Does the Episcopal Assembly Believe in Liberty?

– …or is it all just about proteia, fine linens or ceremonial?

That’s a question that has been raised by several of our fine readers. As well as myself. More specifically, is the committee tasked by the Episcopal Assembly dealing with Culture and Morals just a sinecure for the somnolent? This committee, which is headed by Metropolitan +Savvas Zembillas of Pittsburgh has been strangely quiet on this front. Unlike Archbishop +Timothy Dolan of New York and hundreds of other Christian leaders who are stepping up to the plate to fight the unChristian medical “procedures” that Obamacare is going to force on us, Zembillas and all members of his committee have been strangely quiet (as have all Orthodox bishops for that matter).

That is, until now. One member of his committee, Fr Peter Preble, has publicly spoken out on this subject. You can read his first post (Religious Freedom is Under Attack) on the AOI website the second is copied below (courtesy of the American Orthodox Institute).

I can’t add anything more to his prophetic witness except this: AXIOS!!!

+ + + + + + + + + +

Why is the Orthodox Episcopal Assembly Silent as Religious Liberty Erodes?

Source: Fr. Peter-Michael Preble Blog (The Church Under Attack) | Fr. Peter-Michael Preble

In the Gospels Jesus warns us that the world will hate us. He is giving us a warning that being a Christian will not be easy and that it will be a fight, every day, for what we believe in. The world is becoming increasingly hostile to the truth of Jesus Christ and I do not see it getting any better.

Yesterday I posted an essay on the Huffington Post Religion Page and before my finger was even off the send button the attackers came out. They hate the fact that the church would dare speak out on issues that affect people and their beliefs, one of the more shocking things was that some of those attacking my words were Orthodox! Yes, the Orthodox Church teaches and preaches traditional family values, well it is supposed to anyway, but I fear that many of my brother priests have not done their job. I know our bishops have not done their job as they have been silent these last few years as the Government of the United States slowly erodes our religious liberty. But it is not their fault.

We need to provide the strength and support to our bishops so they will know that we want them to speak out. We need to let them know that we support the mission of the Church to being the truth to society and we need them to know that we need them to find their voice and find it now! I serve on a committee with the newly formed Episcopal Assembly of Orthodox Bishops. The Committee for Church and Society is tasked with the following:

The Committee for Church and Society will develop a process to determine both the propriety and the priority of advocacy by the Assembly of issues concerning Church, government and society that are relevant to the lives of the faithful in the Region (e.g., same-sex marriage, abortion, war, etc.).

I was appointed more than a year ago, although I found out I was appointed by reading it on the website of the Assembly, but the Committee has yet to meet or begin the work that we are supposed to accomplish!

The bishops of our church are the authentic teachers of the faith. It is their role as Arch-Pastors of His Church to educate the people in the faith and what the Church teaches. This is an important role but I feel many times they say only what the people want to hear. Jesus did not tell the people what they wanted to hear He told them what they needed to hear and most of them did not like it but that did not stop him. He was not concerned with what people would think or whether or not they would put anything in the collection bin, he was concerned with the salvation of their souls, period!

Friends I find it unbelievable when I hear Orthodox people, people who have been Orthodox their entire life, say things like same sex marriage should be allowed in the Orthodox Church. People who believe that sex before the sacrament of marriage is just fine because everyone is doing it, and a growing number of people who believe that unrestricted abortion is an acceptable form of contraception regardless of the reason. I am sorry to say these are not Orthodox positions!

Being a Christian in the 21st Century is not easy and being an Orthodox Christian is even harder. We are a Church with some pretty counter cultural beliefs that we hold dear. We are a Church that still placed requirements on her members and hold them accountable for their actions. We are a church that is supposed to preach the truth regardless of whether or not is it politically correct. We are a Church that preaches confession and repentance and that we are all sinners and that the Church is the hospital for healing not just a place to come to hear your native language and eat foods from the home land.

It is time for the Orthodox Church to wake up and start preaching what we need to preach! It is time for us to wake up and, with love, correct people when they go astray. “We have found the true faith” and that faith needs to be preached as it has been handed down to us and watered down. And it is high time that the Orthodox Bishops in this country find their voice and start to speak. If the leadership is not willing to speak then individual bishops need to do it. Your Eminences and Your Graces we need to hear you, your people need to hear from you, we long to hear your voice and we need your teaching!

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Comments

  1. Well Said! Now Father Peter—- would you like to make a friendly wager as to how long it will take for you to receive the standard “do you know who I am” episcopal phone call from the new Metropolitan of Pittsburgh? My bet is no later than Friday…. Monday at the latest.

    • George Michalopulos says

      Andrew, maybe we could start an office pool targeting the date Fr Peter receives that phone call.

    • Andrew wrote about:

      the standard “do you know who I am” episcopal phone call from the new Metropolitan of Pittsburgh

      What are you talking about, precisely?

  2. John Veliotis says

    One reason you wont see Savvas addressing these concerns is because he has issued an accross the board 10% increase in assessments for all the Greek churches in Pittsburg diocese. You can read it if you go to the National Herald.

    • 10 % increase in assessments? The Metropolitan of Pittsburgh has not been in office 90 days and his model of servant leadership for an area of the country that is really hurting economically is quite literally to bleed the hardworking people of the parishes even more. Did he even listen to alternatives from his flock. It may appear nice to play “Mr. Tough Bishop” but in reality it looks like the new Metropolitan just made a horrible choice that will set a horrible tone for the years to come. This is not stewardship or leadership at any level.

    • Yep, sure enough Met. Savas, fresh from his enthronement, has decided to “bless” his flock with a whopper of an increase on assessments. Apparently the devastating economic situation all around us, the nearly 9% national unemployment rates, the anemic GDP growth (1.7% for 2011), the high inflation in fuel and food costs, and the bleak job prospects for the future are insufficient reasons to ask the Metropolitan and the Archdiocese to the live within their means and maintain the same spending level from the 2011 budget. Maybe a more charitable and loving approach would have considered tightening the belt at the diocese level, reducing the travel and expenses budget for the Metropolitan and his staff, or reducing some of the more non-critical initiatives, rather than pass the burden on to the struggling parishioners. These pragmatic ways of keeping costs under control would be signs of true and wise Servant Leadership.

      A 10% increase of the Pittsburgh Parishes’ Annual Dues
      Theodore Kalmoukos – The National Herald
      PITTSBURGH, PA – The parishes of the Metropolis of Pittsburgh will see an increase of 10 percent of their annual allocations to Archdiocese, according to a memorandum that was sent to them. The total amount will be $1,833,723.10 for 2012. According to the memo “this allocation is calculated using the financial data submitted by each parish nationally, which reports their individual gross income and adjusted expenses and from which their 2012 individual parish assessment is also calculated.”
      http://www.thenationalherald.com/article/53442

      Interestingly enough, the diocese seems to have sufficient funds to send Metropolitan Savas and his guest Troy Polamalu of the Pittsburgh Steelers to the upcoming GOYA Teen Basketball Tournament:

      Greek Orthodox leader visiting Canton, Hall of Fame
      Metropolitan Savas Zembillas of Pittsburgh will visit the 2012 Greek Orthodox Youth Association of America’s Teen Basketball Tournament taking place today through Sunday at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church at 4705 Fairhaven Ave. NW.

      Thirty-three teams from 11 churches are participating. Approximately 350 people are expected to attend.
      Zembillas was enthroned on Dec. 9. It marks his first visit to Canton, which is part of the Pittsburgh Metropolis. At 9:30 tonight, he will visit the Pro Football Hall of Fame to conduct a teen prayer service with the Very Revs. Daniel Rogich, Nicholas Gamvas and Joseph Cervo.

      Troy Polamalu, a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers and a Greek Orthodox Christian, is scheduled to accompany the bishop tonight.

      In addition to the tournament, Holy Trinity will host a dinner dance on Saturday. On Sunday, the teams will attend church, have brunch at Glenmoor Country Club and play the championship games. After church there will be a “Souper Bowl” trophy presentation given to the GOYA groups that bring the most canned goods to Saturday’s dance. http://m.cantonrep.com/repository/pm_30237/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=o1cfDjyS

      Maybe Met. Savas will decline the honorarium, that will likely be offered, as a sign of goodwill to towards this parish and the people. Better still, if would be wonderful if Metropolitan Savas will refuse all honorariums for the remainder of 2012 from the parishes he visits and requests instead that the honorarium money be donated directly to the Archdiocese. It would be a great way to lead by example and show how the shepherd shares in God’s work with his flock and is willing to also sacrifice in such difficult economic times for the good of the Church.

  3. Nicholas Verdi says

    I suppose that he’s going to take a 10 percent pay-cut as well?

  4. Heracleides says

    After having taken a break, I stumbled across a recent comment by Fr. John Jillions that I just couldn’t resist lampooning. My latest image – entitled “Pomade” – may be viewed here: http://s1235.photobucket.com/albums/ff436/Heracleides/

  5. Monk James says

    While he was responsible for a parish here in New Jersey, Fr John Jillions arranged for interested people to go by bus to a Billy Graham crusade. He invited the local clergy to join him in this.

    Without exception, the priests of this deanery declined to expose their people to this protestant and antiorthodox presentation. But that was a while ago.

    Lately, though, in the oca.org interview cited here:
    http://oca.org/news/headline-news/a-spirit-of-sobornost-an-interview-with-fr.-john-jillions-new-oca-chancello

    FrJJ acnowledges not only Billy Graham as an influence on his life, but also acknowledges an openly homosexual and unrepentant divorced priest whose story is well known locally, and who was never corrected by Abp Peter L’Huillier in spite of local clergy’s complaints.

    Believe it or not, there’s still at least one prominent priest here in NJ who defends this man, and at my expense.

    It’s one thing for us to acknowledge repentance and move on. It’s another thing altogether when people won’t only not repent, but continue to rub our noses in their mess because our bishops allow it.

    The Lord blew up Sodom and Gomorrah. He might yet blow up the OCA.

    • Just wondering if the fellow was discreetly homosexual and still clergy and/or ‘married’ would you have God blow them up too? You know, there are going to be lots and lots of craters around here if you get your way…..

    • George Michalopulos says

      MJ, I can’t speak to the issue of the divorced/homo priest who is supposedly an influence on Jillions as I know nothing about it. If true, then I would say it is regrettable. As to Billy Graham however, I must confess that he has always been one of my heroes. Still is.

      • Michael Bauman says

        Why?

        • Because I always thought that he was one of the greatest Christian preachers of all time, plus he not only talked the talk, but walked the walk.

          • “…he not only talked the talk, but walked the walk.”

            It troubles me when I sometimes hear the Rev. Graham’s name disparaged in Orthodox circles as if he were just another feel-good televangelist. I love my Orthodox Faith and wouldn’t trade it for the world, but it is precisely my love of Christ that causes me to admire the life of this servant of God. People may say what they will – sometimes rightly, other times wrongly – about the over-simplicity or incompleteness of Gospel he preaches, but there is no doubt about who his Master is. Would that I were as faithful to the One I know as he has been his entire life.

    • The divorced/homo priest lived about as openly gay with his partner “W.” as you could. It was well known in his parish and Bishop Peter just “winked” at his lifestyle. Jillions knew and never objected and in fact now confesses that this priest was one of his mentors. Shall we cut to the chase, Jillions is openly pro-gay clergy, along with Arida, Wheeler (Jillions brother-in-law). Remember the We Are Their Legacy website.

      The OCA is so compromised on this issue that it simply won’t deal with it. Bishop Michael has a gay clergy couple right under his nose in his diocese. Nathaniel protects a notorious gay priest in his diocese. Nikon openly defends his pal Bishop Mark Forsberg and his pal “deacon” Gregory Burke. And very sad to say, Jonah too who would not deal with his openly gay priest in his own cathedral. And worse, he wants to bring another priest to his cathedral with a most notorious gay background.

      I remember Jonah once saying that he had a “zero-tolerance” for gay clergy and clergy who misbehaved, “if you drop your pants, you lose your priesthood.” The OCA has a long history of ignoring gay clergy in their ranks, including bishops. Now we have a chancellor who points to an openly gay priest as one of his mentors. Any wonder why the OCA is Costa Concordia of Orthodox Churches and has lost its standing in the Orthodox world.

      As far as gay clergy in the OCA, you can bet that Jillions will use lots of grease so that they all get to slide right on past any trouble.

      • Amos, remember that Met. Jonah had his emails and text messages stolen and published without his consent. His brother bishops sprung into action by doing absolutely not a damn thing about it. The Metropolitan Council also didn’t take this lying down, and proceeded to pass a resolution honoring the blogger who published the stolen messages.

        Would you feel free under those circumstances?

        • Very good points, Helga. Amos, if I may add this spin to Helga’s points: +Jonah did a lot of the right things when he was elected and the good that he did almost cost him his job. Crazy, isn’t it?

          Regardless, you made some serious charges. I don’t doubt you. Would you be willing to name names? Especially the priests at the DC Cathedral.

          • Pravoslavnie says

            I’m former OCA, now ROCOR for several years, and I’ve made no secret of my support for Met. Jonah. Despite my admiration for him, his Beatitude has to get his own cathedral under control. We have so many OCA visitors giving St. John’s a test drive lately that we’re running out of seats at coffee hour. It’s an open secret that St. Nick’s is bleeding membership and clergy. I’m personally acquainted with two families, both longstanding St. Nick’s members, who have moved on with great reluctance. There have been more departures that they are aware of. I pray that the Metropolitan is able to give St. Nick’s the leadership it has been lacking since the transfer of Fr. Constantine and the sacking of Fr. Fester. However, any new dean there needs strong yet diplomatic leadership skills, and can’t be morally compromised.

            • Geo Michalopulos says

              These are the bitter fruits of liberalism and those who want to engage in “dialogue.” I’ve heard that the Sanctity of Life amendment that was submitted to the AAC (and overwhelmingly passed btw) was submitted by the good people of St Nick’s. Unfortunately, over the objections of some on the parish council.

              Hopefully the Holy Spirit will intervene and correct the situation.

              • Geo Michalopulos says

                I forgot to mention, it was Fr Denis who enthusiastically supported +Jonah’s forced “evaluation” at SLI. As I said earlier, he was the Judas Goat who led him there. What a weasel.

                • Carl Kraeff says

                  George–If it is true, as alleged by one who is on your side, that +Jonah was diagnosed with OCD, it was a good thing that he was evaluated, no? Would you rather his OCD is not controlled? I would not wish that on anybody.

                  • Geo Michalopulos says

                    No Carl, that’s not how health care works. Unless somebody is clinically insane or otherwise non compos mentis, you do not force that person into “evaluation” or whatever. Besides being unconstitutional, sovietistic, what have you, the moral problem that you describe is egregious in that the ends do not justify the means.

                    I more or less resigned myself to the fact that the majority of our ethnic priests have never studied moral philosophy and don’t understand these distinctions, but the fact that Fr Denis Bradley –a former Catholic and hence one well-educated in philosophy–helped orchestrate this attempted “therapy” tells me how terrible things have become.

              • I think you meant the Marriage Resolution . . . .

            • Lola J. Lee Beno says

              I just hope a new dean with these skills you’ve described will be appointed THIS year, the sooner the possible.

            • Dn Brian Patrick Mitchell says

              Pravoslavnie, please introduce yourself next time you are at St. John’s. I’ll be there too for the foreseeable future.

              • Deacon Patrick, how did you end up transferring to ROCOR?

                • Dn Brian Patrick Mitchell says

                  I’m not quite there yet, but expect to be soon. After being run out of the OCA cathedral in DC, I sought refuge at an OCA mission in Alexandria, but was unable to escape “their legacy.” First, I was taken to task (quite surprisingly) for preaching a homily on church discipline (loving everybody by not communing everbody). Then I had to endure several weeks of preaching by others against “religion,” which is supposedly bad because it’s about “rules” and “values” — the Scripture for these sermons being Fr. Alexander Schmemann’s journal. When I questioned what affect all these anti-religion sermons would have on the young and the weak of faith, the response made it obvious that I didn’t belong there anymore. “Their legacy” is just too strong there.

                  • Deacon Patrick, you’ll be in my prayers as you make the transition.

                    Incidentally, when did the OCA turn into a pot-smoking homosexual joint?

                    • Thank you, Helga. I do need prayers, but I must say that God has so greatly blessed me in so many other ways that this church trouble is really not weighing me down. “Rejoice always. Again I say, rejoice.”

                  • Geo Michalopulos says

                    Rev Deacon, I guess “tolerance” only goes one way, doesn’t it?

              • Pravoslavnie says

                I wasn’t going to be the one to break your bit of news for you, Fr. Patrick, but I was pleased to see you serve with us last week. So it seems we are now blessed with five deacons in our parish. Somehow I think you’ll fit in, and hope you are offered a permanent safe harbor.

        • Helga,

          And I doubt that they will do anything to the email thief Maymon either. He just waits in south Florida and curries favor in an attempt to lull the DOS into thinking he is a worthy successor to Ab. Dmitri.

          No priest in the DOS should feel safe as long as he is hanging around the diocese. Jonah, send Maymon to Baltimore where he belongs. Your auxiliary bishop who has never visited his See. What an example of obedience.

          As for the gay priest in DC, his name has been mentioned here many times. As for the other, it might be best for Jonah to wake up and do his due diligence before it is too late.

      • Amos, may I offer another perspective? I don’t know Jillions and only know what I know from the internet. Somewhat disconcerting to me as a conservative/traditionalist to be sure but he doesn’t seem as strident to me as Arida, Wheeler, Vinogradov, etc. Regardless, he did the right thing by being at the March for Life. To me this is huge. If I may, I’ve been involved in my local area MfL for going on three years now and know how difficult it is get clergymen and their congregations to join. Oh, they all have their pat excuses in hand but they really don’t hold water.

        Let me put it another way: What am I, as a Greek-American to say that there was not one GOA bishop (or clergyman) there? Or Antiochians for that matter? Men who I know do not advocate for homosexuality, alternative lifestyles, etc? If Jillions is a liberal in this regard, does the fact that he was there not making him more conservative than these others?

        I guess what I’m trying to say is now that Jillions is Chancellor, whatever he may have felt in the past, whatever he may have advocated, is a luxury he can no longer indulge in.

        • Dear George,

          There was a fair decent sized contigent of Greek Orthodox every year at the march for life. Not only did they march, but they always joined the other heritage bisxhops at the Vigil held the night before (usually held at St. Nicholas Cathedral because our Metropolitans have always been supporters. I’ve even met Greek clergy from as far away as California at the March. I can’t remember their names, however.

          • George Michalopulos says

            that’s good to hear. In fact, its’ the first time I’ve heard that any GOA priests or laymen marched at all.

      • Carl Kraeff says

        I forget; is this Salem II part 2 or 3?

    • If he is well known, what is the name of this openly gay priest?

  6. Please do not lift up the curtain on the Wizard…all is well..pay no attention to that man behind the curtain…we all know what Amos is writing is true…

    • I remember bringing up the gay clergy at St.Seraphim’s and St.Nicholas Cathedrals a few months ago and Helga wet her pants she got so mad…..we keep the secrets at what price ?? You speak the truth Amos…but you will be pilloried for it….but you speak the truth..

      • I pee in the toilet, bitch.

        • LOL……”They can tell we are Christians by our Love”

          • Stephen thinks he can lecture me on “love” after making a joke like that about me. Save your incontinence concerns for someone else.

            • It was a statement not a joke…you did get mad because I lifted the rock and spoke of the gay clergy at St.Seraphim Cathedral and St.Nicholas Cathedral…another impaired priest is joining St.Seraphim’s staff..Met Jonah won’t do a thing about it…I don’t hate Met.Jonah and I do think he has been treated very badly but he will not reinforce Church Canons about gay clergy…why?

              • StephenD, who are the supposed gay clergy at St Seraphim’s? I’ve heard no such thing.

                • You have not heard of any, because there are not any.

                  • Jane Rachel says

                    So, Metropolitan Jonah does not allow gay clergy? Or is it that he would not allow it if he could, but he can’t do anything? If not, why not? I would like to know what is going on.

                    Would Fr. Jillions et al like the OCA to officially allow gay clergy, and at least be honest about it, while at the same time destroying its orthodoxy? Or is it going to move what is “orthodox” over into the world view that homosexuality is not sinful, making it justifiable? Or are they going to keep sweeping everything under that great, bumpy, carpet like weak men?

                    Are Metropolitan Jonah and Bishop Matthias going to do anything more in the future to remove the corruption in the synod, or should we just give up? Are their hands completely tied? if so, why are their hands tied? Is there anything going on behind the scenes to fix, amend, reconcile, and make things RIGHT?

              • Jane Rachel says

                And most importantly, why does Metropolitan Jonah allow gay clergy?

                • Good question….very good question…

                • I’m not at all sure that Metropolitan Jonah “allows” gay clergy. Whether or not he has evidence of homosexual conduct by any clergy and has failed to proceed canonically against such is unknown by everyone except His Beatitude, but that’s another question.
                  I can definitely imagine a scenario where His Beatitude would decide to resign from being First Hierarch as long as the Holy Synod would allow his name to be put in the running for ruling Bishop of the Diocese of the South.

                  • Monk James says

                    Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says:
                    February 4, 2012 at 5:00 pm
                    ‘I’m not at all sure that Metropolitan Jonah “allows” gay clergy. Whether or not he has evidence of homosexual conduct by any clergy and has failed to proceed canonically against such is unknown by everyone except His Beatitude, but that’s another question.’

                    While I support Met. Jonah 100%, I feel that he hasn’t been following up on what he’s been told regarding the behavior of some clergymen. There are probably two reasons for this. First, MetJ is not inclined to believe the worst of people, but rather to expect the best of them. It’s therefore hard for him to accept some of these reports without eyewitness attestation. In my opinion about this, he’s both right and wrong at the same time, but it’s his call. May the Lord guide him!

                    Second, since MetJ keeps getting challenged and beaten down by a few other bishops in our OCA’s Holy Synod, it’s not hard to understand that he might be a bit gun-shy by now.

                    And this is a sin and a shame.

                    ‘I can definitely imagine a scenario where His Beatitude would decide to resign from being First Hierarch as long as the Holy Synod would allow his name to be put in the running for ruling Bishop of the Diocese of the South.’

                    Heaven forfend! Although it seems that Abp Dmitri had a dream of MetJ’s succeeding him as bishop of Dallas, AbpD’s inability to oppose Met. Herman in his (MetH’s) uncanonical moves against Fr Robert Kondratick, who was at the time under AbpD’s canonical authority, indicates that AbpD’s thoughts about (then) Hegoumen Jonah might not be taken too seriously even now.

                    Then there’s the matter of the very indignity of expecting the first hierarch of an autocephalous church to take a lower position because of base, rank, ugly political confusion in his church.

                    Lord, may it not happen! May Your OCA be restored to proper order in faith and love.

                    • The monk James writes,

                      There are probably two reasons for this. First, MetJ is not inclined to believe the worst of people, but rather to expect the best of them. It’s therefore hard for him to accept some of these reports without eyewitness attestation. In my opinion about this, he’s both right and wrong at the same time, but it’s his call. May the Lord guide him!

                      Second, since MetJ keeps getting challenged and beaten down by a few other bishops in our OCA’s Holy Synod, it’s not hard to understand that he might be a bit gun-shy by now.

                      I agree about the second reason, much as it pains me to say it.

                      The first, I would not expect him to act without hard evidence including eyewitnesses. If I’m not mistaken, one who makes an accusation in a spiritual court runs very serious risks if the allegations are false. Met. Jonah is smart enough not to put his neck on the block lightly, regardless of what some think of his inaction.

                      Then there’s the matter of the very indignity of expecting the first hierarch of an autocephalous church to take a lower position because of base, rank, ugly political confusion in his church.

                      If that happens, Church historians 500 years from now will recount the whole ugly existence of the OCA in a short footnote.

                  • His Grace writes,

                    I’m not at all sure that Metropolitan Jonah “allows” gay clergy. Whether or not he has evidence of homosexual conduct by any clergy and has failed to proceed canonically against such is unknown by everyone except His Beatitude, but that’s another question.

                    Vladyka, as you are a retired bishop, how would the spiritual court process work when the accused is a priest?

                    I can definitely imagine a scenario where His Beatitude would decide to resign from being First Hierarch as long as the Holy Synod would allow his name to be put in the running for ruling Bishop of the Diocese of the South.

                    What’s a promise worth from bishops who would force a healthy man into a mental health evaluation? If Metropolitan Jonah would ever give up the white hat, he would be savvy enough not to expect even an empty promise in return.

                    I don’t think that’s very likely, though because I think he would see resignation as rejecting the cross given to him by Christ. The only way he would step down is if he really couldn’t do the job anymore.

                    • Helga, you don’t think such a deal is being considered by the Holy Synod and His Beatitude. I do.

                    • Your Grace, when did you get a direct line into Synodal discussions? I thought you said the other bishops weren’t so good at keeping in touch.

                    • Reply number two to Helga, about how to proceed against clergy guilty of sexual crime:
                      Let’s take the case of former Abbot Herman (Podmoshchensky). The Archbishop of Western America and San Francisco at the time, after receiving reports of sexual misconduct from various members of his Diocese, suspended Abbot Herman and convened his long-ago constituted Diocesan Court which was made up of clergy-peers of Abbot Herman. Then Archbishop Anthony sent a summons to Abbot Herman to appear in San Francisco before that court. Abbot Herman did not reply. The Archbishop summoned him once again. Abbot Herman did not reply. The Archbishop summoned him a third time and he did not reply. Still, Archbishop Anthony did not yet take action to depose him; however, when he learned that Abbot Herman had, in spite of being suspended from all priestly functions, served at Divine Liturgy with a Bishop with whom Archbishop Anthony was not in communion. Then the Archbishop HAD to pronounce that Abbot Herman had deposed himself through his actions. Soon after that, I, as the OCA Bishop of San Francisco and the West, received a letter from Archbishop Anthony’s Diocesan Council which gave formal notice of Abbot Herman’s deposition from the Priesthood.. It is the responsibility of a Diocesan Bishop to appoint his Diocesan Spiritual Court, which considers crimes and marital matters, etc. When a Priest is tried, the members of the court who are his peers constitute his trial court, in which the Bishop is the Accuser and also the President. As we all know, the “trial of Protopresbyter Rodion S. Kondratick” did not take place before the Spiritual Court of his Diocesan Bishop’s diocese; rather, it took place before an ad hoc body arbitrarily constituted and appointed by a First Hierarch who was not present, constituted by those who were not all Father Rodion’s peers; the accuser was a laywoman, an attorney, called Faith Skordinski. The President of the Court was His Eminence the Archbishop of Detroit and the Romanian Episcopate. Really, if one wanted to sit down and dream up the most uncanonical of Spiritual Courts, one would be hard put to exceed the level of the “court” whose decrees were lovingly and thankfully accepted (with the most cynical of utterances which is their wont: “with sadness and prayers for the salvation of R.S. Kondratick!”
                      This was accepted by most of The People of God in the Concilitarian Orthodox Church in America as a legal and Orthodox confirmation that the Protopresbyter was a criminal who robbed the widows and orphans and RAN the OCA!

                      Totally disgusting in form and content. But as a fulfillment of the wills of Metropolitan Herman, Ever-Memorable Archbishop Job, Archbishop Seraphim, Bishop Nikon, Bishop Benjamin, Archpriest Paul Kucynda, 72 either gullible or vicious Archpriests,Protodeacon Eros Wheeler, and the then Mr. Mark Stokoe, it was immaculate, perfect. Why, only a year or so ago, still basking in the rottten fruits of the SIC, one Diocesan Assembly passed a resolution praising and thanking Bishop Benjamin for restoring (through his SIC report) “transparency to Christ’s Holy Church.” That’s the same diocese that was LED to pronounce judgment on Metropolitan Jonah.
                      It just occurred to me, do any of the OCA people participating here remember how ocanews.org sympathized with a certain Priest (a former Protodeacon) and was appalled at the persecutory tactics used against him by hierarchs relative to his conduct in his parish? The silence which accompanied the later deposition of that Priest for having taken a handicapped youth off on a Nudist Pleasure Cruise for men was truly deafening.

              • When did you say that, Stephen? I looked through your past posts and didn’t find it.

                • I changed my posting name soon after this as another Stephen was posting too..right after this I started using StephenD

                  Stephen says:
                  July 4, 2011 at 7:18 am
                  Now it is up to Archbishop Nikon to deal with this problem but it was up to Met.Jonah and he dropped the ball..why? If Archbishop Nikon doesn’t do anything all hell will break lose but Met.Jonah doesn’t and you make up excuses….
                  Why did Met.Jonah concelebrate with Isidore Brittain? he was Achbishop Nicholai’s partner in Alaska..
                  The problem with Jesse Cone and Rod Dreher is they refused to look under their own noses…St.Seraphim Cathedral has its gay clergy too..

                  • StephenD,

                    Isidore Brittain was NEVER the partner of Bp. Nikolai. NEVER. So don’t try and connect dots that do not exist. Brittain a confessed alcoholic in recovery and as part of his recovery made amends to Nikolai but those amends were used against both he and Nikolai by Benjamin, Oleska, Stokoe and others in their efforts to harm both Brittain and Nikolai.

                    Nikon won’t do anything because he is too close to Bp. Mark Forsberg and to Ab. Nathaniel. And I won’t speak too ill of Nikon since he is dying. But, the outrage of Burke is still killing the spirit of the Church in Miami.

                    Believe me, Cone and Dreher are no novices when it comes to “looking under their own noses.”

                    Keep your focus on the compromised bishops of the OCA and you will have more than enough to keep you busy for years to come.

                    • Jane Rachel says

                      Disgusting.

                    • Amos, I think the real bottom line here is that the DOS desperately needs to get a move on electing a new bishop. Preferably, one who will himself get a move on taking care of Archdeacon Gregory Burke and Bishop Mark Forsberg. What exactly is the holdup with them?

                      On the other hand, if Bishop Nikon is in fact dying, while making future decisions, perhaps he should remember the Judge he will be facing. “Fool! This night your soul will be required of you…”

                      To get a handle on the kinds of justifications that have allowed this situation to persist for so long, Stan/Vara has happily provided us with a glimpse inside his confused mind on the subject.

                    • Geo Michalopulos says

                      Carl, I must disagree with you about Stokoe’s motives. Whether he thought +Jonah “was good for the Church” or not is immaterial. As a layman, he has no say in the matter as bishops are elected by the Holy Synod. What he did, by conspiring with others and using many illegal and unethical means, was morally reprehensible. That “revered archpriests” like Hopko and Oleksa went along with him is equally unjustifiable.

                      Let us not forget that, by virtue of his seat on the MC, he had authority over us in a quasi-administrative capacity. That he used this same authority to shape the news (i.e. be a muckraker) is equally unconscionable.

                    • I counter your statement Amos. I was Starosta at Holy Resurrection Cathedral, Kodiak Alaska where I was born and baptized as was my mother, father and all family. I think and hope i served honorably all the years of my life, and as God is my witness right now…Isadora was Nikolai’s partner. They were like an old married couple…lived together, etc….in the Bishop’s apartment at St. Herman Seminary. They were an embarrassment to the community. Not just the Orthodox community, but the entire town of Kodiak. They made us a laughing stock.
                      Now, if you’ve lived here and can counter my claims, please do so…I am tired of those who don’t know the truth touting their opinions and calling it ‘truth’.

                    • Harry Coin says

                      You see in Rosabel’s posting the major harm the appearance of impropriety caused no matter what someone with a camera in the bedroom would have seen. The writing above describes what looked to the world like a gay shack up. Those involved knew this, but did not change so as to avoid scandal and loss to the church. Who stays in such a church once they see this going on? Who is it that agrees to be married clergy where such control your career fate at whim with no realistic appeal process? And it isn’t just the OCA, or just there.

                      Those involved quite evidently do not care enough to change what appearance they give folk to see. Deny, bite, belittle, snarl, who can fire them? Who can cause improvement? So, folk just leave, quietly. No amount of pouring energy into a boat with such a leak will result in anything good until the leak first is mended.

                    • You can’t possibly be that dumb not to think that Met Jonah’s ‘admission’ in that speech wasn’t completely scripted for him.

                      Here’s how I see the scenario: No one knows what’s going to happen at the AAC in Seattle, the whole church is abuzz, and the other members of the Holy Synod kept Met Jonah in the dark until the appointed time. They get there, they all get in a room for their pre-council meetings, and they read Met Jonah the ultimatum. “You have two choices: 1) You can read your own speech, give your own take on what has happened to this point, and we will, in fact, start the procedure, right now to remove you from office and have a vote of no-confidence from the floor. It will be decisive, and you’ll be gone before day two of the council is over. Then we will retire you – you will never return to the active episcopate. Or 2) You can read from this prepared paragraph, admit that all of this commotion was your fault, due to your incompetence and administrative inabilities, ‘voluntarily’ submit to a psych eval at a center known for treating pedophiles, and you can keep your job at least through this council, without the embarrassment of being summarily removed from the seat of the Metropolitan in a public display of no-confidence.

                    • Spasi, I know what you’re getting at. However, I think we need to make something crystal clear for the simple reason that someone will nitpick this for twenty comments: A vote of no confidence from the floor of an AAC could never directly remove a Metropolitan from office in the OCA, it would just humiliate and discredit him, putting pressure on him to resign.

                    • Helga,
                      You KNOW I don’t have a direct line to the Holy Synod don’t you? You’ve got a brain. figure out how someone could learn what OCA members of the Holy Synod are saying among themselves outside actual sessions of the Holy Synod. It only takes one or two with loose lips to ask revealing questions, such as “The Metropolitan actually can step down from his position as Primate and still be canonically eligible to rule a diocese, couldn’t he?” and “In the event Metropolitan Jonah would be content to take the diocese of the South, which he originally intended, there’s be nothing wrong with his stepping down as Primate…I mean it’s not against the Canons, is it?” And so on.

                    • This plan just doesn’t make any sense, Vladyka. If they dislike him enough to want him to step down, why would they agree to him possibly becoming a ruling bishop of another diocese?

                      If there’s a grain of truth in it, they may have presented the idea as a ruse to get Met. Jonah to step down voluntarily: let him step down and stand for nomination in the DOS, then regardless of the results, elect another man for that diocese.

                      If Met. Jonah has a bit of sense, he won’t step down for anything but a release to ROCOR/MP. I’d make them throw in the forty acres and a mule, too. I bet he could start up a nice monastery with that.

                    • Helga, your comment about the South and the fact that they don’t have a bishop yet leaves me wondering if the delaying tactics employed are so that nothing will happen to Bishop Forsburge and Deacon Burke. After all, Bishop Nikon is friends with Forsburge and stays with him at his house whenever he visits.

                  • My response to you contained nothing that might be construed as pants-wetting. Stop depending on lies and slander to make your arguments, Stephen. You may be able to get away with that in Inga’s Facebook group, but not here.

                    This is my post in full, including quotations from you:

                    Now it is up to Archbishop Nikon to deal with this problem but it was up to Met.Jonah and he dropped the ball..why? If Archbishop Nikon doesn’t do anything all hell will break lose but Met.Jonah doesn’t and you make up excuses….

                    I am not making excuses for Metropolitan Jonah. This is a plain and obvious mistake on his part. OCAT said so and so do I.

                    There are a number of possibilities that could mitigate Metropolitan Jonah’s personal culpability in the matter, but I don’t know any of those as fact. It’s up to Metropolitan Jonah to explain himself on that front.

                    However, I think it’s essential to note that Metropolitan Jonah did try to do something about the situation in March. Whatever mistake he made, he has tried to fix it.

                    Why did Met.Jonah concelebrate with Isidore Brittain? he was Achbishop Nicholai’s partner in Alaska..

                    Fr. Isidore Brittain’s suspension was lifted. He is permitted to serve, and was permitted at the time that Metropolitan Jonah and Bishop Benjamin concelebrated with him. Nothing wrong transpired there. As far as I know, Fr. Isidore has continued to comply with the terms of the lifting of his suspension by undergoing counseling for his alcoholism, and as far as I know, since his suspension was lifted, no further issues have emerged with respect to his personal integrity or his ministry.

                    May God keep Fr. Isidore on the path of righteousness and remember him in his Kingdom.

                    The problem with Jesse Cone and Rod Dreher is they refused to look under their own noses…St.Seraphim Cathedral has its gay clergy too..

                    The problem Jesse Cone and Rod Dreher had with Mark Stokoe was that he was trying to overthrow the OCA’s duly-elected Metropolitan under false pretenses. Stokoe’s sexuality was only brought up because it was, and remains, a clear motive for undermining Metropolitan Jonah.

                    » Posted By Helga On July 4, 2011 @ 10:24 am

                    • Carl Kraeff says

                      I agree with “The problem Jesse Cone and Rod Dreher had with Mark Stokoe was that he was trying to overthrow the OCA’s duly-elected Metropolitan…” I can’t agree with “under false pretenses” for I think Stokoe truly believed that +Jonah was bad for the Church.

