It used to be that when one was called a liberal, it meant someone who was willing to consider both sides of an issue. That is no longer the case, as is abundantly clear.
In the secular sphere, herculean efforts are being undertaken to shut down free speech on the Internet. Even the President of the United States is being put into a blackout mode so that he cannot communicate with the world.
Things are only slightly less totalitarian in the spiritual sphere. Though not for a lack of trying.
George Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou, for instance, the two “leading lights” of liberal Greek Orthodoxy, are doing their best to get Rod Dreher’s upcoming speech at St Vladimir’s Seminary cancelled. I guess because the grown men and women who attend St Vlad’s are too immature to hear an open and honest debate. Their feelings might get hurt. A free exchange of ideas is now verbotten on the typical American campus. Oh well, there’s always trade schools.
Demacopoulos and Papanikolaou don’t have this problem, as both men are safely ensconced at Fordham University, where the freedom of expression runs from the far Left to the extreme Left.
In any event, I am hoping that St Vlad’s will stand up to this type of cultural brown-shirtery and allow Rod to give his lecture. So far so good.
For information to sign up for his lecture, please click on the following: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/rival-orthodox-christian-visions/
The moment I see “Fordham” in any context, my eyes instantly roll back into my head and my tongue lolls out like a sixth grader listening to a lecture on dental hygiene.
We all need to send an email of encouragement to St. Vlads, I may not be the biggest fan of Dreher but we cannot allow these awful people from Fordham to intimidate and win. Enough is enough, time to fight back.
George D and Aristotle are a dying breed in Orthodoxy. Where are all the converts going? Traditional parishes. There is no room for these two, or anyone like them in Orthodoxy. If we have lost the culture, we at least need to save our Churches in America. If we lose the Churches, what is going to help to restore the culture?
Demacopoulos and Papanikolaou are like the 70-year-old grandfather who is upset that his 30s- and 40s-year old children and their grandchildren don’t attend their protestant (or Catholic) church that they grew up in anymore.
The 70-year-old man’s answer is to tell his pastor to “modernize and make this church relevant, so that my kids and grandkids will attend it.”
Though maybe well-intentioned, he’s dead wrong. That strategy of “church modernization” to attract members has never worked ANYWHERE. Yet people keep trying it, again and again and again.
Anyone seeking Christ and the Truth wants *authenticity*, even if he/she isn’t consciously aware of it at the time. That’s why these modernizing churches just feel vapid and stupid, while timeless Orthodoxy just feels right and proper. Our souls crave encounters with the timeless God, not a Starbucks in the lobby of a protestant theater-church.
This “feeling sense” of being attracted to things holy is our noetic side — it is God talking to us, but not using words and not using rational logic. We Westerners are so over rationalized that we neglect our noetic side, which is an equally important part of ourselves. Our society (and often our educators) go so far as to teach us to *not trust* our noetic insights — which is a DEAD WRONG approach.
My noetic insights (I had no idea what they were at the time) kept me in the Church through years and decades when no one was telling me that Christ, God, or Church was worthwhile. When God speaks to us through His Church, we must listen!
Demacopoulos and Papanikolaou (and those like them) will be gone soon enough; better to just ignore them. Very few are paying attention to what they offer anymore.
To top it off, very soon their leaders Abp E and Patriarch B will declare the saintly Met. Onuphry and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as “uncanonical.” That will be our Orthodox Church’s “storming of the Capitol building” event — all cards will be on the table for everyone to plainly see, with no going back.
If anyone chooses Patriarch B’s delusional fantasies over the holy reality and wisdom of Metropolitan Onuphry and his suffering Ukrainian church, well, that is simply moronic. As Metropolitan Jonah says, sometimes you just have to pray for them and let those people be wrong.
They went out from us, but they didn’t belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have continued with us. But they left, that they might be revealed that none of them belong to us.
1 John:2:19 [WEB]
Completely agree. While I may disagree with Rod regarding the legitimacy of the recent election, as well as his overall critique of Trump, we are in more agreement on most things than not.
And even if we were not, the very idea that he is getting pushback from certain Orthodox elites (such as the two men in question), is unconscionable.
