A Response to “On administering Holy Communion in a Time of a Plague”
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. However, the nature and extent of the illness that we face, and the proper response of the Church, is a matter of much disagreement. We have seen various responses to the COVID-19 epidemic: calls to close our Churches as infectious vectors, and demands to open them as places of spiritual healing. Directives a) ordering the cessation of sacramental life as part of an effort to “flatten the curve,” and cries for access to the divine grace that flows forth from those very mysteries; b) calling for the restriction of “at-risk persons,” and serious questions about the validity of such controls, c) instructions to liturgists to wear personal protective equipment during the celebration of the divine services and the distribution of the holy Mysteries, and uncertainty about the fitness of such practices. Who has been championing what and on behalf of whom? The ...
So the Patriarch of Alexandria tells his "brethren" who abstained from coming to Crete to come down from their "high places" or thrones. This same person wears the glory of medieval crowns (like Popes in Rome and Avignon) - so I guess he is not a hypocrite....? Add to it the illustrious patriarch (renegade is proper since he does not know his place in the Church being an aggressor of the church that gave his church the liberty to be a patriarchate some 1600 years ago) is now saying prayers, not in Greek, but in the language that his church chose to oppress - that of the natives of the holy land (vis-a-vis Arabic). This is the same church that Saint Raphael wrote about preventing its native people from the episcopal office.
ReplyDeletelet's face it ---- this is a revisionist synod, not Great Council, that is trying to assert a primacy of Hellenic Culture no longer existing - because the majority are overwhelmingly different than them. The churches of Istanbul (BTW, Constantinople was eradicated on May 29, 1453, thus no more!), Alexandria and Jerusalem need to wake up and see the surrounding environments they live in and that they are on the verge of extinction. The future of the church belongs to those who till the land and yield results of good harvest - haven't seen that from particularly Jerusalem and Istanbul. All these three churches deny the fact that their phyletism is so blatant and arrogantly offensive - they are so blind, they cannot see it. So the churches that represent nearly 77% of the Orthodox are not present - and yet elitist Deacon John Chryssavagis calls it a legitimate council. Time to make the change has come!
If you go to about 4:40 in this clip, you will see something I found rather striking. It involves a hierarch and a comb....
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry -- I didn't specify that my comment referred to the last video in the group. If you don't want to bother to look at video, here's what you'll miss seeing: as the hierarchs are standing at the royal doors, behind Patriarch BARTHOLOMEW, one of the most visible of them pulls out a comb and runs it through his beard a time or two. Where does one stash a comb in hierarchical vestments??
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