Orthodox Ethos-Fr Peter Heers

[Suaidan]

The Romanian synod also wrote against vaccination. ROCANA wrote but their statement contained obvious flaws.

 

I missed their statement, what was wrong with it

[eish]

Many thanks for all this information and updates on the current scene, eish !
Let me clarify, too, what you wrote yesterday speaking about Fr Peter Heers :

"Back in his Greek State Church days I think he used to be under Metropolitan Seraphim, who was one of the few vocal critics of ecumenism but went off the deep end with covidism. Now he has no supporters for his views except Metropolitan Neophytos."

That was Metropolitan Seraphim of somewhere in the north of Greece around the Thessaloniki area, right ?
So was it Met Seraphim who went off the deep end ? How did that occur ?
Then you wrote "he has no supporters for his views"
WHO has no supporters now : Met Seraphim or - Fr Peter ?

Just clarifying, as it's essential to unraveling this mystery !
Thanks in advance, appreciate your thoughtful answers.

No problem about rolling two prophecies into one. That's understandable, as they somehow don't stick in the mind strongly enough. I think that's because of the lack of sound truth in them.
 

 

Forgive me if I don't always keep track of what had and had not been discussed here already.

Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus is one of the only anti-ecumenists* in the Greek hierarchy. He is almost certainly the most vocal anti-ecumenist bishop in World Orthodoxy, at least from what I have heard and considering that there are also multiple language barriers. Fr. Peter knows Metropolitan Seraphim personally and while he was usually not keen to talk about which bishop he was under, I remember talk either of him having been under Met. Seraphim or perhaps there was an element of speculation to people saying that. Then with the 2020 lesson when we all learned something about who our real friends were, the metropolitan went completely nuts with his covidism. He is infamous for excommunicating anyone who does not take the clot shot. Fr. Peter has himself even spoken of this change in his videos and called the metropolitan out for it.

Bishops in World Orthodoxy are almost always ecumenists, meaning that when Met. Seraphim fell into covidism--or perhaps just showed his true colours under it, who knows what goes on in his mind--that really left Fr. Peter with only one bishop he could point to as his confessing orthodox hierarchy. In being publicly against both, Met. Neophytos stands alone and thus there are no other bishops who publicly and openly proclaim views like those of Fr. Peter.

In fact both of those metropolitans should really have dedicated threads on their positions.

*If we interpret anti-ecumenism to mean here conservative ecumenism, or a minimalist ecumenism in that they concelebrate with and commemorate ecumenists and other hierarchs who call themselves "orthodox", but not those heretics who do not claim to be Eastern Orthodox.

[Barbara]

A one-minute video popped up yesterday of Fr Peter pronouncing - as if it was a grand new discovery of his - that if an Orthodox clergyman [I guess, or any Orthodox person] tells you that he is also a Freemason, avoid that guy.

Isn't that OBVIOUS to anybody ?-

[eish]

Isn't that OBVIOUS to anybody ?-

 

It is nevertheless necessary for the clergy to repeat it. I'll leave it at this:

https://xkcd.com/1053

[Barbara]

What does anybody think about this approach to th question of WHY Fr Peter Heers avoids Old Calendarism - ?

https://x.com/i/status/1839711987368120659

[eish]

Fr. Joseph did a response video yesterday. You can watch the link below.

Fr. Nectarius's comments are interesting; he claims that Fr. Peter obviously does not read the Fathers he publishes on the grounds that he publishes entire works which directly contradict his own positions. (I don't know if that is true, but it does serve as a reminder that I should read the Fathers more and waste less time. And pray more.) He is certainly very selective in how he reads the words of the saints and the canons, if indeed he reads them.*

What is certainly true is that Fr. Peter is completely committed to Paisidoxy. He claims repeatedly that we are obliged to follow the elders of our times. This is true but it is a half-truth. We must be linked to the elders who immediately preceded us and handed down the Faith once delivered. However, since there is a disagreement between two groups of elders claiming to hand down the Faith, we must have some way to distinguish the two.

