Tuesday, January 31, 2006

The time has come...

High time that we stop deceiving ourselves with examples of the individual piety of many great leaders of our culture and of the beneficence of their works! It were time for us to recognize clearly the controlling idea of the new culture. Individual personalities and their individual accomplishments may indeed be excellent; but, on the whole, our modern culture is nothing but a state of chronical rebellion against God. Without clearly realizing this, it will be impossible to alter the course of culture.
St. Pavel (Florensky)

Monday, January 30, 2006

Agnosticism

It is decidedly wrong, then, to regard the modern Nihilist, in whatever guise he may appear as 'agnostic.' The 'death of God' has not simply happened to him as a kind of cosmic catastrophe, rather he has actively willed it – not directly, to be sure, but equally effectively by preferring something else to the true God.
Fr. Seraphim (Rose)

Sunday, January 29, 2006

s-harmony

Rape, incest, adultery, and sodomy are wrong because they are inconsistent with the harmony and good order of the family, which is the foundation of all social harmony and social order, and thereby of all human happiness.
Harry Jaffa

Friday, January 27, 2006

Episcopal beatification?

Raise your hands if you are perplexed by this:
Episcopalians want Marshall for sainthood
NEW YORK -- Episcopalians from a church where the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall worshiped are asking their denomination to name him a saint.
Marshall, who died in 1993, was a towering figure in the civil rights movement and the first black justice to sit on the nation's highest court.
Members of St. Augustine's Church in Washington, D.C., will seek initial approval for the honor Friday from delegates to the convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington.
''His Christian faith was deep inside his being and it was this faith which was the foundation and source of his energetic pursuit of justice,'' said the Rev. Thomas Smith.
Among other contemporary Episcopal saints are the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Florence Nightingale.
AP
Update:Found in another source:
If approved, Marshall's feast day would be celebrated on May 17, commemorating his 1954 victory against school segregation in Brown vs. Board of Education, a case he argued as an attorney before the Supreme Court. If the process is completed successfully, his feast day will be celebrated in May 2010, following the national convention in June 2009.
Now this is just getting psycho...

The chronic of our culture

High time that we stop deceiving ourselves with examples of the individual piety of many great leaders of our culture and of the beneficence of their works! It were time for us to recognize clearly the controlling idea of the new culture. Individual personalities and their individual accomplishments may indeed be excellent; but, on the whole, our modern culture is nothing but a state of chronical rebellion against God. Without clearly realizing this, it will be impossible to alter the course of culture.
St. Pavel (Florensky)

Thursday, January 26, 2006


Now that's some messed up eschatology...

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

'That they all may be one' in that multifarious way?

That John 17 [v. 21 “That they all may be one”] can be applied to Churches which have not the slightest understanding of glorification (theosis) and how to arrive at this cure in this life is very interesting, to say the least. … In John 17 Christ prays for the cure of the glorification of His disciples and their disciples, not for divided Churches, indeed not for traditions which have not the slightest idea of what the cure of glorification is.
Fr. John Romanides