Several years ago, the late Harold Bloom wrote a book called The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students. The title says it all.
This was in 1987. He would be shocked at what is transpiring on today’s campuses.
George and Telly.
Clown one and Clown two.
I’m not seeing where Aristotle Papanikolaou is trying to get him cancelled in the speech (I heard him speak one time, so I always perk up when I see his name). Can you show us where he is trying to get it cancelled? It’s not in the article.
I heard him speak in 2013 or 2014 around the time Fordham began their program. He came to the (large, wealthy, suburban) GOA parish I was attending at the time. Nothing about him seemed un-Orthodox. Can you explain what he’s said or done to show he is theologically liberal beyond just working at Fordham?
Not the Fordhamites, but I did see that the creatures over at “Orthodoxy” in “Dialogue” tried to get Dreher cancelled.
https://orthodoxdiary.com/2020/12/17/rod-dreher-brings-his-culture-war-to-orthodoxy/
Thanks. I’m not sure that’s the same guy I heard speak. Maybe I’m remembering wrong. He looks different.
Either way, all of these people are pathetic, both Dreher and his enemies. They’re having a Twitter spat over who is the real Schmemann follower and who is a faker? How does that possibly matter? It’s like goth kids accusing each other of being posers, when actually all of them are posers.
I think about Schmemann as often as I think of any 20th century academic theologian, which is never. What does it even matter what his real vision is? In a century no one will remember him anymore than Florovsky or Meyendorf or any of them.
I agree Tanya.
Ron Dreher writing in The American Thinker. He’s not their cup of tea. https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/
I couldn’t get past Rod’s first line. Sorry.
Joke Biden is far worse than Trump will ever be.
“But in the past few days I am realizing that I did not know how far the Trump cult had gone into conquering the minds of its adherents.”
New York City:
https://twitter.com/Dean_Moses/status/1348400643539668992
I ran to the #NYP for help they told me to stay 6 feet from them and let me be attacked.
https://twitter.com/PoAmBrotherhood/status/1348370414767112196
We’re living in a totalitarian state, where Biden and the media deny that the paramilitary that march through the cities even exist as an organized entity, that they’re merely an “idea.” Whoever has a legal monopoly on violence is the government, which is why the police/judges won’t touch these people, because they now only serve to arrest, charge, and convict people who defend themselves from Antifa/BLM. You can’t have free elections in areas controlled by Antifa/BLM, they only need a city or two to fraud to be able to swing a whole state, a few states to swing a whole election, in an environment of terror where no judge will dare even look into the validity of the election. Rod and anybody who doubts the Steal are living in Candyland, therefore they can’t “prepare us to be dissidents” when their starting point is that of a collaborator.
It is impossible to think that a couple of pansies at Fordham could make Father Chad Hatfield back down. Rod will give the lecture. I will take that bet at any odds.
Speaking as CMO, on behalf of Archpriest Chad Hatfield and St Vladimir’s Seminary, I can assure you that the lecture WILL take place. And the we, the entire staff, faculty, and student body, are very much looking forward to it!
Love the new logo, Sarah. Thanks for your fine work!
Brava, Sarah!
I must say that I like the cut of the new SVS’ jib! Keep fighting the good fight!
Glad it is still happening Sarah!
As someone who is young and converted to Orthodoxy from Roman Catholicism, I would hate to see the same type of people ruin Orthodoxy as they have RCism
…on which subject –
Catholic Church Is Infiltrated by Globalists:
Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano
https://www.theepochtimes.com/catholic-church-is-infiltrated-by-globalists-archbishop-carlo-maria-vigano_3649152.html
‘Vigano believes that the agreement on the appointment of bishops in China between the Vatican and the Chinese regime that, in his words, “deprived Chinese Catholics of the indefectible defense that the Papacy had always been for them,” is an act of complicity of the deep church with the Chinese communist regime allied to the global deep state.’
I wish he was an Orthodox bishop.
He IS an Orthodox Bishop. Those who call themselves Orthodox, sadly, are not.
