Author: orthodoxaustralia

  • ITS COOL (and soul saving), TO BE OF ORIGINAL CHRISTIANITY: Orthodoxy

    Source:
    http://www.aoiusa.org/russia-and-the-west-have-swapped-spiritual-and-cultural-roles/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=socialnetwork

    The following extract from an article by Iben Thranholm, is one of the most important journalistic writings of the twenty-first century published in the West.

    Key points:

    • Russians are returning to Christianity in a “modern and contemporary context”
    • “They are familiar with the bitter fruit of atheism and have no appetite for the bleak and barren wasteland it produced”
    • “In Russia, Christianity is associated with being modern and progressive”
    • “The young, the hip, the wise and the wealthy, express their Christianity as a completely natural and straightforward thing”
    • “Today, the spirit of communism shows itself in western worship of human rights, freedom of speech and the elite’s utopian notions of so-called open societies. We are headed for the very wasteland that the Russians were relieved to leave behind.”
    • “Russians perceive activists like Pussy Riot as latter-day Bolsheviks”

    The subject of this interview is a Danish journalist and theologian who hosted a series of five programmes, entitled “From Russia with Love” on Danish national public service radio, Radio24syv, with the sub-heading “An Unbiased Look at Putin’s Russia.”

    Inspired by Emperor Constantine, she believes Christianity in the West can be rejuvenated by looking to the East. Iben is aware of the sheer enormity of this task. “Such, alas, is the depth to which Western hatred for Christianity has sunk,” says the theologian, who does not hesitate to defend President Putin, on whom the Western media delights in heaping derision and scorn.

    “The Pussy Riot case opened the door to Russia for me,” she explains.
    “I understood that Russia is a country that refuses to compromise on Christian values. Russia is not just a country or a nation, Russia is a spiritual concept, a state of mind. Criticism of President Putin was not the crime for which the activists were tried and convicted. Their crime was the invasion of the Christ-The-Saviour Cathedral, the holiest of places, and engaging in a blasphemous act in front of the iconostases.

    In the West, freedom of speech is widely deployed for the purpose of desecrating religion, but Russia does not permit crossing the line into blasphemy. That really fascinated me, and so I travelled to Moscow to learn more and this eventually resulted in a series of radio programmes trying to help Danes move beyond the tedious and unhelpful caricature-like clichés and provide them with a nuanced view of Russia.”

    “I experienced a fantastic energy, a moral energy similar to America in the ’50s with the old moral values. I met helpful, poetic and cultured people with a spirit of self-sacrifice I have not seen before. The atmosphere in Moscow is completely different from that of any capital in Europe, and unlike here in the West, I feel much more spiritually free in the East.
    While the West is deriding and disowning Christianity and Europe revels in self-loathing, Russians are returning to Christianity in a modern and contemporary context. Bear in mind that Christianity was suppressed under Communism, which was atheistic. Russians are familiar with the bitter fruit of atheism and have no appetite for the bleak and barren wasteland it produced.

    The interesting thing is, that in Russia, Christianity is associated with being modern and progressive. It is the spirit of the young, the hip, the wise and the wealthy, who express their Christianity as a completely natural and straightforward way of life. Christianity is simply fashionable, but not in the superficial Western pop manner. Christianity’s roots grow deep in the soil of Russian life, and they look with amazement at how we guard, or rather, disregard, our spiritual heritage.

    Not only that: They discern in our obsession with political correctness, and the social liberal opinion policing of the general media and academia, a new manifestation of the terror of totalitarianism they counted themselves blessed to escape after 75 terrible years.After the Cold War, East and West swapped roles spiritually, culturally and morally. Cultural Marxism now holds unrestrained sway in the West.

    But Communism and Social Democracy are probably not the same?
    “Let me put it a different way. During the rule of Communism, Russia found itself in the grip of a culture of death, but she is returning to life, in the sense of Christian culture with a strong awareness of the historical roots and continuity.” The situation in the West is the complete opposite. We celebrate death and have surrendered to the satanic view of man in a self-righteous rage and rant against God. We can divorce with ease on-line. We prioritise work and career above family responsibilities especially raising children. We favour euthanasia, abortion on demand, homosexual rights and same-sex marriage while our cities are submerged in Islam and growing segregation.

    Russia has chosen a completely different direction, and it is one of the reasons that many Russians perceive activists like Pussy Riot as latter-day Bolsheviks. They invade and desecrate the sanctity of the church, a holy place. The West celebrates this as progress and prosperity. Russians are reminded that the spirit of communism is still alive. It merely assumes new forms and takes up residence in the West, where liberals and progressives love and adore Pussy Riot.

    Today, the spirit of communism shows itself in western worship of human rights, freedom of speech and the elite’s utopian notions of so-called open societies. We are headed for the very wasteland that the Russians were relieved to leave behind. Patriarch Kirill has warned the West: “Do not take the path we took. We tried it and it leads to destruction!”

    Recently the Russian military held an exercise based on the scenario of an attack on northern Norway, Aaland, Gotland and Bornholm. Do we just turn the other cheek?

    “Well, that’s not the true way to look at it. The Russians hold such an exercise because of the geopolitical pressure that NATO creates by deploying hostile military forces along the Ukrainian border and in the old Warsaw Pact countries. Russian foreign policy has long been demonized. Russia is compelled to respond to a situation it did not create, which is not the same as aggression. Why should Russia accept being cut off from access to the sea, from Saint Petersburg to Vladivostok? Such a thing is unthinkable. With bald-faced hypocrisy, the West makes it look like Russia is our new enemy. The truth is exactly the opposite. The West is its own worst enemy.”

  • The Challenger Syndrome

    Character faults are common enough as we all know, but the higher the position of the person, the more serious are the consequences. We’ll look at three major events, or failures which exemplify something I’ll refer to as the Challenger Syndrome.

    Most of us remember the tragic explosion of the Challenger Space Shuttle, and that it happened shortly after launch. After numerous commissions, and reports it seems that they couldn’t quite nail down the exact managerial cause/blame of the failure. The single most important thing to look at is a group of engineers who knew that launching in cold weather was EXTREMELY risky. However, their concerns were thwarted by a change in policy which required them to PROVE that their concerns were legitimate: problem was that there was no way that proof could be accomplished. Their only recourse would have been to go public and risk their jobs and careers. They chose not to do that, because NO ONE could be dead certain in this situation that there would be a failure. I kind of wonder, had anyone ask them if they would be willing to be in that shuttle, what they might have said? The upshot here is that NASA management put other considerations ahead of safety and success. So management effectively IGNORED the input of those who knew the magnitude of the risk involved.

    In 1979 the Hood Canal floating bridge (7,900 ft. long and very expensive) was destroyed by a storm where winds of up to 120 mph swept down the canal in perfect alignment with the canal. So what happened? During the design phase of the bridge, one engineer submitted a memo objecting to the design in that it was assumed that the bridge would only have to withstand winds of 70 to 80 mph, but there was in historical records the FACT that winds in excess of 100 mph had occurred in the past.. Obviously, his memo was ignored by management, and the bridge was destroyed. Once again, a very knowledgeable engineer was sidelined, and a storm ruined a large section of the bridge.

    Our third example is a little different, but the attitude is more pronounced. The jet powered flying wing built Northrup aviation crashed in 1948 killing all crew members a destroying the plane and the entire project. The plane was of innovative design and could carry an amazing amount of weight/bombs. So to keep this concise, Northrup engineers gave very specific instructions to the test pilots that they were NOT to do certain maneuvers which cause the plane to pull too many G’s. All indications were that the pilot in charge Maj. Edwards did precisely what he was told not to do. The plane suffered major structural failure and crashed. So one wonders: why didn’t he believe the engineers?

    So just what are to learn from all of this? Each of us has our own Challenger Syndrome events from time to time. For instance, a co-worker decided that he wanted a piece of the action and decided to buy a house AT THE TOP OF THE MARKET in 2007. He knew that I was aware of the extreme risk of the high housing prices, but seeing only $$$, he wouldn’t even talk to me about his plans. He poured everything that he had into that purchase, and needless to say he ended up loosing it all. Having an advanced degree in economics, it was crystal clear to me that his actions were going to end in financial catastrophe, and so it happened. Being ‘right’ in this case did not give me any joy or satisfaction.

    So I’ll end by saying: why don’t we listen to informed opinion?

