Comments Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster
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The Status of Father Peter Heers
“Put not your trust in princes, in sons of men in whom there is no salvation. For when his breath departs, he returns to his earth.”
Brian, I could not agree more, especially today as our political edifice in America is crumbling before our eyes.
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On November 27, 2022 @ 8:33 pm
Brian, you may get a good idea of Fr. Peter Heers’ views on the vaccine–as well as those of Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen), Presbytera Katherine Katherine Baker, Irene Polidoulis (MD, CCFP, FCFP), Deacon Ananias Erik Sorem (PhD), and yours truly–in a recent book that Fr. Peter and I co-edited:
Let No One Fear Death: Orthodox Christian Leaders Respond to the COVID-19 Challenge. Florence, AZ: Uncut Mountain Press, 2022 [212 pp.]
That short but relatively inexpensive book ($15) has been available since June on Amazon.com or directly from the publisher. [For some reason unknown to me, George and Gail have refused to publicize it on this website.]
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On November 26, 2022 @ 3:11 pm
More Fallout from the Big Fat Gay Greek Baptism
Right you are, Brendan. Colonel Douglas Macgregor (a great Scots name, BTW!) is a rare person of insight and wisdom concerning such matters. Alas, he, too, is retired and carries no weight in today’s U.S. Army.
Colonel Macgregor and Prof. John Mearsheimer at the University of Chicago are also two of the few wise and prudent voices crying out against the scores of military and foreign policy “experts” in the Deep State, the academy, and the major broadcast and print media who have become shills for the globalists and woke radicals whose animus against Russia and its Orthodox people, on one hand, and, on the other, a robust, masculine, heterosexual U.S. military is leading the USA to ruin.
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On August 20, 2022 @ 5:32 pm
Give it up, Mr. Lipper. There is no way you can put lipstick on this pig in good faith or conscience.
No truly faithful Orthodox priest would stoop to such an abomination as occurred recently in Athens irrespective of the prospective godparents, family connections, or any other “special” consideration. We owe at least that much to the children themselves. In our Lord’s good time and providential care, they may find their own way to the Church and a truly holy baptism.
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On August 19, 2022 @ 3:50 pm
Brendan, this new woke U.S. Army is not my father’s Army Air Corps (WWII, 1942-1945), my Army (including Afghanistan and Iraq, 1985-2010), or my son’s Army (2010-2012). While I’m at it, the new U.S. “Army” is a far cry from my grandfather Charles Webster’s British Army (4th Reserve Battalion and 5th [Buchan & Formartin] Battalion, Gordon Highlanders, with the Territorial Force in Peterhead, Scotland, and subsequently the Gordon Infantry Brigade during WWI [1909-1919].
If I were a young man or even a bit older chaplain prospect today, I would not serve in today’s disgraceful U.S. military.
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On August 19, 2022 @ 3:42 pm
Kallistos Ware: Memory Eternal
Thank you, David, for reminding us of Metropolitan Kallistos’ ultimate position on the question of sex outside Holy Matrimony in complete harmony with the ancient, unchanging Orthodox Tradition.
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On August 27, 2022 @ 1:59 pm
M. Ross, you are, of course, correct about the “etymological fallacy” as a rule. But let us not allow “monogamy” to become, as it has for zoologists and dictionaries, a generalized term for the pairing of one male and one female in the animal world. We Orthodox Christians can and ought to rise above such a facile misapplication of words. The intended social effect of the radical left’s choice of “monogamous” to describe the unnatural and ungodly pairing of two men or two women is to elevate it to social, political, and moral equivalence to monogamy in its original meaning.
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On August 27, 2022 @ 1:47 pm
M. Ross, you are, of course, correct, about the “etymological fallacy” as a rule. But let us not allow “monogamy” to become, as it has for zoologists and dictionaries, a generalized term for the pairing of one male and one female in the animal world. We Orthodox Christians can and ought to rise above such a facile misapplication of words. The intended social effect of the radical left’s choice of “monogamous” to describe the unnatural and ungodly pairing of two men or two women is to elevate it to social, political, and moral equivalence to monogamy in its original meaning.
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On August 27, 2022 @ 1:43 pm
Etymologically speaking, you are, of course, correct. But let us not allow “monogamy” to become, as it has for zoologists and dictionaries, a generalized term for the pairing of one male and one female in the animal world. We Orthodox Christians can and ought to rise above such a facile misapplication of words. The intended social effect of the radical left’s choice of “monogamous” to describe the unnatural and ungodly pairing of two men or two women is to elevate it to social, political, and moral equivalence to monogamy in its original meaning.
