Dogma is not to be believed. Dogma is to be experienced. Because dogma without experience is heresy. — Fr. John Romanides, Empirical Dogmatics.
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Orthodoxy: Where tradition is the normal operating system.
ROMAN CATHOLICS:
You are blessed to come! We await you!
We welcome all of you to the Divine Liturgy this next Sunday, as your code of canon law says it is perfectly acceptable to come, indeed it even claims that you can confess and even commune at an Orthodox Church (!) due to the many “grave inconveniences” and “moral difficulties” posed by today’s post-Vatican II reality. . .i.e. rampant impiety and heresy.
Of course, the Orthodox priest will want to speak to you first, and you will need to do that before approaching any chalice or go to confession. The Orthodox Church has certain basic presuppositions that must be met before any participation in the Holy Mysteries. But, you will be welcomed and embraced and loved and you will fulfill your “Sunday obligations”.
Watch:
HeldTradition retweeted
They killed her, desecrated her body, and scattered her remains because she refused to give up Christ!
Her name was Bosiljka Rajcic. She was only seventeen years old.
They kidnapped her and took her to another family's house, intending to force her to convert to Islam and marry her kidnapper. But Bosiljka refused. Because she would not renounce her Orthodox faith, her terrible torture began.
They tortured her with thirst and sleep deprivation. They plucked out her hair, burned the soles of her feet, beat her face, exposed her to insects, trampled on her, and constantly tried to break her will. They even brought in an older Serbian woman who had converted to Islam, hoping to convince Bosiljka to do the same.
But Bosiljka answered: "I have my faith. I don’t need a better one, because none exists. And as for marriage, I am already engaged. I have my fiancé. Christ is my chosen one. I belong only to Him, and to no one else."
When these attempts failed, she steadfastly maintained her resolve, refusing to renounce her faith or her identity.
Ultimately, her life was taken due to her refusal to capitulate. Despite the severe trials she faced, she remained dedicated to her beliefs until the very end.
Her remains were later collected and buried by relatives and locals next to the old church in Pasjane. During a later reconstruction of the temple, her relics were built into the walls of the church.
Today, she is commemorated as the Holy New Martyr Bosiljka Pasjanska, remembered for her loyalty to her faith under extreme adversity.
This matches Orthodox belief about the Soul after Death. The first three days the soul goes about to places or people it loved.
One of the most amazing moments ever caught on film!!!
In 2002, during Big Brother Brasil 2, contestant Cida Moraes was sunbathing alone on the lawn of the house.
She suddenly heard a voice calling her name (“Cida? Cida?”).
She sat up, looked around, and asked who was calling, saying it sounded like her sister.
No one else heard it.
Cida did not know that her sister, Gloria Moraes had died that same day from breast cancer.
Because of the show’s isolation rules, Cida was cut off from outside news and did t even know her sister was in the ICU.
Production informed her later that evening in the diary room/confessionário.
Host Pedro Bial later stated that the moment Cida heard the voice was roughly 45 minutes after Gloria’s death.
Cida was disoriented and emotional when she learned the news.
HeldTradition retweeted
Свети Гаврило Грузијски дочекује Патријарха Илију Грузијског.
Два света човека на једном снимку.
I wonder if he will pay this forward as $400k is way more than he probably actually needs as the company paid his mortgage.
HeldTradition retweeted
NEW BLOG POST - Neo-Barlaamism and Academic Theology
“Theology without experience,” said Saint Paisios the Athonite, “is like a blind mole-rat trying to describe the sun.” One can write about Palamas without living Palamas. One can write about theosis without pursuing purification. One can analyze Hesychasm without ever understanding why the Fathers insisted upon purification of the nous. Theology, that is, “speaking of God”, is not... (1/2)
Sounds like another reason to become Orthodox.
Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich: "I saw the false church increase in size; heretics of every kind came into Rome. The local clergy grew lukewarm, and I saw a great darkness."
lifesitenews.com/news/leo-xi…
The Latinizers turn every Orthodox Saint’s statement into Vatican I Papal Supremacy. When will they understand that’s not the actual rule of faith in the Orthodox Church.
