Monday, January 21, 2019

Upcoming talk on EP in Illinois


Posted by Byzantine, TX

19 comments:

  1. MenasJanuary 21, 2019 at 1:33 PM

    Dear Lord. Guess this is the sympathy tour to get ppl on board with the situation in Ukraine. The only existential threat to the EP is itself

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  2. Archimandrite GregoryJanuary 21, 2019 at 2:34 PM

    Amen!

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  3. SojournerJanuary 22, 2019 at 12:29 AM

    Wow. The guy who is threatening an Eastern papacy and totally undermining Orthodox concepts of jurisdiction, canon law, and counciliar method, is worried about “Religious Freedom”? The mental gymnastics continue to impress.

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  4. TroonJanuary 22, 2019 at 2:07 AM

    To complement the Archons’ propaganda program.

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  5. TimmyJanuary 22, 2019 at 7:42 AM

    GOOD GRIEF!

    The only existential threat to the Ecumenical Patriarchate is Patriarch Bartholomew & 99.9% the EP's hierarchs. The EP's faithful (myself included) are sick & tired of the evolving ecclesiastical heresies they are trying to force on us.

    Thankfully, the rest of the Orthodox Church is sick & tired of it as well. If healing is not possible then amputation will be inevitable...a bitter sweet cure for this disease.

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    1. MenasJanuary 22, 2019 at 8:13 AM

      Not saying I don't believe you, but, I wonder what percentage of GOARCH laity and clergy agree with the EP?

      Maybe I am fortunate where I am, but, the Greek clergy in the parishes around here (minus one) are pretty solid

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    2. TimmyJanuary 22, 2019 at 9:16 AM

      Menas, when you say "pretty solid" do you mean they agree or disagree with the Phanar's position & recent actions regarding its self-understanding of primacy & the Ukraine?

      In my experience most of the GOARCH laity & even some of the priests are simply unaware. When I voiced my concern about this evolving disaster at our December 2018 parish council meeting I was the only one who was aware of it. Since then numerous members of the council & parish have studied the issue, and I'm not aware of a single person in my parish who supports our Patriarch's position or recent decisions. I think awareness is the first step in process.

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    3. JakeJanuary 22, 2019 at 10:06 AM

      "When I voiced my concern about this evolving disaster at our December 2018 parish council meeting I was the only one who was aware of it."

      Two thoughts. First, they were not aware of it because it is not that important to their local church, local lives, local salvation. The demise of the Empire, an ecclesiology that assumes that it still exists, an "Ecumenical Patriarch" just does not matter much in our individual communities and our salvation. Not saying that in the grand movement of Providential history it is irrelevant (though I think you and most others who are aware of it overweight the "crises"), just that right now here in NA and elsewhere it is "over there".

      Second, respectfully what really matters to your parish is your local situation and the "disaster" of how to *be* Orthodox in a secular and secularizing culture. The real problem is within your own parish, not an "eastern papacy"...

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    4. MenasJanuary 22, 2019 at 10:49 AM

      Timothy,

      I go to an Antiochian parish and only know their opinion. When I mean the Greek clergy are solid in my area, I mean in terms of theology, practice, etc.

      I haven't yet asked them about their opinions of the Ukraine situation

      Delete
    5. WallaceJanuary 22, 2019 at 10:50 AM

      Except it does matter. Truth always matters amd if the EP is descending into schism then it matters to everyone because they risk being sundered from the Truth. They may not care but that is not the same thing.

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    6. TimmyJanuary 22, 2019 at 1:20 PM

      Jake, it seems obvious that you have missed the point here.

      This has noting to do with jurisdictonal turf-wars "over there", and it has everything to do with authentic Orthodox ecclesiology "right here". My patriarch is a power-hungry, racist, heretic, and the hierarchs of the EP are all going along with it like the tale of "The Emperor's New Cloths".

      Orthodox ecclesiology is summarized quite nicely by St. Cyprian of Carthage who wrote in one of his letters to Florentius Pupianus,: "The bishop is in the Church & the Church is in the bishop." If your bishop is a heretic then you're not in the Church, you're a member of a club headed up by a guy who merely dresses up like a bishop.

      This disaster doesn't actually have much to do with Ukraine per se. Rather, the Ukraine crisis is an inevitable manifestation of the heretical ecclesiology the EP has been brooding over for roughly the last 100 years.

      The rest of the Orthodox Church is rejecting this disaster because it is a symptoms of the disease that the Phanar is afflicted with. If it isn't healed then amputation is the only therapeutic option left.

      Mark my words well! If the EP doesn't repent it is simply a matter of time before we see the 8th Ecumenical Council that condemns Constantinople's ecclesiological heresies & reinforces the authentic ecclesiology of the Church.

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    7. JakeJanuary 22, 2019 at 1:49 PM

      Timmy,

      Respectfully, your not even using the word "heretic" correctly, let alone applying it to this situation convincingly. I also look for a *real* ecumenical council, one that will honestly and forthrightly deal with the "new" ecclesiastical reality of the collapse of the Empire, the east-west split, the rise of nation states, religious plurality, secularism, etc. etc.

      Until then, the Church will continue doing what it has for the last 1000 years: applying a canonical body of "law" and structure ad hoc over these new realities. Neither the EP, the MP, the bishops who lead multiple jurisdictions in North America and elsewhere, are "heretics" for doing what they can with a canonical structure built for another time and place.

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    8. TimmyJanuary 22, 2019 at 2:33 PM

      Jake, I respectfully disagree with your assessment of the EP's ecclesiology & its actions in Ukraine, but I'm not even remotely interested in trying to convince you.

      My only comment is: wait & see.

      Delete
  6. MenasJanuary 22, 2019 at 8:12 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. Archimandrite GregoryJanuary 22, 2019 at 10:13 AM

    It seems that the American government finds the EP and its claims to be most relevant vis-à-vis our foreign policy goals, and the EP seems to be a very willing tool. I wonder why?

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    1. JakeJanuary 22, 2019 at 10:20 AM

      Why? The answer is obvious: Greek-Americans are a wealthy subculture who are motivated to participate and influence our political system. Our political system is designed for just such activity and depending on perspective/position, this is a good or bad thing.

      These sorts of secular, wordly concerns are no different than the MP and "Mother Russia's" religious, cultural, and political concerns in Ukraine.

      Neither side is "innocent" of this level of machination.

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  8. JakeJanuary 22, 2019 at 10:13 AM

    The EP does have an "existential" problem and has for a very long time. He was always a "dhimmī" Patriarch despite his title in the Ottoman period, and for the last 100 years has not even been that. That said a secularized and very American anthropology that is behind such phrases as "religious freedom", and is the whole basis of thinking for the academics giving this lecture and the Greek-American way of life, is certainly a dead-end culturally and religiously. These sorts of presentations are really political efforts meant to motivate constituencies and the American government.

    Ignore these efforts - letting the dead bury the dead...

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  9. Archimandrite GregoryJanuary 26, 2019 at 8:15 AM

    Is anyone planning on listening to this damage control? Will you provide a summary? I wont be available to do so.

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  10. rhartscJanuary 26, 2019 at 9:41 AM

    The Phanar is a shell of its former shell of its former glory.

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