Source: The National Herald
By Theodore Kalmoukos
Sister Christonymphi
BOSTON – The National Herald has learned that Sister Christonymphi Fitzpatrick, a nun at the St. Irene Chrysovalantou Patriarchal and Stavropegial Monastery in Astoria, NY, has left the monastic life and given a statement to the 114th Police Precinct on Saturday night November 6, 2010, where she revealed a great deal about the events that transpired in the monastery under the leadership of its abbot Metropolitan Paisios of Tyana throughout the years she spent there. TNH sources report that she gave a detailed account of licentious acts that included members of both sexes, some of whom were underage at the time that the events transpired. Sister Christonymphi also handed over to the authorities a briefcase containing approximately $500,000 in cash. At present, the 26-year-old nun has been taken to an unknown location to ensure her safety and protection, following police directives.
TNH spoke with Metropolitan Paisios, who declined to make any comment regarding Sister Christonymphi’s statement to the police. He clarified that that the money given by Sister Christonymphi to the authorities “is for the third floor we wanted to build.” He also stated that the approximate amount of money in the briefcase “should be around $285,000; something like that.” When asked why the funds were being held in cash, Metropolitan Paisios said “because we did not want them to be used.” Metropolitan Paisios also added that he knew nothing about Sister Christonymphi’s statement to the police.
Sister Christonymphi spoke to authorities for over seven hours from Sat. Nov. 6, 2010 at 6:30 p.m. until about 2:00 a.m. the next morning.
TNH File Photo
Sister Christonymphi, 26, born Catherine Fitzpatrick.
Sister Christonymphi, born Catherine Fitzpatrick, joined the St. Irene Chrysovalantou Monastery at age 14 and was tonsured a nun two years later by Metropolitan Paisios, when she was renamed Christonymhpi. She is the second of twelve children born to Rev. Jacob Fizpatrick, who is a celebrant at the St. Irene Chrysovalantou Monastery in Astoria and at its dependencies on occasion.
Bishop Vikentios, the deputy abbot of the monastery, declined to speak to TNH, saying “the issue relates to the abbot, I have no comment.”
The Queens County District Attorney’s office declined to comment on the investigation, explaining that “it is unlawful to give out information prior to the issuance of an arrest warrant,” and that “information can be given only after charges are brought before a defendant in court.” The Queens DA’s office also noted that the case will be handled by the U.S. Attorney’s office because the FBI and other federal agencies are involved in the investigations.
Rev. Fitzpatrick went to the police station upon learning that his daughter was giving a statement to authorites and waited for her until 2 a.m., to offer her moral and parental support.
Sister Christonymphi holds a Master’s Degree in Education and was the director of the St. Irene Chrysovalantou Kindergarten program.
According to TNH’s sources, Sister Christonymphi had spent the past three or four days at the home of friends in New Jersey, until she finally relented and decided to go to the police on Saturday to give a statement. Sister Christonymphi, who said she feared for her life, was taken to a secure location, and will give a statement to the patriarchal delegation that is expected to arrive in New York on Nov. 8th to investigate the issue on behalf of the Church.
God bless Sister Christonymphi. She will be in my prayers and is a model of courage.
Kevin, Amen. I can’t imagine the demonic forces that are going to be unleashed against her and those of us who are pursuing justice. St Nektarios of Aegina (whose feast day was yesterday) pray for us here in America.
Sister Christonymphi must be commended for having the courage to reveal much disgusting information to police about the immoral events that occurred at the monastery in which she was a nun in Astoria, NY.
I’m sure we will be hearing much more about this situation in the near future.
Lord keep our little sister safe and blessed. And all our sisters and brothers where ever they are.
May the Lord our God bless this very courageous and God fearing woman.May he give her the power and energy to master the storms ahead.May he bless her in his mercy.
As my denomination is greeck orthodox, i don’t want to exemine her testify, as i can’t change something.
so, i don’t want to doom that…
I am very familiar with the monastic track record of the GO in America. A few years back I was part of a television expose’ of Elder Ephraim. At the time of that investigation Bishop Gerasimos had assigned a parish priest in Az. to investigate the monastery. When that priest interviewed my wife and I he told us he thought he was dealing with a cult. All the bishops saw his report. It never saw the light of the day in public.
Today the Chicago parishes are divided over Elder following priests assigned to them. The reaction has been a war declared by those whose parishes were taken over. The spiritual state of the GOA is one of being failed, corrupt and dying. These issues are nothing more than symptoms pointing to a deeper and more serious causation of the church theological failure. In time Elder Ephraim’s ultra fundamentalism will divide the GOA only causing more church decline and failure. I tried to warn the GOA five years ago this would happen. No one listened. When you are Gods only alone right and one true truth church you have a tendency to only really listen to yourselves. Look where has taken you all now.