    Source:
    https://www.facebook.com/dcnsamuel.woolums/posts/10208608842792832

  • Judas, the “social justice” warrior and how each of us is becoming like him

    EACH ONE OF US IS POTENTIALLY A JUDAS

    A sermon given by Fr. Seraphim (Rose) during Great Lent, 1982

    Preface by Orthodox Australia:

    The level of wisdom and Orthodox understanding reflected in the works of Fathers Seraphim and Herman of Platina are beyond what few could comprehend in their generation of warriors for Christ, let alone in our generation which is more looking like a generation of lukewarms than living Orthodox people. In this Sermon from 1982 Blessed Seraphim captured the quintessence of what Judas represented and how today we are in danger of all becoming betrayers of Christ like him. Fr Seraphim makes a very succinct description of the true nature of the spirit behind Judas and the motivations for which he betrayed Christ. In short, he was the prototype of today’s multitude of fighters for “social justice” driven by their own minds, being more concerned with reasoning the “waste of money” Christ appeared to be allowing where instead He could have used them for some “social benefit”. The same trick is again being employed today on a global scale aimed at transforming each and every one of us into a Judas.

    The Sermon:

    Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, there came unto Him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on His head, as he sat at meat. But when His disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, “To what purpose is this waste? For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor.” When Jesus understood it, He said unto them, “Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon Me. For ye have the poor always with you; but Me ye have not always. For in that she hath poured this ointment on My body, she did it for My burial. Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall be also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.” Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot went unto the chief priests, and said unto them, “What will ye give me, and I will deliver Him unto you.” And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver. And from that time he sought opportunity to betray Him.

    Matthew 26:6-16

    Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose)
    “In this passage of Scripture, we read how, as our Lord prepared for His Passion, a woman came and anointed Him with very precious ointment; and it is very touching how our Lord accepted such love from simple people. But at the same time Judas—one of the twelve who were with Him—looked at this act, and something in his heart changed. This was apparently the “last straw,” because Judas was the one in charge of the money and he thought that this was a waste of money. We can even see the logical processes going on in his mind. We can hear him think about Christ: “I thought this man was somebody important. He wastes money, he doesn’t do things right, he thinks he’s so important…” and all kinds of similar little ideas which the devil puts in his mind. And with his passion (his main passion was love of money), he was caught by the devil and made to betray Christ. He did not want to betray Him; he simply wanted money. He did not watch over himself and crucify his passions.

    Anyone of us can be exactly in that position. We have to look at our hearts and see which passion of ours will be devil hook us on in order to cause us to betray Christ. If we think that we are something superior to Judas—that he was some kind of a “kook” and we are not—we are quite mistaken. Like Judas, everyone of us has passions in his heart. Let us therefore look at them. We can be caught with love for neatness, with love for correctness, with love for a sense of beauty: any of our little faults which we cling to can be a thing that the devil can catch us with. Being caught, we can begin to justify this condition “logically”—on the basis of our passion. And from that “logical” process of thinking we can betray Christ, unless we watch over ourselves and begin to realize that we are filled with passions, that each one of us is potentially a Judas. Therefore, when the opportunity comes—when the passion begins to operate in us and logically begins to develop from a passion into betrayal—we should stop right there and say, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner!”

    We must not look at life through the glasses of our passions, nor see how we can “fit” life into being what we would like it to be—whether this is a life where there is peace and quiet or where there is a lot of noise and excitement. If we try to make life “fit” like this, a total disaster will result. In looking at life, we should accept all the things which come to us as God’s providence, knowing that they are intended to wake us up from our passions. We should pray to God to show us some God-pleasing thing that we can do. When we accept what comes to us, we begin to be like the simple woman in the Gospel who heard the call from God and was thus able to be His minister. She was proclaimed to the ends of the world, as our Lord says, because of the simple thing she did—pouring out the ointment upon Him. Let us be like her: sensitive to watching God’s sings around us. These signs come from everywhere: from nature, from our fellow men, from a seeming chance of events… There is always, everyday, something that indicates to us God’s will. We must be open to this.

    Once we become more aware of the passions within ourselves and begin to fight against them, we will not let them begin the process which was seen in Judas. Judas started from a very small thing: being concerned for the right use of money. And from such small things we betray God the Saviour. We must be sober, seeing not the fulfillment of our passions around us, but rather the indication of God’s will: how we might this very moment wake up and begin to follow Christ to His Passion and save our souls.”

    Resources:

    http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/78550.htm

  • Excerpts from the 1903 Epistle of the Russian Orthodox Synod (concerning the non-Orthodox)

    oldrussia

    “…in its own particular life each autocephalous Orthodox Church must always (as, indeed, it does at present) preserve the memory and consciousness of its union with the other Orthodox Churches, and of the fact that only in communion and agreement with them has it the pledge of truth and of eternal life, or manifests itself as the Church of God, and that, if it has lost this communion and union, it must perish and wither as a branch which has fallen away from the vine.”

    “As regards our relations towards the two great ramifications of Christianity, the Latins and the Protestants, the Russian Church, together with all the autocephalous Orthodox Churches, every prayers, awaits, and fervently desires that those who in times of old were children of Mother Church and sheep of the one flock of Christ, but who now have been torn away by the envy of the foe and are wandering astray, “should repent and come to the knowledge of the truth,” that they should once more return to the bosom of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, to their one Shepherd. We believe in the sincerity of their faith in the All-Holy and Life-originating Trinity, and on that account we accept the baptism* of both one and the other. We respect the Apostolical Succession of the Latin hierarchy, and those of their clergy who join our Church we accept in the Orders which they then possess, just as we do in the case of Armenians, Copts, Nestorians, and other bodies that have not lost the Apostolic Succession.”

    *Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky clarifies the meaning of baptism and Apostolic Succession found in the above paragraph as follows: “those among heretics, whether clerical or lay, baptized and anointed (with chrism) by heretics, had only the empty sign (or outward form) of the mystery, and it receives the complement of grace only through that mystery which unites them with the holy Church (chrismation or penance). Moreover, in confirmation of this principle, should be added the custom, established in the Church, that the reception of heretics and schismatics, “in their existing orders,” may be performed only by a bishop; if a priest receive them, then they enter the Church as simple laymen. This means that a schismatic priest united to the Church receives true priesthood only through episcopal reception; but a priest cannot bestow this grace on the one received. It is only on such a conception of the mysteries of the Church that her regulations as to the applicability to heretics and schismatics of one or the other rite of reception can be accepted; only on such a conception can the decisions of the holy apostles about the baptism of heretics and schismatics be reconciled with the further canons of the Councils about not baptizing them, and about their reception by the second, or even by the third rite … As a condition of their reception in their existing orders, the existence among schismatics, before their conversion to the Church, of hierarchical succession, is usually insisted upon; but from the canonical rule of Basil the Great already quoted, we see that no schismatics have any succession and cannot have any; a hierarchy falling away from the Church ‘become laymen and cannot confer the grace of the Holy Spirit, of which they are themselves devoid.’ … (This economia or accepting of the outward form of baptism in heterodox communities) depends on ecclesiastical economy, on the judgment of the local bishops and the Councils, and on the existence of the outward form of the mysteries of baptism, chrismation and orders in the communities from which the applicants come.”

    “Well known to our dearly beloved and highly esteemed fathers and brethren are the secular desires of Rome, which indeed in their time served as the cause of her apostasy; well known in history her various artifices, both open and secret, directed with the object of subjecting to herself the Orthodox East; and well known are the costly schools, the missionary societies, the special monastic orders and other institutions, which indeed exist down to the present day, and whose number does not cease to grow, whose sole object is to ensnare, if possible, the children of the Orthodox Church. Upon Russia, in particular, the eyes of Latinism have long been directed. Not being able to seduce our common people, but pious and devoted to the Church as they are, they turn to members of the higher aristocracy, who have been accustomed to living abroad, and who, for many generations, have been in constant communion with the spirit of the West, and by means of secret propaganda, of literature, the press, etc., they strive to unsettle them in the faith of their fathers and to establish Roman Catholicism amongst them. The conversion of Russian and of the Russian people constitute the secret dream and unconcealable goal of the yearnings of the Papacy of our times. Therefore, however pacific the speeches of the Latins may be, however assiduously they may express and emphasize in all sorts of ways their especial love and respect for the Orthodox Church, and in particular for the Russian people and State, these fair words must not, nor can they, conceal the real desires of Romes from our attention: and we, of necessity, shall only all the more increase our watchfulness and our determination to stand steadfastly upon the immovable soil of Orthodoxy and not to be lured away by any appearances of peace falsely understood…”

    “And just as inaccessible, if not even more so, Protestantism shows itself to be at the present time. Having no understanding of Church life, and requiring for themselves external works evident to the senses, chiefly of a general societal character, the Protestant communities look upon our Eastern Church as a region of ecclesiastical stagnation, of error and darkness unredeemed by a ray of light, not even stopping short of bringing accusations of idolatry against us, and therefore out of falsely understood zeal for Christ they do not spare material means and forces for the spreading of their Protestant errors amongst the children of the Orthodox Church, losing no opportunity of undermining the authority of the Orthodox hierarchy, and of unsettling the faith of the people in the sanctity of the traditions of the Church. Religious exclusiveness and even fanaticism, mixed with a contemptuous arrogance in relation to Orthodoxy, is the distinguishing mark of the Protestants, one may say, even more than of the Latins … it behooves us representatives of the Church, and especially of the Russian Church, to exert all our strength in the fight against the multiform allurement of this dangerous enemy of the Church, making prayer without ceasing unto her Chief Shepherd to defend His faithful sheep against its assaults.”

