Sure, we are not supposed to listen to rumors, but rumors (or at least second hand information) is all we got.
Word on the street:
Passios faces 60 counts. Pat. Bartholomew and Abp. Demetrios knew of the allegations. Vikentios turning against Passios to protect himself so won’t go to Greece to protect the GOA or Constantinople. GOA in financial distress now because of payouts for Katinas ($250,000/month) and Passios scandals a grave financial threat. Tentative plans are to liquidate the Astoria property when the settlements finally come down to pay for it. Boys may have been trafficked (moved to different states for sex). One or more GOA clergy are implicated. The “investigation” by Constantinople was really a fact-finding expedition to determine how bad the fall-out could be.
I forgot to add, that rumors was all that The Boston Globe had when it broke the story about the pederast scandal in the Archdicocese of Boston.
Assuming all the reports on this from The National Herald are true, then my question is — what is the GOA and/or the Patriarch doing with regards to following the GOA’s clergy sexual misconduct guidelines (available here: http://www.goarch.org/archdiocese/documents/misconduct_policy/index_html)? If in fact there are other clergy who are credibly accused, then they need to take immediate steps to 1) suspend these clergy pending investigation, 2) announce to the church community the nature of this investigation and 3) take reasonable steps to reach out to any victims of abuse to offer care (all this is listed in the guidelines at the link above). They need to take these latter two steps even if only one clergy is credibly accused of abuse.
However, I believe the St. Irene Chrysovalantou Greek Orthodox Monastery is a stavropegial monastery (a monastery which owes canonical allegiance to the Patriarch of Constantinople) so I suppose the GOA could argue they have no responsibility to enforce of follow their clergy sexual misconduct guidelines.
Will either the GOA or the Patriarch take steps to protect children and reach out to those wounded by this tragic situation?
To date though, I believe only The National Herald has given official reports regarding sexual abuse at St. Irene’s, so I will be looking to see if some other sources can confirm these reports and shed additional light on what has really happened.
George,
You have the keen ability to critically think about issues. Most of your analysis is brilliant. However, critically thinking about the symptoms of the issues does not take you to the critically thinking cause of those issues if something unseen or unknown to you blocks that critical thinking ability to go to cause. I believe you have the ability to go to cause to see the cause and yet you do not.
The sex abuse policy is window dressing and it not worth the paper it is printed on. It would make for a good cat box or bird cage liner. There are 21 GOA regulations for monastery regulation that have come out of the Ephraim controversies. There are also the church Cannons and the church Fathers who speak to these types of issues. None of them work. So, God brings to the GOA what does work. The rule of law in freedom from church and state religion through the FBI works. The Bible would work for the GOA, but since they raise their traditions up to its authority they lower its authority and go corrupt. Think it through by thinking outside of the closed box of closed denial.
The Orthodox refuse to listen for their being Gods only right and true church that does not need to listen to anyone outside of it for how right and true it is. Totalism leads to IMPOSSIBLE. The impossible church has no possibility of renewal. It is impossible to deal with for it being so very alone right about itself. Its rigid legalism of being alone right now catches up with it and its true attitudes and motives are exposed to the church first and then to the entire world to see how the church does not deal with its corruptions. The impossible church has reached the point of no return for it being impossible to deal with and the proof of that truth is seen in how it refuses to listen for it being so right about itself and so it only has to listen to its alone right self.
Those who refuse to listen refuse to change and that is Jesus confronting the Sanhedrin in the Gospels. Jesus was the rule of Gods law come to them and they rejected it and for many of the same reasons why the Orthodox do too. The Orthodox refuse to listen to both the rule of law in America and the rule of Gods law in the Bible. The Orthodox are the rule of idolatry that refuses to listen to the rule of Gods law and so they have no respect for the rule of law in America. Could it be more simple why you fail? Yes, this is frank, candid and uncompromising in calling it like it is or you will not find solution. The offended Orthodox disagree with the confrontation like they disagree with the cause of their corrupt church being exposed. We can agree to disagree with each other. It’s your church that is dying by a cause and the denial of that cause is obvious.
Orthodox, is your church found safe or toxic? It’s a difficult question for the Orthodox to answer. Yet, it is the question that must be asked to go to cause. There are objective measures your church can use to determine the degree of its safety and/or toxidity. They do not exist inside of your church box. You will have to come out of that closed box to find those not subjective measures. The measures will be difficult for the Orthodox to believe they are what they discribe. Looking at yourselves in the objective mirror of God is not an Orthodox strong point. The state of your church is my best proof.
The corrupt, failed, irrelevant and dying GOA understands only one thing and it is not the Lordship of Christ at the center of church authority holding the ENTIRE church transparent and accountable. Gods only alone right and one true church truth only understands the authority of the legal gun pointed at its head. It only understands POWER because it is based upon the power of man religously addicted to his own power as its center of church authority. So, God brings you the only thing you understand and church bucks the authority of God when the rule of law power comes too the Orthodox.
The EOC believes it is above the rule of law by the divine right of the bishops that comes right out of the top down totalism theology. That is caste structure church with the top ruling caste operating similar to the book ANIMAL FARM. The totalism theology and its resulting structure and system of church creates a church that is closed, isolated and subjective and that makes the churches’ response to criminal felon behavior to be closed, isolated and subjective in its thinking in such matters. This church is self centered, self protective and self sufficient by its theology that leads to its corruption and the lying, secret keeping, covering up, spinning and manipulation by its corrupt character. The accepted norm is leadership corruption and accepting that norm enables that norm and then the norm comes to destroy all of you and you all stand around and wonder why this has happened to the Orthodox.
The Orthodox response to the authority of Gods WORD is prideful, arrogant and self righteous we alone are right and you are wrong in comparison to how right we are. God = Orthodoxy and Orthodoxy = God and the two together mean, Orthodoxy = Gods Word and Gods Word = Orthodoxy. That is idolatry that sets the church up for religious addiction and religious codependency to that religious addiction. A church that compares itself to itself and does not compare itself to the objective truth of Christ in the Gospels and that is a church that believes it is its own solution to itself and so the rule of law is below its authority and it operates just like it is.
In church and state top down authoritarian rule power and control there are no inalienable rights of the individual and no rule of law. The totalism OWNS all below its top down authority and so all under that authority are expendable to that authority. The laity is nothing more than pawns to be manipulated and used to the power and control ends of the authority structure. The theology makes those involved religious codependent to the top down power and control and therefore powerless serfs to the authority structure and system. That results in spiritual abuse and spiritual abandonment of the church laity by the church authority and the church becomes very unsafe and toxic to its members and the most vulnerable members being children are sexually abused to meet the sexual addiction lusts of the authority that is religously addicted to its own power and control over all of you.
The GOA can try to escape this by claiming that the monastery was not under its bishops authority. However, what does that have to do with the sexual abuse policy found in the NT by the NT being from God and sent to us as to what our values, ethics and morality are to be??? Is it not Christian common sense that monks and clergy do not sexually abuse children? Does the Word of God tell the authority of the church to keep secrets and cover up in Ephesians chapter what??? The beauty of Gods Word is the beauty of the EOC that all of you claim is beautiful Orthodoxy? Who and what are you comparing yourselves too to come that beautiful conclusion about yourselves?
All of you are in denial of the power of sexual addictive leaders to destroy your church by their religious addiction to their own power in their sexual addiction. You have no healing mechanism in the church to bring healing solution to those who struggle with sexual issues. It’s all have more faith in Orthodoxy, read the Fathers more and keep to tradition as the solution to the dysfunctional issues of both leadership and laity alike. Send the sexually addicted to a monastery to find their healing? Are you joking? That is like sending an alcoholic to a bar for his recovery.
The Greek hierarchy authority structure and system believes it is above Gods WORD and the rule of law by it believing it is right above all others in comparison to it. That is pure religious addiction addicted to its own power that the laity hands over to the religious addicts by the coercion of spiritual abuse of that power by the religious dictators of that power. The powerless laity feeds the power lusts of religious addicted rulers by enabling their religious addiction behavior by being religious codependent to that religious addiction. Period.