I seriously doubt if the Patriarch is not going to cover aspects of this up or try to convince victims not to sue them for every last dime they have. The pattern of the hierarchy has always been one of hiding, covering up, keeping secrets and spinning. Spiritual abuse by intimidation is often used by them to silence people. Not to worry GOA…
Why just a few years back the Archbishop in public stated that the GOA had grown by 1 million in the previous ten years. Has anyone seen the 2010 Orthodox census? Only 23% of GOA go to church. In my city the parish has been here for 55 years and on a good Sunday MAYBE 90 show up. In far less time than that four other churches have grown to 2,000 plus in avg. Sunday attendance. With bishops like this in charge the future of the GOA is certain continued failure. The failed disagree.
The GOA church leadership incompetency with the Gospel is obvious. If a church is incompetent with the Gospel it would only make sense it would be incompetent in an investigation of those who destroy the Gospel. The Gospel is not important to protect. The image, station and rule of the hierarchy is what must be protected above all else. Oh, yes, and lets not forget the pockets of the giving Greeks who pay off the lawsuits by enabling the hierarch abuses. They can’t be forgotten either.
Of course, making sense is not a GOA hierarchy strong point. They love to hide, cover up, keep secrets and spin. You see Jesus in the Gospels operating the same way, right? With leadership like that in charge of investigations you know where the investigation will end. So, GO let the NEXT monastic cover up begin. Oh, but, the FBI is involved. So, then let the expose’ begin. This is going to make Katinas and the Elder together look like little kids playing with Legos by comparison to engineers building sky scrapers.
Last fall the ATF called me out of no where and spent an hour with me on the phone about Elder Ephraim. I warned you all and not a one of you listened. In fact, a few years back +Gerasimos kicked my wife and I out of his posh Pacific Heights S.F. mansion for confronting him over the Elder. He didn’t listen either. Looks like to me that the ATF, FBI, IRS, DOJ and probably Homeland Security are investigating your church. Since 9/11 they have become more corrdinated in their investigations.
Are you listening now or do you need to pay out more millions before you listen? How many more children have to have their identity, worth and value destroyed by your apathy and indifference to the bishop and monastic corruptions? Not a one of you is innocent in this. This has been going on for a very long time and no one has stopped it. Is it any wonder why your church is found in a corrupt, abusive, failed and dying state? To those who do not listen it is a great WONDER!
Ashley Nevins
Ashley, your comments are misleading, destructive, and deeply offensive. I apologize for raising this in a public forum, but your insinuations are without any sound or complete basis. The challenges faced by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese are no different than those faced by other institutions attempting to uphold human dignity and moral standards within a social environment that continually promotes selfishness, corruption, and moral decay (in subtle ways and not so subtle ways). In fact, our society has learned to simply and conveniently normalize whenever and whatever possible. Do you doubt this? And do you find it surprising that negative passions could appear within institutions that strive to reverse the tide, or others that seek to maintain moral or cultural stability? And for an incident such as what occurred with St. Irene’s monastery, you find this to be an indictment against the GO Church as a whole and its monastics?
Elder Ephraim is a simple man, yet a giant among the rest of us. He’s an athonite monk whose past demonstrates nothing other than love for his fellow human-being and desire to spread the Gospel’s message of Salvation to all who would choose to listen. Do you have any familiarity with his past? His efforts are to teach Orthodox Christianity, whose foundation is a polar opposite of anything resembling a cult.
I am a 48 year-old Orthodox Christian and I will tell you that Orthodoxy encourages the individual to explore their purpose and their relationship with God – without any boundaries and even to the point of doubt. Why? Because a true and meaningful relationship with God can only come in an individual’s complete and unencumbered freedom to express himself, to judge for himself, and to accept for himself. Archbishop Demetrios, head of the GO Archdiocese for more than 10 years now, is one who has brought stability and positive reformation to an institution that, since the early part of the 20th century, continually strives to guide the flock entrusted to its care, but under continual social presures, temptations, and deceptions that you and I face on a daily basis, and you dare to suggest the Archdiocese to be a pit of corruption and even incompetence based on the amount of faithful you see in the pews of its Churches?
Spiritual abuse by intimidation, you claim? And you are “very familiar with the monastic track record of the GO in America”? What Church and Tradition are you speaking of because it is absolutely not the Greek Orthodox Church.
I beg you to rethink your comments and your stance.
Happy New Year GOA!
This is my thinking that is not rethinking…The offended are those sexually abused and then spiritually abandoned by the GOA by top down authoritiarian church/state theological dictatorship power and control and whose character is self centered, self protective and self sufficient. This is the logical end result of totalism theology, structure and system of church that is closed, isolated and subjective. The causation of this incompentent, corrupt, failed, irrelevant and dying state of church is the totalism theology that claims it is Gods ONLY alone right and one true truth church and salvation.
