The Myth Of The Chosen People (BrN On Video!)
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The Myth Of The Chosen People
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Brother Nathanael @ March 24, 2011
Dear Real Zionist News Family –
It MUST be understood through what the Orthodox Church teaches THAT THERE IS **NO SPECIAL PLAN** For the Jews or ANYONE ELSE.
ALL must give up their prideful identities and become CHRISTIANS.
To identify as a “Jew” means to affiliate with the Anti-Christ religion of “Judaism” and thus in order for Jews to escape Hell they MUST repudiate Judaism, their “Jewish” identity AND BECOME CHRISTIANS.
As regards the “144,000” of the Revelation of St John, THIS IS SYMBOLIC language of FULLNESS of “The EARLY Church” (the “first fruits” unto God) which was about to undergo horrible persecution under Nero and then Diocletian.
As regards “all Israel will be saved” THIS IS The FULLNESS OF THE CHURCH at the end of time MADE UP of both the Jewish “remnant” who become Christians and Gentiles who become Christians WHO ARE ALL PART of THE “Israel of God” — THE CHURCH.
The Orthodox Church ALSO teaches that “the fullness of the Gentiles” continues UP until the 2nd Coming of Christ.
The Orthodox Church does NOT teach “a rapture” BUT this is taken out of context when Christ was warning of the coming DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM and instructing His disciples to flee Jerusalem WHICH THEY DID and fled to Pella in Jordan.
The “Great Tribulation” refers to THE CARNAGE leading up to and during the Roman siege of Jerusalem when it got so bad from the forced starvation that mothers were eating their babies.
This is ALL recorded in the Histories of Josephus, a contemporary of those times.
All of this is NOT MY OPINION — But — This Is The TEACHING of the Orthodox Christian Church. We do NOT assert our “own” opinions BUT abide by the teachings of the Holy Fathers of the Church.
All of this is SPELLED OUT specifically by St John Chrysostom in his Homilies On Romans AVAILABLE online in the Nicene Fathers Series.
——-
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Your +Brother in Christ, Nathanael
— Text — Text — Text — Text —
The Myth Of The Chosen People
By Brother Nathanael Kapner
Copyright 2011
All Rights Reserved
Are the Jews really God’s ‘Chosen People?’
Christians throughout the ages, embracing the New Testament, never really believed this to be so.
They understood that the “Israel of God,” as St Paul teaches, was “The Church” – not the Synagogue.
It wasn’t until the early 1900’s when the Scofield Reference Bible was published that a new idea infiltrated Christian thinking regarding the Jews. And thus was perpetrated the myth of the ‘Chosen People.’
Cyrus Scofield, a Protestant evangelical, formulated what is known as ‘dispensationalism,’ which assigns to a re-established State of Israel the role of being a ‘special blessing’ to the world.
And this would supposedly occur just prior to the Second Coming of Christ through their belief in Him – yet maintaining their identity as Jews.
But, the traditional Christian understanding of those who come to Christ, even Jews, and even until the end of time, is that they take on the name of CHRISTIAN and become members of The Christian Church.
There are NO SPECIAL ARRANGEMENTS – NO SPECIAL PLANS for anyone…according to Orthodox Christian theology…regardless of what their ethnic makeup might be.
The Orthodox Church, of which I am a member, (and by the way, I grew up in Judaism), follows the teaching of Christ, that Jews who reject Him as the Messiah “are of their father, the devil, a LIAR and MURDERER from the beginning.”
For ever since the time of Christ, unbelieving Jews have propagated the LIE that Jesus Christ is not the Jewish Messiah whom they MURDERED and continue in their murderous ways by what they’re doing to the Palestinians in the name of their strange ‘god’ of the Talmud and Zionism.
This in a nutshell shows and confirms that truth of Christ’s words, that indeed, unbelieving Jews follow in the footsteps of the devil, imitating as true sons, his lies and murderous ways.
In the Old Testament, Jews were ‘chosen’ to be God’s special people, by being an example to the world through their worship, and as the later prophets enjoined, by their ethical conduct, awaiting the coming of the Messiah, Who would conquer sin and death and give them and ALL people a new heart to love and follow Him.
But with the Jewish filth coming out of Hollywood, the unprincipled conduct of Jewish Wall Street bankers who have fleeced the American people, and the immoral behavior of the Israelis, (which, by the way, most Jews support), these are clear demonstrations that the former ‘chosen-ness’ of the Jews has been forfeited.
The TRUE ‘Chosen People’ of today are those who have made a CHOICE to show their belief in God through their imitation of Jesus Christ – having made a decision to embrace, love, and serve Him.
But the Zionists, who hide behind the false religion of Judaism as a cover in their pursuit of their geopolitical agenda to rule over the Gentiles – through the media – through finance – and genocide…have nothing to do with the God of the Bible or the Messiah, Whom He has sent, but everything to do with the devil’s lies, deception and murder.
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Dear Bro Nathanael,
This was an awesome presentation.
You have written on this subject much in the past but into today’s fast paced world, you have just filled the gap.
This video debunks the whole Zionist LIE of the people ‘calling themselves’ Jews today being chosen by the real and sovereign GOD. GOD is Good.
By their obvious behaviour it should be obvious to anyone with the IQ of a pet rock or higher that these people who ‘call themselves’ Jews/’chosen’ — serve another deity known as Lucifer.
***I AM A FINANCIAL SUPPORTER OF BRO NATHANAEL ***
If Bro Nathanael’s work has been a service to you, please consider donating.
Even the smallest donation is appreciated. Freedom is not free and Liberty must be purchased in every generation. Do your part!
I can’t afford much but I give my tithe to Bro Nathanael because he does what no American “Jew”-approved ministry will ever do: put a face to the people in this world who work for Satan.
This used to be a rarely talked about subject but now many people are beating the drum. And the “Jews” have noticed.
I believe that’s why they’re rattling their saber by upsetting our economies, which they have the power to do.
God bless,
Dean
Dear Brother Nathanael,
My husband and I are recent inquirers of the Orthodox faith hoping to become catechumens and ultimately be baptized sometime in the next year.
We are both “refugees” from the Baptist church.
Busting the myth of the Jews as the chosen people has pulled the mask off of the lies and deception offered as truth in our former church experience.
We finally concluded that the main purpose of the Baptist church was to control our money and our vote.
We were regularly instructed to “vote our values” which meant keeping the NeoCon Republicans in office, remaining uncritical of the State of Israel, and supporting our troops in never ending wars.
We could not accept that the same Jews who produce the Hollywood filth, control and corrupt the banking and financial industries, confine and kill the Palestinians in an open air concentration camp, and operate in all realms through deceit and evil intent could possibly remain favored by God.
So now both of us, who are past 60 years of age, believe we have finally found the true faith…Orthodoxy! Praise God!
The “Annunciation” of the Theotokos (Birth-giver of God become incarnate) is celebrated today, March 25 according to the New Calendar Church, the Orthodox Church of America. (OCA)
Annunciation literally means “good news.”
This refers to the information given by the Archangel Gabriel to Mary that she would conceive a Son without seed. That her Son, the Word of God, would be made man for man’s salvation.
Therefore we celebrate today the greatest piece of news in history…for ALL mankind.
Gracie
Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ, dear Bro. Nathanael,
Wonderful presentation and change of pace in this video, more conversational or homelitical and “Christian to Christian.” Felt like I was out on “the front porch” (in my own parka) listening to you cover ground concerning “The Myth of the Chosen People.”
As John King wrote, “This video debunks the whole Zionist LIE of the people ‘calling themselves’ Jews today being chosen by the real and sovereign GOD. GOD is Good.”
Ancient Israel was chosen to bring forth the Messiah and the Savior of all Mankind, through the tribe of Judah, and the house of David.
It was God’s sovereign choice to do so, to adopt Old Israel as His “peculiar people” not for any merits of the people themselves or any intrinsic differences from the rest of mankind, but chosen for the mission of bring forth Jesus the Christ, the Son of God as the fullness of God’s Revelation of Himself to the world.
Christians need to hear this time and again, and all the phony ‘Judeo-Christian’ and Zionist Nationalism propaganda agendas compared with the patristic teachings of the Church Fathers as the “mind of the Church” such as the great and holy St. John Chrysostomos, an “anti-Semite” that all Christians can love and appreciate for his candor and down to earth approach.
Time and again St. John Chrysostomos pointed out the physical, political and spiritual dangers to Christians of Judaizing, and the close association with volatile, carnal, unrepentent Jews of the ‘Synagogue of Satan,’ even though communities of Rabbinic Judaism were allowed to reside within their own quarters in the cities of the Byzantine Roman Empire of the East and West.
Saint Chrysostom: Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistle to the Romans
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf111.toc.html
On a last note, Abraham was never a “Jew” but a Hebrew, as were Ishmael, Isaac of Sarah, Jacob, Esau, and Abraham’s sons by Keturah.
The Old Testament clearly records that the “Covenant of Faith” which God unilaterally cut with Abraham and swore by His own Name, sealed with blood of the sacrificial animals, was when Abraham was still uncircumcised, or a “Gentile,” and before any of Abraham’s sons were ever born.
Dear KathJuliane –
Thanks for pointing out that Abraham was NOT a Jew BUT a Hebrew.
St Paul states in his Epistle to the Galatians that those who have been baptized into Christ are “Abraham’s seed” and that the Jews have forfeited that reality.
Thus, when God promised Abraham that he would Bless Those That Bless Thee – He was referring NOT to wicked Jews because of being of the same “race” as Abraham –
BUT referring to those who are TRUE SONS of Abraham — those who walk in the same steps of FAITH IN GOD’s SALVATION who are truly “Abraham’s seed.”
+BN
What a great video. I am so glad you do this blessed work.
Bro. Nathanael,
Correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t Israel or (Isra-el) mean ‘he who struggles (or fights) with God’? I remember that a reference of this type is stated in the book of Genesis relating to Abraham.
If this is the case, then no one need go any further than the name itself of the nation that affronts God more than all the citizens on Earth put together to understand the nature of the Talmudic ‘Jews’. They are beyond any reasonable doubt Satan’s chosen.
P.S. I’d like to know you’re opinion of Neteurei Karta.
The Bible itself, in the new testament says that Christians are the new chosen people of God:
Peter 1:1
From Peter, apostle of Jesus Christ –
To God’s chosen people who live as refugees scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia.
You were chosen according to the purpose of God the Father and were made a holy people by His Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be purified by His blood. (Good News Bible)
There you have it. Even going by the logic that Jews were the chosen people in the Old Testament, the New Testament clearly states that Christ’s believers are the chosen people – and not Jews. 🙂
I think that it was to show God’s greatness that He sent Jesus to be born in that part of the world where it seems that a place so filled with hate and injustice can be the starting point for the awakening of mankind.
Truly God does work in mysterious ways.
Hi Br. Nathanael and KathJuliane,
Great presentation! I felt exactly like KathJuliane described!
Yes it is important to distinguish between Jew and Hebrew, which is what I do sometimes, mixing the words.
A Jew is a follower of Judaism, which is by definition Anti-Christ. If one finds themselves in a “Church” which promotes the myth of the “chosen people,” they need to think long and hard if this is a “church” they want to be in.
Also, it’s in my humble opinion really important for us Orthodox to understand that the Church is the True Israel and that we are the seed of Abraham, who was a Hebrew.
As Christians, we are all truly equal before God’s eyes and His salvation is available for all of us, Jews, Greeks, Russians, Americans or otherwise.
We must have in our hearts, always, the knowledge that EVERYONE is welcome to be a member of the True Israel, which is the Church. And that’s regardless of ethnicity, color or gender.
That does not mean that we have to shed absolutely everything that comes from our worldly heritage, but rather only the things that are incompatible with being a true Christian.
It is tragic to see so many “churches” no longer speaking and evangelizing about Jesus Christ, but instead promoting the Zionist views and agendas.
Stav
Br. Nate,
Great one here, especially the last bit about how Christianity should be understood.
Not just the Jews, Br. Nate, but Muslims are guilty as well in killing in the name of their God.
Well, that’s the inherent problem folks. There is no “their God” and “our God,” etc. If you believe in a higher power of some kind, and you feel that you are a better person because of Him, it, or whatever, then I’d say you would be on the right track.
Otherwise, as Br. Nate points out, a person whom does not belong to a loving religion would be inclined to be murderous and quite brutal.
I must say Br. Nate, that even those whom have struggled to love God or those still struggling to love Him can be saved. This applies to Jews and Muslims as well. They just need to fully understand Christianity to be able to accept it’s real message.
Christianity always has and always will teach love for your neighbor and a thing a two like the Good Samaritan. When non-Christians fully comprehend this real message, then peaceful coexistence can be a reality.
As long as folks remain stubborn in their beliefs (not thinking outside the box), or shall I say dogmatic, then a mutual understanding among different people cannot be possible. Hezbollah, Hamas, extreme Evangelists, and extreme Orthodox Jews all give their religions good reason to shy away from their murderous ways.
Right audience? Yes, I know this is correct. What this means, in turn, is that we whom do not belong to these sorts of ill organizations or sects should be responsible to spread the Biblical word and what Christianity truly preaches and represents.
And, I believe Br. Nate is attempting to do just that with this website. Br. Nate, you will reach more and more people as they wake up one day and realize they need to be better educated regarding the true nature of Christianity.
Even I learned quite a bit about human nature by following your website updates. Not necessary about Christianity per say, but about human nature.
In my previous post, I meant to say:
Yes it is important to distinguish between Jew and Hebrew, which is what I don’t do sometimes, by mixing the words.
The reason for this, is because in modern Greek (I am Greek), the word Jew is almost always translated as Εβραίος (Evraios). This is in fact incorrect, because “Evraios” in Greek literally means “Hebrew.”
So, in Modern Greek, when someone refers to Jews in the context of Zionism, they do actually use the word Evraios, which means Hebrew. Which, strictly speaking, is incorrect, or at least not entirely correct.
So, because sometimes things can get confusing, it is important to be able to distinguish between the Old Law Forefathers like Abraham who were of God and Righteous, and todays Jews who are Anti-Christ.
Stav
Gracie,
Your insight is pretty good, and I suppose it’s a good thing that you’re converting to a different sect.
I never knew what you mentioned about the Baptist Church. That’s a first for me, as I’m not a Baptist.
Well, to give you some insight into my own sect, Catholicism, one of the heads of the KKK happens to be Catholic. That really made me think when I saw this person speaking on national television about his organization.
And, I did lose some respect for Catholicism. To be frank, Gracie, I believe all sects have their issues. Right?
Anyone who believes that the Jews are the “chosen people” have never read The Acts of the Apostles, the Gospel of John, the Epistles of Paul, or the entire New Testament for that matter.
The Darby and Scofield Bible scam did come about in early 1900s. A Jew named Untermeyer in New York financed con man Scofield and his bible in the USA.
But an important forerunner of that Scofield Bible was the Geneva bible of 1557. Two men —
Theodore Beza, the successor of Calvin in Geneva
Martin Bucer (Bucer was a contemporary of Calvin and Zwingli and one of the major “reformers” but he had very different take on OT prophecies about “Israel” )
This Geneva Bible was before the 1611 authorized King James Bible and 500 plus years before the KJV with Scofield’s extensive footnotes Bible. The main thing the Geneva Bible did was to interpret the references in the Old Testament to Israel’s restoration as referring to the [physical] NATION of the Jewish people.
Luther and Calvin were contemporaries of Bucer and Beza and they held the same interpretation of Old Testament prophecies about “Israel” as the Roman Catholic Church, that is, Israel was a figurative picture of the “the Church,” the body of Christ in the New Testament, NOT A GEOGRAPHIC NATION AND NOT THE JEWISH PEOPLE OF THAT NATION.
But somehow Bucer and Beza were able to push through the publication of the Geneva Bible over Luther and Calvin’s disagreement.
This was the first major groundwork as far as manipulating the Holy Scriptures. I have not studied the Geneva Bible and noted just exactly this translation accomplished this subtle but major shift in conveying was “Israel” for Christians. I also suspect that there were some Revolutionary Jews who were behind Bucer and Beza but I have not yet studied that.
The entire Protestant Reformation (revolution) was the product of subversive manipulations of Revolutionary Jews so Bucer and Beza were part of that targeted group of people.
So you have two entirely different interpretations of OT prophecy, starting with Bucer and Beza as this Protestant position developed, this whole dramatic shift in how to understand these scriptures came about.
The other major change regarding the bible interpretation brought about by “the Reformers” was the idea that the thousand years of Apocalypse Chapter 20 was a literal one thousand year period. The Roman Catholic church had always for 1500 years interpreted the “thousand years” to mean “a long time” as the world “thousand” is used in several places in the Old Testament, and in this case from between the first coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ, when the Church in Rome would be in control.
So, all of these “bible manipulations” probably were instigated by some subversive, moneyed, behind the scenes revolutionary Jews, and they were primarily targeted at taking down and getting out of the way the Roman Catholic church. They have not totally succeeded in that goal yet but they have, all in all, been quite successful.
KathJuliane,
I enjoyed reading your response, as I did Gracie’s. You both have great reflections I see.
And, you do indeed point out a very crucial fact. You mention the distinction between Hebrews and Jews via Abraham. I like this point of yours.
Also, related to that distinction would be that not all Jews are Israelis. Yes, Bro Nate stated that Most Jews support Israel but most Jews are not Israeli.
Nate, just a thought: the billions of Muslims around the world point to Israel as a hideous creature that is ill and needs to be eliminated. Israel, in many ways, does act in such a fashion and it just provokes the Muslims.
In all fairness, these same Muslims do in fact support their brethren in the Occupied territories (aka the Palestinians). How is this different that non-Israeli Jews support Israel? Non-Palestinian Muslims support the Palestinians in many ways. I don’t see a distinction.
Do you see this Nate?
This is why I always tell the audience that we as Americans should be as impartial/neutral as possible. It’s really for the best that we choose a lassez-fair government which does not back the Arabs nor Israel. This will force them to work together more or eliminate one another, the choice becomes theirs.
Just like we have taken a back seat with Libya, we should do the same in the mid-East. Right?
Thanks for telling the truth Brother Nathaniel.
Steven
Furthermore, to debunk the ‘choseness’ of the contemporary ‘Jews’ inhabiting Israel and all other nations of the world, read Jewish author, Arthur Koestler’s book titled THE THIRTEENTH TRIBE which proves the Eastern European Jews are NOT related to Abraham.
These contemporary ‘Jews’ are not Middle-East Semites, but Asiatic-Turk imposters from the Caucus region of southern Eurasia — their genetic ancestors having never set so much as a toe in ‘Judea’ in all of history.
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/13trindx.htm
—-
So we choose and pick God?
That’s how tares become wheat? God does the choosing. And the Tares who are sown by that wicked one ripen with the wheat until the harvest.
No, Bro Nat’ we don’t choose – He does He has already pre-ordained His people.
Thank you for this presentation.
@ DWC
Special Just for you: Gene Simmons on the Mike Douglas Show 1974
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT7MS0GxKoQ&feature=player_embedded#at=133
Take note beginning at 2:13 the Jewess sitting next to him remarks: “Wouldn’t it be funny if under this he was just a nice Jewish boy? You can’t hide the hook!”
“…We could not accept that the same Jews who produce the Hollywood filth, control and corrupt the banking and financial industries, confine and kill the Palestinians in an open air concentration camp, and operate in all realms through deceit and evil intent could possibly remain favored by God…”
Funny, sad, and true at the same time.
“So, all of these “bible manipulations” probably were instigated by some subversive, moneyed, behind the scenes revolutionary Jews, and they were primarily targeted at taking down and getting out of the way the Roman Catholic church.”
Interesting.
Things become challenging to keep together when you consider the possibilities of doctored Bibles. That’s my frame of reference for everything, I think it should motivate everyone to just keep reading the Bible as much as possible so that the possibility of counterfeit words become obvious.
I came across the so-called gospel of Thomas on the internet and it struck me as -off-, and not the words of the God and Holy Spirit inspired men that I know
Brother Nathanael —
Yours is perhaps my favorite site on all the internet. I take great encouragement in all your articles and thoroughly enjoy all your videos.
Your insight and wisdom is unsurpassed, and your honesty is refreshing.
I hope God blesses you in all your good works moving forward. Thank you for your great work…
Sincerely,
TH
144,000 will go to heaven. What of the other Jews? Well, there’s another place for them to go.
Why? Maybe God doesn’t like what they’re doing. God has done bad things to them before to “teach” them.
Hi Brother Nathanael:
Thank you for another thoughtful commentary. I have been questioning this notion of the “chosen people” for the last few years.
I cannot equate a loving God with the actions of Israel’s leadership. I have been reading Bart Ehrman’s text, “God’s Problem.”
It of course deals with the problem of suffering. I can’t reconcile the God of the Old Testament and the God that brought us Jesus and Saint Paul. There is a problem here.
However, you are correct: the true behavior of a Christian is to imitate Jesus, to love others, and to follow God. Thank you so much!
“As regards the “144,000″ of the Revelation of St John, THIS IS SYMBOLIC language of FULLNESS of “The EARLY Church” (the “first fruits” unto God) which was about to undergo horrible persecution under Nero and then Diocletian.”
The language of the entire book of Revelation is very symbolic, not sure what you are trying to say, it seems you are saying that you do not believe that 144,000 strict Orthodox *Jews, that do not accept Jesus Christ will be saved.
Not 100% sure but I tend to think God allows 144,000 righteous Jews who follow the TORAH to the letter to make it to heaven.
*As of now I don’t believe the theory that -Jews- are actually Asian Turks from circa 700s.
I use the word Jew to refer to a lineage of people that has an ethnic identity and and ancient language Hebrew and has a calender that places humanity in the late 5700s
I am a different ‘Sam’ than the one posting above.
Here’s a good article by Gilad Atzmon about the growing movement in Europe against Israel:
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/03/21/gilad-atzmon-europe-turns-against-israel/#respond
Dear Brother Nathanael,
The topic you have picked has been the essential point of disagreement between myself and a recent convert to the Orthodox Church, who placed himself at odds with me when I dismissed the validity of Jews and the Zionist entity in an otherwise pleasant conversation.
I was a little surprised that someone could be both catechized and christmated into the Church without internally accepting this most basic tenet of the faith, however in researching the topic I was even more vexed to see a coalition of supposedly Orthodox priests have been featured blaspheming the cross with their heresy in an ADL dog-and-pony show:
http://www.adl.org/PresRele/ChJew_31/5069_31.htm
‘”We commend the courageous priests and academics who seek to rid their churches of the poison of anti-Semitism,” Greenberg said. “Support of this declaration by church leaders would help build a more positive interfaith dialogue between Orthodox Christians and Jews, and help increase religious respect around the world.”‘
‘Bishop Paul Peter Jesep, U.S. Director of Public Affairs for the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church Diaspora, said he supports the priests’ campaign as essential to the future of the Orthodox Church.’
‘”The Church has not done enough to address anti-Semitism,” Jesep said, speaking in his individual capacity. “The Liturgy must be modified so that it is brought closer to the teachings of Christ.”‘
‘The ten-page declaration endorses the eternal connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel, and calls for the repudiation of replacement theology, which erroneously contends that God’s covenant with the Jewish people is not eternal. “It is time that we called anti-Semitism a grave sin against God and man,” the declaration said.’
However, my research also turned up an excellent article defending supercessionism, often called “replacement theology.” And I think anyone, like Gracie, who is trying to learn more about the Orthodox faith would find this article edifying:
http://www.godspointofview.com/public/articles/replacement_theology.htm
“…Replacement Theology is a term that has been coined and proliferated by Christian Zionism (and its various subdivisions such as Premillennialism, Dispensationalism, Pre-Tribulationism, Mid-Tribulationism, Post-Tribulationism, et. al.) and distributed to its base as a talking point.”
“It is intended to trivialize, marginalize, and demonize any and all who are not Christian Zionists.
“In addition to the Apostles, that would included Clement of Rome, Athanasius, Jerome, Ambrose of Milan, Origin, Augustine, and John Chrysostom; and later on John Calvin, Jacobus Arminius, John Wesley, George Whitefield (Some moderns say Whitfield but I believe Whitefield is correct), G. Campbell Morgan, Charles Finney, John Knox, Jeremy Taylor, and Jonathan Edwards to name a very few since none of them was a Christian Zionist and all of them believed that The Kingdom of God on earth in the New Covenant was the Church.”
Follow the yellow brick road…
The human toll here looks to be much worse then the economic toll and we can be grateful for that…….WTHeck?????
http://beforeitsnews.com/story/508/099/Illuminatis_Depopulation_Plan_Exposed_by_Japans_Princess_Nakamaru_and_Italian_Prince_Zagami.html
Dear in Christ Gracie,
My heart leaps for joy that you have finally come to the True Faith of the Bible: Christian Orthodoxy.
The Chosen People are clearly the True Christians, as St. Peter says: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people.” (1 Peter 2;9)
All the false prophets of Christian Zionism or other heresies have been condemned long ago, by the stern warning of Sts. Peter and Paul:
“But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies.” (2 Peter 2;1)
“For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch.” (Acts 20;29-31)
You are on the right track. But, I have to warn you. Like everything else in the accursed 20th century, a major part of the Orthodox Church has been subverted by the Judeo-masons and has fallen into the heresy of ecumenism, and the schism of new calendarism.
The OCA (Orthodox Church in America) is part of the ecumenist new calendrist Orthodox. Even though they have much that is good and Orthodox, their hierarchs and much of their clergy and laity are enthralled to heresy of ecumenism and modernism. I am sure that you and your husband will slowly research and understand these vital issues.
The word “Judeo-Christian” is an oxymoron. It was coined by Zionist propaganda. Judaism is an anti-Biblical religion based on the Talmud. It is the religion of the Pharisees and their tradition of men, which Christ condemned in Matthew 15 and Mark 7.
The True Christians are the Israel of God, not only spiritually, but also PHYSICALLY. When we are baptized and receive the Holy Body and Blood of Christ in holy communion, we PHYSICALLY become true Jews, part of His Body, the Church.
“For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.” (Rom. 2;28-29)
***I AM A FINANCIAL SUPPORTER OF BRO NATHANAEL ***
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments,
AJ
Dear in Christ Joe,
The Holy Orthodox Fathers, both East and West, teach that Jacob wrestled with the pre-incarnate Christ in Genesis, and asked for a blessing before Christ released him.
So Christ called him Israel, which means “he who strives with God”, i.e. who struggles and receive the blessing of God.
I believe God kept this terminology vague on purpose, in order to fulfill both meanings; positive struggle in accordance with God’s Law for the True Israel of the Church, and negative struggle against God’s Law by the false Israel of the Talmudists.
Gen. 32:
[24] And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.
[25] And when he (the man) saw that he prevailed not against him (Jacob), he (the man) touched the hollow of his (Jacob) thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him.
[26] And he (the man) said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he (Jacob) said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.
[27] And he (the man) said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob.
[28] And he (the man) said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.
[29] And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there.
[30] And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.
As for Neteuri Karta, they may be anti-zionists for their own religious reasons, or in order to confuse and disorient the goyim. They are still however the synagogue of satan, since they subscribe to the anti-biblical hateful and criminal Talmud.
***I AM A FINANCIAL SUPPORTER OF BRO NATHANAEL ***
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments,
AJ
Dear in Christ Jarrad,
One crucial thing needs to be clarified, which is the teaching of the ancient True Church; not every one in the True Orthodox Church (TOC) will be saved, and not everyone outside the TOC will be damned. Christ is sovereign and He will save those whom He chooses on the Last Day, based on what they have received and what they have done.
Those who are ignorant of the Gospel, He will judge based on the natural law that He, as the Creator, has written in the heart and conscience of man. He will judge based on man’s free and willing obedience to this natural law. As for those who call themselves Christians, He will judge according to His Gospel, which is a much higher and stricter standard.
More importantly, you are guaranteed salvation in the TOC, if you follow the True Faith in confession and in deeds. Remaining outside the TOC is a huge gamble.
This is why, out of love for all men and women, we are commanded by Christ to tell them the truth which will set them free: to repent of their sins and false beliefs, and submit to Jesus Christ as their Lord, God, and Savior, according to the True Faith.
The knowledge of the truth and the reception of the Holy Mysteries in the TOC gives you grace directly from God, which increases your capacity to receive more grace and to gradually grow to be more like Christ, in the image and likeness of God, if you continuously cooperate and work with God’s freely-given grace.
Outside the TOC, the capacity to know the truth and to receive indirect grace is limited, to different degrees, according to the closeness or remoteness of the individual’s beliefs, moral, and practical life, to the reality of Orthodoxy (correct faith) and Orthopraxy (correct conduct).
Christ clearly showed us by His holy words and deeds that there is no genuine love of God or man without the revealed truth.
Concerning Hezbollah and Hamas, they are patriotic resistance movements. Please don’t fall into the propaganda trap which calls them “terrorists” or “hate” groups, even though they do viscerally hate the criminal Israelis, and for good reason.
Those who receive the hard blows of the Zionists in the Middle East are not like those who count them comfortably and safely in the West or elsewhere. If you are a man of courage, I think you would do the same if you were in their shoes.
Today, those who claim to be Jews have very little or non-existent genetic relation to the Biblical Hebrews. They are genetically miscegenated with predominantly Khazars, Yemenis, Moroccans, Europeans, Ethiopians, and Edomites.
Concerning the support of the state of Israel by Jews and the Palestinians by Muslims, the parallel is there, but the difference is that the Muslims’ support is very weak. Why? Because the American Jews consider themselves Jews first, then Americans (or other nationalities), whereas the Muslims usually consider themselves citizens of their own country, them Muslims.
In addition, the case of the Palestinians is just whereas that of the Zionists is not. The UN, manipulated by the Jews, voted in 1947, to give 55% of the land to the Jews, when they only owned 7%. That was the beginning of this enormous injustice.
This was not enough for the Zionists. They want 100% of Palestine, and all lands between the Nile and Euphrates.
This goal of the “Great Israel” is engraved at the entrance of the Israeli Knesset.
***I AM A FINANCIAL SUPPORTER OF BRO NATHANAEL ***
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments,
AJ
Dear In Christ Jeannon Kralj,
Yes, you are right.
The millennium or thousand years of Revelation 20 has always been interpreted by the Orthodox Fathers of both East and West, as the historic period between the First and Second Coming of Christ, which is the dispensation of the Church.
And yes, you are right again. Protestantism was a Judaizing movement from its early days, in at least significant parts of Protestantism.
The Jews exploited a legitimate grievance of the protesting Catholics against the abuses of the popes, and used the dissension for their own Judaic goals. Divide and conquer has always been one of their successful modus operandi.
The shame and guilt at the origin of this cosmic disaster falls back to the popes and western heterodox who have fallen away from the True Church in 1054, have propagated evil heresies, and have weakened the Church.
***I AM A FINANCIAL SUPPORTER OF BRO NATHANAEL ***
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments,
AJ
Dear In Christ Dirk de Boer,
There is no predestination.
God knows in advance all of history. He is outside of time. He knows what we will do, but He gives us the free will to choose what we do.
He will judge us because He gave us free will and we are responsible for our choices and actions.
***I AM A FINANCIAL SUPPORTER OF BRO NATHANAEL ***
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments,
AJ
Dear In Christ Dan,
In the Gospel, Christ talks about hell and eternal damnation, more than any other place in the entire Bible. The Jesus meek and mild is a western aberration. He is merciful only to those who REPENT. But to those who do not repent, He is more fearsome than any mortal man.
Christ is the SAME GOD of the Old Testament, who appeared to Abraham and Moses, and spoke with all the prophets.
Christ teaches us to fear Him more than any man, no matter how cruel that man can be.
Luke 12:
[4] And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.
[5] But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear Him, which after He hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear Him.
***I AM A FINANCIAL SUPPORTER OF BRO NATHANAEL ***
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments,
AJ
Thank The LORD our God for men of Truth & Integrity such as Bro. Nathanael Kapner!
It is a Biblical fact that “The Man of Sin” will come with all Lying Deception from the mind of Satan.
This is the main characteristic of Rothschild/Zionist Talmudic Judaism. We must expose all of the Lying Deception that emanates from Satanically motivated Organizations with The Truth of Holy Scripture in “Thus saith The LORD.”
I support the Witness & Testimony of Bro. Nathanael Kapner.
Dear In Christ Craig Pepe,
No matter what you think about the genetic lineage of those who call themselves “Jews”, please understand that this is a spiritual identity.
Their racial descent is quite secondary. Ruth was a Moabitess and was more faithful than many Hebrews. She was also an ancestor of Christ. We are fighting a spiritual power, and not flesh, as St. Paul says. It is the spiritual power of Satan, working through today’s Judaics.
Christ says that flesh and blood shall not inherit the Kingdom, but only those who worship God in spirit and truth.
***I AM A FINANCIAL SUPPORTER OF BRO NATHANAEL ***
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments,
AJ
Dear In Christ Craig Pepe,
The 144,000 of Revelation are the fullness of the Church, the Israel of God.
It is based on the 12 Old Testament Patriarchs and 12 New Testament Apostles.
12x12x1000
A thousand is the number of fullness or completion. It also has a connotation to the millennium of the Church, the thousand years of Revelation 20.
Even if you want to interpret this literally as being 144,000 Jews who convert at the end of time, this is still less than 1% of all the Jews worldwide.
Less than one percent!
***I AM A FINANCIAL SUPPORTER OF BRO NATHANAEL ***
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments,
AJ
Dear In Christ Michael Kelley,
That heretical Bishop Paul Peter Jesep, U.S. Director of Public Affairs for the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church Diaspora, is obviously pronouncing his own erroneous opinion and not the teaching of the Church. He is probably a paid stooge of the Judeo-masons, and is known to be also an Ecumenist.
It has always been the teaching of the Church, since the Apostles and the Church in Jerusalem, that the True Israel is the Church, whereas the false Israel are the non-believing Jews. The faithful remnant of Israel is the one that accepted Christ. It is the true Israel.
The other part of Israel which killed Him and rejected Him was cut off. It is no more in covenant with God, or His chosen people. St. Peter makes this clear in his epistles. The Chosen People, Holy Nation, God’s own, are the Christians. It is very simple.
The Jews call themselves “Israel,” the papists “Catholics,” the Armenians “apostolic,” the protestants “evangelical,” etc. But these attributes all belong to the True Orthodox Church, the faithful remnant.
Christ has one Bride only, not two, or three or many. The Jews, the heterodox Christians (Ecumenist, World Orthodox, papists, protestants, non-Chalcedonians), and non-Christians are not part of His Chosen People. Only the True Orthodox are the Israel of God.
***I AM A FINANCIAL SUPPORTER OF BRO NATHANAEL ***
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments,
AJ
@ “Christ has one Bride only, not two, or three or many. The Jews, the heterodox Christians (Ecumenist, World Orthodox, papists, protestants, non-Chalcedonians), and non-Christians are not part of His Chosen People. Only the True Orthodox are the Israel of God.”
Sounds to me like “The Myth of the Chosen People.”
Dear Andrew Jackson –
I am always amazed when I meet a truly brilliant and sane person.
I don’t know your age, but if you don’t pursue the priesthood in the Orthodox Church – this will constitute a crime.
Your words are like fresh air. God bless you!
Reader Simeon Richard
A little unsolicited advice to the Orthodox Church regarding the Jews’ request… (actually more like a threat and ultimatum than a request)
““Support of this declaration by church leaders would help build a more positive interfaith dialogue between Orthodox Christians and Jews, and help increase religious respect around the world.”‘
The Roman Catholic church fell for that “positive interfaith dialogue” garbage years ago. The result? An successful attempt to change the official US adult Catholic Catechism to say
“Paragraph 121 reads: “The Old Testament is an indispensable part of Sacred Scripture. Its books are divinely inspired and retain a permanant value, for the Old Covenant has never been revoked.”
Robert Sungenis, E. Michael Jones, and the late Thomas Herron wrote to the Vatican and told them it was HERESY to claim that the Old Covenant (the Mosaic Covenant) “has never been revoked.” The Vatican ruled in their favor and immediately withdrew and republished the USCCB Adult Catholic catechism to omit that heretical statement.
But that’s how subversive and manipulative and powerful the revolutionary Jews who are trying to bust up Roman Catholicism are. They can get an outrageiously flagrantly heretical statement actually published in an official Church catechism.
I surmised that the Orthodox Church was under attack and infiltration from the Jews just as much as the Roman Catholic church, and now from some of these posting I see the facts.
The reward for the RC Church dialoging with the synagogue of Satan is find ourselves called the most wicked institution on earth and font of all evil, per Daniel Jonah Goldberg and Jonah Metzger and others.
The Roman Catholic church gets to conitunally apologize the rest of our lives to the Jews.
More and more traditional Catholics are just saying no to the evil that has metastasized the Church.
Enough is enough people.
Expose the Satanic Jews who cannot be dialoged with and really do not want to dialog. They want to split up the Church and inject heresy and dicord and disorder!
The 144,000 could also be of the number of Hebrews and their descendants who accepted Jesus Christ and became Christians.
This would be in accordance with Yaweh’s promise to never forget his servant “Israel” no matter where they may be.
It is not at all wise to attach meanings to something which do not in any way reflect the words. This is especially so with Apocalypse and this warning is given at the end.
The Orthodox Church is not infallible.
Bravo Andrew Jackson!!!!!!
You are one smart man.
Joyce
Dear Dirk de Boer,
As Andrew Jackson already stated,
You are wrong, God does not choose us, we choose Him.
Freedom of choice is at the core of salvation and the Plan of God. If we have no freedom, then nothing of Christianity (or anything else for that matter) has any value.
And if you don’t believe me, then believe Jesus Christ’s own words:
Mark 8:34 KJV:
34 And when he had called the people unto Him with His disciples also, He said unto them, Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
As you can see, the words “Whosoever will come,” makes it perfectly clear, that the choice is up to us, to follow Him.
Further more, in the Greek original the words are: “όστις θέλει”, which literally, means: “whosoever wants.”
He thereby, leaves it upon our individual wills (θέλημα/thelema) to choose to follow Him.
Also, take the opposite side: Satan’s followers have one Law as per the words of Aleister Crowley who called him self the Beast: It is: “Do as thou wilt.”
If you ponder on this, you will realize that even the Devil wants us to choose Him over God FREELY, so that our damnation will be guaranteed.
Thus, looking at this both ways, we see that we are to choose freely towards which direction we will go.
Stav
Dear oxymoron,
You say:
“The 144,000 could also be of the number of Hebrews and their descendants who accepted Jesus Christ and became Christians.”
The number is not literal. As stated many times before in this website, it represents a fullness of the Church. This is a common way to express various meanings in the ancient times and indeed the Bible. I remind you here that there was a number mentioned by Jesus Christ for how many times we need to forgive people.
Just like in that case, the number is simply mentioned to give a clear, pure and simple understanding of what is said.
You say:
“This would be in accordance with Yaweh’s promise to never forget his servant “Israel” no matter where they may be.”
There is no Israel, apart from the Church. Don’t be fooled by the use of the word to describe today’s Jews and/or Jewish nation. Nor does it match the Old Testament Israel. The “temple” was destroyed and rebuilt in three days, and that first temple was the Old Israel, and the new is the Church. Any promises to Israel, therefore are applicable to the Church and not today’s Jews.
You say:
“It is not at all wise to attach meanings to something which do not in any way reflect the words.”
See my answer above about forgiving people.
Matthew 18:22 (King James Version):
22 Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.
Are you counting up to 70*7 when you are forgiving people? Or do you understand this to mean: “always forgive people”?
You say:
“This is especially so with Apocalypse and this warning is given at the end.”
It is actually the opposite. The Apocalypse, is FULL of incomprehensible and otherwise metaphorical pictures and so much so, that simply because of the way it is written it BEGS for not taking the words literally and trying to find the real meaning.
Take for example the various monsters, dragons, and other events described in it. The same goes with the numbers mentioned there.
You say:
“The Orthodox Church is not infallible.”
Orthodox People as individuals are indeed capable and in many cases make errors, mistakes and there’s plenty of fault to find in them. But, the Orthodox Church as a whole, is indeed infallible. This is because in it’s entirety, when it formulates doctrine or when it establishes tradition, these processes are guided and directed by the Holy Spirit it self. This is the process by which the Bible was composed, and this is the process by which Orthodoxy operates.
It is clear that you don’t like the subject of this article. But, the Truth, Who is Jesus Christ, cannot be hidden.
And all of this is indeed an oxymoron dear oxymoron: With your protestant background, where arbitrary explanation of Scripture and God’s Will is rampant, it is you of all here, who criticizes the True Church of making mistakes when it interprets Scripture.
We don’t do it arbitrarily. We do it by way of Holy Grace and Ecumenical Councils in concordance with Holy Tradition which is the collective experience of our Saints. Without this combination, you would not even have the Bible and the limited understanding of Christianity you possess.
Stav
Bro. Nathanael,
Thank you for being a man of research. Your videos are excellent as is your writing.
Jesus Christ, I’m sure a reluctant leader, was chosen by the people. People choose good leaders….leaders do not choose the people.
As you so aptly clarified, many are called but few are chosen.
Susie
Dear “Oxymoron,”
There is no “Myth of the Chosen People.” The Bible is true and God is faithful to His word.
In the OT, God repeatedly said that he chose the stiff-necked people not for their goodness or greatness, but for the sake of the righteousness of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the sake of His promises to them, and later for the sake of David.
In the NT, the Chosen People are the Church, which follow the Apostolic Church of Jerusalem, by apostolic succession of its bishops, the teaching of the Apostolic (Orthodox) Faith, and the worship practices of the early Church (mostly embodied in the Divine Liturgy of St. James, the Brother of the Lord).
The Church was and is One, no matter how large or small it is. Truth is indivisible. Those groups who left the church (the non-Chalcedonians and papists) are outside the Israel of God. That does not mean that they have no truth. They do, but it is partial and distorted, and contaminated with heresy, to different degrees. For example the non-Chalcedonians are much closer to Orthodoxy than the papists, both in doctrine, and in spirituality and practice.
The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church is an item of faith, not because we are good; no, we are sinners, and have a great responsibility.
It is an item of faith because Christ keeps His promise. Being in the True Orthodox Church puts us in a privileged position to know God better, and be closer to Him, but at the same time, it makes us liable to a higher standard and more severe judgment if we fail or betray Him.
***I AM A FINANCIAL SUPPORTER OF BRO NATHANAEL ***
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments,
AJ
Dear in Christ, Reader Simeon Richard,
Thank you for your accolades. I am in my forties and have not considered the priesthood. I am not a good candidate.
I may need to stay a layman in order to keep an eye on the bishops and clergy of the True Orthodox Church, in order to make sure they divide correctly the word of truth.
May God’s will be done.
***I AM A FINANCIAL SUPPORTER OF BRO NATHANAEL ***
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments,
AJ
Dear in Christ, Jeannon Kralj,
You are absolutely correct. Dialogue with the Jews is very destructive to Christian doctrine. The Church has historically had a monologue with the Jews and non-Christians, not a dialogue. The Truth revealed by Christ God is non-negotiable.
This is why the True Orthodox Church is against this false ecumenism. It is an enormous heresy. It believes in the “branch theory” of the Church, and that all religions really believe and worship the same God, but in different ways. This is completely inimical to the Gospel.
We believe in true ecumenism, which invites all peoples, nations, religions, and races to accept Christ, repent of their sins, be baptized, and work on their salvation with fear and trembling.
Of course the Old Testament has been superseded by the New Testament. And the Judaics are no more in covenant with God. They are His enemies.
1 Thess. 2:
[14] For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews,
[15] Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men,
[16] Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins always, for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.
***I AM A FINANCIAL SUPPORTER OF BRO NATHANAEL ***
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments,
AJ
Dear “Oxymoron,”
Yes, you are right, the 144,000 could also be the Hebrews who accepted Christ in the early Church of Jerusalem, as a fulfillment of the faithful remnant of the Hebrew race.
Concerning the infallibility of the Orthodox Church, we DO BELIEVE it is infallible in its Seven Ecumenical Councils, and all its dogmas and practices that have been accepted by the Church as a whole and confirmed by Holy Tradition.
On the other hand, an individual bishop, even if Patriarch, or a synod, or several synods are of course NOT infallible.
They are liable to make mistakes and fall into heresy, as always and from the times of the Apostles (the Nicholaitians are an early heresy that Christ condemns in Revelation). Our situation today proves the fallibility of bishops and synods: most Orthodox churches, tragically, have fallen into the heresy of ecumenism.
***I AM A FINANCIAL SUPPORTER OF BRO NATHANAEL ***
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments,
AJ
Thank you, dear in Christ, Joyce!
I am not smart. Orthodoxy has made me smart.
Here are other examples of the fallibility of bishops, synods, and local churches.
Rome fell into heresy around 1054, even though it had been orthodox heretofore.
The “Robber Synod” of 449 AD in Ephesus was later repudiated as false at the Fourth Ecumenical Council of 451 AD, in Chalcedon.
***I AM A FINANCIAL SUPPORTER OF BRO NATHANAEL ***
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments,
AJ
Dear in Christ, Susie,
The people did not choose Jesus Christ. He chose them to start His mission among them. He is God and chose to be incarnate.
He chose to be born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem. The people wanted to make Him king, but He refused. The time of His Kingship will be at the Second Coming, when He will rule the nations with a rod of iron, and no one can escape His judgment. No privilege or money or ancestry can save from His hand.
John 6:15: When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone.
He calls all men to repent, be saved, and inherit eternal life. But few are they that respond to the invitation.
***I AM A FINANCIAL SUPPORTER OF BRO NATHANAEL ***
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments,
AJ
Simeon Richard
Dear Susie:
What Jesus Christ were you taking about? “a reluctant leader…chosen by the people”?
Are you talking about a political leader, a revolutionary or maybe a mayor?
We understand Jesus to be God (true God and true man) not anyone elected or chosen by the people. The end of humanist thought is to totally trivialize!
Romans 8:30
“Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”
NT gives the answer who the chosen people of God are. His One Undividable Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church WITH ALL HIS SAINTS, as Saint Justin Popovich used to say.
In Christs Love
Georgios
“Mostly embodied in the Divine Liturgy of St. James, the Brother of the Lord”
Say what? Is that “orthodox” teaching?
So there you have it.
The Orthodox church is now infallible.
But this is the very thing that separates you from the Roman Catholic church is it not?
Can you understand the meaning of the situation you find yourself in. Because in its essence it is called hypocrisy.
But I digress.
In the Old Testament there are repeated promises of God that he will never abandon the Hebrews (to distinguish them from ‘THOSE WHO CALL THEMSELVES JEWS BUT ARE NOT”) who are FAITHFUL to Him but he casts off repeatedly those who are not.
This promise is for all time and for all eternity. This is stated in the Bible, over and over. Read IT.
I understand “those who call themselves Jews and are not. ”
I am NOT REFERRING TO THEM.
This promise is fulfilled at Christ’s first coming.
Their rejection of Christ was not their first rejection of God. He came in the middle of their rejection of God as is clear from his chastisement of their spiritual leaders and the fact that they were occupied by Rome… a sign by God that they were not living according to the will of God.
Made plain BY the Old Testament prophets. However, they had no prophets for 800 years before the birth of Christ to tell them this.
Yet Christ still chooses to be born among them. The promise is still kept. It is a covenant which in eternity will not be broken because it issues from the Mouth of God.
This covenant then with the Hebrews remains with those of the dispersion. The 10 tribes called “lost” even before Christ was born.
These are not guilty of Christ’s crucifixion. They have no share in the blood curse the crowds brought down on all those who rejected Christ. They were not resident in Israel for the most part at the time of the crucifixion.
But the Apocalypse shows and reinforces God’s promise in the Old Testament that God will never abandon His people.
Christ’s reference to seventy times seven for the forgiveness of sins, in response to the number seven times proposed by one of his disciples has NOTHING to do with other numbers in the Bible, WHICH ARE always exact in detail, AND FOR A REASON, of which there are numerous examples.
To my Orthododx Brothers:
God chooses us, not we God.
Christ says: “I have manifested thy name unto the men WHICH THOU GAVEST ME out of the world: THINE they were, and THOU GAVEST THEM ME; and they have kept thy word.”
JOHN 17:6
We CAN NOT come to Christ, if the Father does not send us to HIM! The Father choses us.
@ Andrew Jackson
“The 144,000 of Revelation are the fullness of the Church, the Israel of God. It is based on the 12 Old Testament Patriarchs and 12 New Testament Apostles.
12×12×1000”
————————————
In my interpretation there are 12,000 people from each of the 12 tribes of Israel that are sealed and saved, I think these are going to be righteous Jews who follow the Torah strictly.
Jews that convert to Christianity, (and there have been MANY for 2000 years and more to come), are Christians, they have nothing to do with the 144,000 in my interpretation of the Book of Revelation
———————————-
Revelation 7 (New King James version)
The Sealed of Israel
1 After these things I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, on the sea, or on any tree.
2 Then I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God. And he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the sea, 3 saying, “Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees till we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.”
4 And I heard the number of those who were sealed. One hundred and forty-four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel were sealed:
5 of the tribe of Judah twelve thousand were sealed;[a]
of the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Gad twelve thousand were sealed;
6 of the tribe of Asher twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand were sealed;
7 of the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Levi twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand were sealed;
8 of the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Benjamin twelve thousand were sealed.
Dear in Christ, Jeannon Kralj,
St. James was the step-brother of Christ. He was the son of Joseph from an earlier marriage. Joseph was a widower in his eighties when he betrothed the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary.
