Appeal of the First Heirarch of the ROAC to ROCOR(L)

[CGW]

Re: Freemasonry. Many people don't understand that in Greece, the "priesthood" in the State Church is often a good career choice. When you are a farmer or some villager who cannot make a livable salary, becoming a priest has always been a good choice to make a decent salary. Maintaining, living, and preaching the faith was always guarded by the people, not necessarily the "hired hands" for the "priesthood".

Why wouldn't we understand this? Even the most rudimentary history of medieval Europe is going to discuss this.

The thing is that jurisdiction hoppers are hardly leaving their nets behind either-- not if those who were priests in one church are now priests and bishops in another.

[OrthodoxyOrDeath]

CGW,

The thing is that jurisdiction hoppers are hardly leaving their nets behind either-- not if those who were priests in one church are now priests and bishops in another.

Of course you are referring to Bishop Gregory?

I don't mean this as an insult in any way, but "jurisdiction hopping" is a very shallow way of debasing him. I was in the GOA, then I was in the OCA, then I finally woke up and joined the Church - the GOC. I suppose someone could accuse me of hopping "jurisdictions" but I would think that as being completey unfair and absolutley uninformed.

I believe it was Fr. George who said unless he knew first hand the particular details as a matter of unquestionable fact, he would withhold complete judgement. I think this is a good policy in ones personal life for many reasons.

Is there anyone here who can say with absolute certainty anything about Bishop Gregory which would prove him to be a fraud? I have know as much as anyone probably could and I can't say I do. But yet many things could be said about "world orthodoxy" and their newest hopeful junior member the ROCOR that clearly demonstrates them to be in a state of and in communion with apostasy. And clearly one cannot argue that Bishop Gregory upholds and preaches sound Orthodoxy. Again, straining for a Gnat and behold, a camel is swallowed.

[Грешник]

I think another point to be made on the idea of "jurisdictional hoping". Those of us that are converts are also "guilty" of this. I can speak for myself and my fiancee. We went from Protestanrtism on my fiancee's part to Neo-Catholicism, to Traditional catholicism, to Sedevacantism, to Catholic cultism, to the GOARCH, to the Antiochians and now we are where we are, Catechumens in ROAC. We looked into ROCOR so in certain senses you could add that in. Now, does this make me "as bad a Bp. Gregory?" No, for all extents and purposes, I was/am in a worse boat.

My point. I believe that throughout our lives we see the indisputable theologcal errors in many of these groups and we leave ot find what we believe ot be the form of Orthodoxy that we most believe based on sources such as the Council's the Fathers, the Saints etc. Is this an evil thing? For me it was not.

I believe the evil lies in knowing for certain that the errors of some groups are plain and simply erroneous but instead of learning and reading and researching we stay with the idea that things will get better. Then as time goes on and it doesnt we must come up with excuses to justify why we stay day after day week after week, knowing that what is going on around us is harmful no matter how we look at it. I am guilty of this, but as they say, hindsight is 20/20. If I was able at the time to take my own advice I would have left Catholicism in 1999 and come to Orthodoxy then, but what is done is done and so we move on and we learn to live with ourselves and the mistakes that we have made.

My two sense.

Juvenaly

[CGW]

The thing is that jurisdiction hoppers are hardly leaving their nets behind either-- not if those who were priests in one church are now priests and bishops in another.

Of course you are referring to Bishop Gregory?

I don't mean this as an insult in any way, but "jurisdiction hopping" is a very shallow way of debasing him.

You say "shallow"; I say "basic". I lost track somewhere of exactly how many jurisdictions Gregory was a cleric in, but even in Anglican churches clerics swear oaths of submission to the church. And here we have a cleric who has "liberated" himself from these vows, over and over. I have to wonder why successive jurisdictions kept accepting a clergyman whose history suggested that he would not maintain his allegiance to his present church. At this point perhaps his only remaining career move would be to round up a couple of other dissenters and start his own jurisdiction.

If you think that I am condemning you under the same rule: well, perhaps I am. But as a layman it doesn't have the same implications for you that it does for a cleric.

At any rate, it comes back to the same issue. We are still bouncing around a variety of discipline and church order defects. These still need to be converted into heresy in order to justify these divisions, and I don't think anyone is really attempting this any more.

[canonical]

Al,

You seem to not contest that the new-calendar was invented as a tool to pursue a false, and already then declared, unity with the Protestants. So what is "canonical" and Orthodox? What the majority say because it is easy and comfortable, or what the Holy Fathers say?

