The First Commitment (An Open Letter To Fr. Andrew Phillips & All Clerics Of ROCOR)

Otche Blagoslovite.

At the outset of this correspondence, I will emphatically underscore, that I am faithful to the Moscow Patriarchate and the ROC.

That does not mean, by any means, I favor the balkanization of voices not in the nikodimite mode, nor do I appreciate the lack of general honesty and respect for Russian Orthodox Traditionalists that the current Patriarch exhibits.

Many times people speak up and say Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeev is somehow a creature of his own caprices, not beholden to anyone, not bearing any authority, not in any way an executive operative of the patriarchal administration.

It is as if you all in ROCOR are trying to lie to yourselves in the hopes that you won't be exposed for being incapable of dealing with reality. No, Metropolitan Alfeev (And I do intentionally underscore the surname of this Renovationist and ecumenist, Uniate heretic) is AN OFFICIAL SPOKESPERSON FOR THE PATRIARCHATE. I reiterate, his words are APPROVED AND SUPPORTED BY THE PATRIARCH AND HIS VARIANCE WITH PATRISTIC AND CANONICAL ORTHODOXY IS THE "NEW DIRECTION" A NIKODIMITE PATRIARCHATE SEEKS TO INSTILL. He is not autonomous, is not some "optional" voice we may ignore if we so choose. He is not a flamboyant crank, but a mainstream and malignant official sent as an emissary to "the city and the world" from the offices in the Danilov Monastery.

It is a travesty that anyone either believe otherwise or deceive others into believing in the fiction of his "autonomous" sectarianism.

Such brazen deceit is beneath contempt and, frankly, REPUGNANT issuing from a cleric whose chief responsibility is to shepherd his flock and form them in the tradition of holiness and Truth in the hope of salvation in Christ Jesus.

That is your first commitment, and it cannot be compromised. Let me restate that. Your first commitment is to Truth and to safeguarding your flock in that Truth so that they be formed in the Faith of the Fathers and enhypostasized in Christ in the Holy Spirit in the saving enclosure of His Church.

This means that the flock needs to be shepherded from FALSE PASTORS. When someone equates the "sacraments" of heretics with those of the True Church, he speaks words of blasphemy. This is not a matter of opinion. When someone readies unia with Rome, he is an apostate and an heretic. The nikodimite, patriarchal administration feverishly rushes to quell those who rise in dissent against this sectarianism and dares to malign Elders and Orthodox Traditionalists as being somehow "fanatics" or "charlatans" or an "ignorant fringe of superstitious (im-)piety" for upholding the Faith of the Holy Fathers and insisting on conciliar life and enforcement of the Holy Canons. This is precisely the attitude of Patriarch Kirill in regard to those who are opposed to this H-E-R-E-T-I-C and his "personal opinions."

Thus, how "official" are "his personal opinions" and what motivates his barehaeaded teaching of heresy is what ROCOR (The entire ROC) should be concerned with.

You English have a peculiarly overstated regard for your institutions of higher learning, one which acts to stifle and quash even Truth when it does not correspond to this sacrosanct English college or that all-hallowed British university. Such incestuous lack of scruple in appreciating in real terms, and not in some groupthink of "superstitious awe," the inadequacy and POOR EDUCATION that these dogmatically LIBERAL institutions offer is precisely why faustian temptations and petty characters, who would be derided as scoundrels in former times, are dominating the ROC today and leading many astray with the sectarianism of this Nikodimite Patriarchate. Emissary of the "crypto-Uniate" EP, Metropolitan Ware, hierofeminist and renovationist extraordinaire and also rabid PLAGIARIST where he is relevent, is neither a sine non qua of "acceptible Orthodoxy" and "polite Orthodox dialogue." His WCC advocacy and participation has resulted in a proposed Christianity of Christ as an "Ishtadeva" in some syncretistic pantheon of all faiths, where the Scriptures must be pruned to remove "scriptural fundamentalism" and where the "bigotry of conversion" must be fought to preserve the "integrity of sister faiths and a common ecclesiastical reality, ie church." Anything else, he has tried by credential to deface with ecumenist innuendo and silence condescendingly with "checking for passports" to exclude the voices of not only Orthodox Traditionalists, but the Fathers and Holy Canons themselves.

Such an ecumenist bully establishes his faith not in Orthodoxy, but in the "church" known as the WCC. That is not Orthodoxy, but its cooption and overthrow, and his calls for "polite and measured dialogue," while intentionally ignoring Orthodox Traditionalism and those devoted to Patristic teaching is by no means polite, but, patently offensive and boldly authoritarian in its trappings of "Orthodox establishment." Such is the way of the Uniate and sectarian, of Arius and Isidore.

Metropolitan Ware is the man who formed the spiritually depraved Alfeev in the "faith."

All the while, your "magisterium" of English higher learning, in your lost misappraisal, somehow present in the education offered in your schools, has emptied your churches, bred impiety and turned England into not only a secular nation, but a rabidly anti-Christian one. Anti-Christian hate and activism, persecution, is a societal institution in England and one propagated in the West as a result of the mythology of the infallible authority of your "elite" institutions. The likes of a Professor Dawkins or a Christopher Hitchens are precisely the doctrinaire products of your FREEMASONIC British "higher education." Your hateful institutions are latter-day commissariates of the League of Militant Godlessness and your country as irreligious as Lenin's Soviet Union BY CHOICE RATHER THAN BY IMPOSITION.

So your "lettered" vandals cross the Atlantic and bring their religion of "awe and wonder of British colleges," and their EVIL relativism, syncretism, higher criticism and impiety come here, having poisoned faith in your homeland and created cadres of intolerance, godlessness in your public squares.

Thus Fr. Steenberg comes here with his sectarian awe of himself and his British education, for his ministry has collapsed in Britain as a result of impiety and the hubris of British letters, their ultimate irreconcilable cacodoxy with the Truth of Christ's Church. So, too, Fr. Meletios Weber hawking Latin, heretical, mystical texts in the name of St. John of San Francisco. It would be tiresome British boorishness and asinine self-appraisal and self-glorfication in a cult of appanage to Oxford and Cambridge if souls were not at stake. This is what you seem to lose sight of in your wanton self-estimation: souls are at stake.

Of course, in ROCOR, you all have a Metropolitan who enjoys freemasonic compromises and photo-ops, your mediocrity approves of the Iscariotism of the likes of a Fr. Lebedeff and your Matushkas read Lancelot Andrews as St. John of Kronstadt or St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite are "bigotted and insufficiently interesting," for "no one seems to have gotten anywhere calling someone an heretic." No the era of the Seven Ecumenical Councils was a total failure to appreciate the sectarian musings (vapid ignorance) of a Fr. Perekrestov.

Was it really that the Seven Ecumenical Councils were "bigotted, anti-Evangelical events" or is it that Fr. Perekrestov and his matushka are inherently failures as Orthodox Christians and forego Orthodox piety for an echo coming from a "comprehensive" hiero-sodomite institution? Archbishop Kirill of San Francisco and his "clutching for a relevance" in ecumenist photo ops tends to reinforce the latter assertion.

Alas, the times in which we live represent a grave, spiritual peril so granting license to some sort of ultramontane, patriarchal administration is not a matter of "duty to Faith, Tsar and Fatherland." Unia and ecumenism do not save, but imperil and condemn souls. The Patriarchate under +Kirill has taken this direction and Alfeev is a herald of it. In other words, persecution has been announced of Patristic Orthodoxy. It is as real as Lenin's or Khruschev's "war with the Church and its superstition."

You in ROCOR are either too unconcerned or too mediocre to do much more than blink. You are complicit in this great evil when you make excuses for the nikodimite, patriarchal administration or underscore that Metropolitan Alfeev is some sort of Oxford scholar, presenting a "dissenting" voice, with the implication there being legitimacy to his "variant, theological opinion."

There is the Faith of the Fathers, and there is error, apostasy. The one is the life in the Holy Spirit, the other blasphemy of that life and condemnation. The two are not equivalent and cannot be reconciled.

Barlaam would have been a doctor of philosophy in his era, but is none the more a propagator of error, blasphemy, while his "erudition" is a curse, rather than some sort of "standard of authenticity," save for being authentically hubritic, impious and spiritual death.