The Liturgy of St. James the Brother of the Lord, is based on the Old Testament Liturgical worship, and is the basis of the Orthodox liturgies of St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil the Great.
***I AM A FINANCIAL SUPPORTER OF BRO NATHANAEL ***
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments,
AJ
Dear Georgios,
You say God Chooses us. It depends on what you mean by “chooses.” If you mean that he may choose some person to complete a particular task or not, then you are partially right. But, God always allows us the option to choose not to comply.
That is a core concept in Orthodoxy.
It is also a huge issue which we have with the Papists, who ascribe no will or freedom to our Dear Theotokos by calling Her “the immaculate conception,” who CHOSE in all FREEDOM to comply with God’s choice of Her to become the Mother of God.
Thus, while in certain cases God will obviously Choose someone to perform a task, this does not take away from the fact that God leaves us to freely choose to go with Him or the other way.
Stav
@oxymoron
The Church of Christ consists of The Triumphant Church in Heaven with all Her Saints plus the Fighting Church here on earth. The Orthodox Church is the BODY of our Lord CHRIST. He is the Head, we are the members of His Body. The Holy Spirit guides His Church to the whole truth, as Christ promises.
If some Orthodox become heretical or ecumenical or new calendarians they deny the true belief and are cut off from Christ’s Body.
There was an ascetic monk in the desert and the demons came to try him. “Agathon,” they told to him, “you are a big liar.” “Yes I am,” he replied. “You are also a thief.” “Yes I am,” he replied. After accusing him of many sins, the demons told to Agathon, “You are a heretical.” “NO, I AM NOT”, he answered.
“Why did you accept all lies we accused you but you don’t accept heresy?”
“Because heresy separates me from my Lord,” Agathon answered.
Every innovation after the Seven Holy Councils which are valid for ALL Christians, is a dictation of the father of lies, the devil.
Dear “Oxymoron,”
The Roman Catholic Church claims that the pope is infallible, which is absurd, because he is just a man. The Orthodox Church teaches that the truth of the Faith as taught by the Church is infallible since it is revealed by the Holy Spirit. He is the one guiding the Church in all truth, as Christ has promised.
In the OT, God promised He will not abandon the Hebrews on CONDITION that they obey Him.
This is repeated dozens of times, and is the crucial condition of the Covenant. Obedience is the key to God’s promises. The same applies to the Chosen People of the NT.
When the Hebrews disobeyed, the Bible clearly says that God sent the Assyrian Sennacherib and then the Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar to chastise them, in order to make them repent. A remnant repented and returned to Jerusalem under Ezra and Nehemiah’s leadership.
Yes, the domination of Judea by Rome was also a chastisement, in order to keep them humble, but the majority did not heed God’s word and will. The last prophet Malachi was approximately 400 years before Christ.
However the Maccabees around 176 years before Christ were righteous. They are commemorated in the Orthodox Church on August 1. There were also others.
The parents of the Virgin Mary, Joachim and Anna, and those of St. John the Baptist, Zechariah and Elizabeth, were also righteous and blameless before God. St. John the Baptist is the last of the prophets.
The lost 10 tribes of the dispersion will still receive the promises of the OT, which is CHRIST, if they repent and believe in Him. They are of course not Hebrew anymore because they have fused with other nations and no one can track them. But that does not matter. Genetic descent is not relevant any more. There is no Jew or Greek.
I am afraid you are still confused about who God’s people are. They are all those who believe in Christ and are baptized into His True Church. The Hebrews are no more God’s people. Their believing remnant became the Church in Jerusalem on Pentecost.
Not all numbers are literal and not all are allegorical. For example, all the Fathers teach that the 6 days of creation in Genesis are literally 6 ordinary days of 24 hours each, and that God created instantly all things during these 6 days.
There was no death in nature or among animals before Adam sinned. This is also the patristic literal interpretation. Most numbers are literal, but the 70×7, the thousand years of Christ’s reign, and the 144,000 are all interpreted allegorically by the Holy Fathers.
There is no rule of thumb. You have to study how the Spirit-bearing Fathers interpret Scripture.
Proverbs 22:28 Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.
***I AM A FINANCIAL SUPPORTER OF BRO NATHANAEL ***
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments,
AJ
Dear in Christ Georgios,
Evlogeite.
You are correct. It is God who chooses us to be part of His Chosen People, the True Church. It is up to us to accept this call, or reject it.
***I AM A FINANCIAL SUPPORTER OF BRO NATHANAEL ***
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments,
AJ
Thanks, Andrew Jackson.
Was not sure you meant step-brother.
Dear oxymoron,
It is so tiresome to hear the same argument, that we have just refuted from every angle — citing Scripture, the Fathers, and many significant Christian theologians including the original Protestants — brought back out and presented like an idol for us to bow down to.
Enough ignorance. You aren’t even participating in a discussion, you are not responding to the points so assiduously and laboriously presented for your benefit. You are in a monologue, not refuting with arguments and facts.
You don’t need to tell the Fathers of the Orthodox Church to read the Bible, they the are reason you have one in the first place. They may not be infallible, but they sure know a lot more about what’s in there than you.
I’m not debating one single point of theology with you, because you are here to bang your own drum and have your own little parade. When are you going to wonder whether your beliefs have any relationship with the historical reality of the Church?
When will you come out of the isolation of your imagination and realize that there are others, real people who have passed away out there and who have left behind their wisdom, which you owe everything to, and without whom you would not have any clue Christ even walked the earth, because your precious Jews sure wouldn’t be the ones to tell you about Him.
And when will you find it within your heart to ASK those people what they believe, rather than to tell them what YOU personally believe?
Dear +BN, thanks all your videos I find them very informative and interesting.
However, if I may concisely put it, that it seems the Jews are still God’s chosen people for is it not the sayings of Apostles and Prophets throughout most of the Scriptures? The prophecies are still valid and are yet to be fulfilled.
Dispensationalism and ‘traditional church beliefs’ aside.
Think about it. Would God have made a mistake of making a WRONG choice? Doesn’t work that way, does it?
Or is it we are witnessing an ultimate paradox being played out before our eyes?
Peace in Christ Jesus.
Dear Andrew Jackson
The Lord
(O Kyrios)
Dear Michael Kelly.
Your precious Orthodox Church would still be in chains if it were not for the Catholic Church which liberated you from Communism.
You are not infallible because you cannot say with certainty what is of the Holy Spirit and what is not, so that argument does not wash.
Only God is infallible.
Your mind games have no effect on the non-Orthodox as unlike you we are not submissive from cradle to grave to church brainwashing, most of which is not directed towards your salvation but to rubbishing the rest of Christianity.
Stav
I gave you the verse of the Bible.
Matthew 21:43
“Therefore say I to you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.”
Is there any doubt, that the Jews are no more the “chosen” ones?
I really don’t want to debate with Stav, but he seems to have some misunderstandings that I must correct.
Stav said…
“That is a core concept in Orthodoxy.
It is also a huge issue which we have with the Papists, who ascribe no will or freedom to our Dear Theotokos by calling Her “the immaculate conception,” who CHOSE in all FREEDOM to comply with God’s choice of Her to become the Mother of God.”
The Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God, the dear Theotokos, most certainly DID have free will.
“She could grow in the supernatural life by cooperating with the graces that God gave her. She could merit before God. Why? Because she had a free will. Although she would never choose to sin, yet she would choose among various options that were all good, or between the good and the better, and between the better and the best.
Mary did not have the disorderly passion of body and soul that we experience because she was conceived without original sin and its consequences. One of the results of original sin that we all have is the disorderly desires that, unless controlled with the help of God’s grace, lead us into sin.
ABSOLUTE SINLESSNESS. This says more than merely that Mary never sinned. She had a free will. But confirmed by supernatural grace, her will was never inclined to disobey the will of God.
What should be further explained to those you catechize is that, as we grow in holiness, we do not lose our free will. But our freedom is more and more inclined to choose what is more pleasing to God. Mary’s sinlessness was not a sterile passivity. It was an ever active tendency to do what was more generous, more loving, and more perfect in the sight of God.”
from
http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Faith/Faith_007.htm
____________________
To just name one underlying difference that impacts this narrow discussion about Mary and free will, a huge issue which we Catholics have with the anti-Papists is that the anti-papist Orthodox’s belief is that the guilt of original sin is not transmitted from one generation to the next, thus obviating the need for Mary to be sinless.
The Immaculate conception is necessary because not only do humans inherit a sinful
nature, they also bear the guilt of Adam and Eve’s sin. Thus being sinless herself, Mary could give birth to a
sinless Christ.
The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is based on Sacred Tradition, not on anything specific in the bible.
To me, the doctrine is very beautiful and logical. To bring God into the world, there must be a perfect vessel.
Dear Georgios,
Blessed Elder Paisios once said that the Old Calendar was established by a pagan idol worshiper and the New Calendar by a pope, a heretic. The point is that the calendar is not the dividing line between truth and untruth.
The New Calendar is only “potentially heretical” and not inherently so. New Calendarists have the same blessing and apostolic succession as the Old. There seems to be more potential for heresy in the New Calendar Church, but that is currently the subject of a struggle and by no means is it decided.
And the last time I checked, we were not saved by a calendar, nor was grace transmitted by the way you reckon time. Both have the same feasts and liturgy, sacraments and fasts. What’s done is done and we have to live today.
Dear oxymoron,
You say:
“The Orthodox church is now infallible.”
No, the Orthodox Church as a whole community with it’s head being Christ, has ALWAYS been infallible. This is nothing new.
I am not talking about individuals here or even small sub-groups.
You say:
“But this is the very thing that separates you from the Roman Catholic church is it not?”
What separates them from the True Church, is their multitudes of heresies, blasphemous practices etc., one of which is their claim that their Pope is infallible. That’s not the same thing as saying that the Church as a whole is infallible.
You say:
“Can you understand the meaning of the situation you find yourself in. Because in its essence it is called hypocrisy.”
Unfortunately I believe sincerely, that you don’t understand the issues at hand here. Simply put, it’s not hypocrisy, because we are not claiming something without proof or facts.
You say:
“In the Old Testament there are repeated promises of God that he will never abandon the Hebrews (to distinguish them from ‘THOSE WHO CALL THEMSELVES JEWS BUT ARE NOT”) who are FAITHFUL to Him but he casts off repeatedly those who are not.”
The Bible calls the Jews as being children Satan… How does this fact connect with what you say? In addition, in the Bible it is made clear many times that the Church are to inherit the renewed covenant. The New covenant is now in effect. Everyone is welcome to join, even Jews. Surely, this is not something you disagree with?
You say:
“This promise is for all time and for all eternity. This is stated in the Bible, over and over. Read IT.
I understand “those who call themselves Jews and are not. ”
I am NOT REFERRING TO THEM.”
There may be people who are Christians today, who may have descended from the Old Israel. That much is possible. And while I do not believe that it is the case, even the 144000 could potentially be Jews who have become Christians. But you cannot imply, even unwillingly, that today’s self-proclaimed Jews are going to be saved simply because of their descent without accepting Jesus Christ as the Messiah.
It is true, as mentioned in the Bible, but also as plain reason suggests, some of them will be saved, and many not. But, how does that make this different, to the situation with us of non-Jewish descent?
You say:
“Their rejection of Christ was not their first rejection of God. He came in the middle of their rejection…”
ALL Jews who practice Judaism, even if they are predominantly secular, are Anti-Christ by definition. If they don’t repent, they will NOT be saved. If some of them do, then, these specific ones will be saved. Simple.
You say:
“Yet Christ still chooses to be born among them. The promise is still kept. It is a covenant which in eternity will not be broken because it issues from the Mouth of God.”
You are mixing the past with the future, and the Old Israel with the New, which is the Church, which INCLUDES Hebrews/Jews who have become Christians. Again, any righteous Jews will be saved, just like it is with all the rest of us. In this respect you may be right. But, your disagreement, leads to Zionist thinking, whether you know it, or want it, or not.
You say:
“Christ’s reference to seventy times seven for the forgiveness of sins, in response to the number seven times proposed by one of his disciples has NOTHING to do with other numbers in the Bible, WHICH ARE always exact in detail, AND FOR A REASON, of which there are numerous examples.”
You are plainly wrong. See below:
Revelation 9:15
15 And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men. 16 And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them.
I ask the following about Saint John who wrote the Apocalypse:
1) How did he know, that the four Angels prepared for that specific amount of time?| Did he count it? Did he experience it? How can we tell that this is exact or not?
2) This army is to be 200.000.000. Is that an exact number? Will there be EXACTLY 200.000.000 soldiers? And will they be literal horsemen? On horses? How did he know the exact number? Did he count them? Was he told?
Revelation 5:11
And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands;
Is this exactly literal or not?
Revelation 7:4
And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.
The number in question is mentioned, but what is also mentioned is: “of all the tribes of the children of Israel.”
The question is, you mention the 10 “lost” tribes of Israel, does this not contradict the passage which specifically say all?
In addition, from the above, how can you tell what is meant exactly by the expression “children of Israel,” is this the Church, or is it the Old Israel?
Revelation 7:5
Of the tribe of Juda were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Reuben were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve thousand.
Given the significance of the number 12 in the Bible, would you say that 12.000 is symbolic here or not?
Revelation 11:3
And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.
How would you judge here, whether this is a literal number or not? There is a clue in the numbers…
Revelation 20:2
And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
Is the mention here of 1000 literal and exact as you say or not?
Revelation 21:16
And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal.
Would you say this number is exact or not?
Deuteronomy 7:9
Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love Him and keep His commandments to a thousand generations;
Is this number of generation exact, or should we start counting generations just to be sure if the covenant still stands? Moreover, who are the people who keep His commandments today? The Zionist Jews, or the sincere Christians?
As you can see, not all numbers in the Bible are exact (especially in the Apocalypse), though many of them are exact in general throughout the Bible.
To understand the response 70 times 7, the expression 1000 years, the number 12 and it’s derivatives such as 144000 and other similar references (some of them numerical, some of them not) as used in the Bible, you must understand the cultural aspect.
These references are in many cases not only numerical or literal, they include meanings which are compounded by these cultural aspects and more. Ancient people used the number 1000 to express multitudes, knowing that they were not being exact. Similarly, multiplying or adding by 10, 100 or 1000 was and still is, used today to express either infinity or multitudes.
Stav
@Michael Kelley
The new Calender is anathematized three times by the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Orthodox Church. It was introduced first by force in Greece in 1924, even by killing people who denied this innovation of the devil.
The introduction was made by the masonic Pseudopatriarch of Constantinople Meletios Metaxakis, who then became Patriarch of Alexandria where he changed the Calendar, too. Traveling to Jerusalem to make the same thing there he died in the hands of Satan a terrible death.
From the 300 Million Orthodox people only 15 Million are New-calendarians who since 1965 are one and the same “Church” with the satanic Vatican after they recalled the Anathemas of 1054.
According to the Church rules, a schism like the new calendarism becomes a heresy.
All new calendarian priests are heretical. I can not say this for the people because many of them do not know where they are.
But have communion with BartolomJew is HERESY.
The New Calendar was introduced into the Orthodox Church not for the sake of astronomical correctness, but as the first step in achieving a forced, false union of the Orthodox Church with non-Orthodox New Calendarist Christian bodies [i.e., Roman Catholic, Protestant, etc.], for the sake of certain secular advantages which such a union was expected to have.
This was to be the beginning of the Orthodox Church’s participation in the ‘Ecumenical Movement.’
NEW CALENDAR=ECUMENISM
A Christian cannot exist as an individual, but only as a member of the body of Christ, the Church. And the Church is there only when the truth is confessed.
When Ecumenism that is error is confessed, there is neither Christ or Church. And do not think this is the case only when Ecumenism is preached from the Altar.
In Church we confess our faith through the name of the bishop we commemorate. True Orthodox commemorate True Orthodox Bishops, Arians commemorate Arian bishops, Monophysites commemorate Monophysite bishops, Iconoclasts commemorate Iconoclast bishops, Uniates commemorate Uniate bishops and Ecumenists commemorate Ecumenist bishops.
It is possible for everything to appear Orthodox in a church, however the bishop that the priest commemorates will reveal to us where we truly are. Ask yourself who does your priest commemorate? Bishop Sotirios, and in turn who does he commemorate? Ecumenical Patriarchate Bartholomew, and who did he commemorate? Pope John Paul and now Benedict!!!
So why go to a “Orthodox” church when you can go to a Roman Catholic Church what’s the difference they both commemorate the Pope. The tragedy is that Orthodox Christians have been united to the Vatican without being aware that it has taken place. All of which places everyone that follows the new calendar and ecumenism under Anathema !!
Lots of thanks to Sam, (the different Sam) for providing this interesting link about Europe turning against Israel.
I am so glad to hear that gradually people are getting the awareness of the evil Zionism.
With every chance I get I post lots of translated information, including some of RZN’s articles, David Duke’s, and other useful ones on many Polish Website “walls” and forums.
And I can assure you that most of the info definitely “sink” into peoples brains and heart.
Poland’s lukewarm foreign policy toward Israel represents only the government NOT the people.
Stav
About the 200,000,000 number of soldiers
Saint John CONFIRMS.
“I HEARD THE NUMBER” which means: YES it will be 200,000,000
Its time to understand the Scriptures.
The Immaculate conception is NONSENSE.
Then even her parents should be immaculate concepted and so on.
Luke 1:46-47
And Mary said:
“My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my SAVIOR.”
Why don’t you cite the Bible in your arguments people????
MARY SAYS, CHRIST IS HER SAVIOR. Why do the Papists not see it? Are they like the Pharisees who told to Christ: “We can see, you dont need to cure us”
If you do not know the Holy Scriptures and you don’t understand them, you do nothing.
Stav you seem to have disagreement with me for, in your thinking, signalling out Old Testament Jews and their descendants for special treatment.
I do not. Why would I?
And God certainly does not draw distinction between persons.
Why therefore does He appear to do so in Apocalypse?
This is the question, which leads to INTERPRETATION, to get scripture to fit our belief system.
This is the case with the 144,000.
I believe, and I believe I am guided by the Holy Spirit in this, is that this is because there is an order to things.
Christ’s church, at the end of the day, the New Jerusalem, is beautiful, historical and unblemished, consisting of many parts; and each part having its proper PLACE and FUNCTION.
What comes after the 144,000 is the more revealing statement, and that is that these 144,000 were followed by millions of others, too numerous to count, who had washed their garments in the tribulation and become saints.
If you disagree with this ‘order of things’ explanation which I have given above how then do you wish this passage to be INTERPRETED:
‘…..It had a great and high wall with twelve gates; at the twelve gates were twelve angels, and the names were inscribed thereon, the names of the twelve tribes of Israel………….and the walls of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.”
Apoc. 21: 12-14.
I believe it is this ‘order of things’ for good and for bad, as we see in Apocalypse, which must be rightly emphasized, particularly in the confusion of the end times, and this is why God gave us the beautiful Revelation of John.
Communist Jews by country:
http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/List_of_communist_Jews
http://www.ccg.org/english/s/p299d.html
Brother Nathanael, what do you believe about 2012, and the Book of Enoch, which only the Ethiopian Orthodox churchs includes in its canon?
If all the works and perfections of Mary the Mother of God had been documented, Georgios would have no problem believing that she really is the Immaculate Conception, the new Eve, unblemished from her very beginning and hence the Mother of all new creatures in Christ.
No one else save Christ is near her in perfection and power, a power and perfection which could have but did not come from someone born in sin.
This is because no one else save Jesus has done the works she has done.
Of course Jesus is her Savior. He merited her perfection, her Immaculate Conception, her motherhood of Christ, and of the church, on the cross.
Dear Thrisnz,
How can you not understand all my detailed posts? Please review them above.
Christ, who is the same God of the Old Testament, has chosen to be born of the pure Virgin Mary.
She was a pure and holy vessel, therefore God’s plan WORKED, since the Hebrew nation was able, by God’s grace, to produce such a woman to be the Mother of God.
The Lord did not make the wrong choice. His plan WORKED.
The whole reason for the Hebrews to exist as a separate people was to produce Mariam, who gave birth to the Messiah Yehoshua. That is the SOLE PURPOSE of Old Israel.
The prophecies yet to be fulfilled are those related to the anti-christ in the last 7 years of history, and the Second Coming of Christ.
***I AM A FINANCIAL SUPPORTER OF BRO NATHANAEL ***
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments,
AJ
Hello Oxymoron,
The Roman Catholic Church may have helped to start the Solidarity movement and liberation of Poland, and from there the chain reaction occurred. But this is only due to God’s providence.
FYI, the Vatican was earnestly negotiating and cooperating with the Bolsheviks in the 1920s in order to formulate a plan to annihilate the Orthodox Church in Russia. Please take the time to read: THE CATHOLIC ASSAULT ON RUSSIA @
http://www.orthodoxchristianbooks.com/articles/309/-catholic-assault-russia/
In addition, since the Holy Spirit is God and infallible, we know that the Faith of the ancient Church, given to her by Christ and the Holy Spirit, is also infallible.
If you study the Faith with an open heart and mind, your eyes will open and you will understand. It makes perfect sense.
***I AM A FINANCIAL SUPPORTER OF BRO NATHANAEL ***
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments,
AJ
Dear Jeannon Kralj,
On the Appelations or Titles of the Virgin Mary
The Virgin Mary is honored because she is “Theotokos” – the Mother of God – not of His divinity, but of His humanity, yet of God in that Jesus Christ was, in the theology of the Church, both God and Man, at one and the same time, in the Incarnation….
We also speak of the Theotokos as being ‘Ever-Virgin,’ which was officially proclaimed at the 5th Ecumenical Council in Constantinople in AD 553; and the dogma concerning Mary as being Theotokos was proclaimed in AD 431 at the 3rd Ecumenical Council in Ephesus….
If Mary is honored as Theotokos, so too, she is honored because she is ‘Panagia” – [literally] All-Holy. She is the supreme example of the cooperation between God and Man; for God, Who always respects human freedom did not become incarnate without her free consent which, as Holy Scripture tells us, was freely given….
As All-Holy and Most-Pure, Mary was free from actual sin, but, in the opinion of most Orthodox theologians, although not dogmatized by the Church, she did fall under the curse of Original (ancestral) Sin as does all mankind. For this reason – by virtue of her solidarity with all humanity – the Theotokos died a bodily death.
Yet, in her case, the resurrection of the body had been anticipated; and she was assumed body and soul into Heaven, and her tomb was found empty….
[These Truths We Hold: The Holy Orthodox Church: Her Life and Teachings, A Monk of Saint Tikhon’s Monastery (ed), South Canaan PA, pp. 282-283.]
To explain a little more, Mary was born like the rest of mankind, stained with the ancestral curse which had corrupted all of human nature.
She also needed salvation by Christ. She was not born outside human nature or in a special way, as the erroneous papist dogma of the “immaculate conception” teaches.
She did not inherit any “guilt” from the sin of Adam and Eve. This is another Latin error.
Guilt is not inherited, only corrupt human nature through genetic inheritance. Mary cooperated with God’s grace by her free will and did not fall into sin.
***I AM A FINANCIAL SUPPORTER OF BRO NATHANAEL ***
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments,
AJ
Oxymoron,
This is the eschatology taught by the Orthodox Church:
– A great world war will happen that will unleash many plagues and woes, and in which 1/3 to 2/3 of mankind will die (Armageddon).
– Repentance by a large part of the survivors, and the spread of the (orthodox) Gospel to all 4 corners of the earth.
– Antichrist will appear on the world stage as a wise and righteous man in order to solve all the crises, to which he holds the keys.
– Enoch and Elias will appear at the same time (the 2 witnesses of Revelation) and will preach Christ for 3 1/2 years, after which Antichrist will kill them. They will be resurrected and taken to Heaven. The Bible says they have not died yet but were translated to Heaven. Enoch (Gentile) and Elias (Hebrew) will preach and convert many Gentiles and Jews.
– After the first 3 1/2 years of hypocrisy, Antichrist will show his true colors and openly persecute all who worship Christ as God. He will behead them according to the Noahide Laws for “idolatry.” This is the Great Tribulation.
– Antichrist will rebuild the temple in Jerusalem and will want to be worshiped in it as God. He will be Jewish and will claim to be the Messiah. The total reign of Antichrist will be 7 years.
– Christ will come back suddenly from Heaven and will destroy Antichrist and all his power.
– The living will be raptured into the air, the General Resurrection will be commanded by Christ, followed by the Final Judgment.
***I AM A FINANCIAL SUPPORTER OF BRO NATHANAEL ***
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments,
AJ
The Catholic church has never demonized other religions either of the Christian faith or otherwise.
If you say it has, you are a liar.
If you believe others who say such, in writing or otherwise you are a sucker.
This kindness of the Catholic church should not be taken as weakness. The Catholic faith is a battering ram against heresy and against evil in all its forms.
Make no mistake, real Christianity itself is opposed at every moment, at every corner to heresy.
The Orthodox church has no monopoly on Christianity – the very notion is itself a heresy.
In fact, the actions and words given on this forum to back this up constitute the actions of a sect and not a religion. Dogma for dogma sake, backed up by brainwashing and outright lies, libels and offenses against the 8th commandment – ” Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour” so numerous that they seems in themselves to constitute the basis of a farcical religion.
I do not for one moment entertain the thought that this is the normal, historical expression of Orthodoxy, far from it.
I have seen from my own observations the Orthodox faith is and has been historically very close to the Lord, and my comments do not reflect on it in general, but like all religions they are composed of good and bad.
Every individual in whatever office or not must use his own mind and his own will, subjecting both to the Lord if he wishes to be saved.
Calumny against others of whatever religion are not true simply because this or that prelate says so, writes such nonsense or preaches it from the pulpit.
I am so sorry Brother Nathanael Kapner that I cant send you any cash.
I work for these folks and I am not doing good on money as of late. I do thank you for waking folks up about these people. And even though they are God’s children as we are, they think that their heaven is in this world.
Sorry it is not. But we have tried to wake them up and they only follow greed. Greed will lead you to your grave. I work for Jews. I do a two man job by myself on 2nd shift and I get the BS that its a one man job, and they wonder why folks do bad stuff at work?
The company I work for makes 3,000,000 dollars off each employee, in turn the workers only make 200,000 best. Why not help the folks who have made you rich by sharing a little? Cause they’re a greedy Jew!
Dear Thrisnz,
Genesis 6:6
“And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.”
@oxymoron
Every virtue, according to the Church Fathers has two extrema. The upper one of exaggeration, and the other one of lessening.
In the fall of Holy Theotokos, the “Catholic” Church exaggerates Mary to Goddess, while Protestants never honour her. Instead, they believe she had many children denying of Panagia’s ever-virginity.
The middle way, the royal is the one God want us to go.
Meet it is in truth, to glorify thee, O Birth-giver of God, ever blessed, and all undefiled, the Mother of our God. More honorable than the Cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim, thou who without stain didst bear God the word, true Birth-giver of God, we magnify thee.
Dear Georgios,
While I honor your zeal for the faith, I have doubts as to whether the ultimate justifications you offer for breaking communion with the New Calendar churches have the force of true Church law. It is also an unfortunate effect of your zeal that you bring some condemnation upon the Orthodox here as sectarian cultists, thereby undermining the earnest efforts made to council our brothers and sisters regarding known and established heresy.
http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/anti-patristic-stance-old-calendarist-zealots.aspx
“…Of course, it would have been a great blessing if the calendar had remained unaltered and all of the Orthodox had continued to celebrate the feasts together.”
“Three great Synods condemned the Gregorian calendar at the end of the 16th century. The historian F. Vafeidis writes that “during that year (1583) a Synod gathered in Constantinople, which mainly condemned the Gregorian calendar; for according to this calendar it happens that we celebrate [Pascha] with the Jews, which is contrary to the Synod in Nicaea.”39 The Zealots, when they mention the above phrase, [often] stop after the word “calendar”, omitting the rest![40] It seems they believe that the main work of the Synod was the condemnation of the Gregorian calendar per se.”
“In fact, as the historian stated, the main reason for the condemnation of the Gregorian calendar was concelebration with the Jews—i.e., the alteration of the Paschalion [so that Pascha occasionally coincided with Passover—ed.]. This, however, never occurred, and we hope that it will never occur.* In other words, the full meaning of the above quote removes from the Zealots a reason for schism, since the change of the festal calendar [i.e., the Menaion—ed.] does not touch the dogmatic nature of the First Oecumenical Synod[41], and consequently it does not comprise a heresy.”
“Therefore, based on the most strict Canons of the First-Second Synod, and especially on the 15th—which the Zealots constantly call upon—, the calendar schism was completely anti-canonical.”
NOTE: This is not presented as a justification for para-masonic and Judaizing heresy, the mistakes of Mataxakis, or those of Patriarch Bartholemew today. It is not a defense of false ecumenism or an apology for modernism. It is a recognition that according to the Church’s esteemed and time-honored principle of ‘oikonomia,’ we are not to be swift in throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Well, we have wondered far from the original topic.
Some random comments.
I do believe the primary reason the Jews and the line of David were preserved is because of God’s ordaining will. Jesus was to be born from the House of David. Both Mary and Joseph were descended from the House of David, one through Nathan, one through Solomon. But Joseph was no physically related to Jesus. In Hebrew culture the mother is the important ancestral line (Genesis 34), and Mary was descended through Nathan (Luke 3:23-38)
However in the OT, God did regard the children of Israel as “the apple of His eye” and he did want them to be set aside as a holy people surrounded by pagans. They continually failed their test to a be a holy people but God kept his promise and plan to have the Messiah come from the line of David and for that reason he kept the line of David pure.
So the choseness does seem to be true in the OT but it is not true now. Once the Savior is born, any and all promises to the Children of Israel are over with, past, finished. God did fully fulfill all of his promises to the Children of Israel. Can read that in several OT verses, one in Joshua says plainly ALL was fulfilled.
The Jews of today USE and CAPITALIZE UPON their choseness in the OT and try to manipulate people into believeing they are still chosen and that the promises have not been fulfilled and that the “restoration of Israel” of Ezekiel and some other books of the OT refers to the physical nation of the Jews today – Israel. No biblical basis for that whatsoever.
This is wrong behavior of the Jews today. I have already provided the link to CatholicIntl.com where Dr. Sungenis explains all of this in dialog about an “evangelical” minister of today named Wagner. (explains about the word “forever”) This “never waste a crisis” kind of thinking of the Jews is typical. They have seized upon Old Testament times that God ordained but are using them, not wasting them, to create Protestantism and all stupid foundations of the “right” of the Jews to own the land as defined in the Old Testament. Evil and hogwash!
The Old Testament times as ruled over by God are not be USED in the superceding New Covenant of Jesus Christ the Messiah to Judaize the people of this world and to steer the whole world into these Synagogue of Satan Jews’ one world death and slavery system for all.
The New Testament does indicate that the Jews will be present at the time of the end, the last day, and that they will be saved. (Romans Ch 11) But we do not know the particulars of that and we do not know for sure that the “144,000” is a literal number. Most of the numbers in Revelation appear to be symbolic numbers to me, but not all. The 3 and one half year “tribulation” does appear to be a literal time.
The Roman Catholic church has always been very cautious in defining exactly what everything in the Revelation of John means.
___________
Won’t take the time to read how “the Vatican was earnestly negotiating and cooperating with the Bolsheviks in the 1920s in order to formulate a plan to annihilate the Orthodox Church in Russia.”
That would be hogwash. The RC church fought mightily against the Jewish Bolsheviks and even Golda Meir (sp?) said so as well as a long list of “world leaders.” Take the time to read “The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit” by E. Michael Jones. Father Coughlin spoke out mightily against the genocide of Russians that took place about 15 years before the evil that happened to the Germans by Hitler. Pope Pius XII fully and clearly and openly identified the Jews as the culprits long before he became Pope.
_______
Although there is no “new revelation” regarding RC Marian dogma, this is an area that has experienced much development in doctrine over recent decades.
Luke 1:47 – Our Blessed Mother says: “my spirit rejoices in God my savior.” (Mary did need a savior but she was saved PRIOR TO and in anticipation of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Our Lord, so “He merited her perfection, her Immaculate Conception, her motherhood of Christ, and of the church, on the cross” is not true.)
No individual human being can be a pure enough and holy enough of a vessel to be Theotokos (Greek – God bearer). The Immaculate Conception doctrine is right and fitting and logical.
Andrew Jackson said…
“but, in the opinion of most Orthodox theologians, although not dogmatized by the Church, she did fall under the curse of Original (ancestral) Sin as does all mankind.”
I think Andrew Jackson better find out for sure about this regarding “as does all mankind” because it appears that Orthodox belief is that “the guilt of original sin is not transmitted from one generation to the next” and that goes for “all mankind.”
THIS IS A MAJOR MAJOR difference between Roman Catholicism and the Orthodox Church. Yes, every human being, except the Blessed Mother and Jesus, are born with the “guilt” of original sin. Not only do all humans have a sinful nature, we all bear the guilt of Adam and Eve’s sin and that is why we have infant Baptism. But the sin nature stays with each of us, all of us, all our lives, even if we are baptized and become very holy.
To me, it is logical that all the bishops must have a leader or head and that not ALL bishops are on the same level. The Bishop of Rome is that head in the hierarchy that Christ ordained. (Just as a husband and wife cannot be perfectly equal. The husband must be the head of that union.) That hierarchy is Logos or Christ ordained order in this world.
The Pope is the ‘Vicar of Christ’ i.e. the visible head of the church on earth and spiritual successor of St. Peter. He has supreme authority (including that over church councils) within Christendom (The Power of the keys).
The Holy Spirit has shown some Church councils to be null and void and has identified some popes (about 41 popes) to be “anti-popes.”
I am praying the Holy Spirit soon identifies Vatican II as a false “null and void” council but these are the end times, and I think it is definitely part of God’s sovereign plan that the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church go through persecution and like never before in her history.
There can be only one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church, and if it is not the Roman Catholic church, then it is certainly not the entity that decided to break away from her in 1054.
Dear Georgios,
You say:
“About the 200,000,000 number of soldiers – Saint John CONFIRMS.”
Dear Georgios, you have not realized that we are in agreement. As you saw in my post, I actually QUOTED the Bible. And then I asked a question, whether this number is literal and absolutely exact or not.
My point was not to refute what is written by St. John, but rather to point out the thinking behind reading these numbers.
I do not appreciate your comment, that it’s time to understand the scriptures, to a fellow Orthodox. I merely quoted Scripture and your post seems to assume that I somehow stated my own ideas.
I am most definitely NOT ecumenist, I dispose the idea, as you will see from my numerous posts here on this site, for over a Year now. And, I understand that non-spiritually fueled zealotry and the new calendar have nothing to do in essence with ecumenism.
As I have stated before, with one single exception which is a restriction to the Date of celebrating Easter, all other Patristic information that is given to us, point to the fact, that the date of celebration of ALL other Orthodox feasts, have nothing to do with salvation.
Indeed, Christmas it self and of course a whole multitude of other feats, were not even celebrated (let alone celebrated on a different date), until later in the life of the Orthodox church. That does not make them ecumenist does it?
While it is true that in the Orthodox Church (both new and old calendar) there are ecumenist elements, it is also true that one does not naturally bring the other.
What brings about ecumenism, is a lack of understanding of Orthodox doctrine and a lack of true faith. Not the calendar.
And please, don’t call me an ecumenist, because I find this characterization insulting. I want nothing to do with Heresy, except for refuting it with facts, theology and logic, and my experience is great in this matter.
As your famous story you just mentioned, I too, will not accept ANYONE, calling me a heretic or ecumenist.
Stav
The Bible’s Viewpoint:
Are the Jews God’s Chosen People?
THE establishment of a Jewish homeland in 1948 was a traumatic event for Christendom’s theologians. For centuries many had taught that Jews were doomed to wander the earth because of their sin against Christ, and now the “wandering Jew” would wander no more.
As current events in the Middle East continue to focus attention on the Jewish people, questions on issues long thought settled are now being raised. Are the Jews still God’s chosen people? Is God now showing special favor to the Jews?
Centuries ago, God told the Israelites: “If you will strictly obey my voice and will indeed keep my covenant, then you will certainly become my special property out of all other peoples, because the whole earth belongs to me. And you yourselves will become to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (Exodus 19:5, 6) All nations belonged to God, but the Israelites could become his special property, eventually serving as priests in behalf of all mankind.
But was this special relationship with God unconditional? No! God had said: “If you will strictly obey my voice . . . then you will certainly become my special property.” So their continuing in a chosen relationship with God was conditional, dependent upon their continued faithfulness to him.
A Forceful Illustration
This was underscored by events of the eighth century B.C.E., during the days of the prophet Hosea. Despite having received special favor as God’s chosen people, the majority of the Israelites abandoned the true worship of Jehovah. What was Jehovah’s reaction? “I shall no more show mercy again to the house of Israel, because I shall positively take them away. . . . You men are not my people and I myself shall prove to be not yours.” (Hosea 1:6, 9)
Thus, those apostate Israelites would not remain in God’s favor. Only a faithful remnant would one day be privileged to be restored and again experience divine blessings.—Hosea 1:10.
True to this prophecy, God allowed the Israelites to be taken captive by their enemies and their temple to be destroyed, forcefully demonstrating the loss of their approved relationship with him. Only a faithful remnant of Israelites (by then known as Jews) returned from captivity in 537 B.C.E. and rebuilt Jehovah’s temple, once again enjoying Jehovah’s favor as his chosen people.
Only “a Remnant” Remains Faithful
Nevertheless, in the centuries that followed, Jews were besieged by the influence of Greek philosophy—such as the Platonic doctrine of the immortal soul—with catastrophic effects on their worship. That worship would never again be based simply on the teachings of Moses and the Hebrew prophets.
Would Jehovah continue to view the Jews as his chosen people? Recognizing that many had once again apostatized from the unadulterated worship of Jehovah, Jesus said: “The kingdom of God will be taken from you and be given to a nation producing its fruits.” (Matthew 21:43) Failing to heed that warning, the majority continued in their apostate course and rejected Jesus as Jehovah’s anointed one. Hence, it was not long afterward that God allowed the rebuilt temple to be destroyed, in 70 C.E. (Matthew 23:37, 38) Did this mean that God was now rejecting all Jews?
As Paul, a Jewish apostle of Christ, explained: “God did not reject his people, whom he first recognized. . . . At the present season also a remnant has turned up according to a choosing due to undeserved kindness.” (Romans 11:2, 5) Just as many might be invited to a wedding ceremony but only a few might attend, God had invited the entire Jewish nation into a special relationship with him, but only a remnant of these maintained that special closeness by their faithfulness.
God’s forbearance was indeed a display of undeserved kindness!
“Those Not My People” Become “My People”
This faithful Jewish remnant was soon joined by non-Jews who also desired to serve God. Even though their ancestors had not been in a special relationship with him, Jehovah was now willing to accept these faithful non-Jews as his people. Noting this, Paul wrote: “If, now, God . . . called [us] not only from among Jews but also from among [non-Jewish] nations, what of it? It is as he says also in Hosea: ‘Those not my people I will call “my people.”’”—Romans 9:22-25.
Thus, both Jews and non-Jews could be God’s chosen people, with the prospect of serving as priests in behalf of the rest of mankind. Speaking to faithful worshipers of various national backgrounds, the Christian apostle Peter, a Jew from birth, wrote: “You are ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for special possession’ . . . For you were once not a people, but are now God’s people.” (1 Peter 2:9, 10)
This was the “nation,” people with godly qualities, that Jesus said would produce the ‘fruits of God’s kingdom’ and that would therefore enjoy a special relationship with Jehovah.—Matthew 21:43.
God was looking for faith and righteous conduct in his selection of these prospective priests, not some special ancestry. As Peter had noted: “God is not partial, but in every nation the man that fears him and works righteousness is acceptable to him.” — Acts 10:34, 35.
Thus, God no longer grants special favor to any person on the basis of birth. He affords people of all national backgrounds the opportunity to build a relationship with him.
May we show that we are desirous of being God’s people by our faith and conduct.
Dear oxymoron,
You say:
“Stav you seem to have disagreement with me for, in your thinking, signalling out Old Testament Jews and their descendants for special treatment.”
It’s not a disagreement as much as it is a different view. What is left of the Old Israel, has been united with the New Israel. Thus, in this aspect any “special treatment” is now directed towards the New Israel, which includes the faithful Jews who remain plus the faithful Gentiles. As per Scripture, no distinction is made anymore between the two, as LOGN and they obey God’s commandments and Accept Jesus Christ as their Messiah.
I hope that makes it clear, and if you need more, read Andrew Jackson’s answers too, here he clearly states the purpose of the Old Israel, which is fulfilled to the full and to the letter of the prophecies.
Nothing more to say on this.
Stav
Dear oxymoron,
You say:
“The Catholic church has never demonized other religions either of the Christian faith or otherwise.
If you say it has, you are a liar.”
Nonsense. The Catholic religious community has TORTURED, KILLED and demonized plenty of Orthodox people in it’s 1000 year reign.
One of the multitudes of examples here:
http://orthodoxwiki.org/Peter_the_Aleut
But historically, the Roman Papists, have attacked and killed huge numbers of “fellow” Orthodox Christians in the name of their Pope. A bit of history won’t hurt you my dear oxymoron.
Next, you say:
“If you believe others who say such, in writing or otherwise you are a sucker.
This kindness of the Catholic church should not be taken as weakness.”
That last statement, shows either your utter ignorance, or your purposeful propagandizing, only you know which one it is. What “kindness” are you talking about? That’s just plain ridiculous.
The Catholic religious community, EVEN TODAY, supports, and blesses the operation called as the Uniate Church, Byzantine Catholic or whatever else they like to call it. Under the “holy” ha ha, eyes of the Pope, these “Christians” desecrate, kill, torture, destroy and do unspeakable acts against Orthodox Christians, I repeat EVEN TODAY. And all of this, while at the same time being “kind” and “holy.”
Perhaps you meant to say utter “hypocrisy” instead of “kindness”? I would understand you a bit of what you say then!
Stav
“As you can see, not all numbers in the Bible are exact ”
I don’t follow you.
In my view, if God wants them and wills them to be exact they will be exact.
Jesus often says and did things “… so that Scripture would be fulfilled.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if the *numbers mentioned in the Book or Revelation a prophecy about the future turn out to are exact,
Again many things Jesus did were specifically done so that OT scriptures could be fulfilled.
It seems to me that God is not big on not just saying things for the hell of it
I think:
*Literally 144,000 Jews will be sealed
*There will be literally a 1,000 year millennial Kingdom with Jesus Christ here on this earth before the devil is loosed for a short time
*Looking at biblical numbers about the PAST, I also believe that OT people like Adam and others lived to over 500 years, I believe those numbers on how old they were when they died, are exact.
*I believe that God created the world as we know it in 6 days.
Brother Nathaniel:
What would you cite as the most accurate of the Bible versions, knowing that Jews and the Vatican have in fact tampered with the Word of God, I’d like to find the version that might be closest.
And of course the latest version where Jews have copyrighted the word Holocaust™ causing it to be removed from this latest PC version has to be little more than a Jewish fancy.
To you people arguing about Mary being conceived without original sin.
How can ANYONE argue this? From what I understand, the original sin was disobedience of one of God’s, if not God’s, primary laws. We ate THE forbidden fruit that we were not supposed to. And what were the results? We found out that we didn’t have any clothes on. The earth no longer gave us good things to eat. Instead it gave us weeds and thistles. And God kicked us out of the Garden of Paradise.
Now can anyone tell me what that fruit was?
If not, then all arguements are pointless.
Jarrad, Catholicism is not a sect.
The Catholic Church is the original church started by Jesus Christ Himself.
All others who have broken off from it are considered “sects.” This is not my opinion, this is historical fact.
Brother Nathanael,
Thank you for clarifying once again for all Christians, that Jesus Christ is the New Covenant, and those who follow Him are the Chosen People of God.
It’s Tracking Your Every Move and You May Not Even Know
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/business/media/26privacy.html
1.Genesis 32:28
And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.
Genesis 32:27-29 (in Context) Genesis 32 (Whole Chapter)
Israel is not a land and never has been. Israel refers to the People of God, which is all of us from the beginning of time, excluding of course, the children of the Rephaim and fallen angels killed before the flood and the sons of Ham who were cursed and spread throughout the world, mingling with other of the 12 tribes.
We are all children and descendents of Abraham and Jacob and Joseph. God commanded the 12 sons (brothers of Joseph) to go into the world and multiply. The Hebrews
Judaism came from Babylon under Nimrod and was NOT anything associated with the Mosaic laws of Moses. The Hebrew were taken captive when the first temple was destroyed about 7th century BC.
We are all ISRAELITES — the people of the world. We are all chosen to receive the blessings of God. Keep the commandments and believe in Jesus and you’ll be OK. Jesus said to Love God with all your heart and soul and love one another. He also said to keep the commandments of the Lord on High.
Any church or authority that says you have to do more than this to gain the Kingdom of Heaven is a liar and Blasphemous to God. No man can forgive your sins. He can pray for blessing of the Holy Spirit but a man can’t forgive your sins, no man and that includes the pope. The old laws in the Torah are swept away, the ones for priests of the Hebrews, by the Grace of Jesus at Calvary, where he paid for our sins with his blood, was resurrected and ascended into heaven.
WORKS alone can not save you.
2 Timothy 1:9
Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,
2 Timothy 1:8-10 (in Context) 2 Timothy 1
(2.Titus 3:5) Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
Titus 3:4-6 (in Context) Titus 3
DO NOT FALL FOR THE APOSTATE CHURCHES THAT WANT TO TAKE YOUR MONEY SELL YOUR SOUL!!
Thanks Bro Nate
@America The Beautiful
The catholic church is a lie. The pope is not God on earth. period. You don’t confess your sins to men and praying to Mary will not save you. You have been deceived my friend.
Only the Grace of Jesus can save your soul.
God Bless our deceived catholic brothers and sisters and show them the true light of Jesus at Calvary before it is too late. Amen
Why doesn’t the Catholic church encourage Catholics to read the Holy Bible?
To Donna Chesterfield:
Want to know what the “fruit” was that Adam and Eve ate. It certainly was not an APPLE.
Go to http://www.biblestudy.com.
The Parable of the Wicked Vine-dressers (Matthew 21:33-46)
“Hear another parable: There was a certain landowner who planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a winepress in it and built a tower. And he leased it to vine-dressers and went into a far country.
Now when vintage-time drew near, he sent his servants to the vine-dressers, that they might receive its fruit. And the vine-dressers took his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned another.
Again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did likewise to them.
Then last of all he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the vine-dressers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’ So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him.
“Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine-dressers?”
They said to Him, “He will destroy those wicked men miserably, and lease his vineyard to other vine-dressers who will render to him the fruits in their seasons.”
Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:
‘The stone which the builders rejected
Has become the chief cornerstone.
This was the LORD’s doing,
And it is marvelous in our eyes’?
“Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.”
Now when the chief priests and Pharisees heard His parables, they perceived that He was speaking of them. But when they sought to lay hands on Him, they feared the multitudes, because they took Him for a prophet.
@ Vox
The most accurate English translation of the Holy Bible is definitely the old King James Version!
Regarding the right Bible version, please watch these very interesting lectures by Walter Veith:
Battle of the Bibles:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8000050340026696207#
Changing the Word:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4329906407145130004#
@ all
Nate, God bless, I love ya man, but for me, the real church is Jesus himself, as all men can persuaded to do evil and lie.
“Destroy this temple, and I will rebuild it in 3 days.”
Our Lord, shows us metaphorically: he is foretelling of his death, and resurrection 3 days later.
As many Orthodox, on here, I found to be the most judgmental of other religions that I have ever met.
Not you Bro Nate, but others.
As Jesus had warned, the evil Pharisees, just because you can recite the word, doesn’t make you Godly, or doing His will.
Jesus EXPLICITLY FORBADE JUDGMENT OF OTHERS.
Those on here, who claim, they are of “the REAL CHRISTIAN CHURCH” seem to do a lot of “JUDGING” ON OTHERS and their respective religions.
Just like those who are constantly saying “Mary apparitions” are of the devil, and his work: why than does Jesus tell “NO GOOD COMES FROM EVIL.”
Be it the Balkans, Lourdes, Fatima, Egypt, Guadalupe, many came away CHANGED FOR THE BETTER and devoted their lives to goodness and to God.
As I said, a demonic entity can only reward you with earthly things: money, fame, power, sexual prowess,…etc.
Yet, you have these self anointed religious scholars, on here, whom claim they know God’s will, and all his doings, and his mindset, 100%?
Geeh, it must be nice to be all knowing and infallible, wait isn’t that what they HATED about the Pope and his lies?
DWC
Luke 21:36
(36) Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.
King James Version Change Bible versions
It is frequently interpreted to mean that we should be closely watching current events so we know how close we are to Christ’s return. The common paraphrase of this command is “watch world news, so that as you begin to see prophecy unfold, you can escape the horrors of the Tribulation.”
This interpretation has led to a cottage industry of sorts within the church. A tremendous amount of effort is put into commenting on world events and tying them into biblical prophecy. The underlying assumption is that God wants us to have our finger on the pulse of the news, and this knowledge—combined with prayer—will make us worthy to escape all those prophesied things. But does this assumption agree with Scripture?
In fact, the Greek word translated “watch” has nothing to do with looking at events or keeping world news under close observation. Even without examining the underlying Greek, we can tell from the context that Jesus has something else in mind. Verse 36 begins, “Watch therefore,” signaling that it concludes or summarizes previous material. We cannot understand verse 36 until we know what preceded it.