                      I do not agree with “Stokoe’s sexuality was only brought up because it was, and remains, a clear motive for undermining Metropolitan Jonah.” I think that when historians write about this sorry episode, they will say instead “”Stokoe’s sexuality was brought up in order to divert attention from the real problems.” And, +Jonah himself admitted to such when he said:

                      “These last three years have been the three most difficult years of my life. I have been under a relentless barrage of criticism for most of this time from every forum I am meant to oversee: the Chancery officers and staff, the Metropolitan Council, and — most troubling to me — the Holy Synod of Bishops. I admit that I have very little experience in administration, and it was a risk for the 2008 Council to elect me, the newest and most inexperienced of bishops. I have worked very hard to fulfill your expectations. But this is not an excuse. These three years have been an administrative disaster, and I need to accept full responsibility for that….How to get at the root of this breakdown in trust and repair it, if at all possible, is the real challenge for me, and I am willing to do whatever is necessary, working in close collaboration with the Holy Synod. As a first step, I have agreed to begin a process of discernment that will include a complete evaluation in a program that specializes in assisting clergy…”

                      If these words were sincere, +Jonah showed more courage and leadership than most people in his situation. If they were not, he should be ashamed. In either case, he has vindicated the essence of Stokoe’s accusation. And, in order to rally behind him, +Jonah’s fans resorted to scorched earth tactics, hitting out against Stokoe, as well a any others, who was or might have been critical of the Metropolitan. My hope is that they too will eventually come to their senses and demonstrate the courage of +Jonah.

                      That said, I do want to say that homosexual conduct amongst the clergy is indeed a problem, as would be any other serious sin. It is not the nature of the sin concerns me as much as the fact our leaders are held to strict standards:

                      Here is Paul in 1 Titus 5-9:

                      “5 For this reason I left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are lacking, and appoint elders in every city as I commanded you—

                      6 if a man is blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of dissipation or insubordination.

                      7 For a bishop must be blameless, as a steward of God, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money,

                      8 but hospitable, a lover of what is good, sober-minded, just, holy, self-controlled,

                      9 holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict.”

                    • I think this Stephen or whoever didn’t really aver that Helga was wetting her panties or whatever. He just chose one of the grossest variations on “getting your knickers in a twist,” or “going all to pieces” or “curling your toes,” etc., etc., Those are rhetorical devices that are sometimes on the weak side, being rhetoric, but I’ve never heard anyone indignantly denying a figure as if it were meant as a statement of fact!

      • Jane Rachel says

        StephenD, what motivated you to write things that are not only hurtful towards another person, but not true?

        • I am not going to comment any more about these posts from the past but can you prove they are not true?

          • Are you one of us resident sinners at the Cathedral? Are you personally acquainted with the man whom you slander?

          • Geo Michalopulos says

            StephenD, that makes no sense. One cannot prove a negative. If the man you are accusing of is homosexual, that would be easy to prove. If he is not a homosexual you cannot prove that he is not. Unless you are willing to name him then you are on a fishing expedition. And no, if he is in fact homosexual, you would not be slandering or libeling him as truth is a defense against slander/libel.

            • The person under attack (by StephenD) has been named before — on this blog, even, I think I recall — but I easily could be wrong with the memory. I asked about personal acquaintance with him, because I believe that carries more weight than does Internet “poop”. The only source of the accusation which I ever have seen is one made by a sadly, infinitely confused individual. One source.

            • George…I sent you an e-mail answering your request and I have never named the person on this blog

              • StephenD — I did not mean that you were the person who posted the nasty allegation which I thought I had read at this website. I did not intend to mislead any reader, and I see how that could have come across.

                As noted before, I owe no credence to the elsewhere Internet poster whom I mentioned.

              • I, also, sent a private e-mail about this subject, but never received the confirmation reply that it was received/read.

              • Geo Michalopulos says

                Well, you made the accusation (that there are homosexual clergy at St Seraphim’s). All I’m asking is that you name him/them.

                • Are you asking me, or StephenD (who is the person apparently believing the allegation)? Sometimes the connecting lines on the board throw me off. At any rate, he should provide you with the name in private, and not openly on the board.

  7. Jane Rachel says

    When will Bishop Benjamin be removed? When will Bishop Nikolai be vindicated? When will Father Robert Kondratick be reinstated as a priest? I’ll tell you when. Never. That’s when. Or, perhaps when pigs fly.

    • Jane Rachel,

      In God’s good time. In this world is of little consequence. In His Kingdom, well, that is quite another matter. Not sure if pigs fly in the Kingdom, but it would not surprise me!

      • Eh, excuse me, but had you ever been in Cincinnati, you would know that pigs do, indeed, fly!

        Proud Queen City man,
        Joseph A.

        • Jane Rachel says

          Just a quick thank you for that link, Joseph A. 🙂

          “…therefore would I rather be a swineherd on Amager, and be understood by the swine than a poet, and misunderstood by men.”

          — Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Danish existentialist philosopher writing in Either/Or (1843).

          • I forgot to thank Jane Rachel for quoting Kierkegaard. Thanks so much! His writings played a singular role in my life. I have a great painting of him in my computer, but I don’t want to ask for Jane Rachel’s email address, for obvious reasons, so I’ll put it amongst my photos on my Facebook page, in case Jane has access to that.

            • Jane Rachel says

              Bishop Tikhon, you are welcome. A couple of big smile emoticons added here. I’ll send you my email address on FB. You may send me an email or not, whatever you like. Thanks for the nice note, it made me smile, though the weather here today is so beautiful it’s hard not to smile. We’ve been slaving away outside for the past three days redoing the brakes on the ancient Ford Ranger that gets us from here to there, and are glad it’s been warm enough outside so we can work without freezing.

          • Jane Rachel says

            I never used to like the idea of taking a “leap of faith” or jumping a gap in reasoning in order to believe, but I learned about that idea through Francis Schaeffer’s writings about Kierkegaard so maybe that idea was filtered through Schaeffer’s protestant thinking. Maybe it’s time I read some more of Kierkegaard. I always wanted to know for certain that God exists and when I heard that term “leap of faith” at about age seventeen I was frustrated with it. Why can’t we know for certain? After becoming Orthodox years ago I was sure for a time, but now, not so much. I need the leap to get there from here. “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” That’s existential enough for me.

  8. Helga,

    I think the reason for the delay in the nomination of a bishop for the South is that there are no acceptable candidates. I think the Synod would love to dump Maymon on us, what other reason is there for him still lurking around the Diocese. One can only hope that his calamitous tenure as the DOS administrator will not soon be forgotten. But beyond him, there are still no available candidates.Two of the best have been barred from consideration; Benjamin won’t let Archimandrite Meletios Webber out of his monastery in Manton and Nathaniel won’t let Archpriest Callinic Berger out of the ROEA.

    As for Stan, well given that Fr Ray Velencia has brought a multi-million suit against him, Stokoe, Fr Michael Regan (Orthodox Forum), Sakoda and Larson (Pokrov) in Federal Court for defamation of character, it should be interesting to see if Stan current bluster will be toned down. Others are looking very closely at this suit and how it unfolds which may determine if they too use the courts to right wrongs.

    Stan lashed out at Bp. Matthias because not because Stokoe’s lifestyle, but because he had the guts to take on Stokoe to shut down his site. Stokoe also knew that the Velencia suit was coming, a major reason why his site went dark. Kudos to the Bishop of Chicago and the Midwest and to Monomahkos for shining the light in dark places.

    • Clergy suing clergy? This is very sad no matter what the facts of the case are..

      • The Orthodox Forum IMHO is a cesspool of mean-spirited ideas and comments. It has demeaned and hurt so many people and caused spiritual harm. Why Bishop Benjamin won’t stand up and tell Fr Regan to shut that site down is a mystery. You are right it is sad, but which is worse, a cleric having no other alternative than the civil courts for redress or a bishop who is not tending his own flock?

        • Lots of anonymous people think the Orthodox forum on yahoogroups is ‘mean’… because it doesn’t allow anonymites. 1500+ subscribers at last count, and one of, if not the longest tenured forums regarding the Orthodox church on the internet. Predominantly OCA and ROCOR people, but quite a mix and from around the world too. And, max 3 posts a day. So you can see why some here would be challenged….

          • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

            Bishop Nikolai did not have a sexual liaison or relationship with Archimandrite Isidore, despite the nasty, malicious calumny of Rosabel Baldwin and others. Rosabel! I ask you as Archbishop Kiprian of blessed memory used to ask those who attack others for sexual misdeeds; “Were you THERE, Rosabel, with a Flashlight? What did you SEE?” You just declared, “Isadora (sic) was Nikolai’s partner. They were like an old married couple…iived together, etc….in the Bishop’s apartment at St. Herman Seminary.”
            What utter meretricious bile! Bishops have been living together with their kellejniks since time immemorial as have Elders with their spiritual children on the Holy Mountain, on Sinai, and elsewhere. Rosabel, how, as a starosta in Anchorage, did you determine the quality of life at St. Herman Seminary in Kodiak? How long ago did you give up your life in California to go to Alaska?
            “Isadora?” At least show some respect for the holy name of an Orthodox Saint, irrespective of the worthiness of anyone who may bear it. The name is ISIDORE.
            Shame on you, Raissa/Rosabell. .

            • Harry Coin says

              So the bishop who speaks of ‘Mrs. Steve Brown’ on monday, on Tuesday asks ‘were you there, did you see.. how dare you!!’

              The bishop proves why it is we need senior empty nester (note– actual fathers) clergy who all hold to be bishops in fact but not name (owing to the lack of death of the wife) to be restored to their rightful place mentioned in that book they all parade about with in gold over their heads every week..

              Or, the ever fewer of us that remain can look forward to the commentary of the ordained young never married knowing who among them is (the scandal!) or isn’t (how dare you suggest!) doing what with whom.

              • The distinction between the two cases is one of primary sources rather than innuendo. In Mr Stokoe’s mother’s obituary, Mr Brown is referred to as the late Mrs Stokoe’s “son-in-law.” This is proof that at least within the Stokoe household, Brown was viewed as Stokoe’s “husband.” The obituary is a primary source since it comes from the family.

              • Harry Coin, perhaps it would interest you to know that “empty nester” bishops can be consecrated, provided his wife decides of her own free will to enter a monastery.

          • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

            The Orthodox Forum is a johnny-come-lately, Harry, amongst the Orthodox forums and lists. I think only Mrs. Steve Brown’s site was younger. The (Indiana U.) Orthodox List is way older. the Orthodox Traditions list, moderated by Fr. Alexander Lebedeff, is way older. the orthodoxtraditions or Paradosis list of Father Seraphim in Dallas is way older.
            I’ve avoided the orthodox forum always because almost everything quoted from it is weighed down with the personal bitterness and pessimistic outlook of its moderator. That site is not FOR anything, but it’s resentful of a LOT. It’s motto should be, “Come unto me all ye bitter and malice-laden, and I will give you outlet!”

            • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

              For the record, Orthodox-Forum was the second internet list after Indiana. I know this because Harry Coin and I started it along with another person. It came out just after SVGA became a standard, many moons ago. It existed on a private list-server for years before being moved to Yahoo Groups. We started it because we got tired of the OCA-ROCOR wars that dominated Indiana at the time. The other groups you mentioned came along later, when Yahoo Groups made managing lists easier.

              • Harry Coin says

                Prior to Yahoo and even prior it’s existence as a private list server as Fr. Hans mentions (running in my basement…) there was the Orthodox forum group hosted then on America Online. It existed for many (many) years but was open only to America online members (back in the modem-as-internet-access-mechanism days…) Depends how you count things, the bulk of the AOL membership moved to the private forum Fr. Hans mentions and was joined then by all those who weren’t aol members to make what then moved to the yahoo list.

                The community of folk who knew one another makes a forum the way I look at things, not so much where it is hosted.

                Of course the opinions do differ.

                • Jane Rachel says

                  Harry Coin, as one of the founders of Orthodox Forum, are you able to address what it was about Orthodox Forum and its postings that led Father Ray Valencia to bring this lawsuit? I am a member of several discussion lists, and haven’t seen anything like this before on those lists. What is it about your Orthodox Forum that would bring about such an action? (Blaming the one who brought the lawsuit won’t hold water with me.)

                  • Harry Coin says

                    No clue. I couldn’t keep up with the daily traffic a long long time ago (years) and resigned as a moderator as other cares needed priority. For the last few months I’ve been able to read it every day to every other day. To be honest all I really recall about the Koumentakos case is that there was some manner of workplace explosion between that priest and a woman, leading to legal activity which I gather favored the woman’s claims. In the wondrous ways of bishops Fr. Ray got ‘released’ from the OCA but without any internal churchly review of his conduct, released I think to the GOA for a while but maybe not. I’m sure others know better than I do, it’s probably all on that pokrov.org website.

                    I can’t imagine what Fr. Michael Regan (The Vicar of Vacaville, CA… he always made me chuckle with that one) did to win that prize I can’t guess. Certainly nothing I was ever given to read on the forum, but as I said I haven’t been as avid about it of late. Still, I’ve known Fr. Michael ‘online’ for many, many years and even a bit in person, never have I seen anything from him either in private or online that would even suggest doing things of the sort alleged by that fellow. In short, I believe Fr. Ray was simply wrong to include him in the suit, and from the shape of things probably wrong to bring a legal action in the first place, but no doubt court proceedings, if public, will make that plain.

                    Speaking as I’ve been given to know, Fr. Michael is an honest long serving clergyman in a not so rich part of the world and I don’t think he deserves this present fuss.

                    You have to understand the Orthodox Forum is not like this website or other blogs where the blog owner pretty much sets whatever tone they prefer. There is no posting of articles and a one-man-band soliciting readers and responding to them. It’s really a forum, anyone can bring up topics, respond to them, and so forth. And they do! It’s a coming together really. And don’t forget it’s hosted by the Yahoo company, nobody involved is making any money doing it, we never did.

                    And,… 1500+ actually subscribed members…. All it takes is giving one’s name and joining, following the 3/day rules, not straying into ‘vote for this one, that one’s a bum’ politics, and being willing to prove one’s identity upon request.

                    • I agree that it was probably a bad idea to include Fr. Michael in the suit, but on the other hand, any discussion of Mark Stokoe’s homosexuality was shut down on that list, while Fr. Ray Valencia is practically spoken of as a threat to humanity on the basis of one persons accusation that he breached the confidentiality of confession, when he and other say that he never heard the person in question’s confession. Now, that may or may not be true, but certainly the handling of these two cases showed a bias, and willingness to exercise editorial discretion in one case, but not the other.

                    • If I’m not mistaken, Fr Ray never actually heard Mrs Koumentakos’s confessions, and was exonerated of the charge of betraying confidentiality by an OCA spritual court (indeed, Mrs K. comnfirmed it by her testimony). Can anyone confirm this? If so I think we should all refrain from perpetuating this false charge,

                  • Carl Kraeff says

                    I do not think that anyone has seen the actual complaint so there are lots of assumptions being made here. However, hypothetically if Fr Regan was included in the lawsuit as the moderator and not for anything that he said, any good judge would throw out the case against him. Suing a moderator for alleged slander made in his forum is against all sorts of constitutional provisions.

                    • Carl,

                      That may be true, but where is Fr Michael’s bishop? Does his bishop by tacit consent of allowing one of his clergy to moderate that site give a blessing to his status as moderator? Where is his bishop on this issue?

                    • Carl Kraeff says

                      There are lots of priests who are active on the Internet, operating their own blogs, participating in others, and moderating fora. So, I do not think that we should narrow this down to the Orthodox Forum and Fr Regan, one of the two moderators there. If there is an issue with priests in cyberspace, I fail to see it. What is so different in clergy in the agora and on the Internet?

            • Carl Kraeff says

              Regarding the two back to back postings by His Grace Bishop Tikhon, His Grace must have used a flashlight in Dayton, Ohio or had a camera installed in the bedroom of “Mrs. Steve Brown.” I am saying this because of his indignant question to Rosabel:

              ““Were you THERE, Rosabel, with a Flashlight? What did you SEE?” You just declared, “Isadora (sic) was Nikolai’s partner. They were like an old married couple…iived together, etc….in the Bishop’s apartment at St. Herman Seminary.”

              Folks..what’s good for a goose is good for a gander, no?

              ps: I am surprised by the public admission that “Bishops have been living together with their kellejniks since time immemorial as have Elders with their spiritual children on the Holy Mountain, on Sinai, and elsewhere.” So, there is a precedent for men living together with no automatic assumption of SSA or SSSA. Without applying this precedent to particular individuals, I would think that folks throwing rocks should be careful lest they are found to be guilty of either selective indignation or of hypocrisy.

              pps: There is evidence to support Rosabel’s contention. Unlike His Grace’s refutation (was he there with a flashlight too?) or of the anonymous Amos’ assurances, we have on record the words of respected Orthodox persons that indicate an intimate relationship between Father Isadore and Bishop Nikolai.

              “It was during one of my first telephone calls ”to investigate” the seminary as its perspective Dean that I called the then Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs, Mister Paul Sidebottom. After an initial greeting, Mr. Sidebottom’s words to me were: ”Father, you need to know about some things going on here before you take this job.” Mr. Sidebottom then described the alleged sexual assault he had suffered at the hands of Archimandrite Isidore on the Eve of the Ascension, as well as other details connected with that incident. Naturally, to have ignored these allegations would have violated many Christian and legal principles. According to the OCA’s ”Policies, Procedures and Guidelines on Sexual Misconduct”, I understood that I was obliged to report this information.” Father John Anderson, February 20, 2008 letter to Metropolitan Herman. This letter was written in response to Bishop Nikolai’s false accusation against Archbishop Job of blessed memory.

              “After speaking with the co-celebrants, I asked the seminarians and parishioners who witnessed Fr. Isidore’s drunkenness to contact Bishop Nikolai that evening. Fr. Innocent Dresdow as the Dean of the Cathedral called the bishop. His Grace asked that Fr. Isidore be found and asked to contact the Chancery. Fr. Isidore had gone out with the reporters, so Fr. Innocent and I drove around Kodiak’s downtown in search for him. We found Fr. Isidore stumbling down the hall way at the Kodiak Inn. Fr. Isidore spoke briefly with Bishop Nikolai by mobile phone. Fr. Innocent and I were asked to prepare Fr. Isidore for the night’s last flight back to Anchorage. At the episcopal apartment Fr. Isidore was told to pack. He expressed his feeling of betrayal by us. Yet while making final scheduling with the airlines, Fr. Isidore continued to drink vodka which he had hidden in the apartment. He also took some unidentified pills. We were able to get Fr. Isidore to the airport but the staff would not take him because of his drunken state. He was drooling and mumbling. An Anchorage flight was scheduled for the following afternoon.

              In the car ride over and back, Fr. Isidore was in tears. He asked how he had come to his current condition. He said he had once been normal. He loved God. He loved his neighbor. All the while, he was reaching back to touch my leg in an inappropriate way and trying to hug me.

              Back at the apartment, the drama increased. Fr. Isidore said if Fr. Innocent and I thought the answer was to send him back to Anchorage, we were wrong. Sending him back to ‘papa’ was ‘hell’ and ‘his death’. It was at this point in the night that Fr. Isidore admitted ‘Vladyka beats me.’ I did not pursue this issue because my priority was to calm Fr. Isidore, though Fr. Innocent confirmed this revelation later, adding another clergyman had been abused. Fr. Isidore said he was ‘better off dead.’ Rather than go back to Vladyka, he should just kill himself. Because of the pills Fr. Isidore had taken and the threats he made, I called Bishop Nickolai to ask if Fr. Isidore had ever threatened suicide before. His Grace denied, saying Fr. Isidore was too much a Christian. I wanted to know if I should stay up with Fr. Isidore or take him to the emergency room or call poison control. His Grace said this was not necessary. Fr. Isidore could be left to pass-out and sleep-it-off. I was to return in the morning to check on him.

              Fr. Isidore refused to be calm though he could not stand or walk. I was in his bedroom alone with him. He threatened to ‘bloody my face’ if I did not leave. Then he tried to touch me inappropriately, wanting ‘someone to cry with’. Several times Fr. Isidore tried to stand and grab me inappropriately. Finally, he collapsed on his bed. He passed-out, fondling himself.” Letter from Mr. Paul Sidebottom, a missionary from the Orthodox Christian Mission Center and also serving as Assistant Dean for Academics at St. Herman’s Seminary in Kodiak Alaska, May 25th, 2007.”

              • Harry Coin says

                Ah the facts! Stubborn! Note also in the ‘halcyon days of cell-attendants’ a great many monastics were those who wives had died (pre-Cesarian) and were looking to be taken care of in old age. The situation was not the modern one of able men being seen-to having a gopher and, ah, ‘whatnot’, as Carl mentions.

                Just as ‘Celibate’ is not the same thing as ‘ordained young never married’ and never was— back when so many, many working age widowers were around and the last thing the church wanted to do was encourage a precedent of men not likely to live much longer remarrying and fathering further children… Today that same rule does not serve the church as it was intended.

              • Carl,

                Shame on you. Again we are treated to the exposition of a drunk monastic, out of control, a public spectacle of his own weakness due to his additions. Under the influence of booze he acted badly. But, for you to then add insult to injury by trying to infer there was a sexual relationship is wrong.

                People can read into any situation what they want to see and maybe that is what you are doing here. It appears that the warden in Kodiak sees what she believes.

                On the other hand, Mark is not ashamed of his lifestyle and his relationship with his partner. He has been open with his own family (son-in-law, Steven Brown) and friends, so let God be the judge. He has never sworn himself to a celibate lifestyle, which he has shared with his friends. Again, let God be the judge.

                Bishop Nikolai is no longer a diocesan bishop. He has no means of support. He was been blocked at every turn by Bishop Benjamin for even being present at parishes in the DOW or the city in which he lives. Does he deserve such treatment? God knows but again what we see in the OCA is a hot desire for “justice” and precious little mercy.

                I am very glad that Bishop Benjamin lifted the suspension of Isidore and allows him to be part of church life in Oregon, even if only in one parish. I wish he would show some mercy toward Bishop Nikolai and allow him to at least receive the Holy Mysteries in OCA DOW. Set whatever limits he wishes, that is his responsibility, but to treat a brother Bishop like a leper, it says more about Benjamin then it does Nikolai.

                You have offered us again the public sin of a fellow Christian in Fr Isidore. Congratulations. I am sure we are all better for your efforts and for the whole world to see how we act.

                Yes, I have much to answer for also in my less than temperate comments made here, and God will be the judge. I pray He is more merciful than His Bishops in the OCA.

                • Carl Kraeff says

                  Amos–Context matters, no? I was responding to an out of control retired senior leader, who is apparently much esteemed many folks on this blog. He was attacking Rosabel with venom, calling her post “nasty, malicious calumny.” Many folks here have attacked “Mrs Steve Brown” with self-righteous relish and yet are alarmed when one “attacks” one who is on their side. What do you call this phenomenon?

                  • Jane Rachel says

                    One spreads smears and the other tells the truth. It doesn’t take smarts to know who is telling the truth and who was manipulating readers’ perceptions to fit a specified, predetermined purpose. The purpose was the destruction and taking down of Bishop Nikolai. Why? It’s clear why. He was demanding accountability, doing his job, making the crooked straight, cleaning up the corruption. She was used and manipulated and played by the power mongers just like a lot of other small fish who want to think they are big fish, or so it seems to me. Bishop Nikolai was doing his job. That was his job before, too. But he was a threat to the status quo. Take him down and the corruption stays behind the heavy drapes so the light can’t shine in. The lies were believed and the truth was said to be lies. The people followed the lies. Bishop Nikolai was banished.

                    I wasn’t there but it makes a heck of a lot more sense to me to believe Bishop Nikolai is a good man, than believing the lies said about him. Believing the lies is like swallowing poison, or drinking from a poisoned well.

                    • Jane Rachel,

                      I think the proof of your opinion regarding Bp. Nikolai was when Fr Fester’s emails were given to Stokoe without Fester’s knowledge or permission by Bp Mark Maymon and a big deal was made about Fester trying to reconcile Met. Jonah and Bp. Nikolai. The very idea of Bp. Nikolai being possibly “rehabilitated” sent shockwaves through ocanews. Much effort was spent in the Nikolai takedown. Let us not forget that the fired ex-chancellor of the golden parachute Alexander Garklavs, now the priest-designate of Holy Trinity Church in Parma, Ohio, was up to his neck in making sure that Nikolai was removed from office. Bishop Benjamin, Garklavs, Oleska, ocanews, the usual suspects on the Orthodox Forum, all banded together to remove Nikolai.

                      It is interesting to consider that with the recent Supreme Court ruling, would an EEOC case even be possible since it was a matter of Church hiring and firing that propelled the Sidebottom case in the first place?

                      The present fact that the OCA Synod will not ever talk to Bp. Nikolai and Bp. Benjamin has FORBIDDEN Bp. Nikolai from even stepping foot in any DOW parish reveals the present dysfunction and hard-heartedness of the leaders of the OCA. It is just so sad to see how the OCA is killing itself from the top and like the band playing on the deck of the Titanic as the ship is sinking we are fed “news” from the OCA website that all is well, we have a surplus, we have a strategic plan and a “spirit of sobornost.”

                      After a while you just have to step back and say, “Really? You really think we are better off now than we were before? Really?

                    • Amos,

                      What interested me most about the Met. Jonah/Fr. Fester/Bishop Nikolai thing was that despite access to both Met. Jonah’s and Fr. Fester’s email accounts, Bishop Mark and Mark Stokoe have never been able to produce any evidence of a single instance of contact or communication between Met. Jonah and Bishop Nikolai in the past year.

                      The only photographs I’ve ever found that show them together are over ten years old, when both were DOW priests.

                      To say there was some level of collusion between the two stretches the outer boundary of credibility, but that’s certainly not the first time Stokoe has been there.

                    • Carl Kraeff says

                      Yes, you are so much better at everything than the countless witnesses against Bishop Nikolai. By the way, they were there.

                  • Carl,

                    I woud submit that Truth matters more than “context.” Just a thought.

                    • Carl Kraeff says

                      We agree but I fail to see why it is germane in this instance. Are you saying that in the interest of “truth” we should ignore inconvenient facts and excuse hypocritical behavior? Are we politicians who jettison anything that does not fit the narrative (code word for party line)?

              • Thank you for treating us, again, a la Mark Stokoe, who loves to expose every scandal except his own, to be the voyeurs of the sins of someone who never asked that this be revealed. Good job.

                • Carl Kraeff says

                  Again, context matters. I was responding in kind to somebody on your side who treated us, again, a la Mark Stokoe, to be voyeurs of the sins of others. And yes, I think I did a good job in bringing the hypocrisy that is rampant here.

              • Jane Rachel says

                Let Bishop Nikolai’s name be cleared. Right now. Bring Bishop Benjamin to account. Vindicate all those falsely accused. Do it now.

                If you can’t see the truth, people, it is because you are willfully looking the other way, and that way is the wrong way. Amos and Bishop Tikhon and Monk James are telling the truth. If you want to ask questions about what happened because you still have doubts – or perhaps you are finally wiling to be open to the idea that you may have been misled – ask your questions respectfully. Paul Sidebottom’s account proves nothing. All it does is describe a typical night for a drunk who has almost hit bottom. If you want to ask questions, Carl, ask real questions that can be addressed by those who can answer them.

                May God Grant Many, Many Years to Fr. Isidore Brittain for his years of sobriety!

                • Carl Kraeff says

                  My intent was not to prove anything but to show the hypocrisy of y’all who gleefully attack others but get all self-righteous and high and mighty when the opposite happens. .

                  • Jane Rachel says

                    Staretz Rosabel’s words are very clear. She is clearly writing this with intent to smear Bishop Nikolai by making gossipy, “first-hand observations,” and using tricky words to make people think he is guilty of having a sexual relationship with Fr. Isidore, when he in fact is not guilty. He did not have a sexual relationship with Fr. Isidore.

                    Mark Stokoe is guilty of being married to another man.

                    That’s just true. I get mad when innocent people are attacked, yes.

                    • Jane Rachel says

                      Sorry, is it Staretza? I don’t remember and forgot to check before I hit “reply.”

                    • Carl Kraeff says

                      But, Rosabel does not think that she is attacking an innocent person. Rosabel is sincere; she is not making up things. The simple fact is that you two disagree but only you have risen to smear her good name. You are the one who is attacking an innocent person. Say that you disagree with her, maintain that +Nikolai is innocent of her charges, but do not accuse her underhanded and malicious gossip. You should and must apologize top Rosabel, as should Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald).

                    • Jane Rachel says

                      Her words were gossipy and implied a married, homosexual relationship, and that is wrong no matter how you cut it. Bishop Tikhon and Amos have stated there was no such relationship between the two men. Either they are lying or they are telling the truth.

                      Her words contributed to the removal of Bishop Nikolai from the OCA. You quoted Paul Sidebottom as backup to your conviction that they were intimate, but Paul Sidebottom’s testimony is not proof of anything such thing.

                      Neither is her testimony. You believe Bishop Tikhon is lying. And you actually, in reality are accusing him of lying. I believe he is telling the truth. You believe Mark Stokoe saved the OCA and tried to get rid of Metropolitan Jonah for the good of the Church. So that is where we stand. You go ahead and believe in and support good ‘ol Mark and good ol’ Bishop Benjamin and Archbishop Job of Blessed Memory and all their supporters and backers and I will go ahead and believe good ol’ Bishop Tikhon, and Bishop Nikolai, and Father Joseph Fester, and Father James Silver, and Father Robert and Bette Kondratick, and Amos. And we will see how it all comes out in the wash.

                    • Jane Rachel says

                      I have to add that I had not realized that Raissa Rosabel Baldwin wrote a comment on this thread about Bishop Nikolai and Fr. Isidore Brittain. I have been busy and missed that comment, and I thought we were discussing other things she has said in the past. I would have worded what I wrote differently had I known that she was writing here and now. I can be a bit clueless that way.

                      Had I read the comment she wrote here on this thread, I would first wonder whether what she is saying is true, and then I would wonder how that can be true in the light of the fact that I have read from someone close to Bishop Nikolai that it is not true. This would mean either that Riassa Rosabel is not really lying but giving a slanted point of view, or the bishop is lying about his friend. I have to look at the background, the history, and all that I know and have seen and read. And then I would say that I know there was a clear and powerful and successful campaign to get rid of him, and that terrible gossip was spread round about concerning Bishop Nikolai on ocanews.

                      I still have some questions about it, but I want the truth to come out. It is still important to discuss these things. Bishops should not be allowed to be bishops and be gay, corrupt, or immoral. They should/must be removed if this is found to be true.

                  • Carl,

                    I suppose what gets under folk’s skin was that ocanews broadcasted that everyone else’s poop stunk but his did not. He was held up as a model of truth and transparency and expected everyone to accept his choices without question. When more people began to question the basic premise of his assault on the OCA, began to pull back the curtain of this self-made public figure as the author of ocanews, began to see that maybe everything was not so “saintly” about his ever-memorable bishop protector, and finally with the benefit of time and comparison that the OCA is not better of now than before ocanews, the entire chapter is being questioned. We can question it, we are permitted here. We were carefully excised from such criticism on ocanews.

                    So I am not sure it is hypocrisy. When the light was finally shined on ocanews it went under the Internet waves. There are still truths to be told and rights to be wronged and I am glad that there is a Monomahkos to report on things. It may be clumsy and not so artful at times, but on the whole I would say that Monomahkos stands for the building up of the Church.

                    The use of the courts by people who have been pillared by websites reveals that our bishops often are not part of solution but in fact part of the problem. And that is a very sad indictment. Feel free to disagree.

                    • Carl Kraeff says

                      I agree with your first paragrap; clearly what motivates many folks here is this push-back against Stokoe. However, Monomakhos postings go way beyond exposing Stokoe’s journalistic faults. Monomakhos in general contains many points of views and certainly George does stand for building up of the Church. I submit to you that there is a difference between intent and conduct. It is true that Stokoe did not like +Jonah and tried to get rid of him for the good of the Church. It is equally true that George, you and many others on Monomakhos did not like, at various times, the Holy Synod, the conciliar form of OCA governance, and individual bishops, and tried to get rid of folks also for the good of the Church.

                      You said earlier that truth matters more than context and I agreed.. Let’s be careful that we do not hold to our own understanding of the truth so tightly that it suffocates our ability to discern other truths or even variances on our own truth. Please understand that I am not arguing for “everything is equally valid”: I amsaying that there is a fine line between sincere belief and fanaticism.

                    • And for Carl, it’s always about someone’s “understanding” of the truth. If there are two understandings of truth, then only one can be correct. For Orthodox Christians, it is always “that which has been believed, the way in which it has been believed by all, at all times. There is not an “understanding of truth,” there is only truth. It stands on its own. ” This is the fallacy of the other side. They want to reimage the church, indeed truth, in their own image and likeness. This is why they have to ask people to “keep an open mind” and not have “hardness of heart” and “allow the Holy Spirit to give a fresh understanding” of things. This is why they are essentially Protestants.

                      And if we are speaking of certain bishops and priests and the so-called ‘evidence’ they have of their so-called wrong doing, then again, there are the facts, and there is the perception of what Stokoe/Carl wants you to have of the facts. Their perception of the facts allows for things like depositions of priests after kangaroo spiritual courts, and the smearing and isolating of bishops by innuendo.

                    • Carl Kraeff says

                      Anything you say Comrade! Jawohl Слушаю и повинуюсь!

                    • Carl Kraeff says

                      Spasi–People like you must have been involved in this example of upholding the truth:

                      “The anti-Jewish riots in Kishinev, Bessarabia [modern Moldova], are worse than the censor will permit to publish. There was a well laid-out plan for the general massacre of Jews on the day following the Orthodox Easter. The mob was led by priests, and the general cry, “Kill the Jews,” was taken up all over the city. The Jews were taken wholly unaware and were slaughtered like sheep. The dead number 120 and the injured about 500. The scenes of horror attending this massacre are beyond description. Babies were literally torn to pieces by the frenzied and bloodthirsty mob. The local police made no attempt to check the reign of terror. At sunset the streets were piled with corpses and wounded. Those who could make their escape fled in terror, and the city is now practically deserted of Jews.”

                    • Mr. Kraeff,

                      Do you think that it was fair to associate Spasi with the pogroms?

                      Joseph A.

                    • Yes, of course, my family has a long history of killing Jews. Just like St John Chrysostom is my hero, becuase he hated Jews too. I’m a big Jew hater from way back.

                      I invoke Godwin’s Law, since Carl, in desperation, had to bring up killing Jews and compare me to Russians who were apparently Nazi-like.

                      And so we’ve reached the end of this thread, Carl having lost.

                    • Carl Kraeff says

                      Joseph A.–I think it is quite fair to associate Spasi for those folks in history who did bad things not because they were evil or sadistic but because they were certain of the righteousness of their cause/beliefs, and fanatically so. Those folks who see everything in stark black or white terms (not that there are not black-and-white issues). No tolerance whatsoever for those who deviate, even to a small degree, from their orthodoxy. The sort of folks who do bad things because they are just following orders or are doing what is “normal.” I recommend that you read Hannah Arendt’s book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil?

                    • Monk James says

                      Carl Kraeff says:
                      February 3, 2012 at 11:00 am
                      ‘Spasi–People like you must have been involved in this example of upholding the truth:

                      “The anti-Jewish riots in Kishinev, Bessarabia [modern Moldova], are worse than the censor will permit to publish. There was a well laid-out plan for the general massacre of Jews on the day following the Orthodox Easter. The mob was led by priests, and the general cry, “Kill the Jews,” was taken up all over the city. The Jews were taken wholly unaware and were slaughtered like sheep. The dead number 120 and the injured about 500. The scenes of horror attending this massacre are beyond description. Babies were literally torn to pieces by the frenzied and bloodthirsty mob. The local police made no attempt to check the reign of terror. At sunset the streets were piled with corpses and wounded. Those who could make their escape fled in terror, and the city is now practically deserted of Jews.” ‘

                      I know not whence comes this quote, but I can say for a fact that while he was bishop of Kishinyov (1880s, 1890s, I think), Antoniy Khrapovitskiy drove up to the city’s main synagogue and forbade the theoretically ‘christian’ people there to attack it or to persecute their jewish neighbors.

                      I’m not in a position to say whether or not the numbers of jewish victims cited here are accurate.

                • George Michalopulos says

                  You know, this whole stuff about Fr Isidore is kind of moot at this point, isn’t it? After all, his bishop is +Benjamin and it is he who allows him to celebrate the services of the Church. I don’t know any of the facts of what went on Alaska (but will gladly allow all parties to discuss it on this forum should they be so inclined). Anyway, if anybody has any beefs with Fr Isidore, then they should take it up with his bishop.

                  • Harry Coin says

                    George in some ways yes, yet we live in a space where what goes on here or there isn’t just known of here or there, but literally everywhere. And, it’s only going to increase and quickly as ‘facebooks’ and other non-public yet very ‘viral’ personal sharing ways increase. Various efforts by leaders and spinners at ‘getting in front of it’ will and must fail since people will be linked together in ways not ‘spinnable from afar’ since it isn’t controllable.

                    The only way to get a good outcome is to return to the biblical standards of being very, very careful to not give occasion for scandal, as well as not actually participating in misdoing.

            • Harry Coin says

              Bp. Tikhon has zippo clue about the Orthodox forum ,1500+ people, and hasn’t for years since he’s not been a party to it. The moderators, originally Bill Samsonoff, myself, Fr. Hans, Fr. Michael Regan and now Bill Samsonoff and Fr. Michael Regan have ever only had the most moderate of moderational acitivy… a very simple recipe: Three posts per day per person, max, and no anyonymtes. Add to that no polemics. The bishop found it too confining.

