 |
Friday, March 2, 2018
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Subscribe
Posts
Comments
Favored Online Resources
Most Popular Posts
-
Is the male-only priesthood a discipline or essential to the nature of being a priest? Sr. Vassa (again unflinchingly taking up a contentiou... -
Sister Vassa recently posted an advice piece to her Facebook page (the letter itself has been removed from Facebook and she is actively b... -
NEW YORK: July 12, 2013 ( ROCOR ) - An Extraordinary Session of the Synod of Bishops is Held On Wednesday, July 10, 2013, an extraordinar... -
When the official letter makes it to the metropolitan website, I'll make the necessary updates below. GREEK ORTHODOX METROPOLIS OF DE...
-
This was sent to me and deserves a read. You can read the Calivas article here . We can all agree that we are living in unusual times. Howev...
-
It should not be a surprise, with the advent of the new Divine Liturgy texts approved by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, that the peoples' ...
-
Bishop Innokenty of Ussuri, a vicar of the Vladivostok diocese, visited the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea from October 9 through... -
This is sadly part of a very common occurrence in Kosovo. Vandals enter churches, set them on fire, then they urinate and defecate in them. ...
looks like quite a merry funeral
ReplyDeleteYea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge my brother, for blessed art Thou, unto ages of ages. Amen.
DeleteMore like rogue's gallery, I'd say.
ReplyDeleteCan anyone speak to a possible connection that Orthodoxy in general, and these hierarchs in particular, have with Billy Graham?
ReplyDeleteI am trying not to be cynical here, but just why are these men here? Is it to represent Orthodoxy in and into the wider american religious and political culture? In other words, essentially a photo op? OR do they have some real personal and/or ecclesiastical reason for being part of this funeral?
Jake, The relationship with the Graham Foundation began with His Beatitude being invited to a summit last year. Read here https://oca.org/news/headline-news/metropolitan-tikhon-addresses-world-summit-in-defense-of-persecuted-christi
DeleteExcellent! Thanks Unknown - there is some connection, at least on the part of Met. Tikhon. Is it enough? I don't know. How many other very worthy conferences and causes has Met. Tikhon attended and yet not attended the funeral of the founders of these conferences/causes?
DeleteActually, those two BFFs broke up after Russia started to persecute Protestants last year.
DeleteThe Moscow Patraiarchate sent a delegation as well.
Deletehttp://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2016/august/franklin-graham-cancels-christian-world-summit-in-moscow
DeleteAs for delegations, I'm fairly sure there was some Orthodox delegation at Muhammad's funeral as well. Not that it means much.
I also recall Billy Graham accepting a 1988 invitation to the Millenial Celebration of Russia's conversion to Orthodoxy.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHad a typo, so removed
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteHi Jake,
ReplyDeleteMy guess would be that they wanted to honor, show respect, and celebrate the life of a man who lived his life with a passion for Christ.
Grace to you and peace be multiplied!☦️
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteKaye Ellen,
ReplyDeleteI note the simple generosity in your reply. However, is it *true*? Is your "guess" simplistic and naive, meant perhaps to deflect the hard question(s) in your mind or others? Men and women die everyday who have lived in such a way to "honor, show respect, and celebrate...life with a passion for Christ" and yet, these very same hierarchs do not attend their funerals.
So the question remains, why did these hierarchs show up at this particular mans funeral?
Hello again Jake,
ReplyDeleteYes, my response is authentic and “true” (although I’m slightly unsure of what your implying or even questioning...), and again, it is just a guess. Additionally, this picture doesn’t make me question anything, yet it seems to be causing you concern? Please forgive me if I’m incorrect, as I can be quite often, but I’m unsure of what your concern would be.
Best regards
I don't believe I have enough information yet to be concerned or not. I suppose I could summarize your guess as perhaps these hierarchs simply woke up this morning and (almost unconsciously) said to themselves "I think I will go to Billy Graham's funeral today".
DeleteWhile I don't deny the possibility (with God all things are possible), I don't think it very likely ;)
for years we fought to be respected and visible in fabric of america as were the protestants, roman catholics, and jews --- we celebrated with photo ops of our bishops with governors as the governors sign proclamations regarding our recognition as a major faith.
ReplyDeletewe then were able to obtain chaplain status in the military, have schools systems recognize our holidays, have our holidays put on secular calendars, etc
to me it is expected that whenever a notable personage in buried, honored, or inaugurated that we have a visible presence. i am very happy these men were at this event and they should come out of their cacoons and be in more
remember the life magazine cover with archbishop iakovos marching with martin luther king?
as i see it, 99.9% of americans are not eastern orthodox christians and even do not know we exist - this is a tragedy that we make and is contrary to our charge to spread the word of Christ. our mkission is to bring all of these over to our churches
so why be co critical???? rejoice that they were there and that there was a visibility to our witness -- isn't this visibility of our witness what our mission is supposed to be??????