The danger to all of you here is simple. Religious addiction will destroy anything in its path to feed its religious addiction. All of you are what feeds it and all of you are in the way of its path. I do not use Orthodox high church termonology. I use termology that tells it like it is. I speak in plain English with language of modernity and with truths that objectively expose the cause of the corrupt church state. I do not at all sound Orthodox correct or Orthodox enabling. I challenge the Orthodox to think for themselves out of the closed we alone are right Orthodox box to solution. I believe George has the critical thinking ability to do just that. That does not mean you will do that.
George, I appeal to you to answer the following question for yourself by thinking for yourself…
Gods only alone right and one church on the planet is the most toxic, abusing and unsafe church on the planet or is the most safe, healthy and relevant church on the planet? Those who can think for themselves ask very difficult thinking for yourself questions of the Orthodox who believe they are thinking for themselves when all the facts, proofs and evidences reveal that something else is thinking for them.
The more alone right you all believe that you in the rigid legalism of that the more toxic and unsafe your church becomes until it reaches a point of no return by existing in a state of survival existence that uses and abuses all of you to survive. By your theology and its resulting structure and system Satan closes you, isolates you and makes you subjective and therefore the only authority you listen to and that authority is corrupt, failed, irrelevant and killing your church, That authority has the character of who truly rules over it, a killer who is a murderer by lies and stealing. Enabling the murderer is the irrational mind set and the insanity created by the religious codependency. Religous codependency is a form of a personality disorder if you really understand it. It is the worst form of addiction on the planet by how it turns the object of its codependency into an IDOL that defines its worth, value, meaning and purpose. It treats all of you by how it sees you in its self idolatry of itself.
Orthodox, idolatry destroys a church from both the top down, bottom up and inside out. It destroys the entire church to the point of no return from its self destruction by the self idolatry of itself. Self idolatry is not the solution to self idolatry and yet that is exactly the solution the Orthodox are using and it does not work. This self idolatry is a serious unseen and unchecked organizational pathology that is SYSTEMICALLY destroying the EOC. Since the system is the systemic problem then there is no solution other than changing the system and you can only do that by changing the structure. Since your refuse to change either of them your church is over.
The GOA can find solution. Why, the Mother of God sent Elder Ephraim to them as their solution in a vision. The systemic center of GOA spirituality is his monasteries. He is the God sent Mt. Athos Orthodox spiritually correct solution to a corrupt church. He has been among them for a generation and the end result is ephraimite ultra fundamentalism and a still apathetic and indifferent church laity that is ruled over by a corrupt hierarchy that allowed his guru cultism into the GOA. The GOA is at war over him now by the divisiive divison he brings to parishes. His salvation solution for the GOA is Aerial Toll Houses that have absolutely no Biblical foundation and just like monasticism does not either. Both are traditions of men killing the GOA and the GOA looks to its elder for both salvation and a salvation solution and neither of them work.
Who appointed all of this corruption to lead the GOA? Why, it was the EP whose SIN now finds him out just like the entire EOC is now found out for what it truly is. It is a Christian cult. The truly interesting thing about this is that on the GOA Archdiocse website there is an entire section dedicated to what a cult is and yet the GOA cannot see the cultic state it is found in. Religious addiction leads to religous codependency and they both together lead to the religious denial of what has turned this church into a Christian cult.
Go be alone right GOA and use that as your solution and see what the logical end result of that closed thinking totalism legalism turns your church into. Be the alone right solution to children destroyed by sexual addiction and the denial of it in your religously codependent church. Let your monastics and bishops provide you with the solution to your dying state of church. Let those who lead you into this ruin lead you out of it by the same ways and means that they led you into it by.
If the Orthodox cannot see the cause of the divisive divison destroying the GOA by its theology they will never see what is destroying the larger EOC. All of you believe corrupt man who is not following Orthodox tradition is the problem. I say the problem is the theology that corrupts man and gives him the rule power and control to destroy you by the totalism structure and system the theology creates.
In other words, no solution the GOA can provide itself with is going to solve its dying cultic state. The FBI and the courts are their only solution for their irrational solution that is corruption, failure, irrelevancy and church death. Your church is not above an irrelevancy church death. I can see that with my own two God given eyes by looking at the cause of the church failure by its logical end result taken back to its cause.
Of course, I have this wrong. I am not of the Gods alone right and one true church that is always right and true about itself. The EOC is the transparency of God and God is proving that by EXPOSING them for who that they truly are among us and that is a clear warning from God to avoid that self destruction. It is the way of escape telling those who can think for themselves not to fall into its spiders web that will not let them escape after the spider has them in his web.
I have three words that discribes all of this: CIRCULAR WITHOUT SOLUTION.
Blessings,
Ashley Nevins
2600 words is not short, to the point or digestible.
I see a problem. Bishops are only accountable to each other. They are not accountable to anyone else. That is why they are so reckless. They hide each other’s crimes. If Abp. Demetrios and Pat. Bartholomew knew about this, then their assistants must know too. They chose to hide it instead of deal with it.
Remember when Abp. Demetrios did not want to defrock Katinas. Met. Alexios scolded the people who were angry about it and told them to obey their Archbishop. I read it in the National Herald. This shows that Abp. Demetrios did not understand how serious sexual abuse is. It shows that Met. Alexios did not understand it either. I think they live in a bubble.
They should be the first to pay. The GOA is in financial trouble because the leadership is reckless. Lower their pay to $50,000 a year and take the rest to pay the settlements. No money under the table. Most bishops are wealthy. They own property. Sell the property to pay off the settlements. Don’t tax the people because they were reckless.
Do criminal background checks. I hear that some of the leaders are active homosexuals. They need to resign. Abp. Demetrios and Pat. Bartholomew or their people who knew about Bishop Passios need to resign. We need to clean up our house. They cannot do it because they caused this problem. They will do it again because they will want to protect themselves.
This is the only way there will not be more victims.
Orthodox, there are EIGHT signs of a spiritually abusive church and the signs come to you from the my Bible that is not in denial of the signs:
1. Authoritarianism
2. Shaming and being shamed
3. Religious codependency and religious addiction
4. Legalism we are alone right and you are always wrong
5. Pride that does not listen or see itself as it truly is
6. False unity around corruption
7. Corruption that is circular without solution
8. An unhealthy and unsafe church state
9. Apathy and indifference or cultic ultra fundamentalism or both
10. Top down centralized power and control that is not transparent or accountable
In the context of the Orthodox church failure these are symptoms that point directly to a cause.
The book TOXIC FAITH will tell you that there are 5 roles people play out in the sick system of the highly dysfunctional church:
1. The Persecutor
2. The Co-conspirator
3. The Enabler
4. The Victim
5. The OUTCAST
Pokrov plays the outcast role in the area of morality in your church. No one in your church recognizes that this is the ROLE they are playing and it is the most healthy role found in the sick church by how it uncompromisingly EXPOSES the church to its denying self centered self. Do any of you realize the hatred and abuse they experience for living out their God given role in your sick church? They are the library of evidence of your DENIAL to what they speaking into your corrupt church about and the corrupt do not appreciate the role they are living out for God. Period.
What roles do the rest of you play in the corrupt, failed, irrelevant and dying church??? You all play the role of trust before you verify trustworthiness. You trust in hierarchies that are not worthy of Godly trust and they turn all of you into the roles of a sick church under their totalism rule power and control that is based in your totalism THEOLOGY.
Inquiring minds want to know what is their role by thinking for themselves to cause and then to solution. They do not want to deny the role they are playing out in the enabling of a sick church that refuses to get well by Gods solution. Such people of God want to know what role they are playing for their purposes of finding healing to the role that unknowningly to them has been mind molded into them by totalism top down authoritiarian mind control indoctrination not seen by them. They seek the truth that will set them free from the role played.