              • Geo Michalopulos says

                Harry, if what you say about Regan’s site is correct, i.e. no “anonymites,” then the discovery phase of the lawsuit is going to be very interesing.

                All: the reason Stokoe shut down his site is because his sources dried up, probably because of the lawsuit and their hope that their exposure would be limited.

                • Harry Coin says

                  You are incorrect as are others here calling it ‘Regan’s site’. It is Yahoo’s site. Fr. Michael always was simply one of the four, then three, now two moderators.

                  I’m pretty sure the orthodox-forum has nothing to do with whatever the complaints were as the site owner, Yahoo, wasn’t included as a defendant. Anyone can sue anyone else. Winning in court, proving one’s case, that calls for truth and evidence. So long as truth and goodwill count in court, Fr. Michael Regan will be just fine.

              • No polemics? On Orthodox Forum? Are you kidding me?

                I remember a post from last week mocking Metropolitan Jonah for daring to travel and give speeches. That’s really indefensible, if you think about it! It’s like he wants to impart Orthodoxy to his flock or some terrible thing like that. And that after getting a politically-tainted evaluation from a religiously-suspect institute? It’s like he has no shame whatsoever.

                • Even more enlightening than the hatred that the 10 people who regularly post on the Orthodox-Forum (Harry Coin keeps bringing up 1,500 people – a simple count from any day will show only 10, maybe 15 people who post) have for the church and her leaders, is the brilliant discussion of matters spiritual from people who are so unbelievably spiritually jaded, I venture to guess that most of the Big 10 that post there don’t even believe in God. And if they do, one would never know it. Busting the church’s chops and demeaning her leaders is a hobby for them, like some people go on Facebook or others play Words with Friends.

                  This past Tuesday we were treated to this theological pondering on prayer from life-long Orthodox Christian and internet episcopal take-down king, Harry Coin:

                  Oh God who did , now
                  grant .

                  I’ve often wondered what exactly is the point of telling a person you hold to be
                  omnipotent ‘thy will be done’. Seems right up there with telling the sun to
                  rise. Perhaps ‘help me to not screw up royally’ would be better.

                  In two sentences he accomplished not only denigrating the church’s prayer as “self serving,” but then equated the phrase “Thy will be done” with being as obvious as “telling the sun to rise.”

                  Besides his astounding ignorance that this life-long Orthodox Christian doesn’t realize is directly from the sacred and pure lips of our Lord when He taught us to pray (my five year old son knows this), the biting sarcasm and snide cynicism about things holy is typical of his ilk and characteristic of a typical post on Orthodox-Forum.

                  Here’s another quote for Mr Coin – more words of our Lord (which I’m sure he’ll be quick to denigrate): “Hear and understand: Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man.” (Mt 15:10-11)

                  • Spasi writes,

                    Even more enlightening than the hatred that the 10 people who regularly post on the Orthodox-Forum (Harry Coin keeps bringing up 1,500 people – a simple count from any day will show only 10, maybe 15 people who post) have for the church and her leaders, is the brilliant discussion of matters spiritual from people who are so unbelievably spiritually jaded, I venture to guess that most of the Big 10 that post there don’t even believe in God. And if they do, one would never know it. Busting the church’s chops and demeaning her leaders is a hobby for them, like some people go on Facebook or others play Words with Friends.

                    Nail. Head. You have hit it.

                    • Harry Coin says

                      Ah the bold anonymites.. But yahoo’s numbers remain 1500. More like 1550 I think now. Maybe more. And they ignore the posts they don’t like. Fr. Seraphim Holland, a hater? Fr. John Whiteford, not believe in God? Ah well, your opinions you can have, the facts are not with you.

                    • Harry Coin says

                      P.S. If you are ready to take ownership of your words by giving your name, here’s the Orthodox forum’s link:

                      http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Orthodox-Forum/

                    • Fr. Seraphim Holland and Fr. John Whiteford are the shining stars of Orthodoxy. I can only think it’s for their sake that God doesn’t lay down His wrath on that forum.

                    • Carl Kraeff says

                      Helga–And it is only for the sake of Harry and I that God does not lay down His wrath on this forum. 😉

                    • Carl Kraeff says:
                      February 3, 2012 at 10:39 am

                      “Helga–And it is only for the sake of Harry and I that God does not lay down His wrath on this forum.”

                      That’s because He, in His great patience and forbearance, is giving you and Harry as much time as He can for you two to “come to your senses.”

                    • Carl Kraeff says

                      I am truly thankful for His forbearance and love. BTW, you quoted me out of context: I had a “wink:” emoticon at the end of my sentence.

                  • Dear Spasi,

                    I wonder about things like this all the time, and I am not trying to scandalize the faithful or blaspheme. Just because we are in the Church doesn’t mean that we are mature in its wisdom. I have never been on this “Orthodox Forum” and I don’t know anything about it. Yet, is it so wrong for Christians to share their perplexities about the faith? I know that I have scores of such questions. That doesn’t mean that I am an enemy of the Church. Mr. Coin’s comment (about “thy will be done”) is one that would elicit interesting and edifying answers. I believe that Lewis even dwelt upon that very issue in one of his books. Anyway, wouldn’t it be better to offer those answers instead of criticizing Mr. Coin for having asked the question?

                    • The question would have then read something like:

                      “Fathers and learned laypersons, can you please give me some insight into the words ‘Thy will be done’? I’ve want to know how and why we pray for God’s will to be done and what that means in our life.”

                      Instead we were treated to how stupid it is to ask ‘thy will be done’ because, duh, it’s going to be done whether we like it or not, like the sun rising.

                • The quote above should read:

                  Oh God who did (insert self-serving yet accurate selection from history), now
                  grant <(insert related appropriate further selection).

                  I've often wondered what exactly is the point of telling a person you hold to be
                  omnipotent 'thy will be done'. Seems right up there with telling the sun to
                  rise. Perhaps 'help me to not screw up royally' would be better.

                  George, I really wish you would restore the edit function on this blog.

                • Harry Coin says

                  Polemics, as the anonymites prefer to ignore context, are about not allowing the bashing of folk in interfaith discussion. For the whole context of the thread excerpted above, as the Orthodox Forum is not open to the public for reading, only subscribers…. subscribe! (but only if you have enough honor to use your name, ‘Spasi’….).

                  • Please don’t speak to me about honor. I can’t think of a more dishonorable place than, your favorite virtual playground, the Orthodox-Forum. ‘Bashing’ is actually what happens on the O-F. I just stated facts, which seem to confound you and your type.

                    If you want to speak of true honor, then try honoring your spiritual leaders, rather than cutting them down and criticizing them at every turn. If you had put as much time into building up the church as you did tearing it down when Abp Spyridon was in the GOA, imagine how strong the church would be today, instead of walking with a limp from being beaten and bloodied?

                    Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you. (Heb 13:17)

                    I know that for people of your mindset, that scripture is just so much archaic and antiquated nonsense.

                    Indeed, give generously! Bring the kids! (Except I don’t say it sarcastically, as others do.)

                    • Harry Coin says

                      Well as one can’t really ‘speak to’ an anonymite, why not post your views on the forum if as you say you know so much about it?

                      I’m pleased you mention the scripture, one of my favorite bits is the part where bishops are to be husbands of but one wife.

                    • Harry Coin says

                      When that get’s done, we’ll talk again about rightful ‘submitting’.

                    • I’m not interested in going into the viper’s pit, Harry.

                      But your mockery of the scripture will catch up with you some day.

                      As far as ‘submitting’ is concerned, here’s the definition of the Greek word: (You may want to sit down for this one, or just conveniently ignore it, or explain it away as you like to do, something like “submission was different when people only lived to be only 35 back then, and most kids died in childbirth, and wives didn’t outlive their husbands, ergo, they really didn’t have to submit – it’s different today,and people live longer, and is a 70 year old man going to submit to some young-never-married wet behind the ears priest? Give generously!”)

                      hupeiko (to yield, be “weak”)
                      1) to resist no longer, but to give way, yield (of combatants)
                      2) to yield to authority and admonition, to submit, to surrender:—submit self.

                    • Harry Coin says

                      The bits of scripture you like, I see you like very well. The bits that ‘don’t help your position’ — as if they never were.

                      11,000 young people at one event in 1963. Now 200 in one place is a very big deal. The folks in charge are correct when they say ‘it starts in the home’. When the leadership hasn’t been in such a home and has lived alone (NOT in a monastery) since more or less that event… well, someone needs to say what everyone sees and then quietly leaves without mentioning.

                    • And there it is.

                      And the fact that 13,000 were in one place in 1963 and that now 200 is a big deal is exactly who’s fault, Harry? The young-never-married bishops? What about we go and find out just where the children of those 13,000 people are now. Let’s see if their families are still Orthodox. I’ll bet the vast majority of their families today are not. Why? Because the young-never-married bishop looked at me funny? Because the priest wouldn’t bury Uncle Nick from church even though he never went? Or maybe because “all that greedy priest did was line his pockets with our money”?

                      No, it’s because so many of those wonderful 13,000 people who attended some big event grew up to be cynical and hard hearted and found themselves complaining about the church and the priest and the bishop so much that they turned off their kids from it, and their kids ended up marrying Roman Catholics and Protestants because they saw no value for the Orthodox church at home – only complaining and griping from their oh-so-dedicated parents (Mom was the treasurer for Philoptichos and Dad was Council president and they used to tell us how rotten the priest was and how horrible some of the people were at church).

                      Meanwhile, God was nowhere to be found.

                      Give generously!

                    • Harry Coin says:
                      February 2, 2012 at 8:20 pm

                      “Well as one can’t really ‘speak to’ an anonymite,”

                      Still uptight about your so called “anonymites” Harry?

                      Let me ask you this: If you had to ask a stranger for directions to somewhere, would you refuse his answer if he wouldn’t tell you his name? Do you reject the works of authors who use pen names )which would include Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite)?

              • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

                I have to admit that I have been ignorant of any pre-Regan history of the Orthodox Forum. I was for several years a frequent poster on the old “Prodigy” topic. Then I joined the Orthodox List moderated by ROCOR Fr. Mark at Indiana University. Over these past years there have been several lists, some of them still with us. It was in those Prodigy and Indiana List years that I became known as “Love B.T.” because I used to sign off that way. When the Orthodox Jurisdictions list of Fr. Alexander Lebedeff came along, I joined it and still participate in it. I also participated in Orthodox Traditions (paradosis) almost from the start. There was an “Ustav’ list and and OCA clergy list. ROCOR had (and may still have) a clergy list. No one ever cross posted from the Orthodox Forum on any of the posts to which I belonged until the Regan era. I think I knows Fr. Michael Regan longer than anyone posting here. I first met him when I was a Deacon and he attended some lectures I gave on liturgics here in L.A. He was a recent convert from the 7th Day Adventism, and belonged to the old St. John Chrysostom mission headed by Fr. Leo Hays of blessed memory. He later went off to SVS where he received the same Priestly “formation” which he displays today. He started up, as I recall, the Oxnard, CA, parish of St. Herman, which grew a bit at first until it converted a building into a church, and then it kind of stalled about where the parish in Walnut Creek/Concord has stalled for, lo, these many years.
                I never made the kind of allegations about Mrs. Steve Brown that Raissa Baldwin, whom I remember as an active FROC member in Los Angeles who moved here from Sacramento and palled around with Tania Henchbarger of blessed memory, has made about Bishop Nikolai. She was nice back then and an even modest person.
                I have to say that I’ve known Bishop Nikolai from the days I received him into the OCA from the GOA, although Bishop Anthony of blessed memory tried his darnedest to keep him. He is a talented administrator which his record in Las Vegas in the District Attorney’s office showed, with, I believe, two M.B.A.s Until he was made a Bishop he always supported himself with outside employment; however, as a Priest, he was more actively involved in the lives of his parishioners then most of the other full-time Priests I’ve known. Before he was hired by the D.;A., he was the administrator of a Presbyterian clinic for teen-agers wtih drug-dependency problems. When anyone needed a Priest, he was there, and more. I know of several instances where he was of almost epic assistance to persons/familiies in need of this or that kind of assistance. However, his downfall has been that he makes no bones whatsoever about not suffering fools and, above all, phonies. He just won’t take nonsense from anyone, and many Americans and Orthodox fools and phonies expect to be ostentatiously not only tolerated but even loved and hugged as some hierarchs are wont to do. He did not, for example, put up with the self-promoting antics of an Archpriest, who was born into a Lutheran family and raised as such who poses as the great defender of Holy Ethnic Alaska. He offended some Alaskan old hands by insinuating that the local violations of the Typikon were sancrosanct. He never beat native American Indians or Eskimos, as was the practice of Archimandrite Innocent (Fryntzko) of blessed memory, tolerated with smiles and head-shaking by Bishop Gregory of blessed memory, and he introduced the unheard-of practice of not charging Alaskan seminarians tuition. He tidied up the Anchorage Cathedral, having the heavy DRAPES taken off the windows, for example, and persons of Raissa’s sort were outraged by the implication that their taste and custom was not admirable. Contrary to the scurrilous propaganda of Mr. Widebottom, Bishop Nikolai and Father Isidore did not have a sexual relationship, though i would not be at all surprised if I heard that Bishop Nikolai had decked anyone at all including Fr. Isidore who got out of control and was in danger of self-harm when drunk.
                I never made any assertions whatsoever about the sexual conduct of Mrs.Steve Brown. I did report that he had been allowed to quit his position as Youth Director (!) of the OCA when he displayed an almost stereotypical display of West Hollywood/San Francisco manner and dress at the Chancery, and that he resented it mightily because he may have thought he was so well-connected with the SVS establishment and alumni protective association that he was invulnerable from being let go from his prestigious Syosset position. I wasn’t until Bishop Job, got yanked out of New England, and Protodeacon Eros Wheeler was let go as Treasurer from HIS prestigious Syosset position, that successful attempts at ‘settling scores” began to occur.
                No, I have never claimed that Mrs. Steve Brown nee Stokoe, and Mr. Steve Brown had sexual relations, though the FACTS of their “partnership” are a matter of public record. There is no record of such a “partnership” between Bishop Nikolai and Father Isidore–no record whatsoever, despite Raisa’s claim to be actually know of such a partnership.
                These desperate attempts to draw an analogy betweenwhat I’ve stated relative to Mrs. Steve Brown and others and what Raissa Baldwin alleges about Bishop Nikolai must be tolerated, obviously, but not accepted. There’s no ‘gotcha” there. I believe that I’ve known the Mark Brown, nee Stokoe, Fr. Michael Regan, Bishop Nikolai, Father Isidore longer and better than anyone posting here today.
                I know the charitable works of Protopresbyter Rodion S. Kondratick and Bishop Nikolai which outshine those of any other clergyman (and most non-clergymen) in the OCA. I was immensely saddened when, apparently, only Father Eugene Vansuch of blessed memory had the guts to refuse to go to Alaska and participate in the persecution of Bishop Nikolai. I suspect that the stress on him caused by differing with so many friends and associates in the Church in that manner led to his untimely falling asleep. I consider him to be a hero. At least he was granted ‘a Christian ending to his life, painless, and unashamed” and spared the dreaded sudden (and solitary!) death without recourse to the Mysteries, the very thought of which gives rise to horror within us!
                And must we remind Harry Coin and others yet again that the phrase ‘husband of one wife” means that no man with more than wife can be a bishop. Otherwise, why did the Apostle use the counter: “one,’ at all?

                • Carl Kraeff says

                  I am so relieved Your Grace that You are allowing that “These desperate attempts to draw an analogy between what I’ve stated relative to Mrs. Steve Brown and others and what Raissa Baldwin alleges about Bishop Nikolai must be tolerated, obviously, but not accepted,” I am so grateful for your generosity and condescension.

    • If Fr. Meletios is under “monastery arrest”, then he sent a superlative facsimile of himself to the young adult retreat in Texas last month.

      • Antonia, I think Amos means Bishop Benjamin won’t let Fr. Meletios leave the monastery permanently, not that he’s barred from leaving at all. The monks would starve if they couldn’t go to Costco. 🙂

    • Amos,

      Are there really no viable candidates? What about Fr. Irenei Steenberg? Or Fr. Gerasim Eliel? After Dallas, Bishop Mark has about as much chance of being elected a diocesan bishop as I do, LOL.

      As for Stan, I don’t know how the lawsuit will turn out, I just wanted to point out where he basically wrote a manifesto for the Gay OCA. Apparently he thinks Orthodox don’t stand up against homosexual sin among the laity, just among the clergy. If I remember correctly, there aren’t any sins that are particular to clergy except those that pertain to specific clergy functions, like divulging a confession. Sexual continence is expected of laypeople as well as clergy. Laypeople can be excommunicated, and clergy can be suspended or deposed. But what Stan’s laid out is exactly what the charming people from the “Listening” Facebook group expect out of the Church, and it’s important for us to know the specifics.

      As for the lawsuit, I don’t know what Fr. Michael Regan is supposed to have done to Fr. Ray, but I hope the truth comes out for all involved.

      God protect Bishop Matthias. I’m just still outraged that the Metropolitan Council would honor Stokoe after all that came out. The resolution would have been unanimous except for one lone abstention, but it’s an outrage that it was even considered at all, and an outrage that Stokoe was even on the Metropolitan Council to begin with, considering what Archbishop Job knew damn well about him.

      • George Michalopulos says

        I agree, God protect +Matthias! As for you other point, regarding how someone like Stokoe could be on the MC, I think this was due to the pseudo-Schmenanite paradigm that filled the vacuum of leadership in the OCA since almost its inception. The people involved who were the “real power” were a coterie of people who used their friendship with Stokoe for the purpose of using the OCA as their own personal fiefdom. People like Wheeler, Garklavs, Kishkovsky, Nescott, etc. They essentially ruled the MC which really ruled over the Holy Synod.

        When a real monk who was uncorrupt became Metropolitan, they didn’t know what to do. In some warped way I can’t blame them as this was a whole different paradigm for them. I’ve been told by several that Carpatho-Russians as a rule have a dim view of monasteries and only keep them around to dump those of their sons who are losers and/or homosexual. It’s kind of a “win-win” in that it’s also a pool for episcopal candidates. Anyway, resolute, uncorrupt bishops were a novelty for the Stokovite Set and that’s why they behaved as they did.

        Plus they used Syosset as a sinecure for their favored people (like Garklavs who was not only fired but retained a $140K salary essentially doing nothing). Thank God that was exposed.

        but I ramble…

        Let us pray that this whole sordid affair is behind us.

      • Helga,

        I don’t think that the ROC will let Fr. Irenei Steenberg go. He is an “up and comer” and they have their eye on him for bigger things. As for Fr. Gerasim, yes, he would seem to be the best fit and I respect him for staying at SVS for three full years and not take some quick program so that he could be made a bishop. The OCA did that all too often. Gerasim was humble enough to conclude that he didn’t know as much as he though when he entered SVS and thought it best to stay for the full program.

        Now, of course, Stan will drag out his old Fr. Gleb P. dead horse. Stan is so obsessed with Fr Gleb that he has tied this sad character to all sorts of folks. Almost daily he states that Frederica Matthews-Green (Freddie MG) and Rod Dreher were Gleb associates. Dreher never met Fr. Gleb nor did Kh. Frederica. But let’s not let the truth get in the way. I think he even concluded that Fr David Brum knew Fr. Gleb. Another of his wild claims. Of course, all of this is done with callous intent to defame Met. Jonah as he rails against converts.

        The South needs a bishop, that is for sure. So does Canada, Alaska and soon the Albanians and New England. Let us pray that the Lord of the Harvest will send good men and soon!

        • Amos,

          I figured ROC would find it hard to let Fr. Irenei go, but you never know. Maybe they would find it in their hearts to part with him if he was actually nominated by a diocese.

          Fr. Gerasim should be finishing at SVS before long, right? Alaska’s loss should be the South’s gain.

          I don’t get the Fr. Gleb thing, either! The man is just a repentant lay monk trying to work out his salvation after failing as a priest. It seems that for people who pontificate so much about getting economy for committing their own sexual sins without repentance, Stan and his friends aren’t so merciful to other sexual sinners who have repented.

          And his insinuations that Metropolitan Jonah is homosexual? I guess it was verrrry sneaky and oddly prescient of young James to have had a girlfriend to cover that up, then.

          Pffft. Come on. If Met. Jonah had a speck of dirt on him, they would have put fifty magnifying lenses on it last year. I can only think that the only reason Met. Jonah still looks clean, after being held to such vicious scrutiny, is because he is clean.

      • For those of you interested, here is the posted legal filing of Fr. R. Velencia vs. Drezlo et al. http://dockets.justia.com/docket/maryland/mddce/1:2012cv00237/198133/

        Also I have learned that Met. Jonah suspended Fr Velenica for filing the lawsuit because it included another priest. That is to be expected but by suspending Velenica he has one less reason to now go after Jonah, the Synod and the OCA albeit made much more difficult by the recent Supreme Court ruling which basically says that internal Church discipline rules are beyond the secular courts to interfere. )

        • Jane Rachel says

          Amos, would you please make that second sentence a bit more clear? I am having trouble understanding what you’re saying. Thank you!

        • Carl Kraeff says

          He is suing for:

          Nature of Suit: Torts – Injury – Assault, Libel, and Slander
          Cause: 28:1332 Diversity-Libel,Assault,Slander

          Now, I remember from my law classes long time ago (I am not a lawyer) that one indispensable element of any tort is injury/damages. For example, one cannot sue for punitive damages for slander if one has not suffered an injury, such as loss of job, or incurred doctor bills for mental disturbances, etc.

          The only possible injury that we know of that Father Ray may have suffered is his loss of employment with the OCA, he cannot sue the OCA because of the latest Supreme Court decision, provided above by Amos. He could have incurred injury as a result of an assault but we have heard nothing like that. In any case, he is now in the position of proving to the judge that, although the OCA could have fired him without tort liability, he nonetheless suffered because the OCA action was caused by the actions of the defendants. I do not think that his argument would be persuasive if the OCA does not testify to that effect. Sure, his lawyer will try to connect the dots and he may even be able to persuade a jury, if the judge allows the case to proceed. Besides and if the defendants call Mrs.Koumentakos to the stand, Father Ray’s chances may go from slim to none.

          • If I’m not mistaken, the OCA takes the position that its priests are independent contractors, not employees.

            I don’t think any of us are able to judge the specifics of this case. Unless someone is willing to sign up for a PACER account, I think that’s how it’s going to stay for now.

            • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

              The OCA doesn’t really take a position on that.
              It is the IRS that allows ministers to report their income as either wages and salary paid by the parish or as “self-employed” individuals who are paid and given benefits as are consultants and independent contractors. Each priest has to make up his mind on that one. I always chose to go the employee route; as a deacon,then priest, then bishop: I asked for and got W-2s from the parish and then the diocese. The only time i went the ‘self-employed” route was my first year as a Deacon, when i went to H&R Block to have my taxes done, They suggested it and I took their suggestion. I am much better off having my taxes deducted than I am on filing as self-employed, which requires me to pay quarterly voluntarily. I do it now, as a retired person because there’s no other alternative, but I don’t like it because I’m so undependable.

          • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

            Father Valencia may feel that is his unhireability by another Orthodox Church resulted from his treatment by the OCA. He’s not suing to get his job back, so I don’t see how recent Supreme Court decisions apply to his case.

    • Carl Kraeff says

      I think it is extremely disrespectful to call a clergyman just by his first and/or last name. We gett it that Amos dislikes and disrespects certain folks; that comes through clearly without him lowering himself to referring to them so. I really do not see much difference between the he/she who uses childish nick names (Fathausen for example for +Jonah) and Amos’ use of a first and/or last name.

      • Oh Carl. Relax. I love everyone but that does not mean that I have to respect everyone nor for that matter like them.

    • How about Fr. Wendling? His speech online was impressive.

      • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

        Do you have a link Harry?

      • Why would such an impressive potential candidate be passed over by his home Midwest Diocese? There must be a known reason in the Midwest? As I recall he was looked at by the South and passed over.

        • Harry Coin says

          Passed over? There’s an implication there. Folk who give good speeches that they themselves wrote get due praise. Of course folk who deem it wise to read speeches others wrote for them ‘to make a good impression’ certainly never should themselves be put in a decision making position. (Look at the GOA history… ) Goes back to the ‘small pool of candidates who fit the letter of the law’. We comply with that by propping up via the speechwriter. St. John Chrysostom did NOT have a ghost writer.

        • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

          His attitude to Ever Memorable Archbishop Job may not have been worshipful or respectful enough to get the Archbishop’s blessing. I think a certain Protopresbyter/Grand Lama interfered in the case of Father Vladimir’s candidacy for the South.

  9. Antonia,

    LOL. Of course he can travel but Benjamin won’t let his name be entertained for the office of Bishop. I am sure he did an outstanding job at the retreat.

    • He did, I’m told by attendees. As bizarre as things can be in the OCA, I felt constrained to take Amos at face value. :>)

      • He is also a very good therapist and a brilliant writer..His book “Steps of Transformation” explains the 12 Step movement very eloquently…I shudder he becomes a Bishop just because I think the psychotherapeutic community needs him more…I have heard he was excellent at the Retreat..

        • Well if Fr Mel becomes a bishop his psychotherapeutic skills can be applied at every Synod meeting. Wait, forget that idea. I think I just answered my own question. With those skills he won’t be welcome as a Synod member. Scratch him off the list. 😉

          • He end up Baker Acting the entire Synod..

          • I don’t doubt Fr. Meletios would make a fine bishop, but St. John’s would need a successor for Fr. Meletios. Metropolitan Jonah wouldn’t leave the monastery until one was found for him.

            Also, Bishop Benjamin’s not likely to be helpful. It wouldn’t surprise me if he felt he was supposed to be elected Metropolitan instead of Metropolitan Jonah. He’s not likely to repeat the “mistake” of releasing another abbot from St. John’s to become a bishop.

            • Do you really think Bishop Benjamin is that craven? Given how bright and erudite Fr.Meletios is I’d hate to see him become a Bishop..

              • I think it is almost certain that Bishop Benjamin would be Metropolitan if it hadn’t been for Bishop Jonah’s speech. Also, there’s been a lot of bizarre behavior coming from Bishop Benjamin, directed at Metropolitan Jonah, over the past year: the weird resolutions from the Diocese of the West, refusing to let Met. Jonah go to St. John’s even thought the Synod had suggested he retreat at a monastery, demanding he resign in August, the weird microphone hogging at the AAC and mocking people’s concerns about how Met. Jonah was being treated, and so on and so forth.

                • Heracleides says

                  I found it particularly telling that Bp. Benjamin would feel threatened by Met. Jonah buttons at the AAC. Big man, small mind. (Carl, knock yourself out at being highly offended on that last sentiment.)

                  • Carl Kraeff says

                    I am not a “fan” of a particular bishop so why should I be offended? However, I do thank you very much for using “Bp.” before “Benjamin” and “Met.” before “Jonah.”

                    • Geo Michalopulos says

                      To all: Please confine your opinions on this thread/essay to Fr Peter Preble and/or the Episcopal Assembly. However, new information is being brought forward by several correspondents so in the interest if being fair, I am going to start a new blog posting tomorrow entitled: “Is is wrong for Christians to sue each other?”

                      Thank you. –Monomakhos

  10. George, what happened to being able to edit comments?

  11. So, the reply thing didn’t work. Here’s the link to Fr. Wendling Fr. Hans asked about:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67_kl1qHngs

  12. Carl Kraeff says

    Back to the OP: The Episcopal Assembly just issued the following statement:

    “February 2, 2012

    Record of Protest Against the Infringement of Religious Liberty by the Department of Health and Human Services

    The Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America, which is comprised of the 65 canonical Orthodox bishops in the United States, Canada and Mexico, join their voices with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and all those who adamantly protest the recent decision by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, and call upon all the Orthodox Christian faithful to contact their elected representatives today to voice their concern in the face of this threat to the sanctity of the Church’s conscience.

    In this ruling by HHS, religious hospitals, educational institutions, and other organizations will be required to pay for the full cost of contraceptives (including some abortion-inducing drugs) and sterilizations for their employees, regardless of the religious convictions of the employers.

    The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion. This freedom is transgressed when a religious institution is required to pay for “contraceptive services” including abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization services that directly violate their religious convictions. Providing such services should not be regarded as mandated medical care. We, the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops, call upon HHS Secretary Sebelius and the Obama Administration to rescind this unjust ruling and to respect the religious freedom guaranteed all Americans by the First Amendment.”

  13. Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

    Carl Kraeff gave us this example of the misuse of rhetoric:
    ” we have on record the words of respected Orthodox persons that indicate an intimate relationship between Father Isadore and Bishop Nikolai.’

    “Indicate, Mr. Kraeff, Indicate? Don’t you mean “allege?” “Indicate”, after all, has the connotation of proving or substantiating or, particularly, *******showing.****** I missed any words by anyone that *****indicate****an intimate relationship between Father Isidore (not “Isadora”) and Bishop Nikolai. Put up or shut up.

    I’d say Carl’s words embody the term Jane Rachel used relative to Raissa Baldwin’s: “gossippy”.

    I refer to Mrs. Steve Brown. That’s because I choose to respect the Stokoe family’s approval of a husband and wife relationship between Mark Stokoe and Steve Brown. They obviously and publicly approve of that relationship as a marriage. Mark and Steve are both males, so that would be a same-sex marriage. No one needs a flashlight to illuminate that partnership’s existence, Carl, so no “gotcha’ for you, no matter how much one is sought by you.

    Carl, your use, lke Raissa’s of the feminine name,” Isadora,” AFTER it has been pointed out that Father isidore’s name and the name of heavenly protector is not a feminine name, is reprehensible. That sort of thing reminds me of American and German anti-semitic types who referred to FDR as “Rosenfelt.”

    • Carl Kraeff says

      Your Grace, I did not use the feminine form but the masculine form, albeit mistyped: Isadore instead of Isidora or Isidore. I apologize to St. Isidore, Father Isidore and you for my mistake.

      Given your insistence on precision in using names, I am perplexed by the claim that you use “Mrs. Steve Brown” because you wish to “respect Stokoe family’s approval of a husband and wife relationship between Mark Stokoe and Steve Brown.” I do not believe that either Mark or the Stokoe family have ever used “Mrs. Steve Brown.” You have no precedence for such use and thus it is likely to be an expression of derision, mocking, disapproval and malice.

      • Did not the obituary of Mark Stokoe’s mother list Steve Brown as a son-in-law? That was no mistake. That was quite intentional, confirming the relationship that Steve Brown has to the Stokoe family in their understanding and experience of things. Of course, they are not legally married (yet). But Bp Tikhon is using the name as a way to call attention to the embarrassing revelation that everyone whispered about, but didn’t have confirmation of until that obituary was discovered. That obituary is the smoking gun that Stokoe can’t shake. That is much different from calling Fr Isodore, “Isodora,” since we have no such confirmation of homosexuality from his family. What we have, in that case, is hearsay from a person who, like major players in this god-awful mess, have axes to grind from their envy of leaders while working at Syosset.

      • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

        Carl, Carl, Carl. You just keep digging your hole deeper and deeper. You write: “I do not believe that either Mark or the Stokoe family have ever used “Mrs. Steve Brown.” You have no precedence for such use and thus it is likely to be an expression of derision, mocking, disapproval and malice.”
        Carl, I think you meant “precedent” there, but you are wrong. My generation has lots of precedents for a wife taking a husband’s name and using the honorific “Mrs” before doing so. Nowadays, of course, some wives DO keep their former names; but that was unprecedented when it was adopted and is still not the rule. I assume that the Stokoe family which is so conventional as to use “son-in-law” for Mark’s spouse, would be also so conventional as to approve his taking of his husband”s name.
        But, as they used to say in Pentagon memos urging clear writing, “What CAN be misunderstood, WILL be misunderstood,” so I’ll just use the circumlocution, “Steve Brown’s spouse” in the future. Far be it for me to flout convention!!!!

        • Carl Kraeff says

          Why not just Mark Stokoe?

          • That’s what I call him. I don’t feel any particular need to make a constant reference to his lifestyle. His own works are more than enough to discredit him.

          • Carl, I’ll bite. Why NOT just use Mark Stokoe, without polite honorific? After all, our Raissa Baldwin dispenses with the honorifics when slamming the clergy, and some see her as a moral authority. I sometimes use “Mr. Kraeff” or Mr. Carl Kraeff,” if I’m not mistaken. And I’m very careful to use the correct honorifics for clergy, not dropping their titles and not substituting a cross for a title, which so many careless and sometimes even well-meaning people lamentably do (the cross is a declaration of faith: not a substitute for Bishop, Archbishop, Metropolitan, Patriarch, etc., although all those instances by custom place a cross before their names as signatures, with the titles perhaps in a signature block underneath or in a letter heading above). Now, if I had any reason whatsoever to believe that said instance, nee Stokoe, was ****ashamed**** of his relationship with Mister Brown, of its same-sex nature, or even of the sexual content which so many impute to that relationship, then I would feel obliged to eschew such conventions/honorifics in his case and for his sake. Knowing him for decades now, I feel I can opine that he wouldn’t be (or doesn’t, if someone thought it worthy of bringing to his attention) upset or disturbed at all by learning that Bishop Tikhon refers to him regularly as “Mrs. Steve Brown.”.

  14. Monk James wrote: “I know not whence comes this quote, but I can say for a fact that while he was bishop of Kishinyov (1880s, 1890s, I think), Antoniy Khrapovitskiy drove up to the city’s main synagogue and forbade the theoretically ‘christian’ people there to attack it or to persecute their jewish neighbors”.

    Monk James, I think you may be conflating two separate incidents. To begin with, the quote comes from the New York Times of April 28, 1903. The infamous Kishinev pogrom which it reports took place 6-7th April, 1903, beginning on Easter Sunday, following printed allegations of ritual murder by Jews. Kishinev is in Bessarabia of course, which is part of present-day Romania but which was then a part of the Russian empire. At this time Bishop Anthony (whom, it should be noted, was not consecrated to the episcopacy until 1897, after which he was assigned to Kazan) was bishop of the Volyn and Zhitomir diocese in the north-western Ukraine, quite a ways from Kishinev, especially in those days. I believe the incident of Bp Anthony driving up to a synagogue is probably true (I have heard it before), but I think it likely happened while he was in Volyn, which was host to many Jewish shtetls or villages (perhaps this was in the aftermath of the Kishinev pogrom). The Russian Orthodox bishop of Kishinev at the time of the pogrom was Jacob Piatnitki. He was transferred the following year, likely, one might speculate, as a result of reports he contributed to inciting the pogrom, which drew widespread condemnation from within the church, even from the likes of the otherwise anti-Semitic John of Kronstadt.

    • Sorry – I realize all this is quite off-topic, George, but beg that you might indulge an amatuer historian?!

      • George Michalopulos says

        -Basil, ii intend to in time. I would caution however about using the phrase “anti-semitic” when referring to st john of kronsdtadt. That has an exterminationist connotation anymore. To my mind, the correct trope would be “anti-judaic” or better yet “anti-rabbinic”. The difference is theological vs racial. To be anti-rabbinic in the context of the church means only that you reject the errors of talmudism, which btw can be very very racist and exploitative of the “other,” not unlike sharia.

        • Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) says

          Probably it would have been safer for Basil to have said that St. John of Kronstadt was prejudiced against Jews.

          • Point taken, George and Your Grace – a distinction is called for. Shall we say St John had a religiously inspired bias against Jews, not a racially inspired prejudice? Given his reaction to this particular pogrom, St John does not appear to be anti-Semitic in the classic, racialist sense (although many Russians were and – Lord, have mercy! – still are, how many times have I heard that it was Jews, not “real Russians”, who were responsible for the Revolution?!). However, we should also note that it would seem to be precisely a religiously inspired bias that was invoked among the common people who engaged in this vicious pogrom.

            Btw, even if St John, for argument’s sake, was anti-Semitic in the classic sense, to my mind that would not preclude his sanctity. All of us have “blind spots” in our world view particular to our time and place.

            • Actually, it occured to me that St John’s sanctity may well have/probably prevented him from subscribing to the most vicious aspects of anti-Jewish feeling in Russia at the time. And you’re right, George, Talmudism can also be vicious and divisive – I have seen orthodox Jews spit on Christian evangelists in Israel.

            • I doubt very much if a Jewish child cares very much whether prejudice shown against him is “racially” inspired or religiously inspired. Of course, to accept Basil’s subliminal view that Jews are a “race’ is not in my own program at all. No one nowadays is saying that St. John of Kronstadt’s prejudices “preclude” his *****sanctity*****. What an idea! Some may feel that his official canonization, though, was less lustrous than some due to the political obsessions and agenda of some of its most virulent pushers. Why, acceptance of that canonization was what we call “PC” nowadays!

              • Bp Tikhon writes:

                “I doubt very much if a Jewish child cares very much whether prejudice shown against him is “racially” inspired or religiously inspired.”
                Exactly the point I was working towards, Your Grace.

