anastasios
I don't understand how writing against toll-houses, which are obviously a theologumenon, can make one a heretic. While I don't necessarily agree or disagree with Archbishop Lazar (I have not had enough time to read both sides) I think calling him an archheretic is a bit extreme.
Because they touch on things that are more than just theological opinion, such as asserting a type of "soul sleep" for the Church Triumphant.
I'm sorry, I've read stuff by both him and Azkoul before, but I have no intention of trudging through the stuff again to find where exactly he (or those who are published out of new ostrog) goes astray. I noticed the soul sleep error while I was reading their material, long before I had become ROCOR or ever read anything by Fr. Seraphim Rose; apparently Bishop Gregory (as mentioned in the post above) saw the same thing I did, as did Fr. Seraphim himself decades before (cf The Soul After Death, 1998 edition, pp. 237-241).
More from the article cited previously that Puhalo is falsely accused of teaching "soul sleep" and that it is Bishop Gregory who presents heretical concept of anthropology.
"Supporting this falsehood is of benefit to those who wrongly accuse Deacon Lev of representing the soul as unable "to function in any way whatsoever without the assistance of the body" (Grabbe, 1 of 4). Reading this charge, one may doubt that Vladika had even read The Soul, the Body and Death. The Deacon makes it very clear in more than one place that the soul after death cannot function as it did when united to the body. He states that the soul is self-conscious and acts in ways we cannot comprehend. "At death too," he says, "one ceases to function in any sensual or psychophysical manner and, indeed, he does not function at all relative to anything the human mind can conceive. The intelligent faculty,' the soul, the image of God in man continues to be alive because God wills it so. It is alive and, therefore, itperceives' that it is in an `intermediate state,' and whatever else it perceives in the realm of Grace." He is likewise correct to affirm that death puts a temporary end to the "person," inasmuch as the human personality is the union of soul and body. Only the Platonist identifies the individual with his soul, an act of contempt for the body 24. Incidentally, it is Bishop Gregory himself who here presents a clearly heretical concept of anthropology, because all the Fathers of the Church who wrote against Gnosticism, as well as St Gregory Palamas, make a point of stating categorically that the soul alone is not the person 25. The report's continuing criticisms of Deacon Lev's thanatology are not only wrong but superfluous, since they presuppose the erroneous premise that he believes the soul to be paralyzed and insensible after its separation from the body."
Just to clarify, Azkoul is a member of HOCNA which supported the defrocked from ROCOR Lazar. As to why many call him Archheretic Lazar I understand this to be that the toll-houses are not a dogma, nor is there any against him and Lazar proclaimed anyone that believes in the tollhouses a heretic. :shock:
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