Verses 34-35 provide the context for Jesus’ command to “watch”:
But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth.
Clearly, Jesus’ message is not an admonition to watch world events so that we will know when He will return. Instead, His instruction is to watch ourselves, which is what “take heed to yourselves” suggests. He is talking about being vigilant about our own spiritual state, as well as being circumspect and spiritually awake as we go through life.
The danger is that, if we do not “watch” ourselves—that is, continually take stock of our condition and responsibilities—self-indulgence and material concerns will distract us, and we will find ourselves spiritually unprepared when the end comes.
Luke 21:36, then, is not an injunction to be glued to CNN, FOX, the Drudge Report, or any other news source. In fact, a subtle danger exists in being too caught up in current events, as it can distract us from the more vital spiritual preparation. The upshot is that the Day will come, and we do not know when.
Watching events unfold is not what makes us “worthy to escape,” but our cooperation with God as He forms His character image in us does. Thus, in addition to prayer, we have to be vigilant in our covenant with Him. We have to “take heed” to ourselves constantly, examining our walk and how we are seeking and imitating God.
The Greek word translated “watch,” at its most basic, means “to be sleepless,” implying continuous and wakeful concern, such as being on watch when a loved one is ill. It means to be intent or to exercise constant vigilance over something, as a shepherd watches over his sheep or a leader watches over his charges (Hebrews 13:17).
Watching signifies a state of being untouched by any influence that may cloud the mind; one “watching” guards against drowsiness or confusion. Hand-in-hand with “pray always,” it denotes being alert for spiritual dangers and beguilements. Obviously, this state will not transpire from following — or even deeply analyzing — current events.
David C. Grabbe
Baptist Bible Translators – Why the King James Version?
http://www.baptisttranslators.com/content/view/51/50/
I personally LOVE the Baptists. Some of the most sincere and intelligent Christians are Baptists, just to name a few: Kent and Eric Hovind, Ken and Steve Ham, Henry and John Morris. As you can see they are very family-oriented 🙂
“In New Age Bible Versions, G.A. Riplinger objectively and methodically documents the hidden alliance between new Bible versions and the New Age Movement’s One World Religion.
New Age Bible Versions takes the reader behind the scenes to expose the corrupted Greek manuscripts, critical editions, lexicons and dictionaries behind new versions such as the NIV, NASV, NKJV, NRSV, NAB, REB, RSV, CEV, TEV, GNB, LIVING, PHILLIPS, NEW JERUSALEM, & NEW CENTURY.
New Age Bible Versions goes on to reveal their occult origins and contents.
Each page of New Age Bible Versions opens a door exposing new version editors as men in agreement with Luciferians, occultists, and New Age philosophy.
We find these men in mental institutions, seance parlors, prison cells, and court rooms for heresy trials and most shocking of all denying that salvation is through faith in Jesus Christ. Five new version editors have lost their ability to speak.”
http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/riplinge.htm
,@ Georgios
quote
*The “Catholic” Church exaggerates Mary to Goddess,*
It is the Orthodox and Protestant churches that use this blasphemy, as you just did.
Give me one example where the Catholic Church has used this word or inferred this title to the Mother of God.
‘You cannot, because you are the ones who impute it.
Nor has any action of any Catholic inferred that she is a goddess.
give me an example of this. You know you can’t.
So why persist with this strain of abuse against the Catholic Church and the Mother of God?
What is your motivation.
What is your purpose.
Where has the Catholic Church acted sinfully in its veneration of God’s Mother?
WOULD THAT WE COULD DO MORE TO SHOW HER OUR GRATITUDE FOR ALL THAT SHE DOES FOR US.
WOULD THAT WE COULD DO MORE TO OBEY HER AND LOVE HER.
WOULD THAT WE COULD DO MORE TO EXTOLL HER GREAT VIRTUES AND WORKS ON BEHALF OF HER SON AND REDEEMER JESUS CHRIST.
WOULD THAT WE COULD DO MORE TO HONOUR HER SON WHICH IS ALL THAT SHE ASKS.
New Age Bible Versions – Comparative Tract (Comparison between different Bible versions):
http://www.avpublications.com/3_catalogue/nabv/nabv_html_tract.htm
@DWC ARE YOU A FREEMASON?
HATE THE SIN, NOT THE SINNER
TRUST THE BIBLE, NOT MEN
@JOSHUA — AMEN TO KING JAMES VERSION BIBLE
WALTER VEITH IS RIGHT ON ALL COUNTS, A GREAT MAN, DESPITE THOSE HIS OBVIOUS DETRACTORS.
Oxymoron,
The Theotokos needed salvation, did she not? She says that the Lord is her Savior in Luke 1. If she was supposedly born without the stain of fallen human nature and the ancestral curse of Adam, it means that she was super-human and would never die, for it is sin that engenders death. But we all know that she did die (and Christ resurrected her body and reunited it to her pure soul).
The papist doctrine of the “immaculate conception” takes away the credit that is due to Mary because it makes her sinless by birth and not by her own will.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
Dear Michael Kelley,
The Finnish and Estonian Orthodox Churches celebrate Pascha with the papists, which sometimes coincides with the Jews. This puts these 2 churches under the anathema of the First Ecumenical Council.
Why are the world Orthodox still in communion with the Finnish and Estonian Orthodox Churches?
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
At least 14 councils condemn the new calendar:
1- the Pan Orthodox Council of 1583
2- the Pan Orthodox Council of 1587
3- the Pan Orthodox Council of 1593
4- the teaching of Patriarch Dositheos of Jerusalem and his Holy Synod in 1670
5- Ecumenical Patriarch Agathangelos and his Holy Synod in 1827
6- Ecumenical Patriarch Anthimos VII and his Holy Synod in 1895
7- Ecumenical Patriarch Joachim III and his Holy Synod in 1902
8- the Holy Synod of the church of Russia and the Holy Synod of the church of Romania and the Holy Synod of the church of Greece in 1903
9- Ecumenical Patriarch Joachim III and his Holy Synod in 1904
10- the Holy Synod of the church of Greece in 1919
11- Patriarch Gregory of Antioch, Patriarch Damianos of Jerusalem, Patriarch Photios of Alexandria, and Archbisop Cyril of Cyprus in 1924
12- the Holy Synod of Zealot Athonite Fathers and the Holy Synod of Genuine Orthodox Fathers in 1926
the 3 bishops who left the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 1935
13- Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Florina in 1950
14- Metropolitan Auxentios (successor to Akakios) in 1974.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
Fed, in historic shift, to hold regular briefings
Too little too late.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42254334/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy/
The 33 Secret Weapons of the Jews – by Hoff:
http://jewise.wordpress.com/the-22-secret-weapons-of-the-jews-2/
Dear Jeannon Kralj,
Thank you for the genealogy of Joseph and Mary. Even though Joseph was not the biological father of Jesus, he was the LEGAL father, and therefore, as concerning the Law of Moses, Christ was a descendant of Joseph.
Yes, as you said, all the territorial promises were fulfilled in the OT. David and Solomon reigned from the Euphrates to the Nile, but their kingdom was divided because Solomon worshiped strange gods later in life, which his foreign wives introduced to him.
2 Chronicles:
7:[8] Also at the same time Solomon kept the feast seven days, and all Israel with him, a very great congregation, from the entering in of Hamath unto the river of Egypt.
9:[26] And he reigned over all the kings from the river even unto the land of the Philistines, and to the border of Egypt.
Unfortunately, you still do not understand that guilt is not transmitted by descent or through the genes; it is rather corruption, disease, and fallen human nature that is transmitted. This is also compatible with today’s scientific views.
In the Law of Moses, the pre-incarnate Christ said in several places that the children should not be punished for the guilt of their fathers, neither the fathers for the childrens’ guilt.
Deut. 24:16 The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.
The “immaculate conception” is a papist innovation that is nowhere to be found in the first millennium. And no, we don’t accept the idea that dogma “evolves” or is “developed” in a contradictory way, whereby later dogma is at odds with earlier dogma. The truth transcends all time, culture, or location.
The orthodox patristic understanding is that we inherit the stain of Adam’s ancestral curse, and the corruption which was the result of sin. We are guilty of our own sins only.
The human nature of the Virgin Mary is identical to our nature, which gives her even greater credit for her righteous and blameless life. In addition, Christ took His human nature from her. In order to redeem us He assumed our fallen nature from her. He did not take an unstained or “immaculate” human nature.
Both Christ and His Mother were subject to our weak nature, such as hunger, weariness, and death. They were however without sin because they cooperated fully with the grace of God.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
Andrew Jackson – quote:
‘This is the eschatology taught by the Orthodox Church:
– A great world war will happen that will unleash many plagues and woes, and in which 1/3 to 2/3 of mankind will die (Armageddon).
– Repentance by a large part of the survivors, and the spread of the (orthodox) Gospel to all 4 corners of the earth.
– Antichrist will appear on the world stage as a wise and righteous man in order to solve all the crises, to which he holds the keys.
– Enoch and Elias will appear at the same time (the 2 witnesses of Revelation) and will preach Christ for 3 1/2 years, after which Antichrist will kill them. They will be resurrected and taken to Heaven. The Bible says they have not died yet but were translated to Heaven. Enoch (Gentile) and Elias (Hebrew) will preach and convert many Gentiles and Jews.
– After the first 3 1/2 years of hypocrisy, Antichrist will show his true colors and openly persecute all who worship Christ as God. He will behead them according to the Noahide Laws for “idolatry.” This is the Great Tribulation.
– Antichrist will rebuild the temple in Jerusalem and will want to be worshiped in it as God. He will be Jewish and will claim to be the Messiah. The total reign of Antichrist will be 7 years.
– Christ will come back suddenly from Heaven and will destroy Antichrist and all his power.
– The living will be raptured into the air, the General Resurrection will be commanded by Christ, followed by the Final Judgment.’
No problem.
Dear Jeannon Kralj,
I don’t want to enter into a debate with you about Roman Catholicism and its errors. But since you insist on this topic, I have a few observations for you to ponder.
1- Several popes were condemned as heretics, one of which was Honorius for monothelitism. So how can you believe that the popes are infallible?
2- St. Peter was first head of the Church in Antioch, and stayed there much longer than in Rome, so why doesn’t the Antiochian See claim universal jurisdiction?
3- Christ did not build the Church on the person or office of Peter, but on the confession of the faith of Peter, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Even Blessed Augustine teaches this.
4- In Revelation, we see that the Church (the Heavenly Jerusalem) is built on 12 foundations, and not one.
Rev. 21:14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
5- St. Peter himself never claimed supremacy among the Apostles. In the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15), he spoke with equal authority as the others; he did not impose his will.
6- In his epistle he himself says that he is one shepherd like the others, and does not constrain others.
1Pet.5:1-2 The presbyters which are among you I exhort, who am also a presbyter, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed. Feed the flock of God which is among you, exercising the episcopal office, not by constraint, but willingly.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
Dear in Christ Stav,
Evlogeite.
It is true that the Julian calendar was designed by pagans. But is was later consecrated and christened by the Church in the council of Nicea.
The cross was also invented by pagans as a tool of torture, but it has become the weapon of salvation and the destruction of the devil and his demons.
However, the papist calendar, which was also by the way devised by pagan or deist renaissance astronomers, was never consecrated by the Church. If fact it was condemned and anathematized at least 14 times.
In addition, the Gregorian calendar nullifies the Apostles Fast in the years when Holy Pascha falls late. It was introduced by freemasons by the force of arms.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
ANDREW JACKSON QUOTE:
“IF she was supposedly born without the stain of fallen human nature and the ancestral curse of Adam, it means that she was super-human and would never die, for it is sin that engenders death.’
Wrong. Christ died . He was sinless.
Wrong. Being without sin does not make you super human. It simply makes you human. Being with sin makes you subhuman. Hence the need for salvation.
Christ could not have been born from a subhuman mother in my opinion.
ANDREW JACKSON QUOTE:
The papist doctrine of the “immaculate conception” takes away the credit that is due to Mary because it makes her sinless by birth and not by her own will.
HOW WRONG CAN YOU BE.
Mary was sinless by choice. Being born without sin does not take away free will.
Christ was born without sin. Was He a robot too?
Dear Craig Pepe,
Yes, Adam did literally live for 930 years, Methusulah for 969 years, Noah for 950 years, etc…
And creation was made in 6 days of ordinary length.
This is the teaching of the Holy Fathers.
The majority but not all numbers are literal. Some are approximate, like forgive 70×7.
For example, Christ said He will give the sign of Jonah, where He will be in the earth 3 days and 3 nights. But in fact He was buried on Friday before sunset, and risen on Sunday at dawn or earlier. So He was in the earth at most 2 days and 2 nights; but since the method of counting at that time included the starting point, this makes it 3 days and 3 nights (for example from Monday to Thursday was counted as 4 days).
The 144,000 symbolizes 12x12x1000, the fullness of the Church, started by the 12 sons of Jacob, the 12 Apostles, and reigning for a 1000 years, between the First and Second Coming of Christ. Even if it is literal also (which represents less than 1% of the Jews), it would not exclude the figurative.
In Scripture there are often different levels of interpretation given by the Fathers. Often, literal, typological, and figurative meanings are all true. One does not exclude the other.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
“The majority but not all numbers are literal. Some are approximate, like forgive 70×7.”
About that, just my interpretations.
I don’t know that this 490 time grace period applies to everyone
You’ll notice that *Peter asks how many times do you forgive your BROTHER, not just anyone.
I think brother is a very special powerful biblical word, and you would likely never come close to having that many problems (490) with your brother — someone that knows you well and that you know well.
I think Jesus is kind of telling *Peter that it is a stupid question in a nice way,
*Pre-Holy Spirit-filled Peter
Dear Vox,
The most accurate NT translation, by far, is The Orthodox New Testament, translated in 2 volumes, by a Greek American nun, in Holy Apostles Convent, Buena Vista, Colorado, with patristic commentary on specific verses.
http://www.holyapostlesconvent.org/HacWebStore/index.php?cPath=1_2
The Orthodox OT (the Septuagint) has not been completely translated yet by the Orthodox. The best available is the Septuagint translation by Lancelot Brenton. Second best choice is the AV or KJV of 1611, but try to get it with the Apocrypha.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
Dear Donna Chestergimli,
The sin of Adam and Eve resulted in the transformation of all creation and the entry of the principles of corruption and death into all nature, both inert nature and all living things. The physical and chemical laws changed. Entropy was born, as well as corrosion, wear and tear, hunger, disease, and death.
Before this original sin, all what God had created was good; the earth yielded its fruits without toil, there was no corruption in the physical elements, no hunger, thirst, disease, or death. It was Paradise.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
@ Level One
Do you have a level head?
“@ DWC ARE YOU A FREEMASON?
HATE THE SIN, NOT THE SINNER” – Level One
How does quoting Jesus from the bible make me a Freemason?
Or saying not to judge others or their religious upbringing?
I miss your point dude, or you missed mine?
DWC
Dear America the Beautiful,
There was a schism in 1054, but you claim that the East is a sect which broke away from Rome. How do you know who broke from who?
Those who changed the Faith, broke away in 1054 from the earlier Church of the first millennium. It is very simple.
In addition, all the early councils, and especially the Seven Ecumenical Councils were in the East, because the East had many more Christians than the West.
But, the truth does not follow the majority by numbers. The Truth is a historical reality. Those who change the landmarks that the Fathers have established by the Holy Spirit are the revolutionaries who brake away.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
Dear Brother Andrew Jackson in Christ,
Your posts are to the point, clear, correct and will help anyone who is ready to understand. Very nice!
I believe the matter of the New vs Old calendar is not something that is on topic for this site.
While I agree with the obvious facts you state above, there is much, much more information that could be presented on this matter, to make the issue clear.
It is however 100% true, and my personal experience at least here in Greece, that not all new calendarists are ecumenist. Nor all old calendarists are against ecumenism. Far from it, the proof for this, is indisputable.
If you want, we can discuss this via email, as I don’t want to saturate this site with this matter nor do I want to inspire confusion to anyone who is still searching for the real Church. Don’t feel obliged though, I merely give a way to continue this without creating any “collateral damage.”
In Christ our Lord,
Stav
Dear Level One,
Evey human being that is born is NOT the child of God; he is the creation of God, made in His image and likeness, but stained and deformed by a fallen sinful nature.
All men are called to become the children of God, by free choice. We become children of God by adoption when we accept Jesus Christ and become part of His Chosen People, the Church.
Not all people of the world are descended from Abraham. They all descended from Shem, Japheth, and Ham.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
I thought this right when I first watched the video: “Wow this one is going to cause major flame wars…”
Not that it should not have been presented of course. This information that Br. Nathanael has presented, is the most feared, the most difficult to accept for people who are part of most kinds of western Christianity, which was infiltrated by the JWO almost right from it’s start.
The result is sometimes violent refusal, without any logical reason. Sometimes it is gentle resignation. Others fear this truth like the plague.
Why? The answer is simple. The reason is that if one accepts what Br. Nathanael is saying, then it means directly and plainly, that there is something wrong with the religious community they are part of.
If action to resolve this is to be taken, then these will be the bitter cutting off, from these communities, accepting the Whole Truth and nothing but the Truth and starting to practice Christianity in a whole new way.
Yet the fact remains, Christians must understand that to be 100% correct with their world view, that Todays Jewry is NOT the Chosen People and Israel has been transformed into the True Church.
Israel to a Christian, for all practical purposes, IS the Church. Period. All other interpretations, are connected directly to the Satanic Zionist agenda. Period.
So, from time to time, this truth will come out, I expect especially on this site. There is no other way. This feared subject, which may so called “Christians” suspect but are too afraid to express or admit, MUST be told. Even if it causes severe reactions.
The bigger the reactions and feelings of fear, dismissal, refutation, depression on this matter, the BIGGER PROBLEM you wave in respect to being affected by Zionist control.
You may try to say “we are all God’s children aren’t we?”, or “They still deserve a special treatment” or whatever to show some kind of kindness or (superficial) understanding of the situation. This does not constitute kindness or objectivity. Nor does it constitute reasonable thinking. In any other situation, and there are many, you would not act this way.
It just shows your uncontrollable urge to defend them because you are affected by the evil that is behind the JWO.
Stav
Dear Disgusted White Christian,
We are not judging peoples or persons, as to whether they are good or bad, saved or damned. We are judging right from wrong, correct belief versus heresy.
It is because of incorrect belief about the Messiah that the Pharisees killed Him.
It is because of false belief that we have “Christian Zionism.”
It is because of false belief that the Jews are killing Palestinians in a slow holocaust, and stealing their land.
It is because of false belief about happiness and salvation that we have so much selfishness and sin in this broken world.
It is our responsibility to investigate the Truth and invite all to repent of their errors and accept what God has revealed to man in the True Faith.
The truth is knowable if you are humble.
You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
Brother Nathanael
Please illuminate us on the differences between the Palestinian Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud if there is any.
Is the Palestinian Talmud devoid of the heretical filth often found in the Babylonian Talmud ?
Dear Level One,
Yes you are absolutely right about Luke 21:36: “Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.”
It is more likely for us to die before the end of history. Christ is commanding us to be SPIRITUALLY vigilant and keep the garment of our soul clean, to be ready to give an account of our deeds to God, and be ready to die at any time.
Luke 17:20 “That day cometh not with observation.”
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
@ Andrew Jackson
Excuse me, but when did the Greek Orthodox Church come out and make inquiry on Jews, or say anything about them, and banking, until Greece is just about bankrupt?
So was getting the truth out more important, or now that the Zionist Jews soaked up all their money too, where the church finally came out and said, World Jewry was behind their foul economic situation also.
I mean let’s face reality: the country is near bankruptcy or bankrupted, so it’s like who cares now, the horse is out of the barn, let’s let the truth out about those little Jew devils now?
Spare me the “holier than thou” please!
DWC
Br. Nathanael,
Check out this site.
If you’re reading this, visit this site:
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2011/03/naming-names-your-real-government.html
Dear Joshua,
I am a big fan of Kent and Eric Hovind, Ken and Steve Ham, Henry and John Morris.
Their tremendous zeal and work for the correct (Patristic and Orthodox) understanding of the Genesis account of Genesis is unrivaled.
Their lot is with the righteous. They are not far from the Kingdom of God.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
@oxymoron
About “immaculate conception” read the book “La possessione diabolica” from Monsignor Corrado Balducci (a Roman Catholic theologian of the Vatican Curia, a close friend of the pope, long time exorcist for the Archdiocese of Rome, and a Prelate of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and the Society for the Propagation of the Faith)
There he says how in 1823 a 12 year old boy (living near Avellino Italy) possessed by demons “revealed” through a “poem” the dogma of “immaculate conception.”
In 1853 Pope Pius read this poem and made it to Dogma. Directly from the hell.
@A QUESTION TO ALL CATHOLICS!
WHY are you called Catholics and since WHEN are you called Catholics?
PLEASE ANSWER!
I do not “insist on” debating you, Andrew Jackson, but I would be acting wrongly not to point out your errors in your various kinds of mischaracterizations of the Church, not the least of which is your employment of just about every major logical fallacy. (Oxymoron picked up on a few of those rather nicely.)
As a Catholic, I care about Truth — Jesus Christ Logos. I am not the best lay Catholic apologist by any stretch, but since I am about the only one around here to speak for the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church, I will call out error when I see it, and do that to the best of my ability.
“ Several popes were condemned as heretics, one of which was Honorius for monothelitism. So how can you believe that the popes are infallible?
That is a dishonest question, AJ. “So how can you Believe that the popes are infallible.”
I never said I “believe that the popes are infallible.” Dishonest twisting.
Even though there were several bad popes down through the centuries, the Catholic Church has through the Holy Spirit fought back against and snuffed out every heresy. I could list them all but will not. When you see all the Satanic heresies the Church has stood up against for 2000 years, you see how the Holy Spirit is responsible for this rather miraculous state of affairs given fallen human beings in the Church from top to bottom.
______________
“St. Peter was first head of the Church in Antioch, and stayed there much longer than in Rome, so why doesn’t the Antiochian See claim universal jurisdiction?
Because how long Peter stayed in Antioch is not the criterion.
Jesus told Paul to go to Rome. Acts 23:11
Technically, the Bishop of Antioch is also a successor of Peter.
Before leaving for Rome he left a successor in Antioch, the Melkite Patriarch is that successor today.
If Peter had not made it to Rome, for some reason, then the Papacy would have probably been established in Antioch.
I think Rome was the center of civilization at the time and maybe the Lord thought that was the best place to spread Christianity from.
You seemed very focused on Eastern prelates being the head and center but that apparently was not God’s plan, and that kind of focus seems quite worldly to me.
The sole work and focus should be on bringing souls to Christ and total reliance on the Holy Spirit by humans to accomplish that work. The leader of the church should have true humility and be a saintly person who loves Truth and wants, just as our Lord wants, all souls to come to Christ.
“Christ did not build the Church on the person or office of Peter, but on the confession of the faith of Peter, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Even Blessed Augustine teaches this. “
The Church is bride of Christ on earth. Christ established the Church. The only one who has said that Christ did “build the Church on the person or office of Peter” is you.
Again, you have a problem with, a fixation on, authority and people and offices, even when Christ has ordained them.
“In Revelation, we see that the Church (the Heavenly Jerusalem) is built on 12 foundations, and not one.”
“765 The Lord Jesus endowed his community with a structure that will remain until the Kingdom is fully achieved. Before all else there is the choice of the Twelve with Peter as their head.[168] Representing the twelve tribes of Israel, they are the foundation stones of the new Jerusalem.[169] The Twelve and the other disciples share in Christ’s mission and his power, but also in his lot.[170] By all his actions, Christ prepares and builds his Church.” Catholic Catechism
“The Catholic Church places the New Jerusalem in the eschatological role found in Revelation. Catholicism also holds that the New Jerusalem already exists as a spiritual community in Heaven, the Church triumphant, with an outpost on earth, the Church militant. Together, the Church triumphant and Church militant form the Church universal. Augustine of Hippo, a Doctor of the Church and Church Father, draws inspiration from John’s account of the New Jerusalem to outline this view in his monumental work The City of God.”
Heaven (the “heavenly Jerusalem”) is a definite place and hell is a definite place, and according to Scripture heaven is not in this earth or on this earth, but the church does not go beyond what Scripture says about heaven.
1. “St. Peter himself never claimed supremacy among the Apostles. In the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15), he spoke with equal authority as the others; he did not impose his will.
“According to Acts 15, for example, a Christian is one who submits to the decisions of the head bishop (Peter) and the apostles and elders (priests). If not, then anyone can claim to be a “Christian” but make up their own rules as to what Christians are supposed to be, do and believe.
In that case, the Montanists, the Gnostics, the Arians, the Docetists, the Sabellians, the Apollonarians, the Donatists, the Pelagians, etc could all claim to be “Christians” since they all claimed to interpret the Bible for themselves and follow Jesus Christ. But the aforementioned groups were all declared heretical by the Church’s head bishop and the Fathers concurred.
So being a “Christian” is more than just saying “I follow what the New Testament teaches.” It is placing yourself under the authority of someone that God has ordained over you.”
“Peter was a physical man, who assumed a physical office (bishop) and was given a physical locale from which to oversee the Church (Antioch, then Rome). The Church of the first centuries used to write to Rome for major decisions on what should occur in their local churches. The local churches are named, physically, in the New Testament (The Church of Ephesus, Colassae, Laodicea, etc). Each local Church has its own bishop (1 Tim 2-3). The decisions of the Apostles were sent out to all the local Churches (Acts 15; 1 Cor 14:33-34).”
“The Bible says there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” It says that in the context of an Apostle, St. Paul, who is writing to the Ephesian church, and this is the same St. Paul who was present in Acts 15 at the Council of Jerusalem in which a decision was made by one man (Peter) and which all the other Apostles, bishops and elders held as the final and definitive decision for all the Churches of that day.
Peter made that decision by interpreting the Bible (that is, the Old Testament declared that men should be circumcised, but Peter interpreted that to be an obsolete Old Covenant teaching that no longer bound anyone, and he was right). He did the same kind of Bible interpretation in Acts 1:20 when they had to select the next Apostle to replace Judas.
Peter interpreted Psalm 109:8 and Psalm 69:25 to teach that the office of the Apostle must be replaced. That was pretty amazing, since neither Psalm says anything about Judas or the office of Apostle, per se. When Peter made this interpretation, all the other Apostles submitted to it. And so it has been the same for 2000 years, without interruption.”
“Let me make it clearer for you, then. Acts 15:1-6 says there was much discussion and disagreement among the Christians (Paul, Barnabas and certain others) about whether Christians needed to be circumcised. Acts 15:7-12 says that Peter stood up in the midst of the discussion and declared that circumcision would no longer be required for salvation.
“This decision has been held fast for the last 2000 years. All Christians abide by it. In Acts 15:13-29, James, the bishop of Jerusalem, concurs with Peter’s decision, as do all the Apostles and elders, and they agree to send a letter to ALL the Churches telling them what the Council has decided, and that each of these Christians is to obey the edicts of the Council. I think that is pretty clear.”
Quotes taken from
http://www.catholicintl.com/epologetics/dialogs/bible/discussion-prot.htm
This answer above goes also for your …
“In his epistle he himself says that he is one shepherd like the others, and does not constrain others.”
The biblical record is Peter made the final decision and the Church organization was with Peter as the head. This is not about what Peter did not say about himself. Peter knew he was the head of the Church and he fulfilled that office according to Christ’s commands.
1. Peter exercised the head episcopal office, not by constraint, but willingly. (This means he obeyed Christ willingly, not because he felt “constrained” to obey.
Therefore, brothers, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement [not the “bible alone”] or by a letter of ours.
II Thessalonians 2:15
God bless us each and every one in the Name of the One Who IS Truth.
_______________
Dear Oxymoron,
You are confusing individual occurrences of sin, such as lying, hating, stealing, fornicating, etc…. with a sinful NATURE, which is the corrupt human nature that we inherit from Adam.
No one teaches children to lie and be selfish; yet they do it because it is programmed in their own nature.
Christ chose to be born with our fallen nature, which He took from His Mother. However they both chose not to sin.
If one is born with non-fallen human nature (pre-lapsarian nature), like Adam was before the Fall, then that person would not die, because his nature is not corrupted.
The claim of the “immaculate conception” is that Mary was born, by a special privilege of God, without the fallen nature of mankind, our without the stain of corruption.
Being a weak vessel, stained with fallen human nature, does not make Mary spiritually unclean or unfit to bear Christ. Only her personal sins would make her unworthy to give flesh to God. She is not responsible for her birth; only to what she does by choice. She chose to fully cooperate with the grace of God and not sin in her conscience and will.
I am glad you agree with orthodox eschatology.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
Dear in Christ Stav,
Evlogeite.
I agree with you that we ought not to discuss the Orthodox old versus new calendar here. I also agree that some laity on either calendars (in the countries that have switched to new calendrism) can be on both sides of the heresy of ecumenism, because of ignorance or lack of interest in researching it.
On the other hand, as you know, the faith of a local church is defined by the confession of its bishop. I have not yet seen one old calendar bishop in Greece who espouses ecumenism.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
Dear Brother Nathanael,
The only thing I can compare this post with is St. George slaying the dragon.
Dear in Christ Stav,
Evlogeite.
You are absolutely right about people in the West being programmed to believe that the Jews are still the chosen people.
It takes a lot of courage, strength, and humility to go against the gigantic tide of propaganda and investigate what the Bible and ancient Church really taught, and to realize that the Church is the true Israel and Chosen People, whereas the unbelieving jews are the Synagogue of Satan.
This is why we need to support Brother Nathanael, even with the widows’ two pennies.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
St. Ignatius of Antioch was the first to use the term Catholic in reference to the Church, to distinguish it from Gnostic sects.
Dear Kalif,
The Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds are both works of hate for God and mankind, but the latter is more authoritative in the halaka (legal decisions) of the rabbis.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
Dear DWC,
Greece has been in the thrall of Judeomasonry probably since Eleftherios Venizelos’ accession to power in the early 20th c, if not earlier.
The Greek people are also victims of Judaic propaganda, but less so than the West.
A much greater proportion of Greeks are aware of the Jewish peril. Part of this awareness is imbued from the Orthodox Christian understanding of the Bible.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
As a fairly new Christian of Jewish origin, I can tell you that it is amusing — and tragic — to see the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians fighting among themselves.
Believe me, the Jews who come to this website to see what prophecies Brother Nathanael is dispensing are laughing at you all, and rubbing their greedy hands with glee as they see the disunity of Christians.
Don’t you all see that you are playing right into the hands of the evil Jews by this constant squabbling?
You Orthodox are not going to change the minds of the Catholics, and vice versa. Why don’t you recognize that fact, and get on with the fight against wicked Jewry, the eternal enemy of Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God?
I am neither an Orthodox nor a Catholic Christian. I am a Protestant Christian, and my church has not been Judaized.
Perhaps it is true that Jews have wormed their way into the Catholic Church (certainly there is something satanic about pedophile priests molesting and abusing little boys), but that is to be expected of the Jews, who corrupt and corrode everything they touch.
The time to get rid of evil Jewish influence in America and the world is NOW! And only when Christians of all beliefs unite ageainst satanic Jewry will that be possible.
Dear Brother In Christ Andrew Jackson,
I decided to reply with some as short as possible answers (which still makes it very long – sorry):
Point 1) The New calendar, as used by the New calendar Orthodox does not match the Gregorian calendar, not does it equal to it, either in mathematical terms, or ecclesiastically. The reason for this, is because:
a) The new calendar Orthodox do not change the celebration of Easter in such a way so that it is celebrated on or before the Hebrew Pascha and conforms it self to the 4 specific directions given in the Pydalion. Thus, in this context, the new calendar is not going against the canons of the church and does not match the Gregorian and/or Papist calendar ecclesiastically.
b) Mathematically, the new calendar, does differ from the Gregorian, due to the different calculation of leap years. This means that the days/dates do not match after a period of time. This, makes it objectively in the mathematical sense a different calendar.
c) As a matter of fact, in certain cases, it is the Old calendar, which no longer matches the dates as used by the ancient Christians. As an example, the ancient Fathers, defined the date of Pascha based on the solstice on the 21st of March. That much is stated in the Pydalion (Canon Z in Greek numbering, p 20 in original Greek text). Since the solstice, based on the mathematically and astronomically incorrect Julian calendar, was to change dates in the future, this means that a correction was in order.
In other words, if the Julian calendar was more astronomically correct, then the minologion dates would match or be much closer to the new calendar, which as I stated above, does not match nor coincide with the Gregorian. Hence, in the new calendar, we have a shift of a number of days, to correct this and conform to the solstice way of determining dates in the canon mentioned above.
It is also important to note here that the specific date of the solstice is not a constant date, but we know that it changes over time. And since this date is mentioned as a specific condition to take into account in the Pydalion, we must take note of it today also if we want to be fully in agreement with the canons.
d) In the Pydalion, Saints Nicodemus and Chrysostom, talk about the 10 day correction in the Gregorian calendar and anathematize it. This is in many cases used to prove the New calendar wrong. However, there are two issues here with this argument. 1) St. Chrysostom, goes against this 10 day correction because it goes against the way of defining the date of Easter, which must not fall before the Hebrew Passover.
But the new calendar Orthodox Church, does not do this with it’s new calendar, because it is specifically preventing this from happening in it’s calculations of the date of Easter. St. Chrysostom’s comments were against the intended practice of that particular time, and does not apply to the New Calendar practice, which has solved this problem.
e) In addition, it was St. Chrysostom, who specifically stated that: “To celebrate Easter this month or the other does not cause problems with salvation” (freely translated by me), as long as the canons are adhered to, which they are. Also, St. Nicodemus, stated, again in the notes in the Pydalion that: “To celebrare easter after the 21st of March or after the 11th of April as the Latins do, is not a crime. What is a crime and unforgivable, is to devide the Church as they did. Hereby they make it clear that dates are not the problem, as long as the canons are kept.
f) Furthermore, in respect to the celebration of Easter, which is celebrated at the exact dates in Both the Old and New calendars, is not the problem in this subject.
Therefore:
Point 2) You mention the following Pan Orthodox Councils:
1- the Pan Orthodox Council of 1583
2- the Pan Orthodox Council of 1587
3- the Pan Orthodox Council of 1593
These particular Councils, go against the Papist Gregorian calendar, which celebrates Easter and the connected movable calendarian feasts. These feasts as dated and celebrated in the New calendar (which I showed does not match the Gregorian Papist one ecclesiastically) coincide with the Old calendar as shown above. Thus, these councils and a few others I don’t see in your list, do not speak against the New calendar as used today by the Orthodox, but rather against the Papist practice.
Without looking at the rest of your references, I’d make a guess here that many of the mentions you state refer to the Gregorian calendar and not the New calendar as used by the Orthodox.
But that leads to:
Point 3) It is true that various Councils and Metropolitans anathematize or point out the correct practice in particular matters. We must separate these into at least three cases.
a) The case of statements made by individuals such as Metropolitans. These may or not be correct or may be correct for a particular case or may be plainly wrong. But in any case, they do not constitute doctrine. This is because as you obviously know, in the Orthodox Church, there is not such thing as the establishing of doctrine by individuals.
b) The case of the minor councils. There are Pan Orthodox Councils which have confirmed the union and communion of the Old and New calendar Churches.
c) The case of minor or Major councils, which state canons, which are obviously no longer used, even though they have not officially been updated. An example of this, are the canons, which determine quite specifically how His Most Holy Body and Most Holy Blood must be given to the congregation. Neither the Old or the New calendar Churches today, conform with these clearly stated cannons, as expressed int he Pydalion. Does this means that we are all heretics? The answer is no, for many reasons.
Thus, the question of how cannon is practiced must be combined with the concept of the Living Church and that Jesus Christ is here to guide the Church as per his promise, to the End of Times. The Church members who have passed and consist the “Church Triumphant” have left us Laws. But historically, it is true that these laws can be updated by later councils. A quick example of this, is the matter of celibacy of our Bishops.
Point 4) The various immovable feasts, and their dates of celebration and even whether they are celebrated at all, does not constitute a reason that can affect negatively our salvation or the integrity of our faith. There are many numerous examples of this, such as the non celebrating of Christmas, it’s change of dates throughout history, it’s earlier coinciding with other feasts due to a different understanding of it at those times, compared to now. One cannot mention a change of such a feast date in order to somehow prove doctrinally wrong.
Point 5) I don’t understand your point exactly about the consecration of the Julian calendar. Christening strictly speaking is reserved for people as far as I understand it. Consecration can obviously be applied to anything, but the process by which this is done, varies greatly from case to case. There is one way however, to collect some clues, as to whether the New calendar, which does not coincide with the Gregorian, constitutes a stumbling block in receiving or validating any New calendarian Orthodox Church as part of the True Catholic and Orthodox Church.
There is ample proof that certain dates here at least provided enough validity to God Himself, due to the innumerable day and date related miracles and experiences that have been recorded over time, even recently. In addition, there have been truly Holy people, whose nature and Orthodox spirit of life have been validated by immense evidence and testimonials.
Most of these contemporary people, in fact all of whom I know of or I have even met, NEVER practiced the extreme zealotry that is observed by “hardcore” Old calendarians. By this, I don’t mean you personally. But you have to understand that here in Greece, things can get ugly when talking to the local Old calendarians. They have put little weight in the matter of Old vs New calendar except to point out the fact that it is a terrible tragedy that a division is caused by it.
Point 6) It is entirely possible and indeed it is a fact right now, today, to be completely and irrevocably anti-ecumenist, while following the new calendar. And this does not only apply to mere lay people such as I, but also to Bishops, Metropolitans, Theologians etc. Some very few examples, are the very close to when I live Bishop Seraphim, who is not only profoundly and outspokenly Anti-ecumenist, but also very outspoken against Freemasonry, Zionism etc. etc. The Bishop Augustine in Northern Greece and many others. In my particular parish here in Greece, I assure you, there are no ecumenist tendencies whatsoever. It is my humble opinion, that if one is ecumenist, then there is a huge lack of understanding of the Church, or in certain cases, there are ulterior motives and/or infiltration.
Point 7) Here in Greece we have a particularly strange version of Old Calendarism. I am not sure if you are aware of the situation here, but there are Old calendarian Groups who practice only what I can describe as Pentecostal style shows, but with an “Orthodox” twist.
I am talking about group exorcisms, with outlandish happenings, taking place for hours, preaching on matters that are far of topic from True Orthodoxy (Heavily racist and nationalistic content). I am not talking about possibly shocking things but which are part of the Church. I am talking about true schismatics here, who will not even respect The Holy Spirit with their sayings and practices.
There is a massive and obvious difference in the conduct of for example an Athonite who is traditionally Old calendarist or Russian Orthodox, and these people.
It is enough for anyone who is even mildly serious to be very concerned about this.
Also, there is the year long anathematizing, deposing and contra deposing, so much so, that if you wanted to join such a parish, you would not even be sure whether your priest is even a priest. I must point out, that these groups are few and far between, since the Old calendarian numbers are very small here and then these groups are an even smaller part o this group. Regardless, there is too much more to mention here.
While I have much more to say, I am hoping the above will add some insight to my view, and I leave this as a record, for future reference to answering any such issues. I hope it was not too long and after this from my side at least, I think any further mentions will go much further of topic than this has gone already.
In Christ our Lord,
Stav
Sorry DWC, but I have to reply to this with something:
You say:
“@ Andrew Jackson
Excuse me, but when did the Greek Orthodox Church come out and make inquiry on Jews, or say anything about them, and banking, until Greece is just about bankrupt?”
Excuse my harshness, but I only try to match yours below. If I went too far I apologize in advance.
Have you even gone to an Orthodox Church and spoken to anyone there? The Orthodox Church does not shy away from telling the truth about the JWO/Zionism etc.
It has always talked against it, Publically. Indeed, starting with it’s Divine Services, many passages which the western religious communities shy away from, are PART of the service and are thus done each and every year. If you go to Orthodox Church regularly and simply listen you will NOT miss it.
Secondly, you should know, that at least here in Greece and Russia more recently, there is plenty of sermons, talks, discussions and written material, readily available to anyone, OUT IN THE OPEN, which explains and has been explaining the issue for may many years.
So much so, that the matter of the Jews is a given, and plain and known thing for any pious and practicing Orthodox person, at least here in Greece and with many Russians I know.
Furthermore, since in the west all of these things are hidden and unknown and people walk around thinking that they are perfectly Christian, but in reality missing a huge part of this, know this: If you don’t know about it, it does not mean that it does not happen.
The Orthodox Church has spoken out against the disgusting and blasphemous Talmud, Jews and Zionism, as I said before, but the reason why you don’t know it, is because you are NEVER told about it.
I know, I have seen it, I have heard it all my life. I was aware since I first remember myself thinking. And it is BECAUSE I was inside the Orthodox Church. No additional research was really necessary. The core and needed knowledge was given to me freely and openly, and most importantly, it was the truth and nothing but.
So don’t assume that it does not exist or happen because you were never told about it. I know it is the illness of the west and especially the US, but please, come to realize that a lot has happened in the world before the West emerged. And a lot is happening still, even though you never hear anything about it over there.
Many of the old Fathers have spoken very very strongly against the Jews/Zionism, but of course, you have to ask yourself, why these texts are ignored by the western Religious communities.
Don’t you get it? The only remaining force that can fight the JWO, IS the Orthodox Church. If you don’t believe me now, then perhaps you will be convinced in a few years…
Stav
Georgios,
I haven’t read the book but I have it somewhere, and only have your slant on it but even the demons were forced to admit that Christ was the Son of the living God.
So it is no surprise to me that they were also forced to admit that Mary is the Immaculate Conception.
By the way, God does not tolerate disrespect for his Mother.
Georgios,
There was a vote on it and several names were suggested but one, Orthodox was a big no no. It was ruled out because that would confuse us with those pedantic about tradition to the point of psychosis.
I voted for Christian but was voted down because of the association with other nutter sects. In the end, after tea and bickies Catholic was agreed upon since no one knew what it meant and therefore no one would be able to argue about it.
I hope that answers your question. for further info please ring your local Diocesan office of the Universal Christian Church, I mean, sorry, Catholic Church.
Anyway you know what I mean the one that spiritually, and in strength and in power upholds all the other christian churches and without which they would all collapse under the burden of their own weight.
Andrew Jackson.
Now you’re saying Christ was born with original sin.
If that’s what your church teaches I want nothing to do with it. Thanks.
Jeannon Kralj said:
“St. Paul who was present in Acts 15 at the Council of Jerusalem in which a decision was made by one man (Peter) and which all the other Apostles, bishops and elders held as the final and definitive decision for all the Churches of that day.”
You are verily distorting Acts 15 by saying that the decision “was made by one man.” We read in the Scriptures “and when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up,” followed by the testimony of Barnabas, Paul, and James. It looks like James had the last word. So is the See of Jerusalem supposed to have universal jurisdiction and supremacy?
This madness did not exist in the first several centuries of the Church. It is a Latin innovation.
Innovations that contradict the Faith of the early Church are not from God. They are heresy by definition.
Then the Apostles wrote the epistle in Acts 15 with one heart and mind “For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us.” This is the model of conciliarity in the Orthodox Church.
In Galatians Paul “withstood him (Peter) to the face, because he was to be blamed.” Peter was obviously wrong (he was never infallible nor ever claimed infallibility for himself), but he was humble enough to be corrected, just like when he repented from denying Christ thrice. Peter is a holy leader; not a tyrant, dictator, or autocrat.
Papal infallibility is the dogma of the First Vatican Council of 1870. Please look it up. It clearly says that the pope can never make any dogmatic error while speaking “ex cathedra.”
The crucial question is, when does the pope speak “ex cathedra,” and when does he speak in his own personal capacity? How do we discern between the 2 pronouncements? Did the heretical pope Honorius, condemned for monthelitism in the Sixth Ecumenical Council of 681 AD, speak “ex cathedra” or not?
This is my resolve when it comes to discussing the perennial papist problem:
“In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin, but he that refraineth his lips is wise.” (Prov. 10:19)
Please let us return to the topic of the Jews as being the Un-Chosen People, or better still, the Chosen People of Satan, unless they repent.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
The Jews collectively are engaged in a race war against Whites and Christians.
It’s reasonable for the Jews or any other ethnic, racial, or political group to try to better itself. It’s less so when the attempt is made at the expense of others. It’s intolerable when the ultimate objective is the total destruction of the targeted group when the targeted group is innocent of misconduct.
The Jews have followed a vigorous Jewish Supremacist program in the White and Christian national homelands for over 100 years. The fruits of this race war are everywhere for everyone to see.
Here are a few of the basic Jewish Supremacist race war rules:
The first rule is always:
Label any legitimate mention of Jewish misconduct as hate and criminalize such speech when possible. Condition the stupid to react reflexively, emotionally, and non-rationally when legitimate unfavorable information about the Jews is mentioned.
The second rule is:
Destroy any who are obstacles to Jewish Supremacism.
The third rule is:
Only tolerate actions, events, and news that’s “Good for the Jews.”
The fourth rule is:
Fill as many desirable positions as possible …particularly University, judicial, legal, medical, media, and senior governmental positions…with Jews in numbers as many times their 2½ percentage of the population as possible (despite the Jewish Supremacist scam called Affirmative Action.)
The fifth rule is:
Fill as many remaining positions as possible …particularly University, judicial, and government positions…with non-Whites.
The sixth rule is:
Fill as many of the left over positions as possible with weak, malleable White females.
The seventh rule is:
Promote Goyim who serve their Jews.
The eighth rule is:
Flood the historic White homelands with as many third-world non-Whites as possible…and make them equal or superior citizens to the native Whites.
The ninth rule is:
Minimize White male participation in White society as much as possible…unless the White males are subservient Jew Goys.
The tenth rule is:
Drain the manpower, wealth, and cultural institutions of the Whites and Christians as much as possible while promoting wealth and income transfers from the Whites to the Jews and the non-Whites.
The eleventh rule is:
Promote miscegenation by Whites.
The twelfth rule is:
Manipulate Whites so that they have the lowest birth rate possible while promoting as many non-White births as possible. Legislate inter-racial income transfers from Whites to non-Whites to amplify the birth rate disparity.
The thirteenth rule is:
Tax the Whites as much as possible while subsidizing the Jews and non-Whites as much as possible. Force the White wives and mothers into the workplace.
The fourteenth rule is:
Obtain maximum taxpayer subsidies for Jewish Supremacist enterprises such as the government of Jew-occupied Palestine, “holocaust museums,” and Jew propaganda organizations so the Whites and Christians end up being forced to pay the Jews to destroy the Whites’ only White homelands.
The fifteenth rule is:
Never allow the phrase “Separation of Synagogue and State” to be uttered anywhere, anytime.
The sixteenth rule is:
Destroy “Christians” by buying-off their Judas-pastors and deceiving the Christians into believing Jewish fables.
The seventeen rule is:
Distract the Whites and Christians with degraded Jewish Shit Box (television) programming, anti-God Jew-made movies, degraded Jew-promoted “music” and “art,” and frivolous consumer vanities.
The eighteenth rule is:
Induce the Whites and Christians to enter into as much usury debt as possible.
The nineteenth rule is:
Degrade, mock, and discriminate against Whites and Christians as much as practical.
The twentieth rule is:
Use the name “Jesus Christ” as a curse word everywhere possible and condition the stupid to do so, too.
The twenty-first rule is:
Laugh at the stupid dumb Christian and White Goyim for beging the most ignorant and foolish people in the history of the world…but only behind their backs, otherwise they may wise up and get off their lazy, worthless butts and save their homelands, their race, and their posterity.
Dear Glory B.,
I agree with you. Let us face the Judaic peril and educate rather than squabble. I do not intend to argue with our brothers the Catholics, which certainly still have many good things in their church. But I have to respond to challenges of the Truth, otherwise I would be sinning by omission.
Silence in the face of evil is complicity.
I hate silence when it is time to speak.
Heretical dogmas are evil. They distort who God is and His revealed will and testament for us. Heresies have alienated millions and generations of Christians. They are from the enemy of mankind and not from God.
It is specifically BECAUSE of heresy and the division of Christians that Islam rose up in the east and Judaism in the West. The root cause of the Judaic problem is the falling away of the heterodox Christians from the True Faith. This happened dozens of times with the Israel of the OT. Every time they worshiped false gods, the fell into the hands of their enemies. The same exact principle applies to the Israel of the NT, as history has now aptly demonstrated.
Pedophilia (or more accurately pederasty) is a very heinous sin, but is not restricted to the RCC. It is everywhere present where sinful men are to be found. It is also very much present in the synagogues, even more so, since it officially sanctioned and protected by the Talmud. The GREATER SIN, however, is the cover up of this sin by higher church authorities, and the promotion of priests and bishops guilty of this sin by the popes. Instead of defrocking these predators, they were reshuffled to other parishes, and even sometimes promoted.
Would the root of pederasty be the un-orthodox practice of imposed celibacy on the priests by the RCC, which is also an innovation of the Hildebrandine revolution of the 1070’s, right after the Great Schism? I would say a resounding YES.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
P.S.
The 21st rule is carried out through the Talmudvision by encouraging the dumb Goyim to tune in to shows where scum such as Larry David (Curb your Enthusiasm) urinate on a picture of Christ.