                “Of course, to accept Basil’s subliminal view that Jews are a “race’ is not in my own program at all.”
                Not my view at all, Your Grace, subliminal or otherwise – the Jews are an ethnos, a people; there is only one “race”, the human race. The notion of discrete races is a construct of 19th C. western Europeans as far as I can see. Unfortunately, with its advent came discrimation based on the faulty contruct. That is a reality none of us can deny – neither perpetrators nor victims.

                “No one nowadays is saying that St. John of Kronstadt’s prejudices “preclude” his *****sanctity*****.”
                I was merely anticipating the suggestion, Your Grace.

                • Geo Michalopulos says

                  Actually, you both are wrong! ( 😉 ). Race may very well be a “construct” of the 19th century, but it is very much in line with Darwinism and unfortunately cannot be divorced from biology today. Almost all biochemistry, molecular biology, and much of the pharmaceutics industry is based on the physiological differences between the various “races.” And of course anthrophology and all its subsets (i.e. sociology, criminology, etc.) as well.

                  (It’s the dirty little secret of modern science, one they don’t want to get out but nevertheless, it’s there.)

                  The Cult of St Darwin that was being peddled in 2009 on the 200th anniversery of his birth, very much overlooked the fact that Darwin –though an admirable husband and father and abolitionist–was very cognizant of where his theory of natural selection would lead. He knew thanks to the exploration and colonization that there were significant physiognomic differences between the races.

                  The explosion of knowledge that his theory caused led others to explore in minute detail the cranial capacities of the various races. This also led to the science of IQ and its heretibility and of course, eugenics.

                  The question that is engulfing biology today is whether evolution proceeds glacially or spasmodically. A case for the sudden, spasmodic view of evolutionary progress is the IQ differential between Ashkenazic Jews and Sephardic/Mizrahic Jews.

                  Basically, what happened is that in Europe, Jews were forbidden from owning land and hence becoming farmers. Instead, they were confined to certain occupations, including money-lending. As a rule, the occupations that they were restricted to were very mentally-challenging. Those in these trades were viewed as good catches and invariably they got the prettiest and smartest women. Rabbis also were at the top of the eugenic totem pole.

                  Contrast this with the Catholic Church which forbade their most intelligent sons to marry. The priesthood was a way out for the best and brightest of the pesantry’s sons but they became a eugenic dead-end because they couldn’t marry.

                  These cultural forces caused divergences between the Ashkenazic Jews and their host European populations and the Sephardic/Mizrahic Jews (those of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arab world), which proceeded at a phenomenally fast past over the past 1,000 years. Consider for example that previous to this time, Jews weren’t known for being a brilliant civilization. In ancient times, Greeks were at the top of the IQ totem pole, based on the phenomenal achievements of their civilization.

                  Another way of looking at this is the differences between African-Americans and West Africans. Today, African-Americans dominate much of professional sports. West Africans aren’t known for doing so. The eugenic effect of the slave passage, in which only the strongest survived, allowed for a founding generation that was physically superior to the parent generation.

                  The question that evolutionists are trying to answer in both instances is: are we witnessing speciation?

                  • George wrote:
                    “Almost all biochemistry, molecular biology, and much of the pharmaceutics industry is based on the physiological differences between the various “races.” And of course anthrophology and all its subsets (i.e. sociology, criminology, etc.) as well.”

                    The very worst part of that astonishing assertion is the inclusion of “anthropology and all its subsets (i.e. sociology, criminology, etc.)…”
                    I believe a survey, or even a small sample of the faculties of Anthropology departments of American and European universities or around the world would agree that anthropology, particularly cultural anthropology, is *******based on****** ANY physiological differences between ‘the various “races” at all.

                    I don’t believe most accredited anthropologists, let alone sociologists and criminologists, would would dream of considering their academic disciplines to be subsets of anthropology: Further, anthropology is not all, or even mainly, physical anthropology. As for skull measurements…I recommend a new book on those skull-measuring crackpots: Ann Fabian’s “THE SKULL COLLECTORS: Race, Science, and America’s unburied dead”. University of Chicago Press. One notorious “scientist”, George Morton, a Philadelphia MD, devoted most of his life to collecting and measuring skulls in the 19th century, prefiguring those Nazi crackpots that Hitler hired. He made pronouncements about the crania of warriors, not knowing that he had been defrauded into accepting as the skulls of “warrior chiefs” a whole collection of women’s skulls! Morton ranked five races by cranial capacity: “Caucasians” came in first and “Ethiopians” last. Surprise, Morton was a Caucasian.
                    By the way, my post on which George commented made no assertions whatsoever about race. Are Samaritans smarter than either Ashkenazi or Sephards (Spaniards: Sephardia means Spain in Hebrew)? Omar Khayyam, Iranian poet and mathematician, discovered/invented the quadratic equation. Are the Egyptians, who gave us chemistry, heirs of a civilization in any way inferior to that of the Hellenes? What about the financial advances (they even invested in “futures!”) of the Babylonians and Sumerians, and Accadians, their astronomical learning, their writing which preceded that not only of the Greeks, but of the Phoenicians? The Greeks did not come up with silk or gun-powder. “Top of the IQ totem pole?” Really? Where may we read the results of these IQ comparisons?
                    I believe, with a reasonable degree of certainty, that most cultural anthropologists would attribute variations in athletic prowess between Afro-Americans and ****this or that tribe of**** West Africans, to the cultures in which they were respectively born and nurtured/formed, rather than to genetic differences.

                    • Lot here to chew on Your Grace. My contention was that whether we like it or not (and I don’t like it), neo-Darwinism rules the academic roost. As for my putting in sociology, criminology, in with anthropology, that’s a broad brush to be sure but those subdisciplines are concerned with the study of man. If that’s a mistake on my part, I’ll correct it.

                      As for Morton, he definately made mistakes. But all scientists do. But the Darwinists who did cranial studies (Broca, etc.) were careful in their assessments. Most of Morton’s work stands as well. Indeed, Stephen Jay Gould in the first edition of his book “The Mismeasure of Man,” which was written in response to Herrnstein and Murray’s “The Bell Curve,” took the early Darwinists to task and said some thngs about them which were incorrect. When honest scientists came out against Gould (who was a poseur), he quietly dropped all mention of his criticisms from all subsequent editions to his book.

                      Also, the science of eugenics is in bad odor today because of the Nazi program, but it was never disproven in the main. One wit said that “eugenics happens every time you don’t marry your first cousin.” Regardless, eugenics was the basis of the Progressive movement in the early 20th century and had a stranglehold on academia. In fact, the infamous Scopes was arrested for teaching evolution from a text book that was riddled throughout with case studies of low-IQ people and how their breeding puts constraints on society. (For some reason, the liberals who laud Scopes and his odious defender Darrow, are eerily silent on the actual text that Scopes used.)

                      Anyway, Planned Parenthood was started to give a boost to the eugenics movement and to decimate the “darker races” (including Eastern and Southern Europeans) who were “overwhelming” America.

                      Again, please udnerstand, I’m not praising eugenics or neo-Darwinism, just putting it in its proper historical context. And also reiterating how it still controls the scientific discourse to this day.

                    • Elisha17 wrote: “my contention was….” News to me, never having read any contentions by Elisha17; however, what Elish17 wrote is much worse than what George wrote.
                      He even distorts Gould, who re-evaluated all Morton’s “findings” according to modern statistical method and found that they showed that cranial capacity was about EQUAL in all groups. Read Fabian. A reviewer wrote: It appears to be Fabian’s view–as it was Gould’s–that human remains collections are useful mainly in generating hallucinatory racial theories.”
                      One interesting result of forensic anthropology is learning to distinguishing male from female skeletons, including skulls. So “Transsexuals” may turn out ot have altered the sex of flesh, which remains supported by a skeleton which was not altered.
                      And, no, the science of eugenics is NOT in bad odor today, let alone because of the Nazi program: only the crackpot measuring of skulls to distinguish “Aryan” from “non-Aryan,” or to show the superiority of Aryan to non-Aryan skulls. I think phrenology is more in bad odor than eugenics, which is not in bad odor at all: in fact, the discovery of these genomes has given it new vigor.
                      And neither eugenics nor neo-Darwinism controls scientific discourse at all. That’s awfully mystical! People control discourse, while biological discourse today is definitely *****informed**** by the concept of evolution.

                    • And, oh, yes, Elisha17, Some anthropologists consider that as an academic discipline sociology is the parent of anthropology. Why not read that old cultural anthropology text, “The Science of Culture” by Leslie White of Ann Arbor? You wll learn that he, like, oh, Franz Boaz and others consider “culture” to include MORE than human beings…automobiles, computers, trolleys, are part of cultures.

                      Anthropology is an academic discipline. The *****word***** does, indeed, mean the study of man. You can no more make sociology, the study of society, a “subset” of anthropology. unless you’re willing to make ANY thing involving the study of humans and their activities such a subset. Christology, according to that usage, would be a “subset” of anthropology, no? Such armchair “science” has a lot to answer for in history, and especially in the politics it always is intended to support.

                    • Geo Michalopulos says

                      Your Grace, if I may interject here. Boaz has been almost completely discredited. Nobody in anthropological circles cites him anymore. He stated among other things that people’s skulls changed shape once they came to America.

                    • Geo Michalopulos says

                      Your Grace, if I may continue to interject, having two majors in the biological sciences, I can tell you that questioning Darwin was a sure route to ridicule. Most of us who were pre-med kept our mouths shut.

                      If I may come to Elisha17’s defense (he has helped me gather much of my source material for my critique of Darwinism), I can honestly say that Darwinism is on its last legs. Nevertheless, nobody in the sciences dares dispute it, lest it give ammo to the ID/Creationists.

                      My whole thesis is that people should be consistent about Darwinism. Recently, James Watson, the co-discoverer of the DNA double-helix model, was drummed out of polite society by suggesting that sub-Saharans were inferior to other humans. Lawrence Summers, who was President of Harvard suggested that women’s cognitive abilities predisposed them to not get in physics and math. He also thought that it deserved further study. He was also drummed out of polite society and had to resign his post. (Galileo anyone?)

                      Anyway, the issue is not whether these men were right or wrong, but could their theses be falsified?

                    • George,I only cited Boaz because I know how contentious the anthropological world is. I mentioned Leslie White. He was one of the earliest to show utter contempt for Franz Boaz and his naive diffusionist theories and even more for Margaret Mead, whom he liked to mention as, “You know, the gal who imputed sexual bliss to the Polynesian maidens…”
                      I’m not sure I voiced an opinion on the decline or not of Darwinism. In my opinion the word is a portmanteau word with a vast number of denotations and references. When anyone mentions Darwinism, he or she should always state exactly what teaching or theory of Darwin’s is on the block or the pedestal. The word is an outright bogeyman to many. Mention it at, oh, Bob Jones and it’d be like trying to start up a “Filioque for Converts” Club in Englewood. I’d have to put my klobuk on the end of my staff and try to draw enemy fire away from my sacred person if I mentioned it favorably at all in some circles.
                      Biology. Well, it’s much more respectable than it used to be. I take it that this Watson was a biologist who ventured outside his area of expertise in hypothesizing that sub-Saharans (which ones) were inferior to other humans? I must admit, it doesn’t like a scientific hypothesis at all. Did he publish it?
                      Was Summers a biologist? Did he publish his findings on the cognitive abilities of women? If so, where may one read them? To what society did he repair after being drummed out of polite society? I believe some members of the Flat Earth Society may feel they’ve been mistreated as Galileo was?
                      And, anyone’s theses could be falsified or even falsely characterized.
                      What would you recommend as a scientific authority demolishing Darwinism?

                    • Geo Michalopulos says

                      Your Grace, please understand that I was not trying to engage in Greco-triumphalism of any kind here. Most all scholars agree that Classical antiquity was the apogee of ancient civilization and that it was largely driven by the phenomenon of Hellenism. Yes, other civilizations imparted much wisdom but it was only the Hellenic experience which remained.

                      If I may, men like Omar Khayyam were certainly brilliant, but they were outliers. Arab-Islamic civilization was certainly superior to the most other contemporary ones but its successes were largely derivative. They either got their scientific knowledge by conquering advanced civilizations (like the Assyrians) or having Christian priests translate ancient Greek manuscripts.

                      What do I mean by “outliers”? Consider: the most famous basketball player in the world today is Yao Ming, a pure Han Chinese. Yet the sport of basketball is dominated by African-Americans of West African descent. Jews, who make up less than 1% of the world’s population, make up 24% of the Nobel Prize winners.

                      Please understand, I mean no disrespect, but the IQ findings between Ashkenazim and Sephardim/Mizrahim are based on rock-solid data. The question is, how did this happen, and why did it happen so fast?

                      Of course, I take your point about confusing which came first, sociology or anthropology to heart and stand corrected. Having said that, I found no refutation in your fine rebuttals about the various contentions I made. In time, I will be writing a series of essays on Darwinism and the state of evolutionary studies. Speaking for myself, I can honestly say that I have no axe to grind. Reader’s Digest version: random, materialistic evolution (neo-Darwinism) is a physical impossibility. (I expect Arb Lazar Puhalo to criticize me for “dancing with unicorns.”) Nevertheless, natural selection has played a role in the bifurcation of ethnic groups and races leading to different outcomes.

                      As a Christian of course, I find nothing repulsive about this, or the fact that different races/ethnic groups have different strengths and/or weaknesses. Materialists and anti-theists however can take these differences where they will. Darwin himself predicted genocide and spoke about it in a morally neutral manner. The question for the scientist ultimately is: are these differences because of exogenous (cultural/geographic/etc.) forces or genetic (intrinsic)?

                    • Geo Michalopulos says

                      Your Grace, Summers did not publish anything on women’s cognitive abilities. He’s an economist (and a liberal Democrat who was Treas Secy under Clinton). He merely pointed out what was obvious to the casual observer. And of course he asked that it should be “looked into.” That’s good science in my opinion. At least he thought that it should be studies. Instead, the mere suggestion was shouted down with vehemence. That’s not science no matter which way you cut it.

                      As for Watson, he meant all sub-Saharans (excepting Afrikaners who are white Europeans). To my knowledge, he published nothing that I know of, but just made a general observation. It should have been studied as well. If wrong, refute it.

                      Both men got the Bill Dembski treatment. Dembski, one of the leading lights of ID, actually lost his tenure at Baylor University because he dared question the presuppositions of Darwinism.

                  • George wrote: “Race may very well be a “construct” of the 19th century, but it is very much in line with Darwinism and unfortunately cannot be divorced from biology today.”

                    That is quite correct, George, but the real question is, is it true?

                    Forget what this or that anthropologist once wrote (anthropolgy and its pseudo-scientific child paleo-anthropology have always been highly conjectural studies), the Human Genome project has produced irrefutable evidence that race is indeed an intellectual construct with no basis in human biology (even before the Genome project started some brave scientists stated that most of the salient pysical characteristics by which we identify various “races” are actually present in all the major ethnic groups.) Applied science and science as taught in colleges and high schools will one day catch up with this development, and please Lord, may it be soon!

                    • Geo Michalopulos says

                      Basil, I for one do not believe that Darwinism is true. I think it’s incredibly PC however to state that though we are 99.9% alike doesn’t mean that there are differences and that these differences don’t account for the different attainments of the different nations. (Again, lots of German astrophysicists; poets –not so much.) Why? Culture matters, no doubt.)

                      As for the physical differences existing within the continuum of the different races, you are correct. Again though, they are augmented by environmental conditions. The reason this may not mean so much today is because we have largely divorced ourselves from the environment. We get our food from the grocery story, not the farm and we don’t have to get up at 5am to milk a cow for our nourishment or catch fish to eat supper that day. If you’re a European and you don’t have much upper-body strength, then you won’t be able to push a plow, thereby not producing a lot of calories. If you’re a fisherman living on some Mediterranean island and you get seasick easily, you won’t be able to sustain your family. This is natural selection in its least arguable form.

                      I mean chihuahas and Great Pyrrenes are 99% alike in their genetic composition but that 1% difference makes them different species as far as their respective niches are concerned and mating is impossible. That they are produced by artificial selection only means that man took certain mutations between the ancestral pairs and augmented them over several generations.

                    • By major ethnic groups here I mean European (extending through the ME to India), Asian and African. (Yes, I know this corresponds to the old “racial” categories based on the skull measurements of Blumenbach et al, but one can acknowledge the usefulness of empirical data without buying into the intellectual and social constructs later built upon it. In any case, it is easily demonstrable via modern genetics that none of these major ethnic groups are discrete races. That is not to deny, though, that major or minor ethnic groups may not represent significant clusters of genetic material which may have relevance for medical science and the treatments it devises.)
                      That ‘Edit’ function is sure missed, George.

                    • George!! Did you study Anything but biology in college? How in the world could you write this:
                      “(Again, lots of German astrophysicists; poets –not so much.) Why? Culture matters, no doubt.)”
                      Goethe, Rilke, Schlller, Hoffmansthal, Hoelderlin, Novalis, Heine, Brecht, ETC.,: the German poets of world renown goes on and on—-why even Herman Hesse (whose fiction is twice as passe as Franz Boaz) produced a lot of memorable poetry. The Germans are among the greatest producers of poetry in history.
                      “poets,not so much!!!!”
                      Take it back!
                      And, please, give us the names of those “lots of” German astrophysicists

                    • George Michalopulos says

                      Your Grace, you got me on the poetry thing. I stand corrected. I was being too flippant and I ask your forgiveness. But here we go on the “hard sciences” (physics, chemistry, etc.): Ernst Haeckl, Werner von Braun, Heisenberg, Teller, Faber, Rudolf Diesel, Ferdinand Porsche, Kekule, Liebnitz, (at this point I’ll have to crack open my old Organic Chem texts, which have been gathering dust lo these many years. Maybe a better comparison would have been German scientists versus German basketball players?

                      Anyway, the fact that Germans dominated poetry and literature (to the extent that your list put me in my place) we could add the German dominance in music. And philosophy. This would of course indicate that the Germans were indeed a brilliant people and could be used to buttress the case of microevolution or natural selection favoring them for whatever reason. They lilterally dominated Europe culturally before doing so militarily.

                    • George! The following are ASTROPHYSICISTS?
                      “Ernst Haeckl, Werner von Braun, Heisenberg, Teller, Faber, Rudolf Diesel, Ferdinand Porsche, Kekule, Liebnitz,”
                      Surely, if Thomas Sowell is a “liberal” Democrat, what’s he doing in the Heritage Foundation and at the Hoover Institute?

                      Actually, I quit on this part of the thread. I decided over fifty years ago that there is one truly universal American trait, even a birthright of real, true, Americans, it is that every single American is an expert on “race” and on “race relations.”
                      Ask ANY born American for his or her views on “race” and you’ll get an earful of “established and incontrovertible truth.”

                    • Your Grace, I qualified the statement. I said “hard sciences.”

                    • George Michalopulos says

                      Your Grace, I believe we qualified the the statement as “hard sciences.” I also never said that Thomas Sowell was a “liberal Democrat.” (Although he was at one time a Marxist.) Please forgive me if I gave offense, as none was intented. I just wanted to set the record straight.

                      As for race and race relations, I think only Christianity can attempt to heal the very real divisions that do exist. Hence, my very real dissapointment when the GOA sold Ss Constantine & Helen’s in Chicago to the black Muslims.

                  • Jane Rachel says

                    George, would you be able to sum up what you have been writing about here in one comment box? If you would state your premise it would help with understanding what you are saying. I have the sense that your thoughts come quickly and it’s not easy to keep all the research and facts straight and correct while your mind keeps pushing your fingers to get the ideas out and written down, as you develop your thesis. (That’s what happens to me, anyways.) I very much enjoyed and benefited from that long article you wrote a while back:
                    “The Hidden Anti-Semitism of Christopher Hitchens and the New Atheists” very much. and look forward to reading more.

        • Although I was born and brought up in Detroit, and have had numerous friends and acquaintances who were Jewish, I’ve never met a Talmudist, ever. I’ve heard they spit on Christians who visit the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods in Israel. But I believe they also spit on Jews, especially Jewish women, who are, like Christians, “improperly clothed.” Some of them probably spit on Zionists, especially if the Talmudists are non-immigrant Jews. Many Talmudists believe that Jews are not supposed to “re-inherit” the land until the Messiah comes and are bitter foes of the State of Israel, formed by immigrant Europeanizing Jews whom Western Europe, Great Britain and the U.S. did not want immigrating in their own lands.
          Probably some of them would, like the iranian leadership, prefer to see Israel wiped off the map as the USSR was.

          • Geo Michalopulos says

            Your Grace, the Talmud is basically kaput as a guide to living anymore among most Jews. In fact, most Jews in America are 100% assimiliated and the rate of inter-marriage is through the roof. Synagogues are closing down all over the place. Jews of my acquaintance look upon the Talmud (and the Hasidim) as embarrassments. (I actually am fascinated by hasidic theology.)

            However during the Diaspora period (ca AD 70 to 1900), the vast majority of Jews lived under the dictates of the Talmud and the iron hand of rabbis. Although its pronouncments are uncomfortable to modern ears (i.e. gentiles had different essences and bodies even and would not experience the general Resurrection), as an evolutionary mechanism, it worked wonders in that it kept the Jewish people alive for centuries in the Diaspora even though they had no geographic “home base.” As to why it took off, my theory is that once the Romans destroyed the Second Temple, the Jews looked inward and stopped any type of missionary program advancing monotheism. It was during the period when the Talmud was written (ca AD 200-500) that the Apocrypha were stripped out of the Hebrew Scriptures (Tanakh), mainly because they were originally written in Greek. And of course vile insinuations about Jesus and His mother were fabricated during this period.

            BTW, this is not controversial. Thomas Sowell in his studies of the so-called middleman minorities (Greeks, Lebanese, Chinese, Armenians, Parsees, and Jews), finds the same mechanisms working to advance inherent strengths (esp intelligence, nimble-mindedness, and a gift for oratory). These are augmented by keeping them ethnically “pure.” Usually there’s a founding myth, a disdain for the “other,” a willingness to exploit weaknesses in the host population (often to mutual advantage), unwillingness to intermarry, using religious institutions as colonial bases, etc.

            That btw is why the entire “Faith: an endowment for Hellenism and Orthodoxy” is bound to fail, but that’s a story for another day.

            • Thomas Sowell is not controversial? Oh. My. Did he actually state that the Chinese are a middleman MINORITY? Which Chinese? And Lebanese are but former Syrians who live in the part of Syria that France cut out for itself. They are Arabs, are they not?
              The Jews of Moorish and pre-Moorish Spain and of the entire Moghreb never succumbed to so-called “Talmudism” as you characterize it. They were a brilliant cosmopolitan and intellectual bunch and never showed evidence of believing in the “different essences and bodies” of the Gentiles. Those who write such things are trying to show that the Nazis’ mad theories can be blamed on Jews “who had them first.”

              • George Michalopulos says

                Your Grace, Chinese are a minority in North America, Indonesia, Burma, and Vietnam, where they dominated several industries. Lebanese Christians are Arabs to be sure but in Western Africa they dominate a lot of industries. In the American Midwest, they dominated dry-goods and delicatessens. They too are a minority in the strict sense of the word (though not of course in Lebanon).

                As for the Lebansese Christians, specifically the Maronites, they have little to do with their non-Christian Arab “brethren.”

                As for Talmudism not having a grip on the Mizrahim/Sephardim, you are correct. hwoever, I never said that they did succumb to Talmudism. That being said, they are ony a miniscule segment of Jewry. The Ashkenazim make up 85% of world Jewry and they dominate Israel. It was they who pioneered Zionism. It is they also who created the neoconservative movement here in the US.

                I also never said that Sowell was “not controversial.” Actually though, he is lauded by almost all non-socialist economists.

                • George Michalopulos says

                  Also Your Grace, I did not impute previous kabbalistic/hasidic racialist anthropology as the well-spring of Aryan ideology. I just merely pointed out that all peoples are susceptible to such exclusionary ideologies. The Nazis/Progressives for their part took their anthropology from Helena Blavatsky’s Theosophy and Darwinism. To my knowledge, they knew nothing of the more esoteric doctrines of Kabbalism. (I imagine that if they had, they would have accused the Jews of stealing it from the “Aryans,” since they believed that the Aryans were the most ancient of the five “root races” and the well-spring of all civilization.

                  • George Michalopulos says: . . . The Nazis/Progressives for their part took their anthropology from Helena Blavatsky’s Theosophy and Darwinism.

                    Glen Beck aside, how does the reform progressive movement of the early 20th century in America link to the Nazis?

                    • Geo Michalopulos says

                      You’d be surprised.

                      Eventually, I’ll write an essay about all the liberals/progressives who went absolutely gaga for Herr Hitler and/or Il Duce. A short list: WEB DuBois (a black man who was a Communist liked the Nazi program), Will Rogers (liked Mussolini), Churchill (Mussolini, ok, not a progressive/liberal but you get the point), almost everybody in FDR’s cabinet, Ezra Pound, Margaret Sanger, and of course Uncle Joe Stalin (until he got stabbed in the back by Hitler).

    • Monk James says

      Many thanks for the correction.

      Christians can’t persecute anyone, especially not Jews, and be taken seriously as followers of Jesus Christ.

      • You’re welcome, Monk James.
        Absolutely agree with you regarding Christians persecution others, especially Jews.

  15. Carl Kraeff wrote: ““These last three years have been the three most difficult years of my life. I have been under a relentless barrage of criticism for most of this time from every forum I am meant to oversee: the Chancery officers and staff, the Metropolitan Council, and — most troubling to me — the Holy Synod of Bishops. I admit that I have very little experience in administration, and it was a risk for the 2008 Council to elect me, the newest and most inexperienced of bishops. I have worked very hard to fulfill your expectations. But this is not an excuse. These three years have been an administrative disaster, and I need to accept full responsibility for that….How to get at the root of this breakdown in trust and repair it, if at all possible, is the real challenge for me, and I am willing to do whatever is necessary, working in close collaboration with the Holy Synod. As a first step, I have agreed to begin a process of discernment that will include a complete evaluation in a program that specializes in assisting clergy…”

    If these words were sincere, +Jonah showed more courage and leadership than most people in his situation. If they were not, he should be ashamed.”

    I suggest that charity requires that we proceed on the assumption that Met. Jonah was sincere, Carl.
    I believe there is ample evidence to support the foundational belief that Met. Jonah is a man of integrity, although subject to the failings and weaknesses of human nature generally in this post-Fall world. We should therefore accept what he says as a man of his word, and, when he doesn’t seem to match our expectations, make allowances for the difficult situation he finds himself in. Who of us, in a similar situation, would not be pleased to receive the same courtesy?

    • Carl Kraeff says

      Basil said: “I suggest that charity requires that we proceed on the assumption that Met. Jonah was sincere, Carl.”

      Basil–You are preaching to the choir. My problem is with his supporters who to this day maintain that what he has said was, in effect, not true.

      • Oh, OK Carl – my apologies if I implied you thought otherwise; perhaps I didn;t read your full comment with enough attention.

        Yes, Amos, I thought Met Jonah’s mea culpa was not only refreshingly honest but also endearing.
        If it indeed came from the synod, well, the Metropolitan certainly owned those words and by doing so effectively neutralised any bad intent on the part of others. I don’t think this was a “play” on the part of His Beatitude either; I think he is “a true Israelite, in whom there is no guile”.

  16. Basil,

    I think your conclusion to what Met. Jonah said in Seattle is a much more Christian and charitable way to see things as opposed to Carl’s back-handed statement.

    Yet, the truth of those words lies somewhere in the middle. The paragraph that Carl extracted from the Met. Seattle speech was, in fact, crafted by the Synod. They were not Jonah’s words. However, Jonah owned them, spoke them and then followed through by going for his “evaluation.” He called the Synod’s bluff and they were left with no more bullets to fire at him. You will notice things have been much quieter since he went to SLI.

    The key phrase in that prepared statement was “How to get at the root of this breakdown in trust and repair it, if at all possible, is the real challenge for me…” if at all possible being the caveat for the Synod to at last be able to say, “it is not possible” thus Jonah must go.

    But in fact, Jonah did what they asked, and as time passes we can see that the attempt to shame Jonah into retirement or to call him unfit for duty, did not work. Yes, Jonah appears to be working in closer collaboration with the bishops, his chancellor, etc. If that keeps some members of the Synod under control, or less likely to be lead into the temptation of acting out, Amen to that. A leader knows the weaknesses of his team and works to overcome those weak links.

    Jonah took the best punch from the Synod, absorbed it, and is still standing. What that means for the OCA and its future is unknown, but I think that Jonah is still where he is because people fought for him, were willing to take a bullet or two for him, and this website pushed back against the relentless efforts of ocanews to oust him.

    Thanks again, Basil for your comment.

  17. cynthia curraWen says

    Well, I agree that the Jews were not the smartest but Paul Johnson’s history of the Jews compared there laws in comparision to other near east societies there was a stronger emphasis on morally. The Jews contribution was in religion getting away from the multiple of Gods of Greece, Rome, and Carthage. Anyway, Jews in Great Britian and the USA have higher incomes than your average Anglo or Celt. In fact, the Greeks were not always practical one reason that the Romans conquered most of the Greek mainline by the 2nd Century B.C. The practical Romans gave us the Law unless you are American, English or the Commonwealth nations.

  18. cynthia curraWen says

    Good point, in ancient times it was the reverse, Germans and Celts who were lighter were considered backward while Greeks and Romans darker side were considered enlighted. Greeks and Romans were not as much into race and ethnic background but were into class a lot. The higher income classes were viewed a lot better than the lower classes. Byzantines had similar views between classes that why Greek fathers reminded them that social class doesn’t make one a better person.

  19. cynthia curraWen says

    Good point on the Egyptians and the other near East civilizations I still marvel at the Pyramids. The two Greek wonders the library and lighthouse are destroyed. .Take the Romans they didn’t invent much but improved on bridge design, warfare, aquaduct building, and even great religious buildings the Panetheon. Is Hagia Sophia the result of Greek designers or the fact it was built during the Roman Empire, the temple of Saturn columns were used to built Hagia Sophia,

  20. cynthia curraWen says

    Anyway, Theodor Mommsen in Roman History is still used a lot. Roman relationships of figures like Caesar, Augustus, Hadrian, Constantine and even Justinian have been worked by Mommsen in the 19th century. One reason why majoring in ancient history or classical studies who have to know German. Pick up a book on Rome and Mommsen is in the footnotes. The study of history or classics changes little in comparison to other fields.

  21. cynthia curraWen says

    you have to know German.

  22. cynthia curraWen says

    Geroge is probably thinking of Hero, the inventor of the steam engine in first century B.C. Alexanderia. Why Greeks are smarter.

  23. cynthia curraWen says

    George is correct about Islam and the Perisan Empire and the Byzantine Empire. What is interesting in the Byzantine Empire is the great building achievements are all in late antquity, Hippodrome, the cistern of Justinian, Valens Aquaduct, Hagia Sophia, Theodosian Wall. The Plague of the 6th century which seems to weaken byzantine defense and the tax base and the lost of Egypt the bread basket led to a poorer and smaller empire. Hence the Arabs filled the gap in this period.

  24. cynthia curraWen says

    Some historians even think that both the Perisians and the Byzantines developed the miltary force of the arabs since they use the arab tribes to attack each other in their border dispute. Both Khroes and Justinian use the arab tribes in the 6th century and by the 7th century they were strong enough to knock off the Perisans and the Byzantines.

  25. George wrote: “Basil, I for one do not believe that Darwinism is true. I think it’s incredibly PC however to state that though we are 99.9% alike doesn’t mean that there are differences and that these differences don’t account for the different attainments of the different nations. (Again, lots of German astrophysicists; poets –not so much.) Why? Culture matters, no doubt.)”

    We’re on the same page, George. I have no interest in seeing the discoveries of modern genetics used to flatten human culture into a monochrome, PC endeavour (as if!). Environment undoubtedly influences dominant genetic traits in a population group which in turn influences their civilization and culture.

    Btw, have you not heard of Goethe, Heine, Schiller, Rilke…some would aver that the Germans have produced more great poetry than the Greeks in recent centuries ;0)

    And fwiw, I agree with you that Hellenism is unarguably the fount of western culture.

    • Geo Michalopulos says

      Yes, Goethe, Heine, and great men of letters like Hesse, but the fact remains in the present, since at least WWI, the Germans basically owned chemistry and physics.

      As for Hellenism, not only is it found in Christianity via the Cappadocian synthesis but even within Judaism itself. The conquest of Alexander the Great cause Yahwism to explore new theologies. Philo of Alexandria developed the concept of the Logos based on Neoplatonism. Also all the Kabbalah is based on Neoplatonism. So you see, if the Jews of the Intertestamental period were heavily affected by Hellenism.

    • George Michalopulos says

      Basil, our IT people are working on the edit function. Please forgive me. I miss it too.

    • George Michalopulos says

      Yeah, I’m not impressed by modern Greek poetry. They strike me as Lefties. Cavafy, the greatest was a pederast. (For the life of me, I can’t understand why Lambrianides would quote him at his enthronment as “metropolitan of extinct-hilltop-in-Turkey.”

      • Peter A. Papoutsis says

        Hi George:

        First, Goethe, Heine, et. al., were just brilliant to say the least, but they had their own personal fopas and sexual issues. Goethe is very sexually explicit, especially in Faust. Heine shared many ideas with Karl Marx and hated the rich upper classes just as much, if not more, as Marx. I think they may have even knew each other and exchanged ideas, but differed on how the change society.

        Allen Ginsberg, who I totally despise and cannot stand on a personal level, find his poetry to be very powerful. I cannot stomach alot of its content after a time, but cannot say the man is a bad poet. Yet his openly Gay lifestyle and his support for NAMBLA IMHO is just dispecable.

        So for me I can separate their artistic expressions with their personal lives and lifestyles. Personally Cavafy and Seferis are very good poets, and I have their works in Greek and English. The same for Goethe and Ginsberg. However, I must stress that liking their artistic expression does not mean I approve of their personal or even sexual actions. I most definitely do not.

        For what its worth that’s my 2 cents.

        • Goethe is a giant poet, an epic poet, and if Faust is ‘very sexually explicit” (compared to Chaucer or Shakespeare the sexual content of Goethe’s works is MINUSCULE) I can’t imagine what “not very sexually explicit” would be. And I can’t imagine how Peter can get through Cavafy’s truly explicit rhapsodies on feeling guys up in coffee houses and rhapsodizing on thighs at all, if he finds Goethe “very sexually explicit.” !
          In fact, “Faust” is not sexually EXPLICIT at all..
          Tell us just what ideas Heinrich Heine shared with Karl Marx, please. By the way “hating the upper classes”? Is that like saying it’s harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle? (By the way, someone pointed out that this is an example of Our Lord showing himself no stranger to “Jewish” humor.)
          Where may one read of Heine meeting and exchanging ideas with Karl Marx? If, as you say, Heine and Marx differed on how to change society, please, give an example of one view of changing society on which they differed?Shakespeare, Pushkin, Goethe, Rimbaud, Rilke, Yesenin, Pasternak, Brecht, in fact, every human being has his or her own “fopas and sexual issues.” I have no idea, really, what “fopas” are. Are they the same as faux pas?
          You don’t approve of George Seferis’s personal or “even” sexual actions? Please, give us an example of same!
          Next we’ll praise Plato but be appalled by his “personal fopas and sexual issues?
          No doubt, we should read those psalms of that murderer and adulterer, ETC., King David, with such reservations in mind?
          You know, I don’t know how American education got to where it is today. About a year ago, I had to become acquainted with a convert Priest, an SVS graduate with a PhD in history, who is an ADJUNCT professor of history at Loyola Marymount, who complacently stated in his parish bulletin, in a tendentious article “On Holy Russia”, that Communism ORIGINATED in Russia, and that Lenin INVENTED it!!! I kid you not!
          He also gave a talk which one may hear on Ancient Faith radio on the Fall of Communism, that the reason Communism fell in Russia was because it was “defeated” by “Christianity!”

          • Peter A. Papoutsis says

            I believe I was agreeing with you your Eminence. If you thought otherwise I do apologize.

            Peter

  26. cynthia curraWen says

    Hellenism is the fount of western culture agree there too.

    • Not so. Post hoc ergo propter hoc is an acknowledged logical fallacy. “Western Culture” has many sources and some of them are not ‘isms’ at all!!!

      • Peter A. Papoutsis says

        Actually, the “fount” started with the “Etruscans,” which then moved to both Greece and Latin Rome. Greece in its classical period reached its zenith. Later the glories of Hellenism went east and became “Hellenistic when it merged with the Middle Eastern culture, primarily Egyptian and Persian, and a hybrid culture was produced.

        With the defeat of the Greek-East by Rome this hybrid “Hellenistic” culture merged and fused with Rome’s “Latin” culture, and in many ways was over taken by it. This is where Horace gives his famous quote: “Graecia capta ferum victorim cepit et artis intulit agresti Latio” (“Conquered Greece has conquered the brute victor and brought her arts into rustic Latium”).[

        Now we have an even hybrid cuture of Hellenic,Asiatic and Roman created, and add to this Christianity and you have the Western culture that has continued to grow and evolve since then. Further, French, German and Spanish cultures fused onto this “Greco-Roman-Asiatic” culture that was then taken over and infused further by the English right on down to us Americans.