Not without reason has Elder Raphael on Mt. Athos, formerly of Valaam, called us to prepare the mechanisms for judgement of impiety and apostasy, for the "Russian church may be lost," and as a result it is "inadequate to say Moscow stands behind us." The response of the Patriarchate has been to deride the "sectarianism" and "rebelliousness" of "fanatics, self-appointedly upholding the Faith of the Holy Fathers." Impiety, draconian repression and Renovationist-Uniate message discipline-all the very reasons why a Nikodimite Patriarchate was greeted with concern and doubt by sober Traditionalists when your ROCOR Bishops voted for its advent. Heretics like Fr. Lebedeff (He too holds the "sacraments" of heretics have grace) made it possible by providing impious men like +Kirill with "accomplishments." A man who is a modern day composite of Nikon and Ipatius Potij and Fr. Sergius Bulgakov is already a compromised character in terms of his "Orthodoxy," notwithstanding his office.

Your ersatz and clumsy "dictatorship of a mediocre dukhovenstvo" is not a traditional expression of Russian Orthodox sobornost: it's even a failed, sectarian paternalism as you are emptying churches. It must be remembered that the clergy have betrayed the Holy Faith before and engaged in impieties, willingly participating in the White Treason of February. The Russian church endorsed the freemasonic coup which led to the removal of Tsar Martyr Nicholas II as lawful sovereign of all the Russias to curry favor with luciferian freemasons (acting in pleibescite to the BFO), who assumed control of the Russian government as usurpers. They were as much responsible for the horrors which befell Russia as the Bolshevik reaction which swept them from power, for their White treason rose its hand against Russia's anointed sovereign and inaugurated the era of revolution.

It must be remembered that sobornost not only was the operative mechanism behind the Zemsky Sobor which established the Romanov dynasty in 1613, but also the mechanism behind the Orthodox Brotherhoods battling apostasy, heresy, Unia in Polish occupied Rus'. Sobornost is not in any way, an "institution of malcontent and rebellion," but of LEGITIMACY AND ORTHODOX CONFESSORSHIP, expressing a nexus of the Truth of the Church Militant indelibly united with Church Triumphant and saving the People of God in Christ Jesus. Sobornost' is the Orthodox Way. It is Russian Orthodoxy.

Elder Raphael has seen the peril of Nikodimite control of the patriarchate, is not so dismissive of the "innocuousness" of heresy and apostasy bareheadedly preached (LITERALLY!) by the "official representative of the Moscow Patriarchate." The Elder calls us to sobriety, podvig, and to be ready for persecution and, perhaps even martyrdom. He confesses Orthodoxy in affirmation of the Russian Orthodox way and not as some "superstitious fanatic" or "sectarian rebel."

I would not insist on Greek Old Calendarism or Old Believerism as a response to the peril of our time (I discourage such ecclesiologies as much in error as ecumenism and Unia), but, rather, preparation for conciliar condemnation of even the Patriarch and his Uniate, ecumenist administration, voiced by a Pomestny Sobor. I encourage the formation of Orthodox Brotherhoods and Societies of Orthodox Traditionalist piety.

The hour is late while the Russian renewal is being subverted for the Vatican agenda and WCC money. Such betrayal of Christ has not been witnessed since the thirty silvers of Judas Iscariot.

One can be loyal to the Patriarchate and act to safeguard the institution, while readying the case behind condemnation of a sectarian Patriarch. One must be. Let us not fall into some ultramontane temptation and ratify apostasy because it is preached beneath a miter. Let us be prepared to forthrightly reject false pastors and establish Traditional Orthodoxy, even in ecclesiastical administration, as the basis for further Russian Orthodox renewal.

We must be prepared to call heretics like Metropolitan Alfeev to account and bring him to the condemnation of the Russian Orthodox church. His Oxford education is not at all any indemnification against the anathema of his doctrine and that of his confederates and, ultimately, his patron.

Lest denunciations of "Diomidism" begin to whistle from the lips of the mediocre and establishmentarians of ROCOR and the ROC, it is reemphasized that the Pomestny Sobor act to depose those who dare to preach heresy in the Russian Orthodox Church, not one cathedra standing against another (or all). Sobornost expresses the voice of the Holy Spirit, especially when Russian Eldership calls for the Sobor and guides the deliberation in the Uncreated Light of the Holy Fathers. It is in this Sobornost particularly, and not so much your vaunted "officialdom," where authentic Orthodoxy is established and the Church is to be found, the Holy and beloved Truth of the Fathers affirmed and the Canons enforced. It is the way of the Holy Spirit's pastorship of His Church, for He is with us even now.

He is with us.

Thus, you have a first commitment in ROCOR to the Truth, to Christ, and to the People of God being saved in His Church. Deceit and intentionally shifting attention from the great spiritual upheaval in the works is not only inadequate, but a rebellion against Christ and the canonical order of His Church. Ratifying the presence of a freemasonic Metropolitan in your own ROCOR to act with impunity is a disgrace and act of betrayal of Christ, for what part hath Christ with Lucifer?

My blog, Tserkovnye Vekhi, will share the call of Elder Raphael to rise to defend the Orthodoxy of the Russian church, her renewal in the Russian Orthodox Tradition, reaffirmation of conciliar statements and confessions of Orthodox fidelity condemning Unia, Renovationism and Ecumenism as soul destroying heresies in the Tikhonite and "Sergian" eras, in such wise calling for a local council. We reject freemasonic clerics like your ROCOR Metropolitan and Renovationist Nikodimites advancing Unia and blasphemous mysteriologies and ecumenist ecclesiologies. RUSSIAN ORTHODOXY WILL NOT STAND FOR IT.

Nor will it further tolerate the betrayal by silence of ROCOR clerics deceiving the flock in this faustian era of ROCOR's demise inaugurated by your tolerated (intolerable)heretic, Fr. Alexander Lebedeff.

Orthodoxia i Thanatos! (Voiced by the Holy Martyrs of Zographou in resistance to the Union of Lyons, not by any means "at odds" with Orthodoxy as those not fully formed in the Orthodox Tradition have dared to maintain.)

Rostislav Mikhailovich Malleev-Pokrovsky

Elder Cleopa - On Prayer

The Interpretation of the Holy Bible

by Agapios Matsagouras


Certain brothers visted Abba Anthony and they quoted an excerpt from Leviticus. The elder went into the desert, and Abba Ammon followed him secretly, knowing what his habit was. The elder had wandered a long way off; he stopped to pray and began to call out loudly: “My God, send me Moses to explain the excerpt to me!” And a voice was heard, conversing with him. So, Abba Ammon said: “I heard the voice that was speaking to him, but I never learnt the meaning of the words.”

Once, the Abba Anthony was visited by certain elders and found Abba Joseph with him. In his desire to test them, the elder quoted an excerpt from the Scriptures, and asked the younger visitors about the meaning of that excerpt. Every one of them gave their reply, to the best of their ability. To each of them, the elder replied “You didn’t find it”. Finally, he asked Abba Joseph: “What do you have to say about this excerpt?” He replied: “I don’t know”. Abba Anthony then said: “At least Abba Joseph has found the path, because he said ‘I don’t know’.” (From the Gerontikon, AstirPublications, Athens 1999, page 15, para.25 and page 12, para.16.)


The texts of the Holy Bible – in this case the New Testament – are not simple, literary texts. They are, above all, ecclesiastic texts. The church composed these texts and only the Church is competent to interpret them authentically.

“Church” means the body of saints that are in communion with its Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. “Church” is the unity between the Head - Christ, and the saints – the members of His Body, according to the teaching of Paul the Apostle: “..for you are the body of Christ, and members of it..” (Corinthians I, chapter 12, Colossians 1:18, Ephesians, chapter 4) According to the teaching of saint Simeon the New Theologian, members of the Body of Christ are the baptized and certain in faith Christians, who are organically united with the Head. Being the temples of the Holy Triune God, the saints are the carriers of Tradition, or, in other words, the incessant energy of the most Holy Spirit, which resides within the Church and directs it “towards every truth”. (John, 16:13, Jude’s Epistle, ch.3).


The New Testament (and the Holy Bible in general) being an ecclesiastic text, is consequently guarded within the bosom of the Church and is interpreted by it. Naturally, he various other knowledge (historical, literary, etc.) can prove useful and helpful, but it must be stressed that only those who have the Holy Spirit can interpret the teaching of the Apostles, simply because they have the exact same experience. These true interpreters of the Scriptures may be fishermen and illiterate, but the Holy Spirit illuminates them, so that they can comprehend the depth of this text.1


”The entire Holy Bible is said to be divided into flesh and spirit, as if it were a spiritual person. And whoever says that the letter of the Scripture is the flesh and its meaning is the spirit, or the soul, would not be making a mistake. And it is a wise man, who has deserted the perishable part and has abandoned himself entirely to the imperishable.