Or Sarah Silverman mocks Christians by proudly shouting that “I’m glad Jews killed Christ, good, I’d do it again, I’d f*n do it again” she exclaims during her standup, and get them to tune in to failed Jewish comedians such as Jon Stewart (Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz) (classic Communist tactic of changing a Jew name to disguise themselves) tell the dumb Goyim what to think.
Please keep posts shorter.
Dear in Christ Stav,
I do not want to debate the new/old calendar here. One thing you need to think about:
Who divided the Church, those who kept the Holy Tradition of their Fathers, or the freemasonic innovators?
To this day, more than 80% of all orthodox are still on the old patristic calendar, and not the papist calendar.
This ought to speak to your soul, dear brother.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
Oxymoron said:
“Now you’re saying Christ was born with original sin.
If that’s what your church teaches I want nothing to do with it. Thanks.”
I am sorry to realize that you have no basic understanding, again, of anything pertaining to Adam’s curse and fallen human nature, also called the Ancestral Curse.
The Fathers have taught us from the Holy Scriptures that what has not been assumed by Christ was not redeemed. Therefore the Logos assumed our WHOLE human nature in its corrupt, fallen and broken state, in order to heal us, make us whole, refashion the image and likeness of God in us, which has been marred by sin.
Christ CHOSE to be born in the fallen post-lapsarian nature that we all (including the Virgin Mary) inherit from Adam, in order to redeem us from sin and death.
Christ hungered and thirsted, became weary and tired, and was mortal, BECAUSE HE CHOSE TO ASSUME THE FALLEN CORRUPT NATURE OF MAN. These are attributes of fallen human nature. Adam did not hunger or die before the Fall.
Christ did not sin, nor did He inherit any guilt of sin from any of His ancestors, going back all the way to Adam, because no human being does. This concept of “Original Sin” and “Inherited Guilt” are one of the major heresies of Rome, which lead people of good will like you, to confusion.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
Programming the Goyim to hate and fear their own:
U.S. anti-terrorism drill showing white supremacists shooting immigrants cancelled following threats to carry it out for real
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1370177/U-S-anti-terrorism-drill-showing-white-supremacists-shooting-immigrants-cancelled-following-threats-carry-real.html#ixzz1HlOFj1qX
Ancestral Versus Original Sin:
An Overview with Implications for Psychotherapy
by V. Rev. Antony Hughes, M.Div
St. Mary Antiochian Orthodox Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Abstract[1]
The differences between the doctrine of Ancestral Sin — as understood in the church of the first two centuries and the present-day Orthodox Church — and the doctrine of Original Sin — developed by Augustine and his heirs in the Western Christian traditions — is explored.
The impact of these two formulations on pastoral practice is investigated. It is suggested that the doctrine of ancestral sin naturally leads to a focus on human death and Divine compassion as the inheritance from Adam, while the doctrine of original sin shifts the center of attention to human guilt and Divine wrath.
It is further posited that the approach of the ancient church points to a more therapeutic than juridical approach to pastoral care and counseling.
[…] The Approach of the Orthodox Fathers
As pervasive as the term original sin has become, it may come as a surprise to some that it was unknown in both the Eastern and Western Church until Augustine (c. 354-430). The concept may have arisen in the writings of Tertullian, but the expression seems to have appeared first in Augustine’s works.
Prior to this the theologians of the early church used different terminology indicating a contrasting way of thinking about the fall, its effects and God’s response to it. The phrase the Greek Fathers used to describe the tragedy in the Garden was ancestral sin.
Ancestral sin has a specific meaning. The Greek word for sin in this case, amartema, refers to an individual act indicating that the Eastern Fathers assigned full responsibility for the sin in the Garden to Adam and Eve alone.
The word amartia, the more familiar term for sin which literally means “missing the mark”, is used to refer to the condition common to all humanity (Romanides, 2002).
The Eastern Church, unlike its Western counterpart, never speaks of guilt being passed from Adam and Eve to their progeny, as did Augustine.
Instead, it is posited that each person bears the guilt of his or her own sin. The question becomes, “What then is the inheritance of humanity from Adam and Eve if it is not guilt?”
The Orthodox Fathers answer as one: death. (I Corinthians 15:21) “Man is born with the parasitic power of death within him,” writes Fr. Romanides (2002, p. 161). Our nature, teaches Cyril of Alexandria, became “diseased…through the sin of one” (Migne, 1857-1866a).
It is not guilt that is passed on, for the Orthodox fathers; it is a condition, a disease.
[…]
Augustine’s Legacy
The piety and devotion of Augustine is largely unquestioned by Orthodox theologians, but his conclusions on the Atonement are (Romanides, 2002).
Augustine, by his own admission, did not properly learn to read Greek and this was a liability for him.
He seems to have relied mostly on Latin translations of Greek texts (Augustine, 1956a,p. 9). His misinterpretation of a key scriptural reference, Romans 5:12, is a case in point (Meyendorff, 1979).
In Latin the Greek idiom eph ho which means ‘because of’ was translated as ‘in whom.’ Saying that all have sinned in Adam is quite different than saying that all sinned because of him. Augustine believed and taught that all humanity has sinned in Adam (Meyendorff, 1979, p. 144).
The result is that guilt replaces death as the ancestral inheritance (Augustine, 1956b) Therefore the term original sin conveys the belief that Adam and Eve’s sin is the first and universal transgression in which all humanity participates.
Augustine famously debated Pelagius (c. 354-418) over the place the human will could play in salvation. Augustine took the position against him that only grace is able to save, sola gratis (Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints, 7)[4].
From this a doctrine of predestination developed (God gives grace to whom He will) which hardened in the 16th and 17th centuries into the doctrine of two-fold predestination (God in His sovereignty saves some and condemns others). The position of the Church of the first two centuries concerning the image and human freedom was abandoned.
The Roman idea of justice found prominence in Augustinian and later Western theology. The idea that Adam and Eve offended God’s infinite justice and honor made of death God’s method of retribution (Romanides, 2002). But this idea of justice deviates from Biblical thought. Kalomiris (1980) explains the meaning of justice in the original Greek of the New Testament:
The Greek word diakosuni ‘justice’, is a translation of the Hebrew word “tsedaka.” The word means ‘the divine energy which accomplishes man’s salvation.’ It is parallel and almost synonymous with the word hesed which means ‘mercy’, ‘compassion’, ‘love’, and to the word emeth which means ‘fidelity’, ‘truth’. This is entirely different from the juridical understanding of ‘justice’. (p. 31)
[…]
http://www.stmaryorthodoxchurch.org/orthodoxy/articles/2004-hughes-sin.php
@Kris:
I checked the Land Destroyer site; thanks for the link.
I looked over the board members in the ‘International Crisis Group’ (I love the grandiose, self serving names these people give themselves), and noted that George Soros was there, and so was a man named Samuel Berger.
This name sounded vaguely familiar, and some research showed that this is actually Sandy R. Berger who was ordered to pay 50,000 dollars for stealing and destroying classified documents related to the 9/11 investigation. He was the National Security Adviser, for crying out loud.
Sandy Berger, a Jew who now works with Soros and his ilk, must have had something pretty important to hide about high level complicity with 9/11. It ruined his career, but it looks like his buddies have found a place for him as ‘Samuel.’
http://articles.cnn.com/2005-09-08/politics/berger.sentenced_1_sandy-berger-documents-terror-threats?_s=PM:POLITICS
Regardless who and what the chosen people are, it is a childish argument between overfed egos, a dead horse the Jews have beaten for centuries that most Gentiles are spellbound by.
For on one hand, you have the melting pot of Kenite races that call themselves “Jews” and the “chosen,” and then on the other hand you have Christian Identists and the Black Rastafa Israelite crowd who call themselves Israelites, Jews, and the Chosen, and besides their egotism, most of these crowds are a nasty and egotistical group of people that reflect the anger and ego of Satan than the love, compassion, and understanding of God and Heaven.
These people refuse to listen to the Truth of the matter, so it is like throwing pearls to swine when it comes to these crowds, and they must be left to themselves. This Israelite supremacist racial egotism, it is a terrible poison that destroys the soul, spirit, and foundation of humanity, and so this egotism should have been and must be destroyed and thrown out in the trash as soon as possible.
The Israelites (the original Semites) needed to be pure in race in order for Christ Jesus to be born. The Levitical laws and Israelite pride was nailed on the Cross and nullified when Christ Jesus was Crucified, so all that matters is Christ Jesus, the Prince of Peace and the King of Heaven, and His Law: LOVE, COMPASSION, SINCERITY, AND JUSTICE, which is what heaven is made of and we must try to bring to earth as we await Christ Jesus’ return.
Yes, Christ Jesus wanted to spread the Word to His Lost Sheep and the “world (this meant the Israelite world in Hebraic terms and the Roman Empire in Roman terms)”, the Celtic European peoples in order to form the foundation of his Church, which Paul did when he traveled to Europe to spread the Word, and from Europe and the Celtic peoples, the Word has spread ALL to all parts of the world, to every race, and Christ Jesus’ work is done, for every man of the world has the choice of following Christ Jesus or rejecting him.
At this point, ALL believers of Christ Jesus must unify into one respectful family (this does not mean wholesale race mixing, but the respect and preservation of race and culture on equal grounds) and celebrate Christ Jesus. For those who are still spell bound by the Israelite supremacist ideals, tell me, will one find racial supremacism and discrimination in heaven?
No, egotism the character of Lucifer, will not be found in heaven, for the ego and pride will be found in Hell. The Christian Identists and Black Israelites will disagree and justify their answer with nonsense. The fact is that Christ Jesus loves, helps, and has factually done miracles to every race. The Israelite egotistical pride is the Luciferian tool that divides and conquers, and that is not what Christ Jesus and His Heaven is about.
Predestined comic relief (for Vox):
Federally funded emergency preparedness exercise in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward to feature hostage situation where two discontented African-American terrorists kidnap a school bus full of Mormon missionaries a gunpoint and plan to cook them in a giant kettle.
Andrew Jackson
So now you have told me the results of the eating of the forbidden fruit. But you still haven’t told me what the fruit was that Adam and Eve ate.
Until you can do that, I still say the arguement is pointless.
Even from a non-Inspired Bible point of view, the end result is the same. It’s an interesting point of view, even if you’re on the Inspired Bible side. Check it out:
Who’s the biggest scam artist in the Bible stories? It’s Jacob, alias Israel. He extorted his older brother Esau’s birthright when he found him starving to the point of death, getting that birthright for a bowl of lentils. Then he scams his dying father Isaac into thinking that he (Jacob) is Esau, getting Esau’s blessing in the bargain. (The blessing made Jacob heir to the promise of fathering a great nation.)
Now here comes the part that (IMHO) confuses literalists: The Hebrew God Yahweh goes along with the scam! Um, maybe that’s just a Hebrew way of saying to other Hebrews that God chooses those who choose themselves.
There are many other stories that are simpler to understand as being suggestions (to be crooked) than as exact history. Abraham uses his old wife to extort kings, Moses’ horde borrows jewelry before fleeing Egypt, Esther corrupts a king, etc. Justifications are usually tossed in. Wink, wink! Let he who is wise discern THAT number.
Anyway, why is the state of Israel even called Israel, if only the kingdom of Judah was left behind when the other ten tribes were deported and subsequently “lost” to history? They should have called it “Judea” in 1948, but they knew that “Israel” has more resonance with Christians, because of all the good stories in the OT describing a time before the kingdom split in two. “Hear, O Israel…,” etc.
And of course, Jesus’ condemnations of the Pharisees ought to apply to today’s mainstream Talmudic Judaism, right?
At the risk of offending Brother Nathanael’s modesty, it is my opinion that he himself is a “minor prophet” in the old tradition!
Andrew Jackson:
”For example, Christ said He will give the sign of Jonah, where He will be in the earth 3 days and 3 nights. But in fact He was buried on Friday before sunset, and risen on Sunday at dawn or earlier. So He was in the earth at most 2 days and 2 nights; but since the method of counting at that time included the starting point, this makes it 3 days and 3 nights (for example from Monday to Thursday was counted as 4 days).”
Hello Andrew.
Can you explain this more clearly please? I understand what you mean, and why it counts as 3 days, as Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday morning count as 3 different days, I don’t get how it counts as 3 nights.
If u can explain this, this would be good. Thanks 🙂
Tosca
What thinks Brother Nathanael about the Pope’s new book wherein he reportedly argues that the Jews did not kill Christ?
A good argument, with scriptural backing, could be made for that; after all, it’s our sins that caused Christ to be crucified.
Trouble is, the Bible plainly states that the Jews killed both the prophets and Christ and persecuted Christians and are enemies of all mankind, because they prevent the Gospel from being preached, etc.
Now ADL says that is slander and anti-semitism and the Bible needs to be re-translated to replace any negative use of the word ‘Jew’ with ‘enemies of Christ.’
How, then, will they translate this passage:
“…them who say they are Jews but are not but are a synagogue of Satan”?
We follow their suggested method and that translates as
“…them who say they are enemies of Christ but are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.” Hmm.
They can work that out I’m sure. The way the Vatican is going, I would not be too surprised if they end up following the ADL guidelines. If they re-translate the Bible as suggested, it will be an outrage, because, though it’s easy to say the current translations is anti-Semitic and defamatory, the truth is that
the Christ-rejecting Jews are indeed enemies of all mankind, esp. themselves; they are their own worst enemy, for what shall it profit a people to gain the world and lose their souls?
How can enemies of all mankind be the chosen of a just or loving God of impartiality? How can a people who are hostile to all men be anything but the enemies of God if God is love?
Osymoron gives a good list of anti-gentilism strategies. But seems all the rules boil down to one: ensnare the goy in sin and enslave them through vice by way of deception.
Great talk! We wage peace by way of truth.
The god of the Talmud and Zionism is indeed “strange.”
I once thought that most Jews highly revere the Old Testament although “God blinded their eyes” to the New Testament.
I now understand that self-important Jewish teachers passed down oral traditions which twist the Old Testament writings. These twisted teachings have now been written as the Talmud which has supplanted the Old Testament writings as a guideline for Jews. The Talmud is anti-Christ in that it blasphemes Jesus Christ and contradicts Christian values.
I used to understand the modern day state of Israel as a manifestation of God. I used to believe that there would be an End Times war in which heathen nations would show their hatred toward God by attacking the political state of Israel. God would step in to rescue Israel. Jesus and Israel would have a banquet while God poured out wrath on the heathens. Or something like that.
When I became aware of the deceptive and bloody foundations of the political state of Israel and aware of their unkind treatment of the Palestinians in Gaza and elsewere (an understatement if there ever was one) I realized something was wrong with that picture. That didn’t feel like God, that didn’t look like God, that didn’t sound like God, that didn’t smell like God.
Now Brother Nathanael helps me to see through the deceptions of contemporary Judaism and the political state of Israel.
Dear oxymoron,
You say:
“By the way, God does not tolerate disrespect for his Mother.”
You don’t get it. The dogma of the immaculate conception in the surface looks as if one who teaches it puts extra honor on the Mother of God.
But the truth is, that by ascribing immaculate conception to Her, you are actually disrespecting Her, and stripping any kind of value of Her.
And this, because of many reasons, of which not the least are that:
1) They degrade the nature of Christ, the Holy Spirit and destroy the perceived balance of the Holy Trinity.
2) By doing so, you are degrading Her Son Jesus Christ, who IS God, and since She is His mother, you are grieving Her by not seeing God as you ought to.
Let me explain.
By ascribing immaculate conception to the Mother of God, you are essentially implying necessarily, that She had no Freedom to choose, no way to get out of God’s Plan for us, if She wanted to.
God of course knew that She was the Most Righteous and Holy person to ever Live on this Earth, and therefore He chose Her.
That is not the same as to say that He created Her for this purpose alone.
The matter of Freedom of Choice, as I have said before, is an ABSOLUTE requirement to make everything else we human do valuable.
Thus, if you imply a necessary (by the idea of the immaculate conception) perfection and inability to be Evil to the Mother Of God, then, you are also necessarily degrading Her to the level of an inanimate object or animal, which has NOT choice in what they do.
Think about it. If She had no choice but to do Good and ONLY Good, because God made you that way, then, what is the difference between Her and any other creation, other than Mankind? Nothing, because She, according to the implications of the immaculate conception, She was created specifically to be the way by which God would incarnate.
You cannot both claim a special immaculate nature of Mary the Mother of God and say that She was made for this purpose and thus had no choice, and at the same time venerate and honor Her.
Because, what is the point of venerating someone who in your view, had no choice anyway, but to follow God’s plan?
Look at it, this way: We as humans despise the idea of unfairness. If one uses tricks to break the rules or bypass them, we do not like this, and all honor is automatically stripped from them.
If you realize that one was told or forced to know all the questions and answers to a test, before the test occurred, then you would not agree with them getting top marks would you?
Then, if you understand the above, why do you ascribe perfection and a special condition that FORCES Her to act in the way She did, and at the same time thinking that you are respecting Her?
If Mary was specially immaculate always, then what was the purpose of Her? Why would God the creator of all that is, need a human being to incarnate Himself? Could He not then simply appear in this world, in any form He chose?
The answer is confusing when you change the value of the Mother of God, from being by CHOICE Good, to being FORCED to be Good.
If she was FORCED to be Good, made to be perfect Always, with no choice, then what was the purpose of the line that brought about Christ in this world?
Why did God require this linage before He came to this world, if by your false doctrine of the immaculate conception, He could have create a Mary ANYTIME from any lineage?
As you can see, the false doctrine of the immaculate conception, is not only far from ascribing any kind of honor to Her, but it strips away ALL of it.
Thus, looking at your words at the start of this post, please realize that it is you that actually is disrespecting Her.
In addition to all of the above, what you don’t realize is that in addition of the immaculate conception doctrine also affects Christology and by implication the way that we perceive the Holy Trinity.
But, if one see it historically, they will realize that it is the other way around. Starting with the “filio que” the balance of perception of the Holy Trinity changed, thereby leaving room and preparing the ground for even more abominations such as the doctrine of the immaculate conception.
Stav
@oxymoron
“but even the demons were forced to admit that Christ was the Son of the living God.”
According to the Church Fathers, the Holy Tradition and the Scriptures GOD NEVER USES THE DEVIL TO TELL US THE TRUTH in contrary to Kaiafas who was the priest of that year!
Magicians followed St. Apostle Paul and told to the people “this man is from God”. What did Paul do? Paul told to the demons to get out of that possessed people.
God has HIS ANGELS TO USE, not the demons.
Oxymoron be please oxynous. Are papal dogmas directly out of the hell?
Think about it, it is about your eternal soul.
Vox, please forgive me for using your quote in another form.
I just had to ask this question in regards to some judgmental comments demonizing the Catholics again and propagandizing one religion only.
Is there anything on “Programming the Catholics to hate and fear their own” too?
Isn’t it what is exactly taking place right here on this forum?
Jews seem to use the same tactics for their ‘holocaust’ purposes.
Disgusted White Christian quoted March 26, 2011 @ 2:42 pm
“@ Level One. Do you have a level head? ”
******
My exact thoughts!
@ EvaneScence
“I just had to ask this question in regards to some judgmental comments demonizing the Catholics again and propagandizing one religion only. Is there anything on “Programming the Catholics to hate and fear their own” too? ”
As a Catholic and having spent my years 1 -12 in Catholic schools, the Catholics don’t need any help although they get lots of it, the Catholic church itself teaches you to hate yourself and feel dirty and unworthy and that you’ll be lucky if the Lord even glances in your direction BUT there’s one chance – If you give lots of money to the church that just MIGHT (no guarantees) look favorable for you.
Interesting development overnight:
I received a TOS Violations Notice from my provider AT&T about postings I made on another forum disputing the holyhoax.
Stay tuned…… Next up – Bolshevik Revolution Part II – Destruction of the Goyim.
@ Glory B:
I agree with you 100%, I am not the one promoting a specific dogma on here, on a site called “Real Zionist News.”
I warned Father Joseph (who they chased away and was key financial SUPPORTER of Nate) to stop posted his Catholic dogma, only to have Georgios CONSTANTLY post Greek Orthodox dogma.
I don’t practice Catholicism anymore, but I am not going to come to a site and support, and have someone telling me Greek Orthodox dogma all day, like I said, I’ll go to “Reel Greek Orthodox News” if I want that.
I don’t really care what they believe about Catholicism, Protestants. I am just tired of reading any dogma, that is not for a thread, to alert the world of New World Order Zionist Jews.
Do you know how many Catholics there are worldwide? They may have stayed and supported Nate, but have been chased away by the likes of and bigotry of someone like Georgios?
How much do you support Nate monthly Georgios?
@ Stav
Yes, I have a Greek Orthodox church in walking distance from my home, I don’t know about Greece, but the Greeks here, stay away from the “Zionist Jew hegemony” questions just as much as the other religions do, God’s honest truth.
I would like to ask Bro Nate, does his Orthodox church OPENLY SUPPORT HIS EFFORTS?
If they do, God bless THEM, because Ted Pike (Nate has been on programs with him) says, he knows of NO CHURCH IN AMERICA, THAT OPENLY TEACHES, WHAT THE ZIONIST’S DO: THEIR SOLE MISSION, OF THE COMPLETE AND UTTER DESTRUCTION OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH, AND TOTAL CONTROL IN A NWO
OVER EVERYONE ELSE ON EARTH.
ONE OF THEIR BIGGEST ASSETS IS A bigot LIKE Georgios.
DWC
Please note that someone like an Officer Bluto is not some diety in a blue police uniform.
Officer Bluto will have ZERO problems with arresting someone like me or you for thought crimes because that will bode well for Officer Bluto. He’ll get an award for “Meritorious Service in Preventing another Shoah” and the Jews will shake his hand and tell him he’s a hero and he’ll love it because Officer Bluto is NOT a “crime fighter.”
Officer Bluto is a tax collector. Officer Bluto is not going to dirty his pretty blue stormtrooper uniform chasing down rapists, burglars and murderers. Officer Bluto will go after the ones that get him the most recognition from his handlers and thereby get him a raise.
Officer Bluto is NOT on your side. Officer Bluto is NOT your friend. Officer Bluto does not consider himself as working for you. Officer Bluto like a dumb soldier considers the chain of command and you are not in it. Officer Bluto has been trained to enforce US vs. THEM and you are a part of “THEM”!
@DWC
I don’t care about Catholic Church, but since some of you started to bombardize us with papal doctines it was my duty to tell you the truth.
Prove anything I ever said were against the Christian faith.
And because I don’t want people like Father Joseph (“who was key financial SUPPORTER of Nate”), I myself will never come back here again.
@Andrew Jackson
I will miss your comments. Your comments are the bests I ever read in whole internet.
In Christ’s Love
Georgios
@ Georgios:
“I don’t care about Catholic Church, but since some of you started to bombardize us with papal doctrines it was my duty to tell you the truth.
Prove anything I ever said were against the Christian faith.
And because I don’t want people like Father Joseph (”who was key financial SUPPORTER of Nate”), I myself will never come back here again.” – Georgios
*******************************************
Georgios:
That was Father Joseph, which I told him to stop the Catholic dogma stuff. It isn’t an appropriate site to promote his views, and try to force them on others.
I actually enjoy your stuff Georgios when it isn’t religious dogma. No one wants people (you) to leave, just stop arguing over religious dogmas.
As a brother in Christ, I ask you to stay and EXTEND AN OLIVE BRANCH.
You are my brother Georgios, just like Catholic, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, but you constantly attacked.
No one wants you to leave.
Ο αδελφός εν Χριστώ
DWC
Dear Donna chestergimli,
The fruit that Adam and Eve ate was a real physical fruit from a real physical tree. We however do not know what kind it was.
The speculation of the Latins that it was an apple is just the result of a restless and overactive imagination that knows not how to be still and silent before the great mysteries of God.
The physical and spiritual are tightly connected in one reality, both in Paradise, and in the here and now of our present life. What our body does directly affects our soul, and vice versa. This is why we have to protect our senses from evil, as Christ taught us (the eye is the light of the body, etc….)
St. Gregory the Theologian says:
“The tree was, according to my view, Contemplation, upon which it is only safe for those who have reached maturity of habit to enter.”
(Homily on the Theophany, XII, J-P Migne, ed. Patrologia Graeca. 166 vols. Paris: Migne, 1857-1856.)
St. John of Damascus says:
“Some have imagined paradise to have been material, while others have imagined it to have been spiritual. However, it seems to me that just as man was created both sensitive (i.e. material with a body) and intellectual (i.e. spiritual with a soul), so did this most sacred domain of his have the two fold aspect of being perceptible both to the senses and to the mind.
“For while in his body he dwelt in this most sacred and superbly beautiful place, as we have related, spiritually he resided in a loftier and far more beautiful place.
“There he had the indwelling God as a dwelling place and wore him as a glorious garment. He was wrapped about with his grace, and like some one of the angels he rejoiced in the enjoyment of that one most sweet fruit which is the contemplation of God, and by this he was nourished.
“Now this is indeed what is fittingly called the tree of life, for the sweetness of divine contemplation communicates a life uninterrupted by death to them that partake of it.”
(On the Orthodox Faith.2.11. Fathers of the Church: A New Translation. Washington, DC. Catholic University of America Press, 1947. 37;232)
Indeed, the Spirit-bearing words of the Holy Fathers are mighty and deeply penetrating into the mysteries of God!!!
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
@ ALL
Peace out! Fighting over non-sensical issues does not make sense. Fight back, not amongst yourselves.
There’s a whole world out there just trying to rip you off and kill you. Why worry about anything other than what the enemy is doing behind your back!
Dear Georgios,
Now you are making me sad, please don’t do that.
I think you are wrong about the New Calendar meaning the same thing as false ecumenist heresy, but that doesn’t mean I want to throw you under the bus either.
Let’s talk these things out in Jesus name.
An Extremely Precise Value for the Length of the Year
And now let’s go further into the question of how difficult it was for the Maya to restart their calendar exactly on this particular winter solstice from over 2,000 years away. Imagine that it is the winter solstice and that you and I want to make a calendar that restarts precisely on the winter solstice ten years from now. We would just multiply the number of days in a year by ten to get the correct number of days that our calendar would need.
But if we think that the year is exactly 365 days long, rather than the more correct value of 365.2422 days long, then you can see that over ten years, we would be off by more than two days. (3650 days compared with 3652.422 days.) And, if instead, we want the calendar to restart in one hundred years or one thousand years, you can see that we would need to know the length of the year with greater and greater precision.
To intentionally hit this particular winter solstice from that far away, it turns out that the Maya would have needed to know the length of the year to within 45 seconds! This is like measuring the width of the United States to within 20 feet or the distance from Los Angeles to Tokyo to within 40 feet! In terms of a percentage, this is 99.9999 percent correct! In my opinion, this is not merely remarkable; this is absolutely stunning!
An essay by Thomas Razzeto © Copyright 2009 Thomas Razzeto
DWC,
I agree with you 110 percent. The name of this website is “Real Zion News” (used to be Real Jew News, which I thought was good enough, as it pinpointed who the real enemies of Christ are), and Bro. Nathanael is trying to keep the focus on the Jewish danger.
But as hard as he tries, and without much financial support, some people constantly are trying to turn the focus from satanic Jewry and to other topics to serve their own ends.
I’m not saying the people who are doing this are Jews, but certainly they are serving the Jewish program of diverting Christians’ attention from the evil activities of the Christ-hating Jews.
I know that Bro. Nathanael is very busy and doesn’t have time to monitor all the posts on his website.
But someone needs to decide when someone is off-topic, and either not allow that post on the website, or, if it continues, ban that person for a specific period of time, until he or she gets over the urge to go off-topic.
As I said before, this constant squabbling between the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Christians solves nothing, and only serves the purpose of the anti-Christ Jews.
Vox,
In regards to money the TRUTH is that if you give lots of it to ANY church, (regardless of its religion), institution or person, that just MIGHT (no guarantees) look favourable for you, and on that I agree with you 100%.
My question wasn’t directed at you at all.
I like most of your comments and therefore have allowed myself to use your quote in a form of question directed at others, who are caught in the past and constantly, viciously attack the Catholics.
You, Hoff, DWC and Jeannon Kralj are just a few of the many that are the most level headed people on this forum.
I also appreciate oxymoron’s latest defence, who actually represents another faith, but who can see the logic in joining our forces together to strengthen the opposition against the Devil. This is most appreciated.
I apologize for omitting anyone else who probably deserves it too.
I pleaded before with everybody to keep on the topic and stop the constant bickering. But some people, however, just don’t get it, giving this way an excellent opportunity for Zionists to laugh and enjoy themselves at our own our expense.
It is so frustrating!!!!
These childishly stubborn people are not helping +Brother Nathanael at all! On the contrary!! They pushing us all away instead!
For goodness sake! Move on and stay on the topic!!
Soon we might find ourselves in a totally hopeless situation.
WAKE UP!
Or it might be too late to do anything.
We respect your beliefs and have no intention in converting you.
Be blessed with your own faith.
But if you’re reluctant to show respect to ours then at least refrain yourselves from demonizing it.
Have you already forgotten about the real danger from the Synagogue of Satan and the Zionists?
They don’t believe in God at all!!!!
Their goal at the moment are the Arabs and the Muslim’s world.
Guess who will be next?
In fact, they’ve already started….
Are you getting ready?
Or, is it your goal to get rid of us first.
That would certainly make the Zionists job a lot easier.
Well, what else can I say….
A prayer.
To Adonis Tate;
You are right about the Jews choosing the name “Israel” for their usurper state rather than “Judea,” which would have been more accurate. But as you correctly discerned, they are all about deception and dissimulation.
Please do not let your hatred of the iniquities and crimes of the Jews blind you concerning the OT. Yes, the people there were sinners, but at least they believed and worshiped the One True God, and did not worship Satan or offer child sacrifice to demons.
Jacob was a spiritual man and understood the value of the blessing of God and his father Isaac, whereas Esau was a carnal man, who loved fornication, and who disdained things spiritual.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
Dear Tosca,
The method of counting at the time included the starting point. So from Friday to Sunday was counted as 3 calendar days, which can also be the equivalent of 3 daytime days and 3 nights.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
Dear weasalwhisperer,
Great post! You are right on target!
The minions of satan are enslaving mankind through addiction to sin, vice, and the passions. They are deceived by the devil and deceive others.
Rome has been knuckling down to the ADL for a while. The more they give in the the ADL the more they get bullied.
Ratzinger is a false bishop and is no successor of St. Peter, because he contradicts the Saint in the most basic understanding of the Gospel, that the Jews conspired to kill Christ.
Here is what St. Peter has to say:
Acts 2:[22] Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know:
[23] Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.
Acts 5:[27] And when they had brought them, they set them before the council: and the high priest asked them,
[28] Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.
[29] Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.
[30] The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.
[31] Him hath God exalted
Here is what St. Paul has to say:
1 Thess. 2:[14] For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews:
[15] Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men:
[16] Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
http://www.thestreetofschemes.com/wp-content/uploads/rogerwatersbeingrogerwaters.jpg
Hey Zionist, leave those Palastenians alone.
We don’t need your Zionist sarcasm, we don’t need your Zionist control. Hey Zionist, leave the free world alone!
Roger Waters, the one-time world’s champion of bitterness, and legendary founding member of Pink Floyd has drawn the ire of Zionists everywhere.
They don’t care for his use of imagery in this accompanying video and most certainly object to the raising of their profile via the suggestive illustrations.
This is amateur video apparently but nevertheless it is beautifully shot. Judge for yourself if anything in this video would rattle your cage.
Our best guess is that, if it were to, you’re probably paranoid for a reason. Or possibly billions of reasons.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf7HXdZawzo&feature=player_embedded
Open letter form Dr. David Duke to Roger Waters:
Dear Mr Waters,
I write to you both as an American and as a citizen of the world who is concerned for peace. As an American I am particularly concerned with your use of the dollar sign – $ – conflated with a Star of David in your show The Wall.
As both a non-American and as a man who devotes the bulk of his working and leisure time to music, you are probably unaware of the deep sense of unease and indeed revulsion this will cause to many Americans, Jews as well as Christians.
Although the Star of David is first and foremost a religious symbol, it was hijacked several decades ago by one of the most ruthless, fascistic ideologies on the face of this planet, that of International Zionism, a philosophy of racial supremacy.
If I may quote from ZIONISM: its European origins, a December 1973 publication of the British & Irish Communist Organisation, page 3: “Its essence is that a ‘chosen people’, the Jews, are superior to everyone else and can and should trample on the rights of other peoples”.
This quote actually first appeared in an editorial in the left wing newspaper Socialist Worker, October 20, 1973.
You will see from this that the true nature of Zionism has long been recognised by most left wing and progressive people in Europe if not throughout the world.
As I am sure you know, the dollar sign – $ – has come to symbolise not just our currency, but capitalism and indeed what many people worlwide interpret as American Imperialism.
It is my concern that by using the dollar sign in conjunction with the Star of David, you are inadvertently conveying to the rest of the world the erroneous and dangerous belief that the people of the United States are complicit financially and in other respects with the crimes perpetrated by the Zionist entity against the Palestinian people, and more recently against the entire world in the shape of the Gaza Flotilla Massacre.
You should understand that in the area of foreign policy with particular relevance to the Middle East, the actions of the American Government do not reflect the will of the American people, that the outrageously partisan behaviour of successive Administrations both Democratic and Republican is indicative not of any malice of the American people towards the Palestinians, the Arabs, Islam, or the rest of the world, but of the hegemony of Zionist Jewry over US foreign policy.
There are many Zionist organisations in the United States, but two are worthy of particular mention: AIPAC and the ADL.
AIPAC is an overtly Zionist organisation; among other things it peddles the myth that Israel is a strategic asset to the United States, even more so since the inception of the War On Terror, conveniently ignoring the fact that but for US support of Israel there would have been no War On Terror and no 9/11.
Its website has the temerity to claim that Israel is a defender of free speech, among other things. This commitment does not of course extend to challenging the perceived wisdom of the persecution of Jewry during World War Two, a subject on which there is total freedom of speech in Iran, and none at all in “democratic” Germany due primarily to Zionist influence.
Unlike AIPAC, the ADL is not on the face of it a dedicated Zionist organisation, but scratch the surface, and its real agenda shows through, for behind the mask of civil rights lies unconditional support for both repressive laws at home disguised as “protection” from “hate speech” etc, and for the continuation of Israel’s genocidal policies against the Palestinians.
Last year, the ADL’s National Director Abraham Foxman applauded the mass murders in Gaza, and earlier this year both the ADL and AIPAC called on the US Government to brand the Gaza Aid Flotilla organisers terrorists, thereby spitting on the corpses of those martyrs murdered in cold blood by the IDF.
As this moment, both AIPAC and the ADL are lobbying openly and even more so behind the scenes not only for even harsher sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran but for the United States to bomb or even invade that country, a crime which would cause enormous bloodshed in the Middle East, and sow bitterness and hatred lasting for decades in addition to that which we already have.
A lot of their lobbying consists simply of the recycling of long proven lies, such as the claim that Iran’s President threatened to wipe Israel off the map.
In view of all of the above, I would ask that you do not associate the dollar sign – $ – with the Star of David in any of your shows. I, and the great mass of the American people, do not wish either our currency or our once great country to be associated in any way, manner, shape or form with the bigotry and hatred that is generated by the Zionist entity, its apologists, supporters and ideologues.
Yours Sincerely,
David Duke PhD.
http://majorityrights.com/index.php/weblog/comments/an_open_letter_to_rock_legend_roger_waters_from_david_duke/
DWC
Dear EvaneScence,
If you want to be a real and genuine Catholic, you have to become Orthodox!
That is no sound bite. That is the simple truth which I tell you very honestly and sincerely.
Please accept my words and ponder them. Do your research. Those who seek the truth will find it. It is the promise of our Divine Savior.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
Dear DWC,
How can anyone understand the “mystery of iniquity” concerning the Jews and our sorry world without correct understanding correct dogma?
Do you think our problem is purely political, racial, or economic??
Not at all. It is primarily a SPIRITUAL problem, because all evil starts in the heart of man.
The truth touches all spheres or reality. Without correct (orthodox) understanding of Christ and His Church, you will not understand the Jewish peril, neither will you have any solution for it.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
Dear in Christ Georgios,
Evlogeite.
Please be courageous and don’t leave. People need to hear the truth from you. At the beginning, they will laugh at you, then they will argue and fight with you, then they will ignore you, then they will ponder quietly, and finally they will believe you.
The truth takes time to percolate. It takes time to deprogram and reprogram.
Be patient, kind, factual, and faithful the the God of the Christians, His Chosen People.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
In addition to Andrew Jackson’s statements about the Old Testament, I would like to take this opportunity to refute the argument which I once fell for, as do many who don’t read the OT for comprehension several times, that the OT is Jewish racist propaganda.
This can be refuted simply by taking the multitude of sins and crimes perpetrated by the OT characters, even the patriarchs, and placing them before the skeptic as evidence that, according to basic common sense, nobody would create such ambiguity, if not outright doubt, about their heroes and protagonists if they were writing a work of fiction in order to pass it off as a history of religious idealism.
As in depth reading of the OT will reveal, the story is really about the pre-incarnate Christ, and the several alternate rounds of purification and falling away of his ‘ad hoc’ nation of priests and judges, all of which was not an end in itself, but a means to another end which is the incarnation of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, the Eternal Son of God from the womb the first and only perfectly humble, observant and holy human female.
It may seem to the ‘man on the street’, that all dogmas are about the same, and all equally based on an irrational decision to believe something as a psychic comforter, or to make one’s best guess into an idol to worship, and that the differences are trivial because none of them has much meaning in today’s scientific world.
But, if you compare the true dogmas to a map to an ancient buried treasure, you will infer that counterfeit maps will inevitably be out there, too; and if you devote your limited opportunity to hunt for this treasure to a counterfeit map, you are likely to lose your time, money and maybe even your life if you trust wrongly.
Or, if a man set out on a journey across a vast, twilit, mist covered heath with nothing to guide him safely across but cairns of stone placed here and there along the way, he would have the greatest respect not to damage or change the form or location of the piles, lest they become unrecognizable from other piles of rock and the way become hopelessly lost.
AGAINST FALSE UNION
Author: Alexander Kalomiros
First edition: Astir, 1964.
Second edition, Zefyros, 1995
Prologue, by Fotios Kontoglou
Also in English, by St. Nectarios Orthodox Press
Translation by George Gabriel.
PROLOGUE
For neither at any time have we used flattering words,
as ye know, nor a cloak of covetousness; God is witness,
nor of men sought we glory.
(I Thess. 2:5)
It is possible to find a middle word that between two
views will signify both. But a middle view between two
opposite views concerning the same thing is impossible…
There is no room for compromise in matters of the
Orthodox Faith.
CHAPTER ONE
PEACE WITHOUT TRUTH
The tragic experience of recent generations has brought to humanity an intense thirst for peace. Peace is now considered a good higher than many ideals for which people formerly gladly shed their blood.
Contributing very much to this is the fact that war is not what it often was in the past, that is, a conflict between injustice and justice, but has become a conflict without meaning between which the injustice of various parties has used to appear just in the eyes of its followers, has caused people to lose faith in the existence of justice and to fail to see anything before them that is worthy of defending. Thus war, any form, seems to be something completely absurd.
This reluctance on the part of humanity for any kind of conflict would have been something admirable if it were the offspring of spiritual health. If injustice, hatred, and falsehood had ceased to exist, then peace would have been the consummation of human happiness. Unity would have been a natural and not an artificial result. But something totally different is noticeable.
Today when everyone is speaking of peace and unity, self-love and hatred, injustice and falsehood, ambition and greed, are at their zenith. All – everyone in his own way – speak of love for man, of love for humanity. But there has never existed a greater hypocrisy than that so – called love. Because love towards something theoretical, for something imaginary, such as the concept “humanity,” is equally theoretical and imaginary.
It has no relation to love for the particular man we have before us. This love for a particular person, when it exists, is the only real love. It is the love for our neighbor that Christ asked.
This particular man with his imperfections and weaknesses, instead of being loved, has been hated in our time more than in any other age. Not only has he been hated, but he has been scorned and humiliated; he has been regarded as a “thing” without any particular value, a means for the attainment of “high goals,” a particle of the mass.
Those who speak the most of love towards man and humanity, of peace and union, are precisely those who hate their neighbor, their acquaintance, the most. They love man the creation of their own imagination; they do not love man the reality. This worship of the idol “man” is in reality narcissism; it is the worship of the ego.
It would be naivete, therefore, if one were to believe that the pacifist disposition that characterizes humanity today proceeds from love. These words about love are hypocrisy and self-deception. The desire for peace proceeds from the loss of ideals, from fear, and from the love of comfort. It is the desire to be left in peace to enjoy the good things of this earth.
It is the conventional cooperation for the acquisition of goods which each person separately would not be able to acquire. It is a universal understanding upon something which has become the passion of the wincle earth: sensualism and materialism. It is a product of necessity.
The peace of which the world speaks is an unconditional capitulation of everything good and sacred and great, and the dominance of pettiness, mediocrity, and lukewarmness. It is the blotting out of the personality of individuals and of peoples. It is a marmalade of compromises and calculations, a sea of hypocrisy, indifference for the truth, the betrayal of everything holy and sacred.
War is a terrible thing, a result of the fall of man, and no one is about to praise it. But the peace for which the world is haggling is something infinitely more fearful. A fever is a very unpleasant thing, but it shows at least that the organism is reacting against something bad which has entered it. The peace which they wish to bring is not, unfortunately, that which comes from the victory over evil, but that which comes from defeat. It is the feverlessness of a corpse.
At bottom, the peace which men pursue is not only a peace of weapons. It is the peace of conscience. They wish to reconcile good with evil, justice with injustice, virtue with sin, truth with falsehood, in order to be able to make peace with their conscience.
THERE HAS BEEN NO SEVERANCE
So-called Christians play a significant role in the world’s effort for peace. With the slogan “Christians unite,” they set out for the bazaar where truth will be sold out.
Once, Christians had faith and were ready to die for their Faith. Today their zeal for the truth has cooled. They have begun to consider it as something secondary. They find the differences between churches, for which in former times Martyrs eagerly sacrificed themselves, the Fathers were exiled, and the faithful mutilated, as unimportant and unworthy of mention.
Most of them are sickly and incorrigible sentimentalists who think that the religion of Christ is an ethical system concerning human relations. Others pursue political purposes and dark interests. All of them together are building the city of Antichrist. They seek union, being indifferent to truth; they seek an external rapprochement, ignoring internal dissensions; they seek the letter, being indifferent to the spirit.
How is it possible for them to hope that what failed in the first centuries of the schism shall be accomplished now that the differences in dogma and mentality have, with the passage of centuries, widened from breaches to gulfs?
The mere fact that they speak of the union of the churches shows that their thought is quite anti-Christian. They thereby concede that the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church which we confess in our Symbol of Faith (Creed) has ceased to exist; that it has been severed into many churches which are no longer catholic, that is, they no longer contain the whole truth and grace as do the local Orthodox churches, but have a greater or lesser part of truth and grace.
Consequently, they think that the truth no longer exists upon the earth and that Christ came in vain. For in the confusion of the truth with falsehood, it is impossible for the truth to which Christ came to bear witness to be rediscovered. And hence it is impossible to rediscover Christ, Who is Himself the Truth.
But then why did Christ say that He will be with us until the end of the world? “And I will be with you all the days unto the end of the world”. Why did He say that the Holy Spirit will guide the disciples to the fulness of truth and that the gates of Hades will not be able to prevail against the Church?
If the Church has been divided – and if it has need of union, it means it has been divided – then all that Christ has promised has turned out to be lies! But God forbid such blasphemy! The Church lives and will live until the end of the world, undivided and invulnerable, according to the promise of the Lord. All who speak of “union of the churches” simply deny Christ and His Church.
When an Orthodox patriarch accepts the participation of the Orthodox Church in the Protestant World Council of Churches as one among many “churches,” what else is he doing but publicly confessing, like the Protestants, the existence of many churches, and therefore the division of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church? What else is he doing but denying Christ?
But in their profane efforts, these people bring forward the Church’s liturgical texts and Christ Himself as their allies. Indeed, Christ prayed for His disciples “that they may be one,” and the Church prays at every. Liturgy “for the union of all (hyper tes ton panton henoseos)”.note1
But these phrases do not mean that the Church prays that someday Christians should be united with mutual compromises in their beliefs. They do not refer to pursuits of compromising agreements by which variously named elements are united. They have no relation to the protocols for an alliance, or agreement, or union, such as those between different nations which are signed after many negotiations. No, these phrases mean none of these things.
The Church does not pray to God that variously opposed elements be united, but that all men should become ONE. In other words, that they should all accept the truth with great contrition and humbly prostrate before the Church and be numbered among her members. That they come to realize the error under which they have lived and hasten to the light and the truth, that is, to the Church. This is what the Church prays for. Exactly what she also prays for in the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great: “Return [O Lord] those in error and unite them to Thy Catholic and Apostolic Church.”
Only this prayer and desire proceeds from genuine love, because it seeks the healing of the sick and not their delusion.
OFFERING, NOT DISCUSSION
A few naive Orthodox think that this rapprochement of the churches is not taking place for the purpose of union, but for the purpose of enlightenment and mission to the heterodox. “These are,” they say, “manifestations of love for our brothers.” “If we shut ourselves in our shell,” they often say, “if we do not attend the international conferences and send observers to the Papal synods, etc., then how will the Westerners Know the Orthodox Church, and how will they be attracted towards her?”
But how will the Westerners be taught that the Orthodox Church is the One and True Church when they see her consorting with the false “churches” as an equal among equals? Will they not think, therefore, that Orthodoxy is also like the others – relative and partial? Or is it reasonable for one to hope that those councils of fanatic biretta – wearers and befrocked pastors will ever be able to recognize the truth?
They are only flattering the Orthodox in order to draw them over to their side. If they had a genuine nostalgia to know Orthodoxy, they would have no need for councils and conferences. They would have gone to drink from her sources, from her Fathers and Saints.
No! the best way to convince others of the truth is to believe in it yourself. Do not discuss it, only confess it. The councils and conferences debate the truth. But this is a betrayal, because in such instances it is not a matter of dialogue with and admonition to heretics, but of discussion with “churches”.
Christ does not ask for debaters, but for confessors. The truth which He taught us is not the kind that is debatable. In the various ecumenical conferences the discussion takes the form of commerce, where an exchange of compromises takes place in matters of faith in order to arrive at a final agreement.
Under such conditions even the mere attendance of an Orthodox at an ecumenical conference is a betrayal of Christ. It is the betrayal of Christ to unbelievers for thirty pieces of silver, because by attending, the Orthodox admits his Faith to be debatable, and permits the notion that he too will make compromises if he is given a satisfactory exchange.
If, instead of this, all those who speak of union today would confess Orthodoxy as the only and absolute truth and refuse every official and unofficial ecclesiastical contact with heretics, without fearing to name them as such, then their voice would be heard much farther; and more important, it would be respected and would provoke thought. Whereas now their voice is a voice of compromises, a voice which does not move anyone, a voice which, deep down, no one respects.
The Fathers did not enter into discussions with heretics. They confessed the truth and refuted their claims without courteousness and compliments. They never arrived at mutual understandings with heretical “churches.” Their dialogue was always public and had a view to the salvation and edification of souls. The Orthodox Church did not converse with “churches” of the heretics. It was not a discussion of the Church with churches, but a dialogue between the Church and souls who had lost their way. The Church does not discuss, for she does not seek. She simply gives – because she has everything.
SALVATION FROM THE WORLD
But why are our Christians so easily moved by sermons about the union of the churches? And instead of being filled with zeal for the transmission of the truth to this world which lacks it so much, they suck on the caramel of peace, weighing to see which are more, the things which separate or those which unite Christians.
It is because they themselves lack knowledge of the truth. Most of them being members of social-Christian organizations and brotherhoods, were catechized from their earliest years in an ethico-philosophical system with a Christian veneer which led them to believe that the purpose of Christianity is to achieve the peaceful coexistence of men in the spirit of love.
Eternity and the vision of God are things very distant for these Christians, and often of no interest. Most of them, being extroverts, are men of action who came to Christianity to find an organized and directed modus vivendi, a way of living as good and honorable citizens upon this earth. For such people, God is the Great Sevant of their personal interests, and eternal life is a good but, fortunately, distant hope of restoration.
In Christians such as these, the sermons about union take root very easily. How good it would be, really, if the circle of our own honest and virtuous people were to be extended on a world-wide scale. We could have transactions without fear of perhaps being fooled; we could have good and peaceful relations without ever being in danger of persecution or of having to struggle.
As for the truth, “What is truth?” We all believe in Christ, that is sufficient. Besides, the world today faces difficult times. Christians must be united quickly to face communism, for example. They ask, “Who will guide and who will save this contemporary world? Only a single, united Christian Church,” they reply.
But Christ did not become man in order to save this world which abides in wickedness. Rather, He came to save His own from the world, to pull them away from the ranks of the evil one, to unite them to Himself and to deify them by grace, and with them to save the entire groaning creation. The world is walking the way of death. It is following the ruler of this world, the enemy of God. “I do not pray for the world, but for those whom Thou hast given Me” (John 9:17).
But such people take the part of the world and sacrifice the jewels of the Christian faith and life for that diabolical party which will never be saved. It is not Christ Who asks for the so-called union of the churches, but the world. Christ does not ask for the union of falsehood with truth, but it is the world that seeks to adulterate the truth, to make it relative and partial.