        So there was essentially one fount, Etruscans & Greeks, with many great and beautiful additions thereafter right on down to us. That’s how I have understood it. I could be wrong.

        Peter

  27. I should have added – Hellenism is the fount of Western culture with a considerable admixture from the Hebraic stream.

    On poets and poetry – Rilke, (Austrian, not German, of course, but borders are not always co-extensive with peoples) as a person was detestable yet his poetry is exquisite and he could write with equal facility and lyricism in both German and French! It’s a mystery as to why God gives such sublime gifts to such people, but there it is: it is a gift. Like all gifts it can be misused. It would seem that, especially from the Romantic period onwards, the personalities of poets often get screwed up. Even TS Eliot, one of the most respectable of modern poets, was a strange case in some ways.

    • Rilke is a German poet, born in Prague, Bohemia, Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1875, who resided in Bavaria, in Paris, beginning at age 17 (as Auguste Rodin’s secretary), then in Bavaria, Italy, Scandinavia, Austria, and Switzerland, where he died. The reason for his short stay in Austria was because the Austrian Imperial Government considered ALL Germans born in Prague to be Austrian subjects of the Austrian Emperor, and when WWI broke out, although he was exempt from the draft in Muenich, the Austro-Hungarian Imperial government tried to draft him. He refused to serve and was, I believe, sent to jail for a short time. Styria, Carinthia, etc.,
      The Austro-Hungarian Empire’s two main nationalities were German and Hungarian although Galicians and Serbs, etc., also constituted it. “Oesterreich” is the German word we translate as “Austria”. It means “The Eastern Realm.” None of his friends would ever describe him as anything but a German poet, particularly Tolstoy or Pasternak.
      Just say the great Western culture is, like all great cultures, a mongrel culture. Either all or none of the ingredients are the “founts’ of those cultures. What would Western Culture be without the Vandals of Spain, the Arabs of Spain, the Vikings (St. Olaf was once a ward of the Kievan court of St. Vladimir), the Jews of Spain and the “Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation”, etc? There is NO “one fount” of Western “culture.”
      Why Rilke should be considered “detestable” is a mystery to me. I know of no one who detests him or his poetry.
      As for personalities getting ‘screwed up” (where are we, in Romper Room?), are we going to be told that Sappho was “screwed up” (even though she’s ages before “the Romantic period” (what “Romanticism” is meant here? German Romanticism? English Romanticism? American Romanticism? Egyptian Romanticism?

      Next, someone will say that Marlene Dietrich is not German, but East Prussian, because she was born in Koenigsberg, East Prussia (now: “Kaliningrad”, Russia), that Bach was not German, but Saxon; Kaiser Wilhelm was not German but Prussian; Thomas Mann was not German, but a Luebecker; Goethe was not a German, but a Rheinlander or that the Habsburgs were not Germans but Austrians!!!!!! They were only politically, not ethnically Austrian. There is no Austrian ethnos at all. Karinthians Tyroleans, Styrians, etc,

      What T.S. Eliot has to do with poetic nationality is beyond me. I wonder what he’d think if he heard that some guy on the Internet characterized him as “one of the most *******respectable******** of modern poets?” I’m sure his literary critics and rivals would rejoice in hearing of that! Josef Conrad was born in Poland. Does anyone say he was one of the most famous Polish writers ever?

      These “racial” questions are nonsensical and insoluble. You can find linguistic determinists who will tell you it is the language you speak which is responsible for your “talents” and other qualities. Today “the world” speaks English. In BC and early AD, the world spoke Pidjin Greek, called Koine, which appalled some of the Greek-speaking Fathers of the Church, even as it appeared in the New Testament, where there is really no “good” Greek at all. “Good Greek” was found in the composed hymnography of the Church.
      Hellenic is one thing: “Hellenistic” is another. One might say that Greek culture by itself went nowhere: it was only when fertilized by non-Greeks, especially Asians, that it was carried forward. Was KIng Herod Jewish or a Hellenist?

      • Geo Michalopulos says

        All good points, your Grace. Nobody that I know (myself included) believes that “only” Hellenism gave rise to the West. That’s insane. But it was Hellenism that was the preponderant, and dominant force in Classical Antiquity. That it admixed with Jewish monotheism is obvious as well. However, we must remember that Judaism itself succumbed to Hellenism before the birth of Jesus.

        Yes, all cutlure is ultimately a “mongrel” culture but that’s the nature of things. That doesn’t mean that Anglo-Saxon/Celtic culture didn’t dominate North America, or that Castillo-Iberian culture didn’t dominate Latin America. Clearly they did because if nothing else people speak English north of the Rio Grande and Spanish south of it.

        Also, I’m not sure I’m following you on the taxonomy of the various people you describe. They all spoke German and considered themselves German. They were all descended from ancient Teutonic tribes that spoke some type of Germanic dialects. If anything, one could classify all Northern European non-Celtic/non-Slavic/non-Magyar/non-Finnish peoples as broadly Germanic. That would include the Franks, Vandals, Goths, Saxons, Scandinavians, and Germans proper.

        As for those Austrians, Sudetens, Alsatians, and others who dwelt in Poland and the Baltic lands, they certainly identified themselves as Germans and enthusiastically embraced the concept of Anschluss that Hitler used to further his aims.

        • Geo Michalopulos says

          Your Grace, I also agree with you about Hellenistic civilization that it “went nowhere” eventually but was only carried forward by foreigners. That is true. We Greeks got very lazy towards the end and rested on our laurels, preferring to look down our noses at the other nations who we came into contact with. Truth be told, this is the great sadness of the Greek people today. Always going on about the “glory that was Greece,” and not doing a damn thing today. That’s one reason I admire Jewish people is because they’re always on the cutting edge of something or another.

          I’ve been thinking a lot about the whole “Faith: An Endowment for Hellenism and Orthodoxy” bilge that’s put out by the GOA. Also Arb Demetrios’ excellent lecture on Hellenism given at St Vlad’s a couple of years ago. His Emincence is correct about the paradigm shift that Hellenism imparted to the world. It was huge. Unfortunately. there’s no follow-up. Consider, if we were firing on all thrusters in this area, Holy Cross/Hellenic College would be an academic mecca. After all, its situated in Boston, the home of Harvard, Tufts, MIT, Boston College, Holy Cross (the Catholic one). It would be the place to go to study Patristics and other high-end academic disciplines. But it’s not. That’s because we don’t really care about this stuff but instead on other things.

          • Jane Rachel says

            George, why do you separate them into groups, or emphasize that we are separated into groups? Are you saying all this because it’s interesting, or because it matters? What difference does it make when we are all from the same human race? Yes, yes, i hear what you are saying, I read the posts and understand your points, but what I am asking is, is your premise, the foundation of your thinking, the reason for your thinking, really necessary, and is it centered in the right place? I would like to know if there is some reason for all these points you are making. When you put your article together, maybe then I’ll get it.

            It seems to me, but I could be wrong, that when we do this thing you are doing here, we end up pushing people around like puppets. You belong here, and you belong here, and if it wasn’t for you and your kind, this would never have happened, but thank goodness we had you and your kind around to make our houses square. It’s nice that Hermann Hesse was German, T. S. Eliot English, Michelangelo Italian..Such great flavor combinations in all those different nationalities!. But in the end, all peoples influence each other and it doesn’t matter where the root of that influence came from . Historically interesting, but history is colored by the writers of history and children are colored by their teachers. You can’t go back to the “fount” because they came from somewhere else going all the way back to the beginning. Your thinking also gives the implied feeling, even though you are careful to say it isn’t true, that some peoples are superior to other peoples, nations of peoples, people groups. No one has anything to do with what their own DNA looks like, what their talents are, or their intelligence, or color, shape, size. We get it from our parents, our ancestry, the human race. I suppose this rant will fall by the wayside. But my Irish, German, English, French, Welsh, Scottish, Chinese, West African, Antarctic, Planet Nine personality cannot be pushed into boxes without yelling to get out.

            • Monk James says

              Patriotism is a virtue. Nationalism is a disease. Homogeneia is a racist concept.

              Now I’m being trenchant.

              • Monk James says: Patriotism is a virtue. Nationalism is a disease.

                Please explain. Patriotism sounds good, while nationalism . . well, not so much. I think of them as the part of the same general concept, but at opposing poles. Is that what you mean?

                • Monk James says

                  Logan46 says:
                  February 7, 2012 at 10:59 am
                  ‘Monk James says: Patriotism is a virtue. Nationalism is a disease.

                  Please explain. Patriotism sounds good, while nationalism . . well, not so much. I think of them as the part of the same general concept, but at opposing poles. Is that what you mean?’

                  ‘Patriotism’ means that I love my country, and I’m happy to share it with you. Maybe you’ll come to love it, too.

                  ‘Nationalism’ means that I love my country, and if you don’t love it, too, you’re my enemy and I might have to kill you for that.

                  And, while I’m here, I should mention that hellenic ‘homogeneia’ is racist in the extreme, a repugnant theory embraced nonetheless by some greek orthodox Christians even now, a notion that all the Hellenes are somehow not only united (never true) by culture and faith, but also somehow superior to all Nonhellenes.

                  It remains to be said that the very notion of hellenism is prechristian, dated to about three centuries before the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, and expicitly connected to the lands conquered by Alexander the Great, who wasn’t even a Greek, but a Slav. It was, I think accurately, said that Alexander never learned to speak Greek without an accent, much like Constantine the Great’s attempts at Latin. And that in spite of Alexander’s illustrious tutor.

                  People who promote hellenism ought to wake up and realize the disgusting pagan implications of that obsolete culture and stop crowing about its accomplishments.

                  Oh, people keep saying that Greece is the ‘cradle of western civilization’.

                  But the bough broke, the cradle fell, and the baby came down.

                  What has Greece done for humanity in the last couple of thousand years? Inspired Byron, maybe?

                  It does no good to assert ethnic pride in terms of civilization altogether, but I really do like greek food, and the people are very kind.

                  • George Michalopulos says

                    Correction: Alexander’s ancestry was Argive, hence Hellenic. We know this from contemporaneous sources because even though most Greeks hated Philip II, they at least acknowledged his ancestry as being Hellenic.

                    However, a lot of what you say is sad but true. I hate the belly-aching done by a lot of modern Greeks. Whenever I went to Greece people would always go on and on about the glory of Greece. Most of this type of dysfunction found today is in the GOA with its goofy “Faith: an Endowment for Hellenism and Faith.” Sad.

                    As for Hellenism being pagan, strictly speaking you are 100% correct. However there was something far more ennobling about Hellenism than what you found in the Near East, North Africa or Northern Europe, at least during the time in question. I honestly think that the rationalists came very close to apprehending monotheism by reasoned discourse. Hence the idea of The Unknown God who was worshipped on Mars Hill in Athens by some illustrious men. This is profound. Far superior to the cults of Cybele, Hecate, Amon-Ra, Dionysius, even Mithras.

                    • I believe that it turns out that “the unknown god on Mars Hill, modern excavations show, was Hermes.
                      Zarathustra arrived at monotheism in time for Cyrus the Great and Darius to be monotheists long before Hellenic rationalists allegedly came “very close” to apprehending it by reasoned discourse. The Zoroastrian Scriptures also arrived at the resurrection and a last judgment and angels and Satan while the Greeks were getting high on Dionysian and Appollonian Mysteries: they also picked up a corruption of Zoroastrianism called Mithraism in their Hellenisiic civilization.

                    • Carl Kraeff says

                      I looked up Argive and Wiki said an inhabitant of Argos in Pelopennese.Not too helpful, so I looked up Ancestors of Alexander and found a fascinating small article, which I am quoting below:

                      “Like all ancient kings, Alexander claimed that the gods were his ancestors. Already in the fifth century, the Macedonian kings said that they descended from Perdiccas, who descended from Temenos, a king of Argos; and he was great-grandchild of Hyllus, the son of Heracles. The oldest source for this family tree can be found in book eight of the Histories of the Greek researcher Herodotus of Halicarnassus (text).
                      It seems that this Heraclid (and thus: Greek) descent was first claimed by king Alexander I (497/496-c.454) and accepted at the Olympic games (496?), after which it was never seriously doubted again. According to the old legends, Heracles was a son of the supreme Zeus and a woman named Alcmene, who was a great-granddaughter of Perseus, incidentally a son of Zeus. Because of the similarity in name, the Persians were supposed to descent from Perseus too; again, we have the testimony of Herodotus that the Persians could be called ‘sons of Perseus’ in the fifth century (7.220).

                      The old legend also maintained that Heracles’ wife Deianeira was a daughter of the god Dionysus. Stated differently, from the fifth century on, any Macedonian king could call himself son of Heracles, Perseus, Dionysus or Zeus.
                      Alexander’s mother Olympias was a member of the royal house of Epirus, which claimed Andromache and Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, as ancestors. The first to write that Neoptolemus was married to Andromache, was the Athenian playwright Euripides (Trojan women); that Neoptolemus settled in Epirus was a well-known legendary fact that could already be found in the epic poem known as Nostoi (‘returns’).

                      Alexander could -according to the legends: rightfully- claim Achilles as his ancestor; no one would object to it. In fact, out sources do not mention any objection. It was only when Alexander changed his ancestry, claiming that Olympias had had intercourse with Zeus (or Ammon), that people started to make remarks.”
                      http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/alexander_z4.html

                      Thus, the question of Alexander’s ancestry is not clear at all. IMHO, to contemporary Grees, he was a barbarian until he adopted Hellenism and made the Greeks great again.

                    • Geo Michalopulos says

                      your point about Zorastrianism is well taken but it was monotheism strictly speaking but dualism, positing two equal but opposing gods. As for my contention of some Greeks arriving at belief in an unknown god of monotheism, I never maintained that they incorporated the eschatology of monotheism (heaven, hell, last judgment, etc.), only monontheism strictly speaking.

                      In reality, it would have been impossible for these quasi-monotheists to take the next steps necessary in monotheism based on reason alone. It was here that revelation came to bear. It was St Paul, a Jewish prophet, who revealed the Unknown God to the Athenians and what this God was about.

                    • Zoroastrian monotheism (God is Ahura Mazda; Satan is Ahriman) is considered problematic as monotheistic by non-Zoroastrians in the same way as Christian monotheism is considered problematic as monotheism by Muslims, Jews, and others.
                      In fact some claim that Christianity was originally as monothestic as Judaism, but the influence of Hellenism was too great to maintain it, and the Greeks couldn’t resist adding “hypostases” to their concept of God, declaring them by fiat to not contradict monotheism. Some Fathers resisted these “hypostases” at first because they were unheard-of in Scriptures and not received from the Apostles, but they were accepted, centuries AD. Our firmly held belief and teaching that our saints are holy but not gods is deemed irrational by some who claim that St. Nicholas and others have more power than Dionysius or Mithra! Why even the notorious Reader Constantine David Wright signs off with a signature block translating Athanasius as “God become human so that human could become gods!” If that isn’t polytheism…!
                      I do not doubt George’s particular belief that ***some****Greeks somewhere came up with a belief in an unknown (One?) God on their own, maybe some Scyths and Mongols and Arapahoes did, too.
                      And, yes, St. Paul does seem to be saying that those people who worshipped at the temple of a God no longer known to them, were, in fact, worshipping our God. That is a kind of primitive ecumenism: “they all think they’re worshipping some god(s) or other, but they’re REALLY all worshipping the Same One God.”
                      The Zoroastrian “Ahriman”, the evil principle with whom the true followers of the One God, Ahura Mazda, must do combat until the Last Judgment, seems in no way to be more of a god than our Satan. Pagans in the Roman Empire thought at first that Christianity was a variation of Judaism—that is, a Judaism with more acceptably Hellenistic elements than fundamental Judaism The Jews, too, thought that they had been remiss in stopping the onslaught of Hellenism and tried to get back to purely Hebrew Scriptures, rather than the “Hellenistic “Septuagint.
                      Some anthropologists (and some Western Christians, too!) expressed an opinionthat the Greeks NEVER accepted monotheism and were incapable of doing so.
                      And when some Grecophiles claim that one can’t really understand Orthodox teaching properly without knowing Greek……,one might opine that of all the world’s religions, only Christianity has a linguistic basis.

              • Carl Kraeff says

                I agree. I also love your trenchancy.

              • That’s debatable but not exactly “trenchant.” Someone opined that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, no? Were the people that Moses led around in the wilderness patriots or nationalists? Were the English settlers in the American colonies patriots or nationalists? When did they turn against their mother country? It seems today’s traitors sometimes become tomorrow’s (holy) patriots? Was Gorbachev a Soviet patriot or a Russian nationalist?

            • Jane Rachel says

              What is “homogeneia”?

            • Geo Michalopulos says

              Jane Rachel. Good question. I don’t try to “push” people into groups. That’s unChristian, after all before God there is “neither Greek nor Jew, slave nor free, male nor female, etc.” However, there differences between clans within tribes, betwen tribes within races, and between regions within countries. It’s not evil to point out the higher divorce rates in the South or the higher non-church attendence in the Pacific Northwest. These are just facts.

              My curiosity as someone of a scientific bent, who is interested in demography is simple. Why are Greeks successful in the Anglosphere while the founding population in Greece has turned that country into a third-world hellhole? What caused African-Americans to become better athletes than present-day West Africans? Why do Ashkenazic Jews have a higher IQ than Europeans? Why do East Asians have a higher IQ for that matter than Europeans or other Asians? Why do Arab Christians dominate Lebanon?

              Of course there are cultural forces at work. In czarist Russia, Jews were given the exclusive rights to distill alcoholic spirits. In Medieval Europe, they were given the right to charge interest. In the Ottomom Empire, Greeks dominated the health-care field.

              And yes, I do agree that patriotism is a virtue while nationalism is a disease. Jesus was a patriot. He never disavowed his Davidic descent and he wept for the destruction that would be rained down on Jerusalem. He even told His followers how they could best escape it. If he didn’t care about his nation he wouldn’t gone to the trouble of warning his people.

              Homogeneia means “the same-born ones.” It’s very exclusivist. In ancient Greece there was no Greek polity but there was a Greek civilization. Much like until 1871 there was no German nation but there was a German culture that spanned Central Europe.

              • Peter A. Papoutsis says

                George:

                What do you mean by “Darwinism?” Because I do not think you are equating Darwinism with Human Evolution or are you? Please clarify if you can. Thanks.

                Peter

                • Geo Michalopulos says

                  Random, materialistic change in genetic component leading to the formation of new species. In other words, completely atheistic, random, concatenation of molecules leading to ever-increasing complexity.

                  We forget that Alfred Russel Wallace, a theist (though not a Christian) came up with the exact same theory of Natural Selection as Darwin and probably beat him to the punch by a couple of months if not years.

                  Regardless, I have serious scientific qualms about random, purposeless evolution, just like I do of a totally materialist (i.e. non-theistic) universe.

                  • Peter A. Papoutsis says

                    Thanks George. I totally agree with you in your rejection of a natual and random approarch to Human Evolution. However, a phiosophical question does arise, mainly the interplay of free will and theistic direction in the cosmos?

                    I would love to get my hands on a book, other than the book “Chaos”, that really delves into this subject. Thank you again for the clarification.

                    Peter

                  • Jane Rachel says

                    Have you considered the writings and work of the highly respected and brilliant Russian geneticist, Theodosius Dobzhansky, on evolution, biology and natural selection?

                    • Geo Michalopulos says

                      Yes. Even here it’s a mixed bag. A lot of his work was with fruitflies. He subjected so many thousands of generations of them to intense radiation and couldn’t get any significant, heritable mutations to be produced.

                    • “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution” is a 1973 essay by the evolutionary biologist and Russian Orthodox Christian Theodosius Dobzhansky, criticising anti-evolution creationism and espousing theistic evolution. The essay was first published in the American Biology Teacher, volume 35, pages 125-129.”

                    • George Michalopulos says

                      Your Grace, Dobzhansky’s are powerfully emotive but emotive nonetheless. 1,000 years ago, a Ptolemaic astronomer could just as easily have said “nothing in cosmology makes sense except in the light of Geocentrism.” And if we go to Haiti we can find a shaman who says “nothing in the world makes sense except in the light of voodoo.”

                    • Speaking of fruit flies, have you heard this one? “Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.”

                      Secondly, here is a link to a wonderful learning tool people here might enjoy looking at. It’s not particularly off topic, either. I can’t wait to spend more time reading and exploring this:

                      Scale of the Universe

                      Enjoy!

                    • George, Dobzhansky’s WHATS are emotive?
                      If Dobzhansky’s views were meant, I don’t see any analogy between Dobzhansky’s views and those of any Ptolemaic astronomers or any imagined philosophical ruminations of a Haitian shaman.
                      Producing a mocking analogy or two is not intellectually or scientifically superior to being “emotive”, is it? And even “emotive” views are not generically false or invalid.

                    • Jane Rachel says

                      George, if you are going to dismiss this or that science, or scientific discovery, or scientist, you need to state why, how, and do it convincingly, as if you were standing before that scientist making your argument, and your argument would win. Otherwise, how can you be so sure you are right and they are wrong?

                      With a simple google you could have read more about Dobzhansky’s work before you made your comment about him, which you stated with absolute confidence that you are right and he is wrong. He has to be wrong, right?

                      Starting the Modern Synthesis: Theodosius Dobzhansky

                      Dobzhansky analyzed the genes of wild fruit flies around the world “and found that different populations of D. pseudoobscura did not have identical sets of genes. Each population of fruit flies he studied bore distinctive markers in its chromosomes that distinguished it from other populations.discovered….

                      In 1937, Dobzhansky published these results in a landmark book, Genetics and the Origin of Species. In it, he sketched out an explanation for how species actually came into existence. Mutations crop up naturally all the time. Some mutations are harmful in certain circumstances, but a surprising number have no effect one way or the other. These neutral changes appear in different populations and linger, creating variability that is far greater than anyone had previously imagined.

                      This variability serves as the raw material for making new species. If the members of a population of flies should breed among themselves more than with other members of the species, their genetic profile would diverge. New mutations would arise in the isolated population, and natural selection might help them to spread until all the flies carried them. But because these isolated flies were only breeding within their own population, the mutations could not spread to the rest of the species. The isolated population of flies would become more and more genetically distinct. Some of their new genes would turn out to be incompatible with the genes of flies from outside their own population.

                      If this isolation lasted long enough, Dobzhansky argued, the flies might lose the ability to interbreed completely. They might simply become unable to mate with the other flies successfully, or their hybrid offspring might become sterile. If the flies were now to come out of their isolation, they could live alongside the other insects but still continue mating only among themselves. A new species would be born.

                      The Modern Synthesis
                      Dobzhansky’s ability to combine genetics and natural history attracted many other biologists to join him in the effort to find a unified explanation of how evolution happens. Their combined work, known as “The Modern Synthesis,” brought together genetics, paleontology, systematics, and many other sciences into one powerful explanation of evolution, showing how mutations and natural selection could produce large-scale evolutionary change. The Modern Synthesis certainly did not bring the study of evolution to an end, but it became the foundation for future research.

                • Michael Bauman says

                  The evoloutionary approach to origins and life, especially theistic evolution, is merely an attempt to put God in a box and allow our own minds to reign supreme. It is a variation on the ‘worshipping the created thing more than the Creator’ that St. Paul warns us about so graphically. Just another way of trying to prove or dis-prove God. That is so utterly faithless and so incredibly truncating to the human soul that it flabbergasts me.

                  Rationalism and the philosophical naturalism that undergirds all evolutionary approaches (even ‘theistic evolution’) are not official heresies that I know of, but they ought to be. Actually, maybe I’m wrong as such thinking is a form of reverse Gnostic dualism.

                  George is correct down stream when he points out that once someone accepts the foundational assumptions of a particular approach, nothing else will make sense.

                  There are plenty of respected, highly functioning scientists who question the veracity of the comment that outside of evolution ‘nothing makes sense’.

                  I would much rather enjoy the wonder of God’s revelatory creation that place myself over it and pick it apart to make myself feel more in control-descending into a mechanistic naturalism that is a fundamental denial of who I am as a human being and who God is.

                  • Peter A. Papoutsis1 says

                    Theistic Evolution does NOT put God in a box. Evolution is simply the mechanism of creation that we mere mortals have been able to discover. God is still the creator. There is a vast difference between understanding the mechanism as opposed to who is running the machine.

                    I reject the random and naturalistic basis for Evolution, but do not reject and cannot reject the mechanism of evolution that has come about from scientific rigor, especially in the field of genetics. Yet, it is also the field of genetics that is yielding great proof of a Creator, a Designer.

                    Peter

                    • George Michalopulos says

                      Peter, I couldn’t have said it better myself. That being said, if there are evolutionary mechanisms at work (and they must still be working if genetics points to it), then we are still left with the uncomforable fact that race cannot be a philosophical construct but a scientific phenomenon.

                    • Michael Bauman says

                      There is no evolotion without presupposing philosophical naturalism. Theisitic evolution is merely a band-aid to allow us to sucumb to the philosphy of the age.

                  • Peter A. Papoutsis says

                    Michael I agree with you in rejecting a random and naturalistic foundation to the evolutionary process, but I cannot agree in the rejection of the process itself. If we were to go just with the fossile record of human hominides we see a staggering array of variation and evolution and of humanity and ape evolving from a single common ancestor.

                    Why did we evolve rationality? Why did we have a “special evcent” in our human brain evolution and other primates did not? Why does the human genetic code exhibit such complexity and is packed with such “information” that it even defies the evolutionary orthodoxy and calls for a “special event” itself? All tracers and indicators pointing towards God.

                    Now God gave us a mind, and we can use that mind to figure out the wonders of the universe, our world and ourselves. In fact, the more we see God’s creation through our eyes the more we do NOT put God in a box, and realize the true meaing of the phrase “unto the ages of ages!”

                    This does not limit God or deny our humanity, but expands it in ways never before realized.

                    Peter

                    • Michael Bauman says

                      There are multiple problems with any evolutionary approach which I have seen, but I’ll list the post difficult:

                      1. Evolution of any kind sets the Biblical and Patristic (and therefore Orthodox) hierarchy of being and basic anthropology on its head

                      2. The Fall and Death. We don’t know, can’t know what the physical world was like prior to the Fall.

                      As far as the genetic code is concerned you just don’t have to have the causitry that is used. I prefer to look at it God doing riffs on a basic musical line–as a great musican doing variations on a theme.

                      Unless man is central to Creation, not the result of it, there is no Cross, no Incarnation and Chapter One of Romans in which St. Paul describes the salvation of all creation is of no effect.

                      One cannot serve two masters.

              • George,
                Have you ever lived in East Asia and what empiracle data do you have to support your position regarding IQ? Are you implying learning comes easy to East Asians because they are East Asians? It is cultural and socio-economic. Drive, determination,and general work ethic. Many students commit suicide due to the pressures of wanting to be the best. Learned behaviors. Anyone with the same determination is equally competitive. It is true, East Asia per capita is gaining in the technical field…….perhaps nationalistic. I don’t see the value of stereotyping.

                • “empirical” !

                • Geo Michalopulos says

                  Anna, I’ve never been to East Asia, and I have heard anecdotal reports of Japanese youth and suicide. Most distressing. Yes, there is a drive, determination, and unflinching work ethic. All that aside, do these characteristics derive from higher than average IQs or do these drives result in an overall improvement in average IQ? I don’t know. Nobody else does either. It’s hard to say if we are talking about causation or correllation. If the former, which is causative?

                  BTW, I don’t believe in the “Tiger Mothers” hypothesis put out by Amy Whatshername. Don’t get me wrong, it’s real enough, it’s just not paedeia in the Classical sense of producing the well-rounded man.

                  • George,
                    Amy Chua. I have respect for the tiger moms. Having said that, a high IQ or academic excellence is only part of a strong individual. Spirituality, interpersonal relationships, and problem solving are ever so vital. I think we’re saying the same thing there…

            • TS Eliot was American, JR, born in St Louis, Mo.
              He went to England as an adult, where he was always regarded by his peers as American.
              At most we can say is that culturally he was Anglo-American.
              I can’t remember if he ever became a naturalised British subject or retained his American passport.
              It’s a long time since I read his biography.

              • Jane Rachel says

                I forgot, thanks for that correction. Love that poet. “In the room the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo….” And, of course, “We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

      • Oh, come on, Your Grace! Your otherwise entertaining penchant for contrarianism sometimes leads you to make eccentric claims: Eliot purposely cultivated a respectable, middle-class English identity (despite being American!), probably as part of his reaction against Romanticism and his espousal of classicism (despite being a modernist poet!) – married, was a school teacher, then worked in a bank recovering war debts from Germany, then as editor of a significant publishing house, wore a bowler hat and a three piece suit with a brolly, published a book of verse on cats, received an OBE (I think that was it), convered from Unitarianism to Anglicanism, was a plane spotter during the war. Until my generation came and went from the schools he was deemed so respectable that his poetry was part of the English curriculum all over Britain and the Commonwealth. What more can I say? No embarrasing pics of Nazi salutes in Eliot’s file!!

        • Basil, I think it’s demeaning of T.S. Eliot for some middle-class American sophomore to CONDESCEND to proclaim him “One of the most respectable poets…” as if being respectable was of any poetic, literary, or cultural value. You are right that Eliot cultivated the image of a certain kind of middle-class Englishman…but as a poet, surely he was not middle-class nor did he belong to any but an artistic/intellectual class.
          It’s disgusting. It’s like saying that Goethe’s “poems” had “really nice rhythm,” or that Thomas Mann’s shoes were “ALWAYS pollshed,” or that Caruso “could really carry a tune.”
          One of the most respectable poets……!!!!
          “Oh, come on, Your Grace?”
          Come on, Basil. Please tell me EXACTLY what “eccentric claim” I made about Eliot.
          “Respected” I could have born–but “respectable!”—- “The Wasteland’—was it “respectable” poetry?
          Does this mean he’d be respected by the Babbits?
          Now, turning to his private life, and not to his life as a poet, it is true that there are no Nazi salutes in Eliot’s file, but there are a LOT of people in the literary establishment who do not respect him, due to his notorious anti-Jewish views. His reputation is not what it was in “my day.”

          • Your Grace,
            Now you’re just being obtuse.
            Eliot’s entire identity was a conscious rejection of the Romantic idea of an artistic/intellectual class, an idea which he loathed. His “notoriously anti-Jewish views”, while inexcusable, were par for the course for “respectable society” in his day. If I’m not mistaken he later, after his conversion to Anglicanism, expressed regret for them. And just for the record, while I might be middle class, I am neither American nor a sophomore. That, and the fact that I was educated in the British system at a time when Eliot was still revered as the de facto poet laureate of the Anglican Establishment, may account for my rather different “take” on Eliot, to use an Americanism.

            • Agreed. A lot of Eliot’s anti-Jewish opinions were par for the course in his social strata. We forget that WWII hadn’t have happened yet and though people may have had anti-Jewish views, that didn’t mean that they wanted Jews to be exterminated. I remember reading something Winston Churchill said about Jews, sometime in the 1920s, basically saying that they were incapable of patriotism. Also he believed (for a time anyway) in the veracity of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He’d be relegated to the fringes of society today for holding these views.

            • Eliot the banker,etc., was indeed middle-class and therefore striving to be respectable. Eliot the poet was not middle-class.
              Basil, I have no interest in your nationality, ETC. I thought it was this rambling girl whom i quoted as pronouncing that Eliot was “one of the most respectable poets,” not Basil. Her copious, stream of semi-consciousness style postings which manage to distort a whole lot of academic “lore” seem to have reached a kind of peak in that particular pronouncement of hers.
              Cool off! No need to get nasty.
              I’m a little disappointed to learn willy-nilly that Basil is English! My, oh, my. In general I find literate Englishmen rarely produce anything like: “Eliot’s ENTIRE IDENTITY” was ANYTHING at all like the rejection of some Romantic idea.. His entire identity? It makes me feel that I should be flattered: if someone who can write that perceive me as trying to be obtuse then I may be all right, after all! And I apologize for not realizing Basil had a certain feeling of ownership in the area of English poetry critique. THAT surely was obtuse of me.

  28. cynthia curraWen says

    I was too lazy to read Philo. I did read the Jewish historian Josephus who received patonage from the Fabian dynasty-Ttius and Domitian. The Etruscans are interesting, still not enough words in their language for us to understand that much of their language.. Emperor Claudius was supposed to write a book on them that lost. I remember in Suetonius Life of Augustus that Aesar was the Etruscan word for Caesar. Also, the toga and the Aquaduct system of Rome was influence by the Etruscans. Brecht I think was an East German from reading Paul Johnson’s Intellectuals.

  29. cynthia curraWen says

    Sideny and Beatrice Webb in England and even visit the labor camps in Russia in the 1930’s. Webbs wrote about how bad the factories were in the 19th century but they were nothing compared to the labor camps of the early 20th century. Henry Ford had a Ford Plant in Russia during the 1920’s. Anyway, visiting Italy the Duce who was fond of the fasces rods of old roman times that were carried in front of the preators and consuls interested me in that way since he was really trying to use the past unlike Hitler and Stalin.

  30. cynthia curraWen says

    Also, Lillian Hellman playwrite visited Stalinist Russia in the 1940’s and Alger Hiss Spy- W. Chambers and Richard Nixon were involved in bringing him down. Paul Robeson black actor and even David Hortwitz now neo-conservative and ex-new leftist went to communist camp as a youth and heard him speak.

  31. George, here’s a reason a new Greek hierarch might quote Cafavy;
    (from the poem, “In Church.”)

    “I love the church—its hexapteriga,
    the silver of its sacred vessels, its candlesticks,
    the lights, its icons, its pulpit.

    “When I enter a church of the Greeks,
    with its fragrances of incense,
    with its voices and liturgical choirs,
    the stately presence of the priests
    and the solemn rhythm of their movements–
    most resplendent in the adornment of their vestments
    my mind goes to the high honors of our race,
    to the glory of our Byzantine tradition.”

    • Another one (the poem “On the tomb of Ignatius””

      “Here I am not that Cleon celebrated
      in Alexandria (where it is hard to astonish them)
      for my magnificent houses, for the gardens,
      for my horses and for my chariots,
      for the jewels and silks that I wore.
      God forbid. Here I am not that Cleon;
      let his twenty-eight years be erased.
      i am that Ignatius, a reader, who came to my self
      quite late; but I lived for ten months
      happy in the serenity and security of Christ.’

      • Very beautiful poems Your Grace. But the poem that Lambrianides recited if memory serves had no Christian references at all. He might as well have recited Kipling’s “If,” his whole investiture was that unintersting.

  32. cynthia curraWen says

    King Herod was half-idumean. His Family came to power because his father Antipater supported first Pompey and then Julius Caesar. Herod supported Mark Anthony and even Octivian of course later Augustus. Herod built some Greek things like a Gymnasium. Some Greeks in Judea. mostly Jews and some Rmans. Some Jews prefer some Hellenstic things.

  33. cynthia curraWen says

    Anyways, the Romans who were not philosophers built things better than the Greeks. Look at all the Aquaducts and even the Byzantines built Valens Aquaduct during the Roman Period. During the medieval Greek-Roman period they just repaired it. Hagia Sophia was built really in Roman TImes some historians don’t date the fall of Rome with the lost of Rome in the West at 476 but as late as the 7th century when Constantinople lost Egypt which was its breadbasket. Anthemius and Isidore were taking vaulting theory from first century mathematician Heron .

  34. cynthia curraWen says

    Well, the Vandals and Ostergoths were reduced in Byzantine times because of Justinian’s reconquest of North Africa and Italy. Some Vandals and Visgoths were in Spain but the armies of Islam reduced them. Well, other Germanic groups like the Franks, Suvei, Angles, and Saxons had larger numbers into medieval times.

  35. cynthia curraWen says

    My view is the Orthodox have little impact in the USA because some are rather anti-west which doesn’t go that good in the US since the US is a Western Nation. People that commented on this board usually are not anti-western and from this conversation do appreaciate some things western.

    • The Orthodox have little impact in this country because they are 0.3 % of the entire country. (That number includes not only every jurisdiction but the Oriental Orthodox as well.) We are a literal drop in the bucket.

      • Geo Michalopulos says

        The reason we don’t have an impact on modern society is because we don’t manifest the love of God in our lives. Many of our church services are unintelligeble and “celebrated” in a perfunctory manner. Add to this that almost all jurisdictions view themselves as colonial outposts of Bulbanianism, our bishops are timid leaders, the people niggardly givers, the lay elites would rather play Byzantine dress-up, and you have a toxic brew of pietistic lethargy.

    • Carl Kraeff says

      Cynthia–I think you have a point there. It is true that part of the problem is partly our small size and multiple jurusdictions. Add folks who are not only Russophiles and Grecophiles but also anti-Western and the problem is made worse.

  36. cynthia curraWen says

    The unkown God was a referance to stoic belief. I think it was the stoic philosopher Aratus that Paul quotes. Paul quoted also another stoic philosopher would need to look up on spelling on the other philosopher. Stoics were Pantheists that believe that God had different names like Yahawah from the Jews or Zeus among the Greeks. That God or fate placed you in your circumstances lin life. That adultery was wrong for husband as well as wife. Romans were attractive to stoic ideas, for example Marcus Brutus.