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

The 'thingness' of a person

In a manner of speaking follows St. Pavel on Love parts I,(II is an accidental repost of I) III, IV, V, VI and VII
The modern, illusionistic understanding of life is dominated by the psychological interpretation of love…This new understanding starts, it appears, with Leibniz…For Leibniz, “monads have neither windows nor doors” through which real interaction in love would occur. Therefore, doomed to the self-enclosedness of ontological egotism and purely internal states, they love only illusorily, not going out of themselves through love. …
According to this definition, “love is a rejoicing in the happiness of another or others, considered also as one’s own happiness.” [cf. the "social gospel", etc.] …“Charity is universal good will, and good will is a state of love or estimation.” …for Spinoza, the essence of our soul lies in knowledge and…he calls the soul mens, which, strictly speaking, means mind, thought. “Love is pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause” [“The soul is a thinking thing (res cogitans)”] ...For Leibniz and his followers, love, as we have seen, is conditioned by the idea of the happiness of another. For Spinoza, “the idea of an external cause,” i.e., the idea of some not-I, only accompanies enjoyment as a purely subjective state of I. But in both conceptions, love is interpreted exclusively psychologically and thus is deprived of its significance as a value. Love can even be considered undesirable. If love does not lead anywhere metaphysically, if it does not really connect anyone with anyone else, if it is not ontological but only psychological, why should we then see in it anything more valuable than a mere titillation of the soul? Being a source of false ideas about the interaction of that which exists, love turns out to be false and harmful. For the psychological understanding, love is the same thing as desire. Here, this confusion is not at all an accidental and secondary feature of rationalistic essential principles of this understanding of life. For love is directed toward a person, whereas desire is directed toward a thing. But the rationalistic understanding of life does not distinguish, and is not able to distinguish, between a person and a thing. More precisely, it has only one category, the category of thingness, and therefore all things, including persons, are reified by this understanding, are taken as a thing, as res.
St. Pavel (Florensky)

Something for the "patriots" to remember

I have always feared the temptation of the anti-Christ hidden in an uncontrolled nationalism.
Fr. Roman Braga

Monday, January 23, 2006

Through the eyes of the great ape

If the Revolutionary goal "beyond Nihilism" is described in precisely contrary terms, and if Nihilists actually see it as a reign of "love," "peace," and "brotherhood," that is because Satan is the ape of God and even in denial must acknowledge the source of that denial, and--more to the present point--because men have been so changed by the practice of the Nihilist "virtues," and by acceptance of the Nihilist transformation of the world, that they actually begin to live in the Revolutionary Kingdom and to see everything as Satan sees it, as the contrary of what it is in the eyes of God.
Fr. Seraphim (Rose)

Saturday, January 21, 2006

Orthodoxy...

...We see from all this that we teach conformably with Holy Scripture, and the holy Fathers, and Teachers, nothing changing or misrepresenting in the dogmas handed down to us, nothing adding to them, or taking from them, and adding nothing new.
St. Mark of Ephesus

Friday, January 20, 2006

Apropos to the "Afterfeast" of St. Mark of Ephesus

The Patriarch also had an interview with Mark, and entreated him in the name of all the Saints, and for the sake of his father's memory, to agree to the union with the Church of Rome. But this venerable man remained firm against all entreaties. He had already been asked to agree to union, even if it were apparently for the sake of others. His answer was: "In deeds of faith there must be no concessions, no waverings." And when the difference between the two confessions was shown as insignificant, Mark answered: "You speak just like the prefect, who entreated Theodorus to receive heretics into communion only once, and then to act as he liked." The saint answered: "Thy request is like, as if a person said, Allow me to cut your head off, and then you may go wherever you like." Following up this example, Mark remained firm to the end.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Apropos to the feast of St. Mark of Ephesus

From the interview of St. Mark with Pope Eugenius:
The Councils of the Church have condemned as rebels those who have transgressed against some dogma and have preached thus and fought for this, for which reason also they are called 'heretics'; and from the beginning the Church has condemned the heresy itself, and only then has it condemned the leaders of the heresy and its defenders. But I have by no means preached my own teaching, nor have I introduced anything new in the Church, nor defended any foreign and false doctrine; but I have held only that teaching which the Church received in perfect form from our Saviour, and in which it has steadfastly remained to this day: the teaching which the Holy Church of Rome, before the schism that occurred between us, possessed no less than our Eastern Church; the teaching which, as holy, you formerly were wont to praise, and often at this very Council you mentioned with respect and honor, and which no one could reproach or dispute. And if I hold it and do not allow myself to depart from it, what Council will subject me to the interdiction to which heretics are subject? What sound and pious mind will act thus with me? For first of all one must condemn the teaching which I hold; but if you acknowledge it as pious and Orthodox, then why am I deserving of punishment?

...and that's the way it was kids. The chimp one day just decided to walk upright and next thing he had morphed into what is known as "modern man"

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

The blind world swings...