“To those who meticulously study the Holy Scriptures, the Lord appears to have two forms. One is common and more popular and visible to (not) many, and it is to these, that the phrase: ‘We saw Him and He had no beauty or fairness’ refers to. (Psalms 49, 14, 8) The other form is more mystical, and few attain it, only those who have already become identical to the holy apostles Peter and John, in whose presence the Lord was transfigured in a brilliance that supercedes the senses. In this form, he is ‘fairer more that all the sons of man’.” (Psalms 44,3)2


The authentic therefore interpretation of the Scriptures is a matter of spiritual living. Hossios Peter of Damascus writes: “And every writing and every word of God or certain Saint that refers to a tangible or intelligible creation, has a purpose hidden within it. And not only this, but also every human word. And nobody knows the thought within the chance saying, except only through a revelation.” “….with humility and guidance by the experienced ones, learning though practice rather than through words, and not seeking those things that have been hushed by the Holy Scriptures at all…..And how can someone say that ‘I know the purpose of God that is hidden in the holy Scriptures, without the revelation of His Son?”3

Those who use secular wisdom and learning receive only a small portion of this knowledge, while those who possess spiritual knowledge, possess full knowledge: “Jacob’s well is the Scripture. The water is the divine knowledge that the Scripture contains. The depth of the well is the difficult approach to the scriptural enigmas…….the vessel used for drawing water (=learning), draws only a minute part of that knowledge and it leaves behind the total knowledge, which cannot be fathomed in any way. However, knowledge through Grace provides overall knowledge – and in fact, without any studies – of wisdom that is accessible by man, and which wells up, depending on the needs.4


Saint Gregory Palamas repeatedly states that the holy Fathers are the unerring theologians of the Church. Those who reached the state of vision of the uncreated Light became united with It and acquired the “sure theologizing”. He writes characteristically: “…the supernatural union with the supernatural light, by which alone the sure theologizing is possible….”5


As professor John Romanides explains: “From the Orthodox viewpoint, that which makes the text divinely inspired is not the original words themselves, but the interpretation of those words by those who have attained theosis; because, no matter how accurate the text may be to the original, in the hands of those without theosis and outside the Church, its interpretation will be worthless. Even if they were given the very manuscripts of the prophets and the apostles to read and to study, the grand mystery of piety will still remain concealed from them; this is because the text per se is not that which is divinely inspired. Only the author is divinely inspired, when having attained theosis; or, divinely inspired can be the writings pertaining to someone who attained theosis, provided these texts are interpreted by someone who has attained theosis.6


Nevertheless, the saints who “don’t know God’s every purpose for each thing or written word…” because “God is inapprehensible and His wisdom has no repletion.”7. “The one who is found in a state of theory, in theosis and divinely inspired, does not become an unerring philosopher or scientist, but an unerring theologian. He speaks unerringly about God, but he is not deemed unerring on the subject of the structure and the mysteries of the universe.”8

Consequently, the Holy Bible cannot be interpreted or approached independently of the Church’s Tradition. And the intellectual understanding of it is definitely not adequate, as it can also comprise a distortion of God’s word. Let’s not forget what Saint John of the Ladder wrote: “There are certain unclean demons, which, as soon as someone begins to study the Bible, reveal its interpretation. They especially enjoy doing this to the hearts of vainglorious people and moreso, to those with a secular education. Their goal is to entice them into heresies and blasphemous ideas, deceiving them very very gradually….” 9


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. ref. Archmandrite Ierotheos Vlachos, ‘The Revelation of God’, Holy Monastery of the Nativity of Theotokos publications, 1991, pages 72, 73.

2. Saint Maximus the Confessor, “1st Hundred (of addresses) to Thalassios”, 91, 97, “Philokalia” in the modern Greek edition, volume 2, The Holy Mother’s Garden publications, 1988

3. ”Philokalia”, Papadimitriou publications, volume C, page. 96, 97.

4. Saint Maximus the Confessor, “4th Hundred (of various topics) to Thalassios”, 29.- “Philokalia” in the modern Greek edition, volume 2, The Holy Mother’s Garden publications, 1988, page 172.

5. Saint Gregory Palamas, Greek Patristic works, volume 2, page 182.

6. father John Romanides, “Dogmatic and Symbolic theology of the Orthodox Catholic Church”, vol.A, p.151

7. Hossios Peter of Damascus, ‘First Book’, Philokalia”, Papadimitriou publications, volume C, page 157.

8. Father John Romanides, ‘Critical view of the applications of theology’ in the «Minutes of the Second Convention of Orthodox Theology», page 434.

9. John of Sinai, “Ladder”, Address 26 ‘On Discernment’– Volume B, p. 36, Holy Monastery of the Paraclete, 1994 page 316.


Text: Agapios Matsagouras

Translation by A.N.



http://oodegr.com/english/ag_grafi/ermin_graf1.htm

Fr. Dumitru Staniloae - Essence of Christianity

What is Orthodoxy?

Монахи покидают монастырь Црна-Река в знак протеста против отстранения епископа Артемия от управления Рашско-Призренской епархией Сербской патриархии

Монахи покидают монастырь Црна-Река в знак протеста против отстранения от управления Рашско-Призренской епархией Сербской Православной Церкви епископа Артемия (Радосавлевича), сообщает 1 июня "Седмица.Ру" со ссылкой на сербский портал "Вести.Онлайн".

Настоятель, протосинкел Николай, и девять насельников решили покинуть монастырь в Косово и Метохии, несмотря на уговоры временного администратора Рашско-Призренской епархии митрополита Черногорско-Приморского Амфилохия, который призывал монахов проявить смирение и продолжить исполнение своих монашеских послушаний в этом средневековом сербском монастыре.

Тем самым братия демонстрирует свой отказ подчиняться решениям Синода и Архиерейского Собора Сербской Православной Церкви об отстранении от управлении Рашско-Призренской епархией епископа Артемия (Радосавлевича), почислении его на покой и назначении временного администратора епархии.

Согласно Уставу Сербской Православной Церкви, священнослужители и монашествующие не имеют права самовольно покидать места своего служения и переходить в другие епархии, поэтому црно-речские монахи просили временного администратора митрополита Амфилохия дать им канонический отпуст и разрешить перейти в другой монастырь в одной из сербских епархий.

Но митрополит Амфилохий отказался это сделать, мотивируя свой отказ тем, что у монахов нет уважительных причин для ухода из обители и перемены епархии. Во время трехчасового разговора митрополит пытался убедить монахов отказаться от своего решения и пригрозил, что в случае неповиновения они понесут каноническую ответственность перед церковным судом.

Несмотря на это, епархиальное управление с сожалением констатировало, что братия самовольно покидает монастырь с помощью "движимого имущества" монастыря, которое, по сути, является имуществом Рашско-Призренской епархии и Сербской Православной Церкви.

Сходная ситуация сложилась и в монастыре Святых Архангелов близ Призрена, настоятель которого, иеромонах Венедикт, и несколько насельников также отказываются принять решение об отстранении епископа Артемия и грозятся покинуть обитель. В марте этого года иеромонах Венедикт и братия монастыря уже подвергались каноническому прещению (запрету совершать Божественную литургию) за отказ последовать решению Синода.

Епархиальное управление предупредило всех монахов, несогласных с синодальными и соборными решениями, что "Церковь не может позволить псевдозилотское группирование, которое подрывает церковное единство" и противоречит многовековому соборному устроению Православной Церкви". "Подобные действия являются позорными попытками так называемой группы "верных чад епископа Артемия" оправдать свое непослушание Церкви перед общественностью и собственной совестью", - отмечается в заявлении епархиальных властей.

http://portal-credo.ru/site/?act=news&id=78048

Evangelism and Culture

By Fr. Michael J. Oleksa

The most obvious gospel paradigm for the theme evangelism and culture is the parable of the sower. The seed is the Word of God.