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On August 27, 2022 @ 1:32 pm
“D-Max,” your heart may be in the right place, but your vocabulary and thinking are, I regret to say, misguided. Homosexuals are not capable of a “monogamous” relation, because they cannot in a sane, moral world be “married” in any real, meaningful, Jewish or Christian sense. The Greek etymology of the English word “monogamous” means “one” “marriage.” Never in the entire history of Western Civilization did any society or formal government consent to the marriage of homosexuals until the Netherlands set the precedent on April 1 (appropriately enough), 2001.
Whatever your personal empathy for such folks, neither you nor any serious Christian ought to yield to the contemporary Zeitgeist and the insistence of the radical social and political left that all of us use such sanitized terms as “same sex attraction” (SSA) in lieu of traditional, neutral terms that they despise (such as homosexual) or use the term “marriage” to normalize homosexual couples whose personal relationship–whether specifically sexual or “celibate”–is in no way equivalent or analogous to the divinely ordered institution of marriage between one man and one woman for the primary purpose of conceiving and raising children.
For the last six decades, we have witnessed the gradual, but relentless, fall of one domino after another in the engineered social and moral collapse of Western Civilization. What you are advocating here is, in effect if not intention, another falling domino in the public battle over proper language and terminology. From the advent of the feminist movement in the mid 1960s, the USA and the modern world have yielded one traditional term after another to appease the radical revolutionaries as the latter attempt to deconstruct our cultures (and Western Civilization as a whole) with the now obvious aim of eradicating every trace of religious and moral truth pertaining to the divine order of creation, the meaning of male and female, the traditional family, the innocence of children, respect for the integrity of our human bodies and minds, distinctions between good and evil as well as virtues vs. vices, justice vs. injustice, rights vs. privileges, genuine science vs. faux science, etc. And each time people of good conscience, faith, and moral vision have conceded the battlefield over terminology for the sake of social harmony or some other chimera.
We, all of us, know that words have power and that our choice of words often has profound meaning for our lives and those of others. In the present existential crisis, we dare not concede the religious and moral truths in which we believe by faith and the grace of God the Holy Trinity. I urge all of us to halt the pattern of preemptive surrender, resist the guilt-tripping of the radicals who would shame and cancel us for our proper use of words and refusal to adopt their faux terms, and profess fully our holy Orthodox faith and life with both courage and sensitivity to others. We ought not to hate sinners (including ourselves), but our Christian love for them requires that we speak and write the truth at all times, as it has been revealed to us, with compassion but without foolish and unholy compromise.
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On August 25, 2022 @ 8:06 pm
I concur, Brian, that Metropolitan Kallistos’ first edition of the landmark book, The Orthodox Church, was essential reading in the early 1970s when I read that edition. Alas, his equivocation on the question of the “ordination” of women in the subsequent revised editions rendered that book dubious and counterproductive.
However, his subsequent short book titled, The Orthodox Way, was, in my estimation, the best, most readable introduction to Orthodox theology through the lens of spirituality ever written in the English language. I used it as one of four primary books for MDiv students when I taught Orthodox theology at Virginia Theological Seminary for eight years in the 1990s. Those students uniformly preferred its lucid insights and elegant writing to the other excellent introductions to Orthodox dogmatic theology that I assigned: Fr. John Meyendorff’s Byzantine Theology, Vladimir Lossky’s Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church , and Fr. Michael Pomazansky’s, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology.
Meanwhile, the many catechumens at the local Orthodox church in Falls Church that I served as rector for seventeen years also found it both understandable and delightful.
Metropolitan Kallistos had the rare gift as both a scholar and archpastor of presenting the theology, history, and spirituality of Orthodoxy to a vast audience of Orthodox faithful and prospective converts alike–as well as many Protestants and Roman Catholics–in a most engaging way.
My matushka and I met Metropolitan Kallistos for the first time in Oxford (UK) some twenty-five years ago, when he served the Divine Liturgy in English on a summer Sunday for the Greek community of that combined Russian and Greek parish. His recitation of the Lord’s Prayer during that service with his deliberate, expressive English accent still echoes in my mind as the most uplifting, heavenly rendition I have ever heard.
May his memory be eternal!