The starting point of understanding the role you are playing is understanding that ALL of you are victims who are in denial of how totalism victimizes all of you. Religious codependency is in denial of what abuses it just like a codependent to domestic violence is in denial to the abuse that person receives from the domestic abuser. Get it? It takes conceptual thinking for yourselves outside of the closed religiously codependent box to get it. Get it?
The role you play out will tell you what your worth and value before God is to those who lead your church into self destruction. I promise that it will and if you are honest about it the role played out will make you righteously angry at the sin the role forces you into.
The book is a good read for the Orthodox and because it comes to you from outside of the closed, isolated and subjective box of Orthodox we are Gods only alone right and true Christians. It will help you see who that you are by busting your denial of who that you are. That is for you and it is not against you no matter how straight up in your face the confrontation is and the children need the confrontation to be in your faces. Get it? I don’t think you do get it if you are in the GOA. The children emotionally and spiritually destroyed are my proofs that you do not want to get it.
The youth ministry of the GOA is monks and clergy inserting their penis into the orifices of Orthodox youth? It is no wonder to me why the youth of the GOA are abandoning the abandoning church.
Since you refuse to GET IT then get this GOA, you are over. You best future outcome is the roles you play out in your sick church that has no solution to its sickeness and because the sickness is your cure applied to the sickness. A survival existence state of corruption that is irrelevant is your best future outcome and it is the survival existence outcome you are dying by today.
Circular without solution is the state of the GOA by the solution applied and that causes them to die.
Yes, I know, a thinking for himself Christian is scary to the Orthodox who allow the role they are unknowingly forced into by their church to think for them. The Christianity I represent is the Orthodox worst nightmare come true, it thinks for itself without totalism thinking for it. I understand exactly why the Orthodox hate modernity and rationalism and it is not for the reasons that they give. Modernity and rationalism exposes the dead irrationalism of the Orthodox museum of traditions failure for what it truly is. It thinks for itself and so that is highly intimidating to the Orthodox in their failure and when that failure is stood up against the success of Christianity outside of them. Jesus was intimidation to the Sanhedrin by just standing next to them in comparison. He could think for Himself and they could not think for themselves. That is the comparison.
Blessings,
Ashley Nevins
Ashley, what does “religious addiction” mean? That’s just a mealy-mouthed Oprahesque weasel-word in my opinion. That’s like calling someone a “fundamentalist.” It means anything and everything, which means it means nothing.
George,
That is the first honest question asked of me in this discussion by an Orthodox.
I will give you a thinking for yourself conceptual answer that asks you to conceptually think for yourself in the finding of the definition.
Please understand, I want you to come to your own conclusion by thinking for yourself as to what it is. I would greatly encourage you to conduct a Google search on the words ‘religious addiction’. The book Toxic Faith will reveal to you many of the ways it reveals itself in the church and it gives a pretty good definition of it. The book The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse will give you symptoms of the cause by showing how religious addiction abuses.
Those are powerful books all Orthodox would greatly benefit from by reading them more than once.
After you feel you have a grasp of what it is then conduct a word study on mind control and totalism. Then start connecting the dots and a pattern will arise that gives an even deeper definition of what religious addiction is.
Also, understanding cult criterion helps in formulating a thorough definition for how they reveal how serious such an addiction can become inside a church by how the cultic comes out of religious addiction and then how the top down authoritiarian hierarchy structure lends itself to the cultic as a result of that. To the best of my knowledge there are no Orthodox anti-cult websites or books. You will find other Christians outside of your church that do have those resources.
Three years ago I went to the foremost recognized anti cult conference on the planet in Denver. All Christian faith systems were there and found fighting cults, except the EOC! The EOC was no where in sight. The Moonies and Scientoligists were there to find out what is being said about them. I sat at a table at lunch with a key leader of the Scientology church. It was very interesting, to say the least. Relevancy fights cults by going to what is relevantly fighting cults to find out how to relevantly fight cults. It goes outside of its box to find solution or better solutions.
Codependency is another word loosely thrown around and can be watered down to mean just about anything. It is not the pop culture word it has been made out to be. It is dangerous. Yet, if you understand codependency and then understand it in the context of religious codependency you will understand religious addiction like no one in your church does and I don’t believe anyone in your church really does understand it or religious codependency.
George, understanding religious addiction by definition is a growing understanding of the addiction and how it operates and manifests itself and the same is true with relgious codependency. If you deny that it is real then you will not recognize it or be able to develop a full conceptual picture of what religious addiction and religious codependency are when they dance together. And, no one can dance like they do.
Understanding the SHAME BASED CHURCH is critical to understanding the shame found in religious addiction and religious codependency. A Google will open the world of that church shame and shaming up to you by pushing few buttons. In other words, there is a lot to the definition if you really want to understand its impact upon individuals and a church. Shame is the set up for religious addiction and shaming comes out of religious addiction. Oh, but I have told you that the totalism theology and its structure and system are the set up. Am I being inconsistent? Do the research and you will see how consistent I am being.
This is all very scary stuff and quite mind blowing once you see the potential it has to destroy a church. The really scary part of it is the religous codependency. That is even more dangerous than the religious addiction itself. Religious codependency is the worst addiction found among us in the church if you really understand it.
Now, here is the really difficult part for an Orthodox. Seeing how the theology and its resulting structure and system is the set up for the religous addiction and religious codependency. That is the most dangerous part of all if you fail to make the connection between them. The more top down and authoritarian the structure and system the greater degree of religious addiction and religious codependency found in that structure and system. If you can see how it is the set up you will fully understand what religious addiction is when the other research is included in your analysis.
George, I know what all the denials are to religious addiction and religious codependency and how I break that denial is by pointing to the DANCE of the church when it is involved in such. You would think the church is at an OZZY concert rocking until it drops by the way it dances that dance and when it is found in that state of church by the addiction and codependency.
I also already know what any Orthodox objection or rationalization will be to this line of reasoning about religious addiction and religious codependency. Having said this, I strongly encourage you to dialogue and even if we disagree. It is an unfolding process to understand what it is I am bringing forward and so please don’t want the quick definition. There is not one when you are involved in thinking for yourself to the definition and its ramifications on a church.
George, I promise you that you right now know several religious addicts and religious codependents enabling the religious addiction and religious codependency destroying the EOC. Once you more deeply understand the destructive dynamics of these bondages you will see your church like you have never seen it before and it will make NY look like little kids playing Legos in comparision to the shear size of the problem in your church. It is why I know my prediction of what you can see is not as worse as what you cannot see and NY after Katinas proves it. This is really ugly, dirty and messy stuff we are talking about and finding the definition is going to make it more ugly, dirty and messy to you. It might well want to make you literally vomit.
Fasten your seat belt. The ride to the definition is really rough and it demands the hard work of thinking from more than one perspective and because there is so much really involved in defining it if you truly want to understand it. If you want the four sentence definition I ain’t got it.
Things are going to have to get a lot worse in the EOC before they ever can begin to get better once you see what the pealing onion of religious addiction and religious codependency reveals as to what these issues are truly doing to the EOC.
I appeal to you to please remember one thing in your researching the definition, it is all about power that controls. It is all about controlling and being controlled. The more a church is about power and control the more these issues are found in that kind of a church and the more that church is found destroying itself by the issues of religious addiction and religious codependency.
If you can, conceptually think about the issues to see the larger picture and how the puzzel of that picture comes together. George, by looking for the definition that is your are looking for a piece of the puzzel. That is thinking for yourself unless you don’t go and find the other pieces. If you do stop then stop think is your thinking and you will not find the other pieces that give you the picture of the cause of the church failure. There are inherent dangers in closed system thinking that those thinking like the closed system do not see. I promise.
And, yes, I also know what all the inherent dangers are in open system thinking too and that thinks bottom up. Freedom in Christ structure and system gives you the ability to fail and because there are no totalism props holding it like there are in Orthodoxy. It is a huge risk of church that the Orthodox do not take and it shows by their relevancy that the freedom in Christ church takes huge risks. Have any of you noticed the failures in their risks taken? This is why I say a healthy church that is relevant fails forward to success whereas an unhealty church dying by irrelevancy just fails backwards to oblivion.