But as St. Maximos the Confessor wrote in the seventh century, the Word of God is constantly revealing himself, becoming “embodied.” The Word establishes the created universe, the heavens tell his glory, the firmament his handiwork, for it is by the Word that everything that was made came into existence and is sustained in being. The Word is embodied first of all in the entire cosmos. The Word in the Cosmos has been misunderstood, after all. It was as if the Message revealed by the Word was written, as C.S. Lewis once said, in letters too large for us to read clearly. In the pre-Christian societies, he was wrongly identified with Neptune, Zeus, Adonus, Apollo, or in the modern world with the forces of the natural world, with the “laws” of chemistry, physiology, genetics.



So in the second embodiment the Word became easier to decipher. The Word of God is also embodied in the Holy Scriptures, in some ways in amore focused and understandable form. Even there, the possibility of misinterpretation arose, and the Scribes and Pharisees were constantly criticized for missing the intended meaning of the Law and the Prophets.



So ultimately, at the fullness of time, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. He is called “Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” He is called “the Messiah.” “the Christ,” the Way, the Truth and the Life.” He calls himself “the Living Bread,” “the Son of Man,” “Living Water,” “the Good Shepherd.”



All of this is the Word of God, the seed in the parable of sower- and more. The gospel is also the Church, the mystical body of Christ, and the scattered seed can refer to the evangelical establishment of the church as the faith spreads geographically throughout the world. And fullness of the gospel, of the Christian faith, is Orthodoxy. The seed then means all these-the Word of God in all embodiments, the Gospel of Repentance, of the Kingdom, the sacramental and iconographic presence of Christ, the Truth of the Orthodox faith. And none of these existed in a vacuum. The seed always requires a specific place, some oil, in which to grow.



The Word of God as scripture must be expressed in human language, and language is culture. The gospel of the kingdom must be preached in human words, and words are culture. The presence of Christ must convey, manifested with signs, symbols, art, music, liturgical action, sacrament, and all this is culture. The Truth, like the seed, needs soil in which to grow, and the soil is culture.



The seed in the parable is scattered and some grows, some does not. But even the seed that reaches maturity produces different harvests, some thirty or sixty or a hundredfold. The same truth, the same gospel, the same Christ, when introduced into specific cultural context produces a unique harvest, for different soils have different levels of fertility. Climatic conditions vary from time to time and place to place. The reception of the Word of God varies accordingly, not only as individuals hear the gospel, understand the Truth, confront Christ, enter the church, but as cultures do as well.



No one plants without expecting a harvest. The results the church anticipates and for which it prepares, the goal of all that it says and does, is revealed in the gospel passage read on more Sundays during church year than any other: John ch. 17. It is no accident that the church presents our Lord’s prayer for unity to us more often than any other, for this is the ultimate goal of his life and mission, the fulfillment of the gospel. In the end, the scriptures tell us, Christ will be “all in all.” He will hold us, all people of all races, nationalities, ethnic groups, political parties, religious sects and creeds, and with all others, our friends, neighbours, and the enemies Jesus Christ commanded us to forgive, to bless, to love. For those who have loved and served him- and the neighbour the have abused, despised, rejected, exploited, hated- will be their sorrow, humiliation, their torment, their hell. Heaven and hell are not places we “go to,” but spiritual conditions we are already in.



We must become one, the way our Lord prayed to his heavenly Father, as the Holy Trinity is one, in total humility and love, each of us fulfilling the will of the Father as the son and the Holy Spirit perfectly and eternally do. This is the end toward which the church labours and strives. The church plants the seed in order to reap this harvest. No one can be the image of the Holy Trinity alone, as isolated individual. While only human beings, by an acct of faith and commitment, can be saved, no one is saved alone. There is no such thing as an individual salvation, for salvation is to enter into the community of interpersonal love, love of God, fulfilling his will in all things, and the love of one’s neighbour, the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets.



This is the goal, the harvest the church expects, awaits, and in which it invites all humanity to participate. The church’s vision, her soteriology and eschatology, while focused on Christ, is not exclusively Christocentric but Trinitarian. And the essence of his interpersonal unity-in-love, the possibly for many persons to be one, is revealed in divine love, tri-personal Agape, which, which makes the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, the three equally divine persons, one. We must always keep the thirteenth chapter of St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians in mind in all the evangelists think, say and do. There is no place for coercion, persecution, intolerance or violence in planting the seed, in announcing the good news to the nations, for these tactics would render the ultimate goal, total Agape, unattainable.



Syncretism and inculturation



Perhaps no question is more heatedly discussed in various ecumenical mission conferences today than the attempt to distinguish theologically between syncretism and inculturation. Within the World Council of Churches, the problem, it seems to me, is that there are different kinds of seed. In this context, the temptation to syncretism is inescapable.



What is syncretism? It has bee difficult if not impossible for many Protestant theologians to arrive at consensus, a definition of exactly what constitutes syncretism, but the historic, patristic Orthodox tradition offers us clear guidelines. The church, during the period of ecumenical councils, sought to express its faith in terms intelligible to Hellenic culture without being distorted, without being “contaminated” by it in the process. This was no easy task, and it required five centuries and seven councils to accomplish it. Syncretism was successfully voided. The church, guided by the Holy Spirit, did not add to its doctrines, practices, beliefs, anything extraneous or incompatible with the faith of the Apostles, the witness of sacred scripture, the Truth revealed in Christ. Syncretism is precisely the introduction into Christian doctrine or worship elements that are incompatible with the fullness of the Apostolic tradition.



Thus, when we learned Chinese Protestant theologian attempted to include within her presentation at Canberra general assembly of the World Council of the Churches an act of reverence to the Chinese goddess of mercy, the Orthodox were correct in rejecting such an inclusion as syncretistic. There is no place for “goddesses of mercy” in Christian doctrine or piety. (Orthodox missionaries, however, encountering a culture with a personification of a merciful feminine principle might attempt to present this pre-Christian intuition as typologically prefiguring the Theo-okos.



If syncretism must at all costs be avoided as distorting or corrupting the gospel message, inculturation, on the other hand, is inevitable and necessary. However, inculturation is only possible when the evangelist knows the Orthodox tradition and can therefore discern what is and what is not compatible with it. Inculturation is the planting of the gospel, the seed, the presence of Christ, in the unique soil of new culture, and allowing it, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to mature at its own pace, to produce ultimately a new, indigenous church.



The Alaskan Orthodox mission



When, for example, the Valaam Mission analyzed the spirituality of the Kodiak native peoples in 1795, they expressed a willingness to tolerate certain aberrations (such as polygamy) for a short time, to discuss others (the belief in the inua/yua) and to overlook still others (for example, fasting norms).



Polygamy endured for one generation after the baptism of the Kodiak Alutiiqs. This was a necessary accommodation, since to require the separation of multiple wives from their husbands would have created severe social upheaval and economical hardship for women and children. Fasting norms could not be enforced in a land of hunter-gatherers whose food supplies were never stable or predictable, and starvation was an annual possibility. Only today, after two centuries, is fasting being gradually introduced. Everywhere, however, the reception of the gospel ended inter-tribal warfare and the enslavement and mistreatment of the prisoners. This was seldom recognized or even noticed by later observers, who had not complained that the Orthodox natives had not absorbed much doctrine, had not memorized much scripture, and thus had not, in their estimation, been properly evangelized.



Belief in the Yua persists. The Yua, in Yup’ik Eskimo culture, is the spirit that makes a living thing to be alive. It is the life force, which in pre-contact times was believed to be conscious but interpersonal. Animals and human beings have essentially the same Yua, and differ only in their outward physical form.



Animals have abilities that surpass those of human beings. They see, smell, and hear what we cannot. They have strengths and capabilities that surpass ours. They are not viewed as inferior beings, but in some ways as superior creatures. Their sensory input permits them to know things that we cannot perceive. To be changed into an animal in all native Alaskan folklore is viewed not as a curse (typical of European stories; - “the Frog Prince,” “Beauty and The Beast,” werewolves, etc.), but as a promotion. Some Alutiiq stories end with the hero deciding to remain an animal and “live happily ever after.” This belief in the intelligence, sensitivity and even superiority of the animals made traditional Alaskan peoples reverent towards the game they needed to kill in order to feed themselves, in order to survive. And it is the universal beliefs that since the animals know more, see more, hear more, sense more, they are willing victims who offer to the hunter. But they only sacrifice themselves to feed those human beings who treat them reverently, respectfully, not only during the hunt, in the act of killing the and butchering them, but in the way the meat is thoroughly eaten, wasting none of it, and how various parts of the animal (such as the pelts) are used. The unusable remains must also be treated respectfully, returned to the habitat from which the animal was taken. Recycling is an ancient practice in the Arctic.