The Devil's Swing

Beneath a shaggy fir tree,
Above a noisy stream
The devil's swing is swinging,
Pushed by his hairy hand.

He swings the swing while laughing,
Swing high, swing low,
Swing high, swing low,
The board is bent and creaking,
The rope is taut and chafing
Against a heavy branch.

The swaying board is rushing
With long and drawn-out creaks;
With hand on hip, the devil
Is laughing with a wheeze.

I clutch, I swoon, I'm swinging.
Swing high, swing low,
Swing high, swing low,
I'm clinging and I'm dangling,
And from the devil trying
To turn my languid gaze.

Above the dusky fir tree
The screeching throng whirls round:
"You're caught upon the swings, love,
The devil take you, swing!"

The devil will not slacken
The swift board's pace, I know,
Until his hand unseats me
With a ferocious blow.

Until the jute, while twisting,
Is frayed through till it breaks,
Until my ground beneath me
Turns upward to my face.

I'll fly above the fir tree
And fall flat on the ground.
So swing the swing, you devil,
Go higher, higher...oh!

Fyodor Sologub
Even though written by a total nihilist so true, so true...

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Worldly Wisdom

All worldly wisdom which is guided only by the physical senses, without regard for the Holy Spirit, is insanity before God and before God's angels; for such a wisdom does not perceive either the spirit or the purpose of this world; rather it knows this world only as ashes from without and ashes from within; as ashes which the wind of chance piles up and strews at one moment this way and at another moment that way.
All wisdom of man which is directed only by the senses and by physical conceptions and fantasies is insanity before God and before angels and saints of God, for it does not know man as man; that is, as a spiritual being related to God, rather it knows man only as a body from without and as a body from within; as a body according to form and as a body according to essence.
St. Nikolaj Velimirovic

…true human wisdom, true human prudence is insufficient just because it is human. At the same time, the mental innocence of 'babes,' the absence of mental riches which prevent one from entering the Kingdom of Heaven, can turn out to be a condition for the acquisition of spiritual knowledge, which exhaust the poor wise men, are in vain. Like ungainly camels, they are loaded down with their knowledge. And like salt water, science only inflames the thirst for knowledge. It never gives peace to the feverish mind. For the Lord's 'easy yoke' and 'light burden' (Matt. 11:30) give the mind what it cannot get from the cruel yoke and hard, unbearable burden of science.
St. Pavel (Florensky)

Monday, January 16, 2006


The universal implictations of Humbert's bull of 1054...?

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Christian Culture

Christians proved that it was possible to re-orient the cultural process, without lapsing into a pre-cultural state, to re-shape the cultural fabric in a new spirit. The same process which has been variously described as a "Hellenization of Christianity" can be construed rather as a "Christianization of Hellenism." Hellenism was, as it were, dissected by the Sword of the Spirit, was polarized and divided, and a "Christian Hellenism" was created.
Fr. Georges Florovsky

Saturday, January 14, 2006

Love part VIII

Follows Love part VII
Rising above the bounds of its nature, I goes out of temporal-spatial limitedness and enters into Eternity. There the whole process of the interrelations of the lovers is a single act, in which an infinite series of individual moments of love is synthesized. This single, eternal, and infinite act is the consubstantiality of the lovers in God, where I is one and the same as the other I, but also different. Every I is not-I, i.e., Thou, by virtue of the renunciation of oneself for the sake of another. And it is I by virtue of the renunciation of the other I for the sake of the first. Instead of individual, separate, self-assertive I's, we get a dyad, a di-unitary being that has the principle of its unity in God: "finis amoris, ut duo unum fiant" ("the limit of love: two are one"). Furthermore, every I sees in the Divine image of another I its own Divine image as in a mirror.
St. Pavel (Florensky)

On "good works"

If someone were to say that he does good and humane works outside of Christ, you know that those, his works, are spoiled to the core and are corroded, be it from vanity or be it from hidden selfishness. Man, without Christ, is the same as branches without the vine. He Himself told us this. The vine is hidden and unseen, but the branches are seen. Nevertheless, the grapes on the branch and the branch itself depends on the vine. The vine of all-encompassing good grows from the heart of God the Father and is watered by the sweetness of the Holy Spirit.
St. Nikolaj Velimirovic