Trad Catholics: here is what Catholicism used to do to those who hold tradition: they murder them: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyr…
When will these traditional Catholics realize that Tradition is only found in Orthodoxy? All the so-called objections Trad Cats raise against Orthodoxy actually target traditions rooted long before the Schism.
The Orthodox are no more divided than was the Church in the Upper Room at Pentecost, at the council of Jerusalem, Nicea I, Constantinople 381, Ephesus,
Chalcedon, etc.... None of this was mediated by the Roman Pontiff but was a community of believers united in Christ. As the Three are One, so are the Orthodox, united in the Church with the same Faith. Don't even tell me Roman Catholics have that in the Pope.
This “Traditional Catholic” blocked my ability to respond after this post. It’s funny because he again admits the Orthodox point. The Church was always unified in different local churches from the beginning. Every Orthodox Church traces its roots to the Apostles. Only with the innovation of Papism does it become a new Church reliant on a temporal and spiritual leader—the Roman Patriarch, aka the Pope. If you doubt that the whole of Catholicism is an innovation, this fact overturns its claims of being the “true faith.”
Filioque.
Orthodox: Show me the Pope acting alone.
Catholic: What do you mean by “acting alone”?
Orthodox: I mean what Vatican I dogmatized.
Catholic: Did Vatican I dogmatize a Pope who acts in opposition to the bishops and the Church?
Orthodox: Yes. Show me that.
Catholic: That is not what Vatican I defined.
Orthodox: Then you cannot prove Vatican I.
Catholic: I cannot prove your misreading of Vatican I. The Popes did not act alone in the sense of acting against the bishops.
Orthodox: So you have no examples?
Catholic: If I produced an example of the Pope acting in opposition to the Church and prevailing, that would falsify the doctrine rather than prove it. Vatican I teaches that the head and the members cannot be separated in the faith.
Orthodox: Then you cannot show it. That ends the argument.
Catholic: After the Lateran Synod of 649, Pope Martin sent an encyclical to the whole Church binding it to the dyothelite faith.
Orthodox: But the East did not accept it, so it does not count.
Catholic: The Formula of Hormisdas bound the East a century earlier.
Orthodox: The East accepted it, and that is when it became binding.
Catholic: Those are precisely the kinds of acts Vatican I had in view. On your reading, every historical example is either “the Pope did not act alone” or “it only became binding when the bishops accepted it.” The standard is constructed so that no evidence can ever satisfy it.
Orthodox: Debate Jay Dyer.
HeldTradition retweeted
Par excellence a bishop, and a priest, must follow the Holy Fathers in everything, especially in discernment in applying oikonomia. There is no "magic wand" in the clergy's hand. There is not "free for all" or liberty to apply willy-nilly the economy of salvation with regard to reception. There are presuppsitions that must be met, both that there is a genuine NEED and there was the genuine form, the three-fold immersion, done to begin with. When someone stands before the priest begging for baptism there is no need for oikonomia. When 98% of all converts are coming from confessions which have abandoned the apostolic form of baptism (it is "invalid" as to form), there is no basis for oikonomia.
HeldTradition retweeted
“Scripture is infallble, not the Church”…
— Without knowing it, apparently, you contradict yourself:
Christ is Infallible.
He never wrote a thing.
He inspired the Apostles in and through His Holy Spirit to write.
Thus, what was written was without error, to be sure, as The Spirit of Truth gave it.
The same happens by/with/in Christ, i.e. in His Body, of which He is the Head. The Church IS Christ in this sense — His Body, He, the Head.
Thus, it is very strange and confused to believe that the record of His ministry is superior in terms of Truth, infallible, and yet Christ Himself in His Body is not….
Moreover, there is NO OPPOSITION, nor could there be, between His Scriptures and His Body. For another reason: the Scriptures were written in/by the Lord in His Body, by Members of His Body.
Finally, the Church is NOT HUMAN alone; it is Divine-Human, being the THEANTHROPIC BODY. So, while you imagine that the church is human alone, and thus fallible, all of Scripture, which you consider infallible, PRONOUNCES IN HARMONY and ONE VOICE:
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST; HE, not I (a human), LIVES IN US; HE MAKES HIS ABODE IN US; WE ARE HIS MEMBERS; THE CHURCH IS ONE, THE BODY OF CHRIST…
And so forth and so on…
If you do not live this thanthropic Mystery and reality, and thus recognize all of this, it must be because you are not in The Body… otherwise, you would not speak of The Body as you do…
What other explanation coudl one give?
