About what you might say? Before I answer that question, I’d like to draw your attention to this story from Helleniscope. https://www.helleniscope.com/2022/11/20/ab-makarios-of-the-ep-band-of-thieves-causes-deep-divisions-in-australia/
You see, His Eminence, Archbishop Makarios of Australia, just awarded that Archdiocese’s the highest honor to Senator Andrew Bragg.
Now, you’re probably thinking to yourself, “well, he probably did that because he’s a renowned Greco-Australian philanthropist (or something like that).”
Except that he isn’t.
You see, he’s not Greek. Or Orthodox. Or a philanthropist. He’s not even a catechumen.
So, perhaps he’s a Senator who did something beneficial for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia? No, it wasn’t that either. Nor was it the default sycophancy that some bishops and priests of the Ecumenical Patriarchate are known for that matter. (Like, remember that time when Fr Alex Karloutsos, the Vicar-general of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America kissed Gov Andrew Cuomo’s hand?)
Not really. Not this time. You see, His Excellency, the good Senator, led the way in 2017 in making gay “marriage” legal in good ole Oz. In a land known for its Crocodile Dundee-like machismo, that’s kind of an audacious thing to do. So there’s that, I suppose. Otherwise, I have absolutely no idea what the legalization of homosexual nuptials has to do with Orthodox Christianity, whether north of the equator or south of it.
Sooooo, if had to speculate, I’d say that Archbishop Makarios is bestowing the Greek Archdiocese of Australia’s highest award on Senator Bragg, because, you know, he, er (how shall I put this delicately) made it easy for Vasili and Manoli to “tie the knot” –so to speak–in the land Down Under.
Anyhoooo, if you were wondering which side of the fence the Ecumenical Patriarchate is on the great cultural issues of the day (you know the one I’m talking about), I guess you don’t really have to wonder any longer.
As far as the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America is concerned, Archbishop Elpidophoros has been telegraphing his pro-Alphabet People (thank you, Dave Chapelle!) sympathies ever since he got here. Who can forget the Liturgy held at St Bartholomew’s Church in Manhattan, festooned as it was with all the sodomite memorabilia during Gay Pride Month? Then there was the Big Fat Gay Greek Wedding last Summer. So between Sydney and New York, we could be looking at a “one-two punch” in favor of normalizing homosexuality in the various eparchies of the Greek Orthodox Church.
That’s my 2 cents. I guess I could be wrong. (But I doubt it.)
It is probably more about this.
A simple “thank you” rarely suffices in Phanariot circles. No, they always seem to find it necessary to ingratiate themselves to those with worldly power regardless of what evils they promote. What is “moral” and laudable is whatever advances the agenda.
Do you think the members of the Greek Archdiocese accept willgay marriage? I bet they do. People have lost their courage. They are already conditioned by governments.
They’ll sneak it in as they’ve hinted in the past. It will start with communing the spouses of the Orthodox “to be more family friendly.” Then when two gay people marry outside the Church they’ll commune the spouse. Then they’ll drop the pretense altogether and just marry them in the Church.
Well, the sort of open-secret is that most of the hierarchs are sexually compromised. And many east coast clergy reportedly attend after-hours nightclubs and what’s associated with after-hours nightclub life.
Please expand on the comment about east coast clergy.
Revelation 2:5 – Repent or I will remove your lampstand.
I admit I’m fearful of what might happen if the church continues to embrace this wickedness.
Do you think the members of the Greek Archdiocese will accept will gay marriage? I bet they do. People have lost their courage. They are already conditioned by governments.
A link that works:
https://neoskosmos.com/en/2020/01/29/news/australia/suspect-criticism-levelled-at-archbishop-makarios-for-honouring-senator/
I await with cautious optimism the mighty works of God in the religious and political realms. However, in the meantime, it is analogous to some post apocalyptic dystopia.
As Jim Jatras said (in his latest speech to the Ron Paul Institute): “I’m cautiously pessimistic about the future.”
George,
Which Alphabet people?
The ones that say……
R E P E N T ?
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhoot, I’m wrong again,
aren’t I?