Totalism church/state theology + the traditions of men = a dead church
For instance, monasticism has no Biblical basis what-so-ever. Jesus was not the first elder and the Apostles were not the first novices. Jesus and the Apostles did not live their lives sitting on a rock, living in a tree or holed up in a cave. The tradition of man called monasticism does. It is no ones role model and example of Christ in the Gospels or the Apostles in the NT. It is the self protection defense mechanism of the closed, isolated and subjective church that keeps it closed, isolated and subjective in a cave. It focuses the church inward upon itself and not outward to the lost without Christ. It is defensive reaction when Jesus is offensive action. Monasticism, like Orthodoxy, is come to me, when Christ is, I come to YOU.
Monasticism twists Scripture context to justify itself and that is heresy by the traditions of men. It is man made up and that leads to legalism, religous works and performance based salvation in its control milieu subjective isolation. It is false authority in the church and it is the systemic center of spirituality in the GOA. It leads to Aerial Toll Houses as the GOA salvation and that is Satanic salvation where the demons play a power role in determining salvation. It kills Christ as our only salvation. Only a dead church gone cult corrupt would have a killer as salvation. Period.
The elder was sent to the GOA from the Mother of God by vision to get the GOA back on the Orthodox correct Mt. Athos track. He has been here a generation and all he has delivered to them is divisive division. The character of the GOA in failure has not changed as a result of the so called living saint among them. War is now the state of the GOA as a result of the elder.
Please answer the following question by thinking for yourself and without totalism thinking for you:
Homosexual bishops + pedophile protecting bishops + religious addiction to power bishops + guru elder cultism + apathetic and indifferent laity = what kind of a church?
Is the answer offensive to you or is the sin I point out offensive to you or both?
The salvation of the Orthodox is failed. It is neither transparent or accountable. The Holy Spirit is not the center of the church holding all in this church transparent and accountable. The self centered rule power of man in his corruption by his carnal flesh power is the authority of this church. The hierarchy authority is not transparent or accountable like their idol god Satan is not. Evil is their ruler and through them he rules over the entire GOA in corruption. The corrupt rule power of theological dictatorship has the same character as its idol god who is a religious dictator too. The authority of this church is a liar, theif and murderer. It covers up, keeps secrets, spins, hides and lies.
The GOA are puppets playing out a corrupt play on the church stage. Satan pulls the puppet strings and all play along.
Do any of you realize how sex abuse lies, steals and murders?
Do any of you realize how a corrupt church lies, steals and murders?
The truth that sets us free is offensive to the GO. Their reaction is predictible. It is the same reaction you see to Christ’s confrontation in John 8:31-59. Those are system verses that establish the system of Christ in the Gospels. He is to be our systemic spiritual center of LORDSHIP.
Yes, I know, not a one of you has ever looked at these verses like that. The reaction of the confronted is the same apologic defenses the EO raise up when confronted. In the end, Christ told them who their true god was and that led to their corruption. They disagreed with Christ. They were failure standing in the presense of success and they called Him the failure. He did not rethink what He told them. He told them the truth of them and they were offended.
The truth is offensive to the corrupt. It exposes them and they do not like how their corruption is exposed for their high opinion of themselves and how the expose’ really makes them look by truth. Christ offended the corrupt Sanhedrin by His sarcastic confrontation of them that did not mince words of truth. Their reaction was self centered self protection that murdered the threat to their religious addiction to power and control.
A dead church has murdered Christ in it by its power and control that replaced God as authority in the church for the purpose of murdering Christ’s authority in the church to rule over such church by corruption that has no solution. A dead church is circular without solution by Satans rule over it that makes sure it remains circular by evils power that replaces the holy power of God.
Nothing the Orthodox do is going to stop the dying state of their church. The solution applied to the problem is the problem itself. Failure applied to failure leads to more failure. It is a church circular without solution by the wrong solution applied.
This is what I predict the future of the GOA to be and all of my predictions of the Orthodox come true.
Ashley’s 2011 offensive predictions for the GOA in America:
1. Incompetency
2. Corruption
3. Failure
4. Irrelevancy
5. Delusional
6. Abuse/abandonment
7. Religious addiction
8. Religious codependency
9. Circular
10. Dying
These predictions are the character of church/state totalism dictatorship dead religion.
The Orthodox Mind is the mind of DENIAL of its state of church.
The Orthodox will disagree and like that matters or will make a difference.
Read the 2010 Orthodox census. 77% of the Greek church does not go to church.
Corrupt bishops, powerless priests and cultic monastics rule over the GOA.