I wish you the very best in coming to a conclusion for yourself as to what the definition is and what that definition is doing to your church. In freedom in Christ you will think for yourself to your own conclusions and that will determine how well your church finds solution to the issues causing its failure. The only solution to the corrupt, failed, irrelevant and dying church is a thinking for yourselves solution and I fully believe that solution is outside of the EOC that cannot think for itself to solution or the state of your church would not be failure.
Ashley Nevins
Ashley 963 words. Better than 2600 but still too many so that whatever your points might be your posts come across as prejudiced rants.
Since you seemed to agree with my short summary of your position several days ago:
1. Hierarchy is of the devil (which BTW means that all of creation is of the devil including your bottom-up hierarchy and any attempt to structure anything in a reasonable and rational manner.)
2. Therefore the Orthodox Church is of the devil
What’s the point of continuing?
No point. Whether it is 2600 words or 26 words you refuse to listen. Like you did not read my post that answered your two questions a few days ago. The truth be told no answer I give will be Orthodox right enough. I know the mind of totalism far better than you do in the totalism structure and system. Totalism theology, structure and system must find fault in the confrontation of it or it could be not alone right and then able to write off the confrontation.
This is tit for tat with you and that will not lead you to solution. Keep straining nats to keep denying the cause. Find the one thing you can label as wrong so you can label it all wrong and therefore you will not to have to listen to the cause brought forward. Legalism loves to find fault by it being alone right in its legalisms. Go be right Michael and miss the conceptual picture of the cause of the failure of church and its abuse of children that point right back to the cause of the failure.
Fact is if I am only half right your church is still doomed by its course lead by its cause of failure that I believe you are denying is the cause of its failure.
Call my expose’ a rant and deny the screams of victim children. The mill stone is around the church neck and I am warning you that it is and why that it is. What, you can’t hear the screams of children being raped by your church?
Yes, I am prejudice towards those children your church destroys and that predjudice does not destroy them. Denial of the cause of their screams is what causes their screaming in pain. Denial of the cause of their vicimization does not matter to you enough to read more than you want too to find solution? It’s just too much of a burden to read through to find the truths that are your church solution? Maybe its just me hearing you wrong in your complaint?
Does your church call the screams of children rants too? How does it treat victims who come forward in their wounded, abused and shattered state??? Does it rant at them??? Obviously, you are failing to understand the difference between a confrontation and your church who rants at victims who come forward. Don’t you just love all the hierarchy self absorbed rants when busted over sex abuse? They just LOVE to self protect of men like Katinas and the laity just loves to enable them in that.
Counting my words does not count the screams of terror coming out of victims and no amount of words can discribe how horrific their screams are. Here is an idea. Think about every word I give you as a child’s scream when being sexually raped by the sexual denial of that rape by your church. I just gave you solution to your problem with me and like I am giving you solution to the rape of children by your church.
What did you say the solution to cause of the rape of children by the EOC is?
I believe I missed that. I was most likely so involved in my rantings that I missed it.
For someone who does not like my writing you sure do like to count the words in my writing.
Counting words will not lead you to solution. Reading words will lead you to solution.
How many words are in this reply?
Please let me know what the Orthodox correct amount of words is.
Ashley Nevins
Ashley, I think the perpatators should be hung from their genitals upside down and whipped, but I supposed that goes beyond the pale of an acceptable Christian response. So—-
The solution is to immediately suspend any clergyman who is criminally accused, cooperate fully with the civil authorities and permanently defrock anyone convicted while appling the appropriate cannonical penance, i.e, not allowed to approach the cup for the strictest cannonical period. For anyone who is suspected of being an an offender the same course of action should be followed, even without a prior criminal complaint. The Biblical standard is that there should not even be an appearance of impropriety. Similar standards should apply to other forms of clergy abuse.
There needs to be a group of credentialed, experienced people (not necessarily Orthodox) including psychologists, attorneys and law inforcement people designated to receive any and all complaints confidentially with the authority to act in accord with the established initial proceedures without being overturned by the ruling bishop. They would have extra-synodal authority to report properly investigated cases to the authorities if the synod refused to act.
Such action should be the norm in all Christian traditions. It is not the norm in any of which I am aware. That all Christian bodies regardless of their ecclesial structure have difficulty acting in such a manner means that we are in denial and full of pride. We will pay the full price.
To help heal the victims, financial restitution must be paid, if possible without recourse to the courts to inforce payment. Of course, full healing is quite difficult and goes beyond simple financial restitution. The bishop in charge of the offending clergy and the head of the synod should extend an in person (assuming the victim desires it) complete and heartfelt apology that would be similar to that offered in confession (public only to the extent that the victims desired it). We would do well to partner with other Christians in a cross denominational way to provide Chrisitan assistance to all the victims (if they want it) as well as to develop professional support progams for clergy who are faced with temptations once they begin their parish service. At the same time care has to be taken to identify and weed out all specious and malicous accusations made against non-offending clergy.
An acutal, functioning local synod with smaller regional synods of bishops must be established free of all foreign control. Each bishop MUST be an active pastor of an established worshiping community and maintain his pastoral duties in that community. In that way, the bishop becomes accountable to the synods of his brother bishops and his congregation. If any bishop or priest refuses obedience to those synods, they should be excommuicated and removed from active minstry at any level. If this means blowing up the current jurisdictonal islands and ‘going it alone’ then let us do so. Even though the resulting local church would be quite small initially, it could begin to build a body that is in accord with Orthodox praxis and ecclesiology and has the ability to evangelize North America.
Going forward, clergy should be psychologically screened prior to ordination and no one with a confused sexuality should be ordained. Those who are truly called to a life of celibacy must be tested by having them live in the world in a parish of their choosing for at least 10 years working at a secular job to support themselves. If they remain chaste, then they could be considered for ordination as long as they were under obedience to a recognized spiritual father and following a true monastic discipline. After a further period of testing in an actual recognized monastery with a good track record, they might become a candidate for the episcopate, put only after undergoing further psychological tests to help determine their emotional and psycho/sexual stablity as well as the normal synodal vetting; the examinataion by the laity of the diocese they would be serving and the vote of the laity for the man they find to be the best candidate. Regional and national synodal approval would have to follow prior to the man being consecrated. Chaste widowed priests should be considered as candidates for the episcopate as well.
Even if we do all of these things, offenses will occur. Actually, I believe that something very like what I suggest (except for the whipping part) will be put in place. Some of the pieces are already in place to a degree and beginning to funtion.
Lord have mercy on us all. (761 words–sorry)
Yes, John and Michael stop listening by closing the lid to the box that always finds a reason not to see itself as it truly is and therefore fails by failing to see the truth of what it is. Find a reason to not reason about why that your church fails by its failed reason. Make me what the confrontation is telling you what your church truly is and that will lead you to solution, do you think for yourselves think that it will?
Isolate yourselves from solution by making the me problem for pointing out the problem and because you don’t really like me pointing out the problem and what it points too. This is not a milk toast confrontation of a milk toast church. It is real world and therefore it is not an Orthodox milk toast right confrontation of itself that cannot seem to get their church right and even though it claims to be Gods only right church. You are right about me and so stop listening to me by being so right about your opinion. Let the Fed’s and the courts be your confrontation instead. You’re going to just LOVE their confrontation over mine. Are they confronting this the wrong way too by waking you all up to what you are asleep too?
Yes, I am telling you what the problem is in the wrong way for it not being the Orthodox correct way and so go back into the subjective closed box and believe it is your only solution that gives you the solution in the way you want the solution to come to you. It will come to you as totalism dictatorship power and control and I am hardly of that and just because I am in your face confrontational without compromise as to what is the cause of your church failure that does not make me that.
