Joining Traditional Orthodoxy

[Anastasios]

Yeah I live next to a Group of Old/Traditionalist..so Ive spent many months in serious conversation`s etc..so i know the confusion they bring to the young and vulnerable, so yeah yeah Im in contact with them personally, you probally wouldnt understand anyway,oh and good luck in your NS Seminary work......

"You probably wouldn't understand anyway." I really don't like that answer when people give it. What wouldn't I understand? I have walked in New and Old Calendarist circles and know both groups quite well.

You have mentioned Phoenix a couple of times. Do you live by Fr Bessarion? Is that who you are talking about? Or perhaps the Matthewite priest there.

Anastasios

PS thanks for the well wishes but I have graduated

[Anastasios]

Yeah I live next to a Group of Old/Traditionalist..so Ive spent many months in serious conversation`s etc..so i know the confusion they bring to the young and vulnerable

I guess it depends which ones you are talking about. Since none of these groups can seem to find common ground on which to base the sharing of the eucharist, and have broken into smaller and smaller sects, how can we have any luck lumping them together in our descriptions.

LOL. Peter, what are you talking about? The GOC (Synod of Archbishop Chrysostomos II) stays the same: the largest Old Calendar Church with the most bishops, most faithful, most churches, and consistent and historical links with the historical GOC of generations past.

Contrast that with various schismatics who have left our Synod, and splinter into ever smaller groups who bicker amongst themselves, and you see that there is 1) the Church of the GOC and 2) a bunch of small sects. But the vast majority of Old Calendarists are still in the original GOC.

I know it's easier to say we are all a bunch of crazy people who can't stop splitting but the facts just make that dishonest to say.

Anastasios

[1937 Miraculous Cross]

Dear List:

Niphon wrote:

Yeah I live next to a Group of Old/Traditionalist..so Ive spent many months in serious conversation`s etc..so i know the confusion they bring to the young and vulnerable, so yeah yeah Im in contact with them personally,

There are good apples and bad apples in every jurisdiction. You cannot generalize. Regarding the "confusion' issue, I personally find it confusing when "World" Orthodox clergy and bishops stand and pray at Assisi, Italy with the former Pope, Methodist ministers, Immans, Wiccans and Buddhist monks, all for a "world day of prayer'. I find it conrfusing that these Orthodox bishops who recite the Creed in Divine Liturgy, "ONE Holy, Catholic, and Orthodox Church', find so much opportunity to demonstrate otherwise. However, I guess you can just rationalize it and excuse it as merely 'political' necessities, as one of my New Calendarist friends tells me. The same excuses at the local level occur when New Cal. clergy attend joint prayer meetings with other Christian denominations.

I've been in ROCOR, the Kiousis GOC and now the Matthewites, and have generally found very sober but loving and caring clergy, with the exception of a few, and even these few, while sounding firm and strict in regards to the New Calendar hierarchy, were still very gentle with their flock.

Admittedly, there is a general confusion amongst the Old Calendarists as to who is canonical or uncanonical due to different interpetations of historical events of the 20th century, but there is uniformly no confusion about their position regarding the New Calendarists and their violations of the "One Holy" portion of the Creed.

Pjhatala wrote:

guess it depends which ones you are talking about. Since none of these groups can seem to find common ground on which to base the sharing of the eucharist, and have broken into smaller and smaller sects, how can we have any luck lumping them together in our descriptions.

Sad but true regarding the divisions; however, for the most part their ecclesiology is the same. The exceptions would be the Cyprianites, the Milan Synod, and maybe HOCNA .

Many things are easier for some people in the "Majority" Orthodox. they often don't have to get baptised for example. So their "conversion" expersion they had in the Church of Christ for example, with their single immersion, is viewed as a valid baptism and doesn't create a "strain' in the person's spirit. (I actually know a case just like this in the Antiochian parish nearby.) So, I would definitely say there is less "confusion" in the Majority Orthodox in some ways. For me, however, in 1992 when I was a cathecumen at the Antiochian church, the priest asked me if I had been baptized. I said yes, "sprinkled as a Roman Catholic, single dipped as a born again fundamentalist, single dipped again as a southern Baptist, and single dipped in "Jesus' name" as a Pentecostal." His response was, "well you don't need to be baptized."
That caused me "confusion" , because I had just found the Truth and the True Church, and here I'm being told that I don't need to receive the holy waters of baptism from the Orthodox Church!

Well, maybe "problem' was me for wanting a real baptism? So, where is the confusion? there's plenty going around in the Majority Orthodox that off set any arising from the True Orthodox.

In Christ,
Nectarios Manzanero
Austin, TX

[Chrysostomos]

1937 Miraculous Cross,

For me, however, in 1992 when I was a cathecumen at the Antiochian church, the priest asked me if I had been baptized. I said yes, "sprinkled as a Roman Catholic, single dipped as a born again fundamentalist, single dipped again as a southern Baptist, and single dipped in "Jesus' name" as a Pentecostal.

I've been in ROCOR, the Kiousis GOC and now the Matthewites

I wonder if the challenge for Americans in general is that they are trying to find the "perfect church", rather than Christ?

Even after becoming Eastern Orthodox Christians, many American converts, still are searching for the "Perfect/True" Church and thus go jurisdictional hopping, until they find it if ever. When all along, Christ has and will always be there. I guess we have short memories in regards to the liturgy in which we are told: "Do not put your hope in princes and sons of men, in whom there is no salvation". That includes
Jurisdictions, does it not? Bishops, does it not? Archbishop Gregory for an example of late....