It seems to me that as Brian said; Greek hierarchs are looking to have political influence. The problem is that their minds are conforming to the world and not Christ. Orthodox Christians should be the “Loyal Opposition” and not seek to be “power”!
The Helleniscope article gives this official reason for the award:
A source within the Archdiocese told Neos Kosmos that Senator Bragg was honoured for his services to the Archdiocese of Australia.
The source said that Senator Bragg had intervened with the government to amend legislation and enable the Archdiocese to invite clergy to Australia.
The senator had also helped the Archbishop himself to receive his permanent residence after the primate had come into Australia on a tourist visa. With the senator’s help Archbishop Makarios was able to assume his duties in Australia following his appointment six months ago.
The Helleniscope article gives this official reason for the award (quote tags fixed):
“A source within the Archdiocese told Neos Kosmos that Senator Bragg was honoured for his services to the Archdiocese of Australia. The source said that Senator Bragg had intervened with the government to amend legislation and enable the Archdiocese to invite clergy to Australia. The senator had also helped the Archbishop himself to receive his permanent residence after the primate had come into Australia on a tourist visa. With the senator’s help Archbishop Makarios was able to assume his duties in Australia following his appointment six months ago.”
This award happened almost three years ago, in Jan 2020. Why is Helleniscope digging this up again? The current disagreements that Helleniscope cites with Archbishop Makarios have nothing to do with that award, and especially nothing at all to do with “gay” marriage.
All true, apparently, and a simple sincere thank you would have sufficed.
But no, the man who is most infamous for leading the effort to legitimize so-called “marriage” between homosexuals in defiance of Orthodox teaching (to say nothing of Greek Orthodox culture), and contrary to the efforts of the previous Greek Archbishop of Australia was proclaimed “A lover of Christ” and made a “Grand High Commander” of the archdiocese.
“Ye adulteresses! Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore would be a friend of the world maketh himself an enemy of God.”
In the famous words of Dr. Steve Turley: “everything woke turns to sh**”
Which apparently also applies to entire patriarchates as the EP proves time and again.
And the sad thing is, Makarios is one of the best that patriarchate has to offer.
But, to play devils advocate he did participate in the protests against legalization of abortion in Australia that many Greek Orthodox attended.
Has anyone read about the Marriage bill that is now in the Senate?
Only this, that according to Nick Stamatakis (quoting Dick Morris), this is going to be used to go after trads who believe in the male/female binary.
In reading this “Act” I have two concerns.
The act purports to protect religious organizations and their employees from its effects, but it’s protection of individuals is extremely vague to the point of practical non-existence. In other words, it only seems to exempt what goes on “within the walls” (as it were) of churches, religious schools, etc.
It expressly empowers the antorney general or any individual to file suit against anyone if they believe their rights under the act were violated.
Thus, it seems to me that it opens the door very widely to legal harassment.
You all can read the bill here:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/8404/text
The restriction of marriage to only 2 individuals seems pretty arbitrary by this point, at least as far as the Senate’s reasoning is concerned. If sex and gender are suddenly no longer relevant factors in ascertaining whether something is a marriage (and the Federal government will come after any state that tries to keep them relevant!)…then what guarantees that the limitation to 2 individuals will still be relevant tomorrow?
If marriage is whatever the U.S. Congress says it is, the sky’s the limit.
Then man created God in their own image…
Jeff, interestingly, this thing happened right after the Mormon Church got their latest revelation that it’s perfectly OK for Willard and Lorenzo to get legally married so they can do the horizontal bop.
Word on the street is that now they are going to relegalize polygamy sooner or later.
Convenient how they have these “revelations”. Like just after the civil rights movement began, their leader suddenly had a revelation that blacks were now eligible to be full fledged Mormons. I went back on my own word and voted for Romney back in the day. Never again.
Now I’m rethinking what I’ve always assumed about Reynolds v. United States (1879), the case where the Supreme Court upheld a Federal law that prohibited polygamy—the Mormons’ First Amendment rights notwithstanding.
