Author: orthodoxaustralia

ACT legalizing same gender marriages:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/act-prepares-to-debate-gay-marriage-bill/story-fn3dxiwe-1226744206090

A Church that finds itself in need of spiritual renewal has truly lost its way!

Much has been written on our blog about the charismatic revival movement Blessed Seraphim Rose talked so much about, but it may appear that it is only starting to happen that his words are becoming truly prophetic. The charismatic revival movement seems to finally be catching up with mainstream Orthodoxy – and in a big way. That is the case at least with Romania and we are bringing it up because we are sure similar movements are sweeping through most official Orthodox Churches.

On a recent trip we took to Romania we came to face a completely new phenomena, and to be honest, of which we have not even heard much even though we do try to keep up with the events happening in the orthodox world. There is a new movement everyone is talking about: The Army of The Lord (or Oastea Domnului in Romanian). Five years ago nobody even heard about it and now it is on everyone’s lips in the Romanian Orthodox Church. While in Romania we did attend a few liturgical services in various Churches and something unfamiliar caught our attention when we heard Oastea Domnului being mentioned during the calling to remembrance of the Holy Gifts. That was something we could not remember hearing before. And then we heard about it in normal conversations with many other people.

The first thing that fascinated us is how everyone sees the members of this movement as some sort of “something special”. “Those people are members of Oastea Domnului” we were being whispered in the Church. We asked to find out more details about it. And we did. We found out that Oastea Domnului is in fact a grass-roots movement (or that is what they are trying to make it look like) inside the official Church with the declared goal of “renewing” it from within (see http://orthodoxwiki.org/Army_of_the_Lord). Where have we heard that before?

Well, why renew the Church? Does this imply that the Romanian Orthodox Church need to be renewed? One should ask why. Is it because its people do not recognize in it the true apostolic Church it was meant to be? Or is it because it is not fulfilling its mission of bringing people closer to God? Is it because it is not confessing the whole truth any more? Is it because this institution has become an abstract entity and been devoid-ed of any ability to answer to any practical, day-to-day needs and questions of its own flock? Or is it all of these? In a Church that is pretending to be confessing the truth unaltered as handed down from the Holy Fathers, why is there a need for such an inner group? Is there more truth to be confessed than in the mainstream Church? These are indeed questions worth asking, because this is exactly the same recipe through which protestantism formed inside the Catholic Church. Once the Catholic Church deviated from the truth it became a breeding ground for unimaginable heresies, and the Orthodox Church is going down the same path to perdition.

What struck us even more is that in order to become part of this movement one needs to take an oath. Oath? What for? Did not Christ say not to swear neither by heaven nor by earth? Here is what we read on Oastea Domnului‘s website (in Romanian):

De aceea, oricine intră în Oastea Domnului trebuie să ia în faţa Domnului şi a fraţilor din Oastea Domnului o hotărâre şi să facă un legământ că se leapădă cu totul de felul păcătos şi rău de viaţă de dinainte – şi că se predă cu totul din acea clipă înainte Domnului Iisus Hristos, ca să trăiască pentru El.

In English, the member-to-be takes an oath that from that moment on he or she will give up sinning and dedicate himself/herself totally to the Lord. Just like in the protestant practices when just by accepting Jesus, one is cured of all sin on the spot and is all of a sudden a “new” person. We also heard some people saying that members of Oastea Domnului often refer to pentecostals and people of other denominations as “brothers”.

What could be farther from Orthodoxy? But this is not all. For example we would like to point out a very strange new practice, linked to the activities of Oastea Domnului, which can be found at Nicula monastery in Transilvania where people get on their knees and elbows and go around the Church multiple times, there in the sight of everybody else – just like Francis of Assisi tied himself up by the neck and got his disciple to drag him around so people could see how sinful he was.