Now the Patriarch over all of this corruption is named in a lawsuit. He knew and he did nothing. Before this is over I predict there will be more than three dozen victims at his pet monastery. This is not going to stop. What you can see is not as horrific as what you cannot see. The GOA cannot see because totalism is mind control will not let you think for yourself to see. You only see what totalism allows you to see. After Katinas comes this and after this comes more of the same. This sexual abuse destruction of children created in the image of God goes right to the top of the GOC hierarchy and they are the corrupt dealing with the corrupt and that will only result in a corrupt outcome.
The laity is apathetic and indifferent. They tolerate it all and the totalism religious dictatorship makes them powerless to solve any of these problems. The laity is religious codependent upon the religious addiction to power of the hierarchy and elder. That is mind control.
Rationally, the logical end result of all this is a Christian cult. All the symptoms point to a causation. The causation is the totalism church/state dictatorship theology and its claim of being Gods only alone right and one true church and the only true salvation come to us from God. The Orthodox are Gods objective standard of truth measure that all Christians are measured against to determine their correctness compared to the Orthodox. Yet, the Orthodox are found to be hypocrites in this and because they do not apply Christian values, ethics and morality to their corrupt, failed and dying church. Failure determines that the success of churches around them is heresy. Now objectivity comes to expose your failure and the Orthodox are offended at the confrontation that does not mince words. The graphic truth is offensive.
If the GOA is fortunate the graphic details of this sex abuse will come out for all of them to see and then deny that this is the true character of their church. Totalism only listens to itself. It is God and so it only listens to itself. The Orthodox do not listen, but they are offended when the truth of the state of their church is exposed to them. The state of their church is not beautiful Orthodoxy. It is dying a slow, ugly and painful death by its own corrupt hands.
The process of GOA failure looks like this:
Unrepentance to carnality to corruption to failure to irrelevancy to church death to oblivion.
Jesus Christ in the Gospels did not come to us a top down, authoritarian church/state totalism theology of power and control that was self protected by the traditions of men. He confronted a Sanhedrin that was a totalism theological dictatorship that was self protective by the traditions of men and claimed to be Gods salvation. He warned them and they did not listen. They died.
You have been warned and you will not heed the warning.
Objectively it is over for the GOA. Predictably, the subjectively failed will disagree.
Ashley Nevins
Ashley, much of what you say is true. However there are some glaring errors that must be addressed. First of all, Jesus was a monastic and he praised those men who made themselves “eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake.” Are there abuses within monasticism? Yes. So are there abuses within parish churches.
Monastics have to work out their salvation just like we in the secular world have to. Let’s not judge them on some of their practices.
Elder Ephraim is a Godly man, of this I’m sure. I can’t agree with all of the particulars of his theology but it is a fact that his spirituality is a charism and grace is sorely lacking in the GOA (as you mention). He strode into this vacuum. As for the aerial Toll Houses, I agree that this is controversial but many of these experiences have been vouchsafed by saints who have died and come back to life. I dispute that it is demons who judge us, from what I understand it is instead unrepentant sins which manifest themselves as unresolved spiritual energy and which we have to confront.
As for your overall thesis about the GOA, I believe you are right. However it is not in the spirituality of the monasteries that the break will come but in the insistence of the bishops (and the EP) that the GOA remain a Byzantine Nostalgia Cult (which will function as an ATM in perpetuity).
I pray that I give no offense to you. Have a blessed Nativity.
I hear you and understand your disagreements. My concern is a confrontation and the confrontation is not easy for any Orthodox to hear. It is not easy telling you the raw truth of the situation. The harsh reality of the corrupt, failed, irrelevant and dying state of the Orthodox church is real. There is great risk in telling you this in a candid, graphic and uncompromising fashion that does not mince words. You might be offended and then go into the Orthodox state of closing off, isolating in seclusion and being subjective in self protective denial or defensive reaction.
No one can disagree that the EOC and the GOA in particular are in serious decline and no one has solution. The church is not facing this problem and unless it does the future of the EOC in America is highly questionable. This church needs to start asking itself very difficult questions or it will continue to fail.
There are symptoms of this failure that point directly to the cause of this failure. Ignoring or denying the symptoms that point to causation will only result in further and more serious failure. You can recognize the symptom and you can still deny their cause. You see this taking place in the RCC right now. Those who confront them over the abuses openly speak of the hierarchy being ADDICTED to POWER. Those who protest are going to cause. Those who conform are part of the cause. If you only deal in symptoms and do not go to cause you will only get a superificial solution that results in a superficial church. In other words, the wrong solution makes and keeps the church spiritually immature. A spiritually immature church cannot find a spiritually mature solution and the church goes circular without solution.