Wouldn’t it be nice if instead of creating fake autocephalous “churches” in places like Ukraine and Montenegro, that the Orthodox approach this man about becoming Orthodox with the intent of convening a council to reconstitute the Roman See with him as its primate?
Not a bad idea!
I expect he is Orthodox in everything;
except (perhaps) Papal Infallibility, the Filioque etc…
But I know what you mean and share the feeling.
Ouch!
BTW, word on the street is that the Chicoms have given the Vatican $2 billion a year. Can someone say “simony”?
Which goes along with our discussion about who is orthodox
Thing is… he’s not Orthodox. He might be on our side in standing against the globalist powers that seek to destroy us, but so does Alex Jones, and no one is claiming him as an Orthodox layman. No, Vigano is a Roman Catholic bishop who probably confesses the Filioque, Papal Infallibility, Immaculate Conception, and whatever else they’ve added to our pristine and undefiled faith. He’s one of the better heretics, but he’s still a heretic.
My point was he is a Roman Catholic Bishop who acts more Orthodox than our own bishops. I wasn’t commenting on his teaching.
Second that Gail. And he certainly acts from conviction with courage and a willingness to suffer in Christ-like fashion for truth (as he understands it) in exemplary fashion. Quite the role model.
I get that, but we need to treasure and protect the terms that we use to refer to ourselves, and not pass them out like pearls to swine.
Thanks for the encouraging update Sarah. So refreshing to see that St. Vlad’s current leadership is not intimidated by the totalitarian tantrums of immature progressives who don’t bother to practice much of the “tolerance” and “dialogue” they keep preaching.
Es ist nicht richtig geschrieben “verbotten”, aber verboten, George mein Freund.
Danke schoen, mein Freund! (Also, I don’t know which key I need to use for the umlaut.)
My Deutsch classes were four decades ago. Although I was told that I had an impeccable Hoch Deutsch accent! I guess speaking Greek helped me to pronounce ich correctly. (Courtesy of the Greek letter X.)
ä = Alt+0228
ö = Alt+0246
ü = Alt+0252
Censorship spreading: plea from LIfesiteNews WARNING: Don’t lose LifeSiteNews:
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WARNING: Don’t lose LifeSiteNews
Don’t lose access to LifeSiteNews!
Big Tech’s censoring and de-platforming of conservative voices is getting more out of control by the day. It seems it’s only a matter of time before our pro-life, pro-family, pro-freedom, message will get us completely banned from Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
It’s likely that we will be kicked off of our email platform as well. The best way to ensure that you don’t lose access to our reporting is to bookmark LifeSiteNews.com and get into a habit of checking it regularly.
In preparation for when that day arrives, we’re asking you to pre-emptively follow us on the few remaining pro-free speech social media platforms out there. Scroll down to find out how you can follow us.
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One can never relax and think that the Marxists will go away if you ignore them. The Marxists do not fade away into the sunset. The Marxists have one goal in mind and they are extraordinarily aggressive. They do not quit until they get what they want (see the Democratic party). If they are not challenged head-on without pause, you will find yourself living under the regime of another Stalin.
Mikhail, this is all true. However, like their father in hell (whose spawn they are), they always overplay their hand and in so doing, overextend themselves. We saw this in every nation that succumbed to revolutionary thought (France, 1789; the Paris Commune, 1848) or Marxism (Russia 1918, Bavaria, Spain, Mexico, Hungary in the inter-war years). They can’t help themselves. That’s why I fear for the Democrat Party (I used to be one).
That said, that doesn’t mean that they can’t create wide swaths of destruction as they journey on their way to implosion. Millions of innocents will die.
It’s not a huge surprise that Manchin has broken with those in his party on this issue, as the West Virginia senator is more moderate than many of his colleagues in both the House and the Senate. But it could pose a big problem for the incoming administration, because losing his vote could doom any legislation Biden puts forth.
On another stimulus of 2,000 checks Manchin is Roman Catholic which I find interesting since I bet West Virginia is more evangelical..
Manchin said that he “wouldn’t be the 50th vote” to override things like overturning the filibuster, packing the Court, etc. I expect once the DS pays him a visit he’ll be the 49th vote.
It’s all a matter of how much someone likes his kneecaps.