So it may appear that what Father Arsenie Boca depicted in his painted prophecy in the Church at Draganescu is starting to come true. He depicted Francis of Assisi amongst the Orthodox saints and many people ask why, but few understand …

This is why it is so important to read Fr Seraphim’s Orthodox Survival Course (and we urge you to contact us at admin [at] orthodoxaustralia.org to get a copy) – it is because it explains in great detail the dangers hidden behind these “spiritual renewal” movements. The Church was created by God complete and in perfect order and does not require “renewal” or “improvements” but preservation. A Church that finds itself in need of spiritual renewal has truly lost its way. Fr Cleopa Ilie and other recent fathers of the Romanian Orthodox Church did raise the alarm about Oastea Domnului. Are we listening?

Many people today compare Oastea Domnului to the Legion of Archangel Michael that formed at the beginning of the 20th century in Romania and see similarities, where in fact the differences are quite significant: the legion was an external entity to the Church which fought mainly against communism and the political system of that time (communism rightly appeared as the number one enemy of the Church – see, in those times the enemy was external to the Church, today it is within it), where Oastea Domnului is an internal group formed within the Church that fights to change it from inside – so the goal is completely opposite – one fought to defend the Church, the other fights to change it. Also, the “oath” the members of the legion were taking was more a declaration of adherence to a set of principles rather than a firm pledge before God to not sin again – and upon more careful examination other differences may be found.

We will follow up with other articles on this subject.

So the debt ceiling problem was “solved” once more by postponing it again until February 2014. Analysts say what that means is we may have until April. It may appear this is the last time the can got kicked down the road …

In an ominous sign, something very strange happened on the House of Representatives floor during negotiations over the debt ceiling of the past few days …
http://sgtreport.com/2013/10/congressional-stenographer-dragged-off-house-floor-for-biblical-rant-against-freemasons-you-cant-serve-two-masters/

After watching the political games being played in Washington, it became very clear that the crisis can not originate in a political decision around the debt ceiling, and that people will fold in the end to pressure. Instead, the coming crisis will have to have been trigger by a “black-swan” type event.

In an disturbing move, JP Morgan Chase has been confirmed to be starting implementing capital controls as soon as November. We believe this may be linked to the soon-to-be-revealed gold and silver price manipulation scandal we have talked about before, and that the measure is a preparation for the event – which may mean bailing-in of JP Morgan:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-16/creeping-capital-controls-jpmorgan-chase
http://www.naturalnews.com/042529_Chase_bank_capital_controls_financial_red_alert.html
http://www.infowars.com/chase-employees-admit-orders-from-top-to-limit-cash-for-unknown-reasons/

And BTW, that tapering talk, was after all another trick to just postpone and deceive:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-17/kiss-tapering-goodbye

In other news:

Ft. Hood Gears Up For Financial Collapse

USDA Orders States to Withhold Electronic Food Stamps

Government Program to Control Religious Thought?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2275258/Phillip-Marshall-Former-airline-pilot-conspiracy-theorist-shot-dead-teenage-children-dog-turning-gun-himself.html

From:http://saccsiv.wordpress.com/2013/10/17/scrii-despre-teoria-conspiratiei-risti-sa-te-sinucizi-dupe-ce-ti-ai-omorat-copii/

http://www.cuttingedge.org/News/n1753.cfm

It’s all for your protections from the bad people:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHc-YIBfcK0
Creepy way to end an ad (minute 2:59)

…and by the way, we are terrorists without knowing; we just need to keep up with the legislation. Soon maybe Orthodoxy will be declared radical theology, hence outlawed:
http://rt.com/news/fbi-terrorists-guide-security-171/

God bless

http://freepatriot.org/2013/09/18/watch-fema-dhs-386000-foreign-troops-now-on-u-s-soil-obama-issuing-martial-law-in-october/

We all know that there are two types of deeds, the good ones and the evil ones. In any of the events of helping a neighbour to open a blocked gate or not helping somebody who is to collapse in front of a moving vehicle, God forbid, one has to decide why a given action had to be taken, according to own conscience which knows the answer. Thoughts always precede deeds. Many of the intimate ideas and opinions that one has, one would not divulge to others, of course! Obviously, ‘someone’ who is not your friend would want to know such intimate thoughts (good or bad) of yours. In case of witnessing Christ, such deed can be endangered by your enemy with ‘new’ types of coercions and threats. Of course, there is a ‘diplomatic’ method according to this world, which is a way of confining the truth with the firm belief in the facade…