This is why, when a discussion arises about the union of the churches, one sees that it is supported enthusiastically by people who were never previously interested in matters of religion. Union is the best way of neutralizing Christianity that the devil’s party has discovered. It is the beginning of the dissolution of Christianity and its submission to the whims of politics; it is the conversion of Christianity into a servant of the interests of the world.
With union, Christianity may acquire greater world power, but it will lose all its spiritual strength, exactly what troubles the world. Has it not already happened to the Roman Catholic “Church”? The Papists’ thirst for world power has made them descend to the well-worn path of political machinations, from which they have emerged as tools of the great political trends.
All those who speak of union have not understood why Christ came into the world. They think that He came to preach an artificial ethical message like their own, that He came to teach us how to live upon this earth as good citizens. They say over and over again that people must follow the law of Christ in order that the Kingdom of God might finally come upon the earth.
Some speak of a “Christian Greece,” others, of “Christian democracies,” others of “Christian Kingdoms,” and none of them realize how much their expectations resemble the expectations of the Jews who wanted the Messiah to be an earthly King.
They do not want Christ as He is; they do not want the Christ Who refused to submit to the devil’s temptations in the desert. They want a Christ Who will submit to them. They want a Christ Who desires the Kingdoms of the earth, a Christ Who will turn the stones into bread so that men may be satiated, a Christ who will overwhelm the world with miracles that inspire awe and constrain men to submit.
In other words, these people do not wait for Christ, but for the Antichrist. Until the Second Coming, Christ will remain humble and hidden, far from earthly powers and earthy comforts, without forcing anyone to follow Him, and only asking of those who would come near Him to resemble Him in humility and obscurity, and to expect nothing earthly.
The “Christians” who speak of a “nation of God,” “Christian Greece,” “world Christianity,” and “union of the churches” do not want that kind of Christ.
Like the Grand Inquisitor of Dostoyevsky, they are ready to cast Christ into the fire because He upsets their plans which they have been persistently cultivating for years. “You came and taught us a Christianity which is inhuman and hard,” says the Inquisitor to Christ, “and we’ve labored for so many centuries now to make it a human religion. And now that we’ve succeeded, you’ve come to spoil our efforts of so many centuries? But you won’t accomplish it. Tomorrow I shall order them to burn you as a heretic.”
Yes, people want a Christ Who will talk about this life and not the other, a Christ Who will offer the pleasures of this life and not of the next. They do not want wealth that cannot be weighed and touched, but wealth that is tangible here and now. They do not want Him as ruler of the future age, but of the present one.
This is why they do not care what will become of the truth when the wavering and so-called Christian churches unite after a thousand and one compromises.
This is why they are not interested in what will become of the life in Christ after the invasion of the clean land of Orthodoxy by so many religious barbarians and spiritual nitwits. The truth does not interest them; Christ does not interest them, nor the life in the Spirit and grace. They are interested only in the earthly power that unity gives and world rule under a single world-view.
These people want to be called Christians without really being Christians. Most of them believe that they are true Christians, because they do not know what Christianity is and confuse it with philosophical theories and “world theories”, to use a favorite term of theirs. In actuality, they are followers of the Antichrist like the Jews of Christ’s time, like the Jews of every age.
The Jews awaited the Messiah for centuries, and when He came they did not accept Him; instead, they hung Him on the Cross. And why? Because Christ was not what they were waiting for. And that is why they were not able to recognize the Messiah in His person. They were waiting for an earthly king, a world conqueror. They awaited someone who would subject all the races of the world at the feet of the nation of Israel, who force the Roman rulers of the world to bow and worship him, who would give power and glory to his followers.
When they saw Him poor and humble, meek and full of peace, one Who offered no earthly goods but spoke of heavenly things, and not only that, but even asked them to deny the earthly and tangible so that liberated they could reach the heavenly and intangible, they realized that He was not for them. He was not the Messiah they awaited, but exactly the opposite. He Who refused to turn the stones into bread for all to be filled, Who refused to overwhelm the mobs with His power and did not agree to subjugate the kingdoms of the earth, was not the appropriate leader for them.
That is why they crucified Him and began awaiting another. And they still await him. And along with the Jews are millions of people awaiting the Messiah of the Jews, and most of them are called Christians. And they have no idea that they await the same Messiah as the Jews.
THE ANTICHRIST
The tragedy is that the Messiah whom the Jews await will come. It was said by the mouth of Christ and by the mouth of the Apostles; it is written in the books of the New Testament. The Messiah of the Jews shall come. He will give the bread which Christ refused to give, and along with that, all the material things which He refused to give. He will overwhelm them with signs and wonders which people unto the ends of the earth will fear and be amazed at, and they will come grovelling to fall at his feet. He will unite all the nations and races and kingdoms of the world into one state.
He will fill the hearts of the Scribes of the law and the Pharisees with joy – the hearts of every race of “Jews.” Yes, the Messiah of the Jews shall come. He will be what Christ is not, and he will not be what Christ is. He will be the Antichrist.
“Children, it is the last hours, and as ye have heard that the Antichrist cometh…” (I John 2:18).
“Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto Him, that ye be not shaken in mind or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
“Remember ye not, that when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity already doth work, only until he who withholdeth be taken out of the way. And then shall the wicked one be taken out of the way. And then shall the wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume by the breath of His mouth and by the brightness of His coming shall destroy him, him whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and false wonders and with every deception of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved.
“And for this cause God shall send them a working of delusion that they should believe a lie, that they all might be judged who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (II Thess. 2: 1-12).
The Antichrist will not appear in history with a fearful and shocking manner by which all would recognize him, nor will he have an ugly appearance, nor yet will he do immoral works. He will come in such a way that very few will realize who he is. He will come after a long preparation of centuries which started in the first days of the Church and which continues with increasing progress in our days. Humanity will see in his person its greatest benefactor.
So many centuries of apostasy have cultivated humanity and have prepared it to accept him. Humanity awaits him as its ideal I eader. All the developments of history lead to the Antichrist.
THE MYSTERY OF INIQUITY
Catholicism permitted the worldly spirit to nourish the Christianity of the West. It steeped Christian thought in the rationalism and the pagan disposition of the ancient Greeks. Finally, with the Infallibility of the Pope, Catholicism brought a mechanical element into the relation between God and man, teaching that God promised to speak through the mouth of sinful and haughty men, as many of the Popes have been.
The Renaissance and humanism were the completion of the Western Christian world’s turn toward idolatry. In reality these were manifestations of men’s disillusionment with an adulterated Christianity. Today humanism has become the religion of the age, unfortunately preached even by so-called Christians as “Hellenic – Christian” civilization.
Protestantism drew Papist rationalism to its extreme conclusions. Protestantism rejected the holiness of the Church and her guidance by the Holy Spirit because it saw neither holiness nor truth in the “church” of the West. Thus it abolished Tradition and left its believers with no criterion of truth or falsehood, estranging the grace of God from its realm forever.
From Protestantism to atheism and materialism, there was no longer a great distance. Many kinds of philosophies began to lay claim to the position of Christian faith in the minds of man, and in the end scientism conquered the world. It had a special power of winning over the masses because its achievements in the field of technology evoked the wonder and rapture of the masses, which, lacking spiritual criteria, fell an easy prey to materialism.
Science further gave humanity the false sense of knowledge. It may have changed its views and theories at every moment, but each time these views and theories had the sanctity of proven knowledge; and that influences peoples’ minds in a magic way.
Finally, when humanity, having descended by such steps, became enslaved to the passion of materialism, communism sprang forth. When people even came to believe that the only real good is money, it was natural to demand its equitable distribution from governments which were apathetic towards the pain of the impoverished people.
This demand filled souls with hate and malice and made them even more unhappy, opening unbridgeable chasms between people and leading many to the hate of Cain. (Whatever we write here does not mean that the fair distribution of money is not an obligation, and a rather fundamental one, of government). That is how the war started between capitalism and communism, which are actually two sister systems identically materialistic and money-worshipping, and divided only by their own interests and the battle over the distribution.
The program of both is to turn stones into bread, to unite the world under their influence, and to astonish the world with accomplishments that man could not even imagine. Thus humanity has gradually reached the outer gates of the Antichrist’s kingdom. It has arrived at the point where it has not only the will, but also the ability to respond positively to the three temptations of Lucifer.
In a little while, all that will remain will be for the Antichrist himself to take over the general leadership of the universal state, to do away with hunger and poverty forever, and to provide men abundantly with material goods so that in their hearts, filled with pleasure and comfort, there will no longer be a place for God.
UNION OF RELIGIONS
When one considers all this, he realizes that in a humanity concerned with nothing else but its own tranquility, which holds nothing sacred and holy but its own materialistic interests, that in a world of pragmatic men who regard any discussion concerning truth as useless babbling, not only is the union of the churches not difficult, but on the contrary, it is inevitable. Moreover, I dare say that not only is the union of the so-called Christian churches inevitable, but the union of all religions generally.
In his kingdom the Antichrist will not tolerate discord; he will not tolerate religions or quarrels over religious questions. He will sit in the temple of God as God, and all the people of the earth will worship him, because “power was given him over every race and people and tongue and nation. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life” (Rev. 12: 7-8).
For those people, then, “whose names are not written in the book of life”, only one religion will exist, the religion of the Antichrist.
Already, right now there are specimens of religions such as can comprehend all religions – forerunners of the religion of the Antichrist. One such religion is Freemasonry. It has already been embraced by the more progressive of the world’s leaders. With its syncretism it can reconcile in the minds of fools all the religious antitheses of humanity and overcome all the obstacles and difficulties to union which the various churches will meet.
What reason is there, indeed, for exerting so much effort to find acceptable solutions for dogmatic and other differences between the various denominations, and afterwards for the differences between religions, and not for advancing directly to the union of all religions? To a kind of Freemasonry?
And having realized this, most of today’s religious leaders, at least the “greatest” and most “important,” have hot-footed it (progressive as they are) to become Masons, without its preventing them from wearing their cassocks or vestments, or from celebrating their Liturgies. But because the laity are not quite ready yet, it is necessary that the former keep up appearances and proceed first to union of the churches, and then to union of the religions.
A GLANCE INTO THE PAST
These, then, will be the developments in the not-so-distant future. That is why the Lord asks whether He will find any faithful when He comes to the earth again. “When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18Q8).
A glance into the past will teach us much about the course ecclesiastical matters have taken and will take.
The Byzantine emperors’ first tendencies to unify with Papal error fortunately were cut off by the attitude of the people and the subjugation of Byzantium to the Turks. But as soon as the Greek nation found its liberty, the old temptation knocked at its door again.
In the beginning, the true Greeks, men of the people and of the traditions, resisted the current of Europeanization. But they were unlettered, and even though they had shed their blood for the freedom of their land, they were quickly pushed aside by the newly learning creates, had the power of King Otto’s court.
“These degraded the fatherland and the religion which is now shaken by the irreligious. In the time of Turkish occupation, not one stone from the old churches was disturbed. Phanariotes and the like who were contaminated in Europe, and they spoiled our monasteries and churches, befouling some and turning others into stables. We suffered these things from many such priests, and from laymen, military men, and politicians. Even though we shed our blood, we are in danger of losing our fatherland and our religion” (Macriyiannis, Memoirs, p. 398).
These half-educated intellectuals scorned the Greek people with the passion of fifth columnists. They disdained their language, their customs and manners, and their mentality. They used all possible means at their disposal to adulterate the truth of their Faith and to graft secularism and rationalism onto the holy tree of Orthodoxy, which for so many centuries remained undefiled under the barbarian conqueror.
To strike the Church at her heart, they struck at her monasteries. They closed some, confiscated the property of others, and to others they sent “progressive” abbots who dissolved them more easily than any double-edged sword of state.
Without her monasteries, and with her bishops enslaved to the state, the Church became an unfenced vineyard. The education of the nation left the Church’s hands and fell into the hands of a Christian civilization, was and remains completely pagan. Everything began to be adapted to the taste of the nouveau riche and provincial Athenian society.
The worship of the Church began to deteriorate to something more worldly. Byzantine music began to be Europeanized and degenerated into theatrical four-part harmony. The icons began to look too austere and ugly to the eyes of the women of the “upper” classes, who wanted “sweet Jesuses” full of indulgence for their iniquities, incapable of evoking awe and reverence.
The beards and long hair of the clergy began to bother them, and the clergy, responsive to the demands of the contemporary public, began to groom atmosphere was replaced by Edison’s lights, making the church resemble an imperial hall appropriate for the weddings and official appearances of the ruling class.
But that was not all. Not only primary and secondary but also higher education left the hands of the Church. Thus the theologians, future priests, and hierarchs were not born in the bosom of the Church, their natural mother, but in the bosom of a state university full of the stench of rationalism and spiritual shallowness, without any possibility of tasting of the mystical life of holiness in Christ, which alone makes true theologians.
And so there sprouted up, like tares in the Church, theologians who had their minds filled with many philosophical theories of Protestant or Roman origin, but their hearts empty of the life of Orthodoxy.
These people were incapable of seeing the chasm that divides the Eastern Church from the Western “churches.” They considered it only a question of dogmatic formulas, not a matter of life and essence. For them life in Christ was a series of emotional states and ethical acts, just as it is for Westerners.
The revelation (the inner vision) of God, the living experience of the presence of Christ, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, that is, the abiding of truth in a man’s heart, were unknown to them. When they speak of truth, they mean a cut-and-dried dogma. Dogma, however, for them as for the Westerners, was a separate world of intellectual formulas, burden some enough, and whose value, after this split between life and faith, they were incapable of appreciating.
The foundations, then, upon which even our most well-intentioned theologians were going to build in order to defend their Orthodoxy, were rotten to the core. It is frightening when one considers that the whole of contemporary Greek religious life is built upon these rotten foundations. At one time the piety of the people sprang from the monasteries, which were its spiritual bulwark and guide; in the Greek Kingdom piety came to be founded on the theologian, lay or clerical, whom we have described.
This theologian, imitating Western examples, organized brotherhoods and Christian unions and took preaching and catechism into his own hands. And whereas before, the piety of a place had as its center the local monastery and the priests of the Church, and the Christian of Area A did not differ in any way from the Christian of Area B because all were children of the same Orthodox Church, now the theologian organized factions; and now in one and the same place there are Christians of Faction A and Christians of Faction B, always rivals and distrusting, divided – without either side understanding what their differences are.
But in spite of all the hate and schisms between them, the factions agree that as far as the Westerners are concerned, “there are more things uniting us than there are separating us,” and “we must look to the things which unite us and overlook those which separate us.”
In other words, they regard union and love with their Western “brothers” (whom they have never seen or known) easier than with their Orthodox compatriots and neighbors, whom they see daily and know. As we have said, today people labor for the love of man, for the abstract love of humanity, at the same moment that they are incapable of loving their neighbor.
THE OLD CALENDAR QUESTION
In this atmosphere of deterioration, there suddenly came, after pressure from the state, the first official step of the Greek Church towards the Pope: the adoption of the Papal calendar.
Unfortunately, few have understood the significance of the “old calendar” issue, as the matter is called. Most attribute the resistance of the Old Calendarists^ to the narrow-mindedness of the uneducated, this being another indication of the deep contempt nurtured by the conceited educated towards the unlearned. But in order for these uneducated people to resist the way they did, they must have had, if nothing else, a religious zeal and spiritual concern lacking in the masses of the indifferent who, not knowing the true nature of the problem, followed the majority of the hierarchy.
None of the enlightened theologians and their followers even showed any indication of pain over the division of the Greek Church, nor did any of them seek to answer the painful cries of so many thousands of faithful. The majority were on their side; their numbers always gave them a sense of security. In actuality, though, they did not even have the numbers on their side.
For although there were only a few thousand Old Calendarists and millions of followers of the new calendar, those few thousands were thousands of faithful suffering for the Church. Whereas among the millions of the indifferent, the materialists and atheists, followers of the new calendar, it is doubtful that one could find a few thousand really faithful people. They only sneered at those simple new confessors of Orthodoxy, saying that they refused out of superstition to correct their calendar which is not accurate.
But the problem did not lie there. They were unjustified in accusing the Old Calendarists of fighting over a calendar. The issue was not over which of the two calendars is correct. It is a known fact that both calendars are inaccurate. Neither had the Old Calendarists insisted on the old calendar, nor had the New Calendarists brought forth the new calendar, for reasons of astronomical accuracy.
The reason that prompted the decision for the introduction of the new calendar into Greece was neither astronomical nor theological. It simply involved one of the many capitulations of the state-enslaved hierarchy to its lord, which asked it of them in order to facilitate its business transactions.
The reason for the Old Calendarist refusal to comply was very theological and sprang from a deep ecclesiastical consciousness. Actually, the liturgical unity of the Church was risked in favor of political interests. With the change of the calendar there followed a severance of the liturgical accord between the Greek Church and the other Orthodox Churches, which preserve the old calendar to this day. And it was not only a matter of discord in the liturgical life of the militant Church – the continuity of the liturgical life of the militant Church with the triumphant also was broken.
In Greece when the church bells call the faithful to celebrate Christmas and the chanters chant joyfully the “Christ is born, glorify ye,” millions of our Orthodox brothers throughout the rest of the world and on the Holy Mountain are still in the fast of Advent: and they do not hear the bells, nor chant with us the joyful hymns of Christmas.
Can one imagine anything worse for the Church than this break in liturgical concord which estranges us spiritually not only from the triumphant Church of those who have fallen asleep in Christ, and from the Saints who celebrated and performed the Liturgy according to the old calendar which we rejected?
So many efforts of our Fathers, so many synods were needed to enact that festal calendar – and all this so that there would be liturgical harmony between the Christian churches, because this harmony and accord expresses the internal liturgical unity of the Church. This is what makes the Church visibly one, despite the multiplicity of local churches.
The Church is not made one the way the Pope thinks, by hard discipline and obedience to a prescribed hierarchy which has as its head a single individual who claims to replace Christ on earth, but the Church is made one by the mystical communion in the Body and Blood of Christ.
Every church where the Holy Eucharist is performed and where the faithful are gathered “in the same place” comprises the whole image of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. What makes one parish comprise one body with all other parishes, and one diocese comprise one body with all other dioceses, is the mystical communion of all in the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Spirit and truth.
The unity of the Church, therefore, is a mystical bond which is forged during the Holy Eucharist when the faithful partake of the Body and Blood of Christ. Christians are one body, those who live upon the earth today and those who have lived before us in past centuries, and also those who will live in the years to come; and this is because we have a common root, the Body of Christ. “We many are one bread, one body, for we all partake of the one Bread.”
The unity of the Church, therefore, is not administrative, is not disciplinary or organizational, but liturgical. That is why the festal calendar is so important. The unity which springs from the Holy Eucharist, the one Faith, and the one Baptism ceases to be manifested externally when there is liturgical anarchy. The form and the words of the Liturgy have been prescribed so that all the churches can worship God in the same way. And the service book for each month (Menaion) contains the daily hymns commemorating the Saints of the day and the chants for every holy day. In this way no discord can disrupt the liturgical harmony.
Even the music and the iconography, which are called liturgical arts, have similarly been prescribed so that no icon painter or chanter can paint an icon or chant according to his own imagination, but is compelled to adapt his personal skill and ability to prototypes of the most austere spiritual realism. And similarly, the calendar of festivals has been prescribed in order that no priest can celebrate the holy days whenever he wishes, but that there be complete communion of prayer among all the faithful upon the earth.
Therefore, what the artist does who paints the icons of the Church according to his own tastes, disdaining the Tradition, and what the chanter does who destroys the liturgical harmony by singing theatrically in church instead of chanting, the Greek hierarchs have likewise done, spoiling the liturgical harmony of the Orthodox Church by deciding to follow a different calendar of festivals in Greece than that which the other Orthodox churches and the Holy Mountain of Athos follow.
Thus on the Holy Mountain they celebrate a different Saint and chant different hymns than they do in Thessalonika; the Transfiguration of the Lord is celebrated on one day in Athens and on another in Jerusalem, Sinai, and Moscow.
The tragedy of this discord is difficult to conceive of in this country [i.e., Greece] because of the distances. But it becomes painfully perceptible to one who travels to Europe and sees in the neighborhoods of the same city the Russians celebrating one holiday and the Greeks another, or one hears the bells of the Greek church calling the faithful while the bells of the Russian church remain silent. And then one asks himself if both churches are Orthodox.
It has not been realized in Greece how serious a compromise with the elements of the world and how serious a blow against the Church was the abolition of the old calendar in favor of the new. And if a few did understand, they did not have the strength to raise their stature and proclaim the truth. No one of worldly wisdom and strength found the words to protest.
Thus it was proved once again that “God has chosen the weak of the world to shame the strong,” and that “God hath made foolish the wisdom of the wise,” because whereas the wise were silent and accepted it, the uneducated faithful were aroused. And they “spake not foolishness as did the foolish wise of the world.”
They did not resort to astronomical theories and mathematical calculations, but they spoke in the name of Tradition, which they felt was something holy which no one can trample upon in favor of science which continually rejects its own theories, or in favor of the political and economic interests of a country.
But “the disciples of the wise men of this world consider those taught by God fools”. Thus from the beginning until today, they consider the Old Calendarists fools, religious fanatics, superstitious, etc., and they rejoice at their own knowledge which places them above such “trifles” so that they do not make issues out of “nothing”.
THE UNRAVELING
But when you reckon one element of Tradition as trivial, then at the first opportunity you will consider trivial whatever other things you do not like in the Tradition. That is what happened with the iconography; that is what happened with the psalmody; that is what happened with the appearance of the priests.
Now the robes seem too black for them; later the beards and the hair will seem too long. They want to put musical instruments in the church. They do away with the stalls on the sides of the church and replace them with comfortable pews. They revile monasticism, slander the monks, confiscate the properties of the monasteries, carry on systematic propaganda against monasticism.
They overlook the canons which pray together with them. They are indifferent to the opinion of the Liturgy and cut out sections from the services “so that people won’t get tired.” In other words, they change the Orthodox customs according to the tastes of a decadent society full of the worship of the flesh and materialism.
In this way the fabric of the Tradition begins to unravel, and no one knows where it will stop or if it will stop. And besides, this unraveling is so easy today because it has the approval of the world, of the influential, and of the educated. The educated especially consider it their honor not to agree with the Fathers of the Church, but to agree with a certain great, scholarly professor of Protestant theology or with a certain Jesuit professor who is famous in Europe, and so on.
How then shall the Orthodox Tradition and Faith not be adulterated? And how, under such conditions, shall we not discuss the union of the churches and not consider it something which can easily has acquired the same mentality and the same dispositions as the Western “churches” to be united with them? Is the day far off when we shall go to church on Sunday and hear the priest praying: “and for our Father the Pope of Rome”? Will anyone react if such a thing happens? Or will it seem natural to all that we have finally jumped over the differences which separate East and West?
GOD IS NOT MOCKED
But let all who speak so lightly about the union of the churches understand that the unity of the Church is a mystical gift of the divine presence. It is not something which is decided upon at conferences, but something which either exists or does not exist. No decision of men can constrain God.
Of course, externally union can come about, and all can declare – Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox – that now we are at last one church, and we can commemorate the Pope of Rome, and the Pope of Rome can commemorate the Patriarch of Constantinople. If we all agree upon one “minimum of truth,” upon one simplified creed, and if a few other issues are settled there can be union.
It will be a legally and externally valid system, but it will be a system that has no relation with the Church of Christ, even if all the external appearances make it resemble the Church. “God is not mocked.” When the conditions of His presence do not exist in men, God does not come to men.
The Church of Christ was never a human system. The Church was born, it was not made. The discussions of men can make something to which they can give the name “Church.” But this fabrication will be something with no life. The living Church will have no relation to it. She will exist somewhere far from all these fabrications, unaltered, full of truth and light, pure of every falsehood of compromises, with the Holy Spirit lighting her steps and enveloping her like the light of the sun, guiding her “to the fulness of truth.”
As for how many true Christians there will be, it does not matter, even if they can be counted on one hand. They will be the bearers of the Tradition, which they will not simply have learned, but have lived, having had its living experience. Christians live in the Tradition as in an element, as fish live in water.
Let all who truly seek God stop talking about the union of the “churches.” The Church does not admit of union because she was never broken. Men leave her, even if they retain many of her external marks. Let all who love God return to the Church and humble themselves that they may enter, because her gate is narrow and one must bend very low in order to pass through.
THE INFALLIBLE CRITERION
But in the chaos and hypocrisy of the contemporary world, it is not easy to discern the Church of Christ and to draw near her, because it is not sufficient for a church to be named Orthodox in order to be such literally. Unfortunately, apostasy exists even under the externally Orthodox cassock, and under Orthodox domes, and among the practicing Orthodox people. But this is nothing new; the Church it from her first steps, but now it has reached unusual dimensions.
We must learn to discern the Church behind appearances. As far as appearances are concerned, in the Orthodox Church today confusion and chaos prevail externally. Everyone – educated or uneducated, believer or unbeliever – has his own view of what Christianity or Orthodoxy is and supports his view fanatically. And in this storm it is impossible to find your course without a compass.
There is one infallible criterion: the continuation of Tradition. Wherever the Tradition is preserved living and pure without disruption or change from the times of the Apostles, as many faithful – bishops, priests, or laymen – live and transmit this Tradition, there is the Orthodox Church, and they constitute the Body of Christ. All others, priests or laymen, who wish to be called Orthodox without following the living Tradition of the centuries are intruders; they are tares in Christ’s field.
Today the tares are very many and the ears of wheat very few, but the field is God’s field, and in spite of the variety of tares, the wheat remains the same from generation to generation, from seed to seed, the same as that first wheat which the Holy Spirit planted in that same divine field on the day of Pentecost.
That living Tradition has never been disrupted, because the very mouth of Christ promised the Church that “the gates of Hades shall not prevail against her,” and the mouth of God does not lie. Those who search to find the Tradition of the Christian Church of the first centuries or of the centuries before the schism in order to follow it confess that they have lost the continuity of Tradition.
But they are very going to find it no matter how much they push forward their researches, because the Tradition is something living and transmitted as life from the living to the living. It is not something which is discovered through scholarly studies, nor is it something which is learned intellectually.
HIDDEN BUT LIVING
Those millions of tares which have sprung up in the bosom of the Orthodox Church in recent times have brought a secular spirit with them, so that no Orthodox Church has been able to keep her outward marks unchanged. Even the Old Calendarists, who have kept such a good line in the calendar issue, in the case of iconography clearly bear stigmas of betrayal of the Tradition. This fact is a common sin of all the Orthodox churches of late.
Fortunately up to now, all the deviations from the Tradition which we have described have not cut off the Orthodox churches from their root. The tree remains alive and thriving in spite of all the garnishes which they have added to it. The Orthodox churches have not withered as has happened to the “churches” of the West.
If you just shake off the dust which the secular spirit has scattered upon them, you will find the fresh leaves of the authentic Tradition. Tradition has never ceased to live and to be in force in the sphere of Orthodoxy. There are still monks who live Orthodox monasticism. There are still genuine theologians who have not defiled the truth, but keep it shining and pure, far from every alien mingling.
There are still Byzantine chanters and true bearers of the Orthodox iconographic tradition. There are still priests like the old ones dedicated to their sacred function, whose constant contact with God does not permit them to be distressed over their long beards and black robes, but rather makes these things radiate holiness. There are still simple people who are worthy of seeing great miracles.note2
The true Tradition, then – the life, the spiritual experience, and the teaching of the Apostles and the Holy Fathers of all ages, these imprints of the walking of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of Christians – exists and continues alive among the living without any break from the Apostolic times.
There is a constant harmony in all the actions of Orthodox of all ages up to the present day, written and unwritten; and this is the golden rule upon which everyone must measure his thoughts and actions in order to see if he is within or out of the scope of Orthodoxy. The outward signs might give the impression that the continuity has been corrupted or broken, but if one looks a little further he will see that it still blossoms and refreshes those who seek it.
The Tradition exists and will continue to exist until the end of the world. But every passing day makes its discovery more difficult. Every passing day adds more garnish upon the tree of Orthodoxy, and that is how people become confused and do not know where the truth lies.
THE ARK
Someday sooner or later, no one knows exactly when, the “churches” and the religions will be united. In that chaos of falsehood even the chosen will be in danger of losing their way. It will be the age of the Antichrist.
How and when the Antichrist will come, no one can say. And it is unknown how many shall be able to recognize him when he comes, because he will come as a benefactor of humanity. For the present, one thing can be said with certainty: all these movements towards union among nations and churches, all these compromises, all this uniformity of humanity gradually produced under the steamroller of technological culture are paving the way for the coming of the Antichrist.
This development of humanity, according to the criteria of the world, is wonderful. But according to Christian criteria, it is a development towards destruction.
This does not surprise or frighten the Christian. He knows that the world has condemned itself. And that is why Christ refused to pray for the world. “I do not ask for the world”. The ruler of this world is the devil, and the devil “from the beginning was a murderer”.
Death will find the world at the height of its glory, at the height of self-conceit, at the summit of the tower of Babel, when man will be at the zenith of his very old attempt to become god by his own powers, apart from God. When the Son of man comes, he shall find man in the fully glory of his satanic mania.
God does not ask the Christian to save the world. Any attempt on the part of Christians to change the course the world has taken would be futile and ridiculous. The world is a sinking ship, and it is sinking because its very structure is rotten. God does not ask the Christian to save the ship, but to save as many of the shipwrecked as he can.
The new Ark of Noe, the Church of Christ, sails near the site of the shipwreck. Any who wish to be saved from the waters must seek refuge in her. But in order to find refuge they must forsake the world, not so much geographically as essentially. “Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not any unclean thing, and I will receive you” (II Cor. 6:17).
But here is where the difficulties begin. How can you forsake the world when your whole life is bound up in it? But to answer this question is not the purpose of the present book. One finds it in the Holy Scriptures and the Fathers. Besides, the whole life in Christ is a struggle for freedom from the world, from the “Egypt” of the passions, and for refuge in the Ark of the Church.
But when the age of the Antichrist approaches, even the Ark of the Church shall be difficult to discern. Many will say, “Behold, here is Christ,” and “There is Christ,” but they will be false prophets. Whatever will be accepted officially as the Church, having little by little already betrayed the treasures of the Faith, will have been assimilated by the indescribable, unifying marmalade which will retain most of the outward signs of the Church with satanic cleverness. Here and there small groups of faithful with some priest will still preserve the true Tradition alive.
But who will be able to recognize the Church of Christ in those small, scorned groups of faithful that lack all worldly splendor? Yet at the end of time the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church will be just those forgotten and outwardly disunited little parishes which may even be ignorant of the others’ existence, but will be united among themselves by the mystical bonds of the Body and Blood of the Lord, in the Holy Spirit, with the common Faith and Tradition which they will preserve undefiled.
In those days even the chosen will be in danger of being led astray. Much courage is needed for one to side with the few and to go against the currents of the world, with the danger of being ridiculed by the “smart” and abused by the strong.
Much wisdom is needed in order for one to discern the truth there exactly where the whole world sees nonsense and stupidity. Besides, the followers of falsehood will have the miracle on their side, the miracle which the devil asked of Christ in the desert, the signs and wonders of the false prophets and the false Christs. “For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and they shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Mat. 24:24). How many shall be able to find their way when all the beacons will be misguiding? Then, “he who persists to the end shall be saved”.
THE MASKS
For the present, let all who wish to live near Christ hasten to acquire discretion in order to recognize beforehand the false prophets and false Christs, and let them wear the armor of the Faith so that they will be able to strike them and their followers invincibly.
For our age is a cunning age, where falsehood is disguised and poison is offered sugar-coated, where the roads are full of snares and well-camouflaged pits. Whoever is misled by appearances is lost.
We must learn to distinguish the Church from the world, for the destiny of the Church is one thing and that of the world another. We must have as much distrust of the world as we have faith in the Church, as much hate towards the world (not towards men, but the world) as we have love for the Church, as much pessimism for the world as we have optimism for the Church.
The world is the camp, the mentality, and the intentions of those who have rejected the offering of God, who have turned their backs when He wanted to speak to them, who have separated themselves from Him forever. These people have given preference to death over life. They are not punished, just as the demons are not punished, for no one wishes them any harm. Of their own accord they chose death, of their own accord they chose to be enemies of God and to stand far away from Him.
This choice is made in life, independent of moments and time, in the depths of our heart, and it is irrevocable. Freedom separates the spiritual beings into two camps. There are two types of people, as there are two types of angels: the friends of God and the enemies of God.
Freedom does not lie in individual actions, but in the whole inclination and disposition of man, in the final positive or negative response to God’s call. Freedom lies in the general direction of man’s life, and not in the details of that life.
The details are deceiving: they make the Pharisees and Scribes appear to be friends of God, and the thief, the harlot, the publican, and Saul [Paul] appear to be His enemies.
We must be able to recognize the true enemies and the true friends of God under the masks of hypocrisy or weakness.
We are in an age where the masks of hypocrisy have multiplied and reached an astonishing degree of perfection. From one moment to the next we are in danger of being deceived by men who, while wearing the mask of the friends of God, are actually His enemies.
Such are those who speak of the union of the churches. They are the Church’s most dangerous enemies, the false prophets of the Gospel.
The enemies who appear without any mask – the atheists, the materialists, the communists – cannot fool anyone. They are the ones who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But the others – “Orthodox” patriarchs, bishops and archbishops, leaders of Christian organizations, theologians and professors of theology – all who speak with hypocritical Christian love for our “brothers” the heretics and spread the message of union, all of these mask-wearers may not be killing the body, but they are surely killing the soul. This is why the battle against them must be relentless.
AGAINST FALSE UNION
Author: Alexander Kalomiros
CONTEMPORARY IDOLATRY
And now let us see who are those Europeans with whom they want us to be united as a state and as a Church?
A frightening antinomy characterizes the Europeans: it is the antithesis between the inward and outward man. The European appears to be one thing, but is really something else. He lives and moves in the falsehood of compromises. His entire culture is a collection of conventional lies to which he has adapted himself. He is extremely egocentric, but he conducts himself with absolute and almost exaggerated courtesy.
In the “underdeveloped” countries where the people still lack the finesse of European culture, everyone more or less expresses his inner world with some freedom and simplicity which you cannot find in Europe. Their manners are coarse, but the people are more genuine. In Europe this is considered a lack of culture and spiritual development.
In this way, the constant game of hypocrisy has come to be regarded as culture, where the white-washed tombs are full of stench, and the outside of the cup always cleaned for the sake of the appearance to the people.
But as it happens with Pharisees, that constant lie in which they live does not humble them. On the contrary, their outward perfection makes them certain of their superiority. The most characteristic mark of the Europeans is their conceit. They look down upon all the people whom they consider uncultured or underdeveloped.
A few of them might have a great concern for the needs of others, of persons, of groups, or even of nations, and especially the underdeveloped ones, towards whom they nurture compassionate sentiments, but deep down they are concerned for others the way an entomologist is concerned for insects. The sentiments they nurture for people are inferior to the love they have for their dogs.
They have the same high idea of their civilization as they have of themselves. Having critical minds, they do not accept anything unquestioned, and are proud of it. They consider all values relative, even those which they accept; and they discuss with apparent profundity all that humanity has ever believed.
Their customary position is that of well-disposed agnostics who are willing to agree with whatever you tell them, but let you understand that, of course, there is no way of proving anything you say, and therefore, it leaves them neither hot nor cold.
One thing, though, which these agnostics never think of doubting is the value of their own civilization. For them there never arose a higher civilization than their own. There might be sharp criticism about particular cultural problems and great disagreements over details, but the soundness of their culture’s general direction has never been questioned.
The civilization of Europe is based upon a religion, but upon a religion which no one wishes to name as such, because this religion is not the worship of one or many gods, but the worship of man.
The religion of the ancient Greeks and their civilization was nothing else than the worship of man. If the civilization of ancient Greece found such a good reception in the hearts of Europeans, one can attribute it exactly to this inward kinship.
Like the ancient Greeks, the Europeans deified man’s reason, his passions, the powers and weaknesses of his soul; in a word, they made man the center, measure, and purpose or all things. The culture of Europe proceeds from man; it exists for man; and it receives its justification from man.
There might be disagreements about the ways in which the improvement of man’s life may be attained; there might be differences in the manner of worshipping man; there might be different conclusions drawn from man’s measurement; but for all and always, man is the center around which they revolve, the source of their inspiration and purpose of their actions.
This is the European. Whatever religion he thinks he might have, deep down his religion is the worship of the idol “man”. The European has ceased to see the image of God in man: he sees only the image of himself.
In other words, the religion of Europe is the old religion of humanity, the one which separated man from God. God’s purpose is to deify man. But man, deceived by the devil, thought that he could become god without the grace of his Creator, on his own initiative and with only his own powers. He rushed to eat of the tree of knowledge before he was mature enough for such food.
The result was that his eyes were opened to know good and evil, to see his bodily and spiritual nakedness, and he was shocked. He could no longer bear to face his Lord and God, and he ran to hide from His face. He realized that a great chasm had been opened between him and his Creator. Then his merciful Father cursed the first cause of his destruction, the devil – “that old serpent” – and in His infinite love even promised salvation: “And I will put enmity between thee [the serpent] and the woman [the all-holly Virgin], and between thy seed and her seed [Christ]; and he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Gen. 3;15).
And in order that man should not live eternally in that condition of spiritual death. He cast him out of Paradise, “that he should not extend his hand and take from the tree of life and eat and live unto the ages” (Gen. 3; 22). Thus out of His compassion and love, God permitted bodily death and corruption, which, like spiritual death, was the result of the broken communion with the Source of life, so that man would not carry about through the ages his spiritual death, misfortune, and nakedness. And man, being separated from God and living in the constant reality of death, became a slave to the devil.
It was, therefore, as a reaction to the experience of his own nothingness that man worshiped man, proclaiming him god. In fact, the ancients taught that the human soul is a part of the divine nature, in other words, that it is divine in essence and therefore has no need of God.
This inward will of man to believe in his own divinity, together with the fact of his submission to the demonic powers, is the basis of every form of idolatry.
The religion of Europe, then, is none other than that primordial idolatry in modern form. Papacy, Protestantism, humanism, atheism, democracy, fascism, capitalism, communism, and anything else European, are expressions of the same humanistic spirit.
The civilization of Europe is nothing but the result of man’s agonized and persistent effort to place his throne above the throne of God. It is nothing but the erection of a new tower of Babel; confusion about the method of erection may prevail, but the goal remains common for all concerned.
The ideal of the European is identical with the ideal of Lucifer. Deep down, it is the same contempt for the goodness of God, the same insult against His love, the same revolt and estrangement from His providence, the same ingratitude, the same desolate path which, instead of leading upward as man thinks he is going, leads to the abyss of death.
WITH THE CROSS AS BANNER
But the real religion of Europe is concealed and appears formally with a Christian mask.
For all the world, Europe is a Christian land. The devil is truly the clever one par excellence, and his jests have the most tragic consequences for humanity.
The greatest evil which ever befell the world had the Cross as a banner. The Aristotelianism of Western theologians and their discipleship to the idolatrous rationalistic thought of ancient Greece, the transformation of theology into philosophy, the adulteration of the Faith, the Papacy, the thirst for power and worldly authority, the Crusades, the mixing of religion with politics, the Inquisition, the missions which proved to be advance guards for colonizing powers, conquests, wars, the systematic blood-sucking of nations, orgies, frauds, humiliations, and tyranny took place in the name of the Crucified One.
In the face of this tragic deterioration of religion, it was natural that atheism and Protestantism should spring up as an aspiration for deliverance and health.
One should note that the atheism which appeared in Europe was not just an indifference, or agnosticism, or a simple epicurean disposition. The atheism of Europe was not an academic denial. It was a strong hate for the God of the Christians as they had come to know Him in Europe; it was a strong passion, a blasphemy, an indignation of the human soul.
In the Orthodox Christian East, from the time of Constantine the Great until the Greek Revolution, such epidemics never appeared. The people of the East had come to know a God completely different from the god which the people of the West had known; that is why they never came to deny Him, no matter how sinful they were. The first atheists in Greece came from Europe. Their denial, without their even knowing it, was against the religion which they had come to know in Europe. Their atheism was nourished by the faults of the Christians and the adulteration of the Christian truth which had taken place in the West.
Similarly, Protestantism might appear to be a separate heresy. But in actuality, it originated as a rejection of Catholicism. Protestantism never had a religious position. On the contrary, it was and is a religious denial. What justifies it is the presence of Catholicism. If Catholicism would disappear, then Protestantism would have no reason for existence.
THE WAY OF KNOWLEDGE
Today, atheism as well as Protestantism might be turned against Orthodoxy. But this assault is based on a deception. They detest Orthodoxy because they see her with their own criteria, with their own mentality. They see her as a variant of Catholicism. This is not due to an ill disposition on their part, but to a total inability to judge by other standards and to think with another mentality.
Catholicism, Protestantism, and atheism are on the same level. They are offsprings of the same mentality. All three are philosophical systems, offsprings of rationalism, that is, of the notion that human reason is the foundation of certainty, the measure of truth, and the way of knowledge.
Orthodoxy is on a completely different level. The Orthodox have a different mentality. They regard philosophy as a dead end which never led man to certainty, truth, and knowledge. They respect human reason as no one else, and they never violate it. They regard it as one of the useful factors in detecting falsehood and uncovering error. But they do not accept it as capable of giving man certainty, of enlightening him to see the truth, or guiding him to knowledge.
Knowledge is the vision of God and of His creation in a heart purified by divine grace and the struggles and prayers of man. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”.
Truth is not a series of definitions, but God Himself, “Who appeared concretely in the person of Christ, Who said: “I am the Truth”.
Certainty is not a matter of intellectual harmony; it is a deep assurance of the heart. It comes to man after inner vision and is accompanied by the warmth of divine grace. Intellectual harmony, which is the outcome of a logical ordering of things, is never accompanied by this assurance.
Philosophy is characterized by conceptualization. The human intellect cannot accept reality as it is. It transposes it first into symbols and then elaborates upon the symbols. But the symbols are counterfeit figures of reality. The concepts are as distant from reality as a picture of a fish from a live fish.
The truth of the philosopher is a series of figures and images. These symbols present one great advantage; they are comprehensible. They are cut to man’s measurements and satisfy the intellect. But they also present a great disadvantage; they have no relation to living reality.
Living reality does not fit into the categories of the human intellect. It is a condition above reason. Philosophy is an attempt to transpose the suprarational into rational. But this is counterfeit and fraudulent. That is why Orthodoxy rejects philosophy and does not accept it as a way to knowledge.
The only way to knowledge is purity of heart. It alone permits the indwelling of the Holy Trinity in man. In this way alone is God and His whole creation known, without being conceptualized. He is known as He really is without becoming comprehensible and without being diminished in order to fit into the stiffing limits of the human intellect. Thus the mind (nous) of man, living and uncomprehending, comes into union with the living and incomprehensible God. Knowledge is the living contact of man with the Creator and His creation, in mutual love.
The experience of knowledge is something which cannot be expressed in human words. When the Apostle Paul came to know, he said that he had heard unspeakable words – something which is impossible for man to express.
Such is the deeper Christian theology – inexpressible. Dogmas are helpful formulations. But they are not actual knowledge; they simply guide and protect from error. A man can have knowledge without knowing the dogmas, and he can know all the dogmas and accept them without having knowledge. This is why, beyond the affirmative theology of dogmas, the Fathers placed the deep mystery of negative theology where no definition is acceptable, where the mind is silent and ceases to move, where the heart opens its door to receive the Great Visitor “Who stands at the door and knocks”, where the mind sees Him Who Is.
And let no one think that these things are true only in regard to the suprarational knowledge which is a movement of God towards man. Man can know nothing with his reason, and he can be certain of nothing – neither of himself, of the world, nor even of the most ordinary and common things.
Who honestly waited to hear Descartes’ syllogism “I think, therefore I am” to be certain that he truly exists? And who waited for the philosophers to prove that the world around him is real in order to believe that it is? Besides, such a proof has never existed and will never exist, and they who are engaged in philosophy well know it. No one has ever been able to actually prove by his reason that our thoughts and our own selves, as well as the world around us, are not fantasies. But even if someone were to prove it logically, which is impossible, that logical proof would not be able to assure anyone.
If we are certain that we exist and that our friends are not figments of our imagination, this is not due to the proofs of the philosophers, but to an inward knowledge and an inward consciousness which gives us certainty of everything without syllogisms and proofs.
This is natural knowledge. It is the knowledge of the heart and not of the brain. It is the sure foundation for every thought. Reason can build upon it without fear of toppling. But without it, reason builds upon sand.
It is this natural knowledge which guides man in the way of the Gospel and enables him to separate truth from falsehood, good from evil. It is the first step which raises man to the throne of God. When man his free will ascends the first steps of natural knowledge, then God Himself leans over and covers him with that heavenly knowledge of the mysteries “which are not permitted for man to utter”.
The preaching of the Apostles and Fathers, the Prophets, and the Gospel, the words of Christ Himself, are directed to man’s natural knowledge. This is the province of dogmas and affirmative theology. It is the manger where faith is born.
The beginning of faith is the heart’s ability to grasp that the truth speaks in the small book called the Gospel, that in that commonplace church of poor and faithful people, God descends and dwells. When fear takes hold of one because he steps on the earth which the hand of God laid out, because he gazes at the great and broad sea, because he walks and breathes, then his eyes will begin to shed tears – tears of repentance, tears of love, tears of joy – and he will feel the first caresses of unspeakable mysteries.
Natural knowledge exists in all men, but it is not of the same purity in all. Love of pleasure has the power to darken it. The passions are like a fog, and that is why few men find the road to truth. How many people have been lost in the maze of philosophy, seeking a little light which they shall never see?
In this maze it is not important if one is a Christian of atheist, Protestant or Catholic, Platonist or Aristotelian. There is one common identifying mark on them all – darkness. Whoever enters the cave of rationalism ceases to see. And whatever garments he is wearing, they take on the same dark color. In their discussions they understand each other very well because they have the same presuppositions, the presuppositions of darkness. But it is impossible for them to understand those who are not in the maze and who see the light. And no matter what those on the outside tell them, they understand everything with their own presuppositions and cannot see in what way the others might be superior.
THE SCHOOL OF THE WEST
The debate which started centuries ago in the West takes place with amazing ease, and that is because the participants, although having different views, belong to the same school.
It is very difficult for Europeans, especially for Protestants, atheists, and the religiously indifferent, to realize how deeply their mentality has been marked by the seal of the Papacy and to understand that their negative views have been determined by the corresponding positions of the Papists.
The Papacy was the great pedagogue of the West. It taught the Europeans their first letters and initiated them into the rationalism which it had inherited from ancient Greece via Rome.
Rationalism was the soul of all heresies which warred against Christianity. All the theological battles of Christianity were fought against it. Heresy is the denial of the suprarational and the attempt to change it into something rational. It is the denial of the living reality and the acceptance of a concept, only because a concept is something comprehensible, whereas the living reality is not.
The Western Church began to be permeated with rationalism long before the schism. The Papacy and the various heresies which now embellish the “Church” of Rome had rationalism for a father. They were born and grew little by little through the centuries.
The remoteness of Rome and the difficulties in communications contributed to the fact that the first deviations were not detected in the beginning. Students of history will observe that for Christianity the West was always spiritually provincial. Nearly all of the spiritual and theological issues were born in the East, and their solutions were found there also. In the East the Christians were under constant spiritual tension. All the currents of heresy passed through there, and the spiritual battles took place there. The Westerners lived in a kind of bliss; they were the chocolate soldiers of Christianity.
The illnesses of the East were acute – the kind which create antibodies and immunity. However at the same time, in the West a chronic illness started – the kind that assuredly leads to death.
Rationalism brings with it self-conceit; self- conceit brings estrangement; and estrangement grows with worldly power. Thus, at the time when more than ever the West needed the spiritual assistance and guidance of the East, the chasm appeared, terrifying to the eyes of all.
In the meantime, in its effort to Christianize the peoples of Europe who were still barbarian, the Latin Church, instead of trying to raise them to the difficult heights of Christian Faith and life, tried to present Christianity as something easy and pleasurable, hoping in that way to bring the barbarians more quickly to Christ. Thus instead of raising the barbarian it lowered the Church.
It made its teaching more comprehensible, more categorized, more systematic, more academic. In this way began the spread of rationalism and the adulteration of the Christian Faith. From a mystery and life in the Holy Spirit, Christianity became an ethical-philosophical system, which later found its best expression in the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas.
Those who later rejected Catholicism received their culture from it. They grew up in it, and it had taught them how to think and philosophize. Protestants, humanists, atheists – the whole series of European philosophers – all graduated from the school of Catholicism. That is why they all speak the same language, the language of rationalism, and this is why, in spite of all their variances, they understand each other so famously.
FEARFUL MYSTERIES
A discussion between atheism and Catholicism is possible. They speak on the same philosophical level, with arguments of the same order.
But a discussion between atheism and Orthodoxy is impossible, because Orthodoxy speaks a language which is completely incomprehensible to atheism. She understands atheism’s language amazingly well, but if she speaks the same language, she will stop being Orthodox.
As an example, let us take the discussion concerning the nature of man.
Catholicism believes that man is composed of a body and a soul. Atheism does not accept the existence of the soul and teaches that man consists solely of the body. This denial was a response to Catholicism’s view of man.