The Orthodox love to talk about all other things other than the failed state of their church and the ramifications of the failure on their future. They go from one crisis to the next without prevention that works and prevention that works is going to causation and changing the causation to cause a different outcome. The Orthodox are in denial to the causation and I know why. The Orthodox are Gods only alone right and one true truth church and so they really only listen to themselves for solution and when the solution is outside of them.
The Orthodox must face a difficult reality that is the causation of their church failure. Jesus Christ in the Gospels did not come to us as top down and authoritarian church/state theology of totalism that was closed, isolated and subjective with a character of self centeredness, self protection and self sufficiency. Jesus came to us as least expected. The norm of His day was a prideful totalism theology, structure and system and it led to corruption, failure, irrelevancy and death. It was a dictatorship of dead tradition based religion.
Christ came to us as a bottom up and open system of humility, love, grace and truth theology that was personal and objective. He came the opposite to what He confronted. He came as least expected. He came the opposite of what He confronted to make a clear and distinctive comparison between Himself and the theology, structure and system He was confronting. He was the confrontation of one theology, structure and system confronting another one that said it was God as salvation. It was a clear warning to all of us to not remotely become what He was confronting or God will confront us like He did the Sanhedrin and it will not be a nice confrontation. The Orthodox are living in a wake up call from God and they refuse to wake up to the call.
The dead don’t wake up. How can they? They are dead. The dead have reached a point of no return. They’re dead and the dead do not have a solution within themselves to resurrect to new life. Only the Christ who is life outside of death can provide that solution. The solution to the dead is outside of the dead. A dead church has no solution to itself. The solution is outside of it. The dead church will disagree. In its mind it is life that defeats death by being dead. That is the rationality and logic of the dead who are in denial of their dead state. The dead church is delusional about its dead state and because being a dead church is delusional in the face of alive Christ who is objective and therefore the only rational and logical solution to the delusional. The delusional take offense when told they are delusional about themselves in their dead state. They delusionally have a different and higher opinion of themselves than the horrific truth of the church failure and why it fails.
Here is the truth of Christ in the Gospels…He came to us at our top down and spiritually rule abused and rule abandoned bottom. He came to us as a bottom up and open system that met us at our point of need and walked with us in personal relationship like He did in the Garden. He came to us as open and bottom up system and that is opposite to coming as a closed and top down system. The reason why He came to us from the open bottom up was to raise us up to His maturity and character that raises us up and out of our dictatorship of religion abused and abandoned state. He did not come to us from the top down to force Himself upon us as a dictatorship of dead religion. He did not come to turn us into what He confronted. He came to set us free from it. He came as least expected.
Christ came as alive leadership with a vision to free us to life and not as dead end religious dictatorship with only a vision for its power and control that places us into bondage and church death.
There are two kinds of authority in Christianity:
1. Humble leadership Christ that is other centered Christianity (open and bottom up)
2. Pride dictatorship rule of man that is self centered Christianity (closed and top down)
The two different kinds of Christian authority indoctrinate by their character. One kind of Christian authority power press molds you into what it is by maturity and character and the other Christianity transforms you into who Christ is by maturity and character. A Christian cult molds itself into irrelevancy. A Christian church transforms itself into relevancy. Christ is transformation. Sanhedrin is molding. The molded will disagree that they are molded. They believe molding is transformation and their church fails as a logical end result.
The process of molding by dead dictatorship religion goes like this:
Top down authoritarian power and control to press molding to carnality to corruption to church failure.
The process of transformation by alive leadership Christ goes like this:
Bottom up humility Christ to transformation to maturity to relevancy to church success.
The church led by humble Christ leadership has a different outcome than the church led by the proud corrupt rule of dictatorship man in his dead traditions of men. Humility can transform to change to relevancy. That is selfless other centered Christianity. Pride power and control only self protects its power and control by molding all to the power and control. That is self centered me, myself and I Christianity.
Orthodox can you see how each of these different systems CAUSES a different outcome from their causation of theology? They are two different Christ’s creating two different Gospels that results in two different logical outcomes from their causation source. You design church structure and system by how you see Christ come to us in the Gospels and it is obvious how the Orthodox see Christ come to us. The Orthodox bishops and elders will disagree with my analysis of the cause of the Orthodox church failure. It exposes their theological totalism power and control like nothing else can. It goes to cause that all Orthodox deny is the cause of their church failure. The analysis threatens the causation that is the basis of their power and control and that power and control is the church/state theology and its resulting structure and system of power and control.
Power and control dead dictatorship religion molds you into its dead state and any threat to that power and control has to be wrong or the power and control loses power and control by molding you into conformity to its power and control. If the power and control cannot be in power and control then what defines the Orthodox is gone and with it goes Orthodoxy as we know it. The Orthodox would have an identity crisis and that would mean CHANGE to an identity that works as the Gospels and NT tell us how the church is to work. Change to relevancy threatens the status of power and control to keep you irrelevant under power and control. The irrelevant are easily manipulated by power and control into corruption and the relevant are not. There is a grand design for the Orthodox failure and Orthodox are falling for the design of their failure and who is behind the grand design of their failure.