What has this first paragraph to do with ‘spying’? Well, spying is a method inspired and encouraged by the devil. Lucifer was spying on both Adam and Eve, in Paradise, for understanding what kind of creatures are these two persons, who have been promised by the Lord something that the devil lost some time before… That chief-demon understood that Adam could not be tricked, as he was the first one fashioned by God and should not follow the devil directly, whereas Eve, as a being made out of Adam’s flesh and with a higher divine understanding, could be deceived as she resonated spiritually, quicker… One can be well accustomed to grasp things in the spirit, but the higher the spirit, the lower one can fall, when one is incapable to keep the oath to God…

Why do we have such professions around, so that one secretly monitors another person who is un-aware of this business? In theory, spies as government employees or rather soldiers, of a certain nation, who work towards stopping foreigners or some traitors of possible damage to a national society. We all talk to each other and we talk to our friends, but hopefully never think to harm them by spreading lies or scattering dear confessions! In this world of struggle, where is this curiosity to know more about one’s political anxiety coming from? The idea behind spying everybody, all the time and through all methods is given by the devil’s suggestion of a false witness to Christ, to make people hide their true self in order to avoid trouble, because we live in a society of so many Christ haters…

When ‘yes’ is not anymore ‘yes’, but turns into a lie, the entire soul is sold to the real enemy. This ‘arrest’ could turn into eternity that is a ruined eternity. Spying can become something that looks like an ordinary job, as such professionals rely more on the ‘amateurs’, laypersons who have some patriotic reasons into joining the ‘professionals’. Once, during the time of Lenin who was the demon-in-chief of Soviet Union, a Western interviewer asked him about future times in regards to necessary larger number of professional ‘detectives’, essential in the ‘workers society’. To that question, this butcher-in-chief replied with something like: “we will not need many professional policemen at all, because each citizen will grow vigilant enough to spy on his neighbour!”

This is the type of vigilance present in our progressive society, more or less cut off from all Christian rules and turning into standpoints full of hate, in preparation to ‘welcome’ the one who hates God, the antichrist. The little ‘spylings’ with red pioneer scarves of communist countries of the old, are now spreading all over the earth, as ‘valuable’ recruits for the new international bosses, who want a ‘better civilization’. The areas of ‘human resources’ which are to be covered by the new generation of digital ‘prismoneers’ would include: global warming deniers, defenders of the family, fighters against homosexuality and pornography and against all the other demonic deeds.

Present time tumult, about exposures of all sorts of deeds in ‘top’ people, is just a stir of this world. In spite of those revelations, the number of real secrets, kept away from public is not so great. Actually it is just one single scheme in the making: the method by which to call the truth a lie, and a lie the truth. Therefore, man has to believe into this reversal makeup, for the destruction of his soul. The Truth, Who is Christ, would be removed, denied and ‘temptingly’ replaced. God forbid!!! But one does not need to imagine a government which tries to stand by laws emerging from the Orthodox perspective of life, where death is just a passage to Resurrection and Real Life. These are past times, such as of the Byzantine Empire or of other Orthodox Kingdoms eras, which will never come back…

If you are to ‘spy’ on enemies, enemies who would go about schemes against people ready for the Heavenly Kingdom, then the only valid method would be to convert them, in ways according to own upbringing, to the only Path of Salvation. Personally, what kind of secrets do we have and we do not want to reveal, maybe out of shame? Obviously, these secrets are to disappear in the simplest way, through confessing these personal sins, becoming erased and your soul forgiven by God, forever. Once upon a time, to find out about your enemy’s preparation to attack your country could be done in a quiet way by monitoring the abnormalities all around. How about today, when everything is abnormal, and almost everyone looks like a bloodthirsty individual, although very feeble? The real soldier does not care about the strength of the deceitful opponent because genuine courage and might are given by Christ Who will always be on the side of the Faithful and the oppressed, defeating all material and spiritual enemies.

