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Comments
I was going to respond to all your points but it would not positively help the discussion for the benefit of all. Rather, I only want to speak about one point I feel is important to address publicly.
You wrote: "Our saints stories of contemporary saints for example are 99.9% fluff. They portray the saints as inhuman, unthinking stones obedient blindly." I have mentioned in the past that generalization of this broad nature are never helpful in a discussion. I don't know what saints stories you speak of, but if you study hagiography, they are far from "the fluff of inhuman saints". Many stories, like St Hilaria/Elaria/Haliron, St John the Litttle, St Daniel of Scetis, St Makarius, are filled with examples of weakness and fallibility. These are not stories of inhuman or supernatural humans in any sense. Rather using human faculties, they attained supernatural results we call "crowns". When you disect the layers of hagiographical stories, you will find multiple examples of a normal person who chose to follow God's will and commandments to the extreme. They did not blindly obey an elder or a priest or a bishop or anyone. Some saints manifested their choice to follow God in what you call blind obedience. But it cannot be considered blind if there was a choice of will to begin with. Thus, when St John the Short was told to go water a dead branch miles away, it was not an example for zombie-like submission, misplaced trust in someone you consider not worthy to be entrusted with a rock, or ecclesiological supremecy. Rather, it was an example of the full human ability to say "My love and my trust in God is manifested in trusting fallible men or a fallible system. For if I succeed and attain the promises of God by trusting men who sin and a system who (allegedly? and consciously? and willingly?) misrepresents God's eternal truths, then I have been "makarios" - "blessed", and the kingdom of heaven is mine.
In a way, it is self-centered ideology. By being Christ-centered, I will have gained the best results for myself. It is not mathematical. It is paradoxical sacrifice. It is only through this paradoxical sacrifice that we can fight this Protestant infestation since we do not batttle men, but principalities, angels and supernatural beings (and I would add attitudes and ideologies to this list)
Furthermore, do not always jump to the highest authority to affect change. Change sometimes means you have to start within. If there is poor leadership, there is still hope. Be cunning. Did not Christ teach "be wise like a serpent"? Print or buy those books I mentioned and put them on every bench of your parish, and see if you can sneak in the traditional hymns of the church. Pray to God that He may enlighten them, that in tasting better fruit, they themselves will choose the Orthodox over the heterodox worship. But I don't want to hear anyone say I'm going to leave the church. Exhaust all measures "even to bloodshed" before you even entertain such a thought. Otherwise, if you leave prematurely, you will think the church needs you! No! The Church needs Christ, and you are there to live it for them, not to leave them.
But as we can see there is a multitude of us and we can say “those with us are greater than those with them” 2 Kings 6:16.
Brethren the triumph of Orthodoxy is inevitable.
I also read Rem's post. Words to live and be encouraged by.
God bless.
Let me be perfectly clear: although (like Ray) I've been villainized and even characterized as a "zealot" (I deserve this and more for my sins) I have no intention of surrendering the Church to the hyenas. I have every intention of staying and fighting for the Universal Church in my given location. God has blessed me with some unbelievable opportunities to do so. That said, if any Orthodox Church ever officially endorses a "big tent" approach and declares that Protestant praxis - and therefore Protestant theology - has a place within its walls - that there can be "traditional parishes" and "Contemporary Praise & Worship" parishes - then it's not me who is leaving. That withered branch will have fallen away from the Church and I'll have no reason to stay there. Mina, I am definitely standing my ground as long as there is ground to stand on. When the ground becomes a pile of Rick Warren's sludge, I see no reason to drown in it.
Like you said, Mina, the Church doesn't need us. We need to receive the Holy Mysteries and Our Lord Jesus Christ through Her. I can't receive that salvific grace in a place where they're profaning the Eucharist with poison heretical songs.
I wonder if the trends we are seeing are deep reactions to things which have already been suppressed or lost? Whether that's beauty or theological foundations or the ability to embrace, speak and express the mind of the Fathers today (instead of just blindly repeating the past).