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On August 25, 2022 @ 1:21 am
JFK To 911: Everything is a Rich Man’s Trick
RE “after Pearl Harbor Churchill declared war on Japan, giving Roosevelt his excuse to declare war on Germany; ie: quid pro quo…”
Sorry, Brendan: your sequence of events is backwards. Shortly after Hitler’s Germany declared war on the US on December 11, 1941, the US reciprocated. Hitler was either (1) stupidly provocative or (2) automatically supporting his Axis ally, Japan, after December 7-8. Either way, Hitler invited the US to enter the war in Europe, when he might have tarried a bit or kept silent altogether to avoid an immediate US entry into the war in Europe.» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On August 8, 2022 @ 2:30 pm
RE “after Pearl Harbor Churchill declared war on Japan, giving Roosevelt his excuse to declare war on Germany; ie: quid pro quo…”
Sorry, Brendan, your sequence of events is backwards. Shortly after Hitler’s Germany declared war on the US on December 11, 1941, the US reciprocated. Hitler was either (1) stupidly provocative or (2) automatically supporting his Axis ally, Japan, after December 7-8. Either way, Hitler invited the US to enter the war in Europe, when he might have tarried a bit or kept silent altogether to avoid an immediate US entry into the war in Europe.
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On August 7, 2022 @ 11:42 pm
I hope and pray, Mr. Younger, that you will not give up your Orthodox faith and life, your horrible, inexcusable treatment by your local Greek Orthodox church and priest notwithstanding. In this great religious “salad bowl” that we have in America, there is always another traditional and hospitable Orthodox parish in another jurisdiction close enough for you to attend.
If you need assistance finding such a parish, please let me know directly at my primary email address:
May the Lord bless and strengthen you on your journey to the Kingdom.
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On August 8, 2022 @ 10:31 pm
Utter nonsense and Orwellian distortions of history! What is your point, Mr. Carasakis?
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On August 4, 2022 @ 3:34 am
Thank you, Brian, for that link to Archdeacon John Chryssavgis’ anti-monastic screed on the Public Orthodoxy website. That is one of most breathtakingly arrogant, pompous, self-important, insulting, and downright erroneous articles I have ever read by an Orthodox clergyman.
This sentence alone is enough to deter any of us serious, traditional Orthodox Christians from taking seriously anything he says or writes:
“The premise of Scripture and promise of the church lies first and foremost in community and Communion, not conventional or social constructs of marriage and family.”
I suspect that the Archdeacon is thrashing about in a turbulent sea of willful denial of reality and moral heresy as his autocephalous Orthodox Church and its patriarch are losing touch with Orthodox reality.
Here’s a book chapter I wrote a few years ago that demonstrates how the so-called “nuclear family” and the “extended family” (each centered around a husband, wife, and children, and, in the case of the latter, grandchildren and perhaps aunts, uncles, nieces, and / or nephews all of whom knew or know their proper divine-created identities as male or female) are the only norms for Orthodox families:
“Icons of the ‘Nuclear’ Family,” in David C. Ford, Mary C. Ford, and Alfred Kentigern Siewers (eds.), Glory and Honor: Orthodox Christian Resources on Marriage. Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2016, pp. 171-182.
That entire volume, by the way, is an indispensable resource now more than ever.
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On August 14, 2022 @ 7:48 pm
Right you are, FTS. John Wesley’s controversial advocacy of “perfection” in his book A Plain Account of Christian Perfection published in 1777 reflected, in part, his scholarly familiarity with our Orthodox doctrine of theosis in particular!
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On August 2, 2022 @ 5:28 pm
Keeping Up with the Kardashians
Thanks for the kudos, FTS (and Brendan and George). I also like your extension of one of the main themes of my homily in your post here.
(Personal note: FTS, I had no idea you were in the US military. I would be delighted to communicate with you offline regarding our mutual experience in Baghdad during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2005, 2006, or 2007. My primary email is a matter of public record: chaplain.webster@gmail.com )
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On July 31, 2022 @ 9:29 pm
Greek Archdiocese Charter Presto Chango
Gail, the first link provided by “Manos Palazos” (a pseudonym, I suspect, by someone who is trying to punk us on monomakhos), which trumpets secularism in Greece, would be a poor excuse for “journalism” even in a high school newspaper. Readers of monomakhos need only go to The Ground Truth Project website listed above, click on “About” and then “Editorial Partners,” and discover the usual panoply of left-wing, secular, anti-Christian media. The second link by the punk-artist is a typical extreme Protestant screed against Orthodox Christianity. I regret wasting fifteen minutes of my life reading all that nonsense.
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On July 22, 2022 @ 6:23 am
BREAKING: The Archbishop Legitimizes “Gay Marriage” Through the Back Door
To answer the late Bishop David Mahaffey’s rhetorical questions, I would say this:
1. “Can we deny that those couples do not feel love?” YES: a distorted, solipsistic, perverted attraction as a reflection of one’s own male image perhaps, but certainly not the divine virtue of complementary love revealed in Holy Scripture and taught by the Church from its inception.