Stop think is stop listening and totalism is stop think that stops listening. I understand exactly where you both are coming from. I understand the role you play in your sick church. But, don’t read the previous post that tells you what that role played out is. It might come across as totalism to you and like you understand what totalism really is and does to all of you for your being involved in its more than proved failure. Both of you are the totalism experts who can explain why totalism is destroying your church and so stop listening to what is outside of you and whose confrontation is in your face from the outside looking in like the courts and Feds are doing. They are Gods discipline not heeded by your church come to you all and so who I am what to come to you all? Am I the totalism that is destroying your church?
Fact is that totalism hates being told it is totalism in a uncompromising fashion that calls it out for the BULLY that it really is. Yes, tell me how the GOC hierarchy is not a bully that needs the confrontation of a bully. Keep up that tolerance of the bully and see what he does to you without standing up to him by calling him out for what he truly is. Compromise the bully and see what happens. Make me like the bully to find solution to the bully and ignore the bully beating your church to death.
I fully understand the causation of your reaction that does not want to read further. Stop listening is stop reading and they both together are stop think. Simple, I am intentionally being very tough on all of this to reveal your reaction to the truth of all of this. That is for you and it is not the totalism that is destroying your church. It exposes it with tough love not found in your church and its corrupt state is my proof that it does not really confront itself in an uncompromising fashion that calls it like it is. Tell those children sexually abused in NY how tough love you are with each other and your church.
I see right through the love your church has for victims by how it makes them victims and in the Orthodox Mind that makes me like the totalism that destroys children by how I confront the totalism that destroys children. You tolerate it and I am zero tolerance of it. That is the rub here and rubbing is healthy church trying to find solution that does not compromise by tolerance of sex abuse. So guys don’t rub and go back into the box where is it safe in the safe church that loves to eat its young by spiritually and emotionally murdering their inner persons and spirits. Let their murder be your guide out of the cause of their of their murder by murdering more of them in the future and just like the GOA was doing the whole time in this NY monastery during Katinas and so many others before him. There is MORE of this going on right now that the GOA is either not seeing or not revealing. I promise.
Yes, I do have a confrontational reaction to the murder of children by a church. My reaction is to go to the cause by confronting the cause and I am nothing less than real world about it to stop it. The FBI and the courts are real world about it too and you are not going to like the reality they bring to all of you. I confront the cause and they bring you the consequences of the cause that you all deny is the cause that I am confronting. It’s that simple and simple is rude and offensive to the Orthodox by how it confronts them to their face without compromise about their compromises with corruption. It is so rude and offensive to some of them they believe it is hypocrisy by their calling it what it is confronting and when the confrontation is only rising up to the level of what is necessary to confront this level of corruption.
Now do the Orthodox denial typical. Find another reason not to read to solution and make me the reason why you don’t. Your church always denies the cause and its solution somehow and that is why your church cannot find the cause and its solution to its abusing of children. The GOA is in this position because it is in denial of the cause of why it is in this position. They don’t listen to confrontation either and always find a way to turn it off if it is not to their likings. They turned off the Katinas confrontation and lookie at what they got now. So, please, turn off this confrontation too and to be Orthodox consistent.
Blessings,
Ashley Nevins
PS: In my previous post there are ten and not eight signs of spiritual abuse in a church.
Yup, that’s me a close minded automaton being driven into oblivion and, quite likely, outer darkness.
Michael,
The state of the church is irrelevancy moving to insignificance to church death to oblivion. The outer darkness is really the inner darkness of a closed system that cannot see outside of itself to solution. The more closed the church structure and system the less light let in and out. That is a survival existense state of church that is exclusive and not inclusive. An exclusive church is a self centered church. The more exclusive the church the more self protective is that church found to self protect its exclusiveness. All of this leads to the spiritual abuse and the spiritual abandonment of the laity of the church and that kills a church dead in its tracks. It goes right off the tracks into oblivion.
A exclusive church problem cannot be solved by an exclusive solution that is the problem itself.
Telling the world outside of the closed box of theological totalism that you are Gods only alone right and one true church is exclusive thinking and exclusive thinking is self sufficient thinking and self sufficient thinking does not need God to find solution. That is self imposed oblivion by being a closed, isolated and subjective church. It also is mind control whether you realize it or not and those under this kind of mind control cannot see the mind control or the mind control would be broken and the freedom in Christ would be seen as the church. Instead, what is seen as a church is a church that is corrupt, failed, irrelevant and dying.
What closes the church closes the mind of the church and that is mind control of the church. Mind control is something else thinking for you. A church that cannot think for itself is a church that will become irrelevant oblivion to the society and culture around it. Denial of the state of the dying church does not lead to solution to the dying state of church. Denial at this level is result of unseen mind control. Think it through.
I read the 2010 Orthodox census and I see the denial of the state of church in it. It told me that unless you find the cause of the church failure nothing any of you do will solve the failure state of church. What the census told me was that this is a circular without solution church with oblivion as its solution.
You accept the failure norm of church because the mind control over the church is the failure norm of church accepted by all of you. You accept a lower standard of Christian values, ethics and morality as a result and the church is found corrupt. Standards of leadership excellence are compromised and the church leadership is found incompetent and that incompetency only reproduces itself over and over again by the failed leadership development processes found in the failed church that cannot lead itself to solution to its failed state. If you get the basis of the failure wrong your church will stay wrong in its state of church by applying the wrong solution to the wrong cause of the problem. Period.
By making yourselves Gods only true truth objective standard of Orthodox correctness you only compare yourselves to yourselves and all not of you to yourselves. What does that lead too, Michael? My posts have explained to you what it leads too.
The problem is deeper and wider and far worse than your Orthodox denial can become rigiously honest about and so your reaction to the truth in the confrontation is predictable. The reaction is subjective reaction and not objective solution. It does not offer thinking for yourself solution. Can you think for yourself to see why I say that it is subjective and not objective? Processed based Christian thinking that can think for itself is not an Orthodox strength and the response in your post is my evidence.
Instead of reaction how about interaction on what the cause of the corrupt, failed, irrelevant and dying state of church is? That is the starting point of thinking for yourself to solution by seeing the cause of the failure. It requires that you do not approach the interaction with a close minded automaton being driven into oblivion and, quite likely, outer darkness mind set. Instead, it asks you to go to cause and find solution there with a mind set that is objective about the cause and its solution.
So, Michael, what is the cause of the corrupt, failed, irrelevant and dying state of church? Is the cause a symptom of the cause or the cause itself? Do you find solution by treating symptoms or by treating the cause? Do you follow symptoms back to cause to find solution or do you believe symptoms are the cause and treating the symptoms is the solution?
These questions are for you and not against you. They only point out why and how your church is against itself in the finding of the solution to the dying state of church. Your response did not discuss cause, but it did discuss why you will not go to cause.
Michaeal, I understand the Orthodox reaction to something that thinks for itself and thinks differently than the Orthodox Mind that is not found thinking for itself or the depth and width of the systemic theological failure would not be as serious as it is. None of this is easy to listen too inside a closed system. It is open system speaking into closed system and the closed system reaction is typical and predictable by how the open system thinking is diametrically opposite to closed system thinking. Bottom up thinking is the opposite of top down thinking and that is the rub. It is the same rub Christ had with WHO?
I have read in many places what the top down closed system Orthodox thinks about the bottom up and open system Christian. You got me as wrong as your church is wrong in its failure. Your church really does not understand how a bottom up and open system Christian thinks and for all of you believing your Orthodox thinking is the only way to think. Your thinking is failed and I see the cause of why that it is by going to the cause of the failed thinking that has led to church failure.
Fact is that any Orthodox reading me is caused to think for himself and maybe for the first time in his or her Christian life is being asked to think outside the closed box of theological failure. I am very distrubing and troubling for an Orthodox to read and that is by design. The design is confrontation over issues the Orthodox are failing to confront themselves over for them being so alone right about themselves. The more right you all believe you are the less you can see the cause of how wrong you are. That is mind control that blinds you to the cause and you deny it is mind control for its control over your mind by your Orthodox Mind being alone right.