If anyone wants an antidote to the Spirit of the Times https://mosestheblack.org
These folks are not “summer soldiers”. Some are even in GOARCH.
Project Veritas reveals the elitist attitude of PBS counsel and his chilling solution: https://www.projectveritas.com/news/pbs-principal-counsel-lays-out-violent-radical-agenda-says-americans-are-f/
Sent from my iPhone
Honest question:
Given the virtual absence of pushback from Greek Orthodox against the actions of Bartholomew in Ukraine, and his permission for second marriages for priests, and some of his bishops’ permission for open communion — how can we be sure that if he proclaims a new Unia with Rome, there will be any pushback at all from Athos, Ephraimite monasteries, or the GOA’s parishes?
I had been kind of expecting that the Ephraimites at least would have ceased to commemorate Bartholomew by now. As it is they let Elpidophoros preside over Elder Ephraim’s burial.
Hi Roman (Catholic, I assume?) friend,
From my perspective, the Greek churches are too compromised at the episcopal levels to be able to do the wise and right thing anymore. Individuals and parishes and monasteries will have to decide on their own how to move forward. I agree, Abp E and Patriarch B have been given the benefit of the doubt for too long. It’s now exhausted.
I expect things will come to a head when Patriarch B declares the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the leadership of the saintly Metropolitan Onuphriy to be magically “uncanonical.” He has to do this soon and must do it in order to support his fake “church” that they created with the fake “Metropolitan Epiphany” – a fake church supported by American taxpayers through our Dept of State funding, as a vehicle to stand against “all things Russian.”
Once Patriarch B declares Metropolitan Onuphriy and his church (which numbers in the tens of millions) falsely “uncanonical,” its mother church in Russia will have no choice but to formally anathematize Patriarch B., similar to what happened with the unrepentant and wildly unstable “Patriarch Filaret” almost 30 years ago, who was also anathematized.
Once that happens, all other Orthodox will be forced to choose. Intercommunion with Patriarch B and anyone in his jurisdiction will no longer be possible. Greek parishes and monasteries will be forced to choose where to go. It will be messy.
Anathematization is serious business. As I understand, once anathematized, the only way back in to the church is with a deathbed confession. Which is why Patriarch B’s magical reversal of the previously universally recognized anathematization of “Patriarch Filaret” was so ludicrous and such a serious move.
Not much has happened yet because folks haven’t been forced to choose. I think the time is soon coming where they will have choose, though. Bodies like the OCA may be hard hit, since through now the OCA has tried to maintain communion with both the Greek churches and the Russian church. That will become increasingly impossible to do.
The fake hierarch and laymen who is called “Epiphany” has just declared that five more Churches are going to recognize the OCU in the same way as Cypress. This means that the hierarch, with a majority, will declare recognition. A minority of hierarchs will be left to twist in the wind. This will cause massive schism throughout Orthodoxy. The Churches that he mentions are: Jerusalem, Romania, Bulgaria, Georgia, and Albania. Literally every time he has made such a comment, it comes to be. I believe it is because Patriarch Bartholomew has already been informed and passed the information on to his sycophant pretend layman hierarch.
I pray that this time it is pure propaganda.
https://spzh.news/en/news/76979-dumenko-nazval-pomestnyje-cerkvi-gotovyje-priznaty-pcu
Lord have mercy on us.
Anyone know anything about the ROCOR mission in Stillwater?
Second this question. I think Gail probably has more insight into this
It’s coming, my friends.
Can you please stop calling them “Ephraimites”?
It is a derogatory term.
Mikhail, since I so often agree with your every word, am wondering why you consider the word “Ephraimites” derogatory? Elder Ephraim’s name is in it and however others intend it, it is descriptive of those who love and follow him. Of course to me, it is a term of honor therefore. But glad to understand your objection. I am weary of losing another neutral or wonderful word due to appropriation by hateful folks, so I refuse to rewrite my dictionary every day! Thanks for helping me understand your objection.