    “…we should seriously and steadfastly, according to the conscience and before Christ, reveal to them our faith and unchangeable conviction in the fact that our Eastern Orthodox Church, which has inviolably preserved the complete deposit of Christ, is alone at the present time the Ecumenical Church.”

    “…those ancient Christian communities, the Nestorians, the Armenians, the Copts and others, which have been separated for many centuries from the Church, but have not lost their Church organization nor their hierarchy, and which at the present time, in the person of their leading members, are in some cases beginning to arrive at a sense of the wrongfulness of their apostasy. To draw once more into the bosom of the one Church these men, who live side by side with us, and are extremely near to us in culture, manners, and customs, and more particularly in the fashion of their Church life and in the type of their religion, appears to be the most immediate object for our Church to undertaken, and our direct and absolute duty, in fulfilling which we not only should revive these ancient communities into a new Church life, but in time should discover for the Church herself a new source of strong and zealous labourers in the common work of the Church.”

    Source:
    https://www.facebook.com/notes/gregor-isiopili/excerpts-from-the-1903-epistle-of-the-russian-orthodox-synod-concerning-the-non-/1789355961302220

  • Statement of the Secretariat of the Holy Synod of Antioch

    Balamand, 27 June 2016

    At the end of the seventh extraordinary session which begun on May 25th 2016, the Holy Synod of Antioch convened on June 27, 2016 in Balamand. The Synod was presided by His Beatitude Patriarch John X, with the participation of the Bishops of the Holy See of Antioch,

    The fathers congratulated their children on the occasion of the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, the holy, glorious and all-praised leaders of the Apostles, and the founders of the Holy See of Antioch. This See is where the disciples were called Christians first, and where its children continue to witness for the Risen Christ, especially in our beloved Antioch, and in Syria the martyr, in Lebanon the sufferer, in Iraq the injured, and in all the Gulf countries and the Archdioceses abroad, in the Americas, Australia and Europe. The Fathers recalled their brother Metropolitan Paul (Yazigi), the Archbishop of Aleppo who has been kidnapped for more than three years, amidst willful blindness by all. His Eminence Metropolitan Paul, along with his brother Metropolitan Youhanna (Ibrahim), and all those kidnapped constantly remain present in the prayers and supplications of the faithful and in the daily Church testimony. The fathers lift up their prayers for the repose of the souls of all those martyred because of being called Christian, and ask their prayers before the Divine Throne, that God may strengthen His Church and give His children the power and wisdom to faithfully witness, here and now, Christ Risen from the dead.

    The fathers discussed the issue of the Great Orthodox Council, which the Orthodox Church has prepared to convene since more than fifty years. The Antiochian Church had asked to delay the convocation of this Council, in order to strengthen the Pan-Orthodox unity, secure Orthodox unanimity on the debatable issues of its agenda, and that the ecclesiological conditions open up for the participation of all the Orthodox Autocephalous Churches.

    Whereas the Antiochian request to delay the Council, along with the requests of the Russian, Bulgarian, and Georgian Churches, were not accepted, and whereas it was originally intended for the Council to be a pan Orthodox Council, but was convened in the absence of four Autocephalous Churches representing more than half of the Orthodox faithful in the world,

    Whereas the call to this meeting has ignored the necessity of establishing Orthodox conciliarity on the basis of total Eucharistic communion among the Churches, which is the basis for the formation of this conciliarity, especially by ignoring to seek a solution to the Jerusalemite aggression on the canonical jurisdiction of the See of Antioch before the convocation of the Council, through a decision made by the Ecumenical Patriarchate to delay the negotiation till after the Council,

    Whereas the statements and declarations issued by the participants unjustly blamed the absent Churches, and did not blame the side that was leading the preparatory stage,

    And after looking into the statements of the ambiance, statements, and positions made in the meeting at the island of Crete, and all the fallacies that circulated recently, the fathers made the following observations:

    First: The fathers affirm that the common Orthodox work is based on the participation and unanimity of all the Orthodox Autocephalous Churches. They like to remind that this principle is not a new Antiochian position, but is a fixed Orthodox principle established by the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras of Thrice Blessed memory upon launching the preparatory work for the Council. He was followed by his successor Patriarch Dimitrios of Thrice Blessed memory in whose era the regulations for the preparatory pre-conciliar meetings were formulated. The articles of these regulations clearly show that the call for any conciliar work, even if it was on the level of a preparatory meeting, is done by the Ecumenical Patriarch, after the approval of all the Churches’ Primates, and that all decisions are taken unanimously, by all Autocephalous Churches before they are submitted to the Great Council.

    Second: The fathers recalled that His Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew had emphasized as well this principle during the pre-conciliar preparatory meetings. Particularly, he decided to suspend the works of the preparatory committee in 1999, because of the withdrawal of one church from the above-mentioned meeting. This issue resulted in putting off the preparatory works for the Great Council for a period of ten years. The fathers wondered about how could it be that one church’s absence led to the suspension of the preparatory work of the Council, while some consider that it is permissible for the “Great Council” to convene and meet in the absence of four autocephalous Orthodox Churches!

    Third: The fathers noted that the principle of unanimity was reaffirmed upon the re-launching of the preparatory works of the Council in 2009. During the fourth preparatory conference held in 2009, the Antiochian delegation advisor Mr. Albert Laham of blessed memory emphasized the necessity of this principle in the process of decision taking, reminding that if there is no unanimity on one subject, this subject is deferred to the preparatory committee for further study, as the Rules of Procedure of Pan-Orthodox Pre-Council Conferences state. At that time, this proposal was welcomed by all participating Churches, including the conference chairman. This proposal had led to taking a decision about the issue of the Diaspora and the Episcopal Assemblies.

    Fourth: The fathers reiterate that the Antiochian position calling for building up accord through assuring the unanimity of all Autocephalous Orthodox Churches on the subjects of the agenda had as a purpose to strengthen Orthodox unity in the preparatory phase, according to the Orthodox tradition. The Church of Antioch did not expect that this stable principle, which She just reminded of, would become a controversial issue, and this stable principle be defied by those who originally established it and defended it as a guarantee to Orthodox unity. This unity cannot be achieved if any of the Churches is excluded from the decision making process, or if Her proposals are ignored. Here, we would like to mention the fact that the Synaxis of the Churches’ Primates held in January 2014 has affirmed this principle when it decided to have all decisions worked during the Council and the preparatory period to be taken by consensus. The fathers ask how can this consensus be achieved with the refusal of the Antiochian Church to the decisions of the aforementioned synaxis (2014) and the Chambésy Synaxis (2016)? How could this consensus be achieved in Crete in the absence of four Orthodox Churches?

    Fifth: The Fathers reaffirm that the Antiochian position requesting the postponement of the Great Councils convocation in case of the absence of unanimity on its subjects was not a new position. The Antiochian Church has clearly expressed about her position throughout all preparatory phases of the Council during the last two years. This position was in accordance with the role of Antioch had, always refusing to ignore any Autocephalous Church in the common Orthodox work. Therefore, all that was published in the media about the implicit acceptance of the Antiochian Church to participate in the Council was incorrect, and all the analysis about the political dimensions of the absence of Antioch from the Crete meeting remains as a totally false political analysis. The acceptance of Antioch by economia to participate in the preparatory works does not mean concession on Her part about the aforementioned positions. Rather, Her participation was an effort to remove all obstacles which was, and still is, preventing the convocation of the Council.

    Sixth: The fathers are surprised by the positions of some Churches which have recently called to bypass the principle of unanimity, or interpreting this principle in a different manner than what state the Rules of Procedure of Pan-Orthodox Pre-Council Conferences, adopted in 1986, signed by all representatives, and used accordingly even during the fifth preparatory conference held in October 2015. They are also surprised by all the positions that were recently declaring that the convocation of the Council on the specified date is more important than the conciliarity of the Church and Her unity. In this regard, the Church of Antioch would like to thank all the Churches that endorsed her rightful position, especially the Churches of Russia, Georgia, Bulgaria, and Serbia.