On other threads we have explored the question of Christian Contemporary music and asked if the excluding of women from the Choir and also reducing the role of the diaconate has created a vacuum for our sisters which is now being filled by the Christian Contemporary songs. It's the type of question that's deeply self reflective and which requires a humble look at what we are doing as a result of culture and faith.
I would hope that many of the Church can "work from within" but I also wonder if we cannot put new wine in old wineskins. Trying to do so might end up losing both the new wine and the old wineskin.
Perhaps the whole direction towards Evangelical materials is not as new as we think? Perhaps the introduction itself was a forcing of new wine into old wineskins, which is causing us to lose it all. Perhaps the Protestant Ideologies are the old wineskins in our Church now? To put Orthodox things back now might mean loss of both?
May God have mercy on us all.
Even Moses had his Aaron to speak for him; even though he didn't need him. And Moses did effect change on Pharaoh and all the people multiple times. Moses said to Pharaoh, "Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness.’” (Exodus 5:1). After 4 plagues, Pharaoh says to Moses in Exodus 8:23 “I will let you go to offer sacrifices to the Lord your God in the wilderness, but you must not go very far. Now pray for me.” Of course, we know Pharoah lied. But after the Passover, Pharaoh said, "Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites. Go worship the Lord as you have requested." (Exodus 12:31). So as you can see, Moses did change Pharaoh's mind multiple times. But since God "hardened Pharoah's heart", Pharaoh went back on his word after each plague. It was not that Moses was ineffective, it was that God had better plans for Moses. God didn't just want Pharaoh to grant a three day feast in the desert. God wanted His people with Him on the same mountain He dwelt on.
To Moses, at Mt Sinai and in the burning bush, he said something important to prove how effective he was. Moses, thinking he would be ineffective to speak to Pharaoh, much less convince him to let the Israelites go, asked the same question you did Ioannes in Exodus 3:11. “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11. God answered him in a way one can't imagine. In Exodus 7:1, God basically answers this question "You, Moses, are like God to Pharaoh."
From what I have read from your writings and your understanding of patristic writings, you Ioannes, are like God to us modern day Coptic pharoahs. You have been effecacious for change already. Like I said, "Makarios!!!!"
I think they have been affected. Remember bishops are chosen exclusively from the monks, so if the latter were fine there would be no issue.
Bishop Youssef publicly and consistently maintains his line on this issue whenever asked, eg the article you mentioned, Q and A on suscopts site, sermons, etc.
By and large, yes, HG is a fundamentalist (the good type)
- Fr Zosima in Dostoevsky's "Brothers Karamazov," Book VI, Chapter 3.
"Unless we look at a person and see the beauty there is in this person, we can contribute nothing to him. One does not help a person by discerning what is wrong, what is ugly, what is distorted. Christ looked at everyone he met, at the prostitute, at the thief, and saw the beauty hidden there. Perhaps it was distorted, perhaps damaged, but it was beauty none the less, and what he did was to call out this beauty."
- Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
"Every one of us is in the image of God, and every one of us is like a damaged icon. But if we were given an icon damaged by time, damaged by circumstances, or desecrated by human hatred, we would treat it with reverence, with tenderness, with broken-heartedness. We would not pay attention primarily to the fact that it is damaged, but to the tragedy of its being damaged. We would concentrate on what is left of its beauty, and not on what is lost of its beauty. And this is what we must learn to do with regard to each person as an individual, but also - and this is not always as easy - with regard to groups of people, whether it be a parish or a denomination, or a nation. We must learn to look, and look until we have seen the underlying beauty of this group of people. Only then can we even begin to do something to call out all the beauty that is there. Listen to other people, and whenever you discern something which sounds true, which is a revelation of harmony and beauty, emphasize it and help it to flower. Strengthen it and encourage it to live."
- Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
These three reminded me about beauty and the latent beauty of our Church which so often gets lost when the Church gets reduced to nationalism, a cult of big, triumphalism, culture or theological and historical packaging. The other reduction is forcing beauty or claiming that beauty exists and claiming people need to do mind and heart games to see it. Even when we do see beauty in latent form we should not claim that such beauty is "all we need" but rather pray, work and love towards beauty restored and raised. The damaged icon led back to that "Ancient Beauty", from glory to glory.
"I once met a theologian who was extremely pious, but who had the habit of speaking to the (secular) people around him in a very blunt manner; his method penetrated so deeply that it shook them very severely. He told me once: "During a gathering, I said such and such a thing to a lady." But the way that he said it, crushed her. "Look", I said to him, "you may be tossing golden crowns studded with diamonds to other people, but the way that you throw them can smash heads, not only the sensitive ones, but the sound ones also."
Let's not stone our fellow-man in a so-called "Christian manner." The person who - in the presence of others - checks someone for having sinned (or speaks in an impassioned manner about a certain person), is not moved by the Spirit of God; he is moved by another spirit.
The way of the Church is LOVE; it differs from the way of the legalists. The Church sees everything with tolerance and seeks to help each person, whatever he may have done, however sinful he may be."
- Elder Bishoy of Athos, The Letter of the Law
One Friday they were out harvesting and it was Simeon’s turn to cook the midday meal. Forgetting that it was Friday, he prepared a dish of pork for their lunch, and they all ate of it. Six months later, on a feast-day in winter, Simeon’s father turned to him with a gentle smile and said,
‘Son, do you remember how you gave us pork to eat that day in the fields? It was a Friday. I ate it but, you know, it tasted like carrion.’
‘Why ever didn’t you tell me at the time?’
‘I didn’t want to upset you, son.’
Recalling such incidents from his life at home, the Staretz would add, ‘That is the sort of staretz I would like to have. He never got angry, was always even-tempered and humble. Just think - he waited six months for the right moment to correct me without upsetting me!’
- Archmandrite Sophrony, "Part 1: The Staretz' Life and Teaching," in "Saint Silouan the Athonite."
Translated by Rosemary Edmonds. (New York: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1999) 12-13.
"Therefore, you have to choose the appropriate time at which people can endure your speech. You should perceive that everybody you talk to is a human being who has emotions that can be hurt, or at least affected and fatigued. You should regard the sensitiveness of people and should not use an iron hammer where a significant hint would be sufficient. You should be kind and compassionate so as to relieve others. You should also keep away from oppressive judgment."
- HH Pope Shenouda III
"Don't wage your Christian struggle with sermons and arguments, but with true love."
- Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia
"When we argue, others react. When we love people, they are moved & we win them over.
When we love...we are the first to benefit."
- Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia
Formal Measures
Formal Measures Taken by the Oriental Orthodox Churches to Counter Heterodox Influence
In order to address the spread of heterdox influence on our Church and our youth, the Coptic Orthodox Holy Synod, under the leadership of H.H. Pope Shenouda III of thrice-blessed memory:
Sources
In order to address the growing spread of Protestant influence on some of its communities in North America, the Coptic Orthodox Church has taken the following measures:
Sources
Sometimes some people need harsh words.. of course I am not talking about the example you cited, or condoning it, but at times this becomes necessary. There are many a verse in the Bible and especially in the Book of Proverbs..
Oujai
They probably aren't enforced in Egypt either. Probably because liberals will never accept it. But, if compliance in Egypt is indeed higher, it is because the Church there has been able to produce many Protestant-style songs, which it hasn't had the opportunity to do yet in the West. Thus, they turn to actual Protestant songs as a temporary measure till they have the ability to produce 'Orthodox praise and worship' music.
That being said, there could be some wiggle room in the wording: "Declared that “No Protestant chorals [singing] and no unorthodox prayers are allowed in Orthodox churches” (May, 2005)"
Eg, how is 'Protestant chorals' and 'unorthodox prayers' defined exactly?
Oujai