Erick Ybarra moves the goalposts here. He has to. He needs Nicea II to be a development of dogma to prove Vatican I papacy and Roman-style innovation. This statement—which he claims is the crux of the debate—“the Apostles taught that icon veneration was specifically necessary to do by divine mandate in order to get to heaven?” goes further than Nicea II. Rather, Nicea II sets the floor: one must not be against the icons and their veneration, and antipathy toward them is a grave issue for that person’s soul. Just as love for God and/or a saint is referred via the icon, so is disdain for them. Who can be in heaven with those whom they will not look upon or kiss here on earth?
Craig Truglia vs. James White
"Icon Veneration AS DEFINED by the Second Nicene Council is Apostolic."
After watching this debate and seeing the responses by Catholics and Orthodox, I believe that there was a major misperception of what the resolution of the debate really was.
I think many Catholics and Orthodox heard a long list of evidence of artwork and the religious depictions of Christ and the Saints, and thought that Truglia pulled off his job.
But that would be to miss the crux of the debate, which James White kept his finger on.
The crux of the debate was whether icon VENERATION being OBLIGATORY and NECESSARY for salvation was taught by the Apostles.
Both White and Truglia both agreed on this major point: Nicaea 787's definition of icon veneration is PRECISELY that it is NECESSARY for salvation. So even if the viewer thinks otherwise, both White and Truglia were on the very same page: icon veneration is an essential practice for the Christian in his walk with God in order to make it to heaven, and this divine mandate goes back to the Apostolic imperatives.
And so the job is not to show that artwork and depictions of Christ/Saints existed in early Christianity. The job is not to show that the veneration of artwork and depictions of Christ/Saints existed in early Christianity.
That doesn't get Truglia to the touchdown, by HIS OWN self-proclaimed burden. He stood up and repeatedly said that Nicaea 787 made icon veneration an obligatory means to salvation, just as necessary as PRAYER is for salvation. In other words, Truglia believes that Nicaea 787 teaches that from the very beginning of the New Covenant, icon veneration was a necessary means to obtain eternal life.
To make this practical, Truglia believes that on the day of Pentecost, the Apostles included the teaching that creative artists and painters are immediately required to make images for the purpose of saving the souls of the people baptized in Jerusalem by setting up the practice of icon veneration, because the latter is necessary for the Christian life and necessary to obtain heaven.
In case what I'm saying is not clear enough, let me give you a perfect analogy by which to understand the burden that Truglia willingly put on himself.
The "Holy Kiss."
Who can deny that early Christians practiced the Holy Kiss? We read of it Scripture (Rom. 16:16; 1 Cor. 16:20; 2 Cor. 13:2; 1 Thess 5:26; 1 Pet 5:14). We read of it in the early Christian fathers (Justin Martyr, Athenagorus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, Hippolytus's Apostolic Tradition, Apostolic Constitutions, Athanasius's Festal letters, Cyril of Jerusalem, John Chrysostom, Augustine of Hippo, Jerome, Ambrose of Milan, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Pope Innocent I, etc. etc.).
Ok, so the Apostolic historicity of the Holy Kiss is quite clear, and I'm not aware of any historian or theologian who would dispute this.
And yet, do we have evidence that the holy kiss is necessary for salvation, such that if you don't do it you are lost?
The evidence of the existence of icons in the Apostolic age and in early Christianity (especially before Nicaea) is nowhere near the evidence for the Holy Kiss.
But EVEN IF we did have the same amount of evidence, or even more, of icons during the Apostolic age and early Christianity, it would still not get us to the resolution of this debate between White and Truglia.
Did Truglia get us to the place where he proved the Apostles taught that icon veneration was specifically necessary to do by divine mandate in order to get to heaven?
No.
Truglia took the positive position (the affirmative, proposer, claimant) and, as such, bore the burden of proof.