In an attempt to express the deep mystery of human nature in a simple form, the Catholics borrowed the Greek ideas about the soul and body, which were wonderfully comprehensible. They gave a definition of the body and a definition of the soul, which were both absolutely comprehensible. Like the ancients, they described the soul as an independent, self-existent entity, which man is primarily; they lowered the body to the level of an unnecessary burden which, as the Greeks believed, imprisons the soul and prevents it from developing freely.
In this way, the mystery of human existence fell to the naive level of a philosophical definition. That is where atheism found it and began to discourse about it, since atheism also moves on the level of philosophical definitions. Thus an endless exchange of philosophical-scientific arguments began, which will continue until the end of the world without proving anything, because the proof is sought in the sphere of pure reason and not in that which transcends it. Reason has only an auxiliary value; alone, it leads neither to knowledge nor certainty.
How could Orthodoxy, therefore, take part in such a childishly naive discussion without descending to the same level of naivete? Orthodoxy refuses to give philosophical definitions of what man is, what the body is, or the soul. She knows that man is more than what is apparent, but she also knows well that she can neither describe nor define the soul, nor is she able to regard the body of matter as something which is comprehensible to the human mind. As much as the human mind might analyze things, it can only comprehend the symbols which it creates itself, but not the essence.
Here is what’ St. Gregory of Nyssa says about man: “For as it seems to me, the make-up of man is awesome and inexplicable, portraying many hidden mysteries of God in itself.”
Orthodoxy uses the words “soul”, “flesh”, “matter”, “spirit”, without always meaning the same things with the same words. She uses words which are taken from human vocabulary because she must express herself. But she never consents to enclosing within the narrow limitations of a human concept a whole mystery which even the angels cannot grasp. Neither does she consent to the dividing of man into air-tight compartments of body and soul, or, like some modern heretics, into body, soul, and spirit. Nor does she account little value to the flesh; rather, she often speaks of it as of the whole human nature: “And the Word became flesh”.
But this is not our present theme. Orthodoxy is a spiritual experience, a life in God, a series of ontological contacts, and not a system of human syllogisms. Her syllogisms do exist, and they are most logical, but they are only aids. Her foundations are not of syllogisms and philosophical speculations, but living experiences of the divine energy in the pure hearts of the Saints, How, then, can atheism carry on a discussion with her?
THE LIGHT
Yet, there have been Orthodox in name who have entered into discussion with atheism and with philosophy generally. From various religious organizations of our land, scholars have been trying to prove for years that science also accepts the existence of God, but in spite of all their discussions, they have only managed to show how great is their own regard for science and philosophy and their ignorance of Orthodoxy.
Being living examples of the Europeanization which we have undergone in oure land [i.e., Greece], they did not wish nor were they capable of drawing strenght from Orthodoxy to confound any and every philosophy. For all their theoretical Orthodoxy, they remain true Westerners.
The Orthodox has the power to prove logically to the philosophers that philosophy, if it wishes to remain rational, can only end in agnosticism, the denial of every knowledge. Every other claim it makes is unreasonable, and even though it appears to proceed from reason, it is founded upon imagination.
There is only road to knowledge, the one which God has marked through the centuries. It is not a way of syllogisms but a way of life, because truth is not a system of philosophical theories but a personal existence: “I am the Way, the Truth, the Life”.
But in order for one to walk this road, it is not sufficient to say and believe that one is a Christian. “Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord”, shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven”. Something else is necessary: the lifelong struggle of the Christian, and that is purity of heart, which renders man worthy to receive the illumination of the Holy Spirit. All the moral and ascetical struggles of Christianity are aimed at this purity of the heart, with the purpose of the indwelling of the Holy Trinity in man. “Whoever loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him and make Our abode with him”.
This direct communion with the Holy Trinity, this contact with divinity, the revelation of God, is knowledge. It alone enlightens man. It gives him to understand what God is and His creation. It enables man to penetrate into the reason of things and see what he himself is, beyond the phenomena and philosophical definitions.
In the face of this knowledge, what do the philosophers and atheists have to say? Will they deny it? They can. A blind man who has never seen light, of course, can deny that light exists. But this denial cannot carry any weight for anyone who does see.
One cannot prove the existence of light to the blind man. But if the blind man is well disposed, he will believe him and hasten to fall on his knees before Christ, beseeching Him to grant him eyesight. If he does not believe him, he will remain forever blind, and no one will ever be able to make him understand the greatness of his lack.
This is the relation of an Orthodox to the philosopher, the relation of one who sees to one who is blind. And just as it is not possible for the one with sight to carry on a discussion with the blind about the beauty of the earth, about colors and light, so is it impossible for the Orthodox to discuss the magnificence of knowledge with the philosopher.
Knowledge is something which you must taste in order to understand. No one can speak or understand what you tell him without the proper prerequisites.
Should, then, every dialogue of the Orthodox with the rationalists be cut off? Certainly not. The dialogue will continue as long as the blind and those who see live together. The blind will always talk as blind men. But the only thing is that those who see should not talk as blind men, since how then will the blind be made aware of their blindness? Those who see must continue to speak as men who see, even though it is not likely that they will be understood.
At least in this way they shall be able to understand each other, and who knows, perhaps in hearing, some of the blind might come to see that without eyes one cannot come to know the light.
SALVATION
Many so-called Orthodox take great pleasure in participating in the discussions between Catholics and Protestants. And the blind would lead the blind.
For example, let us take the question of justification: that is, if it is faith of good works which save man.
The Catholics teach that man is saved by the number and the quality of good works he shall show at the end of his life. For a period of time the Popes even declared that the good works of the saints were much more than were necessary for their own salvation and that the merits which remained over could be disposed to the sinners if the latter could pay the appropriate price.
Rejecting the position of the Catholics, the Protestants taught that good works have no merit, that “man is not justified by works of the Law”, and that faith alone saves man.
The debate has continued for centuries now with an uninterrupted exchange of an increasing number of arguments which convince no one, but turn around in the vicious circle of anthropocentric concepts which are so characteristic of rationalism.
What is the position of the “Orthodox” when they are confronted by this debate of the West? A feeling of inferiority and disorientation grips our theologians who stand ecstatic with admiration before the complexity of their Western colleagues’ arguments. They do not know what to say. Inwardly they reproach Orthodoxy, which did not take a clear position in this problem. Some ally themselves with the Catholics with a few reservations; others try to reconcile the two views. The Apostles and Fathers do not help them at all; they seem to contradict each other and even themselves.
What darkness, truly, into which rationalism leads man! How can the rationalists understand the Apostles and Fathers, since the Apostles and Fathers, who were not rationalists, speak a language unknown to all rationalists?
For the rationalists, Holy Scripture, the simplest book in the world, is full of contradictions. For them every word and every expression has only one predefined meaning. Either the Apostle Paul is correct who teaches that justification is by faith or the Apostle James, who writes: “What is the profit, brethren, if a man say he hath faith, but has not works? Can faith save him?… Even the demons believe and tremble”.
That is why many Protestant theologians have characterized the Epistle of James as “chaff” and unworthy of being numbered among the books of the New Testament. But even the Apostle Paul seems to contradict himself in speaking one time about justification by faith and another about recompense “to each according to his works”. That is why some Protestants have begun speaking of “two justifications”.
The thought of the Apostles and Fathers is so clear, so simple, yet in the hands of rationalist theologians it has been filled with mist and darkness. They want Christianity to be a system. A system does not admit of antitheses. Everything must be in its place, properly classified. In their restricted thought, every antithesis is a contradiction. But reality is full of antitheses. Only when man accepts the antitheses as they are without trying to smooth them out does he approach the truth.
The Orthodox should glorify God because such a problem as this never arose in the Orthodox Church. The debate over justification which has continued for so many centuries in the West is void of any content. Salvation is not given as a reward for something good which man has accomplished, either faith or works.
Salvation is not a reward, nor damnation a punishment. Such a concept, like all rationalistic concepts, is anthropocentric. It is a projection into the spiritual world of what happens in the daily life of men in society, where a good word or work is rewarded and a bad word or a bad work is punished by the laws which men have decreed.
Like the ancient Greeks, the West likewise made God according to the likeness of men. They see Him as a judge who judges and punishes on the basis of the existing laws. But the justice of God does not have a vindictive or legalistic significance. God does not punish to satisfy His own justice. Such a concept is out-and-out un-Christian.
God never punishes anyone; He only chastises as a father chastises his son in order to raise him. Even Gehenna is not a place of torment but of self-exile, far from the presence of God. It is a condition of willful blindness, a place which never receives the rays of the sun.
God is just, that is, good: for this reason He has no place or communion with the unjust, that is, the wicked. And this is not because God does not want to come near to the sinners, but because evil men turn away from the righteousness of God and do not want to have any communion with Him. “It is not He Who is hostile, but we; God is never hostile” (St. John Chrystostom, Homily XI on II Cor. 3).
Salvation, like knowledge, is a matter of communion with God. Works and faith, virtues and efforts are those things which open the door of our heart to the Lord. But that which gives salvation is not works, nor faith, nor virtues, nor efforts, nor all these together. A man might have all these and not enjoy the betrothal of the Spirit, not become an abode of the Holy Trinity.
Salvation, like knowledge, is the vivifying of man by the grace of God and the vision of God, of which pure hearts are deemed worthy in this life according to the measure of their purity. It is not a reward forced from God by toils and labors, which might not have purified the heart at all, neither is it a reward for an intellectual faith, which might not have changed man’s life at all.
A GREAT CHASM
Catholicism, Protestantism, and atheism, like all other philosophies, speak the same language. One understands the arguments of the other, and in spite of all their controversies they can communicate with each other. But a great chasm separates Orthodoxy from all these systems, because it is something essentially different.
All the erroneous beliefs of the West and the drying up of its spirituality have rationalism as a basic cause. Europeans judge heavenly things with earthly standards and live their religion with the criteria and perspective of this life. One can cite such a multitude of examples that he could fill many books. But the two examples we have mentioned (i.e., the mystery of man and of salvation) are sufficient for one to realize the difference between the Eastern Church and those of the West is not one of various characteristics, but a difference of essence.
Even if we were to presume that there was the best disposition on the part of the West to draw near and to live Orthodoxy – something which does not occur except, perhaps, in the case of the Old Catholics – this disposition would not render them able to understand and to live Orthodoxy. So many centuries of apostasy have not passed without leaving their seal on the souls of these people. And this seal is so indelible that it cannot be erased except by the grace of God, and then only from humble hearts.
In recent years, many in Europe have taken the name Orthodox and have been chrismated with the Chrism of the Orthodox Church, but very few of them have really become Orthodox. Most of them have embraced Orthodoxy intellectually, enchanted by the wealth of knowledge it offered them and fascinated by a new acquaintance with Christianity which bridged the gaps left in their minds by the mutilated Christianity of the West.
But before they even received Communion for the first time and before they even shed a tear for their sins, before they sought the grace of Christ in silence and struggle, they considered it their imperative duty to preach Orthodoxy to the Orthodox. Scandalized by the ignorance of the Orthodox in theoretical matters in which they themselves shone, they scorned the Orthodox people who, although in ignorance, lived the Orthodoxy of their fathers and were ready to die for it.
But God does not dwell in proud minds. Their theoretical preparation did not save them from error, and as blind leading the blind, they fell into the ditch of heresies leading others astray also, or they returned “as a dog to its own vomit” to their former worldly ways.
In order for one to understand the Saints and the Fathers of the Church, it is not sufficient merely to read them. The Saints spoke and wrote after having lived the mysteries of God. They personally experienced the mysteries. In order for one to understand them, he too must have progressed to a certain degree of initiation into the mysteries of God by personally tasting, smelling, and seeing.
You can read the books of the Saints and become very well versed in them with a “cerebral” knowledge without even minutely tasting that which the Saints tasted who wrote these books through their personal experience. In order to understand the Saints essentially, not intellectually, you must have the proper experiences for all that they say; you must have tasted, at least in part, of the same things as they.
You must have lived in the fervent environment of Orthodoxy; you must have grown in it. You must have tasted of training, effort, and struggle for Christian perfection. You must have bent very low to pass through the narrow door that leads to the Kingdom of Heaven. You must have been humbled; you must have been freed from the vain burden of human values and have detached the heart from that which men consider great and worthy of respect.
You must have shed tears of repentance for the vanity in which you lived, tears of fervent supplication to the Lord to deliver you from darkness and to send down a ray of the Holy Spirit into your heart.
A whole new world must be born in a Westerner’s heart in order for him to understand something of Orthodoxy. How can someone who has breathed the dry air of rationalism from the cradle and learned to worship human cleverness as an idol be humbled and become simple as a child? How can one who has learned to pursue those things esteemed “high by men” and “abominations before God” and has been taught to regard the turn to the inner man as “navel gazing” be saved from the thorns of worldly cares? How can he who has been taught to regard vanity as a value shed tears over the vanity of life?
What has Catholicism or Protestantism honestly done to protect the world from the relentless whirlpool into which it has fallen? But was it not the religion of the West that sent man running and panting to gain whatever Christ declared vain? Monasticism, the heart of religion, it either abolished or changed to utilitarian orders which either through their activity or though their thought had as their mission to serve the earthly well-being of men and the worldly wisdom which “God has mad foolish”.
It made politics the province of Christian activity, swaying kingdoms and spilling blood in order to acquire power and money. It used missions as a decoy to subject colored peoples to the inhuman sovereignty of Europe.
It pursued leisure and comfort, teaching that wealth is a gift of God. It gave Christianity a utilitarian, social purpose, causing men to believe that Christ was a moral teacher who is concerned above all with the orderly functioning of society, and the Church is the guardian par excellence of human laws and the overseer of law enforcement. It created the model for the pharisaic Christian, the good citizen, who thinks he has approached perfection because he has never harmed anyone, or because he has given money to philanthropic organizations.
How can men emerge humble, seeking the light from above with pain and tears, from a civilization ruled by the pursuit of human comfort and characterized by a satanic pride in the triumphs of its science?
How can a man who searches the depths of his heart to find in the silence and motionlessness of his “treasury” the “pearl of great price” emerge from a civilization which is characterized by unceasing motion and concern for externals?
Such a thing would be equal to a miracle of the rarest kind.
But if the savor of Orthodoxy is such a difficult thing for one individual, how is it possible for the entire Roman Catholic “Church” as a whole or all the Protestant “churches” together to savor her? Most of the millions of people of the West do not even know that Orthodoxy exists. How is it possible after one or more conferences of representatives of the various “churches” for a return to the truth to be accomplished collectively for souls walking in darkness for centuries now?
Do those who speak of the union of churches possibly think they are dealing with political affairs where the rulers of nations lead their subjects as a whole to either war or peace? People do not come to Christ and His Church in great masses. They come as free persons.
Let us suppose that a Pope suddenly decides to become Orthodox and to bring all the Catholics to Orthodoxy. With that outward change would even one of the millions of Catholics really become Orthodox? And even if they all had the best disposition to memorize and believe all the doctrines of Orthodoxy, they would not be able to take even one step towards her, because Orthodoxy is not only a system of doctrines or a series of customs, but something much deeper and substantial. It is a whole orientation of life and thought.
Orthodoxy is a spirit, the spirit of Tradition, which cannot be acquired from books but is transmitted from the living to the living, from father to son, mother to daughter, brother to brother, friend to friend, priest to priest, monk to monk, from spiritual father to spiritual child, “not by means of ink and paper, but from mouth to mouth”, from soul to soul. And all this within the life of the Holy Mysteries of the Church, within the atmosphere of the Holy Spirit, with the passing of time, little by little, with the slow development of an organism.
But those who speak of union are not naive. They know very well that the Catholics as well as the Protestants will never become Orthodox as a body. But that does not interest them. They are not interested in the return of lost sheep to the fold of Christ. They reckon on a compromise and content with a superficial agreement. Besides, for some time now they have ceased being Orthodox. They are not concerned for truth or the life in Christ. Already the mystery of the Antichrist is working in them, and they are distressed until it be accomplished.
THE FALLING AWAY
O unhappy Greek race! You who gave so many Fathers and so many Saints to the Church of Christ, you who enlightened so many barbarians and made them children of God, you who watered these rocks with tears of humility and contrition and made the garden of Orthodoxy blossom on them, you who brought God to walk on this soil through your prayers, why do you now turn your eyes ecstatically to where the sun never rose? And you who of old were God’s servant, why do you fall upon your knees with servility to worship the servants of Lucifer?
Are you so overwhelmed by the signs and wonders of progress that you are ready to fall down and worship that glittering but empty idol? Do you not see the darkness behind the fireworks? Do you not see the despair of death behind the artificial smile? Do you not see the poverty hiding beneath the royal appearance?
What have you envied? The power of the Pope? But have you forgotten the power of your God which has enabled you to preserve your Faith intact to this day?
What have you desired? Knowledge? Yes, you should desire knowledge, because you are beginning to lack it, lack it dangerously. But there where you seek it, knowledge does not exist: only substitutes for knowledge are found there – the academic philosophies and academic theologies. But these will only fill your stomach without nourishing you, for they do not have life in them; they are dead letters. They are the study of the shadow of things. They are not the study of God and His creation, but the study of the idea we have of God and His creation, the study of the concepts of our brain.
But if you desire an easy life, if Europe enchants you because it promises comfort and carnal pleasures, well then, go there. It will certainly give you that comfort and pleasure. But along with these, it will give you emptiness and death, the spiritual and eternal death it is tasting today.
THE SUMMIT OF THE TOWER
Let us not fool ourselves. The Greek race like all others will continue its way. And its way is the way of the masses. The way of the many is always the easiest. The way of the masses is always the way that leads to comfort and pleasure. And in spite of all we might say and all we might do, we would accomplish nothing because of the state the world has reached. The evil is irrevocable.
The most tragic thing is that evil appears to men’s eyes as something good. The condemnation, which is not imposed by God but into which man falls by himself, will not be a destruction or some nuclear annihilation as people imagine. Actually the death of the body would be a very small evil for humanity. But that which is about to come will be something unimaginably more harsh and inhuman.
It will be the masterpiece of diabolic imagination, the greatest hoax that ever has happened. The destruction towards which humanity is headed will have the appearance of its greatest success. It will be the summit of the tower of Babel, the peak of human vainglory, the crown of human self-conceit.
The destruction will be the fulfillment of the desires of the masses, in which every passion and every evil will swim about freely and unhindered. It will be a complete emptying of the heart, a void, a tedium, a boredom, in other words, spiritual and eternal death.
There will no longer be a place for God in the hearts of men. “In the abounding of iniquity, the love of the many shall grow cold” (Mat. 24:12). The Source of life will no longer have a place among the great majority of people. The Gospel will have been preached to the whole of humanity, “unto a witness to men”. All will know it, and almost all will have essentially rejected it.
In the luxury of the cities, amidst the creations of the human brain and the signs and wonders of the Antichrist, there will circulate human creatures without life, dead men who think they are living the most intense life that ever was, but who in truth will be biting with mania their own flesh.
CIVILIZATION
They say the Pope is optimistic about the future of mankind. And he certainly should be! Humanity has become what for centuries he has been dreaming it to be. Let him marvel, therefore, at the work of his own hands.
All these learned, clever, and respectable people are his pupils. He first taught them arithmetic and letters. He introduced them to Aristotle. He taught them philosophy when they were still barbarians. To him they owe their civilization.
The Papacy did not preach Christianity. It had neither in appearance nor in thought anything in common with the fishermen of Galilee. The Papacy brought civilization to the Europeans. If anyone has the right to speak of a Greco-Christian civilization, it is the Papacy.
But what relation has Christianity to civilization? What relation can a religion which says “for here we have no abiding city, but seek the one to come” have with civilization, that is, with man’s efforts to establish himself as comfortably as possible in the earthly city?
Yet if one carefully observes the sermons and pursuits of most “Christians”, he will see that what they seek and hope for is not so much the glory of the Church as the gory of civilization.
Such “Christians” the world wants and accepts, because basically they have the same goals. But the others who do not speak of a Hellenic-Christian civilization but of monasticism, struggles, prayer, who have as their daily bread the continuous striving for the future city, these the world hates, for it does not recognize them as its own. It characterizes the former as truly religious people, and the latter as overzealous, religious fanatics, deniers of life.
The kinship that exists between those Orthodox who speak of Greco-Christian civilization and the views of the Papists is astonishing. They have the same mentality, the same goals, the same indifference for the truth and the mystical life. Their “Christianity” is a cover, a world-view to fill the gaps in their mind and to make their earthly life even more comfortable.
Such “Christians” who are ever ready to make compromises in order to have the majority on their side will never disappear.
They too, like the Pope, are optimistic about the future of mankind, and they are justified. For both are struggling to build civilization, and civilization is being and will be built better every day, to their great joy. It will be a civilization which will respect values, since a civilization without values is impossible, and the values are values because they are useful for society. But values will not prevent death from filling men’s hearts. For values will not prevent death from filling men’s hearts. For values are sacrifices offered to the idol Man; they are not worship offered to God.
THE DIFFICULT WAY
All that is written here is directed neither to the world nor to those “Christians”. It is directed to the chosen few who themselves will be in danger of being deceived in the last times.
Within Christian organizations and within Papism and Protestantism, there are souls who truly desire God and seek the future city. But their environment and their teachers do not let them find the way which their hearts desire.
Those chosen few must be careful, very careful. The devil does not always act as devil; most of the time he appears as an angel of light. He preaches a Christianity just a little different from the real one, and with this trap many more are caught in his net than he would have gained by sending forth an entire army of atheists or Diocletians.
He stigmatizes the faithful, characterizing them as intolerant, narrow-minded, fanatics, letter-worshippers. In this way he has aroused against the Church of Christ the most frightful persecution ever. People are often more afraid of characterizations which diminish their honor and reputation than of the persecutor’s sword.
Very few are those who can accept the sacrifice of being considered stupid. But in today’s world it is inevitable that every true Christian will be characterized as a fool, or at least narrow-minded. Very few have the courage to advance with such a prospect which approaches martyrdom. That is why most people prefer the easy way of compromises, and they preach it with fanaticism.
The pagan never hated the Christian as much as the “Christian” world does today. Formal tolerance is deceptive. The world tolerates only those so-called Christians who walk in step with it, those who try to apply a social Christianity and attempt to be always up-to-date. The others who do not agree to adulterate their Faith it hates. But the world’s hate is a criterion for us to know if we are true Christians. “If they have hated Me, they shall hate you too”.
@ ANY & ALL
That want to go down the Anti-Catholic road – STOP! STOP RIGHT NOW! JUST SHUT THE HELL UP! NO ONE IS INTERESTED! IF I’M READING THIS SITE CORRECTLY THIS IS NOT MEANT TO BE YET ANOTHER MENTALLY DERANGED EVAGELICAL BIBLE STUDY GROUP!
I BELIEVE BRO NATHANIEL STARTED HIS MINISTRIES TO PICK UP WHERE THE CHURCHES HAVE FAILED US IN CITING THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL STRAITS THAT WE ARE IN AS WHITES AND CHRISTIANS.
Who uses words like “ecumenist heresy”? Please!
I am NOT going to field your nutcase Baptist or Evangelical diatribes about Catholics! You obviously do not know anything about TRUE Catholics beyond what your socially retarded pastor has told you! Forget it! I self-identified as a Catholic because I DO BELIEVE IN THE TENETS OF THE CATHOLICISM!! I AM A CHRISTIAN! BUT THAT DOES NOT MEAN I SUPPORT THE VATICAN OR THE DIOCESE IN DECISIONS THEY MADE! IT’S NOT THAT SIMPLE WITH CATHOLICS! WE ARE NOT DRONES! WE ARE CHRISTIANS AND BELIEVERS IN CHRIST! LEAVE US ALONE! STOP THE NONSENSE! I’M NOT GOING TO DEBATE VATTICAN I, II, THE POPE (IS HE A NAZI….), WHAT DID THE CHURCH KNOW ABOUT PEDOPHILES….. IT’S CLASSIC JEWISH DIVIDE AND CONQUER!
Now let’s get back on track and discuss what IS of value to us as Christians!
To Adonis Tate;
Your disdain for the book of Esther is understandable, since its Masoretic version is written in a purely political perspective and does not even mention the name of God even once. The original text is however preserved in the Septuagint.
If you read below it you will see that several paragraphs have been completely deleted by the Jews after the Pharisaic council of Yavneh (Jamnia) in 90 AD. The vision of Mordechai, the prayers of Esther and Mordechai, and the Macedonian nationality of Haman have been excised by the Jews.
The Jews tampered with the Masoretic text for centuries, until it was finally fixed in the 11th century. It is tragically the text used in the Catholic and Protestant translations, whereas the Orthodox Bible is based on the Septuagint.
http://ecmarsh.com/lxx/Esther/index.htm
THE BOOK OF ESTHER
Chapter 1
In the second year of the reign of Artaxerxes the great king, on the first day of Nisan, Mardochaeus the son of Jarius, the son of Semeias, the son of Cisaus, of the tribe of Benjamine, a Jew dwelling in the city Susa, a great man, serving in the king’s palace, saw a vision. Now he was of the captivity which Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon had carried captive from Jerusalem, with Jachonias the king of Judea.
And this was his dream: Behold, voices and a noise, thunders and earthquake, tumult upon the earth. And, behold, two great serpents came forth, both ready for conflict, and there came from them a great voice, and by their voice every nation was prepared for battle, even to fight against the nation of the just. And, behold, a day of darkness and blackness, tribulation and anguish, affection and tumult upon the earth.
And all the righteous nation was troubled, fearing their own afflictions; and they prepared to die, and cried to God: and from their cry there came as it were a great river from a little fountain, even much water. And light and the sun arose, and the lowly were exalted, and devoured the honorable.
And Mardochaeus who had seen this vision and what God desired to do, having awoke, kept it in his heart, and desired by all means to interpret it, even till night. And Mardochaeus rested quiet in the palace with Gabatha and Tharrha the king’s two chamberlains, eunuchs who guarded the palace. And he heard their reasoning and searched out their plans, and learnt that they were preparing to lay hands on king Artaxerxes: and he informed the king concerning them.
And the king examined the two chamberlains, and they confessed, and were executed. And the king wrote these things for a memorial: also Mardochaeus wrote concerning these matters. And the king commanded Mardochaeus to attend in the palace, and gave gifts for this service. And Aman the son of Amadathes the Bugean was honourable in the sight of the king, and he endeavored to hurt Mardochaeus and his people, because of the two chamberlains of the king.
1:1 And it came to pass after these things in the days of Artaxerxes, — (this Artaxerxes ruled over a hundred and twenty-seven provinces from India) — 2 in those days, when king Artaxerxes was on the throne in the city of Susa, 3 in the third year of his reign, he made a feast to his friends, and the other nations, and to the nobles of the Persians and Medes, and the chief of the satraps.
4 And after this, after he had shewn to them the wealth of his kingdom, and the abundant glory of his wealth during a hundred and eighty days, 5 when, I say, the days of the marriage feast were completed, the king made a banquet to the nations who were present in the city six days, in the court of the king’s house, 6 which was adorned with hangings of fine linen and flax on cords of fine linen and purple, fastened to golden and silver studs, on pillars of Parian marble and stone: there were golden and silver couches on a pavement of emerald stone, and of pearl, and of Parian stone, and open-worked coverings variously flowered, having roses worked round about; 7 gold and silver cups, and a small cup of carbuncle set out of the value of thirty thousand talents, abundant and sweet wine, which the king himself drank.
8 And this banquet was not according to the appointed law; but so the king would have it: and he charged the stewards to perform his will and that of the company. 9 Also Astin the queen made a banquet for the women in the palace where king Artaxerxes dwelt.
10 Now on the seventh day the king, being merry, told Aman, and Bazan, and Tharrha, and Barazi, and Zatholtha, and Abataza, and Tharaba, the seven chamberlains, servants of king Artaxerxes, 11 to bring in the queen to him, to enthrone her, and crown her with the diadem, and to shew her to the princes, and her beauty to the nations: for she was beautiful. 12 But queen Astin hearkened not to him to come with the chamberlains: so the king was grieved and angered.
13 And he said to his friends, Thus hast Astin spoken: pronounce therefore upon this case law and judgment. 14 So Arkesaeus, and Sarsathaeus, and Malisear, the princes of the Persians and Medes, who were near the king, who sat chief in rank by the king, drew near to him, 15 and reported to him according to the laws how it was proper to do to queen Astin, because she had not done the things commanded of the king by the chamberlains.
16 And Muchaeus said to the king and to the princes, Queen Astin has not wronged the king only, but also all the king’s rulers and princes: 17 for he has told them the words of the queen, and how she disobeyed the king. As then, said he, she refused to obey king Artaxerxes, 18 so this day shall the other ladies of the chiefs of the Persians and Medes, having heard what she said to the king, dare in the same way to dishonour their husbands.
19 If then it seem good to the king, let him make a royal decree, and let it be written according to the laws of the Medes and Persians, and let him not alter it: and let not the queen come in to him any more; and let the king give her royalty to a woman better than she. 20 And let the law of the king which he shall have made, be widely proclaimed, in his kingdom: and so shall all the women give honour to their husbands, from the poor even to the rich.
21 And the saying pleased the king and the princes; and the king did as Muchaeus had said, 22 and sent into all his kingdom through the several provinces, according to their language, in order that men might be feared in their own houses.
Chapter 2
2:1 And after this the king’s anger was pacified, and he no more mentioned Astin, bearing in mind what she had said, and how he had condemned her. 2 Then the servants of the king said, Let there be sought for the king chaste and beautiful young virgins.
3 And let the king appoint local governors in all the provinces of his kingdom, and let them select fair and chaste young damsels and bring them to the city Susa, into the women’s apartment, and let them be consigned to the king’s chamberlain, the keeper of the women; and let things for purification and other attendance be given to them. 4 And let the woman who shall please the king be queen instead of Astin. And the thing pleased the king; and he did so.
5 Now there was a Jew in the city Susa, and his name was Mardochaeus, the son of Jairus, the son of Semeias, the son of Cisaeus, of the tribe of Benjamin; 6 who had been brought a prisoner from Jerusalem, which Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon had carried into captivity. 7 And he had a foster child, daughter of Aminadab his father’s brother, and her name was Esther; and when her parents were dead, he brought her up for a wife for himself: and the damsel was beautiful.
8 And because the king’s ordinance was published, many damsels were gathered to the city Susa under the hand of Gai; and Esther was brought to Gai the keeper of the women. 9 And the damsel pleased him, and she found favour in his sight; and he hasted to give her the things for purification, and her portion, and the seven maidens appointed her out of the palace: and he treated her and her maidens well in the women’s apartment. 10 But Esther discovered not her family nor her kindred: for Mardochaeus had charged her not to tell.
11 But Mardochaeus used to walk every day by the women’s court, to see what would become of Esther. 12 Now this was the time for a virgin to go into the king, when she should have fulfilled twelve months; for so are the days of purification fulfilled, six months while they are anointing themselves with oil of myrrh, and six months with spices and women’s purifications.
13 And then the damsel goes in to the king; and the officer to whomsoever he shall give the command, will bring her to come in with him from the women’s apartment to the king’s chamber. 14 She enters in the evening, and in the morning she departs to the second women’s apartment, where Gai the king’s chamberlain is keeper of the women: and she goes not in to the king again, unless she should be called by name.
15 And when the time was fulfilled for Esther the daughter of Aminadab the brother of Mardochaeus’ father to go in to the king, she neglected nothing which the chamberlain, the women’s keeper, commanded; for Esther found grace in the sight of all that looked upon her. 16 So Esther went in to king Artaxerxes in the twelfth month, which is Adar, in the seventh year of his reign.
17 And the king loved Esther, and she found favour beyond all the other virgins: and he put on her the queen’s crown. 18 And the king made a banquet for all his friends and great men for seven days, and he highly celebrated the marriage of Esther; and he made a release to those who were under his dominion. 19 But Mardochaeus served in the palace. 20 Now Esther had not discovered her kindred; for so Mardochaeus commanded her, to fear God, and perform his commandments, as when she was with him: and Esther changed not her manner of life.
21 And two chamberlains of the king, the chiefs of the body-guard, were grieved, because Mardochaeus was promoted; and they sought to kill king Artaxerxes. 22 And the matter was discovered to Mardochaeus, and he made it known to Esther, and she declared to the king the matter of the conspiracy. 23 And the king examined the two chamberlains, and hanged them: and the king gave orders to make a note for a memorial in the royal records of the good offices of Mardochaeus, as a commendation.
Chapter 3
3:1 And after this king Artaxerxes highly honoured Aman son of Amadathes, the Bugaean, and exalted him, and set his seat above all his friends. 2 And all in the palace did him obeisance, for so the king had given orders to do: but Mardochaeus did not do him obeisance. 3 And they in the king’s palace said to Mardochaeus, Mardochaeus, why dost thou transgress the commands of the king?
4 Thus they spoke daily to him, but he hearkened not unto them; so they represented to Aman that Mardochaeus resisted the commands of the king: and Mardochaeus had shewn to them that he was a Jew. 5 And when Aman understood that Mardochaeus did not obeisance to him, he was greatly enraged, 6 and took counsel to destroy utterly all the Jews who were under the rule of Artaxerxes.
7 And he made a decree in the twelfth year of the reign of Artaxerxes, and cast lots daily and monthly, to slay in one day the race of Mardochaeus: and the lot fell on the fourteenth day of the month which is Adar. 8 And he spoke to king Artaxerxes, saying, There is a nation scattered among the nations in all thy kingdom, and their laws differ from those of all the other nations; and they disobey the laws of the king; and it is not expedient for the king to let them alone.
9 If it seem good to the king, let him make a decree to destroy them: and I will remit into the king’s treasury ten thousand talents of silver. 10 And the king took off his ring, and gave it into the hands of Aman, to seal the decrees against the Jews. 11 And the king said to Aman, Keep the silver, and treat the nation as thou wilt.
12 So the king’s recorders were called in the first month, on the thirteenth day, and they wrote as Aman commanded to the captains and governors in every province, from India even to Ethiopia, to a hundred and twenty-seven provinces; and to the rulers of the nations according to their several languages, in the name of king Artaxerxes. 13 And the message was sent by posts throughout the kingdom of Artaxerxes, to destroy utterly the race of the Jews on the first day of the twelfth month, which is Adar, and to plunder their goods.
And the following is the copy of the letter; The great king Artaxerxes writes thus to the rulers and inferior governors of a hundred and twenty-seven provinces, from India even to Ethiopia, who hold authority under him. Ruling over many nations and having obtained dominion over the whole world, I was minded (not elated by the confidence of power, but ever conducting myself with great moderation and gentleness) to make the lives of my subjects continually tranquil, desiring both to maintain the kingdom quiet and orderly to its utmost limits, and to restore the peace desired by all men.
But when I had enquired of my counsellors how this should be brought to pass. Aman, who excels in soundness of judgment among us, and has been manifestly well inclined without wavering and with unshaken fidelity, and had obtained the second post in the kingdom, informed us that a certain ill-disposed people is mixed up with all the tribes throughout the world, opposed in their law to every other nation, and continually neglecting the commands of the king, so that the united government blamelessly administered by us is not quietly established.
Having then conceived that this nation alone of all others is continually set in opposition to every man, introducing as a change a foreign code of laws, and injuriously plotting to accomplish the worst of evils against our interests, and against the happy establishment of the monarchy; we signified to you in the letter written by Aman, who is set over the public affairs and is our second governor, to destroy them all utterly with their wives and children by the swords of the enemies, without pitying or sparing any, on the fourteenth day of the twelfth month Adar, of the present year; that the people aforetime and now ill-disposed to us having been violently consigned to death in one day, may hereafter secure to us continually a well constituted and quiet state of affairs.
14 And the copies of the letters were published in every province; and an order was given to all the nations to be ready against that day. 15 And the business was hastened, and that at Susa: and the king and Aman began to drink; but the city was troubled.
Chapter 4
4:1 But Mardochaeus having perceived what was done, rent his garments, and put on sackcloth, and sprinkled dust upon himself; and having rushed forth through the open street of the city, he cried with a loud voice, A nation that has done no wrong is going to be destroyed. 2 And he came to the king’s gate, and stood; for it was not lawful for him to enter into the palace, wearing sackcloth and ashes.
3 And in every province where the letters were published, there was crying and lamentation and great mourning on the part of the Jews: they spread for themselves sackcloth and ashes.
4 And the queen’s maids and chamberlains went in and told her: and when she had heard what was done, she was disturbed; and she sent to clothe Mardochaeus, and take away his sackcloth; but he consented not. 5 So Esther called for her chamberlain Achrathaeus, who waited upon her; and she sent to learn the truth from Mardochaeus. 6 7 And Mardochaeus shewed him what was done, and the promise which Aman had made the king of ten thousand talents to be paid into the treasury, that he might destroy the Jews.
8 And he gave him the copy of the writing that was published in Susa concerning their destruction, to shew to Esther; and told him to charge her to go in and intreat the king, and to beg him for the people, remembering, said he, the days of thy low estate, how thou wert nursed by my hand: because Aman who holds the next place to the king has spoken against us for death. Do thou call upon the Lord, and speak to the king concerning us, to deliver us from death.
9 So Achrathaeus went in and told her all these words. 10 And Esther said to Achrathaeus, Go to Mardochaeus, and say, 11 All the nations of the empire know, that whoever, man or woman, shall go in to the king into the inner court uncalled, that person cannot live: only to whomsoever the king shall stretch out his golden sceptre, he shall live: and I have not been called to go into the king, for these thirty days. 12 And Achrathaeus reported to Mardochaeus all the words of Esther.
13 Then Mardochaeus said to Achrathaeus, Go, and say to her, Esther, say not to thyself that thou alone wilt escape in the kingdom, more than all the other Jews. 14 For if thou shalt refuse to hearken on this occasion, help and protection will be to the Jews from another quarter; but thou and thy father’s house will perish: and who knows, if thou hast been made queen for this very occasion?
15 And Esther sent the man that came to her to Mardochaeus, saying, 16 Go and assemble the Jews that are in Susa, and fast ye for me, and eat not and drink not for three days, night and day: and I also and my maidens will fast; and then I will go in to the king contrary to the law, even if I must die. 17 So Mardochaeus went and did all that Esther commanded him.
[And he besought the Lord, making mention of all the works of the Lord; and he said, Lord God, king ruling over all, for all things are in thy power, and there is no one that shall oppose thee, in thy purpose to save Israel. – For thou hast made the heaven and the earth and every wonderful thing in the world under heaven. And thou art Lord of all, and there is no one who shall resist thee Lord.
Thou knowest all things: thou knowest, Lord, that it is not in insolence, nor haughtiness, nor love of glory, that I have done this, to refuse obeisance to the haughty Aman. For I would gladly have kissed the soles of his feet for the safety of Israel. But I have done this, that I might not set the glory of man above the glory of God: and I will not worship any one except thee, my Lord, and I will not do these things in haughtiness.
And now, O Lord God, the King, the God of Abraam, spare thy people, for our enemies are looking upon us to our destruction, and they have desired to destroy thine ancient inheritance. Do not overlook thy peculiar people, whom thou hast redeemed for thyself out of the land of Egypt. Hearken to my prayer, and be propitious to thine inheritance, and turn our mourning into gladness, that we may live and sing praise to thy name, O Lord; and do not utterly destroy the mouth of them that praise thee, O Lord.
And all Israel cried with all their might, for death was before their eyes. And queen Esther betook herself for refuge to the Lord, being taken as it were in the agony of death. And having taken off her glorious apparel, she put on garments of distress and mourning; and instead of grand perfumes she filled her head with ashes and dung, and she greatly brought down her body, and she filled every place of her glad adorning with the torn curls of her hair.
And she besought the Lord God of Israel, and said, O my Lord, thou alone art our king: help me who am destitute, and have no helper but thee, for my danger is near at hand. I have heard from my birth, in the tribe of my kindred that thou, Lord, tookest Israel out of all the nations, and our fathers out of all their kindred for a perpetual inheritance, and hast wrought for them all that thou hast said.
And now we have sinned before thee, and thou hast delivered us into the hands of our enemies, because we honoured their gods: thou art righteous, O Lord. But now they have not been contented with the bitterness of our slavery, but have laid their hands on the hands of their idols, in order to abolish the decree of thy mouth, and utterly to destroy thine inheritances, and to stop the mouth of them that praise thee, and to extinguish the glory of thine house and thine alter, and to open the mouth of the Gentiles to speak the praises of vanities, and in order that a mortal king should be admired for ever.
O Lord, do not resign thy scepter to them that are not, and let them not laugh at our fall, but turn their counsel, against themselves, and make an example of him who has begun to injure us. Remember us, O Lord, manifest thyself in the time of our affliction, and encourage me, O King of gods, and ruler of all dominion.
Put harmonious speech into my mouth before the lion, and turn his heart to hate him that fights against us, to the utter destruction of him that consent with him. But deliver us by thine hand, and help me who am destitute, and have none but the, O Lord. Thou knowest all things, and knowest that I hate the glory of transgressors, and that I abhor the couch of the uncircumcised, and of every stranger.
Thou knowest my necessity, for I abhor the symbol of my proud station, which is upon my head in the days of my splendour: I abhor it as a menstruous cloth, and I wear it not in the days of my tranquility. And thy handmaid has not eaten at the table of Aman, and I have not honoured the banquet of the king, neither have I drunk wine of libations.
Neither has thy handmaid rejoiced since the day of my promotion until now, except in thee, O Lord God of Abraam. O god, who has power over all, hearken to the voice of the desperate, and deliver us from the hand of them that devise mischief; and deliver me from my fear.
Chapter 5
5:1 And it came to pass on the third day, when she had ceased praying, that she put off her mean dress, and put on her glorious apparel. And being splendidly arrayed, and having called upon God the Overseer and Preserver of all things, she took her two maids, and she leaned upon one, as a delicate female, and the other followed bearing her train.
And she was blooming in the perfection of her beauty; and her face was cheerful, and it were benevolent, but her heart was straitened for fear. And having passed through all the doors, she stood before the king: and he was sitting upon his royal throne, and he had put on all his glorious apparel, covered all over with gold and precious stones, and was very terrible. And having raised his face resplendent with glory, he looked with intense anger: and the queen fell, and changed her colour as she fainted; and she bowed herself upon the head of the maid that went before her.
But God changed the spirit of the king gentleness, and in intense feeling he sprang from off his throne, and took her into his arms, until she recovered: and he comforted her with peaceable words, and said to her, What is the matter, Esther? I am thy brother; be of good cheer, thou shalt not die, for our command is openly declared to thee, Draw nigh.
2 And having raised the golden sceptre he laid it upon her neck, and embraced her, and said, Speak to me. And she said to him, I saw thee, my lord, as an angel of God, and my heart was troubled for fear of thy glory; for thou, my lord, art to be wondered at, and thy face is full of grace. And while she was speaking, she fainted and fell.
Then the king was troubled, and all his servants comforted her. 3 And the king said, What wilt thou, Esther? and what is thy request? ask even to the half of my kingdom, and it shall be thine. 4 And Esther said, To-day is my great day: if then it seem good to the king, let both him and Aman come to the feast which I will prepare this day. 5 And the king said, Hasten Aman hither, that we may perform the word of Esther. So they both come to the feast of which Esther had spoken.
6 And at the banquet the king said to Esther, What is thy request, queen Esther? speak, and thou shalt have all that thou requirest. 7 And she said, My request and my petition are: 8 if I have found favour in the sight of the king, let the king and Aman come again to-morrow to the feast which I shall prepare for them, and to-morrow I will do the same.
9 So Aman went out from the king very glad and merry: but when Aman saw Mardochaeus the Jew in the court, he was greatly enraged. 10 And having gone into his own house, he called his friends, and his wife Zosara. 11 And he shewed them his wealth, and the glory with which the king had invested him, and how he had caused him to take precedence and bear chief rule in the kingdom.
12 And Aman said, The queen has called no one to the feast with the king but me, and I am invited to-morrow. 13 But these things please me not, while I see Mardochaeus the Jew in the court. 14 And Zosara his wife and his friends said to him, Let there be a gallows made for thee of fifty cubits, and in the morning do thou speak to the king, and let Mardochaeus be hanged on the gallows: but do thou go in to the feast with the king, and be merry. And the saying pleased Aman, and the gallows was prepared.
Chapter 6
6:1 But the Lord removed sleep from the king that night: and he told his servant to bring in the books, the registers of daily events, to read to him. 2 And he found the records written concerning Mardochaeus, how he had told the king concerning the two chamberlains of the king, when they were keeping guard, and sought to lay hands on Artaxerxes.
3 And the king said, What honour or favour have we done to Mardochaeus? And the king’s servants said, Thou hast not done anything to him. 4 And while the king was enquiring about the kindness of Mardochaeus, behold, Aman was in the court. And the king said, Who is in the court? Now Aman was come in to speak to the king, that he should hang Mardochaeus on the gallows, which he had prepared. 5 And the king’s servants said, Behold, Aman stands in the court. And the king said, Call him.
6 And the king said to Aman, What shall I do to the man whom I wish to honour? And Aman said within himself, Whom would the king honour but myself? 7 and he said to the king, As for the man whom the king wishes to honour, 8 let the king’s servants bring the robe of fine linen which the king puts on, and the horse on which the king rides, 9 and let him give it to one of the king’s noble friends, and let him array the man whom the king loves; and let him mount him on the horse, and proclaim through the street of the city, saying, Thus shall it be done to every man whom the king honours.
10 Then the king said to Aman, Thou hast well said: so do to Mardochaeus the Jew, who waits in the palace, and let not a word of what thou hast spoken be neglected.
11 So Aman took the robe and the horse, and arrayed Mardochaeus, and mounted him on the horse, and went through the street of the city, and proclaimed, saying, Thus shall it be to every man whom the king wishes to honour.
12 And Mardochaeus returned to the palace: but Aman went home mourning, and having his head covered. 13 And Aman related the events that had befallen him to Zosara his wife, and to his friends: and his friends and his wife said to him, If Mardochaeus be of the race of the Jews, and thou hast begun to be humbled before him, thou wilt assuredly fall, and thou wilt not be able to withstand him, for the living God is with him.
14 While they were yet speaking, the chamberlains arrived, to hasten Aman to the banquet which Esther had prepared.
Chapter 7
7:1 So the king and Aman went in to drink with the queen. 2 And the king said to Esther at the banquet on the second day, What is it, queen Esther? and what is thy request, and what is thy petition? and it shall be done for thee, to the half of my kingdom. 3 And she answered and said, If I have found favour in the sight of the king, let my life be granted to my petition, and my people to my request.
4 For both I and my people are sold for destruction, and pillage, and slavery; both we and our children for bondmen and bondwomen: and I consented not to it, for the slanderer is not worthy of the king’s palace. 5 And the king said, Who is this that has dared to do this thing? 6 And Esther said, the adversary is Aman, this wicked man. Then Aman was troubled before the king and the queen.
7 And the king rose up from the banquet to go into the garden: and Aman began to intreat the queen; for he saw that he was in an evil case.
8 And the king returned from the garden; and Aman had fallen upon the bed, intreating the queen. And the king said, Wilt thou even force my wife in my house? And when Aman heard it, he changed countenance. 9 And Bugathan, one of the chamberlains, said to the king, Behold, Aman has also prepared a gallows for Mardochaeus, who spoke concerning the king, and a gallows of fifty cubits high has been set up in the premises of Aman.
And the king said, Let him be hanged thereon. 10 So Aman was hanged on the gallows that had been prepared for Mardochaeus: and then the king’s wrath was appeased.
Chapter 8
8:1 And in that day king Artaxerxes gave to Esther all that belonged to Aman the slanderer: and Mardochaeus was called by the king; for Esther had shewn that he was related to her. 2 And the king took the ring which he had taken away from Aman, and gave it to Mardochaeus: and Esther appointed Mardochaeus over all that had been Aman’s.
3 And she spoke yet again to the king, and fell at his feet, and besought him to do away the mischief of Aman, and all that he had done against the Jews. 4 Then the king stretched out to Esther the golden sceptre: and Esther arose to stand near the king. 5 And Esther said, If it seem good to thee, and I have found favour in thy sight, let an order be sent that the letters sent by Aman may be reversed, that were written for the destruction of the Jews, who are in thy kingdom. 6 For how shall I be able to look upon the affliction of my people, and how shall I be able to survive the destruction of my kindred?
7 And the king said to Esther, If I have given and freely granted thee all that was Aman’s, and hanged him on a gallows, because he laid his hands upon the Jews, what dost thou yet further seek? 8 Write ye also in my name, as it seems good to you, and seal it with my ring: for whatever orders are written at the command of the king, and sealed with my ring, it is not lawful to gainsay them.
9 So the scribes were called in the first-month, which is Nisan, on the three and twentieth day of the same year; and orders were written to the Jews, whatever the king had commanded to the local governors and chiefs of the satraps, from India even to Ethiopia, a hundred and twenty-seven satraps, according to the several provinces, according to their dialects.
10 And they were written by order of the king, and sealed with his ring, and they sent the letters by the posts: 11 wherein he charged them to use their own laws in every city, and to help each other, and to treat their adversaries, and those who attacked them, as they pleased, 12 on one day in all the kingdom of Artaxerxes, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is Adar.
13 And let the copies be posted in conspicuous places throughout the kingdom, and let all the Jews be ready against this day, to fight against their enemies.
And the following is the copy of the letter of the orders.
The great king Artaxerxes sends greetings to the rulers of provinces in a hundred and twenty-seven satrapies, from India to Ethiopia, even to those who are faithful to our interests. Many who have been frequently honored by the most abundant kindness of their benefactors have conceived ambitious designs, and not only endeavour to hurt our subjects, but moreover, not being able to bear prosperity, they also endeavour to plot against their own benefactors.