Orthodox missionaries did not discourage this belief that life in all its form should be treated reverently. Their Alaskan converts heard the Paschal gospel from within the context of their traditional worldview, and saw Christ in the whole created universe, the Word of God in the Cosmos, in a way even the missionaries had not seen him before. The life of the world, the life of all, yes-all the Yua are really him. And the first chapter to the Colossians took on a meaning that was always there, but had gone unnoticed, or at least under appreciated, for centuries.



The seed found especially fertile ground, for the text “He is before all things and in him all things subsist” affirmed that what the Alaskans had intuited centuries before was now affirmed in the gospel. Only now they knew his identity. Alaskan Orthodoxy affirms a cosmic dimension to the Christian faith that many, perhaps most, modern Christians fail to grasp. John 3:16 is probably the most widely memorized verse in the New Testament, few who study the Bible in English translation grasp its full meaning the way most Eskimos do. The original text speaks of God’s love for the world, and most suppose the Greek word here is oikoumene, the inhabited earth, the human beings, and indeed the evangelist could have chosen this word. In fact, however, he did not. This famous verse affirms “For God so loved cosmos the sent his son.”



In the missionary context of the industrialized world, where secularism is in some instances giving way to a revival of “paganism” or the emergence of “new age” spirituality, or an interest in oriental religions, the theology of St. Maximos, in which the “logoi”: of God are affirmed, in which the created universe plays a mediating and sanctifying role in God’s divine plan, which the cosmos is to be blessed, reclaimed, transfigured and transformed, sanctified and blessed to become “the Kingdom of our God and His Christ” presents a Christian alternative. The Alaskan church goes forth in procession each January for the great blessing of water, in most places walking on the frozen river, standing on the ice in subzero temperatures, to sanctify the one small piece of the cosmos on which their lives have always depended. The river is their highway, their cleansing, their supermarket, their home, their life. In their pre-Christian past they thanked the animal spirits for offering themselves, sacrificing themselves to feed the people, and put their inflated intestines and bladders through the holes in the ice in order to recycle their Yua. Now they go to the river and bless the waters, putting the cross through a cruciform hole in the ice; it is Christ they bless, Christ they thank, for his sacrifice, prefigured in the cycle of the natural world as they understood it.



This not, I would submit, syncretistic, for these patterns were always there, in the liturgical life of the church. The gospel texts were always there, within the hearing of all believers. But the Eskimos have discovered a meaning hidden from those of other cultures and they offer this meaning back to the church. This the pattern of all genuine inculturation-the missionary, and, through the evangelist, the whole church, discovers heretofore unnoticed or disclosed treasures of her own sacred heritage.



When Navajo Indians of the American southwest were asked to make a film about production of their famous rugs, they submitted a video depicting a sunrise, wild flowers blooming, rain falling, sheep grazing, wind blowing, the sun setting, and finally a few seconds showing a half-finished rug on a traditional loom. The producers who had commissioned the film were confused and disappointed. They had expected to see wool being spun, dyed and woven, and none of this was included in the video. But to the Navajo, it takes more than wool, vegetable dyes, a loom and a grandmother to make a rug. They assumed a much wider frame of reference: The sun must rise. The rain must fall. The flower must bloom. The sheep must graze. And if all is harmony, you can get rugs out of it. It takes the whole cosmos to make a rug.



It this not equally true of our Eucharastic Gifts? We so often perceive it as merely bread- flour, water and yeast. But what does it take to produce that flour? The sun must shine. The wind must blow. The rain must fall. The earth must be fertile. Human beings must appropriately interact with it. And if all is in harmony, you can make bread. On every altar, in every church we offer the universe in joy and thanksgiving back to God. But our frame of reference can be too small.



Christ fed thousands with only a few a few loaves and two fish. Those who witnessed this considered it a miracle. Our Lord also said, “The son only does the works he sees his Father do.” The Father is always taking a little wheat and feeding thousands, but we fail to see it, we don’t get the message. He is taking some seeds each spring and making food in every wheat and corn field, but the pagans said it was Apollo or Zeus or Minerva or “Mother Nature” at work, and secularists say it is all “natural processes.” So the Son does the same thing he sees his Father do, but on a smaller scale and a faster speed, and suddenly the miraculous element becomes evident. It is the same Word of God made manifest and the feeding of the thousands will have its full impact when we can recognize it continuously in the miracle of the cosmos, the Word written in letters so large we could not read the message before.



Be reminding the church of the cosmic dimensions of its faith and mission, the Greek evangelized become evangelists. In the Patristic age, Greek language, Greek culture, Greek philosophical language enriched the life of the church forever. As the seed, the gospel, the church, as Christ’s presence enters into the context of other cultures, these too offer something back to God. The same seed, the same faith, the same Orthodox truth, implanted in another culture produces a unique harvest, a Serbian, a Romanian, a Russian, a Ukrainian, an Albanian, an African, an Alaskan, an Indonesian, a Korean or Japanese (or even an American), expression, each the product of the same holy faith, yet each irreplaceable and unique.



Father Alexander Schmemann defined in his most famous book, For the Life of the World, what it means to be Christian. “A Christian, “ he wrote, “is someone who, wherever he/she looks sees Christ and rejoices Him.” I read this book many times. I was blessed for several years to attend Father Alexander’s lectures. I read Holy Fathers. But it was my Eskimo parishioners who revealed to me the depth of the passage, revealed to me the cosmic dimension of the prologue to the gospel according to St. John, showed me the magnificence of the Apostle Paul’s Christocentric experience and vision. This is what inculturation means for the church. Unlike syncretism, which distorts the gospel, corrupts the faith, renders a Christian harvest impossible, inculturation enriches and deepens and expands the genuine apprehension of the Apostolic faith, to the glory of God and building up of his holy church. The church, while resisting any syncretism, delights and rejoices in inculturation.





Conclusion



The church scatters the seed, offering the gospel to all, and in so doing, discovers the new harvest dimensions of the faith it had not consciously known, noticed or appreciated fully before. Evangelism enriches the church. Inculturation blesses the church. Our Greek patristic legacy is the historic evidence of the creative process. The seed always needs soil in which to grow-the gospel always needs a culture in which to be planted, and the Holy Spirit produces various harvests in each culture and in each of us.

First Sunday after Pentecost or All Saints Sunday

In the services for this Sunday over and above the usual glorifications of the
resurrection of Christ, the choirs of all the Saints pleasing to God, who have shone
through faith in the coming and the arrival of the promised Redeemer, together
with those who exercised asceticism in piety are glorified. In the church hymns we
magnify: patriarchs, forefathers, prophets, apostles, martyrs, hieromartyrs,
confessors, hierarchs, venerable and righteous fathers and mothers and all the
Saints, who from the ages were well pleasing to God, and "above all" "our
Sovereign Lady, the Theotokos and Ever-virgin Mary".

In glorifying their memory,
let us also ask their prayerful petitions before God for us. Since "by the Holy Spirit is every soul enlivened", i.e. is cleansed, renewed and alas settled, and since the divine grace of the Holy Spirit is consecrated, it has made our first-born brethren, written in the heavens, and made them our worthy prayer books before God, that, they have celebrated the most glorious descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles and who glorified His beneficial power, consecrating the souls of all believers, then to properly glorify also those holy foster children of the grace of God, who were consecrated and perfected by the power of the All-holy and Life-creating Spirit of the Lord. This commemoration also fulfills the honoring and glorifying of those pleasing to God, who, owing to their numbers and their not being known, special commemorations were not established for them. Glorifying the saints and numbering them among the ranks or choirs, the Holy Church points out to us their
various virtues for imitation.

Troparion, for the Resurrection, tone 8
Troparion, for the Saints, tone 4

As with fine porphyry and royal crimson,
Having been adorned with the blood of Thy martyrs shed throughout the world,
Thy Church cries out to Thee:
O Christ God, send down Thy bounties upon Thy people,
Grant peace to thy habitation and great mercy to our souls.

Kontakion, tone 8

Like the beginning of our existence, the universe offers Thee, O Lord,
The God-bearing martyrs as the first fruits of creation:
Through their prayers establish Thy Church, Thy habitation, in profound peace,
And maintain it through the Theotokos, O Thou, Who art Great in mercy.