  37. cynthia curraWen says

    Alexander wasn’t a slav, the slavs according to Procopius didn’t come into the even the Byzantine empire until the 6th century. Even Justinian which was closer to the coming of the slavs wasn’t a slav but a Ililyrian or a Thracian. Zonaras a medieval historian of Byzantium wrote a lot on ancient history that neither Alexander or Justinian were slavs.

  38. cynthia curraWen says

    Well, Charles Murray study shows interesting a lot of the working class whites now are more non-religous and don’t marry as much.

    • Geo Michalopulos says

      Cynthia, I intend to write about this phenomenon soon. It’s very disturbing. What Moynihan said about the state of the Negro family in 1964 (to disturbing effect) is now being replicated in the white majority. To me this hits very close to home because I came from a working-class background as did all my friends in school for the most part. Intact families were the norm, as were fathers woking in blue-collar jobs being able to support their families. Stay-at-home moms, kids playing sandlot football all day (hence no childhood obesity), the whole nine yards.

  39. cynthia curraWen says

    Well, maybe Constantine was as good as a general as Alexander. Military science during the Roman era advanced, and Alexander went mainly against Persia and Near Eastern countries which were not as hard to fight as more western armies to the west like Carthage and Rome or somtimes the Gauls that later sacked the Romans. Alexander found it hard when it went into India. Constantine fought civil wars and some minor conflicts. I believe Constantine wasn’t defeated, could be wrong. Many think Alexander towers over other generals in antquity I’ m not certain. George is a big Constantine fan.

  40. cynthia curraWen says

    Well, its sterotyping but Asians and Whites due better on tests than black and hispanics. What causes it who knows

  41. Fr. Hans Jacobse says

    I’m working my way through Philip Sherard’s “Human Image: World Image: The Death and Resurrection of Sacred Cosmology,” easily one of the most philosophically dense books I have ever read, and one I will have to read again in order to fully understand.

    Sometimes a book comes to you, a gift from God really, that shapes intuitions into concepts and offers you the vocabulary to make it part of your thinking. I have exactly the same objections that you do Michael and see evolution as the philosophical negation of the salvation of Christ offered to man. No contrivance like “theological evolution” or other stretches of the imagination can rescue it.

    Sherrard sees it the same way but locates the necessity of evolution in a different place than I did. Sherrard says that evolution softens the inevitability of a cold, impersonal universe that rose during the scientific revolution where time was elevated as a metaphysical absolute and mathematics was decreed as the only means by which objective knowledge is acquired.

    I see evolution as a historical period piece, an outgrowth of the ascendency of philosophical materialism that also gave us Freud and Marx. Both Freud and Marx have fallen and it is inevitable that Darwin does too, although Darwin is more closely wedded to the philosophical assumptions that gave rise to the materialist narrative. (See: Evolution and Me by George Gilder.) Sherrard lays out what those assumptions are.

    I’m beginning to think that no one, either pro or anti evolution, has anything worthwhile to say until he has read Sherrard’s book. Vincent Rossi offers an excellent review on Amazon. Click the image.

    I should add that Rossi comes across as an eco-alarmist, at least in his review, but I don’t see this in Sherrard at all. Still, Rossi’s basic summary is good.

    • Michael Bauman says

      Father, I knew Andrew Rossi was younger and at the start of the development of his view on the interplay between man and the rest of creation. He had an impact on my own at that time.

      I’d be very careful with Sherrad in this work. The deeper he goes into his thesis the more,IMO, twisted it becomes. Ultimately, I don’t think he has much of value to say, although he startsout with a bang and there are definitely some good insites early in the book. To me he ends up in an inverted Gnosticism that elevates the created world into a position higher than the uncreated and Mary as a sort of Mother Goddess. At least that is the way it came across to me. He defintely rambles off into deep speculation with little or no connection to Holy Tradition.

  42. Fr. Hans Jacobse says

    “In fact, the more we see God’s creation through our eyes the more we do NOT put God in a box, and realize the true meaing of the phrase ‘unto the ages of ages!'”

    Evolution works only if time (not God) is the metaphysical absolute. No need for a Logos here. Aristotle will do just fine.

    • Jane Rachel says

      Evolution works only if time (not God) is the metaphysical absolute. No need for a Logos here. Aristotle will do just fine.

      Tell that to the Orthodox Christian scientists.

      Father, how old is the universe?

      Galileo: “The earth revolves around the sun.”
      Church people: “The earth does not revolve around the sun. The earth is the center of the universe. Admit it or die.”
      Galileo: “But I saw it with my eyes.”
      Church people: “Off with his head!”
      Galileo (being dragged off to prison): “Trial Eppur si muove (And still she moves)!”

      • Michael Bauman says

        Jane Rachel, one need not mount a complete refutation of everything someone thinks in order to be in valid disagreement. Those who believe in theistic evolution have a completely different philosophical and theological orientation that those who do not accept it.

        Here is the rub that needs to be understood, Its not about the facts, it is about the prime assumptions by which the facts are selected, organized and interpreted.

        Once the discussion descends or remains mired in whose facts are correct, there is simply no point any more. The fundamental assumptions are never addressed.

        Simply put, any concept of evolution through time is not compatible with Orthodox theology, soteriology or anthropology. It just isn’t You can put all the lipstick on evolution you want and glue on as many god wings as possible, it is still neither pretty nor capable of flight.

        God is not mechanistic. God does not require any ‘mechanism’ to create. He speaks and out of nothing something comes. His word is still echoing throughout His Creation and the Holy Spirit gives it (including us) life.

        The rest of the natural world is ours to steward, to sanctify as Christ has sanctified us. Of course there are similiarities and connections that are redolent through out, it all comes from God and is being returned to God. “Thine own of thine own we offer unto thee on behalve of all and for all” Our ability to discern some of the grosser similarities and manipulate them for our benefit and the benefit (or destruction) or others is simply part of our sacarmental gift or its misuse because of our sinfulness.

        • Michael,

          Yes, therein lies the rub. But I think statements like this, which you made:

          “Those who believe in theistic evolution have a completely different philosophical and theological orientation that those who do not accept it.”

          … are too broad. You don’ t know that “those who believe in theistic evolution have a completely different philosophical and theological orientation than those who do not accept it.” “Theological orientation” means what you believe about God. How a person worships. Now, you are saying that those who believe in theistic evolution, or worse (as you would think), non-theistic evolution, have some sort of wrongness about the way they think, and worship, and believe, and live. You are not in their heads, you don’t live their lives. Dobzhansky, for example, was a pious Orthodox Christian.

          What I am getting at is how we state things about what we are convinced is true. We become so clearly convinced we are right, that we decide all those who do not see things our way cannot begin to understand what we understand. They, after all, have no clue.

          Doing good is what is required of us, and all people, no matter what they believe, do good or don’t do good depending on their choices. When you judge a person based on his views on evolution, you are saying that a person who believes in evolution is somehow philosophically and theologically stilted. Thus, you place your views in a higher position of understanding than theirs because you believe the right way and they believe the wrong way. I mean “you” in a general sense, though. I can’t say what is in your head, Michael, or how you think. I can only read what you write and interpret what you are saying from my own world view.

          It seems to me that the world’s problem’s are not caused by people not believing in God, or by science, or a movement away from Orthodoxy. They are caused by over-population and selfishness. Christianity is the cure for selfishness, yes, but only if the participant continues to do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with their God (Micah 6:8). This is good, sound theological and philosophical orientation. Much of Christianity has failed because we don’t follow these three simple commandments. For the non-Christian, the cure is still the same, and their fruits prove that their theological orientation is right, whether they realize it or not. I know a lot of people who do not believe in the God of Orthodoxy, and yet are kind, good, merciful, helpful, humble, and giving. That’s what counts, to me, anyways.

          • Michael Bauman says

            Jane Rachel, it is always possible for people to hold two contradictory views with great sincerity. Ultimately though most people gravitate toward what they love the most. That is why Jesus warned us about the inability to serve two masters.

            It is quite probable that Peter and others who hold to an evolutionary view point are pious in their lives. More than likely more pious than I am. That is not the point.

            The point is that a God who creates by a mechanism through time is quite a different God than one whose word creates out of nothingness. God is not linear. He is not discovered in essentially impersonal cause and effect, He reveals Himself in and as a person.

            On a simple moral level such a different understanding might not mean anything but if we are really looking for union with God, it is important that we know as clearly as possible, with whom we are seeking union. To me it is similar to the difference that was described by the 1st Ecumenical Council when it decreed that God and Christ were of one essence not similar essences.

            Sin is a word taken from archery–a missing of the mark. At short range minor variations in form and aim make little difference in score. The longer the range the more a little mistake makes a huge difference in score.

            An evolutionary God is not compatible with Orthodox belief and teaching. An evolutionary God is one created by the mind of man who we can control or at least understand. The more firmly one believes in such a God, the less need there is for the God who is every where present and fills all things, who is ineffable and unfathomable and unknowable yet closer than hands and feet. The God who made Mary’s womb more spacious than the heavens and was laid in the feeding trough in a cave for our sake.

            • Jane Rachel says

              I do understand, Michael, but are you limiting God by rejecting the idea that God may have used evolution? Do you start with the idea that God is not compatible with evolution and go from that to rejecting evolution?

              Didn’t many of the Fathers believe the earth was flat? I’m asking. But in addition, instead of addressing what Peter was saying, you told Peter that, basically, “Because you are in error you can’t help yourself.” In a “Little Man” sort of way you put him in his place, nicely.

              Rather than doing that to those who think differently than you and still worship the same God (or maybe you believe Peter cannot worship the same God since His God is different than yours?) please address the science, the age of the earth, and tell us what is really true, tell us the alternative, in your view. When did the dinosaurs walk the earth? Before the flood? When was the flood? Adam and Eve, I take it, were six thousand years ago or so? Scofield? Where are we? What do you do with all the science? I understand your argument that science can be reexplained to fit your world view. I know all about the Creationists and worked closely with them at one time.

              I realize you will reject this, but he is not the only one. Science is what it is. You can’t make evolution true or not true. If evolution is true and God is true then God must have used evolution. He can if He wants to.

              Then there is history and what the ancients believed way back, right there in the Cradle of Civilization, now Iran. As Bishop Tikhon pointed out, “Time as the First Principle, and given the name “Zurvan,” was the teaching of the “Zurvanites”, an official heresy under the Zoroastrian state church of the Sassanian Empire. “Zurvan” caused the coming into existence of One God (called Ahura Mazda: God/Light) and Satan (Ahriman) and the rest, such as angels.” How does this known history fit into a literal interpretation of Genesis?

              And what about the findings of Theodosius Dobzhansky, and how can you begin to dismiss him so easily? His studies show that mutations occur all the time in species and
              “this variability serves as the raw material for making new species..” This is proven. It happened with fruit flies. It happens. It is possible. God can certainly do it. In any case, I am better off quoting than paraphrasing:

              Mutations crop up naturally all the time. Some mutations are harmful in certain circumstances, but a surprising number have no effect one way or the other. These neutral changes appear in different populations and linger, creating variability that is far greater than anyone had previously imagined.

              This variability serves as the raw material for making new species. If the members of a population of flies should breed among themselves more than with other members of the species, their genetic profile would diverge. New mutations would arise in the isolated population, and natural selection might help them to spread until all the flies carried them. But because these isolated flies were only breeding within their own population, the mutations could not spread to the rest of the species. The isolated population of flies would become more and more genetically distinct. Some of their new genes would turn out to be incompatible with the genes of flies from outside their own population.

              If this isolation lasted long enough, Dobzhansky argued, the flies might lose the ability to interbreed completely. They might simply become unable to mate with the other flies successfully, or their hybrid offspring might become sterile. If the flies were now to come out of their isolation, they could live alongside the other insects but still continue mating only among themselves. A new species would be born.

              Seriously. How old is the earth?

              I am trying to understand what you and Father Hans are writing here. It takes time to process everything and be so busy with work. Thanks.

              • Jane Rachel says

                No edit button yet. When I wrote, “he is not the only one,” I meant Dobzhansky is not the only one. The thing is, he also studied the Fathers, thought a lot about God and whether evolution makes sense in the light of Orthodoxy, and he knows all about what it is to be Orthodox. Your views push against a lot of people who have been doing this a lot longer than you or I.

      • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

        Here’s what I ask Orthodox Christian scientists: If we hold to a random universe, then where did the laws that govern the arrangement of objects (gravity, motion, and so forth) come from? If we are true to our philosophical presuppositions, the only possible answer is that it originates from matter itself.

        • George Michalopulos says

          Yeah, and that’s an impossibility.

        • Michael Bauman says

          Fr. Hans, of course theistic evolutionists don’t hold to matter being self creating. Their position is more of a neo-deism. That way it is possible to have a creator God and a material based science.

          Archmandrite Zacharias in his book “The Enlargement of the Heart” suggests that the great interest in and obsession with the workings of the material universe are the result of akadia, a turning away from seeking salvation in God and simply trying to find it in the material world.

          That is the danger I think. One we are all in and a danger far more subtle and pervasive that we usually realize.

          That does not mean that we should have a pietistic anti-intellectualism either as that too rejects the priestly vocation of man to sanctify the creation which God has given us as stewards.

          Jane Rachel, are you really worried about over-population? That way, too, leads to gross anti-human over reactions as Jonathon Swift so clearly pointed out in his A Modest Proposal

          If we are truly made in the image and likeness of God at His behest, there can be no such thing as over-population. There can be misuse and over use of the resources He has given us, but I reject totally the idea that His creation is over-populated. Again, I fear you have a different God in mind than I do.

          • Peter A. Papoutsis says

            So Michael we throw away scientific rigor? I think not. Materialism is one thing, but saying that evolution is not true or neo-deistic is unfair and untrue. I am sorry but there is no conflict here between science and orthodox theology. I suggest you read the position paper of Holy Cross school of theology on this matter. If you still disagree after reading it, then that is that. However, I would greatly caution going down that road that leads to superstition and has nothing to do with truth or God.

            Peter

            • Michael Bauman says

              Peter, I have never said anything about throwing away scientific rigor, but I’m not surprised you would assume I did. It is a knee-jerk reaction to those who have their scientistic leanings challenged. The quick recourse to the “ignorant supersition” reposte. Easy to do when one is satisfied with one’s own first assumptions and prefers to deal only with what one considers facts.

              I am an ignorant man, barely educated by your standards, I’m sure. However most of what passes for science these days strikes me as far more superstitious than anything I have said or believe. You obviously have understood nothing of what I have said if you really believe your own words.

              What I am for throwing away is the idea of replacing God with so-called science and having a so called science which is based on the denial of God at its foundation. Here is the kind of thing to which I specifially object. A young man who grew up on my home parish came back several years ago and gave a small prensentation on how his work and his faith came togehter. He was a well known astrophyiscist and quite successful in his field–quite scientifically rigorous. He specifically said that the more we learn about the cosmos,the less need there is for God.

              I know you have not done that–not saying you have but the God of evolution and the God of the Church as traditionally taught are quite different. I’m sorry if you think that is superstitious.

              I have no idea how to access the Holy Cross position paper. Can you direct me?

              Have you read Archmandrite Zacharias’ book “The Enlargement of the Heart”/ I’d also urge you to read Romans Chapter one once again and try to look at what it says, just what it says about creation and our interrelationship with it and our God.

              • Peter A. Papoutsis says

                Michael:

                Here is the link to the position paper: http://www.goarch.org/archdiocese/departments/religioused/resourcesforteachers/Faculty%20Statement%20on%20Creation%20and%20Evolution.pdf

                Please provide me a link to Archmandrite Zacharias’ book “The Enlargement of the Heart” so I can get it and read it as well.

                I cannot speak to you young man, but I can speak to my own experiences and the finding of science have never done to me what you say occurred to your young man from your parish.

                I was always able to differentiate between the mechanism (nuts & bolts) and the underlying philosophical belief. My dad was, and still is at 74, a mechanic. How things work and their various parts fascinates me, but has never dragged me away from our faith.

                Finally, I never have, and never will, call you ignorant. If I implied as much I truly apologize. However, falling into superstition has occurred, and still occurrs, even among the best educated. You think believing in a random and materialistic world with no need for God is NOT superstitious?

                Peter

                • Michael Bauman says

                  Peter, I called myself ignorant because I am. I do not look at the word as necessarily pejorative. I hope I am not willfully ignorant, but there are many things I ignore becase of time constraints or because it is easier to ignore them or because I am simply blind. I am rarely subtle and will not win many awards for diplomacy or tact,

                  My father trained me to think from the general to the specific and to always search out the connections between things. His vision of the inter-connectedness of all life in a non-causal way had a profound effect on me.

                  The only way I know of getting The Enlagement of the Heart is from 8th Day Books or other fine Orthodox Book store. It is not easy reading because it constantly challenges the reader to go deeper into one’s own heart in repentance and prayer.

                  I ask forgiveness if my artless words have offened you. They are not intended to demean your faith or anything else, merely to attempt to point out what I feel are incongruities of thought and incompatibilities of belief. I challege such things,because I feel that such challenges make us all better and help us to come closer to the truth.

                  To me superstition is the act of worshiping the created thing more than the Creator. Supersitiion is always idolatry. Unfortunately, we fallen humans are quite able to make idols out of almost anything even as we attempt to do well.

          • Jane Rachel says

            Michael, I am a living human being, and that I have an entirely different life experience than you do. Yet, you have decided that because of what I said, I am somehow in danger of jumping over the precipice into “gross anti-human over reactions”! What?!!!? The earth is, in fact, over-populated. It’s just a statement. I love people, every last little one. It’s not up to me to do anything about ow many people there are except pray, and yes, worry about all those hungry little ones.

            And you also wrote about me, “Again, I fear you have a different God in mind than I do.” You fear I believe in a different God than you do? You don’t know me at all, my friend.

            • Michael Bauman says

              Jane Rachel, I don’t mean to offend, merely attempting (badly) to enlarge the scope of thinking.

              Over population is not an incontrovertible empirical fact (actually there is no such thing). It appears to be a deeply held belief of yours, i.e, an assumption. Once you make that assumption there are consequences. One of those consequences to a compassionate human being is that (at the very least) it would be nice to curb the over population to alleviate the problem.

              How are we to do that? China’s answer was the one child policy which mandated abortions if a woman got pregnant after having a second child. Any attempt, other than one’s own personal response to alleviate or reduce ‘over population’ is coercive in nature. A great many of the solutions I have seen proposed, such as China’s one-child policy are violently anti-human. That is a danger inherent in the belief in over population. Of course, you don’t have to go there, but it is logically inconsistent to not travel at least someway down that road. Once the road is open for travel, many will go much farther than you might imagine.

              This is what happens when we start to deal in the aggregate of ‘humanity’ and not the specifics of being a person.

              I happen to believe in a God who provides for HIs children. Scripturally we are promised His provision. I’ve seen it too often in my own life and in the lives of others not to accept it as true. Now it is true that a good portion of that provision requires belief and dedication to Him. Certainly the provision does not always come as we would hope, but it does come. I find it quite difficult to harmonize a lovingly abundant God with the belief in over-population. The real cause of the situation you lable as over population is our sin. If we want to heal the earth and fulfill our sacarmental role, we have to do as St. Paul told us in Romans Ch 1. We have to worship the Creator more than the created thing.

              We are required by our faith to always examine our assumptions and our beliefs because what we believe has consequences. In our sinfulness it is frightfully easy to make idols. We are supposed to allow our minds (in the deepest sense of that word) to be conformed to Him, not the other way ’round.

              A very hard path. A very narrow path.

              • Perhaps Jane and others are uncomfortable with ‘I happen to believe in a God who provides for HIs children.” The word “All’ is lacking before “His children.” This might be interpreted to mean “some of His children”, then, since the facts of infant mortality from starvation and related disease are so daunting and asks, What does “provide” mean?

        • Fr. Hans Jacobse said: Here’s what I ask Orthodox Christian scientists: If we hold to a random universe, then where did the laws that govern the arrangement of objects (gravity, motion, and so forth) come from? If we are true to our philosophical presuppositions, the only possible answer is that it originates from matter itself

          George Michalopulos said: Yeah, and that’s an impossibility.

          I have difficulty understanding these things, but why is it an impossibility? If there are infinite possibilities (chances) in the universe (whatever that is), why is it an impossibility? (I’m anxious to eliminate this possibility from my thinking as it would mean there’s no purpose and no goodness, nobility, or divinity in humans.)

          • Peter A. Papoutsis says

            Hi Logan 46.

            I see and understand the difficulty you are having and one that I had and continue to have in regards to the issues of Randomness, Intend, Design and pure mechanics in the Unviderse with no apparent thought. However, let me put forward certain thoughts as a way to “somwhat” clarify matters.

            First, if we Believe in the existence of God then certain presuppositions come along with the belief. Susch as, God is the originator of all things. God is the Cause of All things, God is the sustainer and creator of all things and that God is STILL creating and sustaining all things.

            Second, God imbude us, his creation with free will. We can extrapolate from this that the concept and Idea of Free Will exists in the Universe. However, how does it exist in the Universe and how does it exist in our own lives? Further, free will is tied into our moral judgment and behavior. Menaing we CHOOSE the Good and avoid the Evil, or we CHOOSE the Evil and avoid the Good. Therefore, choice exists because free will exists.

            Can we then extrapolate this concept of free will to the Universe? I believe we can. However, this is NOT randomness. This is not meaningless various of cause and effect. This is where, IMHO, one needs to differentiate between RANDOMNESS and CHAOS. Just because something is chaotic does not mean its random or meaningless.

            This is the basis of Chaos Theory, which is a theory that when an initial condition is changed, such as rounding a number, a seemingly minute difference, that the overall behavior changes. The change in the behavior exemplifies the nonlinear dynamics, which means they are sensitive to initial conditions- tiny differences are amplified. In popular culture this is called the “Butterfly Affect.”

            Minute changes, so tiny we do not see them or even though their existence, are amplified to such an affect that whole systems are changed. But, it must be emphasized, that chaotic behavior is NOT random. In fact, at the base of Chaos is order and predictability, if one understands and realizes all the minute changes that occurred that can change a given outcome.

            So, extrapolating this outward – What are the minute changes God has done and is still doing that we cannot see OR do not want to see? What if what we “perceive” as random behavior is NOT random, but simply chaotic and unorganized behavior that has an underlying order if we simply choose to see it?

            Randomness becomes purpose. Pure mechinations become engines of intentional design. Thus, the Deistic God becomes atinkering watch maker constantly fine tuning and perfecting His creation to this day and beyond. Read this article, which does not necessarily lead to the existence of God, but strongly destroyes natural selection and randomness as the Engins of Human Evolution. http://ezinearticles.com/?Darwinian-Natural-Selection—An-Unproven-Theory-of-Evolution&id=1669652

            Yet, the article stops short of its end point. In its defense of Lamarck evolution Dr Mortaza Sahibzada
            states: “that all organisms, in struggling to deal with the changed environment, contain responsive chemical processes within the biological organs that pass hereditary traits to offspring, which naturally predispose the offspring to be more adapted to the changed environment.”

            Reading this statement carefully, along with his refutation of Genetic Determinism, which also destroys modern notions of Sexual Heredity such as Homosexuality, basically states that a given Organism “Intends” to send certain favorable genetic traits to its offspring. Dr Sahibzada is stating this with organisms on the basis of Chaos Theory in his refutation of randomness.

            Well if you apply this on the level of the Universe randomness is done away with and you are left with a “Thinking” universe! A “Thinking” Universe? How much of a leap is it then to go from a “Thinking” Universe to a Divine Creator – i.e. God!

            Food for though.

            Peter

            • Thanks Peter for the thoughtful reply and the Hutchinson article link. Thanks Fr. Hans for the Gilder article link. It’s a good day when my mind’s window can be pried open a wee bit for some fresh air.

            • Peter, the article you linked to by Mortaza Sahibzada certainly IS “food for thought.” I’ve read the book Chaos and appreciate the connections made in the article and in your comments. Have to do a lot more thinking about it. Thanks.

            • Jane Rachel says

              Fr. Hans, would you please read Peter’s comment here and read his linked articles, then comment?

            • Jane Rachel says

              Peter wrote: “Randomness becomes purpose. Pure mechinations become engines of intentional design. Thus, the Deistic God becomes atinkering watch maker constantly fine tuning and perfecting His creation to this day and beyond. “

              I can’t say “I agree” or “you are absolutely right,” Peter, because I don’t get to decide what is true and what isn’t in this universe, but that sure makes more sense to me than anything else I’ve read and helps me hang on to my thread of faith.

              However, Father Hans’ “metaphysical axiom” that those who accept evolution believe the universe is random is a red herring meant to put people in boxes from which there is no escape without recanting, when no one here that I know of is even saying the universe is random. The same thing happened to Galileo. Here’s what Fr. Hans wrote: “But if God’s design is evolution, then God does not inhabit the universe since evolution requires a random universe. Thus God has to be relegated to somewhere. But where? — the outer darkness?” Who says the universe is random? Even the skeptics and atheists don’t believe the universe is random. Richard Dawkins’ web site has an article from Science Daily with the title, “New Findings, the Universe is not Random.”

              Skeptic Michael Shermer writes in his book Why Darwin Matters: “Natural selection is not “random” nor does it operate by “chance.” Natural selection preserves the gains and eradicates the mistakes. The eye evolved from a single, light-sensitive cell into the complex eye of today through hundreds if not thousands of intermediate steps, many of which still exist in nature. In order for the monkey to type the first 13 letters of Hamlet’s soliloquy by chance, it would take 26 to the power of 13 number of trials for success. This is 16 times as great as the total number of seconds that have elapsed in the lifetime of the solar system. But if each correct letter is preserved and each incorrect letter eradicated, the process operates much faster. How much faster? Richard Hardison constructed a computer program in which letters were “selected” for or against, and it took an average of only 335.2 trials to produce the sequence of letters TOBEORNOTTOBE. This takes the computer less than 90 seconds. The entire play can be done in about 4.5 days!”

              • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

                Rachel, evolutionary theory requires a random universe. Without it, natural selection, as the mechanism by which different species developed from a single organism, loses its descriptive power. Natural selection works only in a random universe.

                On the other hand, if the universe shows elements of design, then an overarching logic that exists above matter is implied that does not have its source and origin within the matter that it governs. In other words, the universe is not random.

                The author argues that design exists, and that evolution is that design. Note the scope of the article, however. It deals only with development within particular species. It is true that there is some kind of mechanism in the development of organisms within particular species. There is no evidence that all species have their origin from a single point of matter. It just doesn’t exist.

                In arguing that evolution is design, the author (unwittingly perhaps) undermines the of the theory’s metaphysical axiom that the universe is random. Design disallows a random universe and natural selection as the mechanism of change falls from grace.

                Moreover, the fact we even see a construction of this kind (evolution is design) shows that belief in the veracity of evolutionary theory is in decline. That decline is inevitable. In historical/cultural terms, evolution cannot stand because the presuppositions that shape it draw from the well of philosophical materialism dominant in the last century that has been discredited. They are the same assumptions that shaped the ideas of Marx and Freud. Marx has fallen, Freud has fallen, and Darwin will too.

                Peter’s thesis attempts to return God into a universe where He is functionally absent. It’s a noble gesture (Peter is a clear thinker and faithful Christian), but it can’t work. The reason it can’t however is not because science is not true or that God does not really exist. The reason is that the evolutionary theory of origins (the Darwinian creation story) is philosophically incoherent. And, as the article implicitly reveals, even evolutionary scientists are beginning to see this, albeit reluctantly.

                • Jane Rachel says

                  Fr. Hans wrote: “There is no evidence that all species have their origin from a single point of matter.”

                  Well, God said, “Let the earth bring forth….”

                  “Natural selection works only in a random universe.”

                  This is a contradiction in terms. Natural selection works only in an ordered universe. Clearly, the universe is ordered, not random. Jackson Pollock’s paintings. Fling the paint across the canvas with disorder in mind, and order is what happens. The only disorder in the universe is sin, which is true death. Before man’s first selfish act, there was no sin in the universe, and therefore, dare I say it, no death. I’m thinking now that dying is overrated. Perhaps real death is the soul turning away from good, and the body dying is simply matter returning itself to the earth. Beyond, within, around, through, and inconceivably beyond that, is God.

                  • Jane Rachel says

                    Of course, I’m thinking in words, not in absolutes.

                  • Jane Rachel says:
                    February 19, 2012 at 8:31 am
                    “Well, God said, “Let the earth bring forth….”
                    God also said “each after its own kind.”
                    How does that fit into this discussion?

                    • Jane Rachel, my thoughts for what they’re worth:

                      And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day

                      And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.


                      We pause here in the middle of the fifth and sixth days to note the phrases used repeatedly of both the plant life created on the third day and the animal life created on the fifth and sixth days, specifically those such as “after its kind” and “after their kind.” Do these phrases not speak of a clear differentiation of species created whole and distinct from one another?

                      The evolutionist may reply that God could have used the process of evolution to bring about this distinction. In reply I point again to the subject of DEATH raised with more detail in a previous comment. But here I would add this:

                      “…and God saw that it was good.”

                      Indeed, all of creation was “very good.” But what does “very good” mean except that it partook freely of Him who alone is good? For as our Lord said, “Why do you call Me good? There is none good but God.” If creation was very good, it is because it was filled with the divine life-giving energy of God. Everything in creation was filled with the life-giving light of the Trinity, even as it shall be in the consummation of our salvation in Christ. We cannot think of God’s perfect creation in merely biological terms. Creation existed (and will exist again) as nature, but it was not (nor will it be) subject to nature.

                      “Grace irradiates nature with a supra-natural light, and by the transcendence of its glory raises nature above its natural limits”
                      St Maximos the Confessor

                      The above constitutes the theological, revealed side, but there is yet another, simply logical side that few ever seem to consider: “Be fruitful and multiply.” These words imply not only differentiation of species, but also sexual differentiation within the species. Evolutionists assume sexual differentiation, but there are simply no grounds for this assumption in their theory. I have never heard an attempt to explain how it could be that gradual changes/developments take place over long periods of time without there having been sexual differentiation in the beginning. So they reproduced…how? How could sexual differentiation occur over many generations of a given species? Apart from sexual differentiation there can be no “many generations” of a species.

                      And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, “For this cause shall a man leave…

                  • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

                    Jane, yes it is a contradiction, But how do we resolve the contradiction? Either the universe is ordered and the evolutionary theory is wrong, or the universe is not ordered and the evolutionary theory is correct. (Don’t forget that evolutionary theory demands a random universe in order to maintain internal coherence.)

                    The third way of theological evolution (placing God in front of the evolutionary process to declare God set the it all in motion) posits a God other than the God of scripture and removes Him from any active participation in the universe He ostensibly created. Put more simply, theological evolution just doesn’t work unless your God is the same God as Aristotle’s.

                    Natural selection is what — a tautology? Yes, that is all it seems to be. Basically the tautology works like this: Natural selection is the process by which the “fittest” survive. Those who survive are the fittest.

                    Evolutionists object to this of course but they agree that the term was used as a tautology in generations past. Today they redefine natural selection to apply only to local conditions and argue it should not be generalized to the theory as a whole. In other words, natural selection is true but only if applied to organisms within species (horse breeding for example; dominant and recessive genes and so forth). See for example: Stephen Jay Gould Darwin’s Untimely Burial.

                    But this is different than what Darwin first proposed. Look closely at Gould’s argument. Gould, an evolutionist, argues that Darwin made a basic mistake in positing natural selection as the mechanism of progress. Darwin “relied upon analogy to establish it [natural selection], a dangerous and slippery strategy.”

                    But Darwin’s argument is “dangerous and slippery” only if you believe that science is capable of providing the narrative by which its discoveries can be interpreted. Gould’s objection in other words is not that Darwin made a scientific error, but that Darwin referenced a literary category (“relied upon analogy”) to establish natural selection as the primary mechanism of progress in the evolutionary hypothesis.

                    Yet narrative always precedes our understanding of how the universe functions. Narrative determines how we structure and organize scientific data in order to give it meaning. Science is not capable of providing the structure by and through which the data it uncovers is incorporated into a larger universe of meaning. Literary structures — story or narrative — do that.

                    The truth is that Gould doesn’t see this only because his narrative denies the necessity of narrative even while he employs it. The blind spot is the inevitable result of the materialist presuppositions informing evolution. If only matter has concrete existence (if knowledge only consists of that which can be empirically measured), then any appeal to forms other than material (literary “analogy” for example) is illegitimate.

                    Evolution is the creation story of the philosophical materialist and science itself is proving the unsustainablility of the story. Today many scientists argue it impedes rather than advances science. (That is what makes Guilder’s piece Evolution and Me so interesting.) Go back and reread the quote from C.S. Lewis that Chris Banescu posted upstream. Better yet, I’ll copy it below:

                    In the science, Evolution is a theory about changes: in the Myth it is a fact about improvements. Thus a real scientist like Professor J.B.S. Haldane is at pains to point out that popular ideas of Evolution lay a wholly unjustified emphasis on those changes which have rendered creatures (by human standards) ‘better’ or more interesting. He adds, ‘We are therefore inclined to regard progress as the rule in evolution. Actually it is the exception, and for every case of it there are ten of degeneration.’ But the Myth simply expurgates the ten cases of degeneration. In the popular mind the word ‘Evolution’ conjures up a picture of things moving ‘onward and upwards’, and of nothing else whatsoever. And it might have been predicted that it would do so. Already, before science had spoken, the mythical imagination knew the kind of ‘Evolution’ it wanted. It wanted the Keatsian and Wagnerian kind: the gods superseding the Titans, and the young, joyous, careless, amorous Siegfried superseding the care-worn, anxious, treaty-entangled Wotan. If science offers any instances to satisfy that demand, they will be eagerly accepted. If it offers any instances that frustrate it, they will simply be ignored.

                    Again, for the scientist Evolution is purely a biological theorem. It takes over organic life on this planet as a going concern and tries to explain certain changes within that field. It makes no cosmic statements, no metaphysical statements, no eschatological statements. Granted that we now have minds we can trust, granted that organic life came to exist, it tries to explain, say, how a species that once had wings came to lose them. It explains this by the negative effect of environment operating on small variations. It does not in itself explain the origin of organic life, nor of the variations, nor does it discuss the origin and validity of reason. It may well tell you how the brain, through which reason now operates, arose, but that is a different matter. Still less does it even attempt to tell you how the universe as a whole arose, or what it is, or whither it is tending.

                    But the Myth knows none of these reticences. Having first turned what was a theory of change into a theory of improvement, it then makes this a cosmic theory. Not merely terrestrial organisms but everything is moving ‘upwards and onwards’. Reason has ‘evolved’ out of instinct, virtue out of complexes, poetry out of erotic howls and grunts, civilization out of savagery, the organic out of the inorganic, the solar system out of some sidereal soup or traffic block. And conversely, reason, virtue, art and civilization as we now know them are only the crude or embryonic beginnings of far better things–perhaps Deity itself–in the remote future. For in the Myth, ‘Evolution’ (as the Myth understands it) is the formula for all existence. To exist means to be moving from the status of ‘almost zero’ to the status of ‘almost infinity’. To those brought up on the Myth nothing seems more normal, more natural, more plausible, than that chaos should turn to order, death into life, ignorance into knowledge. And with this we reach the full-blown Myth. It is one of the most moving and satisfying world dramas which have ever been imagined.

          • Jane Rachel says

            Oh, I appreciate your comment, Logan46. I wanted to ask why, too, for the same reason. But first I need to figure out what Father Hans said. I think he said that Orthodox Christian scientists who accept evolution

            1) hold to a random universe;
            2) must conclude that the laws of gravity, motion and so forth originate from matter.

            Which does not make sense and would make an Orthodox Scientist scratch his head and ask if Father Hans could rephrase his question, which actually is not a question, but a conclusion about how Orthodox scientists think, or would have to think if they are true to the way Father Hans says they are. You can’t think inside someone else’s head. So first the scientist would have to explain his views from his perspective, and then there could be a discussion. What bothers me is all these hard and fast “facts,” “agreeing” and “disagreeing” going on here, as if we know, as if we can just throw sentences out there and if they stick to the page, they become truth.

            It ain’t necessarily so.

            • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

              Read my response to Bp. Tikhon and it should be clearer. I am not interested in psychological explanations since they can’t shed any light on evolutionary theory. Essentially my point is this:

              Evolution demands a random universe. Since a random universe presupposes that no governing logic preexisted matter (it can’t because the universe it random), then the laws that govern the matter must have arisen from the matter itself.

              • Jane Rachel says

                Father Hans wrote: “Since a random universe presupposes that no governing logic preexisted matter …”

                Only a person who believes in a universe not created by God “presupposes that no governing logic preexisted matter.” They suppose that the way matter and energy behave exist as raw fact. “That that is, is, that that is not is not. Is not that it? It is “But we are not arguing with those who don’t believe in God.

                A person who believes in a universe created by God believes God preexisted matter. The universe is not random. Matter and energy behave thus and so because I AM, i.e. GOD, is active. The Hebrew language is verb based, not noun based. “Create” is a verb. “I AM” is verbal. Logos implies breathing, speaking, energy, movement, being. Whaist do you say, Father Hans? If there is no evolution, what is your logical, reasonable, scientific, irrefutable alternative? How old is the earth?

                • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

                  My answer is that science will have a lot more to tell us about the universe once it is unshackled from the Darwinian creation story. If other mechanisms of development exist apart from natural selection (natural selection disallows other mechanisms), imagine the knowledge uncovered once they are discovered.