    Seventh: The Fathers would like to remind their brethren meeting in Crete of Article 17 of the Rules of Procedure of Pan-Orthodox Pre-Council Conferences adopted in 1986 which considers that, “In case one specific subject, discussed during the conference, is not accepted unanimously, the decision about it is abandoned and it is deferred to the Secretariat of the pre-conciliar preparatory meeting for further study and preparation according to the process known on the Pan-Orthodox level.” Also, the content of the fourth article of the same Rules of Procedure states that: “It is not allowed to remove or add any subject on this list of subjects which were prepared and agreed upon on the Pan-Orthodox level, at least till after its study ends. After that the Great and Holy Council convenes.” The fathers wonder how could the call to convene the Great Council be issued before completing the preparatory work on the subjects of the Agenda: two Churches have reservations about the document “Marriage and its Impediments”, and the Antiochian Church’s refusal to remove three main subjects from the Agenda (Church Calendar, Diptychs, and Autocephaly and its Proclamation)

    Eight: The fathers emphasize that facing the known reality lived by the Orthodox world as a result of the meeting in Crete, the unanimity of the Orthodox Churches remains the golden foundation to assure the unity of the Orthodox world. The fathers consider that this foundation is, and will remain, the solid basis upon which the repercussions of the meeting in Crete could be overcome.

    Ninth: As for some of the voices that have considered the meeting in Crete an Ecumenical Council held according to the principals of an Ecumenical Council’s convocation, the fathers would like to remind those brethren that from the beginning of the twentieth century, the Orthodox Churches had decided to substitute the call to an Ecumenical Council with the call to a Pan-Orthodox Council. The latter’s agenda and work regulations were established by the meeting held in Rhodes in 1961. The preparatory work has continued for almost five and a half decades. The Churches agreed, because of the extraordinary character of this Pan-Orthodox Council, that not all bishops in the Orthodox world be present in it, as the Orthodox tradition requires, and that all its decisions be taken by the consensus of all the Autocephalous Churches on the basis of one vote for each Autocephalous Church. This process refutes any claim to consider the meeting in Crete an Ecumenical Council upon which the regulations of the Ecumenical Council apply. It also obliges its participants to respect the appropriate Rules of Procedure, in case they sought to consider it a Pan-Orthodox Council. This issue was not realized for the abovementioned reasons.

    Thus, the fathers of the Holy Synod of Antioch noted that the meeting in Crete does not even have the required conditions to convene the pre-conciliar conference for the Great Council, this according to the Rules of Procedure of Pan-Orthodox Pre-Council Conferences, adopted in 1986, and which is still valid to date. These Rules of Procedure state that the convocation of this conference requires the approval of the Primates of all the local Orthodox Churches (Article Two), and that decision taking during it is done by the unanimity of all the Orthodox Autocephalous Churches (Article Sixteen), and these conditions were not available in the meeting in Crete.

    The Fathers of the Holy Synod unanimously decided the following:

    1. Consider the meeting in Crete as a preliminary meeting towards the Pan-Orthodox Council, thus to consider its documents not final, but still open to discussion and amendment upon the convocation of the Great Panorthodox Council in the presence and participation of all the Autocephalous Orthodox Churches.

    2. Refuse assigning a conciliar character to any Orthodox meeting that does not involve all the Orthodox Autocephalous Churches, and to underline that the principle of unanimity remains the essential foundation for the common Orthodox relationships. Thus, the Church of Antioch refuses that the meeting in Crete be called a “Great Orthodox Council” or a “Great Holy Council.”

    3. Affirm that whatever was issued in the meeting in Crete, of decisions and other things, is non-binding, by any means, to the Patriarchate of Antioch and all the East.

    4. Commission the “Committee for the Follow-Up on the Council’s Issues” to study the results and consequences of the meeting in Crete and offer a detailed report to the Holy Synod of Antioch in its next meeting.

    5. Send a letter about the decision of the Holy Synod of Antioch to all the Autocephalous Orthodox Churches, as well as to the civil and religious authorities abroad.

    6. Call upon the faithful to accompany the fathers of the Holy Synod of Antioch by praying for the preservation and the total manifestation of the unity of the Orthodox Christian witness in today’s world.

    NB: The original Arabic text is the only binding text in case of any misinterpretation

  • The Plan of Sealing The People (with the Mark of the Beast) – Part 1

    This is a translation of the following article from a Romanian website:
    https://monahulteodot.wordpress.com/2016/05/08/planul-de-pecetluire-a-oamenilor/

    We want to present this very important message about the ongoing spiritual riots, started some time ago. They are so planned and so cunning! This rebellion against God is not new, and the ones who triggered this uprising are very well known… What is amazing? Well, the demonic arrangement developed in the last 100 years or so has so many stunning details. Such schemes have roots deep down in history. During the so-called Renaissance times (and before that age), the clandestine and all-powerful individuals grouped themselves and initiated this process, which today is so hard to understand! Or, is it so difficult?

    Briefly, the article contains numerous references, some to printed books, as well. One of those books, Eros and Magic in the Renaissance and written by Ioan P. Culianu, sheds extraordinary light on the foundation of present world view of our modern times. At the end of the Part 2 of this article, we will be giving more explanations. The following lines are to be later completed with paths that one needs to pursue for staying away of the terrible deceptions. These frauds are intended to stay until everyone submits to them, as tender offerings. How do we refuse this poison?

    ++++++

    Some two weeks ago I received the following texts from TM, an Orthodox, a message that everyone must know. This is the plan of sealing the whole world, a plan that will develop cunningly, in stages. “We are extremely upset of what is happening. Personally, I met a Jew in USA, who told me that the present Patriarch is their man and that he decided to put a stop to the so-called Christian Mediterranean civilization. My encounter said: “You will see that we are going to show to you the ‘body’ of Christ” he told me. “He was a simple man”. Well, I said, but you want to substitute Christ with what? What formula of immortality do you have? “We will move your conscientiousness on a chip, and your body will be made through nano-bio technology”.

    That thing happened three years ago and I realized that it is not a phantasmagoria, but an absolute demonic plan. I said all those things to my priest, but he had an indifferent attitude, or more like a curiosity. Fear is overwhelming them, they have a good life and I think that this is the reason to be so weak. We want that they would come back into their senses, to realize the danger and to make a common front against this conspiracy.
    …

    The one I talked to you about is a Jew, under a different name, involved in secret services and in all political regimes, in corruption scandals involving various state corporations, but who succeeded always, thanks to his USA relationship. He got a kind of immunity, and who also admitted to me that he is a mason. I need to confess to you that he tried to recruit me in the businesses that he runs in Eastern Europe, through the USA investments, but first he wanted to see what kind of faith I have. And the discussion centered on the system of faiths. Being a Political Science graduate, I searched academically what they are trying to do, at ideological level and through political correctness. That fact drove me to a series of lectures about the fabricated nature of political correctness.

    So I found out about the big research and experimentation from the social sciences field, and about the so-called “think-thanks” of the Americans, of the British and of the other West Europeans… The discussion with that man gravitated about the nature of the new global and competitive economic system, where business development must be clearly understood.

    Inevitably, he accentuated that THE NEW MAN who must work and live in this system must be exclusively dedicated to lust, and not to understand the nature of his new bondage and to forget about ‘the old determinisms’ which used to give him affective stability: God, family, property and I might add, a certain sense of normality in regards to human relationships.
    The competitive side of the new individual is intensified, and also the idea that he can do anything through mental and technological techniques, and he can in this way to contribute to the creation of the egalitarian and utopian society, where salvation comes by a New God, the technology. At a personal level, I felt on my own skin while working in multinationals companies, the meaning of magic techniques. IT IS A SO-CALLED SOCIAL DARWINISM.

    I can tell you from my own experience, when I interacted according to these precepts, that every movement at the social level is studied assiduously, also the dynamic of every sin, and the way in which it contribute to the establishment of their new system and how THE SYSTEM must be inoculated in a ‘pleasant’ form. They call this aggression the ‘POLIFORMIC PERVERSITY’.

    I can tell you that the attack themes come from the study and planning centers of USA, as they have unlimited funds. The topics, which are the Trojan horse that every nation must receive ‘academically’, are then transposed into topics for academic research, at universities. Then, through research grants professors and students, in their recklessness, consider them as honor missions in the implementation of the dream to become EVOLVED and COMPETITIVE SOCIETIES. UNFORTUNATELY, I WAS SUCH A MAN. MAY GOD FORGIVE ME!

    I understood from the man that everything that he told me is A NEW FORM OF RELIGIOSITY: in what way man has to be, what is good for him to believe and how he functions and in which society he must live. Of course that the named form of TECHNOSOCIETY is a proposed stable society, where diseases are abolished, everybody has wealth, with the special promise TO LAST FOR EVER. Their only impediment is THE HUMAN NATURE itself, but that nature is to be suppressed through TRANSHUMANISM, a CROSS-BREED between MAN and MACHINE.

    The new idol is therefore THE TECHNOLOGY WHICH MERGES WITH MAGIC, the result being IMMORTALITY, through so-called Technological Prostheses, that is a gradual replacement of each organ with artificial ones, with an associated decryption of neural maps, so everything can be ‘transplanted’ on a hardware support. In this sense, they have a Science called OPTOGENETICS AND BIONICS, which are STUDIED in the most important UNIVESITIES.