Paramoea: 1) Is. 43:9-14. 2) Wis. 3:1-9. 3) Wis. 5:15-6:3. Tone 8. Matins
Gospels: 1 [Sel. 116: Mt. 28:16-20]. Epistle: Heb. 11:33-12:2; sel. 330. Gospel:
Mt. 10:32-33, 37-38; sel. 38, and 19:27-30; part of Sel. 79.

Refer to the Typicon (Ustav) if the temple is of All Saints.

With this Sunday, the services according to the Triodion are concluded.
The conclusion of the Triodion services with the commemoration in honor all the
Saints, as His Grace, Innocent, Archbishop of Chersonese (refer to the Works of
Innocent, Archbishop of Chersonese, Vol. 1, pp. 519-521 [Sochineniia Innokentiia,
Archiep. Khersonskago, t. I, str. 519-521]) teaches, is the most suitable conclusion
to the celebrations of the Lord. It is the goal for which our Savior left the earth and ascended to heaven and for which the Holy Spirit left heaven and descended to
earth - this high goal consists in nothing else than, as in the sanctification of the
sinful human race, in leading all of us to heaven. But the choirs of the Saints of
God make up the assembly of indisputable witnesses that this blessed goal be
achieved, that the Savior who is ascended from us has definitely prepared a place
for all His followers, that the Comforter who is descended to us really combines
with the possibility that very carnal people may reside in the mansions of the
Heavenly Father.

How is it that all who were holy to God, now blessed with us, are
not servile to us men? Because their glory is the glory of the Redeemer Son and the
Consecrator Spirit: without the merits of the Son heaven would not be opened to
any of them, but without the grace of the Spirit not any of them could possibly
enter into the opened heaven. Therefore the present festival in honor of all the
Saints also consists of the most natural and pleasing conclusion of the festivals of
the Lord. Therefore it itself is the direct fruit of events remembered in them. But
the marvelous sequence and the divinely-wise order of the festivals of the Holy
Church, naturally, motivates us to ask ourselves: is there such a sequence of this
kind of holy order even in our celebrations?

We have now passed through the entire cycle of celebrations, we have
reached the end of festivals according to the season; but has their end and
intention actually been accomplished by this very action? Have we come nearer to
what the main end of all festivals and establishments of the Church consists in, all
the mysteries and all its services, all our grateful and natural life that is for our
sanctification in Christ? Now already completing the memory of all the Saints,
can we say about ourselves, that we have become freer of all that is sinful, purer
from all that is earthly and corruptible, one in spirit with all that is spiritual and heavenly?

This is the natural and necessary fruit which the Church assumed to
now see in us after so many celebrations of the light! She expected that the
suffering of the Lord would shake the heart most persistent in sin, that with His
Resurrection everything that has not yet had time to be completely suppressed by
sin would revive in our spirit, that with His ascension to heaven the thought and
wish for heaven would arise in the most indifferent soul, that with the descent to
earth of the Comforter the weakest would convert and venture to walk the way of
faith and love.

Were these many expectations fulfilled? Is the harvest in us great
after so long a sowing? What does our Lord now see nestling close to us from the
height of the glory of His Saints? Although He sees some conformity with that
great asceticism, is it He who lifted them up for us, being on earth? What did the
Holy Spirit, who descended from the Father for us, find in us?

And He witness to the Father, that His earthly children still remember their origin, and do not want to remain for ever on alien ground? Will they now find much joy in us, not looking at our celebration in their honor and our holy brethren in heaven?

When we celebrate in their honor even they undoubtedly do not remain idle. We remember their acts and deeds, and they will examine our morals, paradigm of life and
action. Seeing their labors and victories over the enemies of salvation, we should
be calmed in spirit. Seeing our falling and changes in truth, they should be
distressed about us. What, if they see nothing much in us, except the falling and
changes?

After this what does our celebration in honor of all the Saints mean for
those very saints, if not the day of complaint against all of us sinners? Such are
our festivals! The cycle of church festivals is bright and magnificent; the cycle of
our festivals occurs in darkness and ugliness. In the church cycle the very laments
terminate in the spiritual celebration; in our cycle the very celebrations often lead
to spiritual laments.

In the same vein, can we be glad when our Lord who ascended up for us sees that His suffering on the cross remains without any fruit for many of us, and that many of His followers live as if He did not also come for their salvation on earth? Can we be comforted when the Spirit Comforter sees how many will not remember anything about His presence among us, constantly breathe the spirit of the world and walk contrary to His inspiration of grace? Can our heavenly brethren accept our magnifications with joy when they find that our earthly brethren madly waste their precious grace inherited generally by all men, do not at all correspond to their heavenly nobility and walk in every evil, contrary to will of the Heavenly Father? After this one remedy to make the present festival pleasing to our Savior, for the Spirit Comforter, and for all the Saints is to acquire for ourselves their lament for our sins. Repentance suddenly changes everything.

When we shall begin to lament after God, then the inhabitants of heaven will be glad again, like they lamented when we are betrayed to temporal and sinful
pleasures. But is the lamentation about sins acceptable for the conclusion of the celebration of the Church? For the righteous, certainly, it would not be acceptable; but for the sinners only more acceptable. The sick are also treated in the feasts; and what illness is more dangerous than sin? However, is what began the cycle of the sacred days now concluded?

Is it not the memory of the Fall of Adam, and we who are all his descendents in the presence of Adam? Therefore is it not better to conclude it, not by our ascending, but through our repentance from our own fall? Thus the end will return to the beginning, and will return us to that blessed and unoriginate beginning, in which the souls of all the holy brethren are now blessed. "Do not hesitate", the Holy Scripture inspires each of us, "to turn to the Lord, nor postpone it from day to day"; "do not be confident of cleansing that you add sin to sin". "For suddenly the wrath of the Lord will go forth, and during the time of punishment you will perish" (Sir. 5:5-7).
____________________________

The Orthodox Church honors various men pleasing to God who
appropriated various names, corresponding to their various ascetic acts of virtuous
life on earth. Such names are: patriarchs, forefathers, prophets, apostles, hierarchs, holy equal to the Apostles, Hieromartyrs, Great Martyrs, Venerable martyrs, passion bearers, confessors, Venerable ones, Righteous ones, Disinterested ones and Blessed ones.

For Patriarchs, Forefathers and Fathers see pages 453 and 461.

Prophets are great according to the pious life of the men of the Old
Testament who were selected by God Himself and were sent by Him to various
places for predicting the future to the people, with regard to the coming of Christ,
the Savior of the world, to earth.

Apostles are the great men of the New Testament, the people closest to
Christ the Savior, His worthiest disciples and companions, who were sent by Him
to various countries for the preaching of the Divine Gospel to the people.

Hierarchs and Fathers ("our Fathers among the saints) are the Eastern
Patriarchs, the pious Popes of Rome, the Patriarchs, Archbishops, heirs to the Holy
Apostles in the Christian Church and their great co-workers in preaching the
Gospel and in their labor of true piety.

Holy Equal to the Apostles and Enlighteners are the men and women of
royal or princely origin, but sometimes also of simple calling, who by their own
preaching turned entire countries and peoples to Christ.

Hieromartyrs are Christian bishops and presbyters who died from torture for their belief in Christ.

Great martyrs are the pious men and women of various worldly ranks and
positions, who courageously and with great patience thoroughly underwent various
persecutions, tortures, and torments by their torturers for their holy Christian faith.

Venerable Martyrs are the pious and true ascetic men and women, included
in the monastic calling, who suffered from the pagans and heterodox believers for
their faith in Christ.

Martyrs are those men and women of various callings and positions, who
without confusion, but sometimes even with joy, went one by one or in groups
into the presence of their torturers, and there were tortured to death for their firm
and unshakable confession of their faith in Christ.

Confessors and Passion-bearers are those great men of virtuous life of the Christian Church, courageously and fearlessly everywhere and always confessed
their deep faith in Christ, who openly recognized themselves as true Christians,
who endured torments and torture for this, but did not receive a martyr's death;
some of them are called branded, because during torture special brands were put
on the person.

Venerable Ones are the great, pious and Christ-loving men and women,
desert-dwellers, hermits (who separated themselves from the world to the desert
and there saved themselves in solitude), recluses (who voluntary enclosed
themselves in separate caves and cells for their entire life) and pillar-dwellers (who practiced asceticism under the open sky on pillars, or high towers), silent ones
(who voluntarily took up the asceticism of silence), and are all inclusive in the
monastic calling.

