ROCOR position towards the MP.

[Chrysostomos]

Nicholas wrote: Show me your bishops' faith and I show you your faith.

I prefer the words of our Lord Jesus Christ:

"Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance"
Luke 3:8

Our Lord further states in the same passage:
"Do not begin to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father". God forbid that we do the same in saying we have Bishop Gregory,
or Bishop Tikhon, or whoever we wish to say is our "father".

Rather, may we all bear fruits worthy of repentance.....

St. Paul, Gal. 5:22-23 says: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,
peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,
self-control. Against such there is no law."

Perhaps all of us should consider this when we leave messages
here on the board and ask....Is my message bearing fruit, or
the flesh?

Gal. 5:24-25 really hits this issue head-on: "And those who are
Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit."

Gal. 5:26 - "Let us not become conceited, provoking one another,
envying one another."

May God have mercy on me. May I bear the fruits worthy of
repentance and the fruit of the Spirit. May I crucify the flesh
with its passions and desires and not become conceited. May
I not provoke anyone, nor envy them.

With humble bow,

Rd. Chrysostomos

[Protopriest Dionysi]

One does not need to look very hard in the Church to find information on how a bishop's faith has a "trickle down" consequence.

Cannons and teaching that are inspired by the Holy Spirit teach that WE MUST seperate from those Bishops that teach heresey.

If you follow some of the reasoning on this list, one would see the justification to be or stay a Papist.

Yes, he may be hereitical. Yes, he may have been anathematized, Yes he may be outside that Church, but he is my bishop and that does not have any consequence for me.

This is absured. This is not Orthodox. I would like to see where one received such knowledge or teaching.

In Christ
Priest Dionysi

[ania]

And round and round and round we go, beating that same already lifeless horse... What people around here need is a vacation... or if they can't afford that, go take a walk in the woods... maybe then everyone will realize there's more to life than blah blahing about this and that jurisdiction. <<sigh>> but as usual, my wise words of council are just as the chirping of crickets in the meadow... mostly ignored.

[Justin Kissel]

Actually, one uses something Psychologists call "selective attention" to "zone out," as it were, crickets and other such noises that a person does not particularly want to hear constantly. The more popular name for it is the "cocktail party effect," if I remember correctly (named after the fact that, at a party, we tend to zone out everyone around us and only focus our hearing on those we wish to hear). When people say things such as you said, we tend to zone you out to. I guess from your perspective we just can't grasp your wise words. From our perspective, you're someone at a gathering whose input we aren't particularly interested in (not because we dislike you as a person, but because your input we see as decidedly wrong.) I hope you won't judge us too harshly if we sub-consciously engage in a bit of selective attention (in fact I wouldn't have responded to your post, except that the crickets comment tempted me to! ).

If you want to post something along the lines that Bogo posted, we'd be happy to listen. If you want to post about how you used to be involved in such postings but now aren't for such and such reasons, then we'll probably listen. But if all you're going to offer is "wise" advice that you already know will be ignored, and which we think to be very wrong advice... well...

[CGW]

If division can only find cause in heresy, then heresy must abound, for those who oppose us must be heretics. Hence, the outsider sees in heresy not only theology, but mere politics.

And what those further outside see is a raft of contentiousness in a vast sea of near identity. There is no use denying that the original divisions did not come about for political reasons-- valid political reasons at the time, but also reasons of the past. And now I see a confusion, because while the political division allowed an independent evolution, it also seems to have become something to be justified for non-political reasons. Thus, as the political reason for ROCOR now indeed seems fulfilled, the differences in praxis between it and the MP cannot be allowed to be resolved; and in any case, we have Sergianism as a justification for the division now turned into an excuse to avoid reunion. But on the outside, Sergianism seems perhaps to be nothing more than a prudential error; but more importantly the differences don't seem to have anything to do with Sergianism, and everything to do with the perception of ROCOR as the guardian of the Ancient Praxis.

And then another group forms, and it seizes upon an issue to place itself on the opposite side of almost all the rest of the East. Who on the outside can say which came first: the issue, or the division? And worse, if circumstantial evidence suggests the priority of division, then how seriously can we take the issue?

[尼古拉前执事]

Anastasios, Sergianism is far more than sin, it is a heresy. I understand that you disagree with this, but here are some quotes we heard a few weeks ago.

To all that was innovated and enacted, or that in the future shall be enacted, outside of Church tradition and the teaching and instruction of the holy and ever-memorable Fathers, Anathema.

To James Stanstalus the Armenian, to Dioscorus the Patriarch of Alexandria, to the godless Severus, as well as to the like-minded Sergius, Paul and Pyrrus, and to Sergius, the disciple of Lycopetrus, Anathema.
 
To all the followers of Eutychius, to the Monothelites, the Jacobites and the Artzivurites, and generally to all heretics, Anathema

To the Sergianists and their teacher Sergius Stragorodsky, who teach that the blasphemous, godless and lawless 'authorities' are authorities given by God, according to the word of the Apostle, and who cut up the body of Christ through this impious teaching:  Anathema.

If any bishops, making use of secular bosses, have seized power in the Church of God and enslaved Her, let those and those who aid them and those who communicate with them without paying heed to the reproaches of the Law of God, be ANATHEMA.

To those who attack the Church of Christ by teaching that Christ's Church is divided into so-called branches which differ in doctrine and way of life, or that the Church does not exist visibly, but will be formed in the future when all branches or sects or denominations, and even religions will be united into one body; and who do not distinguish the priesthood and mysteries of the Church from those of the heretics, but say that the baptism and eucharist of heretics is effectual for salvation; therefore, to those who knowingly have communion with these aforementioned heretics of who advocate, disseminate, or defend their new heresy of Ecumenism under the pretext of brotherly love or the supposed unification of separated Christians, Anathema.

[CGW]

Surely "My faction said it and that settles it" should not be a convincing mode of argument.