Who is spiritually in authority at the center of a church determines the outcome of that church. There are two options of who rules in a church:
Option one: The humility of Christ in leadership over humble leaders.
Option two: The pride of man and Satan in dictatorship over God and man.
Who ever rules at the center of a church and therefore over a church is the Lord God of that church and who ever that ruler is he turns you into who he is by maturity and character. Who rules determines the practical real world outcome seen in the reality of the real world where Christ really walks as our savior. Christ is living water that brings freedom to change to relevancy to life and evil brings rigid, legalistic, toxic and stagnating sewer pond water that kills life. This is not a subjective point of view when you see the reality of the sewer farm kill church working itself out in the practical reality of the real world. It is obvious and Christ in the Gospels makes the ability to be objective about what is observed a reality that cannot be denied. Those in denial are offended by the undeniable causation of the failure of their church and when it is pointed out for what it truly is in its practical reality observed. It pops their delusional bubble of themselves caused by molding. The popping bubble is the reaction observed that proves the molding.
The Gospel of John is the Gospel of freedom in Christ transformation that transforms us away from who and what Christ confronted and He confronted the molded by theological dictatorship dead religion. Death molds you into its state of death. Christ transforms you into His state of life. That is what the Gospels tell us by the role model of Christ alive in confrontation with the molded dead. The dead are impersonal. The alive are personal. Christ alive by being in personal relationship God who confronted an impersonal dead idol god. He confronted a cult of totalism dead religion that believed it was Gods only salvation by being Gods only alone right truth in salvation. The confrontation by life caused the dead to feel offended and their reaction murdered Christ. Their reaction murdered their solution and what they used to murder Jesus caused their self destruction by what they destroyed their solution with. The solution came to them from outside of them and they did not recognize the solution for believing they were their own self sufficient solution.
I fully understand the Orthodox reaction to the confrontation. I see the causation of the reaction and they do not see why they react like they do. The Orthodox do not see the causation of their corrupt, failed, irrelevant and dying state of church. The expose’ of that is offensive to them because it did not come to them like they be being alone right define how it should and when the Orthodox do not confront themselves in their corruption of Christ, the Gospels and the NT like they should. What breaks the mold threatens the mold and the mold under threat reacts like a delusional dictatorship under threat of losing power and control by being out of control by its power and control. It is expected that if you do not confront the causation yourselves and when someone outside you does that you will then react with offense to the graphic truth of the church failure from someone who is not of your failure. In other words, I know what every reaction of the Orthodox will be. The Gospels tell me what the reaction will be. It is highly predictable by the mind set state of the Orthodox church in failure.
Orthodox, read John 8:31-59 and see the reaction of the offended. Two different faith systems are seen. These are system verses that point out the system context of Christ in the Gospels. In this context a system comes out of a structure and a structure and system together come out of a theology. This is system confrontation. Christ is confronting the entire system of their failed thinking and they don’t like it one bit. Christ goes to causation and because He is the causation that can see right through false causation. He pointed out the symptoms and in the end He pointed out what the symptoms pointed too as the cause. There is a lot more I can point out in John 8:31-59. But, that is not necessary to see the point being made.
Christ is to be our ONLY comparison like He is to be our ONLY salvation. The Orthodox are their own comparison to themselves that also compares all to it and they are Gods only salvation. The Orthodox by being Gods only alone right and one true church is the comparison of all that claims to be Christian to be compared against to determine its correctness in comparison the Orthodox. Orthodoxy is an idol god to the Orthodox. Orthodoxy is God and Orthodoxy as God is the Orthodox salvation that compares itself to itself and all other Christians not of it to it. The dead compare themselves to the living and they determine them heretic to their dead state they call Gods only true church.
Of course, hypocrisy is not a symptom that points to a cause when you are Gods only alone right and one true church. The right are right even when they are wrong. There is not observed hypocrisy by the right and so there is not hypocrisy since they determine what is hypocrisy or not by their Gods only one true truth.
In John 8:31-59 you see every dictatorship of dead traditions of men apologetic defense that the Orthodox make when confronted by that which is outside of them. You can clearly see their self centered, self protective and self sufficient theological alone right state in their subjective apologetic raised up to Christ. Christ was wrong and they were right. No matter what He told them they remained right.