Please do not consider this a slam on you, it isn't. I've done my share of hopping from Protestant to Protestant denomination. I was only baptized once, and yet, do have questions about baptism of which I posted on this board recently. I even put quotes up by St. Cyril of Jerusalem, trying to encourage discussion, and not a peep, from Trad. or World Orthodoxy.

Your fellow struggler in Christ,

Rd. Chrysostomos

[1937 Miraculous Cross]

Dear Rd. Chrysostomos,

You wrote:

Please do not consider this a slam on you, it isn't. I've done my share of hopping from Protestant to Protestant denomination. I was only baptized once, and yet, do have questions about baptism of which I posted on this board recently. I even put quotes up by St. Cyril of Jerusalem, trying to encourage discussion, and not a peep, from Trad. or World Orthodoxy.

I don't take your comment as a "slam". My multiple Protestant baptisms were because I a) never knew Christ as a child and never went to the Roman Catholic church. Hence, in my teenage "born again" experience I was baptized single immersion. b) Later, I left Christ and was involved in Hinduism with two gurus for about 13 years. When I came back to Christ in a Southern Baptist Church, they felt I was never "saved" in the first place -- because if you're once saved you're always saved according to their motto -- and indeed, it was as if I was starting over, hence they said I needed baptism "as a sign of my faith in Christ". c) Later, when I became a "tongues" speaking Pentecostal they allowed many people to get "baptized" who were never baptized Pentecostal in order to receive even more of the "Holy Spirit" (I use quotes because it was not the Holy Spirit but empty water).

The journey was not to find the perfect church as you posted, but to find a closer relationship to Christ and to receive more of the Holy Spirit. Nonetheless, I still felt an emptiness inside and something "plastic" about the whole Protestant experience. I was lead to read the Apostolic Fathers, and that led me to the Orthodox Church. Once I realized that this was the One Holy and Catholic Church that was always present since the Apostles, I truely desired baptism from the One Church. It was disappointing to have the Antiochian priest tell it baptism wasn't necessary because of all my prior baptisms. My reading told me that I didn't even have the correct form for baptism. It all confused me, but fortunately I found Fr. Gregory of Dormition Skete who set the record straight about ecumenism and True Orthodoxy. (Despite everyone's criticism of him, he was correct in my case about needing baptism.) The ecumenist indulging majority Orthodox often consider the pseudo-baptisms of the heterodox as acceptible baptisms, and I think it is because of a spiritual illness that does not discern the Truth.

In regards to your posts about baptism, I apparently missed it....sorry.

To the young man who started this thread, the Old Calendarists may be divided due to the complexities of 20th century events, but we all generally agree upon the basics. (I'm speaking of GOC Kiousis, GOC Lamians, TOC Matthewites, ROAC, ROCOR-V). The New Calendar churches are in major violations of the Holiness and Tradition of the One Church, and they are in need of repentance. I could not recommend attending their parishes. Anyway, this is my 2 cents...I apologize if this offends the sensibilities of any of my New Calendarist collegues on this List.

in Christ,
nectarios Manzanero,
Austin, TX

[Justin Kissel]

To the young man who started this thread, the Old Calendarists may be divided due to the complexities of 20th century events, but we all generally agree upon the basics.

Now, I'm not sure how to take this. I have heard many people say that on this forum, and to be quite honest I don't agree in the slightest (actually, what I find the hardest to understand is that the people with the most information, who should know best of all how diverse and contradictory the opinions are, believe this as well). But supposing that there was general agreement on the basics: does this mean that they all agree that it's ok to disobey the canons and tradition of the Church, and cause divisions and schisms, and perpetuate those divisions and schisms, over minor issues? I don't mean that to be a slam disguised as a question, I really just don't understand the position. If there is so much agreement, then why is concelebration and communion such a difficult task even after 80 years to sort things out? Is brotherly love and communion and such not a basic or central issue? Or is it an important issue, but just not one that there is agreement on? Or is there agreement on it, but just that the right steps have not been taken to put into practice the belief?

It seems to me that this idea that everyone pretty much all agrees is basically a way of having the best of both worlds. You can tell people that traditionalists really aren't divided (we're just administratively disunited), yet you can also believe that you have held to the proper course, and don't follow X over there who has improper icons or Y over there whose bishop was consecrated by someone that is immoral. It's like people are saying: yes we agree, just don't ask us to enter into concelebration or official communion with one another; we agree on the basics, but we aren't so close that we feel the urgent need to be back in communion. And of course no one would dare suggest something crazy like all the Greek old calendarists getting back under one hierarchy, and also the Russians, Ukrainians, etc! Of course, the SCOBA people have a similar dilemna, though not exactly the same; but this is the "Traditional Orthodox Churches" section.

So if all these traditionalists are really so close, then why is there such a laxity in pursuing better relations with one another? Of if there is no laxity, then why hasn't the pursuit taken us anywhere? And if the answer to that is "Well we've tried, but those X's refuse to give up their unimportant Y," then maybe there isn't so much closeness after all? After all, what is more important or intimately important and central to our Christianity than the health of the theanthropic body of Christ, and the spiritual health and safety of all her members? As St. Paul said, "there should be no schism in the body, but the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it." (1 Cor. 12:25-26)

[1937 Miraculous Cross]

Justin,

What I was referring to when I wrote that the Old Calendarists are basically the same in terms of the basics is that we all uniformly agree on the things that make the "World" Orthodox/New Calendarists in heresy. Also, for the most part they have the same praxis. You are quite right in pointing the divisions amongst us. I commented on that in my post, but perhaps you missed that.

It is easy to take shots at the Old Calendarists, but equally easy to take shots at the New Calendarists. If the "World" Orthodox want to heal the supposed schism they created, them all they have to do is renounce the New Calendar and renounce their ecumenism. It is very clear and simple.

Nectarios