Righteous Ones are the great men and women, who were glorified for their
virtuous and pious life, zealous for the fulfillment of the commandments of God
and for their unbowed observance of the truths of the Gospel teaching, not
shirking their family or public obligations and living in the world.

Disinterested Ones or Unmercenaries are men well pleasing to God who
through their unmercenary labor for the benefit of their neighbors served the
suffering and healed the sick.

Blessed Ones are the men and women of various callings and positions, who
in carrying out their mortal life, both in the world and in the desert, with unusual
reserve, with extreme deprivation and denial of every possible worldly good, but
sometimes even with many varieties of foolishness, all this "for the sake of
Christ".

The Holy Church has regularized the remembrance and honor of all
righteous men who have moved in eternity, because "righteous men", according to
the word to God, "live for ever" (Wis. 5:15) not only in heaven, but also on earth;
because "their memory" abides from generation to generation "with praises"
(Prov. 10:7), and among the blessings before the eyes not only of God but also of the people; because they, being alive even in the Divinely sanctified ark of grace in time, have co-operated for the beloved by the "place where the glory [of God] dwells" (Ps. 25:8) for the entire eternity. We honor and magnify the saints of God and consequently all of them are our fathers and brethren according to the spirit of the Christian faith and according to that love by which they are indissolubly joined to us; wherefore true "love never disappears" (1 Cor. 13:8).

Being one with us by nature, the saints pleasing to God also make us one with the Church of the Lord Jesus, who is the one foundation and the one Head, the one God and the one Savior, the one means of salvation and the one hope of the saved. Thus, the glorified Saints have a close and uninterrupted though invisible dialogue with us. We call on them in our prayers, as contributors to our salvation, as protectors and comforters in the afflictions and misfortunes laid on us, as defenders against the invisible powers of Hades, and we do this not in vain. The holy ones of God hear
us when we pray, unite our entreaties to their prayers, lifting them up as pure and
fragrant incense (Rev. 5:8) to the holy table of the Pantocrator, ask His Goodness
for mercy on us, satisfy the justice that is so frequently irritated by our iniquities, and send mercy and the "grace from the One Who is, and Who was, and Who is to come" (Rev. 1:4) to us.

Being in the kingdom of God, they "have already received the kingdom, the magnificent and quality crown from the hand of the Lord" (Wis. 5:16), but by the spirit of humility they will not die to compose "crowns" of the kingdom from themselves "and to offer" themselves "before the throne" of the Lamb (Rev. 4:10-11, 5:11-14), petitioning before Him, as "Mediator between God and men" (1 Tim. 2:5), that He be merciful to us sinners, carried away in the abyss of perdition and by the vanities of the world, both the impulses of the passions and temptations of the evil one. If the saints pleasing to God, neither looking at the spiritual height of their perfection and holiness, nor at their visible distance from us, will intercede to gaze upon on us, the proud and vain, with an eye of compassion and to save us by their prayers and mediation, then we all the more should also honor and glorify their memory from generation to generation, that, glorifying them, we glorify "God, Who is wonderful in His Saints" (Ps. 67:36), and, honoring them, we "honor grace with God, residing and acting in them, and the help from God we ask through them" (Orthodox Catechism).

Besides, the gathering of most of all those saved, which "God, Who
is rich in mercy, made us alive together with Christ", already "made us sit with
Him on the heavenly" thrones (Eph. 2:4-6), evidently showing us all immensity
of the power of the merits of the Savior and the power of saving grace, serves as
vivifying and encouraging for us in the formidable arena of salvation, wherefore
"through faith" in the Redeemer even we "have obtained access", to that same
"grace", in which stood all those pleasing to God (Rom. 5:2). But, strengthening
in us the hope of salvation, the commemoration of the blessed choirs of Saints
also serves for us as the encouragement for unrelenting patience and self-denial.

The Saints of God are blessed with light in the house of the heavenly Father, but
the enjoyment of peace and unearthly joy is the reward and recompense for their
labor and asceticism, that, having disdained the world with their good deeds, they
steadily flowed "to the honor of the highest calling of God" (Phil. 3:14). Thus if
we want to inherit salvation, to settle in heaven and to be blessed among those
standing in the choir of the Saints, we should live holily and undefiled according
to our "Holy calling" (1 Pet. 1:15). "The grace of God is saving for all men" (Tit.
2:11), but does not save anybody against their will; she is omnipotent, but not
violent. "The heavenly Kingdom", even with the assistance of grace, "has
suffered violence" (Mt. 11:12), and that only those admire it, who, prevailing
completely over any sinful temptation, course their way to the Kingdom with
effort and patience. (Sermons and Speeches of Sophronius, Bishop of Turkistan,
Vol. 1, pages 90-102 [Slova i rechi Sofroniia, Episcopa Turkestanstskago, t. I, str.
90-102]).

The remaining Sundays after Pentecost have no special services except for
the weekly ones done according to the Octoechos, and the daily ones done
according to the Menaion. All the Sundays after Pentecost up to the Sunday of
the Publican and the Pharisee, i.e. from the end of the weeks of the Flowery
Triodion up to the beginning of the weeks of the Lenten Triodion, is considered
to be thirty two. All the Sundays, or more precisely, every day is known as a
week, have special readings from the Gospel and the Book of Epistles, the
maintenance of which is not part of the church services performed daily.

S. V. Bulgakov, Handbook for Church Servers, 2nd ed. 1274 pp. (Kharkov, 1900) pp 0621-0624
Translated by Archpriest Eugene D Tarris © June 21, 2005. All rights reserved.

http://www.transfigcathedral.org/faith/Bulgakov/0621.pdf

UNIA.The Dorian Horse of Papism-Catholic crimes against Orthodox Christians.

The Dorian Horse of Papism

By Archim. Gen. Raptopoulos

From the book "Papism and early fighters of Orthodoxy" 2nd Issue
Orthodox Brotherhood of Saint Xeni

From:http://www.impantokratoros.gr

"Beware of the false prophets, who come to you dressed in sheepskins, while within they are wolves (Mark 6:15)

What is the meaning of this word, Unia? This word is Polish meaning union. So, the one that belongs to Unia is called Uniate. Every Uniate has his life's purpose to draw the Orthodox Christians to the falsehoods of Papism. If however this is what a lay Uniate wishes, that much more does the Uniate clergy.

With great yearning the Pope seeks to subordinate the Orthodox under his jurisdiction. To his falsehoods. He wishes that he become the head of all the Church. This yearning he had for a very long time. Since the 6th century. Since then. He has a yearning especially since he officially separated from the Orthodox Church in 1054. Since then!! And what didn't he try to succeed in his goal! But he succeeded in nothing. So in his embarrassment in what he should have done better and more effectively, for this he created the Unia.

The beginning of the Unia was founded at the Lateran Council of 1215 and in the Bull of Pope Innocente 4th . Nevertheless, officially and somehow, the Unia was created in Poland by two Jesuits, Possevin and Skarga. These two monks put in place the Unia in Poland. And this to latinize the Orthodox of Poland and of south-west Russia. In this they were helped by the king of Poland, Sigismundus 3rd who was brought up by the two Jesuits until his 21st year of age.

Under the protection of Sigismundus 3rd, the two Jesuits officially set up on their satanic task. In 1587 the two Jesuits cooperated to induce the king of Poland to call the Synod at Brest in Lithuania with president the Archbishop of Kiev. The topic? The union of the Orthodox with the Papist Church. The result? Substantially nothing.

So, a second Synod was called again at Brest on Dec 2, 1594. In this the primacy of the Pope and the Filioque were recognized. This pleased the Pope. In fact two bishops were sent to Rome to declare officially the decision of the Synod to Pope Clemente 8th. However the union was not realized. For this reason the Polish king ordered in 1596 to reconvene the Synod at Brest, to officially declare the union with Rome.

And what happened?

The archbishop of Kiev with other hierarchs declared the union, but the people reacted. Clerics, aristocrats and the public led by Constantine Ostrogoski, publicly protested. They disapproved the events and declared their devotion to the early Church and to the Patriarch of Constantinople. A tragic history was then unleashed. A story that uncovered the true meaning of the Unia.

Thus the Unia is the: "Dorian Horse".