You will notice how He meets them at the personal eye level and does not rule dictate over the top of them. He confronts their thinking by His being transformation, but He does not try to mold their thinking to Him. Christ confronted a cult of religious dictatorship power and control. Christ by being humble personal relationship salvation exposed their proud and impersonal dictatorship of religion cult salvation that was not salvation. Christ told them that their traditions of men cult based in a totalism theology was not salvation. He told them He alone is salvaton. They had the typical Orthodox reaction. Kill the solution who is heresy and apostacy to our only alone right truth that is our salvation. You don’t have to outright kill the solution to kill the solution. You only have to deny the solution to kill it. Simple.
Christ plus anything else is failure as salvation. He alone is to be our Lordship at the center of our lives as our only salvation. He alone is our comparison and not a corrupt, failed, irrelevant and dying church that claims to be the only true truth of God on the planet and thereby making itself GOD. He confronted those who had made themselves both God and salvation by their totalism theology, structure and system. They never saw their corruption coming like they never saw Christ coming.
Orthodox, you have a serious problem. You don’t see it coming for your believing you are the God who comes to us. If the true truth of Christ come to us is the EOC then Christ is a corrupt, failed, irrelevant and dying God without real salvation that is not solution to a corrupt, failed, irrelevant and dying state of church without solution.
In reality I am not telling you this. Your state of church is telling you this. You are offended by my pointing this all out, but you are not offended by the state of church that is the basis of my pointing this out. If you were just half as offended at the offensive state of your church as you are me in my analysis of its failure you might not be found as the total failure you are by totalism that fails you totally. The offense is offensive and not the messenger that gives you the graphic details of the offenses. Yes, shoot the messenger like the Sanhedrin did and shoot yourselves right in the head when you do. You shoot yourselves right in the head when you refuse to go to causation of failure obvious to anyone not practicing the failure. Shoot the solution that is outside of you to keep it from coming to you and remain circular without solution by the failed solution you apply.
It is very humbling to the proud who are in failure to embrace solution outside of their failure when they believe by their alone right theological pride they are the solution. The powerful are not powerless in their own power. They are the solution by their power to a corrupt, failed and irrelevant church dying under its own power. You do not confront yourselves like this and so you stay like you are in your failure. Some of you recognize the symptoms of failure and confront the symptoms thinking that is going to causation to solve the failure problem. That is still superficial solution that leads to a superficial church.
Orthodox, you can remove hierarchies until Jesus comes and replace them with the same and you will not solve the failure problem. It goes deeper than a hierarchy. Yes, remove the previous OCA hierarchy and replace it with who? Do the same in the Greek church after this monastery debacle and see who you get. When royal church/state ruler Jonah the pedophile protector was made Met of the OCA he told the OCA at his enthronement that he has the ‘most profound respect’ for the corrupt bishops on stage with him. He is the future of the OCA DOA. He is the future of American Orthodoxy with convert American born bishops. The OCA is the independent Orthodox jurisdiction broke free from foriegn rule that stands up on its own two feet and walks in Christ’s power.
The only vision for this church Jonah or any bishop can deliver is one of totalism power and control and because that is the theological basis of the vision. Nothing has changed and nothing is going to change. I promise and all my promises to the Orthodox come true. All of them. Don’t believe me? Remove him and see who replaces him. The OCA believe the Holy Spirit sent Jonah to them like the ephramites believe the Mother of God sent the elder to the GOA. Both men have a monastic vision from God for all of you. They both believe monasticism is solution. Yes, OCA, build 20 monasteries like ephraim and see how relevant you end up in a generation. Orthodox, above all else keep placing men like Gerasimos, Jonah and Philip into positions of bishop authority. Bow to the thrones of the MP and EP and see where your Patriarchs take you. One of them will take you to court in America real soon and the other one will sell you booze and tobacco as a comodity trader.
Yes, I know, some Orthodox find this truth offensive and they then will stop listening in their only listen to what fails them state that they do not find offensive. Not to worry, Orthodox. Dean Calvert with Jonah believe Pan Orthodox Unity is the solution. Yes, Orthodox, take an already highly power and control top down authoritarian centered structure and system and make it more centralized in its totalism power and control over you all and call that Orthodox unity that leads the Orthodox to reign church/state rule dominant over American Christianity in this century. Let Jonah rule over it and then call the RCC Pope anathama to the EOC rule of the Patriarchs. Yes, anyone with eyes to see can see that the Orthodox Patriarch’s over their jurisdictions do not operate like the Pope over the RCC. The cause of the failure of the RCC is different than the cause of the failure of the EOC.
Gods only alone right and one true church does not fail. It is the objective truth standard that points out the failure of other churches who are not EOC. It’s relevancy is the standard of relevancy all churches need to follow and measure up too or they will be found irrelevant in the comparison to Orthodoxy. Any church not practicing Orthodoxy fails to the degree it does not practice EOC like the EOC practices it. The more like the EOC is a church the more like the success of the EOC is that church. All churches that do realize success owe their success to the Orthodox church role model and example of only true Christ alive church that is transformed by the Holy Spirit. All churches that are not Orthodox and that experience failure can blame that on not following the Orthodox to their success.