    Everything functions in this society, by demonic inversion principles. And they are the new bishops, these eschatological elite, in self-righteousness by blood, who are to lead a flock of useful inept. They are gathered in a NEW UNIVERSAL PRIESTHOOD, AND THEY HOPE THERE IS NOT MUCH TIME LEFT UNTIL THEY WILL PRESENT TO PEOPLE THE TEMPLE OF WORSHIP, WITH THE GREAT BISHOP, THE ANTICHRIST. We live in times of great and intense errors. Hypnotized to return to walk in darkness and in the shadow of death, modern times are waiting for a conclusion.

    For about 100 years, the Western world entered the final phase of a nihilistic dialectic, as this Western world follows for more than 300 years a route of relativity to all values, like wanting to find a mundane self-salvation formula. The process, perfectly caught by Saint Seraphim Rose in his prophetic work “Nihilism and the Revolution of the Modern Age”, has as foundation the long journey of using rationality in aims deviated from specific missions, that is to reveal the Divine Reasons placed by God in His Creation. Consequences of the change are fatal in the Faith, the individual and in the social realms…

    From the true present offered by God to man, seeded for knowing and worshiping the Lord Who is the Supreme Reason of things, the human reason falls in a process of occult grounds… The employ of reason for its use in strict worldly directions is poison, which initially was tasted in theological sense by the Western world through roman-catholicism. This ‘theology’ rationalizes God Himself and confiscates the Christian Mystery and Revelation. Hitched on this path, the Western world allows itself along history, permeated by a heap of Gnosticisms, fake mysteries and esoteric doctrines.

    This ‘wealth’ of untrue ideas and philosophies arrived in Europe through Jewish and Arabic pathways which discovered the catholic ground, to establish an old and dangerous heresy: chiliasm! The establishment of a worldly kingdom, as a method of salvation through own means is practically the process to which many others adhere to! In the realm of this messianic religion, some Orthodox stick on, offering a strange help to Catholicism and Protestantism by raising the strange thought to a ‘superior dimension’ which promises to give a ‘final transcendence’: the metaphysical salvation through a ‘real’ Messiah.

    So the strange couple (an ‘Orthodox’ and a heretic) will be going together, deliberately on strategic stages, which are steps of an occult technique, built through science and technical achievements. The terminus point that we live today brings a grandiose construction: the anti-human made to fit into the new kingdom, a kingdom freed of all ‘mystical, irrational and historical’ constructs developed in the past. The demiurgic temptation is inevitable in making up the Brave New World, morally drained through equality, wellbeing and happiness. The New Messiah, the Great Inquisitor is to offer a worldly bread to the humankind, doing everything possible to annihilate the Rival…

    Losing the true taste of Salvation, the new human being wants to feed on this bread and has the thirst to build a strange factory as well, to add to the work newer and newer theories and ideologies capable to recommend to his new Eden the persuasive force of re-birth through a collective effort. This new work demands from its artisans an effort to research and investigate methods, techniques and the necessary tools to appease the longing for eternity which is still present in man. In this way all sciences of chemistry, physics and astronomy are born, reconstructing a new vision on the world and man.

    In this way we step into an ideological account with God and with the Crown of His Creation – the man. His new link to matter through sorcery cannot calm down the craving to a real unity with the Living God, the Only One Who can give him the living water. Found himself in this passionate and dependent connection with the physical universe, the new man will want to extend this vision to people associated politically and economically to the ‘enlightened despots’ of this world. This interdependent relation would be followed to last eternally, as it was of an eschatological built. The making of the new man is developed in antithesis with the Christian man. The debut of this construction started to take place with the French revolution, turning into a permanent revolution…

    The procedures target the change of human nature, so that this nature will be matched with the new project. These things were tried one after another, in our recent history: in regards to physical violence and theological, political, economical and social restrains. But these restrictions cannot equalize with the use of magic, in its multiple erotic and demonic denominations. Such forces are acting from outside, so the named restrictions of some older times couldn’t penetrate the final citadel of human consciousness and man’s freedom, the God’s gifts without which the struggle could have been lost. Therefore, our enemy redefined the fighting rules through subversively attacking the intimacy of our being, using procedures of assaulting the mind. The war against the mind, described by our Holy Fathers, is entering a new historical phase, facilitated by magic technologies, developed progressively.

    All these occult forces of Benedictine and Jesuit nests, established during Renaissance, entered Romania too, trying to grow with the science of the time which explained God rationally, in attempts to create a mythology… In a book written by Ioan P. Culianu (“Eros and Magic in the Renaissance”) there is an account of such things, in the person of Giordano Bruno, the magician who by excellence provided a social control tool in the hands of the illuminated despots of future times, as… today: the magic of eroticism!
    The author wrote: “The magician is busy today with public relationship, propaganda, market prospects, sociological surveys, advertisements, information, counter-information and disinformation, censorship, spying and cryptography operations, because all these things were branches of witchcraft during the XVI century. This key figure of contemporary society represents nothing else but an addition to the Bruno-nian manipulator, whose principals are followed with a care to give them a technical and impersonal formula.

    “Wrongfully, historians drew the conclusion that witchcraft and magic disappeared with the apparition of present quantitative science. Actually, this ‘science’ did nothing else but to substitute itself to a part of this enchantment, prolonging life to magic in its dreams and purposes through technology. Electricity, rapid transportation, radio, television, airplane and the computer did nothing else but to produce things formulated firstly by witchcraft and belonged to the supernatural procedures of the magician: making light, moving instantaneously from a place to another, communication within regions far away from each other, flying through the air and acquiring an infallible memory.

    “Technology, could be said, is a democratic magic which allows to anyone to enjoy the extraordinary faculties of the magician. On contrary, nothing replaced witchcraft on its territory that is the one of the relationships of subjects. Of the same measure of the operational part of sociology, psychology and applied socio-psychology of today, which are direct tools belonging to magic jugglers of Renaissance.

    “What kind of result would be generated through the knowledge of inter-subjective relationship? A homogenous society, ideologically healthy and governable. The manipulator, according to G. Bruno, takes this load for giving a proper education and religion, to his subjects: “we must have an extreme care in regards to the place and the way that somebody is educated, the studies that one follows, under a certain pedagogy, in a particular religion, or a specific cult, and what books and what authors are there. Because these things generate through themselves, and not through accident, all the qualities necessary of the subject.”

    Culianu continues: “It is not necessary to have imagination to understand that the function of the Brunian’s manipulator was taken by the State, and that ‘integrated magician’ has the duty to invent necessary ideological tools for making a uniform society. (…) Magic is a method of control for the individual, of the masses, based on profound knowledge in regards to the private and collective erotic pulsations. Not just the psycho-analysis forefather could be recognized in the process, but firstly the one who founded applied psychology and psychology of the masses” and, it could be added: the old devil that is the deceiver and enemy of human kind, as he is father of all magicians and sorcerers.

    In regards to the application of magic as an institutionalized science of today, especially in psychology and sociology sciences for the establishment of a ‘society without classes’, we have the projects developed at the beginning of the 20th century, initially in Europe through the famous Frankfurt School. Later on, it continued in United States at the great American universities, for identifying a cultural and ideological formula, through which Christianity could be attacked, as the Faith in Christ is a social and cultural underlining which can stop the emergence of socialism in western countries.

    The anarchic ferment, socialism, is the eschatological doctrine of Judaism, which is through its nature an attempt to set up at the top of humanity a revolutionary synedrium, an organization having possession of absolute knowledge. Armed with a hidden ideology, under the cover of struggling for human kind and internationalized through bloody revolutions, this dogma needs to define itself in an antithetic report with its eternal enemy: Christianity. Using the philosophical procedure in a Hegelian dialectic of thesis-antithesis-synthesis, socialism concealed itself in democracy, and then it builds a permanent opposed pole, politically, economically, socially and religiously. Being manufactured on the logics of a system, it needs control and synchronicity, so that this art of deception with the dialectic poles united is perfectly controllable in its synthesis. Once finalized, the new establishment has the aspiration to stop any possible revolution, as it is a perfect closed system.

    To understand the epistemological mechanism is absolutely necessary for understanding the ‘mystery’ of this type of eclectic and occult system. In its historical journey there are numerous such thesis-antithesis situations: democracy vs. monarchy, democracy vs. communism or fascism, capitalism vs. governance, single party vs. multiparty, traditional family vs. feminism or homosexualism, nationalism vs. internationalism, national culture vs. multiculturalism, national religion vs. religious syncretism or ecumenism, Orthodoxy vs. Catholicism, etc.