Hi Nicole,
The monasteries are of the Athonite style, founded by Geronta Ephraim. The term “Ephraimite” gives it a cult-like terminology. They are Greek Monasteries under the omophorion of the GOA (for the time being). I have talked to many of the monastics from these monasteries who do not prefer such terminology. Talk to your spiritual father…he will confirm this.
I will be glad to ask, Mikhail, hadn’t heard that from my SF on his own so didn’t think of it as such, good idea. “Israelites” and “Fordhamites” are descriptive shorthand terms whose subjects specify the meaning. So I personally am honored and pleased to identify as and be called an “Ephraimite”. Not the same as an inherently derogatory term to me but glad to defer to the wishes of the Elder Ephraim monastics. Thanks for the info and good idea!
The reason it is so displeasing is because “Ephraimites” is the term coined by those who view the monasteries as a cult.
Sorry Gail, just my love of words and sorrow at them being “ruined” or actually perverted by negative associations from negative folk. Seems like a victory I’d rather not give them. So far “gaily” has not been affected, but you know, but I really miss the term “gay” as originally defined. The OED was my favorite subscription. I’ll sign off now and hope to reboot tomorrow. No Divine Liturgy today due to COVID in priest family, all young and doing well, but obviously I need every service!
I didn’t mean to be critical. Just trying to explain.
Totally understand and appreciate. Thx Gail.
As I understand it, the Ephraimites were historically
the larger of the two tribes of Joseph and the chief movers
in the rebellion of the ten tribes against the House of David.
The first king of Israel, Jeroboam, was an Ephraimite.
Thus the term has somewhat unhappy tribal echoes.
PS: I meant 10-tribe Israel, of course…
It’s a pejorative. We are Orthodox Christians, not Petrines, Paulines, Ephraimites, or anything else. It has connotations of being a parachurch cult.
Heretics are named after people – Lutherans, Calvinists, etc. – we are named after our Lord.
Good point. I still think of myself as an Orthodox Christian who is also an Ephraimite meaning devotee of Elder Ephraim. Will definitely check with my SF and try not to offend y’all in the future anyway!
PS Fordhamites is then pejorative as opposed to descriptive? If so, y’all are beginning to decrease my vocabulary which is more typical of the other side, sigh!
I, too, have struggled with how to refer to them. I don’t think anyone would be offended if we used the term “Ephraim Monasteries”.
?. Sounds good for the actual monasteries! ! And I shall call myself an EEA or EED (Elder Ephraim admirer or devotee) until my SF says otherwise. Have to be obedient to someone on the planet!
Yes. Fordhamites is probably pejorative. I will try to refer to them in the future as “the clowns from Fordham.”
Just kidding. ?
Fordhamite is pejorative, but a deserved pejorative, because these people are not Orthodox.
Basil, Mikhail, Gail, et al: speaking for myself, I would hesitate to not call them Orthodox but they are –how shall I put this delicately?–the edge of the spear of the new, improved, NATO-approved brand of “Orthodoxy”.
Therefore in the spirit of charity, I will continue to call them “Fordhamites”. 😉
Given that ‘Fordhamite’ rhymes with ‘Sodomite’,
it seems not only descriptive but appropriate.
At that time he had yet to offend and threaten significantly. And being wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove, they behaved as I expected. Patience and balance are inherently theirs. We shall see over time if their own practice in the monastery is challenged which has not happened yet.
Ukrainian govt uses budget funds to promote children’s LGBT
https://spzh.news/en/news/77259-pravitelystvo-ukrainy-tratilo-byudzhetnyje-sredstva-dlya-propagandy-lgbt-detyam
“…they agreed on the purchase of books in the amount of 666 thousand hryvnias.”
An appropriate price, methinks…
Parents who don’t affirm kids’ sexual confusion could be
jailed for 10 years under new Australian state law
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/gay-conversion-bill-targeting-christians-becoming-law-in-victoria
” The bill is so extreme that ‘A man who was tempted to cheat on his wife could not go and see his priest or minister, asking for advice on how to stay true to his marriage vows, without risking the priest or minister being punished.’ ”
Officially encouraged homosexuality, transgenderism and the castration of boys seems to be another set of policies aimed at depopulation – just like mRNA ‘vaccines’ and ‘Climate Change’.