Thinking for yourself outside of the closed, isolated and subjective box of Orthodoxy is really scary to an Orthodox who has never really done that before. Stepping outside of that box with objectivity and looking back into that subjective box is a intimidating experience if you believe you are Gods only alone right and one true truth Christians. It tells you that you are not who you believe that you are and it exposes who that your truly are in who that you believe you are. The Orthodox reaction is objection and rejection and that does not find solution. The design of the confrontation points that out in no uncertain terms by the objection and rejection of the confrontation.
In other words, Michael, I understand the Orthodox reaction from the CAUSE of the reaction. Understanding the cause of the reaction is seeing the confrontation you are reacting too. You really do not want to go to the cause of the failed state of church for what it is really going to tell you why it is failed. For someone who is not Orthodox to tell you what that cause is causes you to react because you believe the cause is something else for your being of Gods only alone right and one true turth church that is the objective standard of Christian truth all Christians are measured against. It is offensive to an Orthodox to be told that he or she is not who that they believe that they are by identifying the cause of the state of their corrupt, failed, irrelevant and dying church. Your church is Gods alone right truth and so no one outside of it can tell you different about you because they are found wrong in comparison to your church somehow. That is self idolatry that causes church failure from the cause of the self idolatry. It is pride that goes before the church fall and your church is found in a fallen state.
Noticing why and how it is failed by someone outside of you just is not Orthodox we alone are right correct to the Orthodox Mind. You determine who and what you are by your Gods only alone right and one true truth and any other determination of who that you are is inferior in your Orthodox exclusive mind. It’s very simple. In the Orthodox Mind all who are not of that mind are wrong in comparison to that mind and so why listen to anyone other than yourselves since you are so very right about yourselves.
The Orthodox are alone wrong in their believing they are alone right. The state of your failed church is my best proof. The more right you all believe you are means the harder it is to admit how truly wrong you all are. Your denial can be measured by how right you all believe you are and so can your pride.
That is Humpty Dumpty church that has a great fall and all the Orthodox cannot put it back together again and I know why they can’t and my conclusion of why they can’t is wrong in the Orthodox Mind that cannot find solution to the wrong state of their church.
Ashley Nevins
Ashley, for you to spend some much time in your denunciations against Orthodoxy implies to me that you have some personal issue — some hurt in your past — that goes well beyond a level-minded theological dispute with those who hold to the ancient Christian faith.
Has someone who claims to be Orthodox hurt you? Why are you so angry at Orthodoxy and Ancient Christianity?
May you find peace and know the love of Christ.
— Stan Shinn
Ashley, I’d really love to reply to the substance of your post, but remember, my poor automaton mind starts overloading at about 250 words. As a conscession to you, I’ll push it to 500 or so but I’m afraid it just might burn out if I push it any further.
Suffice it to say, it is plain to me that you do not see or understand what the Church is, the life that is in her and the nature of that life. Therefore depsite the partial accuracy of some of your observations you end up wildly missing the mark.
The life in the Church is centered around our participation in the sacraments (Holy Mysteries) supported by personal prayer, almsgiving, fasting, repentance and forgiveness. While we are in this world (obviously too much of it); the life of the Church is not of this world. That life continues to be available despite the horrid sin and corruption of all within the Church. That life manifests itself in the living presence of the angels, the saints and the Holy Trinity. That the demons are also there biting at our heels, looking for stragglers should be no surprise. The fact that we fall prey to the tempations of the world, the flesh and the devil should also come as no surprise (many are called….). Unfortunately, for some, the wounds they suffer prove fatal for their salvation–a great sadness. Those responsible for those wounds will also suffer.
One thing that is beginning to dawn on me however, is that when we Christians criticize and condemn one another with a broad polemic bursh, we are falling prey to many of those tempations ourselves.
Salvation is through Jesus Christ. He can save whom He wishes (even us poor automatons). If I am blessed enough to be one of His sheep at the final judgement, I am sure I will be quite surprised by some of those there with me. I know they will not all be Orthodox.
Here’s the thing, Ashley, despite the sin and corruption we all recognize, the road to salvation is more clearly and completely laid out in the Orthodox Church than anywhere else. That path has been trod by many great saints who are still with us to help us along the way. The sacramental and spiritual praxis of the Church is a big part of that road, but it is the testamony of the lives of the saints that is witness to the continuing life in the Church, not the many sins. The Holy Spirit is still producing saints in our midst. While our ability to follow can certainly be impacted by the sins of others, nothing can stand in our way to union with Christ if we open our hearts to Him regardless of the circumstance.
St. John Chrysostom on his death bed (put there by the persecution of Emperor) cried out: “Glory to God in all things!” Who am I to say anything less and turn aside from the road Jesus Christ Himself has placed me on.
May the Grace and Peace of our Lord and of His saints be with you. (524 words).
John,
I have told you the solution is not embracing Martin. It is embracing the Lordship of Christ as the center of church authority that holds all in the church transparent and accountable. Did you fail to hear me say that? Place Christ into the center of authority of your church and Christ will change the cause of your church theological structure and system failure by how HE changes it in HIS power. Christ will lead you to any change needed to change the dying state of church if all of you submit to His Lordship authority at the center of the church. Since tradition and theological totalism lead you and not Christ that is not going to happen until that changes.
Since your are top down authoritarian church and Christ is bottom up humility I really kind of doubt if your church is going to embrace Christ alone as its solution anytime soon. Yes, I agree, you will clean up your own house in your own power and then we will be able to see how clean it is by your own power.
Christ is, humility to repentance to transformation to change to innovation to relevancy to church alive. He is paradigm shifting change and He was no fan of traditions of men or dead totalism religion that refuses to change to relevancy. If you refuse to change you are refusing to live and the state of your church tells me which one you all have chosen.
The contempt is the contempt those have at being told what the failure of their church is. You take that failure baggage with you from one Orthodox generation to the next. You are not cleaning up your dirty house. The state of your church tells me you are not doing that. You are not righteously angry over this state of church for your all being so self righteous alone right about your church. You root out the corruption by going to its cause or it will only come roaring back into your faces. You will not quit until you church is destroyed and its self destruction is clearly seen by its state. You fail to diagnose the cause of the problem killing your church dead.
Yes, survey the landscape and compare youselves to it so you do not have to go to the cause of your church failure and own it by taking responsibility for your church. Find a church in worse shape than the EOC and use that as your rationalization of your church state. Look at their problems for the purposes of not having to face your church failure. Make this us vs. Ashley and when it is really all of you being us vs. us by your refusal to go to cause. This is not you vs. me with me. It is you vs. yourselves with me. I am just the tough love delivering the tough message. Simple.
You ONLY look outside of yourselves in places that have problems too, but you fail to look inside of your church to see the cause of your church failure by pointing to their problems? That is denial trying to justify its failure by saying others have problems too. I promise that will not lead you to solution.
What did you say you are going to clean your house up with, thank you?
All churches fail. That is not the issue. How they fail forwards and not backwards is. So, again you still miss the point of the confrontation. The issue is not church perfection that is Gods only alone right and one true church. Perfectionism is the legalistic church that fails by its legalisms in its perfection of legalism that is its truth and that in truth is a denying failure.
The issue is church safety, health and functionality that leads to church relevancy and not to church death. The Lordship of Christ makes a church safe, healthy and functional by the degree Christ is the true center of church authority that holds all in the church transparent and accountable. A church operating under its own power cannot do that and therefore cannot clean up its own house.
Yes, I have great comtempt for sin that destroys children and churches. I hate that kind of sin.
Can you tell that I do hate sin that kills and that I have zero tolerance of it?
I know exactly what Pokrov is all about and obviously you do not by the role you are playing in your church that Pokrov is not playing. Pokrov was started as a result of what? How many of you financially support them and offer up other helps to them? You did not address the persecution they receieve for the role they play in your church and that none of the rest of you really support other than with LIP SERVICE. You did not address that because you are not involved enough to know what to address. You, sir, are not on the fronts lines of battle fighting the battles they fight. They are not in denial and their continual confrontation of the EO denial is my proof.