In our previous post we reproduced a lecture Blessed Seraphim Rose had on “The future of Russia and the end of the world”. Due to the importance of the subject, with fear of the Almighty God and with humility in our hearts we find appropriate to make a few comments on the subject:

• The article in its whole makes it very clear that the restoration of Holy Russia cannot happen without re-instating a lawful political system – a Monarchy and a God anointed Tsar. Outside these boundaries there is no restoration, but continuation of lawlessness.
• The current official Church of Russia, the Moscow Patriarchate (MP), is not what Blessed Seraphim referred to in his lecture when he said “‘A great miracle of God will be manifested. And all the splinters and fragments, by the will of God and His power, will come together and be united, and the ship will be rebuilt in its beauty and will go on its own way as foreordained by God. And this will be a miracle evident to everyone”, although that is what MP would like people to believe. MP never clearly denounced in a synod the mistake they did by siding with the communists through Metropolitan Sergius, and thus recognizing the atheist regime as lawful (from an orthodox point of view). Having infiltrated most dioceses in the diaspora (through KGB agents) and having lured most bishops of the ROCOR to join them in 2000, they pretend that this prophecy has been fulfilled, but it is lacking the most important aspect of it – the restoration of monarchy. The prophecy says the ship “will go on its own way as foreordained by God”, meaning it will not be part of the mainstream, worldy and ecumenist Orthodoxy, but it will continue to preserve the Truth unchanged and uncompromised.
• Fr Seraphim makes it quite clear that the process of restoring Holy Russia will not be the result of some sort of political effort at the top (like it was the case with ROCOR bishops), but rather a grass-roots movement, starting from the bottom, from the people, originating from a specific location (Diveyevo) and will be bound up with the resurrection of St Seraphim of Sarov: “Having revealed to me this great and fearful mystery, the great Elder informed me that after his resurrection he would go from Sarov to Diveyevo and there he would begin the preaching of world-wide repentance. For this preaching, and above all because of the miracle of resurrection, a great multitude of people will assemble from all the ends of the earth; Diveyevo will become a lavra, Vertyanova will become a city, and Arzamas a province. And preaching repentance in Diveyevo, Batiushka Seraphim will uncover four relics in it, and after uncovering them he himself will lie down in their midst. And then soon will come the end of everything.
• As a result of lawlessness being instated in Russia by the murdering of Tsar Nicolai (a situation that is unchanged today), the ship of the Church was smashed to pieces: “There will be a storm. And the Russian ship will be smashed to pieces. But people can be saved even on splinters and fragments. And not everyone will perish. One must pray, everyone must repent and pray fervently. And what happens after a storm? …There will be a calm.’ At this everyone said: ‘But there is no more ship, it is shattered to pieces; it has perished, everything has perished.’ ‘It is not so,’ said Batiushka. ‘A great miracle of God will be manifested. And all the splinters and fragments, by the will of God and His power, will come together and be united, and the ship will be rebuilt in its beauty and will go on its own way as foreordained by God. And this will be a miracle evident to everyone”. What this means is the Church ceased to exist in an organized form, and therefore it cannot be considered that the Moscow Patriarchate continued as a True Church. Rather the ship was smashed to pieces that spread throughout the whole world in the form of (whatever is left of from) ROCOR and The Catacomb Church of Russia. These pieces, as St John Maximovich said, have an “apocalyptic mission” of spreading of Orthodoxy to the whole world. We covered this subject on other occasions.
• The process of the revival of Orthodoxy in Holy Russia should not be seen as the creation of a “global center of Christianity” (as many seem to suggest), but rather as a “gathering together” of the splinters and pieces the Church broke into at the beginning of the 20th century. The Orthodox Church will be once again a whole ship, “going on its own way as foreordained by God” (meaning it will not part of any ecumenist unity and certainly not the center of any global Christianity union), and have Churches throughout the whole world – a position made possible by the preservation of true Orthodoxy by various fragments of the Church in diaspora that will be joined together by this grass-roots, popular movement.

Zionism at its “best” – what is happening in Syria is “positive for Israel” ! It all plays well in the “global economy” and “global government” space. “The world has changed” so every country has a choice to “go with the modern age” or be left behind in poverty – just like Syria is about to be !

The Orthodox translation: the world is now ruled by the antichrist – bow down or be destroyed.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcRX5xBmmFM&hd=1]