                • “How old is the earth?”

                  This is an interesting question that almost always arises in discussions about creation and evolution. If one believes the revealed account of creation, one must also recognize an important fact to which our gracious host pointed earlier. And that is that “time” as we know it can only be measured by the relative movements of objects in space. A day (24 hours) for us now is one rotation of the earth. A year for us now is one rotation of the earth around the sun, etc.

                  However, the revealed account informs us that the sun is not created until the fourth day. Thus, the concept of the passage of “time” as we know it cannot be applied in our attempt to understand/determine the age of the earth. “Time” as we know it came into being concurrent with the creation of matter. It is therefore possible to believe the revealed account while not being scandalized by the apparent age of geological discoveries.

                  I myself am one who believes the revealed account (in both an allegorical and literal sense, for history and allegory are not mutually exclusive). But one must broaden one’s mind with eyes of faith to avoid being both overly simplistic and overly trusting in some so-called scientists (whether creationist or evolutionist) whose theories exceed the proper realm of science.

                  As Moses told the Isrealites, “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.”

                  • Michael Bauman says

                    The age of the earth only matters to those who posit random mutations or creation through and in time. With each occurance that might question such positions of faith the age of the earth/universe seems to increase.

                    The methods used to arrive at such dates also assume as a matter of faith that the criteria used to arrive at the dates have not changed (everything else changes but the criteria for arriving at a date for the age of the earth/universe) Just another logical contradiction in a philosphical construct that is rife with them

                    In science, real science, it used to be an axiom that there were no irrefutable facts. Now that scientistic ideology has largely replaced science we have ‘irrefutable facts’ There are no such things.

                    Does it matter to anyone that the early evolutionists specifically went looking for a cosmological approach that could be used to replace the Christian paradigm? A goal that is still being prusued by many. Does it not raise the question that the so called ‘facts’ that are used and the manner in which they are interpreted might be just a tad bit biased?

                    • Michael,

                      Indeed it does matter. In my study hangs a little plaque bearing the words of St. Augustine:

                      Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.”

                      I’ve always found this to be excellent advise.

                      Let God be true, though every man a liar.”

                • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

                  Rachel writes:

                  Only a person who believes in a universe not created by God “presupposes that no governing logic preexisted matter.” They suppose that the way matter and energy behave exist as raw fact.

                  Yes. Which is exactly why theological evolution does not work. We can’t posit a random universe and then place God in front of it. It’s a logical contradiction. If we do, we are positing a God other than the God of scripture, of Abraham, who cannot inhabit the universe He created. We might as well posit no God at all, a point the atheists clearly — and correctly — understand.

                  So what takes the place of God in the Darwinian creation story? Time does. Time is the evolutionist’s metaphysical absolute. Time contains all matter and energy and propels them forward (thereby implying development and progress). It has no beginning and no end.

                  Natural selection, as the mechanism of development, merely recontextualizes death to declare that death is an agent of progress.

                  Compare this to the Christian precept that death is an enemy to be destroyed.

                  • Carl Kraeff says

                    It seems to me that you are fighting Darwin so much his theory has become your filter through which you are looking at any other theory. Let’s assume that Darwin’s theory is bunk (I certainly subscribe to that). Let’s assume that God is behind creation, evolution and all of its variants. Now, what you have left is a combination of natural law and miracles. This seems to me to be perfectly Christian way to approach this subject.

                    • In all this discussion, I don’t think we should lose sight of the wonder/wonderment presented to us by:
                      “Your thoughts are not My thoughts, Your ways are not My ways”
                      and Dionysius the Areopagite’s “The Mystical Theology.”
                      wonder |ˈwəndər|
                      noun
                      a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable
                      wonderment |ˈwəndərmənt|
                      noun
                      a state of awed admiration or respect

                    • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

                      Disputing Darwin so that Darwin becomes a filter through which any other theory is understood shows you don’t understand how theory differs from narrative.

                      There is no “theory” that competes with Darwinism since evolution is not a scientific theory, but a narrative, a story (positing a random universe is a cosmological, not scientific, statement). That’s why “creation science” will fail as well since Genesis is not science, it’s a story. Both evolutionists and creation scientists are bound to the same erroneous presuppositions.

                      You do touch on one important point though. God is either in creation or He is not. But if He is, why would you conclude that all that is left is natural law and miracles? Why would you discount science? There is no reason to.

                      What really matters then are the creation stories. All of them can be lumped into one of three categories: polytheist, monotheist, and materialist. The one you adopt will determine in what ways you see the universe operating.

                      Since the scientific method could not have arisen in any other milieu except Christian, I’ll stick with Genesis.

                      For example, consider time. The materialist cosmology says nothing about time because time is not matter. It merely presupposes time’s preexistence (call it an article of faith) and elevates it to a metaphysical absolute. The polytheistic cosmology says time is circular since the gods themselves exist within time (time is eternal, not created). The monotheistic cosmology says that time is created; it has a beginning and end thus making progress possible. (Evolutionists merely borrow their notion of time from Genesis, absolutize it, and then posit natural selection (death) as the mechanism by which that progress occurs.)

                      (Christians have to sop thinking that science and miracles are opposed to each other. They aren’t. Believing they are opposed is just a materialist superstition.)

                    • Carl Kraeff says

                      Father Hans–I guess I was too cryptic. Here is my reasoning:

                      God’s law=natural law
                      science=those aspects of natural law that are understood at any given time
                      miracles=those aspects of natural law that are not understood at any given time

                    • Jane Rachel says

                      Father Hans, are there links you can provide to articles we can read to back up your statements? Thanks!

          • Peter A. Papoutsis says

            Hi again Logan 46.

            I have this article saved in my favorites box of links. It can also help our current discussion. http://roberthutchinson.com/spirituality/philosophy/how-chaos-theory-refutes-the-blind-watchmaker-of-richard-dawkins/

            Peter

          • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

            Logan, many people reconcile evolutionary theory to religious faith by believing that God set the entire process in motion. The evolutionary process is just the way God set it up.

            But all this shows is that they don’t understand the the evolutionary theory. Evolutionary theory does not allow for any pre-existing logic. If God set up the world using the evolutionary process, then the universe is not random. It contains a source or body that infuses a particular logic into it. The next question would be if it is not random, then are the mechanisms that depend on randomness (mutation and so forth) really true? Couldn’t the progress occur some other way?

            These days more scientists are saying yes. In fact. some are saying that evolutionary theory actually holds back scientific inquiry.

            See: Evolution and Me.

            Also see:

            • Jane Rachel says

              Now we are getting somewhere. I am not all about believing in a “random” universe (there is too much mystery and what do I know?) and have been reading about this newer thinking… Thanks for posting the link!

            • Jane Rachel says

              So glad to be introduced to David Berlinski’s thinking . My computer access up here in the boonies is very slow at times, so, I have had to wait and wait to see the interview but will listen to as much as I can and read as much as I can as soon as I can. I am so looking forward to reading more. Whew.

              • Jane Rachel says

                I don’t know, Father Hans. Seems like the same o’l same ol’ with Berlinski, now that I’m reading more.Discovery Institute, Ben Stein, etc. Sigh. I am going to bow out of this discussion. All the best.

          • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

            I don’t want to overstate this and I apologize for saying the same thing in different places but….

            I have difficulty understanding these things, but why is it an impossibility? If there are infinite possibilities (chances) in the universe (whatever that is), why is it an impossibility?

            You are focusing on the wrong thing. The point here is not the possibility that the laws could emerge (according to the theory anything can emerge or develop given enough time), rather the point is the source of those laws. The laws, if the theory of a random universe is true, must have arisen from the matter itself.

            Of course this is incoherent (how can the laws which govern matter arise from the matter that it governs?), which is one reason why it is hard to grasp. But the theory allows no other explanation.

        • Fr. Hans Jacobse says:
          February 12, 2012 at 3:49 pm
          ‘Here’s what I ask Orthodox Christian scientists: If we hold to a random universe, then where did the laws that govern the arrangement of objects (gravity, motion, and so forth) come from? If we are true to our philosophical presuppositions, the only possible answer is that it originates from matter itself.’

          In ‘Our Father’, the prayer which our Lord Jesus Christ Himself teaches us, Jesus says ‘May Your will be done, as in the heavens, so also on Earth.’

          Since the soulless and inanimate stars and planets function as God intended, making their appointed rounds and not destroying us in the process, this paramount prayer suggests that we, sentient beings endowed with the divine characteristic of free will, would do well to choose to actuate God’s will rather than our own — should we find ourselves conflicted — just as all the stars and planets do with no ability to choose their paths.

          This point is only one of several at issue in our seriously mistaken english-language versions of ‘Our Father’.

          We keep to those translations because the bishops of EVERY christian religion are afraid to shock the flock with a correct rendering.

          People are so used to what they’re used to that they can’t make conceptual or (especially) emotional room for improvement. In theological/philosophic terms, I’ve often described this phenomenon as inertia’s being stronger than truth.

      • Jane Rachel. It’s interesting to me , relative to your sentence about time, that Time as the First Principle, and given the name “Zurvan,” was the teaching of the “Zurvanites”, an official heresy under the Zoroastrian state church of the Sassanian Empire. “Zurvan” caused the coming into existence of One God (called Ahura Mazda: God/Light) and Satan (Ahriman) and the rest, such as angels.

        • Jane Rachel says

          Your Grace, that is SO interesting. Makes a person think, and wonder.

          By the way, if you are referring to this sentence about time: “Evolution works only if time (not God) is the metaphysical absolute. No need for a Logos here. Aristotle will do just fine.” I didn’t write that. It was written by Fr. Hans Jacobse and I quoted it in a quote box.

          I did quote this from Groucho Marx,: “Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.”

        • Your Grace, would you comment further? How to you connect the statement made by Father Hans about time, which you referenced, and the comment you made that: “Time as the First Principle, and given the name ‘Zurvan,’ was the teaching of the ‘Zurvanites’, an official heresy under the Zoroastrian state church of the Sassanian Empire. ‘Zurvan’ caused the coming into existence of One God (called Ahura Mazda: God/Light) and Satan (Ahriman) and the rest, such as angels”?

          • Typo. Change “to connect” to “do connect.”

          • In between all the projects I’m working on, I rush in to ask more questions where only fools dare to tread.
            Before I looked it up, I had thought the Zurvanites were much earlier. According to this wikipedia article, “by the Sassanid era (226–651 CE), the divinity “Infinite Time” was well established and enjoyed royal patronage.” Now I really am curious. By that time, Christianity was also well established. How can it be that “Zurvan” caused the coming into existence of One God (called Ahura Mazda: God/Light) and Satan (Ahriman) and the rest, such as angels.”? Belief in monotheism, Satan and the angels happened centuries earlier. So what are you saying about “Zurvan,” and what it “caused” and how does it connect to the discussion on time? (I wish I could phrase my questions more clearly.)

            • Jane Rachel, I can’t defend the following tenet of Zurvanism :”Zurvan’ caused the coming into existence of One God (called Ahura Mazda: God/Light) and Satan (Ahriman) and the rest, such as angels.” it looks like I was asserting that tenet. I apologize. Zurvan is a concept much, much earlier than Zurvanism or the heresy involving it. The teachings of Zoroaster (Zarathushtra) in the “Avesta” and in the “Gathas” (fundamental texts of Zoroastrianism) date from about 3 or 4 thousand BC. Yes, that’s long before the Sassanid or Sassanian Empire and era. The teachings of Zoroaster about one God, Ahura Mazda, Ahriman (“Satan”) and the Resurrection and the Last Judgment and the Angels were already known in the Middle Eastern civilized world before the Jews were carried off into “Babylon”, or the Zoroastrian world and before most of the texts of the O.T. were written down as we have them today. Zurvan was only a footnote like and mostly ignored reference in the oldest texts. Zurvan, however, was brought to the fore by the Zurvanist sect in the Sassanid Empire which paralleled the later Roman Empire. The Sassanids also developed the practice of Zoroastrianism into an organization and a hierarchy much like that of the Christian Church. There was no such ‘Zoroastrian Church” in the time of Cyril the Great, Darius, or Xerxes, only the beliefs and practices of Zoroastrianism. Perhaps that organization arose in reaction to the threat of a well-organized Christian Church, in the Roman Empire and one in Persia.

    • Geo Michalopulos says

      Also time has no existence on its own. It only has existence as a reference between two points fixed in space.

      • According to a certain theory.

        • Why are not some parents demanding that alternatives, preferably religious ones, to the theory of relativity be taught in the public schools and included in approved textbooks?
          After all, it, too, like Evolution, is “only a theory.”

          • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

            Well, sure, but using the term “theory” to link Enstein and Darwin in order to discredit any criticism of evolutionary theory is pretty thin gruel.

            One problem with evolutionary theory is its philosophical incoherence. Did the laws that govern matter arise from the matter itself? If you hold to the theory the answer is yes. If you say no, then you posit a pre-existing logic. That would undermine the existence of a random universe which, as you know, is a presupposition on which the theory depends.

            If you look for a middle road and posit a kind of theological evolution, then it shows you don’t really understand the contradiction.

            • I liked the “Well, sure.” Always glad for sympathetic support like that.
              But only an ostrich-like instance could be unaware of the vast amount of people in America who loudly and repeatedly trumpet as a mantra (and without any rational discourse in addition) that Darwin’s theory is “Only a theory, not a law.” That’s why I ask the question: Why are not some parents demanding that alternatives, preferably religious ones, to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity” be taught in the public schools, to keep the youth from thinking it’s a Law of Relativity.?
              I do not strive to “discredit any criticism of evolutionary theory” by Father Hans or anyone else.
              As for the “philosophical incoherence” of the Theory of Evolution as posited by Darwin: before presenting that relative to a scientific theory (did Father mean “logical” rather than philosophical?) one should consider that “incoherence” especially in today’s “quantity” world, is an awfully subjective adulterant in discussion of any kind..

              • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

                What’s the objection, that the theory is incoherent, or that I labelled it incoherent?

                Either way, the resolution it is to figure out how the laws that govern matter arise from the matter it governs. If you come up with the answer, let me know.

                • And is that a *********philosophically******* coherent question?

                  • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

                    Yes, not only coherent, but one that calls the entire evolutionary hypothesis into question.

                    What is the origin of the laws that govern matter?

                    If the universe is random, then the laws must have arisen from the matter itself. A random universe does not allow for the existence of any pre-existing logic.

                    If the logic pre-exists matter, then the universe is not random.

                    • I didn’t ask if the question was coherent. Father Hans ignored his kicky use of the word “philophically” before the word coherent. He skirted answering my question.
                      He asks what is the origin of the laws that govern matter? The mind of men is the origin of these alleged laws that govern matter.
                      The phrase ‘If the universe is random” is followed by a conclusion that does not follow from it. It is followed by a dogmatic assertion snatched out of the air as it were.
                      The next induction is likewise fully a non-sequitur one.
                      Even if the language and the logic were to be cleaned up, I’m amazed at what appears to be ignorance of quantum thought.

                    • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

                      The mind of man is the source of the laws that govern matter? Really? So if we quit believing that gravity exists planes will keep flying when we turn of the engines? Remind me to avoid that flight.

                      I think you are confusing two points: the awareness that the law of gravity exists is different than the fact that it does.

                      I go back to my question: if the universe is random, then where do the laws that govern matter come from?

                    • Bishop Tikhon’s claim that “The mind of men is the origin of these alleged laws that govern matter,” is superficial and uninformed. It evidences a poor grasp of the issues and assumes an atheistic philosophical construct that deflects Fr. Hans’ insights and logical argument and muddles the issues. BT’s attempt at projecting “wisdom” exposes a glaring foolishness and folly on his part. At least he is consistent in that respect, I’ll give him that. As the saying goes, if you can’t dazzle them with wisdom, baffle them with BS!

                    • Here’s how C.S. Lewis, a real orthodox thinker (despite being an Anglican) and genuine theologian addressed the issues of where does Reason and the Laws that govern matter come from:

                      “In the second place, to understand that logic must be valid is to see at once that this thing we all know, this thought, this mind, cannot in fact be really alien to the nature of the universe. Or, putting it the other way around, the nature of the universe cannot be really alien to Reason.

                      We find that matter always obeys the same laws which our logic obeys. When logic says a thing must be so, Nature always agrees. No one can suppose that this can be due to a happy conincidence. A great many people think that it is due to the fact that Nature produced the mind. But on the assumption that Nature is herself mindless this provides no explanation.

                      To be the result of a series of mindless events is one thing: to be a kind of plan or true account of the laws according to which those mindless events happened is quite another. Thus the Gulf Stream produces all sorts of results: for instance, the temperature of the Irish Sea. What it does not produce is maps of the Gulf Stream.

                      But if logic, as we find it operative in our own minds, is really a result of mindless nature, then it is a result as improbable as that. The laws whereby logic obliges us to think turn out to be the laws according to which every event in space and time must happen.

                      The man who thinks this an ordinary or probable result does not really understand. It is as if cabbages, in addition to resulting from the laws of botany also gave lectures in that subject; or as if, when I knocked out my pipe, the ashes arranged themselves into letters which read: ‘We are the ashes of a knocked-out pipe.’

                      But if the validity of knowledge cannot be explained in that way, and if perpetual happy coincidence throughout the whole of recorded time is out of the question, then surely we must seek the real explanation elsewhere.”

                      The “elsewhere” he discusses in the rest of his essay. That elsewhere is GOD, the Creator of all Matter and All Laws. Those that govern matter and the human machine!

                    • Fr. Hans Jacobse says:
                      February 14, 2012 at 6:29 am

                      ‘What is the origin of the laws that govern matter?’

                      Addressing our Father, our Lord Jesus Christ says:
                      ‘May Your will be done: as in the heavens, so also on Earth.’
                      (Matthew 6:10b)

                      Were we human beings to exercise our free will as consistently in accord with the will of God as do the nonsentient planets and stars, and all the physical world, we would find ourselves almost returned to Eden.

                    • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

                      What you seem to be saying Monk James (it’s not clear) is that God pre-exists the creation of matter. Thus the laws that govern matter must have come from Him. Is that correct?

                      In that case, the universe is not random.

                    • Carl Kraeff says

                      Father Hans–I do not understand the fine distinctions that are being discussed and if I am completely off base, please ignore me.

                      The fact that the universe is not random and that His natural law governs us all seems to me to be sufficient reason to believe that the Genesis account, for example, is to be understood in light of natural law. For me, there are two levels that operate in matters such as creation and evolution: one is the actual physical facts and the other the deeper theological significance. However, since our knowledge and understanding is growing and changing (also in accordance with Providence), it would be premature to definitively pronounce our understanding of the physical realm.

                    • Jane Rachel says

                      This note is for Chris Banescu Please pardon the fact that it is public. I don’t feel that it would do any good at all to go to you privately, and this is a public forum, and we are all affected. Chris, do you chew on rusty nails to get that hard, bitter edge to your voice? What is the point of acting the way you act? Is there any good in it? Is it necessary? Your accusations are not based in truth, but in anger and hatred, they are false, and meant to hurt. Father Hans and Bishop Tikhon were doing okay before you stepped in with your surprise attack, which felt like a vicious dog on the prowl. And I have no agenda! I just don’t like yours, and I’m tired of reading about it every few months. You need to deal with your anger. I know about being angry, and being angry at clergy, and I dealt with it. Clearly, you haven’t. It’s called forgiveness.

                    • Read all comments by: Fr. Hans Jacobse

                      Fr. Hans Jacobse says:
                      February 16, 2012 at 4:49 pm

                      ‘What you seem to be saying Monk James (it’s not clear) is that God pre-exists the creation of matter. Thus the laws that govern matter must have come from Him. Is that correct?

                      In that case, the universe is not random.’

                      Perhaps Fr Hans is being disingenuous here. Please forgive me if I’m mistaken.

                      I thought that what I wrote was perfectly clear. How else could the inanimate planets behave in accordance with God’s will if God didn’t eternally exist before He created ‘all things visible and invisible’.

                      At the smae time, just as it’s possible for us to admit that biological evolution might well be part of the divine plan, it’s also possible for us to admit that randomness in creation, even ‘chaos theory’, might also be part of the divine plan.

                      We aren’t privy to the divine intentions behind the ways in which His creation works. We can merely observe it in its magnificence, and make sense of it in the most oblique ways.

                      We can’t read God’s mind, so we just don’t know the details. All we know by faith is that the Lord ‘made all things wisely’ as we acknowledge in our prayers each evening (Psalm 104).

                    • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

                      Carl, essentially you are making the argument for theological evolution. The problem is that it doesn’t work.

                      The law I refer to is not natural law but physical law, the law that governs the operations of matter (gravity, motion, etc.).

                      If the universe is random, that is, no preexisting logic exists, then the physical laws must have originated in the matter. That is the only logical solution because a random universe disallows their preexistence.

                      If they preexisted matter, then the universe is not random.

                      People say that God started the whole evolutionary ball rolling, but that still negates the existence of a random universe. And evolution requires that the universe be random. The entire edifice stands on it.

                    • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

                      Monk James, no, I am not being disingenuous. I find some of your reasoning difficult to follow. It always seems to end in the “well, it’s all a mystery anyway” category.

                      The thing is, the philosophical presuppositions of evolutionary theory are not mysterious at all. In fact they are quite clear. They don’t allow for any pre-existing logic in the universe. That’s what the term “random universe” means.

                      We could posit ideas that God set the mechanism in motion or abstractions like it’s all a great mystery and so forth, but that reduces God to a deus ex machina. It might make us feel better but it does not deal with fact a random universe is the necessary precondition that holds the theory together.

                      Where do you think the laws that govern matter came from, God or matter?

                    • Fr. Hans Jacobse says:
                      February 16, 2012 at 8:16 pm

                      ‘Monk James, no, I am not being disingenuous. I find some of your reasoning difficult to follow. It always seems to end in the “well, it’s all a mystery anyway” category.

                      The thing is, the philosophical presuppositions of evolutionary theory are not mysterious at all. In fact they are quite clear. They don’t allow for any pre-existing logic in the universe. That’s what the term “random universe” means.

                      We could posit ideas that God set the mechanism in motion or abstractions like it’s all a great mystery and so forth, but that reduces God to a deus ex machina. It might make us feel better but it does not deal with fact a random universe is the necessary precondition that holds the theory together.

                      Where do you think the laws that govern matter came from, God or matter?’

                      Asked and asked again, and answered, clearly and abundantly.

                      So, maybe Fr Hans isn’t being disingenuous here. Maybe he’s being obtuse.

                      Or just annoying.

                      He ought to stop it.

                    • I do not doubt that God is responsible for whatever men choose to call or perceive as “laws governing nature,” or “laws governing the natural” or “laws governing matter.” However, such expression and or characterization of laws originates for us in the minds of men.
                      Some of seem to want to say that we know God’s laws governing matter and our expression of them is correct.. As for what laws “inhere” in matter and what laws are a temporary expression of God’s will, I leave not to the scientist but to the theologian/saint.
                      Men’s minds can indeed produce and contain laws of all kinds. There is a law that say C. Banescu will never miss a chance to diss Bishop Tikhon, who bothers him (literally) NO END. I first learned of his bitterness and aggressive irreconcilability on the Internet. I, without suspecting it at the time, mortally wounded Chris by saying it as foolish of Father Gregory Safchuk to have told Chris or anyone else that the Church needs people like himi or needs anybody. i don’t even remember the point that Chris tried to defend by his “Well, this is what Father Gregory said about me!”
                      After that initial skirmish, I forgot about ole Chris. Then along came Mrs. Mark Brown nee Stokoe’s web site bandwagon, and;Chris was an early partisan of everything which proceeded forth from Mrs. Brown’s mouth, like everything proceeding forth from the mouth of a certain Dalai Lama Protopresbyter, dispensing heavenly guidance to a supine Church. I’ll bow out of further participation here, I think, since my participation anywhere, like my very existence, as Jane Rachel apparently realized, is a temptation to Chris, to strong for him to resist.

                    • i don’t know why you should stop participating when you add so much to the discussions, Your Grace, and I hope you don’t stop posting here, even though you’ve stated you will. All of us in this household really enjoy reading your posts and will miss you if you don’t continue to comment. We learn from you, and have much to think about as well from the perspectives on things that you have to offer. Thanks for all your postings and contributions.

                    • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

                      Monk James writes when I ask him the question: Where do you think the laws that govern matter came from, God or matter?’ that it has been “Asked and asked again, and answered, clearly and abundantly. So, maybe Fr Hans isn’t being disingenuous here. Maybe he’s being obtuse.”

                      But you haven’t answered it. Neither has Bp. Tikhon. Instead both of you have added abstraction upon abstraction to muddy the question.

                      Bp. Tikhon, who understands the implication of my question, answered that the laws sprang from the mind of man. I pointed out the answer was ludicrous. Apparently he agrees since he retreated back into abstraction in his answer above, writing:

                      As for what laws “inhere” in matter and what laws are a temporary expression of God’s will, I leave not to the scientist but to the theologian/saint.

                      That sounds all nice and humble but essentially it’s a dodge.

                      I’ll ask one more time but please limit your response to the question. Try to avoid extraneous abstraction.

                      Where do you think the laws that govern matter came from, God or matter?

                    • For Fr. Hans. You ask:

                      What is the origin of the (physical) laws that govern matter?

                      Do we know that there are such laws? Man seems to be continually discovering that these laws don’t universally apply and coming up with new ones to replace the old ones..

                    • Fr. Hans Jacobse says:
                      February 17, 2012 at 6:37 am

                      ‘Monk James writes when I ask him the question: Where do you think the laws that govern matter came from, God or matter?’ that it has been “Asked and asked again, and answered, clearly and abundantly. So, maybe Fr Hans isn’t being disingenuous here. Maybe he’s being obtuse.”

                      But you haven’t answered it. Neither has Bp. Tikhon. Instead both of you have added abstraction upon abstraction to muddy the question.’

                      Speaking just for myself, I’m certain that I did no such thing. I guess I’ll just have to be content with accepting that Fr Hans is just being annoying here.

                      ‘Bp. Tikhon, who understands the implication of my question, answered that the laws sprang from the mind of man. I pointed out how ludicrous this answer was. Apparently he agrees since he retreated back into abstraction in his answer above, writing:

                      “As for what laws ‘inhere’ in matter and what laws are a temporary expression of God’s will, I leave not to the scientist but to the theologian/saint.”

                      That sounds all nice and humble but essentially it’s a dodge.’

                      It can be said without equivocation or any sort of dodging that EXPRESSIONS and convenient DEFINITIONS of the ‘laws’ of physics and of nature altogether originate in the human mind and are then accepted as scientifically verifiable prnciples. Clearly, those ‘laws’ themselves do not originate in the human mind, which can only observe them at work and describe them.

                      ‘I’ll ask one more time but please limit your response to the question. Try to avoid extraneous abstraction.

                      Where do you think the laws that govern matter came from, God or matter?’

                      Let’s use a sort of extended syllogistic form which depends on our accepting the most common of judeochristian assumptions, okay?

                      God created everything which exists.
                      Matter exists.
                      Therefore, matter was created by God.

                      Matter was created by God.
                      Matter exhibits properties appropriate to its kind.
                      Therefore,God created the properties of matter.

                      Matter could have no properties before it was created.
                      God created matter.
                      Therefore, the properties (‘laws’) of matter were created by God.

                      That ought to satisfy even Fr Hans! [[;-D33

                  • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

                    Logan, the next time you are flying your jet, turn off the engines and see if the plane keeps flying. Or the next time the light turns red, keep your foot off the brake and see if the car stops.

                    That’s how we know the laws are real.

                  • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

                    Clever answer Monk James. The syllogism you constructed preserves the possibility that the laws are a property of the matter itself. That side-steps any direct challenge of the metaphysical axiom that universe is random and the evolutionist creation story is protected.

                    So you don’t really answer the question. Instead, you put forward the idea that randomness is the order by which God created the universe. That begs the question, how can an ordered universe simultaneously be a random universe? The only way to reconcile this is to place God so far from His creation that he becomes virtually unreachable — the God of Aristotle, not Abraham, which is to say an impersonal God. God doesn’t inhabit His creation. He just looks at it from a far off distance.

                    • Michael Bauman says

                      The question for theistic evolutionists is not if God created matter, but how. Did He create ex nihlo or not. To accept that God created in and through time, one has to also accept that God just started the process and maybe guides it a little here and there. Theistic evolution (unless one thinks of evolution as adaptation only) requires at least two things which are against Christian doctrine. Fr. Hans mentioned one above, the other is a denial of creation ex nihlo

                      Again I say that theistic evolution requires a God much different than the God revealed in Scripture and worshipped in the Church.

                    • Fr. Hans is absolutely right. God not only created matter and the laws of the universe, but He continually sustains and supports them! Laws cannot exist by themselves without an Intelligence that directs and maintains them. Quantum physicists discovered a few years ago that most of mass of an atom is basically 99% controlled energy. Every single atom that makes matter real and makes up what we call “reality” and the visible Universe is under the purview of laws (under the constant direction of a Creator) that make controlled energy have mass and substance.

                      Matter is Merely Vacuum Fluctuations
                      http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/blog/2008/11/matter-is-merely-vacuum-fluctuations/

                    • I’m not sure how some of you reject any hints of apophatic theology that may appear here in, e.g., some of Monk James’s and are so ready to be ***absolutely***** certain.
                      I found especially piquant one writer’s certainty pronouncing such an “anti-apophatic” statement as “every single (sic) atom that make (sic) matter real and make up what we call “reality”… and, even more piquant: “that make controlled energy have mass and substance.” This is indeed symbolic interaction at work, but to imagine it captures reality……whoa!

                    • Fr. Hans Jacobse says:
                      February 17, 2012 at 4:56 pm

                      ‘Clever answer Monk James. The syllogism you constructed preserves the possibility that the laws are a property of the matter itself. That side-steps any direct challenge of the metaphysical axiom that universe is random and the evolutionist creation story is protected.

                      So you don’t really answer the question. Instead, you put forward the idea that randomness is the order by which God created the universe. That begs the question, how can an ordered universe simultaneously be a random universe? The only way to reconcile this is to place God so far from His creation that he becomes virtually unreachable — the God of Aristotle, not Abraham, which is to say an impersonal God. God doesn’t inhabit His creation. He just looks at it from a far off distance.’

                      Okay, friends.

                      I’m here to say it. Fr Hans is not only being ignorant and obtuse here, but putting himself forth as stupid, too, and innocent of logic. And stubborn, too.

                      But why? He seems to be an intelligent man, as we might infer from all the available evidence he provides in Internet venues

                      Still, it leaves us wondering why he misappropriates the logical fallacy of ‘begging the question’ (petitio principii) here, when I’ve demonstrated very clearly and logically that God, not matter, is the source and origin of the laws of nature. Maybe he didn’t study philosophy and mathematics as I was required to do.

                      The syllogistic structure I provided leaves no doubt that the physical universe and its laws were designed by God.

                      Was Fr Hans looking for some other answer?

                    • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

                      Out of the flurry of words only one sentence is substantive:

                      The syllogistic structure I provided leaves no doubt that the physical universe and its laws were designed by God.

                      But which God? – Aristotle’s or Abraham’s?

                      The syllogism merely asserts that physical laws are the property of matter. It acknowledges the existence of the laws, but by conflating them into matter and asserting they appeared concurrently with the appearance of matter, the only conclusion you allow is that God’s design is evolution.

                      But if God’s design is evolution, then God does not inhabit the universe since evolution requires a random universe. Thus God has to be relegated to somewhere. But where? — the outer darkness?

                      If I am wrong here just say so and explain why.

                      I don’t see anything in Bp. Tikhon’s post except muddled expressions of disapproval.

                    • It seems to me rather odd for Christians who believe that God is everywhere present and fills all things to describe matter as following “laws” – unless by this one means that matter is ‘energized’ by and always obedient to its Creator who is Personal. Moreover, how a Christian could describe this energizing power and obedience as being “random” is beyond me. That things often appear random to us does not make them so, as the Scriptures, our God-bearing Fathers, and the prayers of the Church continuously remind us. Such notions betray (albeit perhaps in ignorance) an atheistic understanding. They do not describe the cosmos created and sustained by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

                      “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.…”

                      The God who suffered for our sakes energized and held in existence the very atoms that constituted the nails that pierced Him and the wood of the Cross on which He hung.

                      “…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 to Christ.”

                    • Well said Brian! That’s indeed the proper Orthodox theological understanding of how God created and continually energizes and sustains all of creation, all matter and all life.

    • Fr. Hans Jacobse says:
      February 10, 2012 at 10:04 pm
      ‘“In fact, the more we see God’s creation through our eyes the more we do NOT put God in a box, and realize the true meaing of the phrase ‘unto the ages of ages!’”

      Evolution works only if time (not God) is the metaphysical absolute. No need for a Logos here. Aristotle will do just fine.’

      No.

      Evolution works only if present conditions (whenever) separate unsuccessfully reproductive biological characteristics from successfully reproductive biological characteristics.

      The time it takes for those characteristics to sort themselves out is not quantifiable, and certainly not an absolute of any sort.

      As was observed with fruit flies and peas and birds in the 19th century, these modifications can occur rapidly. Among mammals, such evolution takes much longer and hasn’t ever been humanly observed.

      The mythology (not a theological taboo) of the creation of Man is very likely to be true in the main, whether we read it in Genesis or elsewhere. At the same time, the details are unavailable to us, and likely to remain so.

      Let us trust God, Who loves us and gave us so much of Himself. He wants us all to return His love and come back to Him.

      We could choose not to return to our loving Creator, but that’s seriously contraindicated by what little we know of God through His own self-revelation.

      Trust in God, and be not afraid!

      • I would add to Monk James’s last sentence: “especially not of change.” I feel that the fear of change may be the elephant in the room in almost all opposition to theories of evolution. Many are frightened at the idea that dogs weren’t around in the world of Genesis, nor mules (let alone China or the Western Hemisphere in the world of the entire Bible).

        • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

          Defaulting to the psychological doesn’t shed any light. It merely casts the patina of your disapproval on those who disagree with you without having to engage their ideas.

          • No, Father Hans. My disapproval is of irrational disagreement with what I posit.. I think it would be foolish (and flout advice in the Book of Proverbs) to even appear to engage the irrational ideas of theirs. And defaulting to the psychological in such matters may shed light after all. And neither my disagreement nor my disapproval has a “patina” of any kind to cast over people.
            The patina of my disapproval! I’m going to put that one in my memoirs.

            • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

              So is the point that the challenges to evolution are not only predicated on fear, but that fear is also irrational? Or is that irrational ideas should not be engaged? This isn’t clear.

              I have no problem with not engaging irrational ideas. I do have a problem with deeming ideas irrational in order to avoid engaging them — you know, George Orwell, new speak, political correctness, and all that.

              The reason I ask is because you haven’t addressed the contradiction the lies at the heart of the evolutionary theory. (It’s a contradiction at the heart of philosophical materialism — Marxists believe ideas spontaneously generate from the brain matter and possess no reality). You’ve only signaled a vague disapproval so far (patina, not pointing finger).

              • Michael Bauman says

                Fr. Hans, there is one point that is missing from this discussion of evolution: Not only does evolutionary thought require that the creation, or natural world, be random, it also requires the order we see be spontaneously generated through that randomness, but that the order moves from less complex to more complex.

                Often times folks are sucked into believing that evolution is simply about the adaptation of an organism to its envirornment. If that were all evolution were about, I wouldn’t quibble too much.

                However, the real core of evolutionary thought is to argue that change occurs by random mutation from species to species in every increasing complexity. All rests on the supposition that positive genetic changes occur which result in the production on not only adapation to the environment, but new creatures all together. When applied theologically such thought has produced numerous heresies. Identity seems to be important to God. He is the I am.

                Human beings are human beings, fruit flies are fruit flies, ameobas are ameobas. Just because each has DNA and physical bodies does not mean there is any causative link between the them. Such inference of casuation is another fallacy of evolution, IMO. It is a logical fallacy to link casuation and co-incidence. Yet it goes on all the time within evolutionary thought. In fact, it seems to be a necessity.

                We have to be careful that we are using the word evolution with precision.

                So have the scientists that work with fruit flies ever seen them change into anything but fruit flies? Of course not, but according to evolution they will eventually have to see this type of change. How many generations does it take? How many millions of generations and forced mutations have gone on in such experiements?

                A God who creates 1. out of love without out necessity; and 2. Creates out of nothingness with His word as our theology states does not seem to me to be compatible in any way with a belief that creation happens in and through time random or not.

                • Michael is quite correct in his critique of the Macro-Evolutionary Myth that so many take as scientific “fact” and continue to perpetuate an out and out fraud. “Macro-evolution” (Darwinism) is not a proven theory, but a wildly speculative theory that looks at observable “micro-evolution” (= adaptation to the environment, variations within species, a proven and correct theory) and illogically extrapolates that extremely complicated order and super-structures happen by chance via random actions. This theory has never been observed to happen in nature, the fossil evidence does not support it, and no scientific experiment has shown or proven that it’s true. Huge difference!