And they not only would utterly abolish gratitude from among men, but also, elated by the boastings of men who are strangers to all that is good, they supposed that they shall escape the sin-hating vengeance of the ever-seeing God. And oftentimes evil exhortation has made partakers of the guilt of shedding innocent blood, and has involved in irremediable calamities, many of those who had been appointed to offices of authority, who had been entrusted with the management of their friends’ affairs; while men, by the false sophistry of an evil disposition, have deceived the simple candour of the ruling powers.
And it is possible to see this, not so much from more ancient traditionary accounts, as it is immediately in your power to see it by examining what things have been wickedly perpetrated by the baseness of men unworthily holding power. And it is right to take heed with regard to the future, that we may maintain the government in undistributed peace for all men, adopting needful changes, and ever judging those cases which come under our notices, with truly equitable decision.
For whereas Aman, a Macedonian, the son of Amadathes, in reality an alien from the blood of the Persians, and differing widely from our mild course of government, having been hospitable entertained by us, obtained so large a share of our universal kindness, as to be called our father, and to continue the person next to the royal throne, reverenced of all; he however, overcome by the pride of his station, endeavored to deprive us of our dominion, and our life: having by various and subtle artifices demanded for destruction both Mardochaeus our deliverer and perpetual benefactor, and Esther the blameless consort of our kingdom, with their whole nation.
For by these methods he thought, having surprised us in a defenceless state, to transfer the dominion of the Persians to the Macedonians. But we find that the Jews, who have been consigned to destruction by the most abominable of men, are not malefactors, but living according to the justest laws, and being the sons of the living God, the most high and mighty, who maintains the kingdom. to us as well as to our forefathers, in the most excellent order.
Ye will therefore do well in refusing to obey the letter sent by Aman the son of Amadathes, because he that has done these things, has been hanged with his whole family at the gates of Susa, Almighty God having swiftly returned to him a worthy recompence, We enjoin you then, having openly published a copy of this letter in every place, to give the Jews permission to use their own lawful customs, and to strengthen them, that on the thirteenth of the twelfth month Adar, on the self-same day, they may defend themselves against those who attack them in a time of affliction.
For in the place of the destruction of the chosen race, Almighty God has granted them this time of gladness.
Do ye therefore also, among your notable feasts, keep a distinct day with all festivity, that both now and hereafter it may be a day of deliverance to us and who are well disposed toward the Persians, but to those that plotted against us a memorial of destruction. And every city and province collectively, which shall not do accordingly, shall be consumed with vengeance by spear and fire: it shall be made not only inaccessible to men, but most hateful to wild beasts and birds for ever.] And let the copies be posted in conspicuous places throughout the kingdom and let all the Jews be ready against this day, to fight against their enemies.
14 So the horsemen went forth with haste to perform the king’s commands; and the ordinance was also published in Susa.
15 And Mardochaeus went forth robed in the royal apparel, and wearing a golden crown, and a diadem of fine purple linen: and the people in Susa saw it and rejoiced. 16 And the Jews had light and gladness, 17 in every city and province wherever the ordinance was published: wherever the proclamation took place, the Jews had joy and gladness, feasting and mirth: and many of the Gentiles were circumcised, and became Jews, for fear of the Jews.
Chapter 9
9:1 For in the twelfth month, on the thirteenth day of the month which is Adar, the letters written by the king arrived. 2 In that day the adversaries of the Jews perished: for no one resisted, through fear of them. 3 For the chiefs of the satraps, and the princes and the royal scribes, honoured the Jews; for the fear of Mardochaeus lay upon them.
4 For the order of the king was in force, that he should be celebrated in all the kingdom. 5 6 And in the city Susa the Jews slew five hundred men: 7 both Pharsannes, and Delphon and Phasga, 8 and Pharadatha, and Barea, and Sarbaca, 9 and Marmasima, and Ruphaeus, and Arsaeus, and Zabuthaeus, 10 the ten sons of Aman the son of Amadathes the Bugaean, the enemy of the Jews, and they plundered their property on the same day: 11 and the number of them that perished in Susa was rendered to the king.
12 And the king said to Esther, The Jews have slain five hundred men in the city Susa; and how, thinkest thou, have they used them in the rest of the country? What then dost thou yet ask, that it may be done for thee?
13 And Esther said to the king, let it be granted to the Jews so to treat them tomorrow as to hand the ten sons of Aman. 14 And he permitted it to be so done; and he gave up to the Jews of the city the bodies of the sons of Aman to hang. 15 And the Jews assembled in Susa on the fourteenth day of Adar, and slew three hundred men, but plundered no property.
16 And the rest of the Jews who were in the kingdom assembled, and helped one another, and obtained rest from their enemies: for they destroyed fifteen thousand of them on the thirteenth day of Adar, but took no spoil. 17 And they rested on the fourteenth of the same month, and kept it as a day of rest with joy and gladness.
18 And the Jews in the city Susa assembled also on the fourteenth day and rested; and they kept also the fifteenth with joy and gladness. 19 On this account then it is that the Jews dispersed in every foreign land keep the fourteenth of Adar as a holy day with joy, sending portions each to his neighbour.
20 And Mardochaeus wrote these things in a book, and sent them to the Jews, as many as were in the kingdom of Artaxerxes, both them that were near and them that were afar off, 21 to establish these as joyful days, and to keep the fourteenth and fifteenth of Adar; 22 for on these days the Jews obtained rest from their enemies; and as to the month, which was Adar, in which a change was made for them, from mourning to joy, and from sorrow to a good day, to spend the whole of it in good days of feasting and gladness, sending portions to their friends, and to the poor.
23 And the Jews consented to this accordingly as Mardochaeus wrote to them, 24 shewing how Aman the son of Amadathes the Macedonian fought against them, how he made a decree and cast lots to destroy them utterly; 25 also how he went in to the king, telling him to hang Mardochaeus: but all the calamities he tried to bring upon the Jews came upon himself, and he was hanged, and his children.
26 Therefore these days were called Phrurae, because of the lots; (for in their language they are called Phrurae;)because of the words of this letter, and because of all they suffered on this account, and all that happened to them.
27 And Mardochaeus established it, and the Jews took upon themselves, and upon their seed, and upon those that were joined to them to observe it, neither would they on any account behave differently: but these days were to be a memorial kept in every generation, and city, and family, and province. 28 And these days of the Phrurae, said they,shall be kept for ever, and their memorial shall not fail in any generation.
29 And queen Esther, the daughter of Aminadab, and Mardochaeus the Jew, wrote all that they had done, and the confirmation of the letter of Phrurae. 30 31 And Mardochaeus and Esther the queen appointed a fast for themselves privately, even at that time also having formed their plan against their own health. 32 And Esther established it by a command for ever, and it was written for a memorial.
Chapter 10
10:1 And the king levied a tax upon his kingdom both by land and sea. 2 And as for his strength and valour, and the wealth and glory of his kingdom, behold, they are written in the book of the Persians and Medes, for a memorial. 3 And Mardochaeus was viceroy to king Artaxerxes, and was a great man in the kingdom, and honoured by the Jews, and passed his life beloved of all his nation.
And Mardocheus said, These things have been done of God. For I remember the dream which I had concerning these matters: for not one particular of them has failed. There was the little fountain which became a river, and there was light, and the sun and much water.
The river is Esther, whom the king married, and made queen. And the two serpents are I and Aman. And the nations are those nations that combined to destroy the name of the Jews. But as for my nation, this is Israel, even they that cried to God and were delivered: for the Lord delivered his people. And the Lord rescued us out of all these calamities; and God wrought such signs and great wonders as have not been done among the nations.
Therefore did he ordain two lots. One for the people of God, and one for all the other nations. And these two lots came for an appointed season, and for a day of judgment, before God, and for all the nations. And God remembered his people, and vindicated his inheritance. And they shall observe these days in the month Adar, on the fourteenth and on the fifteenth day of the month, with an assembly, and joy and gladness before God, throughout the generations for ever among his people Israel.
In the fourth year of the reign of Ptolemeus and Cleopatra, Dositheus, who said he was a priest and Levite, and Ptolemeus his son, brought this epistle of Phurim, which they said was the same, and that Lysimachus the son of Ptolemeus, that was in Jerusalem, had interpreted it.
[finis]
SEPTUAGINT versus MASORETIC texts of the Old Testament.
Another example to show that the Christians and not the jews are the Chosen People of God.
The Old Testament of the Orthodox Church, the Church established by the Lord Jesus Christ, is the translation into Greek of the Hebrew text (now lost) made by Jews in the 3rd century B.C. It is known as the Septuagint (from the Latin septuaginta, seventy, because legend has it that seventy or seventy two translators were said to have done the work: it is abbreviated LXX).
Some version of the LXX was cited by the Lord Jesus Christ and His Apostles in the New Testament, and by the Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Catholic Church. Saint John Chrysostomos (+ 407) explains:
“So long as (the Old Testament)… remained in the Hebrew tongue, nobody at that time was likely to be interested in it, the rest of the human race (non Israelites) being reduced to utter savagery. But when Christ was due to appear and call the whole world to Himself, not only through the Apostles but also through the Old Testament authors — for they too guide us to faith in the knowledge of Christ — then it was that He caused the Old Testament works, like some entrances and paths previously closed by the obscurity of the language, to be opened up to all-comers through translation, so that all who came flooding in all directions from the nations and traveling these paths might succeed through them in coming to the kingdom of the inspired authors …, adoring the Only-Begotten Son of God.”
“That was the reason that even before the time of the coming of Christ they were all translated, since if they had remained in the Hebrew idiom alone — and yet David had said, ‘Ask of Me (God the Father) and I shall give You (God the Son) the nations for Thy inheritance, and the ends of the Earth as Thy possession’ (PSALM 2:8)— how would the Syrian or the Galatian or the Macedonian or the Athenian have been likely to realize what was said, with Scripture remaining in obscurity?”
“Likewise, Isaiah cried out, ‘He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, like a lamb mute before its shearer’ (ISAIAH 53:7); and again, ‘There will be a root of Jesse, and one rising to rule nations: in Him nations will hope’ (ISAIAH 11:1); and again, ‘The Earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, like floods of water covering seas’ (ISAIAH 11:9). And David further said, ‘God ascended with a shout, the Lord with sound of a trumpet’ (PSALM 47:5); and again, ‘The Lord said to my lord, Sit on My right hand until I put Thy enemies under Thy feet’ (PSALM 110:1).”
“Since, then, the Old Testament foretold the Passion, the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Seat at the right hand, His Second Coming, and in short all the contents of the New (Testament), Divine Grace before the coming of Christ arranged for the translation of the Scriptures (from Hebrew into Greek), lest these things remain unknown to the nations due to come later, and they be unacquainted with the force of Old Testament composition.
“It was to render (the Old Testament scriptures) useful, not for those from the nations alone, but also for those Jews scattered everywhere throughout the world who had lost the Hebrew language.”
The 1851 translation of the Septuagint by Sir Lancelot C.L. Brenton is virtually the only version in English, and is therefore valuable.
The writings from which all modern Roman Catholic and Protestant Bibles render the Old Testament are known as the Masoretic text, from massorah, the vast body of notes on pronunciation, accents, and variant sources written — from 600 A.D. to the 10th century — in the margins and at the end of manuscripts by Jewish scribes known as Masoretes (God tells the house of Israel through the prophet Ezekiel: “I will take note of you as you pass under My rod. And I will bring you into the bond [be-ma-so-ret] of the covenant” [EZEKIEL 20:77]).
This later Hebrew text, the Masoretic Text (abbreviated MT) is often corrupt — one rabbi said it is twenty five per cent unintelligible — and filled with anti-Christian emendations.
I believe as a Christian that there are differences in races, religions and nationalities.
The lions don’t hate the hyena but they don’t welcome them in to their lair and accept them as equals!
This constant nonsense that’s forced on us as Christians is JUST TOO MUCH! Blacks, Jews, Muslims, Asians… are NOT to be hated BUT we have to accept that they’re different and those differences do not mean that we are compatible. We can deal with these other tribes and co-exist peacefully.
HOWEVER, the Jews teach these other groups that WE as Christians and as White Christians owe these other tribes and WE OWE THEM BIG TIME! This nonsense has to STOP! These groups MUST respect us, our beliefs, our culture, and all that encompasses us. If they do not, we are not bound by those illegitimate reasons that they cite for raping our culture and history.
WE DO NOT have any biblical or other reasons for just idly standing by and allowing ourselves to be steamrolled by the Synagogue of Satan. Christ himself has charged you with carrying the rod and staff of righteousness in your own defense.
This DOES NOT mean the bastardization of our faith that Evangelicals and the False Christians such as Palin cite as a “mandate from the Lord” to destroy other cultures.
We are charged with preserving our own and defending it from those that seek to destroy us. That’s defense, and not the Zionist Jew’s psychotic demands that we bow to him due to his being closer to God than we.
SEPTUAGINT versus MASORETIC texts of the Old Testament.
Part 2.
Another example to show that the Christians and not the Jews are the Chosen People of God.
In her book ECUMENISM: A PATH TO PERDITION (online at ecumenism.tripod.com) Dr. Ludmila Perepiolkina (now an Orthodox Christian nun whose name I do not know) writes in the chapter Falsifications of Holy Scripture:
“The mission of both the Old and the New Testament Church had always been and still remains to guard and to preach the inviolate divinely-revealed Faith and God’s Promises, the Holy Scriptures and Tradition. Well known is the particular care with which the text of the Scriptures was guarded in the Old Testament times, when every Biblical manuscript which was damaged or contained mistakes was subject to destruction, when no one having some speech defect could even be admitted to reading aloud from the Scriptures in public.
“The ancient Church translation of the Old Testament books into Greek, the so-called Septuagint, was accomplished in the 3rd century B.C. by the specially appointed and God-chosen men, and it was done with all possible precautions and reverence, and under the direct protective guidance of the Heavenly Church …
“Worthy of the original (Hebrew) are the canonical translations accomplished by holy men in the New Testament Church: that of Blessed Hieronoymus (Jerome), translating from the Old Hebrew, with due regard for the Septuagint (at first: he later changed his mind), into Latin; and of the Saints Equal to the Apostles Methodios and Kyril (translating from the Greek text of the Septuagint) adapted by the Church into Church Slavonic.
“From the period of the Reformation onwards …, translations of the Bible into ethnic languages appearing in the West already have an imprint of Protestant teaching, such as Luther’s… In the most recent times there are no longer any restrictive barriers to the development of even the most extreme and blasphemous false teachings.
“The spectrum of translations and transpositions of the Bible has widened accordingly. It could not have been otherwise, inasmuch as Holy Scripture belongs only to the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and its use out of contact with the ecclesiastic and Patristic tradition — and even in opposition to it, which is characteristic of all religious communities that have fallen away from the Orthodox Faith — inevitably entails distortion of …Scripture.
“According to the Fathers, one who is outside the sacramental communion of the Church cannot but deviate into heresy and away from preaching true Orthodoxy. Human folly is not the only cause of distortion of truth. The word of God is hateful to the ‘father of lies,’ the devil, who, with the help of his minions, attempts to pervert it in every way possible.
“With the falling away from God of those who became His killers and called down upon themselves and their descendants the Blood of the Son of God Whom they crucified (MATTHEW 27:25), there began a conscious corruption of the Old Testament books once carefully guarded by (the Jews). Messianic prophecies were the first to undergo this corruption.
” ‘Rabbis corrupted the contents of the Scriptures to suit their own malicious intentions …, and (they) still keep modifying it,’ wrote Euthymios of Chodovo in 1705 (CONTRIBUTION OF THE SAINT PETERSBURG THEOLOGICAL ACADEMY TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF BIBLE STUDIES, Hieromonk Aleksy, Moscow 1986, p. 205)… Such accusations have been heard since Apostolic times … In (the Massoretic text) practically all prophecies about the Saviour of the world have been distorted in such a manner that they could not be seen as referring to the Person of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”
For example: in GENESIS 49:10 the LXX says “A ruler shall not fall from Juda (the tribe which began with Judah the son of Jacob, the tribe from which will come the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Christ), nor a prince from his loins, until there come the things stored up for him (the prince from Juda’s loins is the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Christ), and He is the expectation of the nations.” That last sentence is not in the MT.
The LXX HOSEA 6:2 says: “On the third day He shall raise up and we shall live.” The MT says “on the third day He shall restore us,” dimming the reference to the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the MT missing from HABAKKUK 3:5 are the words, “Before His face shall go the Word (Logos),” that is, the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the LXX Isaiah 42:19 says, “And who is blind but My servants?” (plural). The MT, though, says, “And who is blind but my servant?” (singular). Jews use the MT to demonstrate, to their satisfaction, that the Lord Jesus Christ cannot be the servant depicted in Isaiah, because their text says the servant is blind. Yet the older text, the LXX, says “servants” — which means all Israel is blind, but not Christ.
In the LXX MIKAH 6:15 prophesies the passing away of the Law which Christ gave through Moses: “You shall sow, but you shall not reap; you shall press the olive, but you shall not anoint yourself with oil; and shall make wine, but you shall drink none: and the ordinances of My people shall be utterly abolished:” the MT omits the last sentence.
The LXX AMOS 4:13 proclaims “For behold, I am He Who strengthens the thunder and creates the wind and proclaims to men His Christ.” The Masoretes omitted the last phrase.
In the LXX Habakkuk says, “For the vision is yet for a time, and it shall shoot forth at the end, and not in vain; though He should tarry, wait for Him, for He will surely come and will not tarry.” The Masoretes rendered “He” as “it”, to de-Christify the sacred text.
Well, the pre-Christian pre-Masorete Jewish translators who gave us the LXX rendered the words that the pre-incarnate Christ spoke to Moses from the burning bush — ’EHYEH ASHER EHYEH’ — as εγω ειμι ο ων (ego imi o on). In Orthodox Christian icons the nimbus that surrounds the head of Christ is inscribed ο ων, which means “He Who Is”. By this means the iconographers were transmitting the Orthodox Christian teaching that Jesus Christ is GOD, He Who spoke to Moses. He has not tarried.
Discovery of the Qumran manuscripts (Dead Sea Scrolls) …, relating to the first century B.C. (i.e., to the pre-Masoretic period) has conclusively resolved in favour of the Septuagint, the centuries-old controversy of the comparative merits of the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Old Testament. It has turned out that the manuscripts removed from the Qumran caves contain all the variants of the text which are available in the Greek Septuagint manuscripts and which seemingly undermine their authority. Nevertheless, these conclusions are hushed up … [by the Jews and the modernist so-called scholars]
Along with the widespread modernizations of liturgical language and rites, the introduction of the Western Gregorian calendar, and other countless concessions to the spirit of the times, these translations based on the Masoretic text increasingly destroy the link of these churches with their own Orthodox past, and prepare the ground for any further reforms aimed at the creation of the ecumenical pseudo-church of Antichrist.”
Because of this tampering with the Masoretic text, Jewish scholars cannot support their claim that the MT brings us closer to the language in which God spoke to man. Indeed, even the Jewish translators of TANAKH (that is the Torah, the Neviim, and the Ketuvim; the Pentateuch, the Prophets, and the Writings): A NEW TRANSLATION OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES ACCORDING TO THE TRADITIONAL HEBREW TEXT (The Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia, New York, Jerusalem, 1985), after asserting that their work “represents the collaboration of academic scholars from the three largest branches of organized Jewish religious life in America” (xv), admit that sometimes the translators “did not understand a word or passage” (xviii).
The Jewish author of the preface offers the opinion that “the prophetic books contain many passages whose meaning is uncertain” (xix), and yet Jews are “certain” that those passages are not about Jesus Christ.
For instance, concerning DANIEL 9:26, which says the anointed one will be destroyed, the editor writes: “meaning of Hebrew uncertain.” For him, it must be uncertain, for it is about the Lord Jesus Christ! The author of the preface admits that “to provide an intelligent rendering, modern scholars have restored to emending the Hebrew text” (xix).
He admits, too, that some of these emendations came from the LXX! The old Hebrew text from which the LXX was made was of course more accurate than the Hebrew texts which compose the Masoretic tradition.
The author of the preface even admits that “the traditional accentuation occasionally has been replaced by an alternative construction.” His final admission: “The as yet imperfect understanding of the language of the Bible or what appears to be some disorder in the Hebrew text makes sure translation of many passages impossible” (xx).
And yet Jewish Biblical scholarship is founded on the assumption that the MT is superior to the LXX. But even the rabbis of the Talmud, the written collection of oral teachings which the Pharisees and their spiritual descendants the rabbis claimed God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai, say that God Himself inspired the hearts of each of translators of the LXX (MEGILLA 9a), which would include the translation of ISAIAH 7:14 as “a virgin (παρθένος) will be with child and will give birth to a son…,” an 8th century B.C. prophecy of the Virgin Conception and Birth of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Saint Justin Martyr (+ 150) tells us that the Jews “had altogether taken away many Scriptures from the translations effected by those seventy elders.”
Therefore we should be very suspicious of the Roman Catholic and Protestant, and now Pseudo-Orthodox, tradition of using the Masoretic text as the source for the Old Testament.
The SEPTUAGINT is the original and true WORD OF GOD, without any shadow of a doubt!!!!!!!!!
The SEPTUAGINT IS THE OLD TESTAMENT OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH!!!!!
SEPTUAGINT versus MASORETIC texts of the Old Testament.
Part 3.
Another example to show that the Christians and not the Jews are the Chosen People of God.
The Jewish and Protestant custom of substituting for the Name Yahweh the words “the LORD” is well known. Jewish scribes, thousands of times, pointed (gave vowel signs to) the Name Yahweh — which is part of the Hebrew verb “to be,” and it means HE IS — so that the reader would pronounce it “Adonai,” which means “Lord.” They did this thinking they were showing the Almighty respect by not causing whoever would read the text to utter the Name of God and thereby relegate Him to the mundane realm of just another thing among things.
We’re told the Jewish scribes were trying to preserve the otherness of God, so they would have the reader say Adonai (Lord) each time the original text had said Yahweh. The Protestant translators of the King James Bible (1611) rendered Adonai (truly, Yahweh) in English as “the LORD,” the capitals meaning, “The Name of God, Yahweh, was originally used, but we Protestants shall adopt the Jewish custom and have you the reader avoid pronouncing it, as if we were all ‘pious’ Jews.
We protestants will also adopt the Jewish canon chosen by the rabbis at Yavneh in 90 A.D.” and exclude the seven so-called apocryphal books (TOBIT, JUDITH, FIRST MACCABEES, SECOND MACCABEES, ECCLESIASTICUS, WISDOM, and the longer version of ESTHER), all of which the Jews who had translated the Septuagint had included — as had the first edition of the King James Bible!
Of course both the Jews and the Protestants are gravely in error, since Yahweh Himself says, “This Is My Name for all time: thus I am to be invoked for all generations” (EXODOS 3:15). How can we invoke the Name without being able to read it or say it?
Furthermore, and most important, I repeat: one sees on Orthodox Christian icons in the nimbus surrounding the sacred head of the Lord Jesus Christ the inscription “ο ων,” that is, “εγω ειμι ο ων,” the Greek translation of what God spoke to Moses, out of the burning bush: “I Am He Who Is” (EXODOS 3:15): Jesus Christ is Yahweh — as is the Father and as is the Holy Spirit, for God is indivisibly Triune.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
THE POPES ARE (CRYPTO-)JEWS?
“Mrs. Van Hyning, I am surprised at your surprise. You are a student of history and you know that both the Borgias and the Mediciis are Jewish families of Italy. Surely you know that there have been Popes from both of these house.
Perhaps it will surprise you to know that we have had 20 Jewish Popes, and when you have sufficient time, which may coincide with my free time, I can show you these names and dates. You will learn from these that: The crimes committed in the name of the Catholic Church were under Jewish Popes. The leaders of the inquisition was one, de Torquemada, a Jew.” – Woman’s Voice, November 25, 1953
http://www.subvertednation.net/kikes-kkk-and-the-racial-divide/comment-page-1/#comment-8032
This site offers a great introspect in to what happens when White Christians allow themselves to be denigrated by the Jews.
Detroit once a symbol White European American success is now a multicultural ruined city on the same order as other cultures such as Rome and Greece that allowed themselves to be destroyed from within by multiculturalism and diversity.
http://www.white-history.com/hwrdet.htm
How a Jew started the war in Libya:
http://www.frumforum.com/how-bernard-henri-levy-started-the-libyan-war
Pope John Paul II Had a Jewish Mother?
“JPII is a Jew through maternal lineage……his mother, who was a Jewess, died when he was a young lad, and in judging from his matured “fruits”, I’m assuming that her surviving relatives saw to it that he was introduced into the Jewish secret society at a very early age.
It has been reported that young Karl even played as a member of the Jewish soccer team against his Catholic neighbors. More damning, are his recent public heretical statements which reinforce the false notion that Jews somehow have no need to accept Jesus as their Savior.
The Vatican with it’s now vacant “Chair of Peter”, as prophesized, has become the “Seat of the Antichrist”. Anyone who knows the truth and then fails to speak out in condemnation of anti Christ Judaism, Zionism, and the Vatican which is now under anti Christ Jewish control, commits a grave sin against Jesus our Lord and Savior.”
…
“Woytila, John Paul II, who they are trying to keep alive as long as possible, is accused of being part Jewish through his mother. It is true that in Poland he played on the Jewish soccer team as a youth. His biographers, Tad Szulc, Carl Bernstein (who bragged that his Dad was communist who fought Sen. McCarthy on Larry King Live years ago), and others seem to be all Jews, and are GLOWING with HEAPING praise about John Paul II.
Woytila was ‘elected’ Pope out of COMMUNIST POLAND. My friend gave me an article years ago which came out right after the second 1978 Conclave, which is entitled, ‘Communist Government Praises Choice of Pope.’
Growing up in Catholic schools, we read about Cardinal Mindzenty, who was taken prisoner by the Jew Communists when they took over Poland after World War II. Mindzenty was under house arrest, and NEVER allowed to travel. By SHARP contrast, Woytila (John Paul II) was ALWAYS ALLOWED TO TRAVEL in and out of Communist Poland, and visited fellow revolutionary (and marrano Jew?) Joseph Bernardin in Cincinnati TWICE before being elected Pope.
Another biographer of John Paul II, the abominable fork-faced and forked tongue George Weigel, is a close confidant of ultimate Trotskyite Jew Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard, now using the ‘Conservative Republican’ mask.”
…
“P.S. ‘do not pay attention to the many Catholics who are still trying to say that John Paul II doesn’t know what’s going on, and that these are just ‘bad bishops’ ‘a 25 year record of destruction is clear.
The pedophile scandal ‘how satanic ‘bishops’ like Bernardin recruited homos for the ‘priesthood’ in ‘catholic’ seminaries since 1970 or so, and kept out the normal men’ is detailed in the book ‘Good Bye, Good Men’ by Michael Rose ‘although Rose fails to draw the obvious conclusions from the impressive evidence he has amassed.
Recently, John Paul II promoted a pedophile protecting Bishop ‘Bernard Law’ to a position at St. Mary Major in Rome. But the Catholics-in-denial will not face the music, no matter how much evidence amasses. The reason why the Vatican II Popes have to be anti-Popes is that they have all supported Paul VI’s heretical document on Religious Liberty, signed at Vatican II. A true Pope cannot sign a Council document with heresy in it. When he does, he announced he is not the Pope.
Judeo-Masonry controls the Vatican since 1958, and this is the beginning of understanding the moral decline in the world since that time.”
http://www.cephas-library.com/catholic/catholic_pope_has_jewish_mother.html
This is the flip side of the reality of http://www.white-history.com/hwrdet.htm
It shows what happens when Jews step in try and once again lay blame at the feet of Whites.
Although I’m not a Talmudvision watcher I did catch a few episodes of this show and it was absolutely ridiculously Jewish. Every perp in the show was White in stark contrast to the reality of Detroit being in excess of 88% predominantly Black.
But shows like this cater exclusively to the White Middle Class, Middle Aged, malleable White liberal female that will tear up almost on cue “It’s such a shame what the Whites have done to these poor African-Americans and they’re still to this day preying on these innocent ghetto-ized African-Americans, Damn you white (always lowercase to a Goyim) criminal scum! Leave those African-Americans alone! I hate you! I hate you!” and of course the show is rife with racially ambiguous characters and mystery meats bravely fighting back the White racists that are preying on the unsuspecting African-Americans.
Which BTW the whole title thing is “Classic” Jewish divide and conquer – African-American, Gay-American, Jewish-American….. yadda yadda.
Training the Goyim to accept themselves as somehow being a small insignificant minority. This is most noticeable on Talmudvision as most commercials now either feature Blacks and/or racially ambiguous characters to promote that these groups are now the majority.
If you ask a Black how much of the population that they believe Blacks represent, they’ll tell you somewhere between 40 and 50% when in fact they’re 14% of the population and losing ground fast against Mexicans.
http://abc.go.com/shows/detroit-1-8-7
Dear Vox,
I agree with you that Christianity is distorted by the Jews and Marxists, leftists, and liberals, in order to make us think that Christians are supposed to lose their national identity and racial culture and characteristics.
That is a lie and destructive propaganda. In the Book of Revelation we see that the nations and tongues are preserved:
Rev 7;[9] After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands.
The Orthodox Church, from the very beginning translated the Scriptures into the language of the people to make them understand and to preserve their national identity. The culture was baptized and transformed into Christian expressions, expurgating from it all pagan characteristics, but preserving its flavor and individuality. Unlike in the west, no policy of Latinization was adopted.
The Bible was translated into Syriac, Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopic, Latin, Slavonic, and Georgian as soon as feasible in an orderly manner. The Russians translated the Bible into dozens of local languages, including Aleut for the Alaskans, Japanese and Chinese.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
Dear Joshua,
It is no surprise that many KKK leaders were Jews. Jews also played a huge role in the civil rights movements and supported Martin Luther King with armies of lawyers and activists.
Jews encourage illegal immigration. The goal, of course, is racial strife and dilution of the Christian Whites.
Jews were the early leaders of the homosexual rights movements, and women’s liberation movements.
It would not surprising at all if popes Ratzinger and Wojtyla would turn up to be Jews.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
@ Andrew Jackson
Not only is it reinforced that we’re “supposed” to lose our identity, but that it is in fact “Noble” and “Christian” of us to dissolve our identity into one happy multicultural family. BUT with the caveat that does not include Jews, which are sacred and we must fight to insure that they, amongst all others, should be allowed to maintain their unique identity and again it is in fact “Noble” and “Christian” of us to fight to our deaths to insure that they alone preserve their identity while ours is destroyed.
One can only hope that Blacks, Muslims, Asians as well begin to wake up and realize that it’s not the Whites that are to blame for their destructions, but, in fact the Jews. Once in a great while I do meet a Black that has finally “focused” and realized “Whoa! Man I didn’t realize I was a tool. Jews are not Whites, they’ve been using my race to get at yours!”
I just came across these two links provided below and had to share with you all.
“Powerful message from former (C.I.A. Agent) to all Americans!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgj0ge6Iwu0&feature=player_embedded
“Silver Coins A Unique Form Of Domestic Terrorism”
http://dailybail.com/home/silver-coins-a-unique-form-of-domestic-terrorism-liberty-dol.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheDailyBail+%28The+Daily+Bail%29
To U.S. Archbishop Cyril Bustros (RC, I believe) is attributed this remark:
“For Christians, one can no longer talk of the land promised to the Jewish people….There is no longer a favored people, a chosen people; all men and women of every country have become the chosen people.”
Bustros was cited by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu in 10/24/10 Arutz Sheva. Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu thought Bustros’ comment was “anti-semitic”. Gedalyahu (an Orthodox Jew) asserted:
“The term ‘chosen people’ … means obligated to the 613 commandments in the Bible and to inherit the land of Israel.”
So right away Christians, who believe the Old Testament (Torah) and also believe the New Testament, have a point of disagreement with the Orthodox Jews, who take the Torah seriously but repudiate the New Testament. (Non-orthodox Jews don’t take the Old Testament at face value, anyway.) Christians disagree with Orthodox Jews about what “chosen people” means.
Just as Christians have some theological differences amongst ourselves, so do Jews. (In the time of Jesus, Pharisees [and Jesus] believed in life after death, Sadducees did not. Many Jews today are atheists and/or do not have much faith in any Afterlife, so it seems to me they lean mainly to the Sadducee school of theology.)
Orthodox Jews (and also “Judaized Christians”) place great emphasis on the precise keeping of Old Testament (Torah) laws. Orthodox Jews, of course, do not accept Jesus as the promised Redemption. If they did, they would by definition become Christians.
Most Jews do believe that they are in some way specially Chosen. Some Jews believe that they have to be their own Messiah, but to them a Messiah is one who will lead them to leadership of a One World Government, not One who will cleanse them of their sins and bring them eternal life. And certainly not One who will break down barriers between those who come to Him from the Jews and those who come to Him from the Gentiles!
On Zionism, Orthodox Jews are divided. Neteuri Karta teaches that Jews have been dispersed by God until God Himself brings their Redemption. So Neteuri Karta disagrees with setting up their own Jewish homeland, especially one which has been stolen from another people, that is, the Palestinians. Other Orthodox Jews, such as Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu, are Zionists. Zionists support the political state of Israel, which supports expansion to Greater Israel, which means that even more Palestinians would eventually need to be dispossessed of their lands, bringing even more war and suffering.
Jesus and the mainstream Jewish religious leaders all believed that God had promised some sort of Redemption to the Hebrews, but they were at odds as to the nature of that Redemption. Thus the concept of Chosen-ness meant something different to Jesus than it did to the mainstream Jewish religious leaders.
Jesus Christ asserted that He Himself was the fulfillment of both the law and the prophets in the Torah, the promised Redemption. Jesus was concerned for all of mankind, saying “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH IN HIM should not perish but have eternal life.” Jesus believed that He Himself (the only begotten Son of God) was Chosen by God for a special purpose and that His followers would continue His work (empowered by the Holy Spirit) when Jesus returned to His Father.
As Christians seeking Eternal Life, we do not believe that only Jews are chosen for Eternal Life, we believe “God is not willing that ANY should perish.” To Jews this may be a moot point, since the Redemption they are seeking is not spiritual, anyway, but materialistic.
As to whether or not Jews today are specially Chosen by God to inhabit the Holy Land where Jesus lived His life and where much Hebrew history took place, there is theological disagreement today among Christians, crossing boundaries of Orthodox Christianity, Catholic Christianity, and Protestant Christianity of both mainstream churches and non-denominational churches. (Non-denominational churches, of which I am a member, unfortunately are often the most argumentative in favor of special rights for Jews.)
Many Christians who support Zionism do so on the grounds that Jews today are still “Chosen” to be some special blessing to the entire world. And that this somehow involves giving the Jesus-Christ-denying Jewish people sovereignty over the Holy Land of biblical history.
Brother Nathanael cites St. Paul and other authoritative Christian leaders who taught that Christians are today’s Israel, a people set aside for special service to God. I agree.
The Cornerstone of the Christian faith is Jesus Christ, not the political state of Israel.
Christians, if you believe that the political state of Israel is some “special blessing” to mankind, you need to open your eyes, whatever your other theological beliefs may be. Some of Bro Nathanael’s archived articles might be educational to you.
How the Jewish people choose to interpret themselves is their own business, but Christians do not need to “buy into it.”
I almost forget I wanted to comment because a few had brought up Farrakhan.
One thing about Farrakhan is that he does see “the Jew” and recognizes the difference between Jews and Whites and hasn’t drunk the kool-aid about Jews being Whites.
Sure he’s a racist and a bigot, BUT I can respect a bigot and a racist more than a multiculturalist/diversity liberal/Jew because a racist bigot like Farrakhan isn’t pretentious or a liar.
They tell you exactly what they think. You know exactly where they stand and you can say “Okay, you hate me for the color my skin, I can respect that, I know where you stand.”
But the liberal/Jew hides in the shadows waiting to victimize you and stab you in the back. The racist bigot fights out in the open and is not afraid. The liberal/Jew is a coward and uses lies and deceit. Far worse than the racist bigot who wears their hate on their sleeve.
Jimmy Cliff – Peace
by Jimmy Cliff
How Is There Going To Be Peace
When There Is No Justice, Oh No, Oh
Someone Is Taking More Than Their Share
Of The Bounties Of This Land And That´s Not Fair
So Little People Got More Than They Need
While There´s So Many Hungry Mouths In The World To Feed
And I Am Would Give My Heart So True
And I Will Give My Love For You, Tell Me
How Is There Going To Be Peace
When There Is No Justice Oh No, Oh
Someone Is Taking My Share And They Just Don´t Give A Darm
No They Don´t Care
So You Just Might As Well Face It
Cause There Aint No Other Way To Erase It
And I Will Give My Heart So True
And I Will Give My Love For You, Tell Me…
SO WHO IS THE TERROST HERE ?
“Don’t kid yourself. Nobody gives a damn about suffering in Libya or Iraq. You don’t bomb a village to save it. The U.S., Britain and NATO are the bullies of the neighborhood. The enforcers for Big Oil.”
Libya’s Blood For Oil – The Vampire War
By Susan Lindauer
Former US Intel Asset Who Covered Libya At The UN 1995-2003
3-28-11
http://www.rense.com/general93/libc.htm
Dear Vox,
It’s not Kool-Aid that Jews are Whites, since both share descent from the proto-patriarch of the White people, Noah. They are miscegenated to various degrees with non-Whites, but the description of David, for example, was that he was ‘fair and ruddy’.
Khazars are also White although mixed with Mongoloid and Turkic. Their DNA bears a strong resemblance to Viking descendants living in the Shetlands and Hebrides. How else would they get red hair?
The line between Jew and White is not scientific, but yes it is real enough, and it is defined by genealogy and breeding within a cultural milieu. If you get right down to it, it is behavioral reinforced with selective breeding and inbreeding, not original or fundamental.
How can everybody be right at the same time. Let’s stick with the facts.
This site is for Christians to be educated about Zionism.
Leave your self righteousness at home, and let Brother Nathanael lead the way. If your church supports the Zionist agenda, then do something about it. Put your money were your mouth is. Money talks.
No more bickering please, let’s move on.
Why the liberal is never to be trusted: The liberal demands White babies in America be sucked out and shredded in to a basket like so much unwanted tissue but demands dark babies be saved in Africa.
The so called liberals were outraged at the call to war under the Bush regime but not a peep under the “Black Messiah”
Liberals Willing to Trade Blood and Treasure for Oil Company Profits Under Obama
http://www.activistpost.com/2011/03/liberals-willing-to-trade-blood-and.html
A MESSAGE TO THE JEWS
To all of mankind, Jesus brought the good news
That he is our Lord and Messiah
But blinded by hatred, the blaspheming Jews
Insisted that Christ was a liar.
“I find him without fault,” said Pilate of Rome
“He’s really a gentle, kind man.”
“Oh no,” screamed the Jews, “Calvary is His home,
“His Blood we take unto our hands.”
Now crucify him, was the dirty Jews cry
When God’s Son before them was brought
Then nailed to the Cross, He was fated to die
And the Jews still refused to be taught.
And up to this day, it is the Jews’ creed
To curse our Lord Jesus’s name
His love they reject, they display only greed
Instead of repentance and shame.
The Jews never had it so good, it is known
They’re grabbing whatever’s in sight
The Christians are stripping themselves to the bone
While the greedy Jews laugh with delight.
Money is the Jews’ great god
The root of all their evil
And when they go to synagogue
They worship their father the Devil.
But sooner or later the Jews will repay
The wealth that from Christians they’re stealing
Their gold will not save them on Christ’s Judgement Day
Nor the sheckels before which they’re kneeling.
Now Jews, there’s a point to this story I’ve told
For your sakes, pay heed to it well
Jews, give up thy sinning, thy lusting for gold
Accept Christ, or you’re bound for Hell.
For if you accept Him, our Lord will forgive
Your sins against Him you will lose
You only need make Christ your Savior to live
If you give up the lies of the Jews.
AN ORIGINAL POEM THAT I WROTE AND DEDICATED TO +BROTHER NATHANAEL, THAT HE MAY CONTINUE HIS HOLY WORK!!!
Glory B.
Dear Vox,
If standing up for Christian people and opposing the satanic Jews and their goal of world domination is being a bigot, then I am a bigot — and PROUD OF IT!!!
“…The leaders of the inquisition was one, de Torquemada, a Jew…” ”
Haven’t heard that one before but sounds plausible to me
@ Glory B
Remember that being an anti-Semite once meant someone who didn’t like Arabs, now it means anyone that the Jews don’t like.
Being a bigot is a relative term to who is placing the moniker on you. To a Christian it should be worn as a badge of honor if being placed on us by Jews.
It says “We’re on to you Jew. We see you for the liar and thief that you are!”
Below is a youtube video that explains the basics of Rothschild greed and empire building. It’s amateurish, but it matches what others are saying on the topic.
We can no longer fail to identify these Jews if we are to survive. The trickery of the Rothschilds is the elephant in the room. They capitalize on white laziness, innocence, vanity, sloth, stupidity and greed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F4IGwuKdUQ&feature=related
kmarie
I love your comments. You are a deep intelligent thinker.
Joyce
I am not very computer literate. So I don’t really know how to put in a question or get an answer. Anyway, I say the idea of a medium of exchange in the economic affairs of mankind was the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Our Lord Jesus Christ will enlighten us when he gets back. This is why the human race DIED THE DEATH.
What kind of death is THE DEATH that Genesis is speaking of? It is the death of an advanced civilization. That is why we had to work by the sweat of our brow and the earth didn’t bring forth anything but thistles and weeds. Why is this? Because there is an imbalance between what mankind is paid for his labor and the higher price that he has to pay for the products of his labor.
This is essentially stealing the labor of the human race. There are many out there who are sounding the trumpet about this. And I am sure that the rest of the economists are well aware of it. This is why the world economy is overdue for a gigantic earthquake. The Jews in charge are trying to create a soft landing. But I think that they are in for a big surprise thanks to Our Lord Jesus Christ. WWIII is the Battle of Armagedon on the field of Megido? Hog wash! It is the battle that now rages in the financial capitals of the world.
As for all of you Christians out there taking pot shots at each other. I am Catholic. I love the Catholic Church. But I am aware that it has been hijacked by the Jews to try to destroy the Christian ideal from this earth. That is the reason I stay in-to fight them. The Catholic Church, Popes, Cardinals, Bishops, Priests, have made so many statements in the past about the faith to get down to the nitty gritty about every itsy bitsy teeny article regarding the faith. And I personally believe that they have made a lot of mistakes. That is understandable.
They have been hard pressed since the church was founded to protect it from the rapacious Jews and their cohorts. One example: Unbaptised children go to limbo. The fact of it is, Baptism makes a person a member of the kingdom. The Catholic Church has been called the Kingdom of God. Jesus said that a man had to be baptised in order to enter the kingdom. I personally feel that the people who raise their fists to God and say, “I will not be baptised and will not serve you” are those who are damned.
I don’t know where it is or who said it, maybe it was St. Paul. But this disciple said that a religious person was one who took care of the widows, the orphans, and the poor. I believe that all of the Christian churches of whatever denomination do this although many foolish protestants support the synagogue of Satan. Having all of us divided and fighting each other makes it a lot easier for the Jews to pick all of us off. So despite our differences, we all need to stick together for Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And I as a Catholic will uphold his Most Holy Mother.
@ Sam
Great insight and it is what others have stated.
Are the Jews guilty of Capitalizing on White Failure? The answer is a resounding “YES!”.
Whites have become fat, lazy and stupid and as such have opened themselves up to be destroyed. Americans settled in to a middle class comfort zone and forgot that these gains were only fleeing, a mere couple of decades at best from the 1950’s in to the Mid 1960’s.
Everything before and after is sheer fairytales that “Y-T has it so goooooooood!” or “The Good Old Days”.
The Gold Old Days before 1950 meant long hours in a dangerous and dirty factory, no overtime, no vacation, no sick leave, nothing other than a measly paycheck.
Then came the liberal/Jewish communist street justice of the 1960’s. The militant redistribution of wealth that tipped the scales too far in the other direction and then the whole house of cards fell over.
God’s Chosen People Laboring in the Vineyard
Philoumenos (Hasapis) of Jacob’s Well
http://orthodoxwiki.org/Philoumenos_%28Hasapis%29_of_Jacob%27s_Well
The crowning moment of Father Philoumenos’ earthly pilgrimage came on November 16/29, 1979 at the shrine built on the site of Jacob’s Well. The Saint experienced a martyric death at the hands of extremist Jewish Zionists who massacred him with an ax in the evening, while he was performing Vespers at the Well of Jacob where he lived as a loyal guardian of the Holy Places and centuries old way of life.
The week before his martyrdom, a group of fanatical Zionists had come to the monastery at Jacob’s Well, claiming it as a Jewish holy place and demanding that all crosses and icons be removed. Of course, the Saint pointed out that the floor upon which they were standing had been built by Emperor Constantine before 331 A.D. and had served as an Orthodox Christian holy place for sixteen centuries before the Israeli State was created, and had been in Samaritan hands eight centuries before that.
The group left with threats, insults and obscenities of the kind which local Christians suffer regularly.
After a few days, on November 16/29, 1979, during a torrential downpour, a group broke into the monastery. The saint had already put on his epitrachelion for Vespers.
“They burst into the monastery and with a hatchet butchered Archimandrite Philoumenos in the form of a cross.
“With one vertical stroke they clove his face, with another horizontal stroke they cut his cheeks as far as his ears. His eyes were plucked out. The fingers of his right hand were cut into pieces and its thumb was hacked off. These were the fingers with which he made the sign of the Cross.
“The murderers were not content with the butchering of the innocent monk, but proceeded to desecrate the church as well. A crucifix was destroyed, the sacred vessels were scattered and defiled, and the church was in general subjected to sacrilege of the most appalling type.”
The piecemeal chopping of the three fingers with which he made the Sign of the Cross showed that he was tortured in an attempt to make him renounce his Orthodox Christian Faith.
The body of the Saint was handed over to the Orthodox 6 days after his massacre, but retained its flexibility and was buried in the cemetery of Mount Zion.
Saint Philoumenos served in the Holy Land for 46 years (1933-1979).
@ Michael Kelley
You see this wherever and whenever a church is desecrated.
When a church is desecrated, the media cites it as the work of “spirited youths” or “young vandals.”
When a synagogue is graffiti’d (most likely by Jews themselves) it is soundly renounced in the media as the work of “White Supremacists,” “Nazis,” or “EVIL Whites bent on the destruction of the most holy Race.”
To All
Sorry to get off subject, but here is a video that I completely agree with.
youtube.com/watch?v=SGpNZmniJ_Q&feature=related
Hope you people make the above site so that all people have to do is click on it since I am not very computer literate.
@ Michael Kelley
I agree and as I stated above, the OT is a genealogy timetable from Adam to Christ. It points out the traitors and their offspring as well as the root of Jesus.
In many ways it parallels the birth of America and her travails against treasonous acts which aim to defile her mission and true destiny. These same fallible liars that have turned the greater part of the world against the rooted truth in the Bible have done the same to The United States.
Our Founding Fathers had envisioned a Republic government ruled by just men, just as had Moses and Jethro had set up in the Old Testament. Just as the United States’ true mission has been bastardized over time, so has the word of God by men. Recent revisions of the Bible have twisted the King James Version and whole verses have been removed in some instances.
It is clearly the evil work of Satan and his minions and of course his goal is to deny the existence of God and himself. Yes the greatest deception of the world by Satan is that he doesn’t exist.
The true Hebrews of the Bible are our forefathers. Most of us are the offspring of the twelve tribes of Israel, which is clouded over by the Jews News of today as Jews being chosen. Jew is a relatively new word devoid of real contact with the ancient Hebrews. When people ignorantly say “religion is the cause of all wars in past, present and future” and “it originates from the Bible” they don’t know the Bible at all.
Most of the Old Testament wars were our ancestors, the Hebrews fighting against the direct offspring of Cain and Ham. Before the Deluge this was true and after the Deluge this was true. Science and the media have done a great job in distorting these truths as they work for Satan in an attempt to nullify the Word of God.
Evolution, Aliens and their works are created to accomplish this and take our collective eye off the big picture, which they have done a splendid job of, as truth is now considered a fairytale and I hear it all the time. The missing link Is God, and they keep blindly digging for something to disprove it.
All truths will be revealed before the end of ages, Saith The Lord on High. And today as the layers of truth are peeled back like an onion, the ones who have their eyes open to the light are seeing it, and unfortunately those who don’t know God’s word are blinded by the darkness. Israel is the chosen ones of the Bible, but WE, the son’s of Abraham, you and I are Israel, the citizens of God, descendants of Jacob.
This brings us full circle back to what Bro Nate is trying to, and IS saying, about the hijacked Word of God. Satan has blinded the world to the identity of the Truly Chosen Ones of The Old and New Testament. Jesus gave His life for it. Powerful men of old, men of renown, stole it just as they are trying to steal it today. God have mercy on their poor, sick souls.
@DWC — yes I missed your point and I apologize, forgive me. I understand you are white and disgusted, but having faith in the Word should nullify both in the eyes of the Lord. I am, in my heart, changing your name to Blessed In Christ, I hope you don’t mind.
@All Catholics — I love and pray for you as I do all of my enemies. Please Please Please find a Bible and read it and know it and don’t make the same mistake the Jews did in relying on the twisted words of men.
