of a vindictive tyranical God inevitably leads to illness.

And don't tell me its Catholic theology. No! It comes right from Eastern Church Fathers.

No heretic will ever be saved.

I'm scared to death of a God like that. And I am full of guilt.

Orthodoxy over emphsasizes death and the grave.

This is not psychologically healthy. I'm sorry.

If you are still healthy, then you do not really believe what your Church teaches.