Why Traditionalist Orthodox MUST split from World Orthodoxy!

[OrthodoxyOrDeath]

CGW,

I suppose in my discussion I have presumed you are Orthodox, although I asked and you didn't respond.

The Orthodox believe the Holy Fathers, who were enlightened by the Holy Spirit, are a good measure of what authentic Orthodoxy is - and this is what it is all about, a struggle for authentic Orthodoxy. Not "zealot" Orthodoxy, or "fanatic" Orthodox, or "conservative" Orthodoxy, but simply Orthodoxy - the authentic faith delivered by Christ.

Now you would have it that could at best be a matter of opinion of what that is. But nothing could be further from the truth - simply read the Holy Fathers.

Now appending to Daniel's fine post - what have the Holy Fathers said that would disagree with us and support the new-calendarists?? That's all I care to know.

[CGW]

I suppose in my discussion I have presumed you are Orthodox, although I asked and you didn't respond.

Well, I held off exposing my Anglicanism to save us from the "guilt-by-association-with-Spong" distraction. And when it comes that, it would seem that, by the standard you set, Spong and (say) Metropolitan Philip of the Antiochians are neither of them Orthodox. Likewise, the problem of who speaks as the Church exists whether one belongs to an Eastern church or not.

Now appending to Daniel's fine post - what have the Holy Fathers said that would disagree with us and support the new-calendarists?? That's all I care to know.

Well, Heaven forbid I should turn this thread into yet another rehashed battle over the kalendar. But the canons of Nicaea are on-line for any to read. And surely they do not dictate that the Dionysian paschalion be used in conjunction with the Julian civil calendar. (For one thing, that is anachronistic.)

[OrthodoxyOrDeath]

CGW,

It is helpful to know you are Anglican, just as it is helpful to know where your friend went when he explains his vacation to you. I am certainly not trying to prove something to you, nothing about Christ can be proven. I am simply trying to explain a position.

Well, Heaven forbid I should turn this thread into yet another rehashed battle over the kalendar. But the canons of Nicaea are on-line for any to read. And surely they do not dictate that the Dionysian paschalion be used in conjunction with the Julian civil calendar. (For one thing, that is anachronistic.)

Well I think we arrived at the root of your mispreception (if I may be so bold as to say you have one ). This is certainly not just about the calendar, it is about the reasons WHY the calendar was changed (read the Patriarchal Encyclical of 1920) and a whole host of many thousands of other things since! In a word, Syncretism.

A more notable and recent addition to their portfolio is the Balamand Agreement. St. Basil the Great and all the Holy Fathers say that with just this one document and the signatures on it they are not Orthodox.

Perhaps now we are getting somewhere?

[Makis]

Dear Nicholas,

Thank you Makis. May I ask how you reconcile being in communion with these bishops then?

Saw that one coming!

Let me begin with stating it is a subject which troubles me (and I think I can say all of us Orthodox who really try to live our Faith) very much.
I have to say though that my "reconciliation" (albeit with difficulties) with this matter is twofold:

1) I, as a theologically unschooled (sp?) layman, think I am not capable to place any lasting verdict on this painful matter.

2) If the Antiochian Patriarch has violated the Canons of our Church (which I think he has, but see point 1) it is not for me to judge him, but for his brother-bishops.

Let me, to go even further, quote from a posting of AML:

Canon 121 of the Nomokanon (Abridged Collection of the Holy Canons of the Holy Apostles, St. Basil and the Holy Councils) states:

"It is not meet for a layman to reprove a priest, or to strike him, or to rail against him, or slander him, or to rebuke him to his face, even if what he [the layman] says is true. If he should dare to do this, let the layman be accursed, and let him be cast out of the Church, for he is cut off from the Holy Trinity and sent to the place of Judas. For it is written, 'Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people.'"

I realize that with my previous posting and with this one I already broke this canon (Thou shalt think before thou write), but still, we should not violate a Canon in reply to someone else's violation of a Canon.

Since my spiritual father is in communion with my Archbishop, HB Archbishop Christodoulos, and since he does not advise me to break communion with my Archbishop (i.e. become, what is in my opinion, a schismatic), I will not break communion with my Archbishop.
Heaven forbids though that my spiritual father would ever give me such an advise (not that it is a likely event), because then I would really have a problem!

Dear CGW,

I dunno, mixed case works fine for me.

And essentially what you've said is that the Orthodox mindset is about shouting as the crucial form of argument. Is that what you really wanted to say?

If that is the impression you got, I'm sorry, because that is deffinately not what I wanted to say.
Further more, the Orthodox mindset is not at all about shouting as the crucial form of argument, regardless of what some people might say.

All I wanted to do was to state my opinion very clearly.

Hope this answered the questions of both of you.

In Christ,

Makis

[CGW]

Well I think we arrived at the root of your mispreception (if I may be so bold as to say you have one ). This is certainly not just about the calendar, it is about the reasons WHY the calendar was changed (read the Patriarchal Encyclical of 1920) and a whole host of many thousands of other things since! In a word, Syncretism.

I've read the encyclical (and corrected its spelling mistakes ) but you neglected to tell me whether whether it was supposed to be good or bad. Since it seems largely reasonable, I guess I'm supposed to think that it is bad.

Indeed, in Aleppo, of very short memory, representatives of the churches met to consider the calendar issue, and they came up with a solution. And yet it was not adopted due to (some) Orthodox intransigence. And it appears that there will always be some such Orthodox intransigence. So now I see that the issue has thus become why the calendar cannot be changed, and not why it can be changed.

And we are still stumbling all over you setting yourself over the patriarch-- and you not a bishop.

[尼古拉前执事]

Yet, Makis, we are also called to separate from a bishop who teaches heresy and if we stay in communion with him than we too become heretics ourselves.

[OrthodoxyOrDeath]

CGW,

A Patriarch is nothing except a bishop, nothing more. But no matter, a layman is not exempt from knowing and confessing the faith- and unlike most people with other beliefs, I have the exact same faith as my Bishop.