We can either use the criteria laid down by St. Vincent and compare the two groups to the Holy Fathers from before the split, which tells us who is in line with them, or we can just accept what we are told by the Official Sources is the list of canonised elders.

Fr. Peter sees a man glorified by TPTB and sees that this man is conservative and stern. He reads about miracles and prophecies. This man he then accepts. I speculate perhaps he is thinking that the canonisation of the elder despite his conservatism in opposition to the patriarchate is evidence of his overwhelming reputation forcing the traitors of the Faith to recognise him. What Fr. Peter does not see--based on his actions--is how the canonisation is not evidence of the elder's reputation overpowering the subversion but of the opposite. Subversives very carefully consider whom they wish to promote based on particular criteria that suit their narratives and do not at all care about democracy, although they do care about manipulating public opinion. If an elder serves their purposes by promoting the idea that everyone must be in submission to them, they will promote that elder. This is not less true of conservative elders; it is more true. They can and do promote liberals but those speak to the degenerates already willingly under their sway whereas conservative elders bring in those who would otherwise be opposed to them and are thus much more useful as pseudo-saints.

It is a discussion I have had in New Calendarism, although it now feels long ago. People do not understand why the patriarchs keep canonising all of these elders who are so seemingly opposed to themselves, apparently, because they do not understand that the opposition is half-hearted and departs from historic ecclesiology.

The seeming opposition to ecumenism is a ruse because the same elder who will tell you to never pray with the Melkite uniate bishop who commemorates the pope will tell you to pray with the "Orthodox" uniate bishop who also commemorates the pope but--and this is all that apparently matters--uses the word "Orthodox." Anyone who performs the Eastern Rite and yet commemorates the pope of Rome in the liturgy is surely a uniate. So how is the elder not himself an ecumenist, for all the empty rhetoric against ecumenism? If an elder is feeling particularly edgy he'll tell you to skip church when the most extreme heretics among the hierarchy are there, not caring about the fact that you would still be commemorating those same heretics the other 51 Sundays of the year.

Fr. Peter is committed to his elders and does not compare them to the earlier Church. Indeed Fr. Nectarius even mentions in the video how Fr. Peter explicitly in as many words chooses the commands of recent elders over those of St. Paul in the Scriptures, because the apostle is to him an elder of an earlier time.

https://www.youtube.com/live/2872xOf5WUE

*If you wonder how I can say that Fr. Peter reads the texts very weirdly, consider Canon 15 and let me put it in boldface:

The rules laid down with reference to Presbyters and Bishops and Metropolitans are still more applicable to Patriarchs. So that if any presbyter or bishop or metropolitan dares to secede from communion with his own patriarch and does not mention his name as is ordered and appointed in the divine mystagogy,...But as for those who on account of some heresy condemned by Holy Synods or Fathers sever themselves from communion with their president, that is, because he publicly preaches heresy and with bared head teaches it in the Church, such persons as these not only are not subject to canonical penalty for walling themselves off from communion with the so-called bishop before synodical clarification, but they shall be deemed worthy of due honor among the Orthodox...

Fr. Peter claims in this video and elsewhere that the canon only provides for people to wall themselves off from their own local bishop and not any other bishop. Yet the canon does not say this. It speaks explicitly of the patriarch and only the patriarch, except that it incidentally mentions the same rule to be already in place for the local bishop. Exactly what Fr. Peter claims it does not allow, is what it says.

[Suaidan]

It is a discussion I have had in New Calendarism, although it now feels long ago. People do not understand why the patriarchs keep canonising all of these elders who are so seemingly opposed to themselves, apparently, because they do not understand that the opposition is half-hearted and departs from historic ecclesiology.

Absolutely spot on. I will add we see this a lot with the example they bring of Elder Porfyrios, who uses language like "ecumenism sickens me" instead of just calling it heresy. A lot of feeling, but no action.