God Bless the RZN family and Brother Nathanael and the family of the Lord, The Chosen People, us all.
The New York Times article “Lessons from Chernobyl for Japan,” reflects on the Chernobyl disaster and how its legacy still looms over us today as a very real threat.
Those who believe in a quick fix for the Fukushima disaster would be wise to remember Chernobyl’s legacy.
More importantly, with tens of millions of lives at stake, nation actors that have the ability to assist in mitigating this disaster now, but choose instead to squander their manpower and resources elsewhere (like in Libya), must remember that their actions today will be remembered and judged for centuries to come…
When Does a Nuclear Disaster End? Never.
http://www.activistpost.com/2011/03/when-does-nuclear-disaster-end-never.html
@ Level One
“@All Catholics — I love and pray for you as I do all of my enemies. Please Please Please find a Bible and read it and know it and don’t make the same mistake the Jews did in relying on the twisted words of men.”
Thanks for clearing that up for us. Yeah, we’ll discount your words because they’ve been delivered to us by you, a man.
In the future “we Catholics” will try and be reasonable and see it your way. BTW – Catholics don’t see the need as the Evangelicals do, to be “Born Again” because we understood the message from the start. Put that in your born again Bible and thump it.
BRAVO to Glory B!
Your poem is moving and penetrating.
Only two ways for the Jews;
The present solution is to repent and be saved.
The final solution is at the Final Judgment.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
Jewish-supremacism-my-awakening-on-the-Jewish-question
David Duke’s book in full text:
http://jewise.wordpress.com/jewish-supremacism-my-awakening-on-the-jewish-question/
Dear Donna Chestergimli,
When Adam and Eve chewed and swallowed the fruit, they of course did not die immediately. But mortality entered their bodies and their very DNA. Their soul became polluted and corrupted by sin. They lost intercourse with God and became alienated from Him. They could not see Him with they physical eyes anymore. Before they transgressed, their bodies were immortal and not subject to pain, suffering, disease, or death.
We cannot blame the Jews for the divisions among the Christians. Unfortunately, the divisions are real and profound. Do not underestimate the power of faith and conviction. It is how people perceive reality and view the world.
Conviction is so powerful that the same entity, for example the state of Isra-hell, can be perceived as utterly evil by some, and the apple of God’s eye by others.
Faith, doctrine, and conviction has a very profound effect on the perception of reality.
The Christians are divided because their ancestors succumbed to the devil. Some became were proud, thinking they could “improve” or “update” the Faith delivered by God once to the Apostles.
They are divided because some pursued earthly power, wealth, and prestige. They are divided because some loved the world and all its pride more than the Living God.
The Jews exploit our divisions, and aggravate them, but it is their master the devil who was at the origin of these divisions, because he found some Christians who were willing to cooperate with him.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
Dear Michael Kelley,
You are absolutely right. The Jews are not so much of a genetic race anymore as they are a religio-political entity, driven by culture and religion, and reinforced by the most vile and lower instincts of fallen human nature.
Conviction in the Judaic (Talmudic) lore and tradition is what makes a person a Jew. It is not the DNA or their birth. If a Jew is adopted at young age, he/she will be an average human being, free of all the psychopathic and sociopathic ills of the Jews (other than the genetically inherited disease that are common among the Jews).
It you look at the phenotypes of Jews in Occupied Palestine, you will see they are a hodge podge of races (like the US). You have European, North African, Middle Eastern, Ethiopian, and even Indian types, and they all believe themselves to be JEWS.
Conviction, culture, and religion are more dominant than blood.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
Dear Michael Kelley,
It is very important to note that the Israeli authorities never investigated the murder of Martyr Philoumenos at Jacob’s well.
No investigation was made and no indictments. The murderers are still at large to this day.
This is one of many lessons in practical Talmud life in Isra-hell; if a Jew kills a non-Jew, no one is at guilty.
If vice versa, the non-Jew should be punished.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
There is only ONE without sin!!!
“Call no one your spiritual Father, for you have ONE in heaven.” Peter never came to Rome, he was martyred at the “Siege of Jerusalem” and his tomb is there in a Franciscan Monastery.
The children of the U.K. and the police of America are being prepared for the false Alien Deception, does anyone know about Project Blue Beam?
Open your eyes good people and be ready, get onto Yaweh’s team before it is too late. God bless.
Jews are not a race evidenced by the Aryan looking Crypto-Jew and there’s the whole messy subject of the Ethiopian Jews that Israel keep out of sight.
Jews are not a religion either as most proudly announce themselves as atheists.
Jews are a business organization, an organized crime syndicate.
Why do you think Christ flipped over the moneychangers tables – which BTW is what got him nailed to the cross. They didn’t care one iota about heresy or proclaiming that he was the son of God. It was his objections to usury.
Never ever get between a Jew and his shekels (which are his god). Not even Christ the Lord, who did do that, was immune to the consequences.
Dear Level One,
I agree with you that the Christians are the Chosen People and that they are true Israelites, not only spiritually but also physically.
But the reason I agree with you may not be the same. There is no historic or other evidence that the Europeans are descendants of the lost 10 tribes.
Orthodoxy however teaches and believes that our bodies become physically part of the Body of Christ, because we ingest His True Body and Blood in Holy Communion. Baptism by complete immersion 3 times in water in the name of the Holy Trinity, followed by chrismation (the anointing with oil), cleanses the body and soul, seals them with the gift of the Holy Spirit, and makes them newly illumined and Isarelite indeed.
This is a divine mystery that cannot be proven “scientifically.” It is solidly based on the Biblical revelation of our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ.
This is the reason why the Christ-ians are the Chosen People.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
To Level One.
I have demonstrated that the Jews have distorted and changed the original text of the Old Testament with a palimpsest of multiple emendations, which is what the present Masoretic Text really is.
I have also demonstrated that the Septuagint, used exclusively by the Orthodox Church, is the correct original text, which is used in all OT quotes in the New Testament.
For example:
St. Steven the Proto-Martyr says in Acts 7:14 that a total of 75 souls went down with Jacob to Egypt, including Joseph and his family.
Acts 7:[14] Then sent Joseph, and called his father Jacob to him, and all his kindred, threescore and fifteen souls.
The Masoretic text (MT) contradicts the NT and says 70 souls.
Genesis 46:27 (MT) All the souls of the house of Jacob, which came into Egypt, were threescore and ten.
The SEPTUAGINT (LXX), however, gives the correct number, the same as in the New Testament.
Genesis 46:27 (LXX) All the souls of the house of Jacob who came with Joseph into Egypt, were seventy-five souls.
Food for thought!
Since the Jews distorted the OT, they would also surely strive to distort the NT, with their allies, the wayward “churchians,” the liberals, atheists, and humanists.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
Yes, VOX, you hit the nail on the head!
Jews are a tribal atavistic organized crime syndicate.
Not a race, not a religion.
They have the ultimate philosophy of materialism and usury.
Stav,
Being born without sin does not in any way have anything to do with loss of free will.
Adam and Eve were both made without sin. Yet both were still able to exercise their free will . They still chose to sin.
Even a child can see that.
You are the one who doesn’t get it my friend.
Thats why the life of Mary and Jesus had to reflect that original state of innocence of our First parents in the Garden of Eden to produce a better outcome from our original parents and thus save their spiritual children, through the Holy Spirit especially but not soley those who know and believe in them through the Word of God.
Jesus coud not come without Mary’s freely given “Yes”
Capish?
@ VOX
Prayers from me, hatred from you, thanks for answering my prayers.
Go right ahead and pay your way in.
I was born of God and didn’t have to be born again. You don’t get it. Prayerfully you will, before the Bible thumps you.
http://www.familyradio.com/index2.html
http://www.the-latter-rain.com/bible-study-guidelines.html
http://www.wecanknow.com/
Any time we stray away from the authority of the Bible and we begin to trust men, we are putting ourselves in the position to be snared by Satan.
@Andrew Jackson
I’ll agree with you on your points of choice to accept Christ and become chosen. I didn’t satisfy that point in my words. The point being, when Jacob’s sons left Egypt, they spread out, populating the world, thus the lost tribes, which we are a part of.
The new covenant with Jesus is a rallying cry to bring us all together and Love God and Love Each other, His two most important commandments to keep. We were “lost for a reason,” all part of God’s plan. DNA testing will bring this story current in the future.
Of course to scientifically prove something weakens the faith, as science has done historically and rapidly as Jesus second coming approaches. And you can call me ignorant or whatever, but I believe Genesis to the core.
I’m totally against evolutionism and its shortcomings and lies. I don’t casually intermingle the two (evolution and creation).
Thanks for your insight and God be with you.
@ VOX
Too bad we disagree on one thing and agree on so many others. I don’t hate catholics or the church, just what has become of it; i.e. in line with what Donna Chestergimli writes above.
Either way — God Be With You and Bless You VOX
@ Vox
“@ DWC
Special Just for you: Gene Simmons on the Mike Douglas Show 1974
Take note beginning at 2:13 the Jewess sitting next to him remarks: “Wouldn’t it be funny if under this he was just a nice Jewish boy? You can’t hide the hook!” – Vox
Back in the 60s-70s Jews would keep that stuff quiet about “Their Jewish background” especially pop and rock performers: Simmons, Geddy Lee (Rush), David Lee Roth, Jeff Beck, Dylan, Marc Bolan (T-Tex singer), Slash (Guns and Roses), Neil Dimond, and there are many more.
I think Keith Moon of The Who was half? Ringo is half, I believe, there are a lot of them in England.
I use to think Springsteen was one, but he is Irish and Dutch, like myself.
Now they brag about it, like Simmons, you notice on Mike Douglas, he was embarrassed when the hag brought it up, back then.
DWC
Some believe the Ethiopian Jews were Ishmaelites, some Cushites, Medes?
And some believe they became dark because of the sun. Any word on this from anyone? Moses’ wife, Zipporah was a Mede and very dark, supposedly from the land of Cush, in Northern Africa.
Just curious, not trying to ruffle feathers. Reproof?
@ Level One
March 28, 2011 @ 3:51 pm
You were snarky in your first message and then repentant in your second?
Again there’s no need for divisions on this board. Christians are all of the same family. Catholics are not to blame for the sins of the Church.
You’ll get no argument from any Catholic about the homosexual and pedophile clergy. It was absolutely despicable and inexcusable and the Church was completely unrepentant. Nuff said. However, what the Church did is no reflection on Catholicism or the teachings of Christ through the Church.
I as a Catholic know this far better than you. It was a complete disgrace and traitorous against me as a Catholic and I can not absolve the Church of that which it shows no remorse for. Nuff said? Now are we done?
@ DWC
By way of deception thou shalt do war – that’s their motto.
That’s why they used to always change their names so as to blend in to the population in order to more easily subvert it.
Now they know they have the major seats of power and can gloat about it.
The real reason that the Jews are our masters is because the Christians have left their Master Christ and followed the strange gods of heresy.
It will take a long time for people to humbly realize this truth. We cannot blame the Jews for ALL our ills. This is also what the Muslims do.
To Oxymoron,
We are not born with personal sins, neither are we guilty of the sins of our ancestors, all the way to Adam. Nor are we personally guilty of the “Original Sin” of Adam and Eve.
We are born with the TENDENCY to sin. This is called fallen human nature.
The Holy Theotokos was born with this same human nature and tendency. To her credit, she chose not to sin, unlike the rest of us.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
To Oxymoron,
Christ and His Holy Mother had our fallen human nature. They did not have the pre-lapsarian nature of Adam and Eve before the Fall.
God in His Divine Person of the Logos, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, joined himself intimately to human nature, without division or confusion.
What was not assumed by Christ was not redeemed. This is why monothelitism is a heresy; it says that Christ had no human will, which means that human free will was not redeemed by Christ on the Cross.
It is a grave error to think of Christ and the Theotokos as having human nature in its state before the Fall. That makes them completely outside our humanity. It makes them alien to us. It means they do not share our present broken human condition.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
Dear Level One,
It is very likely that all Christians have Hebraic blood in their ancestry, especially the Christians around the Mediterranean basin, because the majority of the early Christians were Hebrews.
It is also highly likely that the 10 lost tribes of the northern Kingdom of Israel, after their exile by the Assyrians, mixed with the peoples of Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, Anatolia, the Caucus, Persia, Central Asia, and migrated from there and/or the Caucus to Europe. This is all likely but hard to prove. We know that the Germanic, Slavic, Hungarian, and other tribes migrated to Europe predominantly from Scythia (today the Ukraine) in different waves over several centuries.
Myself, for one, being of Syrian descent, know that I have Hebraic blood. My paternal grandmother was a Christian of the Azar family, a form of the name Lazarus.
But this is secondary. The main thrust is this:
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.” (John 6;53)
I believe honest science strengthens and agrees with the True Faith. Much science shows that the earth is less than 10,000 years old. This is suppressed by the establishment, of course.
Please study it here over the next few weeks:
http://evolutionfacts.com/Evolution-handbook/E-H-4a.htm
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
Dear Level One,
The Ethiopian Jews are genetically and overwhelmingly Ethiopian. However, they have a few drops of Hebraic blood in them, from the migration of a group of Israelite refugees during the invasion of Nebuchednazzar in the 6th century BC.
They also claim that these refugees managed to take with them the Ark of the Covenant from the First Temple right before its destruction by the Chaldeans, and fled with it to Egypt, then up the Nile to the Elephantine Island in the upper Nile, and from there to Axum, in northern modern Ethiopia, just south of the border with Eritrea.
The ruler of the Axum Kingdom was converted to Christianity by St. Frumentius in the 4th century. The majority of the Ethiopian Jews were also converted into Orthodox Christianity. However, under the influence of the Copts in Egypt, they did not accept the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD, and became Monophysites, even though they still call themselves the “Ethiopian Orthodox Church.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axum
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
If thats what monothelitism says , that Christ had no human will, then why are you throwing it it with what I said, which is clearly that he did, except to discredit my argument by association. This makes you look like a coniver.
you say
-It is a grave error to think of Christ and the Theotokos as having human nature in its state before the Fall. That makes them completely outside our humanity. It makes them alien to us. It means they do not share our present broken human condition.-
There is no theological basis for your assertion.
A state of sin is not a characteristic of humanity, it is a disease of humanity. The doctor does not cure the patient by acquiring the disease.
Christ was like us in all things but sin. That is the teaching of the church, of St Paul, and of Christ himself.
Quote
“A state of sin is not a characteristic of humanity”
This applies to the effect of original sin on mankind also.
It is not a characteristic of mankind it is still the effect of disease.
Capish?
Dear oxymoron,
There is a theological basis for Andrew Jackson’s assertion that Christ and Mary both inherited fallen human nature. A syllogism:
1.) The wages of sin is death.
2.) The Blessed Virgin and Jesus Christ each died a mortal death.
3.) Both the Blessed Virgin and Jesus Christ paid the wages of sin.
4.) Therefore both had sin nature or they could not have died.
Capish?
@ all @ Vox
Another amendment or rule Obama will throw in the trash, just like being a natural born citizen, to be president.
Next step is to remove our ability to protect ourselves, like they did in communist Russia and China.
Vox, you already see the stereotype on TV all the time of the gun toting White racist, with two teeth left, and living in a trailer park. Fat beer gut, and carrying a shotgun.
Furious, because his little princess is dating some kind of minority and they show him wanting to take out his anger on the world.
They do the same thing in England and the rest of the world.
Take away and destroy White Christian rights.
http://www.spearhead.com/0405-jt4.html
Obama Leaning toward More Gun Control
by Jeff Davis
The Obama administration has always had three main objectives: Obamacare, (seizing control of one sixth of the American economy and turning it into a Democrat patronage slush fund), “immigration reform” (the Amnesty and voter registration of 20 to 30 million illegal alien Mexicans to ensure perpetual power for the Democrat party) and gun control (making sure White Americans do not have the means to resist the tyranny the Democrats want to create.)
The Huffington Post reports: “The Obama administration has conducted informal discussions with groups from both ends of the gun-policy spectrum, including law enforcement and gun-rights organizations, and is set to hold formal meetings as early as this week in an effort to chart out a set of new firearms policies, administration officials say.”
Since the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution clearly states that “the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” there is no need for any administration to have a “policy” on it. The question is settled for good and all –for anyone who can read and who respects the US Constitution, much like that passage in the Constitution that requires the president to be a natural born US citizen.
The article notes “Spearheaded by the Department of Justice, the talks were described by one individual involved in the discussions as a feeling-out process.
With more official meetings set to begin shortly, they provide the clearest indication to date that the White House is readying a response to the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and 19 others at Tucson in early January.
‘As the president said, we should focus on sound, effective steps that will keep guns out of the hands of the criminals, fugitives, people with serious mental illness, and others who have no business possessing a gun and who are prohibited by laws on the books from owning a gun,’ Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.”
The law already prohibits mentally ill people and felons from owning a gun. It would be trivial to set up a government “800″ number so that anyone selling a gun can make sure the buyer isn’t mentally ill or an ex-felon. Why isn’t this done?
There are two reasons: (1).The Democrats are concerned about protecting the privacy and “rights” of felons and the mentally ill (who tend to vote Democrat) and (2).the Democrats want a certain amount of gun violence in the US to “justify” gun control laws.
The article goes on “The goal is to finalize a set of policy changes, including, perhaps, legislation that could pass through a Congress hostile to abridgments of Second Amendment rights.”
I hope Obama is foolish enough to try to pass a gun control law. White Americans could use a reminder why they should never trust the Democrats.
DWC
Apostle Paul to the Romans:
“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus [by faith and baptism], who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
“For the law of the Spirit [the new humanity united with Christ and energized by the Spirit] of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death [humanity united with mortal Adam and under the power of sin and death].
“For what the law [of Moses] could not do in that it was weak through the flesh [the weakness of human nature, which is not inherently sinful but is taken captive by sin (Rom. 7:14-25)], GOD DID BY SENDING HIS OWN SON IN THE LIKENESS OF SINFUL FLESH, ON ACCOUNT OF SIN: HE CONDEMNED SIN IN THE FLESH, THAT THE RIGHTEOUS REQUIREMENT OF THE LAW MIGHT BE FULFILLED IN US WHO DO NOT WALK ACCORDING TO THE FLESH BUT ACCORDING TO THE SPIRIT. – Romans 8:1-4.
The law of Moses and human nature are fulfilled by the Incarnation. For the Son took on flesh, human nature as beset with troubles. Aided by the power of the Spirit Christ did not sin, for He was only in the likeness of our sinfulness.
Moreover, it was by the flesh and in the Spirit that Christ condemned sin, destroying its power for believers. In Him the flesh, human nature, by the divine power of the Spirit, is the victor, crowned with honor.
Christ is God Incarnate: He became flesh, that is human — thereby sanctifying human flesh and reuniting all humanity to God. According to Orthodox doctrine, Jesus Christ is perfect God and perfect Man. (Luke 1:26-38; John 1:1-14; Phil 2:5-7).
‘Kenosis’ — Literally “emptying,” the word is associated with humility or humiliation. God the Word humbled Himself by becoming man (with no change in His divinity), assuming true human flesh as beset by troubles, suffering death on the Cross for the world and its salvation (Phil 2:5-8).
Oxymoron, please notice that Apostle Paul does does not say “…God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of Adam’s pre-fallen flesh…” but clearly states that the Lord’s Incarnation was in the likeness of sinful flesh.
Dear oxymoron,
Furthermore, to extrapolate our example:
1.) Christ’s human nature bore all of the sins of man on the cross to redeem man from those sins.
2.) Christ’s human nature was made forfeit for the payment, not his eternal nature (the Trinity did not lose a member).
3.) Christ’s human nature was holding all of the sins of man through the mechanism of original sin, which he inherited at birth from the Blessed Virgin, who inherited it from Adam and Eve.
4.) Christ had to live an individually sinless life, while bearing the full weight of sin, or his death on the cross would have been only a payment for His sins.
5.) If Christ had not perfectly borne sin all the way to the cross, then sin could not have been crucified there once and for all, undoing Adam’s curse.
6.) Christ’s human nature managed a feat never before witnessed, to impeccably bear every sin through the most flagrant and gratuitous temptations, and yet to never succumb even in the slightest to a fall from grace.
7.) Christ’s perfect divine nature was not crucified as sin, as that is an oxymoron.
@ DWC
One of the paramount achievements in taking power from Whites was a real subtle and almost unnoticeable change in how cops/police are now referred to as “Law Enforcement.”
Jews, the Neo-Conservatives and their Neo-Liberal foot soldiers ushered in this change in this last decade where cops have been granted a “diety” status. Above us peons, not servants of the people but masters over them.
Again the malleable, middle aged, Oprah-watching, western female, paints herself up and attend a cop’s funeral as a “fallen soldier” or a “wounded warrior.” Cops have always been dumb thugs, tax collectors and nothing more. A gang of thugs only a mere stones throw from the urban Black terrorist in ethics and morality.
However, now one must “obey” every thing the cop blurts out of his or her mouth as a mandate – a curbside arrest, trial, conviction, and subsequent sentencing because Officer Bluto doesn’t think you’re telling him the truth and his senses are unquestionable accurate. His temperament and morals are irreproachable as he’s got the blue suit of authority.
Michael Kelly.
No I don’t capish.
And this is why.
Jesus paid for OUR sins by Him who was blameless, which means sinless, accepting the punishment for OUR sins- which was suffering and death on a cross.
HE DIDN’T DIE FOR HIS SINS AS YOU INFER AS TO WHY HE HAD TO DIE, EVEN HIS INHERITED SIN AS YOU CLAIM
HE DIED FOR OUR SINS.
THAT IS THE MEANING OF ATONEMENT
If as you say He had to die because he inherited the stain of original sin, then there is no atonement; there is simply the original justice of God carried through to its natural conclusion.
Capish?
KathJuliane you seem to be arguing with yourself.
Quote:
“Jesus Christ is perfect God and perfect man. (Luke 1:26-38; John 1:1-14; Phil 2:5-7).
Perfect man is man without any taint of sin, both original, inherited from Adam and sins committed.
That is unarguable.
In the likeness of sinful flesh and as a sin offering, he hath condemned sin in the flesh.”
This does not mean that Jesus was tainted by original sin, otherwise there would be no “sin offering” and he would not be empowered to “condemn sin in the flesh.”
You are looking at Scripture with the eyes of sinful flesh, therefore you do not understand it.
“In the likeness of sinful flesh means that Jesus suffered all the weakness and privations of the flesh that was brought on by the fall.”
It is taken for granted by Paul that his reader understand that Jesus was not himself tainted in his soul, which we are, when we are born, which is the meaning of original sin.
This is taken for granted because it is well understood. Paul has no need to point out to his audience the meaning of his words, which I have just done.
All Christians knew Christ was born without sin, and the words which follow prove it.
.”.as a sin offering, he hath condemned sin in the flesh.”
A sin offering is an innocent victim offered in the place of the sin to atone for the sin and remove the punishment due to sin.
In the Old Testament the sin offering was a dove or a sheep or a goat which were sinless but offered in atonement for the sins of those making the offering.
Jesus Christ is the sin offering, the innocent lamb, just like the lamb in the Old Testament had no part in the sin for which it was atoning.
The difference is that Jesus Christ took on the LIKENESS of sinful man. Like us in all things but the sin itself.
Capish?
Dear oxymoron,
I did not properly infer that he died for his own sins (which would have nullified his sacrifice as an offering of atonement for original sin), just for sin itself.
The problem with your theological construct is that it does not explain any mechanism by which our sins were transferred to Him.
If he was perfect, pre-lapsarian and without sin, you must explain where and how he picked up the burden of sin. Did the cross transfer it to him? How does an inanimate object do so?
Did God invisibly and without detection pick up all of man’s sins from him and place them upon Christ at the moment of crucifixion? How does one prove this, as it was invisible and undetectable?
Another fallacy you offer without support is that ‘blameless’ and ‘sinless’ mean the same thing, theologically. They do not. He was blameless because he never succumbed to the natural temptation to sin which he bore.
If he was not bearing sin, wherefore the temptation? That which is perfect and divine can not know temptation to sin, because it is alien to the divine nature. Yet Scripture says he was tempted repeatedly. How is this possible?
I hope you can explain the paradoxical way in which that which is divine and perfect in nature picks up any enough affinity with sin to bear all of it.
You state the truth yourself, but you refuse to acknowledge that you already hold the answer: “…there is simply the original justice of God carried through to its natural conclusion.”
The final conclusion of death itself in believing mankind, which was the consequence of God’s original justice, is Christ’s great victory. The atonement is that this makes it possible for God and man to be eternally re-united, “At-one.”
The mechanism of transference of the consequences of sin to Christ is just that. He bears upon Himself the PUNISHMENT due to us for our sins.
This was ultimately expressed by the cross but Christ’s entire life was an atonement for our sin.
This is why He spent 30 years in the carpenters workshop. Atoning with the sweat of his brow; accepting povery and hardship and all the slings and arows of life under the Adamic curse.
Capish?
QUOTE:
“IF HE WAS NOT BEARING SIN , WHEREFORE THE TEMPTATION?”
Again you fall into the trap of Kathjuliane. Looking at the problem from their point of view of the sinner.
Adam and Eve had no sin, yet they were tempted and succumbed to temptation.
It is ridiculous to correlate temptation with a prior state of sinning.
Temptation simply refers to the free will, not to sin.
Only when you give in to temptation do you sin.
Capish?
If I have left anything out please fill me in.
My dear brother in Christ, Oxymoron,
Orthodoxy teaches that the Divine Person (hypostasis in Greek) of the Logos took on our human nature (physis), thus joining His divine nature with our human nature in One Divine Person, while keeping the properties of each nature distinct, without confusing or dividing the 2 natures.
Monophysitism says that the Divine Person of the Logos assumed human nature, but that His human nature was absorbed in His divine nature.
Monothelitism was a compromise with monophysitism. It says that Christ’s had a distinct human nature except that He had only a divine will, with no human will.
But how can He be a complete human being without a human free will? This was the great controversy of the 7th century which was resolved at the Sixth Ecumenical Council, in Constantinople, 681 AD, and where patriarchs and popes were anathematized for teaching this heresy (among them pope Honorius of Rome).
The argument of the Fathers is that Christ was a complete man, therefore with a human will. His human free will however voluntarily cooperated with His divine will. They argued also that, what is not assumed in the incarnation is not redeemed. This is one of the universally accepted reasonings of the Church, championed by St. Athanasius the Great.
Now, if Christ assumed our un-fallen (or pre-lapsarian) nature, which is the nature of Adam and Eve before the Fall, it means that He did not redeem our fallen nature by His blood on the Cross, but rather our pre-lapsarian nature, which needed no saving from sin and death, because it was created incorrupt by God from the beginning.
And yes, the Fathers also say that the Great Physician took on Himself our disease, which is our corrupt nature, and redeemed it.
Christ took the disease of humanity, as you called it, and healed it with His sacrifice on the Cross. It is a mystery, which the Holy Spirit taught the Fathers of the Early Church.
Christ did not commit any sins; He was however incarnate in a sinful human nature with a tendency to sin. Did He not hunger? Did He not thirst? Did He not get tired? Was His body not mortal? These are the qualities of fallen human nature, because these characteristics were not created in Adam and Eve in Paradise.
This fallen nature is the exact same nature, blood, and DNA that He took from His Mother. He rearranged the chromosomes, and instead of two X chromosomes, He took one X, and made for Himself a Y chromosome.
This is no problem for Him, since He created Adam out of mud, and cloned Eve out of Adam’s rib, which had plenty of DNA and bone marrow stem cells to work with.
This is why it is wrong to say that Christ and His Mother were “immaculately conceived,” or had no “original sin.”
The whole concept is baseless and erroneous.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
My dear brother in Christ, Oxymoron,
Please, let us distinguish 2 things:
– Individual occurrences of sins, such lying last Wednesday, or fornicating last Saturday. These, Christ and His Mother did NOT have.
– A sinful nature (fallen post-lapsarian human nature), which is the corruption of our DNA, our bodies and souls, our weakened will to resist temptations and sin, which makes us mortal. This Christ and the Theotokos DID have, which they inherited from Adam, like the rest of us.
If Christ and the Holy Virgin had no sinful fallen post-lapsarian human nature, then they would not have been mortal. They would have been indestructible, untouchable by hunger, thirst, weariness, disease, or death.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
Andrew Jackson,
I am not going to argue with you especially now that I know and can understand that you do not read my posts.
I use very little words, Mr Jackson, and very few words.
In them I have already refuted all your arguments.
Skip over a line here or there and you’ve missed them.
In God’s Holy Name.
The ox
Mary was conceived without sin.
This has been the general consensus of the entire Catholic church of God from day one.
It was only promulgated as a doctrine as the need arose to combat heresy, and the attacks of the devil in the Modern era.
The first ship to LAND IN THE NEW WORLD courtesy Christopher Columbus was named Santa Maria d’Immaculate Conception. This was by Divine Providence.
Many Indians, and this has been proven from historical accounts and records in the USA were first converted by a ‘flying nun’ who bilocated from a convent in Spain under the command of God in the Seventeenth century.
The convent was the convent of Mary the immaculate conception.
I could give you hundreds of examples from the very beginnings of the church before the separation of the two churches.
The feast of the Immaculate Conception is a Holy Day of Obligation in no other country in the world but the United States.
The National shrine in Washington is named after Mary the Immaculate Conception.
Our Lady is the patron saint of the USA under her title the Immaculate Conception.
Above I have given you all the argument and proof necessary. You can ignore it as you have but it still stands.
Mary is the Immaculate Conception and no power on earth can alter the fact.
When the Pope promulgated the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception in the latter half of the nineteenth century to combat the heresy of modernism, Our Lady appeared so soon after it was like a lightning bolt out of the blue to confirm the doctrine.
The Apparition site is known universally as Lourdes and you would be straining credulity to have not heard of it.
The Title by which Our Lady referred to herself to poor Bernadette who had never even heard of it was in response to her repeated question. “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
Bernadette died at a very young age. Her body remained largely intact.
She was canonized by the Catholic church and Lourdes in France is probably the better known of all the apparition sites, of which there are many hundreds, in the world.
Dear Donna C,
You wrote: “… many foolish protestants support the synagogue of Satan. Having all of us divided and fighting each other makes it a lot easier for the Jews to pick all of us off. So despite our differences, we all need to stick together for Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
I agree with you in most respects, except I have a question: Didn’t “His Holiness” himself, Pope Benedict XVI, “support the synagogue of Satan” when he absolved the Jews of the death of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” Didn’t “His Holiness” fall into the trap set by the Jews?
I am a Protestant Christian, and I think I am not foolish. I love Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and I oppose the evil acts of the satanic Jews. And all sincere Christians should do likewise.
So, my brothers and sisters, RealZionistNews is now RealSundaySchoolLessons.
Far out of whack to me. Just saying…:-)
One other thing:
“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” (Not confusion.)
Please, think about how a seeker of Truth will feel visiting here.
Dear in Christ, Glory B,
As you pointed out, Ratzinger is denying a basic Gospel truth by absolving the Jews of deicide. He is betraying God and forfeiting his eternal salvation “for fear of the Jews.”
Do they have a gun to his head? Even if they did, he ought to be a hero and a martyr for the sake of the salvation of his own soul and those of billions with him. Ratzinger is a man-pleaser and apostate. He also lies to the Jews and himself by telling them they are still in covenant with God and need not repent and accept Christ to be saved.
He is clearly contradicting St. Peter, who says:
“Ye men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, .. ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.” (Acts 2:22-23)
And also:
“Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said: We ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.” (Acts 5:29-30)
Who should we believe? St. Peter in the Holy Scriptures, or a sycophant?
The popes have been preaching a false Gospel for 10 centuries. They invented an angry God who was personally offended at man’s sin, Who has human passions like a feudal lord, and Who demanded satisfaction through the blood of His Son.
They consigned all the unbaptized automatically to hell, even though millions did not ever hear the Gospel, both before and after Christ. No wonder many Catholics rebelled and became protestants or atheists. They made God into a monster.
The popes empowered the Jews, and profited from their collusion with the Jews. They gave them the monopoly of usury with which they enslaved the Christians, while at the same time, the popes prohibited the Christians from usury. If they had the fear of God, the popes should have prohibited usury to all, Jews and Christians alike, as the Scriptures commands.
But for filthy lucre, the popes have enslaved their own people by granting the monopoly of usury to the Jews. This is a FUNDAMENTAL BETRAYAL of Christ’s Chosen People, and a great service to the synagogue of Satan, courtesy of the POPES of ROME.
This the ROOT PROBLEM why the Jews have controlled money and finance for so many centuries in the West.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
Dear oxymoron,
First, I owe you an apology for both confusing your argument and conflating pre-lapsarian nature which is capable of being tempted with divine nature, which is not. I realize now that you are ascribing only incorrupt pre-lapsarian nature to Jesus Christ. Sorry, I’m not right in putting words in your mouth, my bad.
So, narrowing it down a bit to only your actual immaculate conception argument, I believe it can be syllogized as follows:
1.) Christ had to have pre-lapsarian nature in order to be untainted by original sin and thus be a perfect sin-offering.
2.) Christ couldn’t be born untainted by original sin unless his mother was untainted by sin as well, or she would have tainted him with her blood.
3.) Therefore, the Virgin Mary must have been born without original sin as well, before Christ could be born.
Do I capish?
But if we validate this logic completely, it means that the venerable Anna, mother of the Blessed Virgin would have tainted Mary with her original sin while sharing her blood with her through the umbilicus, unless she herself was without original sin.
Conversely, if you can think up any logical way around this problem it would also apply to Christ and Mary, as well as to Mary and Anna, and hence there would be no need for the Blessed Virgin to have a nature free from original sin. I doubt you can find an answer that satisfies the criteria of your own logic.
Again, I think your arguments rely upon something like, “then God did an invisible, undetectable, unique miracle (and therefore there was no mention of it in Scripture) which followed no particular logic or rules, but he can do that because He is God.”
Secondly, let’s look at your answer to the question of how all of mankind’s sins were picked up by Christ, who had no original sin and committed no sinful acts:
oxymoron: “The mechanism of transference of the consequences of sin to Christ is just that.”
MK: Just what? The mechanism is the mechanism? The transference of the consequences is the mechanism?
oxymoron: “He bears upon Himself the PUNISHMENT due to us for our sins. This was ultimately expressed by the cross but Christ’s entire life was an atonement for our sin. This is why He spent 30 years in the carpenters workshop. Atoning with the sweat of his brow; accepting povery and hardship and all the slings and arrows of life under the Adamic curse.”
MK: Here it looks like the mechanism which transfers our sins to Christ is the act of punishment itself. We’re looking for the mechanism here, not its consequences (which I don’t argue). So, unless you can explain it better, I must assume that you mean that the punishment of living a normal life and then being killed was the mechanism which transferred original sin onto Him because it was sort of stuck all over Him without ever being inside Him. Therefore, he was bearing original sin as one bears a wound or a defilement, but not as a part of His inherited nature.
Your argument is superficially logical, but it has a few problems:
1.) If living an ordinary life and being beaten, whipped and nailed to a cross transfers some sin onto Christ externally, like a wound or defilement, how does it transfer ALL of the sins of mankind for all ages?
I don’t think he got hurt nearly enough to pay, on a eye for eye basis, for even a tiny fraction of mans’ sin-debt. He would have been reduced to a little stain on the sidewalk before he even paid for a few hundred mens’ sins by such a mechanism.
2.) So if the punishment itself transferred the debt of original sin onto Christ, how did he pay for more than one traitor’s sin-debt by being crucified just once?
3.) If the punishment is the mechanism for transferring sin-debt onto Christ, was he then just paying for the sins of the individuals who hurt Him? If not, how did they get the power to bear all mankind’s sins so that they could transfer them all to Christ by punishing Him?
4.) If we want to have Christ take the burden of our personal sins, should we imagine ourselves beating them into Him?
In my opinion you have an insurmountable task ahead of you if you mean to explain your views without resorting to, “then God did an invisible, undetectable, unique miracle (and therefore there was no mention of it in Scripture) which followed no particular logic or rules, but he can do that because He is God.”
Peace in Christ.
A Good Read:
http://www.cgg.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Library.sr/CT/PW/k/1441/Subtle-Devastating-Curse.htm
@ VOX — LIKE I SAID, HATE THE SIN, NOT THE SINNER
YES, we’re done
YEP
M. Kelly.
As far as your dissertation on the Christ goes;
“Brood of vipers, who hath shown you how to flee from the wrath to come?
Bring forth fit fruit of repentance; and think not to say within yourselves, “we have Abraham for father”: for I say to you that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Yea even now the axe is laid unto the root of the trees; every tree therefore that is not bringing forth good fruit is to be cut down and cast into the fire.”
As for what I believe is your twisting of the truth regarding the Virgin ‘s birth. It was God who granted Mary a conception free from the stain of sin. It only needed Anne and Joachim to co-operate with God’s act of grace. IWhich they did. It did not require them to act as gods themselves in granting her this. Capish?
The greatness of Mary is equalled only by her humility.
The greatness of the BVM is equalled only by her humility.
For we walk by faith.
The Pope bashers really need to quote his exact words and in the proper context.
All we have over the internet is some else saying what the Pope said.
This is not sufficient to convict him in a court of law.
Therefore do not convict him in this mock trial you have engaged in without the proper evidence otherwise you are guilty of a serious offense against the commandment.
“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.”
From past experience this has always been the case.
What is reputed to have been said by the Pope bears no relation to what he actually did say.
For we walk by faith in that what is seen is but a shadow of that which is unseen.
Yes God did do great things for Mary.
As we read in the Gospels.
“Behold the handmaid of the Lord
Be it done unto me according to Thy word.”
And in another in the presence of her cousin Elizabeth she says:
My soul doth magnify the Lord,
And my spirit hath exalted in God my Saviour
because he hath exalted the lowliness of his handmaid;
yea behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed;
because He who is mighty hath wrought great things for me
and holy is his name.”
And remember the salutation of the angel Gabe.
“Hail Mary full of grace.”
Full of grace is not possible with the condition of original sin.
The angel was proclaiming to her this very fact.
Dear oxymoron,
‘If you can think up any logical way around this problem it would also apply to Christ and Mary, as well as to Mary and Anna, and hence there would be no need for the Blessed Virgin to have a nature free from original sin. I doubt you can find an answer that satisfies the criteria of your own logic.’
Example of an oxymoron: “It was God who granted Mary a conception free from the stain of sin. It only needed Anne and Joachim to co-operate with God’s act of grace.”
RE: If so, why doesn’t the same logic apply to the immaculate conception of Jesus Christ by the mere agreement of Mary (which is the truth)? Is it because “then God did an invisible, undetectable, unique miracle (and therefore there was no mention of it in Scripture) which followed no particular logic or rules, but he can do that because He is God.”?
oyxmoron: ‘As far as your dissertation on the Christ goes;
‘“Brood of vipers, who hath shown you how to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth fit fruit of repentance; and think not to say within yourselves, “we have Abraham for father”: for I say to you that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Yea even now the axe is laid unto the root of the trees; every tree therefore that is not bringing forth good fruit is to be cut down and cast into the fire.”’
RE: It sounds like pure hate to me. That’s the historical Catholic response to Orthodox theology, unfortunately. You haven’t refuted anything. You just skipped over the hard parts and went straight to my supposed imminent destruction.
Now do you want to beat your sins into me, so that my condemnation of your error will fall silent and you will be justified? Is this how sin-debt is transferred, as your heretical and nonsensical theology suggests? This is not Christianity, but Satanism at its core and the theology of continual human sacrifice to balance continual sin.
More on Tolerance
This morning, upon opening the inbox of my email account, I discovered an item declaring that the United States Postal Service has issued a stamp commemorating the Islamic holiday of Ramadan.
My first thought was, “Why in the world have they done this?” The outrage of the person who initiated the email quickly became apparent. He could hardly contain himself, citing the attacks against the World Trade Center, the Marine barracks in Lebanon, the USS Cole, and several others by terrorist enemies, all of whom are faithful to Islam.
He drew special attention to the large numbers of Americans killed and wounded in those attacks. These people are at war against us! He wondered how the American government could tolerate this enemy to such an extent that it would honor Islam with a commemorative stamp, yet that same government will not tolerate a monument listing the Ten Commandments on government properties!
The government can do this because many people in governmental positions perceive things far differently than we do. They are misguided by a multicultural value system that posits that all values, regardless of their source, are equal. Among these elites, absolutism in terms of right and wrong is out, and a system of values that can mean almost anything and everything is in.
Instruction from the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount is out, while Buddhism, Shintoism, Satan-worship, witchcraft, etc., are considered to have equal or higher moral value.
“Tolerance” has many usages in our culture. It indicates the practice of recognizing and respecting the others’ beliefs or practices. It also suggests leeway for variation from a standard, which often occurs in manufacturing when variables make it impossible to produce a part of exact dimensions every time. Thus, it can designate the permissible deviation from a specified dimension.
In medicine, it indicates resistance to a poison or the capacity to absorb a medication continuously. It is also used of a person’s ability to endure hardship or pain. Its synonyms, depending on the context, are “forbearing,” “charitableness,” “indulgence,” and “lenience.”
Tolerance involves some measure of permission, leniency, allowance, or acceptance of deviation from a standard. For example, one can be tolerant and make allowance for a child because he is too young or inexperienced to accomplish an act requiring great skill. We might also overlook the feeble output of an elderly person because he no longer has the strength and energy to work at a high capacity. We also might make generous allowance for an individual who expended a great deal of effort despite not having much to show for his labors.
When we look at belief systems, attitudes, and conduct, however, tolerance becomes a serious issue because it is God who sets the standards regarding morality.
He, more than any human, knows that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Sin is a deviation from His standards (I John 3:4). How much tolerance does He permit? As recorded in Genesis 3, only one deviation from His standard caused the death penalty to fall on Adam and Eve; thus the Bible says, “There is none righteous, no not one” (Romans 3:10). All have deviated from God’s standards.
At one time, the Protestant world would not tolerate practices having their source in paganism to infiltrate their worship of God. Among these were Christmas and Easter, as they are so obviously pagan, yet other pagan practices were also not acceptable.
These observances began to be tolerated within their assemblies on a small scale, but today, Christmas and Easter are so respected that they are accepted without question and celebrated with as much enthusiasm as the pagans did in their day. So accepted are they that Christmas-keepers now have to learn to tolerate those who may reject those festivities!
How can something like the acceptance of outright paganism be foisted off on a nominally Christian world that claims to worship Jesus Christ, even though biblical and secular evidence prove the claims are false? How can multiculturalism be foisted off on an entire nation that claims it was a Christian nation from its inception? The blame can be laid right at the feet of Satan, who in turn has worked his deception through unbelieving, deceived men.
His attack on the Western world has taken some time, perhaps more than a century or so. However, his aim was always to blunt the seriousness of sin to human life gradually, while at the same time denigrating and undermining the existence of God and His importance to human well-being.
Attacks were made in the churches themselves and schools, but the seeds of these movements were planted in seminaries and universities, the places that supplied the pastors and teachers of those attending churches and schools. Subtle pressure was always applied within the teachings to make those hearing more “tolerant.”
Is God tolerant of sin? Does He believe it is right and good that we should be unconcerned whether we commit sin or not? If God is tolerant of sin, then why does He command us to repent? If God is tolerant of sin, why was it necessary for His Son to die an excruciating death to save us from sin’s effects?
If God were tolerant of sin, His grace would be unnecessary because He could simply reward us regardless of our behavior. If God were tolerant of our loyalty—so that we are free to give it or deny it at our whim—then why does He demand that we love Him more than father, mother, sister, brother, and ourselves as well?
This world’s churches do not seem to realize they are dancing with the Devil when they make all sorts of worship accommodations to pagan beliefs, attitudes, and practices in order to attract attendance and increase income. “Tolerance” has been twisted to mean “love.” In some narrow circumstances, it indeed can be loving to be tolerant, but it can never be biblical love when sin is made to appear to be an acceptable deviation to God.
The Christian cannot pursue the love of God and acceptance of the world at the same time. God and the world are moving in totally different directions!
God is intolerant of sin because it is in our best interest that He be so, and that is love. It is His will that sin be exposed, confessed by the sinner, and repented of so God can forgive it. It is not to be tolerated for the sake of peace. That sort of “love” is really a form of hatred because it leads those given tolerance and others to their deaths! When Jesus Christ returns, He will rule with a rod of iron. He will make peace by demanding that sinners either repent or suffer the consequences.
The apostle Paul warns us in Colossians 2:8, “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according Christ.” Today’s multiculturalism has enveloped the world of morality within its fold and therefore the realm where God sets absolute standards. We cannot afford to permit this God-rejecting, nicey-nice approach to divert us to accepting its standards in regard to morality. That is a sure step into the world rather than escaping it clutches.
—John W. Ritenbaugh
Read more: http://www.sabbath.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Library.sr/CT/ESSAY/k/5906/subj/easter/More-on-Tolerance.htm#ixzz1I1Dev5ZV
I hate it when Christians argue amongst each other. Unite people. Anyway Jesus was spiritual & did not start up the Catholic Church as someone said above.
Christianity was borne out of His teachings. Coptic Christians (Egyptian Orthodox Church) is older than Catholicism. I may be wrong but common sense tells me many Middle Eastern and Oriental churches predate Catholicism.
Yes you are right Derek.
Roman Catholicism started in the 11th century.
Orthodoxy, in both East and West predates the Roman Catholic system.
As I mentioned earlier, and tragically, the divisions among Christians are deeper than many of us would admit. There is no freedom from the satanic grip of Judaism on us before we repent and seed the True Faith, which will empower us, like it did to the Israelites of the Old Testament.
We are the true Israelites of God, and without the True Faith, we have no power over our enemies.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
It’s important for any Christian to act in accordance to his/her faith.
The problem with Protestants is that they lack the ascetic nature of Orthodoxy, which makes people an easy spiritual bait for the Jews through one simple thing: Comfortable Christianity. And then follows sacrifice of faith to comfort in general – which is completely opposite to the Christian message.
Yes, they may ‘know’ the Bible (which I don’t personally believe) but seems like it’s not enough for a resilient faith.
Of course I’m generalizing, but tell me what is the reason why the so-called ‘Christian’ America spreads satanic culture around the world? Something must be really wrong within the population to accept satanic things as normal. That is why the US is on a verge of doom.
Why are Christians suddenly such an easy bait for the devil? Isn’t it supposed to be the opposite?
“I hate it when Christians argue amongst each other. Unite people. Anyway Jesus was spiritual & did not start up the Catholic Church as someone said above. ”
I do believe and hope that there will be some kind of unification ‘in the trenches’ as we fight, but if you’re talking in terms of dogmas, that is really complex. The differences are huge especially the more you learn about it in detail and people here would not argue for no reason.
But for this subject of this site, there is enough to unite and fight spiritually which will affect the culture and things that are acceptable or not. If you don’t accept the Jew’s materialistic culture, they will have nothing to feed on.
They need us, we don’t need them. The opportunities are endless.
You are absolutely right KC, on every point.
Please post these 2 comments on:
http://www.realzionistnews.com/?p=622
And
http://www.realzionistnews.com/?p=623
Where everyone is looking at this time.
In Christ Yahweh,
The God of the Old and New Testaments.
This is without doubt the best and most informative videos I have ever seen – certainly the most vitally important.
The Money masters 1/2. see both videos.
‘The Rothschilds exposed’ and what we can do about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKmqAX0Fqw0&feature=related.
I watched it on Google several years ago before it was taken down.
Its just been made available on You tube.
Enjoy it while you can.
68th verified miracle at Lourdes authenticates once more the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, under which title Our Lady appeared at Lourdes.
http://www.sconews.co.uk/news/7850/lourdes-healing-hailed-as-‘remarkable’/
But we already knew that. Thats why the largest Cathedral in the Western Hemisphere (until recently), is known as the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, in Washington DC.
See also the 2 comments at the bottom of the story.
Thank you for publicly exposing the dispensationalist/NWO conditioning Scofield-Untermeyer lie publicly. You are brilliant!
[Thank you, thank you for “Real Zionist News.” Saw this snippet on the net which you and your readers may find interesting.]
Pretrib Rapture in Stages !
BREAKING NEWS: Intensive and extensive and expensive and even pensive research has just discovered that the well-known pre-tribulation rapture is really and actually a SEVEN-stage coming. For proof look closely at I Thess. 4:13-18:
(1) The Lord descends.
(2) The shout.
(3) The archangel’s voice.
(4) The trumpet of God.
(5) The dead rise.
(6) The caught up (rapture).
(7) The meeting in the air.
I just left a space so you can fill it in with your gasps, shortness of breath, and clutching your heart.
Yes, it’s true – seven (count them) stages. Would I or anyone else try to kid you? Lindsey, LaHaye, Ice, Jeffrey, Van Impe, Hagee, Missler, Strandberg etc. would never TRY to kid you.
For proof of this, just Google articles like “Pretrib Rapture Diehards,” “Deceiving and Being Deceived,” “Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty,” “Pretrib Rapture – Hidden Facts” and “Pretrib Rapture Secrecy” – all by a secret writer known as D.M.
WARNING: The longer, unabridged version of the above is much too incendiary and bomb-laden for sensitive persons and could cause emotional and even physical damage.
But if you are up to it, you can see the entire article (“Pretrib Rapture: A Staged Event”) by visiting Google and typing in “Joe Ortiz’s END TIMES PASSOVER – August 2, 2010.”
It is a myth you are right.