2. “Can we say they will make bad parents, or downgrade a community by their presence?” YES: homosexual couples preclude the divinely ordered role of a mother and a father for the conception, care, and raising of children. Homosexual couples are intrinsically spiritually and morally dysfunctional, incapable of conceiving their own children and in need of a “surrogate” male or female to provide the missing sexual element, a falsification of the concept of marriage and family, and an affront to God. Moreover, if a mother or father in a proper marriage happens to die before the children grow to adulthood, there are other male or female members of the extended family (or even close friends of the married couple) who can provide at least some kind of authentic, divinely blessed paternal or maternal role model.
Full Disclosure: I knew Bishop Mahaffey when both of us were priests in the OCA. We disagreed on occasion over several moral / ethical quandaries, especially concerning clergy, but we maintained a mutual respect and appreciation for one another’s ministry. When my matushka and I made a pilgrimage to Kodiak, Alaska, after I had transferred from the OCA to ROCOR and Father David had been consecrated and assigned as Bishop of Alaska, he was very hospitable to Kathleen and me. Nonetheless, I wish he had never written the comments quoted above.
At this crucial juncture in the spiritual and moral lives of Orthodox Christians in North America, we cannot go wobbly on the key spiritual and moral challenges posed by the Zeitgeist to Holy Orthodoxy.
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On July 12, 2022 @ 4:40 pm
Trump’s Role in the Two Recent Decisions
Gail and George: I suggest that we conclude this three-ring circus with Mr. Lipper. He is obviously a supporter of abortion politically and, despite his feeble protestations to the contrary, morally as well. He is playing with all of us. But no longer with yours truly.
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On July 1, 2022 @ 4:03 pm
Moreover, Mr. Lipper, indiscriminate indifference is hardly a virtue. It is most certainly not an acceptable Orthodox social ethical–or even moral–worldview.
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On June 30, 2022 @ 8:30 pm
Thank you, Petros, for that weblink and its wonderful news.
It is reassuring to know that bishops of five of the AOB jurisdictions have backbones.
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On June 28, 2022 @ 7:44 pm
Not so at St. Herman of Alaska Russian Orthodox Church in Stafford, VA, where Metropolitan Jonah’s homily on Sunday, June 26, focused on the SCOTUS decision on Friday as a welcome and long overdue moral sea change in America. The homily is titled, “Orthodoxy and Living Traditional Family Values.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwEhAIYEDPI
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On June 28, 2022 @ 3:56 pm
Hardly.
However, I’m not sure about Paris, France, either.
But I’m not King Henri of Navarre.
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On June 17, 2022 @ 11:22 pm
During my last five years on active duty as a U.S. Army chaplain, I visited Doha, Qatar, four times (on my way home from Afghanistan) to minister to Orthodox Christian military personnel there as well as a dozen or so civilian Arabic-English translators working at CENTCOM.
Otherwise, Qatar was and is not “worth a mass.”
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On June 17, 2022 @ 2:51 pm
Now Who’s Putting the Screws On?
RE: “abortion is currently legal in every polity with a majority Orthodox Christian demographic.”
That is correct, Mr. Lipper. It is also true that the number of abortions in most, if not all, of the historically Orthodox nations has declined significantly since the early 1990s when their Communist regimes succumbed to peaceful revolutions–a miracle in itself.
Nonetheless, the governmental support for abortion today (even when polls indicate opposition to the practice by some Orthodox majorities in those countries reveals clearly that the moral rot of abortion introduced by the former Communist regimes in the 20th century and perpetuated to the present is still deep. Unless those Orthodox populations rise up and end
that abomination as a national policy (as the USA is on the verge of doing via the imminent U.S. Supreme Court decision, the collective spiritual stain on those Orthodox populations will remain as a scarlet letter (A).I suggest that you pray for a positive outcome in accordance with our Orthodox moral tradition instead of trying every which way to avoid your own moral duty concerning this paramount issue.
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On June 7, 2022 @ 1:30 am
Counterflow Podcast: The Fordhamites, Russophobia & More!
RE: “Man, what I’d give to have Codreanu back.”
Let’s not open that can of worms again!
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On June 7, 2022 @ 4:54 pm
Contra Peter Papoutsis’ hasty dismissals, the EP’s novel doctrine of primus sine paribus (“first without equals”) is unquestionably an ecclesiological heresy. It drove the EP’s uninvited and unwelcome incursion into Ukraine and his unilateral construction of the OCU as a Potemkin village faux “church”
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On June 14, 2022 @ 4:58 am
«« Back To Stats PageThank you that post, Alex II. I needed a good laugh today and you furnished it!
» Posted By Archpriest Alexander F. C. Webster On June 13, 2022 @ 6:08 pm
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