                  All the fruit flies experiments have shown is that within the prescribed and existing DNA code of the fruit flies, some can adapt to their environment and change characteristics to improve their likelihood of survival and reproduction. But, and this is a one enormous BUT, the fruit flies remain fruit flies. So do the bacteria, amoebas, flies, mosquitoes, cockroaches (tens of millions of years old, wonder what stopped them from “evolving”), crocodiles, alligators, etc. and many others of living “fossils” (talk about a complete contradiction of the Darwinian assumption) who have remained unchanged or very little changed in the span of hundreds of millions of years (the Horseshoe Crab being one of the most glaring examples) we have discovered and continue to discover.

                  C.S. Lewis in his essay “The Funeral of a Great Myth” said it quite eloquently:

                  In the science, Evolution is a theory about changes: in the Myth it is a fact about improvements. Thus a real scientist like Professor J.B.S. Haldane is at pains to point out that popular ideas of Evolution lay a wholly unjustified emphasis on those changes which have rendered creatures (by human standards) ‘better’ or more interesting. He adds, ‘We are therefore inclined to regard progress as the rule in evolution. Actually it is the exception, and for every case of it there are ten of degeneration.’ But the Myth simply expurgates the ten cases of degeneration. In the popular mind the word ‘Evolution’ conjures up a picture of things moving ‘onward and upwards’, and of nothing else whatsoever. And it might have been predicted that it would do so. Already, before science had spoken, the mythical imagination knew the kind of ‘Evolution’ it wanted. It wanted the Keatsian and Wagnerian kind: the gods superseding the Titans, and the young, joyous, careless, amorous Siegfried superseding the care-worn, anxious, treaty-entangled Wotan. If science offers any instances to satisfy that demand, they will be eagerly accepted. If it offers any instances that frustrate it, they will simply be ignored.

                  Again, for the scientist Evolution is purely a biological theorem. It takes over organic life on this planet as a going concern and tries to explain certain changes within that field. It makes no cosmic statements, no metaphysical statements, no eschatological statements. Granted that we now have minds we can trust, granted that organic life came to exist, it tries to explain, say, how a species that once had wings came to lose them. It explains this by the negative effect of environment operating on small variations. It does not in itself explain the origin of organic life, nor of the variations, nor does it discuss the origin and validity of reason. It may well tell you how the brain, through which reason now operates, arose, but that is a different matter. Still less does it even attempt to tell you how the universe as a whole arose, or what it is, or whither it is tending.

                  But the Myth knows none of these reticences. Having first turned what was a theory of change into a theory of improvement, it then makes this a cosmic theory. Not merely terrestrial organisms but everything is moving ‘upwards and onwards’. Reason has ‘evolved’ out of instinct, virtue out of complexes, poetry out of erotic howls and grunts, civilization out of savagery, the organic out of the inorganic, the solar system out of some sidereal soup or traffic block. And conversely, reason, virtue, art and civilization as we now know them are only the crude or embryonic beginnings of far better things–perhaps Deity itself–in the remote future. For in the Myth, ‘Evolution’ (as the Myth understands it) is the formula for all existence. To exist means to be moving from the status of ‘almost zero’ to the status of ‘almost infinity’. To those brought up on the Myth nothing seems more normal, more natural, more plausible, than that chaos should turn to order, death into life, ignorance into knowledge. And with this we reach the full-blown Myth. It is one of the most moving and satisfying world dramas which have ever been imagined.

                  • From a Christian perspective (and we are Christians; are we not?) the elephant in the room of any evolutionary discussion that I have yet to hear anyone raise is DEATH – the very thing that our Lord came to annihilate in His humanity as Prophet, Priest and King in His love for all His creation.

                    For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now…”

                    The Apostle directly links the fate of all creation to the fate of humanity. As man’s nature became subject to the bondage of corruption in Adam, so all creation was also unwillingly subjected to the same. As we “who have the first-fruits of the Spirit” (who gives us a glimpse into the heights from which we have fallen and the glory to be revealed in us) groan within ourselves awaiting “the redemption of our bodies,” the fullness of the restoration of our nature in Christ, so also does all creation eagerly await the fullness of its own restoration to be realized through the saints in Him.

                    The love of God for all His creation and the length to which He has gone to abolish death calls into question any sort of evolutionary notions pertaining to the creation of matter, plants, animals, or man. For the foundational premise of all such theories is the blasphemous accusation that God created death and that death was active in the world prior to the sin of man. Building upon this premise the evolutionist posits a necessity for the development of biological mechanisms for survival within a hostile environment where the corruption of death is assumed. But our faith assumes no such thing. Being confessedly uninformed scientifically, I will neither question nor debate whether evolution has occurred since the fall of man. But Holy Scripture and our God-bearing Fathers clearly testify that prior to the sin of Adam which brought death into all the world, survival was simply not an issue. Everything in creation shared in the eternal life of God through man’s priestly communion with Him. Without death the entire concept of the necessity for survival is non-existent. The Personal presence and life-giving divine energy of God’s love can by no means constitute a hostile environment to a sinless world.

                    Here we are faced with a realm of possibilities that are entirely beyond the domain of science – yet revealed to us as historical reality. I use the word ‘revealed’ advisedly, for we know nothing of creation except that which God has chosen to reveal.

                • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

                  Thank you Michael and Chris.

            • Carl Kraeff says

              Your Grace–May I say something complimentary without being adjudged presumptuous?

              I wish I live as long as you and am as sharp as you when I get there, God willing of course.

    • Jane Rachel says

      Father Hans, I read the article, “Evolution and Me” by Gilder, and the reviews of the book you linked to.

      Please read http://reason.com/archives/2008/07/15/attack-of-the-super-intelligen/1.

      I found this excerpt interesting:

      The point of the foregoing is that intelligent design proponents do not have good answers to the questions I have posed. But evolutionary biologists do. In his new book, Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul, Brown University biologist Kenenth Miller argues, “Design rests ultimately on the claim of ignorance, upon the hope that science cannot show evolution to be capable of producing complex organs, assemblies of molecules, or novel biological information. If evolution cannot achieve that, the argument goes, then design must be the answer.

      “Since any field of biology, including evolution, is filled with unsolved problems, intelligent design can be invoked as the default explanation for any one of them,” adds Miller. “The hypothesis of design is compatible with any conceivable data, makes no testable predictions, and suggests no new avenues of research.”

      Ultimately, the intelligent design hypothesis just leaves everything up to the ineffable whims of the moral equivalent of super-intelligent purple space squids or whoever else is the alleged “source of design.”

      One addendum: During his presentations, Gilder claimed several times that evolutionary biology somehow undermined the notions of freedom and economics. He just couldn’t seem to get his head around the concept of bottom-up order. This so frustrated me that I eventually quipped, “Intelligent design is to evolutionary biology what socialism is to free-market economics.”

      • Sorry, for some reason that link doesn’t work. I hope this link works: http://reason.com/archives/2008/07/15/attack-of-the-super-intelligen/1

        More from Ronald Bailey’s article. Bailey is specifically addressing Steve Meyer and George Gilder (who wrote “Evolution and Me” linked to by Fr. Hans.

        Since micro-evolution, according to ID proponents such as Steve and George cannot lead to the creation of new species, then the purple space squid creators (or whomever) must create each new species individually. Trying to figure out how super-intelligent space alien creators go about creating individual species would be a fascinating question for intelligent design researchers to look into. Do the squid creators somehow tweak genes while embryos are developing in their eggs or in their mother’s wombs? Or do they work at the level of sperm and eggs before conception? Would the space squid creators use radiation to do this? Or chemical mutations? Or errors in genetic transcription? What’s their favorite method for producing new species? And most crucially, how would whatever processes the purple space squid have used to create tens of millions of new species over billions of years differ from the natural processes suggested by evolutionary biology?

        And there is yet another puzzle. Conservative super-intelligent purple space squid creators apparently recycle genes over and over again in new species. Biologists have found that many genes are like Animal Kingdom cassettes or Lego blocks: They can be mixed and matched across vastly different species. For example, biologists have shown that a gene crucial to building a fruit fly’s eye—the Pax-6 gene—will trigger eye development in a frog and a mouse. In addition, now that both the human and mouse genomes have been sequenced, researchers know that 99 percent of mouse genes are similar to those found in humans. Even more amazingly, 96 percent of the genes in both mice and men are present in the same order on their different genomes. Why would this be? A fascinating question for intelligent design researchers to answer is what constrains the super-intelligent purple space squid creators (or any other intelligent creator) to use the same genes over and over again in millions of species?

        • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

          Jane, I read the article and it doesn’t rise about the level of editorializing delivered with a sneer. I looked around for a vid or audio of the actual debate but could not find one. The only account I could find (the debate took place in 2008) was this one on a site called Evolution News and Views web site where, btw, the author agrees with my assessment of the Reason piece.

          Intelligent Design, Evolution, Information and Purple People Eaters

          • Jane Rachel says

            Rather a long post, sorry…

            Nice job skirting the questions, Father. Bailey didn’t say “purple people eaters,” he said, “purple space squid creators” and that for a reason. Whatever. Let’s take out the sneer, then, and address the questions.

            The fossil record clearly shows that fish appear before amphibians which appear before reptiles which appear before mammals. The first amphibians, appearing according to fossil records 390 million years ago, resemble Crossopterygian fish that were also alive at that time. These first amphibians had such characteristics as internal gills, fish-like skull bones, and—interestingly—eight digits just as the Crossopterygian fish did, instead of five as the thousands of later species of amphibians have. The fossil record shows that the first amphibians shared characteristics with fish. It also shows that some of the digits disappeared, so now there are the standard five digits.

            Interestingly, the fossils of early reptiles were still rather amphibian-like in their overall structure. Their legs were splayed out sideways, bellies just barely lifted from the ground, tails dragging behind—in short, a salamander-like gait until tens of thousands of new reptile species began to appear, which differed considerably from “the old sticks-in-the-mud amphibians.” including the dinosaurs.

            Starting with the mammal-like reptile Sphenacodon 270 million years, ago, fossil evidence shows the jawbones shrank over a period of about 70 million years, moving back toward the ear holes in the skulls of some of the thousands of increasingly mammal-like species that were appearing. There is fossil evidence of a tiny mammalian-type critter called Hadrocodium which had a single jawbone (like mammals do today) and three middle-ear bones (like mammals do today)., showing the development of inner earbones generated in a series of creatures through slow intermediate steps.

            When cataclysmic events happened they wiped out a huge percentage of all living species, yet the post-extinction species looked very much like earlier species that apparently survived the massive extinction events. What hypothesis do intelligent design proponents offer to explain this interesting observation of creative conservatism? Rather than creating each species individually, God “appears” to be a “progressive Creator,” bringing species into existence over and over again, forming each species so that it bears a striking resemblance to a species that has just gone extinct.

            Intelligent design proponents such as Steve Meyer and George Gilder insist that micro-evolution, which means any evolutionary change below the level of species, cannot lead to macroevolution, which means any evolutionary change at or above the level of species—which means at least the splitting of a species into two new species.

            Since micro-evolution, according to ID proponents, cannot lead to the creation of new species, ID proponents say that God must create each new species individually. How does God create individual species? Does He “tweak” genes while embryos are developing in their eggs or in their mother’s wombs? Or does He work at the level of sperm and eggs before conception? What does He use? Radiation? Or chemical mutations? Or errors in genetic transcription? How does He produce new species? And most crucially, how would whatever processes God used to create tens of millions of new species over billions of years differ from the natural processes suggested by evolutionary biology?

            And there is yet another puzzle. God apparently recycles genes over and over again in new species. Biologists have found that many genes are like Animal Kingdom cassettes or Lego blocks: They can be mixed and matched across vastly different species. For example, biologists have shown that a gene crucial to building a fruit fly’s eye—the Pax-6 gene—will trigger eye development in a frog and a mouse.

            In addition, now that both the human and mouse genomes have been sequenced, researchers know that 99 percent of mouse genes are similar to those found in humans. Even more amazingly, 96 percent of the genes in both mice and men are present in the same order on their different genomes. Why would this be? Why does God use the same genes over and over again in millions of species?

            Nearly all other mammals have genes—including the GLO gene—that synthesize Vitamin C in their livers. But in humans, there is a broken remnant of the GLO gene in our genomes. There is one group of mammals that share our inability to make vitamin C —orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and macques all have broken GLO genes. Even more interestingly, biologists have found that gorillas and chimpanzees have exactly the same errors in their GLO genes that people do. Why only humans and apes and not other mammals? Why do humans and apes have this “broken remnant of the GLO gene” in common? So why did God create those species along with us with exactly the same errors so that they and we could not produce vitamin C?

            There. Are you saying that all of the above scientific findings must be false? Then there’s Kenneth Miller’s book, “Only a Theory. Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul,” which Bailey credits at the end of his article. Kenneth Miller is, according to the reviews of his book, a devout Roman Catholic. He also wrote a book titled, Finding Darwin’s God. Think I’ll go order copies of both of these books…

            • Jane Rachel says
            • Geo Michalopulos says

              Jane R, the fossil record also shows massive discontinuities between species and remakable stasis throughout a species’ existence. Both Darwin and his disciple Thomas Huxley knew that the fossil record was unkind to Natural Selection, so much so that Huxley did everything but get on his knees and beg Darwin to modify his theory and allow for saltations. Darwin rebuffed him. He said basically, “yes, yes, I know that the fossil record is inimicable to my theory, but don’t worry old boy, have faith! Eventually the fossils will turn up!”

              Leaving aside the fact that tranistional life forms in the form of fossils haven’t turned up, what does the above tell us about Darwinism? That it’s scientific? Not if it’s based on “faith.”

              • Jane Rachel says

                George, I don’t need faith to become convinced by all I’ve read that evolution can’t be thrown out so easily. Your arguments have been answered again and again. Answers and rebuttals, reasoning and logic, science and study, increasing discoveries and well-presented evidence is everywhere available online for anyone to read, and not from small fry like you and me. I can easily find answers to all these points that you and others who reject evolution are making. You can reject them all, and drag out the old arguments all you like. Now that I finally have time and inclination to delve into the subject of evolution again, I’ve been searching, and finding answers.

                • Jane, I appreciate your honesty. Be sure to include the Holy Scriptures, the Church Fathers, and the liturgical Tradition of the Church in your searching. Knowing you to be a woman of faith, you will find the truth you seek. Knowing Truth is far less about “facts” than it is about our salvation.

            • It’s most ironic to hear Darwinists — who base their dogma on preposterous scenarios, on top of wild speculation, based on even more illogical thinking (random actions and chaos creating order, super-structures, life, and reason) and have NEVER once shown via even one single experiment or proven formula/process how evolution started or how it creates different species or found any existing fossil records that confirms transitional species — demand that ID proponents tell them how GOD created?

              How does God create individual species? Does He “tweak” genes while embryos are developing in their eggs or in their mother’s wombs? Or does He work at the level of sperm and eggs before conception? What does He use?

              We should also ask GOD how He created the laws of gravity, the strong and weak nuclear forces, electromagnetism, the Holy orders of Angels, etc… I’m sure He can send us His manual. Very funny!

              • Jane Rachel says

                Perhaps you missed his meaning, Chris. Bailey is asking ID proponents to ask themselves the question. Since evolution is false, how do ID scientists say all the millions upon millions of individual species come into being on this planet? Are there scientists who can answer this question without using evolution as part of the equation, or without saying “God did it and that settles it” as you just did? Your reply, “God does it however He wants, stupid!” doesn’t answer anything.

                • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

                  Jane, you are misunderstanding Bailey. He is not addressing how organisms came into being, he is arguing that natural selection is not a random process but directed by the laws that govern matter.

                  Bailey says laws exist that govern the development of organisms. If those laws are not the property of matter, then they exist above and apart from it. Laws can’t guide the development of organisms if they are derived from the matter of the organisms they guide — the condition that the evolutionary creation story demands we accept.

                  In affirming that laws govern matter, Bailey concedes an overarching logic — a design. Bailey may not realize it but he has struck at the heart of the evolutionary creation myth by undermining the materialist assumptions upon which it is built. The universe, he has come to discover, is not random after all.

                  The article tells me that the sheer unsustainability of the myth is becoming more evident even to committed evolutionists. Bailey is trying to avoid the collapse by rewriting the definitions. In reality we are witnessing the demotion of evolution from a primary theory into a subset of design theory.

                  The next step will be to discover if it even functions coherently as a subset.

                  Design doesn’t prove the existence of God. You are correct about that. But keep in mind science can’t do that. In the end it will not have much to say about origins at all simply because that kind of knowledge lies beyond the limits of what it can reveal (Darwinian evolution is an arrogant overreach).

                  Design, however, does counter the belief that the universe is random and natural selection is a random process. (These two conditions are necessary for the evolutionary myth to hold together, Bailey’s redefinitions notwithstanding.) In the end we will see that the evolutionary myth is false, something on the order of Athena leaping from the head of Zeus.

                  • Jane Rachel says

                    Fr. Hans, you misunderstand Bailey. I suspect he’s an atheist , and I suspect he would not like having you decide what he’s **really** saying, and then use *that* to discredit him. So, rather than doing what you have done, I searched “atheist” and “random universe” . Here’s a good reply related to your comment, with which I suspect he would not disagree.

                    • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

                      Whether Bailey is a believer or an atheist is irrelevant. The point you need to address is that Bailey, by asserting that physical laws affect the development of organisms, undermines the foundational premise of the evolutionary hypothesis that the universe is random.

                      The laws imply logic and order. So where did this logic and order come from? If the universe is random, are the laws a property of the matter? If not, then the laws pre-existed matter and the universe is not random. If the universe is not random, then the evolutionary hypothesis falls. If they are the property of matter, then they aren’t really laws (not even an evolutionist would argue that).

                      See the problem that Bailey has uncorked?

                    • Jane Rachel says

                      No. Could you tell me again, in your own words? I’m kidding!

                    • Jane Rachel says

                      Well, atheism=evolutionism, in your view. Not in my view, nor many, many others’ but in yours. Here is one reply to your insistence that evolutionatheism requires a random universe or the whole thing falls to pieces. I didn’t want to cut and paste the entire answer, did you read it? Here’s one paragraph from that link. Don’t get nervous about me quoting atheists, now. I just think it’s a good reply to your repeated insistence that evolutionists believe evolution requires a random universe. Even atheists don’t believe in a “random” universe; at least, not the way you would define “random.”

                      “What many religious theists seem to mean is that atheists’ belief require a universe without order — that randomness entails disorder — and that therefore the existence of order in the universe means that some god (preferably their god) must exist. The equation of randomness with disorder is incorrect and this is why the above claim amounts to a myth: atheists’ beliefs do not entail that the universe be disordered and order can in fact arise spontaneously, without any directed intervention from a conscious being.

                      Atheists do not deny that the universe has order, structure, and patterns. What atheists deny, and science supports them in this, is the idea that order, structure, and patterns are incompatible with randomness or that they require the prior presence of some “designer” for them to exist. A structured, ordered universe can be random in some aspects, does not need any sort of god to explain how it originated, and does not need any sort of god to explain why it continues to exist now.”

                    • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

                      Atheism=evolution? Not at all. Whether or not an evolutionist or design person is an atheist or believer is fundamentally irrelevant. You are a Christian and an evolutionist while David Berlinski is a design proponent and an agnostic.

                      That’s the flaw in the polemic you quoted above. It’s not a scientific argument. It’s not even a coherent theological argument. It just reads like a run of the mill atheist apologetic.

                      Look, evolution demands a random universe. Read the theory. Study it. It’s the only way that natural selection makes sense.That Bailey and other evolutionists are now arguing that it does not just illustrates that the theory isn’t holding together anymore. It is being demoted to a subset of design.

                    • Jane Rachel says

                      Speaking of Berlinski. Did you know he said he was a crank? The “Panda’s Thumb” web site, on this page, has quoted him as saying, “Look, it’s one thing to say that someone like me is a crank. That’s fine because it’s true.” Isn’t it terrible when people quote people out of context? Speaking of that, on a youtube video, Berlinkski stated, “… von Neumann, one of the great mathematicians of the 20th century, just laughed at Darwinian theory. He hooted at it.”

                      NO, von Neuman DID NOT laugh at Darwinian theory! Intelligent Design sites (mis)quoted von Neumann as saying, “I shudder at the thought that highly purposive organizational elements, like the protein, should originate in a random process.” Von Neuman’s words were twisted and taken out of context. And here is proof. What an interesting read, from top to bottom, including comments. I highly recommend it.

                    • Jane Rachel says

                      Von Neumann. Two “n”s.

                • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

                  Bailey is asking ID proponents to ask themselves the question. Since evolution is false, how do ID scientists say all the millions upon millions of individual species come into being on this planet?

                  The answer lies beyond the purview of science. If the lumbering and ponderous (philosophical) materialism upon which the evolutionary myth rises and falls tells us anything it is this: we need to be more humble about the claim that science is the key to all understanding.

                  No matter what sweeping cosmological schemes we construct or what grand axioms we posit to explain them (the universe is random, only empirical knowledge is true knowledge, death is an engine of progress, etc.), myth is still myth and Babel is still Babel.

                  Once science is freed from the shackles of this myth, it may reveal knowledge we did not dream was possible. Watch the myth makers though. Science and myth are two different things.

                • Geo Michalopulos says

                  Jane, ID proponents have never said that “evolution is false.” That’s a straw man. ID theorists merely posit that the evidence for biogenesis must be open to all observable, verifiable possibilities. If Design is apparent then it cannot be unscientific or rejected out of hand. It must be investigated, that’s all. In good scientific research, investigators go (or should go) wherever the evidence leads them.

                  Let me go further, the a priori rejection of design because the reigning paradigm demands it is no more scientific than Ptolemaic mechanics. The expulsion of
                  Bill Dembski from Baylor in the 1990s is no different than the expulsion of Galileo from Padua in the 1600s.

            • If Darwin was correct, then scores of transitional animal forms must exist in the geological record. However, as Phillip E. Johnson points out:

              The fossil evidence is very difficult to reconcile with the Darwinist scenario. If all living species descended from common ancestors by an accumulation of tiny steps, then there once must have existed a veritable universe of transitional intermediate forms liking the vastly different organisms of today… with their hypothetical common ancestors.

              Such evidence simply does not exist. According to Cornelius G. Hunter:

              The observed fossil pattern is invariably not compatible with a gradualistic evolutionary process. The fossil record does not reveal a pattern of accumulated small-change…. New species appear fully formed, as though planted there, and they remain unchanged for eons.

              In the face of such convincing evidence, one would expect evolutionary scientists to acknowledge some serious flaws in their theories. After all, science should be about searching for the truth. Unfortunately, Johnson notes:

              When the fossil record does not provide the evidence that naturalism would like to see, it is the fossil record, and not the naturalistic explanation, that is judged to be inadequate.
              Instead of admitting the problems and allowing for criticism, the Darwinist establishment ignores the data and muzzles the dissenters, choosing to discredit the messengers rather than face reality.

              Even Darwin himself had serious doubts about his theories and ideas (essentially saying the same thing as Johnson and Hunter (surprise, surprise!):

              Firstly, why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion instead of species being, as we see them, well defined?

              “The number of intermediate varieties which have formerly existed on earth must be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory.” – Charles Darwin 1902 edition.

              Ooops! Time for Darwinists to actually PRACTICE what we call SCIENCE, you know the one based on actual repeatable experiments, valid formulas/equations, objective observation, truth, and logic!

            • I suspect none of us should claim to understand too much of anything in creation except for the truth that it is THEO-logical rather than merely GEO-logical, or BIO-logical.

              “He that liveth for ever Hath created all things in general. The Lord only is righteous, and there is none other but he, who governeth the world with the palm of his hand, and all things obey his will: for he is the King of all… To whom hath he given power to declare his works? And who shall find out his noble acts? Who shall number the strength of his majesty? And who shall also tell out his mercies? As for the wondrous works of the Lord, there may nothing be taken from them, neither may any thing be put unto them, neither can the ground of them be found out. When a man hath done, then he beginneth; and when he leaveth off, then he shall be doubtful.

              “I will now remember the works of the Lord, and declare the things that I have seen: In the words of the Lord are his works… The Lord hath not given power to the saints to declare all his marvelous works, which the Almighty Lord firmly settled, that whatsoever is might be established for his glory. He seeketh out the deep, and the heart, and considereth their crafty devices: for the Lord knoweth all that may be known, and he beholdeth the signs of the world. He declareth the things that are past, and for to come, and revealeth the steps of hidden things…

              “Oh how desirable are all his works! And what a man may see is even but a spark. All these things live and remain for ever for all uses, and they are all obedient. All things are double one against another: and he hath made nothing imperfect. One thing establisheth the good or another: and who shall be filled with beholding his glory?

              “The pride of the height, the clear firmament, the beauty of heaven, with his glorious show. The sun when it appeareth, declaring at his rising a marvelous instrument, the work of the most High… Great is the Lord that made it; and at his commandment runneth hastily. He made the moon also to serve in her season for a declaration of times, and a sign of the world… The beauty of heaven, the glory of the stars, an ornament giving light in the highest places of the Lord. At the commandment of the Holy One they will stand in their order, and never faint in their watches. Look upon the rainbow, and praise him that made it; very beautiful it is in the brightness thereof. It compasseth the heaven about with a glorious circle, and the hands of the most High have bended it…

              We may speak much, and yet come short: wherefore in sum, he is all. How shall we be able to magnify him? For he is great above all his works. The Lord is terrible and very great, and marvelous is his power. When ye glorify the Lord, exalt him as much as ye can; for even yet will he far exceed: and when ye exalt him, put forth all your strength, and be not weary; for ye can never go far enough.

              Who hath seen him, that he might tell us? And who can magnify him as he is? There are yet hid greater things than these be, for we have seen but a few of his works. For the Lord hath made all things; and to the godly hath he given wisdom.”
              The Wisdom of Sirach

              It would seem that whatever there is in creation that we can even begin to grasp with our minds is but an infinitesimal portion of the truth.

          • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

            Jane, you didn’t post any questions. You posted a reaction to a debate, one which I tried to locate to understand the Reason piece in order to give it a responsible answer. I couldn’t find it.

            I’m not going to react to a reaction. There is no point without knowing the context that generated it in the first place.

            How about extracting the questions you want answered and asking them yourself? That way you do your homework and I do mine.

            • Jane Rachel says

              Fr. Hans. You did not address any of Bailey’s points, nor answer his questions, nor my question, which was, “Are you saying all those scientific findings are false?” You simply dismissed me, and Bailey, with more of your condescending shrugs. In fact, you don’t need to bother to address his points, or Kenneth Miller’s writings, or any of the massive amount of writings and findings, evidence and records. I can read all the ID arguments against evolution online.

              In my postings, I also linked to Kenneth Miller’s book. Here are more interesting and informative links:
              http://www.aclu.org/files/evolution/statements/miller.pdf

              http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/

              http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2pZRyVX9bY

              http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

              http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/search/topicbrowse2.php?topic_id=46

              I liked this quote by Richard Feynman, from 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution:
              The Scientific Case for Common Descent
              :

              “… there are many reasons why you might not understand [an explanation of a scientific theory] … Finally, there is this possibility: after I tell you something, you just can’t believe it. You can’t accept it. You don’t like it. A little screen comes down and you don’t listen anymore. I’m going to describe to you how Nature is – and if you don’t like it, that’s going to get in the way of your understanding it. It’s a problem that [scientists] have learned to deal with: They’ve learned to realize that whether they like a theory or they don’t like a theory is not the essential question. Rather, it is whether or not the theory gives predictions that agree with experiment. It is not a question of whether a theory is philosophically delightful, or easy to understand, or perfectly reasonable from the point of view of common sense. [A scientific theory] describes Nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And it agrees fully with experiment. So I hope you can accept Nature as She is – absurd.

              I’m going to have fun telling you about this absurdity, because I find it delightful. Please don’t turn yourself off because you can’t believe Nature is so strange. Just hear me all out, and I hope you’ll be as delighted as I am when we’re through. ”

              – Richard P. Feynman (1918-1988),
              from the introductory lecture on quantum mechanics reproduced in QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (Feynman 1985).

              Facts are facts. If evolution is true, then it’s true. You can deny it until the cows come home, you can get mad, you can throw it on the trash heap. If it’s not true, that’s fine with me, but you Intelligent Design people are going to have to do better than you’ve done so far. You can believe you can’t be wrong. You can say the facts are not facts. You can call biologist Kenneth Miller’s writings “baloney” as the lawyer Philip E. Johnson did here. But in the end, it’s not much different from insisting the earth does not revolve around the sun, even thought it does. Anyone can write anything they want to, if they use the right kinds of words, to convince people that what they are saying is true. For a while, Henry Morris was on the Christian “Throne of Origins.” Oops.

              God can do anything He wants. If He wants to use evolution, I guess He can. If He wants to create matter and energy, thereby bringing into being the causes that make matter and energy act the way they do (which man labels “the laws of physics”), He can.

            • Jane Rachel says

              What “reaction to a debate”? Bailey participated in the debate with Michael Shermer for evolution, and Meyer and Gilder for Intelligent Design. That is the context. Bailey’s article is taken from his presentation at that debate.

              • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

                Jane, I can’t evaluate the reaction until I see the debate. That’s simple arithmetic.

                If you have specific questions or points you want to make, then your job is to extract them and post them.

                One more thing:

                God can do anything He wants. If He wants to use evolution, I guess He can. If He wants to create matter and energy, thereby bringing into being the causes that make matter and energy act the way they do (which man labels “the laws of physics”), He can.

                If God wanted to make cows fly, they would fly. But they don’t. Evolutionary theory is one way to look at the operations of the material creation, design another. One thing we do know is that they both can’t be true.

                What if evolution turns out to be a modern equivalent of the flat earth theory?

      • Fr. Hans Jacobse says

        Jane, I need a little time to read and digest the article. I’ll answer your questions about it after that.

        In the meantime, don’t forget that evolutionary theory attempts to explain why the universe is self-evidently ordered and complex. It just attributes that ordering and complexity to random chance using natural selection as the mechanism that brings it about. But this claim is an article of faith — a metaphysical statement rather than a scientific one.

        Put more simply, evolution theory merely attempts to explain design. Listen closely to the reasons that evolutionists give for why particular traits developed. It is always given in terms of their functional use, their place in a larger design.

        Design, then, doesn’t really stand as a counter theory to evolution. It merely asserts that evolutionary theory, particularly a random universe and natural selection, fails as an explanation on how an ordered universe developed from an unordered one, and how complex organisms came into being.

        It goes back to the question about where did the laws that govern matter come from? Did they arise from the matter itself (the only possible conclusion the evolutionary hypothesis allows), or did they prexist matter? If they preexisted matter, then design is a given since a governing logic implies design.

        The question following that would be: if the universe is random, then how and at what point did it become complex and ordered? Evolutionary scientists cannot answer this without threatening the presupposition that the universe is random. If that presupposition falls, so does the entire hypothesis.

        • Jane Rachel says

          Here is a link to a good interview NOVA had with Kenneth Miller. Please read this interview even if you don’t read any of the other links I’ve posted (I just posted a long comment with links, but it’s awaiting moderation because of the links). Here’s an excerpt:

          Q (NOVA):”Another criticism often made is that all this couldn’t just have happened by random chance.”

          A (Miller): “One of the great mischaracterizations of evolution is that it’s driven by random chance, that things just happen. People like to say, “I don’t like to believe that I’m just an accident.” Well, you’re not. What evolution says is that the variation that crops up in a species is indeed unpredictable. We can’t be sure what will happen next. But that doesn’t mean it’s random.
          To me, the word “random” means anything can happen. But the reality is that evolutionary change is restricted. It’s restricted by the laws of physics and chemistry. It’s restricted by the nature of molecular biology. It’s restricted by the constraints of developmental biology during development. Most importantly, evolutionary change is governed by natural selection, and natural selection is not a random process at all. Natural selection selects for successful phenotypes, for successful combinations of characteristics that actually work, and that’s not random at all.”

          • Geo Michalopulos says

            Just so we all know, Kenneth Miller is a Christian. He is also an evolutionist. What he doesn’t know is that the rabid materialists disdain him and consider no more than a useful idiot. For that matter, Stephen Jay Gould (an atheist and evolutionist also) was considered a fool by the strident materialists because he always was looking for common ground with believers. His “non-overlapping magesteria” (NOMA) was a joke and they rightly took him to task for wasting his time with believers.

            Dawkins, Dennett, Ruse, and the late Christopher Hitchens were all correct in this regard: if materialism is correct then all efforts must be made to eradicate belief in any type of spirituality. Going to symposia with weak or marginal theists in order to quiet the fears of Christians is a waste of time.

            • Thanks, George, for your comments. Mucho appreciated. By the way, on a personal note, I’m not an “evolutionist.” I’m still not anywhere near settling down into a comfort zone on any of that.

  43. cynthia curraWen says

    Well, some on the far left don’t like Darwin since he favored more of a market economy. Stephan Gould for example. Darwin probably didn’t support the libertarin views of Ron Paul which don’t get rid of the black market since countries that legalized sex selling and drugs that have a lot of crimmal elements in them. Also, employing people by making them take on a high debt to have a job is wrong as well.

    • Why in the world would anybody be concerned with what ‘some on the far left” like or don’t like?
      Darwin “didn’t support the…views of Ron Paul?” Black martket.
      What is all this, the result of substance abuse?

  44. Michael Bauman says

    Carl said:

    Father Hans–I guess I was too cryptic. Here is my reasoning:

    God’s law=natural law
    science=those aspects of natural law that are understood at any given time
    miracles=those aspects of natural law that are not understood at any given time

    So man’s understanding becomes the primary criteria for creation. Your reasoning still leaves no room for God in His creation and therefore no room for the Incarnation and salvation. It is simply a restatement of the belief that the more we understand, the less we need God.

    The bottom line: The god of evolution is not the God of the Bible nor the God we are commanded to worship rightly.

    • Carl Kraeff says

      You can add a fourth equation: EVERYTHING IS FROM AND BY GOD. Is that better for you?

      • Michael Bauman says

        No, because it still allows for a God that is separate from His creation. The God we worship is “everywhere present and fills all things…” and in fact took on our very nature and still has it. He is intimately personal and overwhelmingly transcendent at the same time. Evolution and natural law are simply ways of thinking that allow us to ignore both realities and live as if He did not exist at all even as we ‘worship’ Him.

        The god of evolution is not the self-revealed God the Bible and the Church. The god of evolution is not the Holy Trinity and our Incarnate Lord and savior. There is no salvation in evolution just death and annihilation.

        • Michael Bauman says:
          February 21, 2012 at 5:15 pm
          “There is no salvation in evolution just death and annihilation.”
          And extinction.

        • Carl Kraeff says

          “No, because it still allows for a God that is separate from His creation. The God we worship is “everywhere present and fills all things…”

          I am sorry that you interpret my equation this way. When I said “Everything is from God and by God,’ I had thought that I was saying something very close, if not identical, to what you said.

          • Michael Bauman says

            Carl, I know you think that, but here is my difficulty: if natural law is equated with God’s law, that means that God is accessible to the complete understanding and maniupulation of man’s mind–especially when you add the 3rd line about miracles being natural law we don’t yet understand.

            Natural law can be a good tool at times, but it is not a comprehensive approach to God, His works and His will. The more comphrensive one allows natural law to become, the less God has to do with us and the rest of His creation. Among other things, there is too much assumption of causal realtionships where no such cause-effect exists.

            That seems to unsettle some folks and suggests to them an un-tethered, randomness that is not the case at all. God is not capricious, but that does not mean that we can rationally even begin to comprehend Him–a little, yes, as He allows, but only a little to lead us more deeply into the experience of the heart where there is the ineffeable communion He wishes to have with us.

            The great saints live there, the rest of us–well not so much least of all me–especially when we allow worldly rationalism to cloud our vision. We all live in that cloud, that is why Jesus tells us “My Kingdom is not of this world”.

            Evolution as a mechanism of specization and increasing complexity of life–even if God started it—rules out everything we Orthodox say we believe: The Holy Tinity, the Incarnation, the Cross, the grave, the glorious third day resurection and His return to judge the living and the dead.

            • Carl Kraeff says

              “Carl, I know you think that, but here is my difficulty: if natural law is equated with God’s law, that means that God is accessible to the complete understanding and manipulation of man’s mind–especially when you add the 3rd line about miracles being natural law we don’t yet understand.”

              I think there is huge leap in logic here. Unless one considers unstated premises, it just does not follow that “God is accessible to the complete understanding and manipulation of man’s mind.” First, God’s law is not the same as God; His laws and will govern his creation, whether we understand them or not. Second, since they are His laws, there is no way that we can manipulate them; we can reject them, try to get around them, or even try to manipulate them–we will not change them. Third, His laws are indeed accessible to understanding but that is in theory only. In practice, our very nature and behavior would preclude such complete understanding. I will give you an example. For many a moon (pun intended), man has tried to figure out God’s time and to superimpose a man-made calendar upon it–not to manipulate time but to depict it as accurately as possible, without making it too complicated for practical use. Right now, there are many Orthodox Churches who still use a man-made calendar that not only fails its mission but continues to get worse because of various reasons (a revision that was made in 1920’s was made improperly, it is a Roman Catholic innovation, it is the ecumenist camel’s nose in the tent, the current calendar was hallowed by a Council or by past usage, etc…). So, you see that we are simply not capable of reaching a complete understanding in a matter that is as simple as a calendar, let alone in weightier matters.