Yes, I know, noticing is offensive to the Orthodox. In fact, pointing out the problem makes you the problem for doing so. That is Orthodox solution that works! It is rudely offensive to not allow the Orthodox to be the judge of not Orthodox churches not of Orthodox correctness. It is even more rudely offensive to the Orthodox when they are compared to Christ and when they believe their church is the Christ to be compared too. In the Orthodox Mind how you can you compare Christ to the Orthodox when the Orthodox are Christ’s only true salvation.
Orthodox, do you realize that there is somethng called CAUSE and EFFECT? It is a rational and logical truth. Cause leads to an effect. You see the effect of cause in the practical reality of the real world. You look at the effect and trace it back to the cause to see the cause. The effect of the cause on your church is a corrupt, failed, irrelevant and dying state of church. You go to cause by asking yourselves OBJECTIVE questions about the effect.
Here are two questions you are not asking yourselves that will lead back to cause:
1. Is it possible that after centuries of Orthodoxy based upon church/state theological rule that the Orthodox church is found failed by the theology in its rule?
2. Is it possible that after centuries of Orthodoxy based upon tradition that this church is now found failed by the traditions of men?
You will have to break all the Orthodox church rules to come to an honest answer:
1. Don’t think for yourself rule – think like you told to think
2. Don’t feel for yourself rule – feel good about corruption
3. Don’t look for yourself rule – don’t see the obvious
4. Don’t smell for yourself rule – don’t discern
5. Don’t talk rule – don’t talk about the true problem
6. Don’t ask questions rule – don’t question the problem
What is the cause that leads to the effect of these rules? Who and/or what creates these rules and why do they have them? See how you go to causation? It’s really easy if bondage does not mind control you into the rules of totalism theological legalism.
Orthodox, the solution is outside of you or you would have found it by now and you will never find it by how you look for it. You look for solution in the wrong place. It is not inside your church. It is outside of it. I promise you that the cause of the church failure is harder to look at than is the failure of your church. If you don’t believe me break the don’t look rule and take a look. You don’t have the freedom in Christ to look or you would see the cause and its solution standing right in front of you.
Yes, I know the problem is not the problem of religious addiction to power and control that causes religious codependency upon that religious addiction. The problem is not the theology and its resulting structure and system of totalism power and control. The problem is only what Gods only alone right and one true church defines it to be and it is not what is outside of Orthodoxy that can define it. The Orthodox are their own solution that has no solution and that defines both the problem and its solution.
Symptoms point to cause and cause points to solution. Solution is solution and failure is failure. It is easy to tell them apart.
After WW2 America did not replace the Nazi dictatorship or the Emperial Japanese dictatorship with dictatorships. They removed the top down power and control war machines of dictatorship and replaced them with representative forms of government. They moved from totalism top down power and control self destructive bondage to democracy bottom up freedom and success. When you remove a dictatorship you do not replace it with a dictatorship as solution or you will in the future find your self back at war with that dictatorship. Would it have been rational or logical to replace the dictatorships with dictatorships? Would it have been safe, healthy or wise for America to replace those dictatorships with dictatorships?
Look at Jesus the Gospels, look at your church in corruption and connect the dots with the WW2 analogy. Do you get the connection? You will have to think conceptually out of the Orthodox box and think for yourself to make the dot connections. This what I like to call rational Christian reasoning that logically can think for itself.
I think for myself therefore I am a Christian. I am a Christian therefore I think for myself.
Under a religious dictatorship of power and control you do not think for yourself. That is why Christ replaced the Sanhedrin with Himself. He is the thinking for yourself solution that is leadership that leads us to solution. He is not dictatorship that dictates us into failure. Which one leads to a rational solution that works and which one leads to an irrational solution that does not work? What is the dot picture telling you about your state of church and why it is in this state without solution?
The answers are obvious if you can think for yourself by breaking ALL the Orthodox rules.
Denial will not break the rules. Denial is the rules.
Ashley Nevins
I KNOW HER!!!!
1) Who is it that you know?
2) How is that relevant?
3) Who cares?
Elder Ephraim is no cult leader. He is a blessed man who helped many and continue’s to do so. I agree with Prodromos 33. Regarding the nun there is a good article on a Greek Newspaper AmenGR
that discusses that the only thing the nun did was take the money to the precinct for safe keeping since there was a few people that continusously harrassed her at the monastery. From what I understand/know she never mentioned anything that had due to with immoral acts as stated by EK.
in the USA how is it legal for any 14 year old to enter the monastic life ? or a convent ?