James White had zero burden of proof because he simply took the negative, i.e., arguing that the proposer didn't prove what he was proposing.
Having said that, I think Truglia was well-spoken, very respectful, entertaining, charismatic, and did an absolutely fantastic job proving that religious artwork existed in Church history, even before Nicaea 325. To be fair to Truglia, he did not demand that the way in which 9th century icon veneration looked would be perfectly the same in all places and at all times, but he attempted to show that there is a bare minimum-- an image and religious respect to the prototype through the image. All of that information was done well and he certainly did his homework for that particular task.
One particular Eastern Orthodox theologian (Byzantinist, even) that Truglia cited in support of the existence of icons prior to the 7th century was Fr. Andrew Louth. Interestingly enough, Louth says elsewhere that the NECESSITY of venerating icons would not have been found in the 4th century:
“𝘐𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘮 𝘰𝘣𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘯𝘦𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘩-𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘺 𝘥𝘰𝘤𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘩-𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘺 𝘗𝘢𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘨𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘣𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘵𝘩-𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘺 𝘍𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴..” [“Is Development of Doctrine a Valid Category?” in 𝘖𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘥𝘰𝘹𝘺 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘞𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯 𝘊𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦: 𝘈 𝘊𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘌𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘏𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘑𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘭𝘢𝘷 𝘗𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘢𝘯 𝘰𝘯 𝘏𝘪𝘴 𝘌𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘵𝘩 𝘉𝘪𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘥𝘢𝘺 (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2005), 47]
youtube.com/watch?v=tK5qq87U…
This is why it’s time for Roman Catholics to engage with Holy Orthodoxy on its own terms. The valid complaints in this message don’t stand against the Orthodox Church, which operates as the Church did in Acts—with Apostolicity and Sacramentality—unlike the Roman Catholic system, which departed from that with its Bishop over Bishops and temporal rule. @SteveSkojec should at least try to debunk this - could be really good for those who are really seeking the Church.
It's not. It isn't true. We've all been persecuted by the Church. Not a single person alive today has not been spiritually persecuted by the very men who were supposed to nurture the faith in us. The entire hierarchy and much of the priesthood is complicit.
It's not the being burned at the stake as a heretic kind of persecution, it's something much more subtle and insidious. It directly correlates to the mass erosion of Catholicism, whether in explicit numbers of people leaving or in the people who stay but no longer believe almost anything they're supposed to believe.
It manifests in de-sacralized liturgies and sacraments gatekept behind absurd policies and busywork requirements. It manifests in contradictions by the popes now to what was taught by the popes before, leaving us to either embrace a cult of papolatry and present-momentism or to try the absurd tactic of "recognize and resist" (as if there's anything traditional about that at all) or the option that a growing number of people who cared very much about their faith and then either lost it or left for something they find ultimately more serious and believable, like Orthodoxy.
And those of us who were raised and educated to believe that the Holy Spirit guides and protects the Church can look at all of this and see with crystal clarity that it simply isn't true. God isn't running this show. It's run by men, who fall prey to intellectual fads and fashions and far, far darker things, and there is no internal ecclesial katechon (as it were) of any discernible kind.
So this advice that you just put your head down and submit and ingest fatal quantities of cognitive dissonance because it's what God expects of you utterly disrespects the fact that we are purportedly made in the image and likeness of God with an intellect and will that is oriented not merely to accept but to UNDERSTAND. It turns Catholicism into a cult of mindless zombies who just "pay, pray, and obey." And abuses of every kind are justified because "you don't leave Jesus because of Judas" and other thought terminating cliches.
But THEY'RE ALL JUDASES. That's the thing. This whole thing has become Judas, Inc. And the more it violates its own truth claims in plain sight as it becomes increasingly possible through the use of technology to actually evaluate the corpus of teachings and cross reference them and find contradictions, the more your position insults the intelligence of people who refuse to let clergy piss on their legs and tell them its raining, just in time for Ralph Mottram to come in and say "well, it's raining spiritually but we're just too sinful to see it."
Stop insulting us. Stop insulting yourself. The Church's grandiose truth and authority claims raise the standard of evidence on integrity to an extremely high degree.
If you want people to keep leaving or staying while completely checking out and losing anything resembling authentic faith, keep doing exactly what you're doing.