    The effort to build a synthesis of antagonistic poles is considerable and needs a magician ‘gift’ to present this arrangement as a credible solution, a ‘pacifier’ salvation. The centers of ideological planning are moving, function of historical context. During the 19th century we had Paris and London to trigger ‘democratic’ revolutions on this continent, followed by the ones in USA. During the 20th century, Moscow, through its Comintern, plays a fundamental role as a pole contrasting to the Western democracies, these multi-religious, multi-party, multi-ethnicity and anti-traditional capitalists. At that time they started the scaffolding progression towards the legal ‘human rights’, by which they started to trial the Christian tradition.

    The illusion functions perfectly due to mass-media, and ‘public opinion’ is fabricated – a god of modern world. An infallible forum, public opinion, is a phantasmagoric construct that was developed theoretically and practically be Paul Lazersfeld, who tested its validity during presidential elections in USA (after the ww2). This ‘public opinion’ has as a background an intellectual fraud of a so-called ‘knowledge of human perceptions and human behaviors through investigative methods of quantitative order’.

    It is desired to legitimize the ‘demo-kratos’ through arguments of a quantitative criterion, which imposed itself by the force of number versus the qualitative and personal criterion of Christianity. Justification is skillful, because once humankind is controlled as a number and placed in quantitative equations, he can be operated with in pure mathematical terms. The ‘operator’ has the duty to justify the greatest number, which could impose the wished agenda of the day. So that the problem of human values is decided as an equation with multiple and unknown terms, where the only difficulty resided in ‘time and method’, to be solved.

    Created by the well-known Frankfurter School, the methods of investigation toward the mind of the subjects are part of the arsenal of techniques described by Ioan P. Culianu: it is the Giordano Bruno’s theories, in regards to the use of demonic and erotic black art. This Renaissance man appears on the world stage due to his intellectual pseudomorphosis, an effort leading to a disguise into science.

    Initially established in Soviet Union, in Moscow, under the name of Marxism Institute, the School moved to Frankfurt and then to Chicago, being the outpost where a great number of people of culture and science activated, most of them being Jewish. Around this anti-Christian pole, the great international forces, both of the Comintern and Westerners as well, gathered to find a scientific consistency, which means to find the magic for providing political and financial continuity. Amongst the organizations drawn together we could identify a few: the Rockefeller Foundation, the American Jewish Committee, B’nai Brith lodge, Intelligent Services, the International Labor Organization, the Comintern, CBS, US High Commissioner for Germany, Office of Strategic Services, etc.

    Initially, the coryphaei were Antonio Gramsci, Georg Lukacs, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, and also Gershom Scholem, who was one of the most famous philosophers from Israel, the most significant modern Gnostic of Judaism. There were common activities coordinated under the baguette of Siegfried Kracauer, at rabbi Nehemiah Nobel’s residence from Frankfurt, a house which became a sionist saloon. Parts of this melting pot were also Martin Buber, student Leo Lowenthal and illustrious Eric Fromm. Scholem even stated in his book “From Berlin to Jerusalem” in regards to the essence of this sionist centre, that this place was the site of the most remarkable Jewish sect, a product of the German Judaism.

    In 1924, Theodor Adorno got familiarized with the occult doctrine and with the theories belonging to Otto Gross, an extremist Freudian practitioner. It was developed the theory that mental health could be reached only through a rebirth of the old cult of Astarte (who is “an ancient Semitic deity, goddess of fertility and reproduction worshiped by the Phoenicians and Canaanites”- http://www.dictionary.com/browse/astarte). This demonic sect is to destroy monotheism and the ‘bourgeoisie family’. It was promoted a cult of deviant sexual relationships, which would hold a ‘liberation’ role of the patriarchal values. There were established, theoretically, the new esthetics which targeted Christian art, to be transformed into divertissement for masses, as well as the change of the music type through radio and film technologies, all of these acquiring the role to alienate the listener away from the real value of classical masterpieces.

    They are financially supported by Rockefeller Foundation new research, related to social effects of the new mass media, especially radio. The great American universities are given the responsibility to cleansing the history and to present it as being an unstoppable manifestation of the progress and evolution, and Darwinist evolutionism as a mechanism for explaining the history was ‘officially’ introduced: man becomes the son of ape…

    Slowly-slowly, all the developments from the field of technology and education are under the influence of ideological desideratum, to create a new religion for masses, coerced at submission under the democratic wish of ‘public opinion’, in fact a new form of socialist dictatorship of a politically correct type, that combines magical, utopian Marxism, radical freudism and new technologies of neo-hypnotic pleasures.

    In accordance with the Psycho-political Manual, used for the socialist conquer of Westerners by the Comintern, “man can be trained as a dog…he must be lowered and transformed from a being with spiritual life in a rat with animal reactions. The first thing that must be degraded in any nation is the status of the human being. Nations that have a lifted ethical level are hard to conquer. Their feelings and convictions are hard to shake, their loyalty towards leaders of their country is great and what they usually have as a their spiritual integrity is impossible to violate through constraint and brutality”…

    Created at Washington D.C. in the early ‘30s, the “University of Psycho-policy – Lenin”, from which manual we quoted – was ruled by the feared Beria, the NKVD boss. Their objectives, declared anti Christian, were presented by him in the context of victories ‘accomplished’ by socialist-sionist circles, from the beginning of the 20th century in USA. Quotation: “In USA we fought from beginning to destroy all foreign influence and we were successful. Even that today we look to tolerate the Christians, let us never forget that our fight to influence the Christian world, coercing it to act according to our objectives, is not over yet. After we will be finishing this job, we can say that the Church’s influence of everything will stop. Look at the faithful from Russia: they look like some trained monkeys. If all apes from the other countries will have faith in us, they will not realize that they are just some tethered animals on a long chain.”

    We have to act before this ‘religion’ term will be synonymous with madness. We have to act before the official representatives of the city, or of the land, or the states leaders will think no more and will start the attack against the spiritual groups considered to be the enemies of people.

    In regards to the Orthodox Church and Her Priests, Beria said in his ‘teachings’: “If we want to reform bishoprics, we have to study with care which are the powerful ones, to take an energetic activity near the bishops who follow the adaptation line to our new times of progress, to attract the ones who are not yet decided, to attack and isolate the few bishops who still have an attitude and a reactionary behavior, the ones who are insolent and hostile.”
    We have here, briefly, the main guidelines as followed until today by the ones who lead nations and even the Church. The assimilation strategy for the Church towards globalism, a thing that is the ‘great synthesis’, according to Judaism, was confirmed by the representatives of the so-called ‘chosen people’, whose current activities in the Orthodox countries are to annihilate the ‘reactionary’ Christian centers opposing the syncretism wave. Actually the logic of synchronicity and total control are applied at all levels, while multiparty illusion is maintained with great ability through television and different other media.

    In terms of the Orthodox spirituality, the things desired by the enemies of Christ are a ‘reformed and continually updated dogma’. The control over this process is a drastic one, without any deviation. We need to remember that the ones who are the masters of this process have a fanatical motivation. They want to make Christianity not more than a society acting philanthropically, a sort of an addition to a public morality, regulated by overseas laboratories. The most important dogmatic part will be reformed so that it will be corresponding to the Jewish Noahide laws, a series of commands of moral order, somehow inspired by the Ten Commandments.

    Actuality the Noahide laws are Jewish with some faint Christian elements, but also apt to incorporate elements of cabalistic and esoteric makeup. In regards to these Noahide laws, we found these details: “Public Law 102-14 is an American federal law which states that the “Seven Noahide Laws” (Laws from the Jewish Babylonian Talmud) are the principle on which the United States was founded, and that it is the responsibility of America to transmit these “ethical values” to future generation both in the United States and the world.” (http://www.noahidelaw.org/why-repeal-public-law-102-14-and-noahide-law/)
    In fact, not to steal and not to lie are of a real use to the system of this New World Order… Just for a future ‘update’ of the whole lot: http://noahide.org/2016/02/22/summit-mobilizing-cultural-and-religious-ethics-for-agenda-2030-3/

    (to be continued…)

     

  • The Spirit of Antichrist and the Forerunner of Antichrist

    By Archbishop Averky

    http://archbishopaverky.blogspot.com.au/2011/02/spirit-of-antichrist-and-forerunner-of.html

    From the second chapter of St. Paul’s Second Epistle to the Thessalonians it is clear that the teaching about the Antichrist enters into the content of the earliest apostolic evangelization. After giving a description of the Antichrist in the third and fourth verses of that chapter, the holy Apostle writes further to the Thessalonians. “Do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you this?” (1 Thess. 5:5) One cannot help considering it noteworthy that in the short period that he spent in Thessalonika that holy Apostle Paul not only did not pass over the teaching on the Antichrist in silence, as something of secondary nature and not very important, but rather considered it necessary to expound this teaching in complete detail. And in this, his second epistle, he merely repeats what he had earlier said about the Antichrist with his own mouth.