The unia looks different to what it actually is. It appears Orthodox, and why? The Unia clerics, the Uniates are dressed like the Orthodox clerics. They wear the rasa and the kalamanka. They have beards. Total appearance of an Orthodox cleric. Their Churches are in everything Orthodox. They lack those cold statues, that give the appearance and the feeling of an idolatric temple. Instead of statues they have icons. And the whole structure of the Church, inside and outside is Orthodox. The divine liturgy is performed in every language of each country in which it exists and always acts in a proselytizing manner. The same divine liturgy. No simple Orthodox Christian could suspect anything different from Orthodoxy. This way our simple Christians could be advised by Uniates priests and worship in Uniate Churches.

All these constitute the Dorian horse. It is the sheepskin. Inside the Dorian horse hide the men of the Pope. The fanatic Latins hide inside, whose goal is to subordinate every Orthodox to the Pope. To latinize them. To murder the Orthodox faith, the only true faith. Under the nice sheepskin hide wolves. And those wolves are the mortal enemies of Orthodoxy. They are the camouflaged Frankish priests. They are as they are called in the 1989/24-3-1907 encyclical of the Patriarch Joakim 3rd "wolves in the form of sheep". Wolves that we must beware as we were forewarned by our Lord Himself. Who doesn't remember His words? "Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, inside though they are wolves (Matt 6:15). They are wolves and you understand this when you hear them during liturgy commemorating the Pope of Rome. Him, that breathes abysmal hatred against the Orthodox. Him, who as we shall see is guilty of everything evil.

Force

The Uniates, crafty men of the Pope, use this as a means to proselytize Orthodox Christians to the falsehoods of Papism. They use the Dorian horse. They use the sheepskin. They use the "camouflage". They use craftiness and deceit. However, if these means do not prove adequate, then they revert to the use of force. With a thousand and two ways they force the Orthodox to worship the Pope.

There are three recent characteristic occasions, that have happened in cities of Slovakia which the Director of the Holy Synod Publication, John Hatziphotis, reveals with specific introduction.



The First Event

In the city of Mihalovce, the Uniates applied psychological and physical force on the Orthodox bishop John. They took over his Church and the Bishopric and forced him to move with all his bishopric to an old tavern. Groups of Uniate monks cut off the water, fuel and electricity, thus destroying his electronic equipment that were at the Bishopric. The same Bishop John, suffered a heart attack and was transferred to the Branov Hospital.

Second Event

In the city of Medgilaborce on 23-10-1991, the Uniates with a following of 80 policemen entered the Orthodox Church and removed all the Orthodox icons.

Third Event

In the city of Stropkov on 11 January 1992, the Uniates and Roman Catholics together started to destroy the house of the Orthodox priest, where in a room was a small Church used by the parish. They destroyed the roof, cut off the electricity and telephone and finally they evicted the priest, who now performed the services in a small wooden house, where the faithful brought some icons, which they guarded carefully so that the Uniates wouldn't take them and burn them.

The Slaughter and Executions

Which slaughter and executions should we first report? And from when shall we start? This though we say: The Unia drips blood. Blood from so many of her innumerable victims who refused to worship the Pope and accept his falsehoods. But let us note some typical bloody events that shame the Unia of the Pope.

In Poland

The first blood was poured by the Unia in Poland and south -west Russia. The Polish king Sigismundus through the prompting of the two Jesuits, Possevino and Skarga, founders of the Unia, in Poland in 1587, when he realized that through the pseudo-synods of Brest in Lithuania, he accomplished basically nothing, he declared in 1596, the persecution of the Orthodox who refused to surrender to the Pope. A river of blood was poured by this persecution. The representative of the Patriarchate of Constantinople Archimandrite Nikiphoros was arrested and thrown in prison where he died of hunger. The representative of the Patriarchate of Alexandria to Poland, Kyrill Lukaris and later Patriarch of Alexandria, just managed to escape and thus avoid imprisonment and death. In this persecution therefore, the first one that Sigismundus declared with the prompting of the Uniates, some Orthodox were murdered, others were exiled and others were tortured. All the Churches and holy monasteries of the Orthodox were turned over to the Uniates. The Unia then had destructive intentions for all the Orthodox in Poland and south-west Russia.

It is characteristic the description of the ever memorable Metropolitan Germanus of Thyatera on this persecution. "From the Orthodox some were expelled, some had their arms and legs smashed, others were bayoneted and others were killed at the stake, while the women had their breasts cut off while their children were burnt on skewers.
Czecoslovakia

When the communists took over Czechoslovakia, the Papist Uniates found then the opportunity to attack the Orthodox Christians with awesome savagery. Let us hear the Metropolitan Dorotheos of Prague and all Czechoslovakia, describe the vandalisms by the Uniates in the following areas.

•1. Litmanova, in the area Star- Loumbova: The Church was destroyed and a concerted and systematic persecution was unleashed on the Orthodox.

•2. Klenova, in the area of Houmene: Durung the Pascha of 1969, the Uniates fired at the Church.

•3. Stopkov, in the area of Svintik: The Uniates destroyed the Church. They climbed on the bell steeple and broke off the Orthodox triple Cross. They brought down the priest's house and threw his furniture on the street and destroyed it.

•4. Tsekov, in the area of Trembosov: They took over the Church by force during the Divine Liturgy. The priest performing the Liturgy was beaten up so badly that he needed long hospital care. And this was the least. The worst was that the priest did not manage to complete the Divine Liturgy.

•5. Malee Zalouzitce, in the area of Mihalovce: In this village there were 42 Orthodox and 28 Uniate families. The Uniates and the Catholics gathered 3000 followers from the county to destroy the Orthodox Church. The Orthodox defended their Church and protect it from desecration, but lots of blood was spilled. Even though a lot of Orthodox blood was spilled and covered the road and the Church compound, it did not stop the Uniate "priests" from stepping in and entering the Church of the Orthodox, to perform their Liturgy.

•6. At Kousmitce, in the area of Trembisov: The Church was destroyed, the priest was severely beaten by the fanatical Uniates. They beat him mercilessly and with no pity, and was then sent to the city. At the same time the Uniates were shouting to hang him!

The Metropolitan of Prague vainly protested to the Vatican. The Vatican kept quiet. What could it say since it created the Unia and since it blesses its crimes in the Orthodox countries? And the Hierarch of Czechoslovakia noted: "The fact of the silence of the Vatican speaks for itself".

In Serbia.

Here in this country, as the ORTHODOX PRESS wrote in November of 1961, "the biggest slaughter of the Orthodox since the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ was executed for the benefit of Papism.

And who were the butchers?

Who else but the Papist Uniates? They are the specialist butchers of those who do not submit to the Franks but wish to die Orthodox. Thus the Papist Uniates, known as Ustasi, on April of 1941, after the overtaking of Jugoslavia by the Germans and Italians they acted as they wished. However it was the Vatican that ordered them to action. Their leader the infamous Ante Pavelitz, was named with the blessing of the Vatican and of Mussolini. So then, fully ready and allied with the Germans and Italians, they started their macabre task. They entered north-west Jugoslavia and they started the slaughter. Firstly with the priests. All the Orthodox priests of the area were rounded up, were tied with wires to temporary crosses and were then executed mainly by stoning. They then invited the Orthodox people to convert to Catholicism, under the threat of death. Then 800,000, from children of the first grade in elementary school to old people, gave one and only answer: "NO. We wish to die for the Orthodox faith of our ancestors". The Uniates then gave the signal for the general slaughter. 800,000 Orthodox were killed after great tortures. They died but did not succumb. They died but they did not become Catholics. They died but they did not worship the Pope. May the memory of these 800,000 Orthodox martyrs be eternal.


In THE Ukraine.

"In THE Ukraine, the Uniates confiscated so many Orthodox Churches, that the Orthodox Church there had so few churches for her needs. The savagery and hatred of the Uniates against the Orthodox was expressed in various ways. We provide here one event. One day the Uniates arrested the Orthodox vicar who was earlier a Uniate and later returned to Orthodoxy. Revenging his return to Orthodoxy, these wolves in sheepskins took the Orthodox cleric and drowned him in the river".

Where is therefore the love of the Pope, of the Vatican, of the Roman Catholic Church when it commits so many crimes with her infamous Unia? What is the meaning of the famous theological dialogue, when the Pope continuous to maintain this detachment of death, the Unia? Let us not be deceived. The Pope wishes to subordinate the Orthodox to his falsehoods or to exterminate them.


http://orthodox-world.pblogs.gr/2008/10/unia-the-dorian-horse-of-papism-catholic-crimes-against-orthodox.html