John, I see right through you and you don’t like that I do. That is the reaction here observed. It’s your church baggage on display here and I am showing you what is inside of your bags and I am not being Orthodox correct about it. The Orthodox correct way is to keep secrets, cover up, hide, self protect, spin, deny and lie. Read Pokrov if you don’t believe me or simply watch the EP in the months ahead.
The Orthodox way to solution is seeing the Orthodox the way the Orthodox view themselves and if you don’t then you are wrong in how you see them for their being Gods only alone right who only see themselves as they rightly are. It is no great wonder to me why you disagree with me.
Ashley Nevins
Orthodox,
I wish you all the best in your efforts to find solution through the truth of Gods only true church that is without solution to its corruption, failure, irrelevancy and dying state. What you cannot see is far worse than what you can see. None of you are going to find solution to this state of church unless you get honest about the cause.
Think and say what you will or want about me. NY after Katinas is my current best proof that you all refuse to see the cause and so more cause not seen by you will be coming to your church in the most confronting of ways that make my confrontation here seem like a fire cracker compared to a 20 mega ton H Bomb.
Yes, all of you need to argue with what God is going to tell you about yourselves through the FBI and the courts. What’s next, the ATF come pulling your church bells to wake you all up? What I find most interesting about all of this is how shocked all of you were over NY after Katinas. Will you be just as shocked when the next serious problem exposes itself and as it stood right in front of your denial plain to see?
You never saw NY coming and like you are not going to see the next debacle coming and I know why you will not see those things coming. How and why you missed NY after Katinas is obvious to see and I see the solutions you are all offering up now that it is too little too late after the fact and for how many children in NY? Well now, how many more children is it going to take before you wake up and stop the irrational maddness of the self destructing church that kills its kids in its self destruction? Are you all going to stand around and talk about how terrible it all is and just like you did with Katinas???
Your church can no longer control outcomes by church and state power and control and the hierarchies of Orthodoxy believe they are the divine right of God by their power and control.
For your sakes, all of you had better hope and pray that your church power and control has deep pockets. The only thing the Orthodox seem to understand is the police, the courts and money.
Blessings of Christ-centered solution to you all,
Ashley Nevins
Yes, I know all of this. I am just wondering how many more dozens of children have to be abused before you act with God to stop it. Is this why the Mother of God in a vision to Elder Ephraim sent him here to get all of you on the Orthodox correct Mt. Athos path back to right Orthodoxy?
No I do not think you have read these books or you would have applied them. Did you see the part in the book, The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, where it gives you the way of escape? Too bad jumping jurisdictions provides no way of escape for you because of the systemic theological failure of the EOC. Reading the book and connecting the dots the book puts together are two different things.
You all should have Jeff Van Vonderen conduct two of his outstanding seminars for your church since you are so very serious about applying what you read. One of his seminars deals with SHAME in the church and the other one deals with spiritual abuse in the church. You need Jeff. He is an expert at intervention. Have you seen his TV show called INTERVENTION??? He would have a field day with intervention in the GOA. I know Jeff, and even he would find your church state shocking as a Christian and he has seen it all!
Yes, I see how well all of you are conducting intervention upon your church hierarchies and as you wait for the Holy Spirit to do something about it. Keep praying and God will keep giving you the consequences that point directly to the cause you all deny is the cause. He is answering your prayers. I promise.
Yes, I see all the laity ground swell of zero tolerance of abuse created by their reading of those books.
I am not asking for absolute compliance. I am just telling you why your are corrupt without the Lordship of Christ at the center of your church holding you all compliant to that Lordship by submitting yourselves to Christ’s authority first to find the cause of the problem and its solution.
You mean to tell me I sound just like all of you do to those outside of you? Why, I am so offended that you would (hee, hee). Gee, I wonder why I would do that? It could not be by design, could it? Did you think for yourself to that conclusion??? I am glad that you did. Get it? (Think the design through)
Am I still not listening and am I still asleep? I know exactly what it is I am doing and I know why I am doing it. It is not like I have never had to do this before on several occassions. You really do not understand who that it is you are dealing with, do you. That is not a question. It is a statement.
Orthodox, the confrontation is for children your church abuses while you wait for the Holy Spirit to act for you and when God in the Bible has already given you instructions on how to procede with such corruptions.
Ashley Nevins
I forgot to mention this. I do not see you as idiots. In fact, I see the Orthodox as the most educated of Christians on the planet, generally speaking. You have a strong tendency to religiously intellectualize and not be practical about solution and God is very practical about solution to corruptions. You tolerate what God is zero tolerance about and I believe all of you KNOW that is wrong by the Holy Spirit convicting you of your sin over that.
I do see you as is deceived by authoritarian power and control that renders you religious codependent powerless to stop the dying state of your church. Religious codependency is deception that renders you powerless. That is why I believe you are not acting and are waiting for God to act for you and when He has given you the authority to act on your own to solve the corruption problems. That probably sounds rather western rational Christian radical to you, but I see Christ as a radical of radical change in the Gospels and I see Him as our only solution by His ability to change us if we submit to His Lordship first.
If you are not idiots. You are Christians struggling to find solution through something that you fail to see will not provide you with solution. You fail to see it because of deception that tells you to wait to act when God shows up and when He is showed up by your being Sons and Daughters of the King who are a royal priesthood of not powerless laity believers. At worst you have been rendered so powerless by religious codependency it causes you to do some unwise things that bring you great harm. An idiot will not change that, would agree with me? I believe you have all you need to change the state of your church if Christ is made the center of church authority.
Orthodox, I am telling you Christ is not the center of your church authority. Evil is and my saying that causes many of you to simply shut down and stop listening and just like it did those in John 8:31-59. The only way you can remove that evil is with SPIRITUAL VIOLENCE and I do not see any of you doing that. When you do replace corruption it seems that you always replace it with corruption. You seem to me to be waiting for God or something else to do that for you when your identity, worth and value is In Christ and that is your salvation that can solve this church killing problem. If you allow what is killing your church to be your defintion that definition will not stop the killing of your church. Only an idiot would allow that to go on and I believe all of you are spiritually smarter than that. You only need to live up to your spiritual intelligence by intelligently giving God the Holy Spirit authority at the center of your church.
Have any of you read any of the books by the practical theologian from Fuller Seminary named Neil Anderson who writes books on your identity in Christ? You are not idiots. You simply do not really know who you truly are by identity In Christ. Your identity is placed in something else and you sincerly allowed that to happen with the best intentions. I see you as sincerely deceived by what undermines your authority given to you by your true identity In Christ. I see you as having a religious codependent identity and not a Christ centered identity that breaks the bondage of religious codependency and sets the church free to be what God called it to be by its Christ centered identity. Your idenity is not idiot. It is shame.
Your indoctrination into authoritarianism does not raise you up to take action to solution. It warps your sense of what church authority is and it causes you to practice misplaced loyality towards that corruption of church authority. Only the top down power and control has ALL the power and control to bring change and that is pure sin against God in the priesthood of the believer. No matter how tough that comes across to you in delivery it is for you and not against you!
It is like you are all standing around appealing to a higher church power to solve this for you and when God has already given the laity the authority as the priesthood of the believer to solve these issues. If you appeal to the structure that is corrupt to find your solution you will not find solution there.
YOU ARE THE PRIESTHOOD OF LAITY BELIEVERS CREATED IN THE IMAGE OF GOD AND YOU ARE NOT WITHOUT SOLUTION BY YOUR IDENTITY IN CHRIST!
I see you as rendered powerless and not rendered idiots. However, Proverbs has a lot to tell us ALL about the fool, does it not? There is not a one of us Orthodox or not who is a Christian who cannot gain wisdom, discernment and insight into solution by reading them, right? All I know is this, the fool denies the wisdom of God to find solution to what makes him a fool. I believe at its core that is what Proverbs is telling ALL of us. Me included!