    But why is it so important to know this teaching?

    Because, as the Holy Fathers warn us beforehand, he who ignores this teaching, considering it unimportant and not essential in Christianity, will not recognize the Antichrist and will worship him.

    But is it really possible not to recognize the Antichrist?

    Yes, it is possible! This is what Bishop Ignatii (Brianchaninov), who collected into one place everything said about Antichrist by the ancient Holy Fathers, says about it: [quotes from Vol. IV, p. 297]

    “Antichrist will call himself a preacher and restorer of true knowledge of God: those who do not understand Christianity will see in him a representative and champion of true religion and will join themselves to him. Antichrist will appear to be gentle, merciful, full of love and of all virtues: he will be recognized as such and obeyed on account of his most exalted virtues by those who recognize fallen human nature as the truth… Antichrist will offer to mankind the organization of the highest earthly well-being and prosperity, he will offer honors, wealth, majesty, and bodily comforts and pleasures: those who seek earthly things will accept the Antichrist and call him their master. Antichrist will reveal before mankind a shameful display of striking miracles similar to the cunning presentation of the theater… he will instill fear by the terrors and wonders of his miracles, and by them satisfy vanity and human pride, he will satisfy carnal sophistry and superstition, and will confuse human learning: all men who are guided by the light of their fallen nature and who are foreign to guidance by the Light of God will be attracted to obey the deceiver.” The Antichrist will be accepted with excitement by apostates from Christianity, but is deserving of deep attention and mourning, as the Holy Fathers note, that the chosen themselves will be uncertain about the person of the Antichrist, so skillfully will he be able to conceal from external observation the Satanic evil roots in him. “The Antichrist’s opponents will be considered trouble-makers and enemies of the general welfare and good order, they will be subjected to both concealed and open persecution, torture, and execution.” All who refuse to worship the Antichrist will fall into the most painful and difficult position: “their small number will seem insignificant before all mankind, and their opinion will be thought especially feeble, subject to general contempt, hatred slander, and oppression; violent death will be their lot.”

    Pious Reader: Do you not find that the picture described above to some extent reminds one of what is already going on in the world?

    Yes! But where is the Antichrist? Has he come already?

    We do not see yet Antichrist himself, but his spirit obviously is settling in and already beginning to rule in the world. A large number of forerunners of Antichrist are preparing with tremendous energy for his arrival, his triumph, and his enthronement among mankind. Of course, a very long and considered preparation is necessary for the Antichrist to be able to be accepted amongst Christian people. It has been and is being conducted from the very times of the Apostles with every greater intensity. Thus, even the Apostle St. John the Theologian wrote in his First General Epistle: “Every spirit which does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God: but that is the spirit of Antichrist, of which you have heard that it should come, and even now it is already in the world” (1 John 4:3). “Who is a liar but he that denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is Antichrist, that denies the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22), and finally, “As you have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists” (1 John 2:18). The learned commentator on the Holy Scripture, Bishop Michael, remarks that in the Greek original the name “Antichrist” has the definite article, which completely distinguishes this name as that of a well-known, definite person, while the other “antichrists” do not have a definite article and, consequently, as being “many,” are distinguished from him. These “many antichrists” are only the forerunners of that Antichrist who will appear before Christ’s second Coming and the end of the world: they are, as it were, “reflections” of their “Prototype” – the individual Antichrist who is to come. They bear the spirit of Antichrist, and it is their task to lay the proper groundwork for the advent of Antichrist and to create propitious circumstances for his appearance in the world.

    These “forerunners” of the Antichrist also direct that world-wide process which the Apostle St. Paul called “apostasy” (II Thess. 2:3). The essence of this process is Christian mankind’s ever greater departure from the genuine, uncorrupted teaching of the Gospel and the replacement of the Gospel commands with other ideals. The destructive nature of these ideals proposed to mankind by the Antichrist’s forerunners is that they sometimes seem acceptable for Christians, compatible with Christianity, while in reality they are profoundly opposed to it; they gratify human passions and lusts and confirm mankind’s fallen nature in its fallen state.

    Can one trace this process of “apostasy” in history and in life?

    One both can and should! One should, in order to save oneself and one’s neighbor from being attracted into this process, draw back from it, save oneself from being infected by the spirit of Antichrist which more and more is taking over the world.

    The devil, of course, could not reconcile himself to the appearance of Christianity in the world, and so from the times of the Apostles we see the “spirit of Antichrist” at work in Christian people. The first “forerunners of Antichrist” were Simon Magus, Cerinthus, and the Nicolaitians, with whom the Holy Apostles had to fight. Then came the Gnostics and a whole crowd of every possible sort of heretic with which the Holy Fathers and teachers of the Church had to fight over the course of several centuries. In the first ten centuries of the Christian era the spirit of genuine faith and piety was, however, still strong enough in Christians that it enjoyed every time a brilliant victory over the “spirit of Antichrist”… and the Church of Christ, despite all the heavy trials it endured, was triumphant over its enemies.

    But then by the middle of the eleventh century the “spirit of Antichrist” had so firmly taken root in the West that it was able to completely tear away a whole half of Christendom from union with the Universal Church. The result of this was “Papism” with its many and varied departures from genuine Christian teaching on faith and piety – with its newly conceived dogmas, defective morality, indulgences, the “sacred inquisition”, and similar perversions.

    This was the first decisive victory of the “forerunners of Antichrist”.

    Others soon followed it.

    At the end of the middle ages, to totally root out the remnants of Christianity, the same “spirit of Antichrist” conceived in the bosom of “Papism”, which had torn itself away from the true Orthodox Faith, movements which were completely opposed to Christianity – unrestrained free thought, “humanism”, which places man himself in the place of God, and…. finally…. “atheism” or total godlessness. It was not without the strong influence of those movements that there occurred in the 16th century a schism within the Papal church organization itself, becoming known as “Protestantism”, which supposedly undertook to reform the Church, but which in reality went further on the way of “apostasy” and denied the very essence of the Church. Protestantism in turn began more and more to break up into fragments, “sects” – many of which at the present time have departed so far from Christianity that they deny its most important dogmas and even faith in the Divinity of the Founder of Christianity, the Lord Jesus Christ. This process by which the bigoted and ridiculous new sects are constantly arising has not stopped even now. It is extremely characteristic how clearly the “spirit of Antichrist” is manifested in all these sects. The majority, if not all, of them talk a lot about the Second Coming of Christ and await him with special impatience and excitement (i.e., Adventists), but they are silent about the advent of the Antichrist which will precede it, or else they affirm that the Antichrist already exists in the person of the Pope of Rome. Typical in this regard was the conference held in Evanston, organized by Protestants and sectarians and conducted under the device: “Christ – The Hope of the World”. Much, very much was said at this conference about the “Second Coming of Christ” and about the blessings which it would bring to men on earth (!?), but there was total silence about the Antichrist! Does this not naturally lead one to the thought that Protestants and sectarians are gradually being prepared by their leaders to accept the Antichrist when he appears as Christ Himself?

    At the same time the clearly antichristian teachings of materialism, socialism, and Marxism-communism are appearing and being propagandized in the West, and social and political organizations with secret worship of Satan are spreading their nets ever wider, acting just as the Antichrist himself will act, “with diabolical craftiness and hypocrisy” (as Bishop Ignatii puts it). The heads of these organizations, these truly “foxes in heart and wolves in soul” (as St. Nilus the Myrrh-gusher of Mt. Athos said) are gradually taking control through out the whole world not only of public and political life, but also of people’s religious life. This is all directed to one goal – the preparation of conditions propitious for humanity’s accepting the Antichrist and worshipping him as its king and god.

    The chief hindrance on the way to the attaining of this goal was Orthodox Russia, the only powerful support of the true Orthodox Christian faith in the world with its Emperor, the sovereign defender and protector of the whole Orthodox Church. In the course of two centuries the “forerunners” of the Antichrist worked systematically and stubbornly to transform the Russian Orthodox Empire into the atheist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. When this was achieved, a new effort was undertaken with the aim of destroying the Orthodox Church itself, working simultaneously in two directions: by means of horrible, unheard of persecutions, all but surpassing the persecutions of the first centuries of Christianity; and by means of dissolution from within, with the help of Living Church ideas, renovationism, and the planting of all sorts of free-thinking modernist tendencies in the spirit of Protestantism. In the end, in most Orthodox countries which survived devastation, the remnants of the local Churches were made into sorry tools of a power at war with God. Bountiful fruit, however, had been gathered by the “spirit of Antichrist” in other Orthodox churches too, which remained free. They are strongly infected by the poison of free-thinking liberalism and modernism which is leading them to merger with Protestantism. Thank God, there is still a remnant in them which has not bowed the knee before the “spirit of Antichrist” which is ever more and more raising its head! Our Russian Church Abroad is still remaining firm also, although the followers of the approaching Antichrist have created a destructive schism in it, and now they are trying to destroy it completely, wipe it off the face of the earth, using for this all possible means, the chief of which is lying and slander, the natural weapons of the father of lies and slander from the beginning, the devil.