***I don't know anything about any such thing as unity with the prots. Seems a bit far-fetched. But I respect your belief in such grassy knoll conspiracy theories. To me, the current secular calendar is far more astronomically accurate than the pagan Julian. If the OCA mandated that for liturgical purposes all parishes had to use again the Julian Calendar, so be it. I'll obey. But for now, the calendar is not an issue that would prompt me to go jurisdiction hopping to find an old calendar church.

Re: Freemasonry. Many people don't understand that in Greece, the "priesthood" in the State Church is often a good career choice. When you are a farmer or some villager who cannot make a livable salary, becoming a priest has always been a good choice to make a decent salary. Maintaining, living, and preaching the faith was always guarded by the people, not necessarily the "hired hands" for the "priesthood".

Naturally, in light of this, it is not at all shocking that most of these "hired hands", some of whom became bishops, would not object to the ecumenist/calendar heresy or Freemasonry. And generally, this unhealthy atmosphere still prevails in the State Church. They are not the Fisherman who would drop their nets and leave all their material possessions behind to follow Christ, on the contrary, they are the ones who will sell Christ for 30 pieces of silver - and they have done it.

Well, God will judge these folks. My eyes were opened when I became Orthodox and I let my membership in the Masonic organization lapse for lack of paying dues (the only way you can quit Masonry). While a member, I never saw any dark sides (since Masonry in the U.S. is vastly different than in europe), and I worked hard at times to raise funds for charities. But, I'm not a member any more, so maybe God will look favorably on my decision to quit.

BTW, I did learn an interesting fact over the weekend...50 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence are known Masons, but only 1, a Roman Catholic, was definately not. That leave five in the maybe category. Our great country was founded to a certain extent, on Masonic principles. Check out the Masonic pyramind and all-seeing Gnostic eye on the back of the dollar bill...the "brainchild" of President Roosevelt, himself a Mason.

I would venture a guess that there are members of ALL jurisdictions, traditionalisdt and old calendarists among them, who are members of the Masonic organization. there is the U.S. a chartered group called The Orthodox Square Club.

Al

[CGW]

BTW, I did learn an interesting fact over the weekend...50 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence are known Masons, but only 1, a Roman Catholic, was definately not. That leave five in the maybe category. Our great country was founded to a certain extent, on Masonic principles. Check out the Masonic pyramind and all-seeing Gnostic eye on the back of the dollar bill...the "brainchild" of President Roosevelt, himself a Mason.

I've looked at many masonic sites and according to them, only 9 signers can be definitely identified as masons, with much uncertainty about some dozen others. The Great Seal vastly predates FDR. Must we start in on this urban legend stuff?

[OrthodoxyOrDeath]

Al,

Seems a bit far-fetched. But I respect your belief in such grassy knoll conspiracy theories.

Please see the heretic Bartholomew and his predessor's much loved and proudly hosted encyclical of 1920 for your "grassy knoll conspiracy theory".

To me, the current secular calendar is far more astronomically accurate than the pagan Julian.

Very well. The Church, however, is certainly not concerned with the astronomical accuracy of the calendar, but only with the liturgical and festal union and order of the local churches. Even so, let us suppose that those people truly labored on behalf of scientific accuracy.

Why then did they not correct the calendar according to the scientific data available in the twentieth century? Rather, they implemented an equally inaccurate calendar dating from the sixteenth century, the calendar of Pope Gregory. Why did they not implement the one which had carefully been computed and which was submitted to the so-called Pan-Orthodox meeting of Constantinople in 1923? Simply because the real reason was not a scientific correction of the calendar, which would have been a completely useless undertaking from an ecclesiastical point of view. The real purpose of the calendar change was to effect a festal union of the "churches," which could be actualized only with the Orthodox adoption of the Gregorian calendar of the Papists and Protestants, so that all would have the same festal calendar, and so that the first stage of Ecumenism "the union of the so-called Christian Churches" could begin, as stated in the Encylclical of 1920.

If the OCA mandated that for liturgical purposes all parishes had to use again the Julian Calendar, so be it. I'll obey.

The sixteenth century gave birth to four great beasts: the heresy of Luther, the heresy of Calvin, the heresy of the Jesuits, and the heresy of the new calendar. The heresies of Luther and Calvin were refuted by [such and such] . . . As for the heresy of the new calendar, this was condemned by a decision of the great Ecumenical Council that met in Constantinople in 1593. [Confession of the Orthodox Faith, p. 4 Dositheus, Patriarch of Jerusalem]

What was you r definition of "canonical" anyway?