If there is truth, there is inevitably love. … Love follows from the knowledge of God with the same necessity as light radiates from a lamp or nocturnal fragrance emanates from the open calyx of a flower: "knowledge becomes love he gnosis agape ginetai." Therefore, the mutual love of Christ's disciples is the sign of their learning, their knowledge, their walking in the truth. Love is the characteristic sign by which a disciple of Christ is recognized…

But one cannot make a greater error than to identify the spiritual love of one who knows the Truth with altruistic emotions and the striving for the "good of mankind," a striving that, at best, is grounded in natural sympathy or in abstract ideas. For "love" in this sense, which we call "Judaic," everything begins and ends in empirical works, the value of which is determined by their visible effect. But for spiritual love, or love in the Christian sense, this value is only tinsel. Even moral activity (philanthropy and so on) is, taken in itself, an absolute zero. What is desirable is not the outward appearance, not the "skin," of special activities, but life full of grace, which overflows in every creative act of a person. But "skin" as "skin," the empirical outward appearance as such, can always be falsified. No age dares to deny that there are "false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ," that even "Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light" (2 Cor. 11 13-14).
St. Pavel (Florensky)

Friday, January 13, 2006

The 'relevancy' of the Church

No, it is not the insufficiency of life in the Church which must be spoken of, but of the insufficiency of Church consciousness in us. … Unfortunately, we ourselves do not value our Church and the great blessing of Church life enough. We do not confess our faith in the Church bravely, clearly, and definitely. While believing in the Church, we constantly seem to pardon ourselves for the fact that we still believe in it.
St. Hilarion (Troitsky)

Thursday, January 12, 2006


Pseudonym of a certain political figure?

On the misinterpretation of Holy Writ

When, however, sociologist or ethicists, without having the Holy Spirit, study the works of the Fathers, they divide and separate them. And I think that this isolated, detached use of quotations from the Fathers-out of the ascetic spirit-in order to support our impure and human-centered thoughts is the greatest heresy. When we take the Fathers out of the spirit of asceticism, of repentance, we divide them. And every division is a change for the worse. All of the heretics did the same. They used the passages without understanding them, without having the prerequisites of interpreting them correctly. We should therefore carry out the "watchword" which prevails in our times - "return to the Fathers" - not only by studying the texts of the Fathers but also by making the effort of acquiring the life of the Fathers. We should live in the holy Church, live with the holy Mysteries and the holy virtues, stop being individuals and start living like persons, as worthy members of Christ.
Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos)

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Another step up for sodomy.

"Only now are media and entertainment brands being created for the gay and lesbian audience following the success of brands for other minorities," said founder Matt Farber about the creation of "Music with a Twist" which will be dedicated to "nurturing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender artists." Notice how he refers to sodomites as a 'minority' as if this perversion is, obviously, as inherent as skin color.
The label also plans to release various compilations geared toward gay and bisexual audiences, featuring hit songs by established artists that have been embraced by gay, bisexual and transgender audiences, as well as tracks from emerging gay artists.
What happens when this label embraces a song from an artist that has nothing to do with sodomy, will they succumb? Oh, wait, I forgot we're talking about the entertainment industry...there are no such artists...

Distinctions

All friendship, all society, indeed all of human existence, arises from the physical difference of male and female human beings. From this physical difference arises the ground and purpose of human life, because it is the ground and purpose of nature. …The distinction between a man and a woman is a distinction as fundamental as any in nature, because it is the very distinction by which nature itself is constituted. It is the ability of two members of the same species to generate a third, that confirms them as members of the same species. It thereby confirms male and female members of the human species in that equality of rights to which they are entitled as members of that species.
Harry Jaffa

Tuesday, January 10, 2006


"Honestly...the directions were to put the bear in the microwave!"