    The spectacle in the world is in general quite without cheer, and would be a cause to get discouraged and fall into despair if we did not know that “it is thus written” in the Word of God and all of this must be so.

    What should we do and how should we react?

    “Apostasy is permitted by God”, as one of the great instructors in the spiritual life of our time Bishop Ignatii (Brianchaninov) teaches us, “do not attempt to stop it with your powerless hand. Flee from it yourself, protect yourself from it; that is enough for you to do. Learn to know the spirit of the age, study it, so whenever possible you will be able to avoid its influence… Only God’s special mercy is able to stop this all-destroying moral epidemic, to stop it for a while, because it is necessary that everything foretold by the Scriptures happen. Judging by the spirit of the times and the intellectual ferment one must suppose that the building of the Church, which has been shaking for some time, will fall quickly and horribly. There is no one to stop and oppose it. The measures undertaken to support it are borrowed and hasten its fall, rather than stopping it. There is no one who can be expected to restore Christianity! The vessels of the Holy Spirit have finally dried up everywhere, even in the monasteries, those treasures of piety and grace… The salt has lost its savor. In the chief pastors of the Church there remains only a weak, dim, inconsistent and incorrect understanding according to the “letter” which kills the spiritual life in Christian society and destroys Christianity, which is an action, not a letter. It is distressing to see to whom the sheep of Christ have been entrusted, to whom their direction and salvation have been committed. But this has been permitted by God… God’s merciful patience delays and postpones the decisive disintegration for the small remnant of those being saved, while those who are decaying or have decayed attain the fullness of their corruption. Those who are being saved must understand this and make use of the time given them for salvation. May the merciful Lord shield the remnant of those who believe in Him! But, this remnant is meager and is becoming more and more so… “Let him who is being saved save his soul,” [Vol. IV and the Patericon] says the Spirit of God to remnant Christians.

    Since the time when Bishop Ignatii wrote this, the situation in the world has grown worse, not better. “Since the Antichrist will have as his main task the drawing away of everyone from Christ,” says the other great spirit-filled preceptor of our time, Bishop Theophan the Recluse, “he will not appear as long as royal authority remains in force. It will not allow him to develop, it will hinder his acting in his own spirit. This, then, is the “one who holds back” (II Thess. 2:7). But when royal authority falls, and the people everywhere institute self-government (republics, democracies), then there will be room for the Antichrist to act. It will not be hard for Satan to prepare voices in favor of renouncing Christ, as experience showed during the French revolution. There will be no one to pronounce an authoritative veto. And so when such regimes, suitable for disclosing the Antichrist’s aspirations are instituted everywhere, then the Antichrist will appear. [Commentary on II Thess. 2:6, page 504]

    What Bishop Theophan predicted has happened: the Antichrist’s “forerunners” have done their job – the “spirit of Antichrist” is installed everywhere, having everywhere established “regimes suitable for disclosing the Antichrist’s aspirations”. Remembering Bishop Ignatii’s words that “the Antichrist will be logical, just, and the natural result of the general moral and spiritual direction of mankind”, we leave it to the reader attentive to surrounding life to draw his own conclusions from what has been said above, while, on our part, we can only repeat: “Let him who is being saved save his soul!”

    Translated by Father deacon Seraphim Johnson, The Present Times in the Light of God’s Word: Sermons and Speeches, Vol. 1, pp. 71-77, St. Job of Pochaev Press, Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, New York

  • Heresy, the sin against the Holy Spirit

    In todays Christianity the questions of whether various denominations have grace or not, and to what degree, are being asked more than ever. Let us therefore try to put out a simple argument on why there is no grace outside the Orthodox Church.

    There are many Holy Fathers stating this exact position, but there are some people that use the writings found in various sources, including Orthodox, to argue against it. We thought it would be appropriate to say a few words on the subject.

    Deuteronomy 4:2 says: “Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you”. Nothing can be taken away or added to the truth. Christ also said (Mark 3:29) “But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation”. And again, in John 16:13 we read: “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.”

    Examining these three paragraphs it becomes clear that The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, and whomever sins against the Holy Spirit, meaning against the Spirit of Truth, shall not be forgiven (not by us but by God – we can only acknowledge this warning to keep away). So what does this mean? The problem is not that the heretics say half truths, it is that they say half-lies! By this they sin against the Spirit of Truth and are fallen from grace.

    We should not mistake half-truths with half-lies. Speaking half-truth is when someone only speaks some truth because that is all he knows, yet he can be saved! But when someone speaks half-lies, he has fallen.

    The Truth has been revealed by God to men directly (through Christ), or through the Holy Spirit. The seven ecumenical synods are the prime example of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit and the revelation of Truth to man. Any new teaching that contradicts previously revealed truths is a lie.

    Heresy is therefore the sin against the Holy Spirit.

  • Open letter to the Holy Pan Orthodox Synod of 2016*

    Holy Hierarchs of the Pan Orthodox Synod,

    Let us start by remembering our Holiness Metropolitan Paul Saliba of the Antiochian Orthodox Church of Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines. Let us also remember the founders of our Holy Mission, Holy Metropolitan Philaret of New York, Fr Vladimir Evsukoff, Archbishop John Maximovic the founder of the Monastery of St Herman of Alaska in California and our dear Fathers of Platina Seraphim Rose and Herman Podmoshenski who we have a special reverence for.

    Dear Holy Hierarchs gathering for the Holy Synod of 2016,

    much has been written about the concerns in the Orthodox community in regards to some of provisions included on the agenda of the Synod. While the focus seems to have been mainly on one particular point so far, point eight on the agenda, there is another one which in our view also has significant implications for the future of Orthodoxy, and what we are referring here to is point ten (at least on the initial list): “The Mission of the Orthodox Church in Today’s World – The contribution of the Orthodox Church to the attainment of peace, justice, freedom, brotherhood and love between peoples and the removal of racial and other discrimination”.

    While point eight seems to be, in the view of many concerned Orthodox Christians, an ecclesiastical unity (communion) with other confessions, point ten seems to be more focused on a unity of action against a set of common challenges that have arisen in the world and seem to be re-defining the mission of the Church towards an earthly, chiliastic end. In order for us to try to get to the point, please let us make a few references to the document which starts by stating the goal of positioning the Orthodox Church as the pillar for achieving “peace, justice, freedom, brotherhood and love between peoples and the removal of racial and other discrimination“, in other words achieving a perfect society. The document tries to argue that the “hope of peace, justice and love is not a utopia“, and “true peace is the fruit of the triumph on earth of all these Christian principles”. The document also states that “the ecological crisis, harnessed to climate change and global warming, makes it incumbent upon the Church to do everything within her spiritual power to aid the protection of God’s creation from the consequences of human greed”.

    For an Orthodox Christian closely observing the developments in the world it is hard to fail to see that these sort of goals are also found on UN’s agenda 2030 (formerly known as Agenda 21), which in principle state the same goals, a list of which can be found by navigating to the following link:

    https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld

    For a simple Orthodox Christian who knows that the Kingdom of God is not of this Earth which is in a fallen state (thus plagued by iniquities and lawlessness and destined to complete destruction), the question as to why such goals would become part of the doctrine of the Church, where it has never been the case before, raises some serious questions. One who lived under Communism (and many did for many years) most of these goals can be recognized as the same exact ideals this kind of ideology set as its goals. In the writings of Fathers Seraphim Rose and Herman Podmoshenski (both of blessed memory), which for various reasons is mostly unknown today although it was never condemned as heretical, there can be found some very specific references to the dangers of the Church slipping through and falling into a position in which it may start to preach a form of “Communist Christianity”. Much of the material we are referring to hereby is available on our website.

    Knowing that every of the previous seven Orthodox Councils (or Synods) have always tried to be representative of all Orthodox Christians, we are hereby making an appeal to the upcoming Synod to consider the above concerns we and others share, holding the view that if such a council is to be representative of all Orthodox Christians these concerns should be addressed.

    For those wishing to express their support, please follow the facebook link below, or write us at orthodoxaustralia@yahoo.com.au

    https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1071030092977174&id=100002105812678

    Related articles:
    http://orthodoxaustralia.org/2016/04/22/the-chiliastic-end-of-the-upcoming-pan-orthodox-synod/

    *the current version of this petition may not be final

  • War on the western elites

    Have you ever wondered how point 10, the “social justice” on the synod agenda looks like? Have a look at this.

    https://youtu.be/XfSPgO-4uJA

    Orthodox Australi has been documenting for years how it would look like, and the war on the elites of the world was a pivotal point.