The FOOL is like a dog that returns to his own vomit and pride goes before a fall, just to name a few points that Proverbs makes. I didn’t tell you that. God did. What, you don’t think God has not used that in my own foolish life in my process of transformation to solution? The only reason why I can speak into your corruption is because God has spoken into mine. Get it? I am not above anything I am confronting here among you. I am not immune. All of us are in that same boat.
This is one begger telling other beggers where to find living water and the bread of life.
I see you as religious codependents and not idiots. Now, having said that religious codependency will lead you to do some very unwise things to find solution. That is why I bring up Proverbs for its wisdom. I suppose that make me a Bible thumper?
I hear you. You want to find solution. I see you. I do not see you finding solution. I also see and hear the victims and they want solution none of your are providing them with.
John,
Go be alone right in your alone right church. That is your alone right solution that will lead you to your alone right end.
Ashley Nevins
Gotta love a bible-thumper. Preach it sister!
Heracleides,
Got to love Gods alone right and only true church response that only calls names and does not go to solution from symptoms that point to cause. So, using the Bible as authority over theological totalism and traditions of men is Bible thumping? Lol, it is nothing compared the THUMPING your church is giving all of you by its top down authoritarian power and control that ignores the values, ethics and morality found in the Bible. Keep thumping children with sexual abuse that is sex addiction and is tied right into the religious addiction to power and control and that is the result of your church theology and its resulting structure and system of bishops, monastics and priests who hold the entire structure and system of abuse together by their power and control over all the abused.
BTW, Ashley is a boys name. Its English like I am and was a name used in the southern USA for a long time.
Ever see the movie Gone With the Wind?
Why, I am a boy named SUE!
Ashley Nevins
Michael,
One last thought before I split this scene…
Here’s the thing Michael, I see how well laid out your salvation is in solving the corruption, failure, irrlevency and dying state of your church by its salvation.
That salvation is not revealing to you what the cause of the state of your church is and if you are so aware of what is literally killing your church why did the spiritual and emotional killing of kids in NY by sex abuse take place after Katinas? I see the depth of your awareness of why children are sexually abused and what your salvation in its spiritual maturity and spiriual character has brought to all of you. What did you say the body count of kids was up too today?
You are at best only aware of the symptoms of all of this and not its cause. Your salvation is not leading you to the cause no matter how you say that it is by how aware all of you are of the issues. I see the kids in NY after Katinas. Yes, all of you need to keep denying and let that be your risk for Christ and the Gospels and see where that risk taken leads you. Will it circular lead you back to another Katinas?
Your salvation is your solution. How is that solution working out by the state of your church? It is telling me a lot about your salvation that cannot save a dying church from its dying state. Yes, keep producing saints that lead you to no solution. In fact, you have a living saint right now in an Az monastery who will tell you he is the solution. He was sent to the GOA by a vision received by the elder from the Mother of God to put the church on the Mt. Athos correct Orthodox path. You can see that after a generation of him among them that his Aerial Toll House salvation is the solution to the GOA failure. You need all the living saints you can get and who are just like him.
Keep producing such saints that lead you to solution by the kind of salvation solution they bring to you and who make your church relevancy Christ salvation to the generation it is found in. It’s obvious that monasticism is the salvation of the GOC and just like its EP who leads this church by his salvation is too. Too bad your monastic and bishop salvation could not save those children in NY. They were expendable to the salvation of the hierarchy. Sacrificial lambs to the slaughter.
What were you saying about the salvation that abused the salvation of those kids in NY? Oh, yes, it is the most thorough explanation of salvation in Christianity by it being the only one true salvation found in Christianity.
Yes, I know, I am not Orthodox correct in how I tell you all of this. I tell you like it is without hierarchy con, lies and spin.
I am not easy on any of you and because your failure is killing kids. Orthodox, you are not going easy on the kids no matter how aware of the issues you believe that you are. You church is coercing and bullying children to its sexually corrupt end. Now also deny how it coerces and bullies all of you too. Be the parent of one of these abused children and see how the hierarchy treats you and your abused kid when you come forward. Ask Pokrov to tell you the stories. Ask SNAP what their opinion of the EO hierarchy is compared to the RCC hierarchy. Don’t get real world about the issues, get Orthodox about the issues.
You are so acculimated to the spiritual abuse and spiritual abadonment I do not believe any of you really realize just how abused and abandoned you truly are. You just let it go on until it rises to the level of sick sexual acts against small children. Your attitude about corrupt bishops is the attitude of your corrupt bishops or bishop heads would roll. OCA Alaska is a good example of this abandonment and just like those children in NY are too. Look at the ROC, and on and on it all goes. What I speak too premeates the EOC. So go ahead and defend the indefensible and see where what you defend takes you in this generation and let’s observe how well you survive into the next generation after it.
Obviously, you were very aware of what was going on in NY. Your salvation led you to know by how well laid out it is compared to all other Christians not of you.
Have a nice circular weekend.
Ashley Nevins
John,
Yes, I know, in the Orthodox Mind they know the full diagnosis of the sickness killing their church and that is why it is seen as the healing center of Christ’s love in salvation come to those children in NY after Katinas. You all know what the complete problem is and its solution and that is why I am only partly right in my analysis. You fight the problem with the very problem itself and you go circular without solution by the problem being applied as the solutin to the problem.
Since you know the full diagnosis of the problem then why don’t you tell me what the full solution to the problem is? Fill in the parts I got all wrong by the solution you know you have that is not wrong. Reveal the solution to Katinas that is going to reveal the solution to NY and that will then reveal the solution to the corrupt, failed, irrelevant and dying state of the GOA. Yes, I want to hear what is the GOA solution is and that is its Gods only alone right and one true truth solution.
Circular without solution is the GOA solution. Yes, tell me how I got that wrong by your Orthodox truth that is the right solution by how well it can see the cause of the problem and therefore its solution. Will you be telling me of your solution when the next group of children are destroyed by the GO hierarchy?
The GOA needs solution and so why don’t you explain to them what the solution is by filling in the blanks of what I left out and correcting where I am wrong. Am I 25% right, 50% right, 75% right? How right am I and how wrong am I? Am I wrong in telling you Jesus did not come to us as top down authoritarian theology and resulting structure and system of church and state totalism power and control that is closed, isolated and subjective in its character of being self centered, self protective and self sufficient? Was it wrong to ask all of you to take symptoms back to cause?
I believe I know why you believe you are right and I am somehow wrong. You must be right to be able to see where I got this wrong, right? I cannot be completely right when totalism is right and never wrong by it being Gods only alone right and one true truth church. I am not of that totalism and so right from the start I am wrong in the mnd of the Orthodox. My premise is wrong and so that makes most all else I tell you wrong for it not being from the Orthodox premise. You hold it as suspect as you do my salvation that is not the salvation of your church being my salvation. You compare me to your alone right and one true truth and I come up lacking and where I come up lacking I am wrong.
I see through all of this and understand fully why I have to somehow be wrong in the Orthodox Mind. It’s not that I can’t be wrong in some way in my own mind. I can be wrong. It is instead about how right you are and how that gives you the ability to know where I am wrong when not a one of you has solution to the wrong state of your church. You are flat out of solutions to the dying state of church and you don’t like me telling you how and why that you are. That is the real wrong here in the Orthodox Mind.
Ashley Nevins
Ashley,
I thought you were going to “split this scene.” However you are still here. When are you going to split? I would like to know, because once you have split, I start reading here again…
To the proprietor of this space: when do you have finally enough of getting dumped on your lawn?
Joseph, a quiet, but really turned off, reader
Joseph, perhaps because of the genuine pain Mr. Nevins has. Obviously and unfortunately, his pain has so twisted his perception of things that he is mistaking the sin in the Church (as horrible and inexcuseable as it is) for the Church. He wants the Church dead.
Of course, he will remain in his pain and embed his pain in his soul in unnecssary ways until he forgives. It is prudent for all of us to remember that it was from the Cross in the middle of His agony that Jesus Christ said, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do”.