Robert,
DeleteIs the fruit of this effort to find worldly recognition (to put aside the clear NT warnings against such endeavors) really so unambiguous? Let me not beat around the bush, you say:
"...remember the life magazine cover with archbishop iakovos marching with martin luther king??"
And what exactly is the fruit of this particular, or the civil rights movement in general? Was not the civil rights movement very quickly (within a decade) taken over by the sexual revolution and abortion? Was it not later (becoming obvious by the 1990's) then usurped by the homosexualist movement? Turns out, "civil rights" as a political endeavouris not in any way, shape, or form a clear moral good - to say nothing of an Orthodox "ideal" that persons or hierarchs should supporting.
Visibility for its own sake is a gross simplification of the Great Commission...
so in addition to being anti-life you are also racist. good to know
DeleteYea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge my brother, for blessed art Thou, unto ages of ages. Amen.
Deleteaccusations of racism are totes awesome!!!!!!
Delete"accusations of racism are totes awesome!!!!!!"
DeleteTotally dude, totally!!!!!!
;) :)
All I know is that this photo brings a smile to my face, and I truly believe that their only intention was to show respect for a very well known professor of Christ our Lord. The second from the left is my Bishop—His Grace Bishop Anthony, who is very active in our diocese and world.
ReplyDeleteAMEN TO MR KLANCO. WHO COULD POSSIBLY OBJECT??!!! Even prelates of the Russian Orthodox Church came and visited with the aging Graham when Obama and regime were systematically destroying America
ReplyDeleteour message and mission will never be heard, recognized, or fulfilled if we are not part of the fabric of our society and have a visibility.
ReplyDeletewe have spent much too long in our ethnic-centric ghettos afraid of the world that encompasses us -- we are the brother of the prodigal son -- the one who stayed home and did not try, did not make an effort, and was prideful --- if we are to grow and be faithful to our charge we need to take that leap of faith - we need to spread our riches-- show me one of our clergy or laity that has had the reputation, respect, and world wide impact that Bill Graham had on spreading the message of Christ - and he did it with brocade vestments, miters, incense, or a golden staff ---
his message was simple, is delivery was simple, his vision was simple, he spoke in clear understandable english, and he was successful - he touched many hearts and even preached in eastern orthodox churches- so why not honor him and his work?
I hand it to Met Tikhon, Bishop Anthony, Archbishop Dimitrios to recognize all of this and to be there representing our church, our faith, and our mission
to all the naysayers it must to be asked whether they are part of the solution or part of the problem
God knows the answer, and I think that i have a clue as to what the answer is
May we have a spiritually filled Great and Holy Lenten Journey and may we be as careful with our words and criticisms and we hopefully are in our piety and fasting
Well Mr. Klancko, we are in essential agreement then. We both suspect (though neither of us has any real data) that these hierarchs did not attend this funeral because they have any personal or ecclesiastical connection with Billy Graham, but rather because as you put it they are their " representing our church, our faith...". In my words this is "inserting themselves into the religious and political scene".
DeleteAs to the rest of your comment, you do have a particular vision of the large question of "Christ and Culture" and the Great Commission that is all tied up in a self understanding of "ghetto" Orthodoxy and a kind of coming of age in America. I would simply point you to Holy Scripture, which is unambiguous in that Christians are sojourners, strangers to this world (which also includes "society") and that the character of our life here is not one of fitting in to the "fabric of society" or of "visibility". On the contrary our life here is characterized as a Cross, a suffering (from society!), a "hiddenness". I wonder where your vision comes from?
In any case this discussion reminds me of that line in St. Nikolai Velimirovich's essay "The Agony of the Church" where he says:
There are three ages in the history of the Church: the Golden Age, when the Church was opposed to political governments; the Iron Age, when she was politically directing Europe's kingdoms; and the Stone Age, when she has been subdued to the service of political governments. What a humiliation for the present generation to live in the Stone Age of Christianity!
i must respectfully differ,,, in my view we are far from the stone age,,, we are the age of opportunity -- the problem with many eastern orthodox is that they never complete the description of who they are - above all they are christians,, and if they are truly christians then there would not be the back cloud of doubt and despair continually over their heads because this is not what christianity is all about. using stone age as a descriptor indicates that there is no hope and the towel has been thrown in.
ReplyDeletechristianity is a religion, and a belief based in hope, and where there is any success possible, where there is any growth possible - it is because of hope
chrsi==istanity is not greek, russian, serbian, polish etc,,, christianity is not orthodox, western, eastern etc --- all of these words are modifiers, adjectives if you will -- all focused on the noun - christian and the one message of our Lord and Savior is embodied in one four letter word -- HOPE
so in reference to the last paragraph in the response above, i must say what my mother in law always said I-beshum - shame, shame, shame
by witnessing in society, being part of the fabric of the communities in which we reside we are exhibiting that hope, we are living that hope