It just seems like common sense, right? Rule of law, good; polygamy, bad. But that case set a sinister precedent where the U.S. government gets to say what marriage is and criminalize those who dissent, and their right to religious freedom gives them no protection!
If the First Amendment doesn’t help those whose religion mandates polygamy, why would we imagine that (150 years later) it’ll help those whose religion opposes polygamy—after the Federal weathervane swings around to that?
God so ordained it that the male/female
ratio of Mankind is roughly in balance.
In other words, for every man there is a woman.
The practice of polygamy disrupts that balance;
leading to the increase of deviant behaviours.
The Supreme Court was right to prohibit it.
Polygamy will, of necessity, be next, along with the devil knows what. If one accepts LGBTQ(…. ) it is inevitable. They won’t be able to deny the B’s their “rights” as long as the G’s and L’s have theirs.
This, by the way, is something that sympathizers with the (cough!) ‘theology’ of OID conveniently ignore, for the time being anyway. They always speak of their great sympathy for LGBTQ +++people and their ‘needs,’ but their mad theologizing doesn’t address the B’s.
Brian “Polygamy will, of necessity, be next, along with the devil knows what. ”
I see it as a process of dechristianization. As Christianity is eroding, it is natural that pagan morals return. It is unavoidable in my opinion.
Christians in the West will be a marginal sect, like Zoroastrians.
CNN: “The Mormon church will no longer consider
same-sex couples “apostates” and will allow their children to be
baptized into the church without special approval from church leaders,
the church said in a surprise announcement Thursday.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/04/us/mormon-lgbt-policy/index.html
‘Their children?’ They believe in miracles, then…
As others have said…limiting marriage to only 2 individuals is blatant discrimination against bisexuals. Why shouldn’t they be just as free as straight and gay people to love whom they choose?
(Tongue firmly in cheek…except that satire has a way of rapidly turning into reality, these days.)
In this document, marriage is between two individuals. No age limit is specified. That seems to open a Pandora’s box of problems. Can someone in one state marry a child of 10 and it be legal in all states, for example?
It doesn’t open a Pandora’s box, because the box has always been open. The Federal government defers to states, and several states still have no statutory minimum age for marriage when all exemptions are applied. This is really a case of where the laws of ‘the good old days’ have not caught up to ‘modern sensibilities’. Almost all child marriages are of very young girls to much older men. Resistance to outlawing child marriages doesn’t come from the LGTBQ community, but conservative religious communities. Sadly, Christians in America mostly choose to refuse to believe it happens, or is legal, rather than police their own.
That’s not true Nate. All states allow for “underage” exemptions for marriage if the bride-to-be is already pregnant and the wedding is performed to prevent the scandal of illegitimacy. This cuts out all pre-pubescent girls since they can’t get pregnant anyway.
I suggest doing some more research on the topic, the results will probably surprise and disgust you! In many states it is less of an ‘avoiding illegitimacy’ exemption and more of a ‘avoiding statutory rape’ loophole. One recent piece of reading, that rounds up a few other reports:
https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(21)00341-4/fulltext
This is correct, more or less, George. All states have minimum age of consent laws. Some laws have what are referred to as Romeo and Juliet exemptions/exceptions. But, as a practical matter, they exclude marriages to prepubescent girls. The R@J exceptions simply control for the situation where a 17 year old male impregnates, say, a 15 year old female, then, often with parental consent, the couple can be married. But that’s the long and short of it.
However, marriage itself is a more complicated matter. Nate has a point on this one: https://www.tahirih.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/State-Statutory-Compilation_Final_July-2019_Updated.pdf
“if the bride-to-be is already pregnant and the wedding is performed to prevent the scandal of illegitimacy”
Not only that, if for example a 14 years old girl is pregnant with a 15 years boy, and they love each other, they may marry. The consent of their parents is required, who will take the responsibility for this couple of minors.
Just the common sense. In preindustrial times it was quite normal, Romeo was 16, Julia 13. Marie Antionette was 14, Jadwiga of Poland was 13 (Jadwiga was not a pushover – at 14 she led Polish army against Hungary).