Love part VII

Follows Love part VI
It is not the case that love of one's brother is the content of the Truth as the Tolstoyans and suchlike religious nihilists affirm. It is not the case that this love of one's brother exhausts everything. Absolutely not. Love of one's brother is a revelation to another, a passage to another, the inflow into another of that entering into Divine life which in the God-communing subject is perceived by this subject as knowledge of the Truth. The metaphysical nature of love lies in the supralogical overcoming of the naked self-identity "I = I" and in the going out of oneself. And this happens when the power of God's love flows out into another person and tears apart in him the bonds of finite human selfhood. Owing to this going out of itself, I becomes in another, in not-I, this not-I. I becomes consubstantial with the brother, consubstantial (homoousios) and not only like-substantial (homoiousios). And it is this like-substantiality that constitutes moralism, i.e., a vain, inwardly insane attempt at a human, extra-Divine love.
St. Pavel (Florensky)

Monday, January 09, 2006

The most successful country?

What these editorial writers fail to realize is that the writer who emphasizes spiritual values is very likely to take the darkest view of all of what he sees in this country today. For him, the fact that we are the most powerful and the wealthiest nation in the world doesn't mean a thing in any positive sense. The sharper the light of faith, the more glaring are apt to be the distortions the writer sees in the life around him.
Flannery O'Conner

Saturday, January 07, 2006

Who will be man's next King?

The God hitherto so real and so present to Christian men cannot be disposed of overnight; so absolute a monarch can have no immediate successor. So it is that, at the present moment of man's spiritual history--a moment, admittedly, of crisis and transition--a dead God, a great void, stands at the center of man's faith.
Fr. Seraphim (Rose)

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Love part VI

Follows Love part V
Love of another person is the reflection of true knowledge upon this person, while knowledge is revelation of the Trihypostatic Truth to the heart, i.e., the abiding in the soul of God's love of man: "If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us" (1 John 4:12). We thus enter with Him not only into an impersonal, providential-cosmic relationship, but also into a personal father-son communion.
St. Pavel (Florensky)

But the LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.

As usual my trip to Salvation Army yielded precious results. Today I found a book entitled Creative Ways to Worship (I just knew I had to buy it with a title like that-to add to my vast collection of heretical books). The first chapter Silent Service takes its inspiration from the above verse.
The minister leads the service by use of postures, gestures, and movements. This necessitates careful study of the verbs in the liturgy. The congregation will follow the service the best they can, creating their own gestures and movements from cues supplied by the leader. Interpretive pantomime artists may be used to help the congregation. The congregation creates their own sermon from the gesture suggestions and cue cards of the minister.
I ask, what happens to those poor people that can't follow along? It's worse than being at a Mass in 1963... What type of sermon will this be you ask? "A sermon, for example, based on 1 John 4:8 entitled 'God Is Love,' might have these words on three pieces of construction paper. To these could be added a question mark on blue paper, an exclamation point on pink, a war or violence-scene poster, and finally, a crucifix." But the excitement comes in when it comes to the "Lord's Supper":
A tablecloth, preferably red and white checked is spread on the altar table. Assigned member of the congregation bring forward the loaf and bottle of grape juice or communion wine. It is poured audibly into one chalice. All the congregation gather in a large circle about the table.
Is it just me or does this 'gathering' remind anyone else of a certain gathering in remote Albania?

Pay close attention to item number seven.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

The 'foundation' for modern 'ecumenism'?

Following are excerpts from letters between Patriarch Jeremias II and the Tübingen "theologians" which constituted an introduction to a book review in a certain publication.
"We received the letters which your love sent us and the booklet which contains the articles of your faith. We accept your love, and in compliance with your request we shall endeavor to clear the issues in which we agree and those in which we disagree" (Patriarch Jeremias II of Constantinople to the Tübingen theologians, writing on the Augsburg Confession in May 1576).
"We ask your holiness to accept our reply with a glad countenance and a gentle spirit, to read it attentively and carefully…to scrutinize it commensurate with your own piety and wisdom in these great matters. We will piously and peacefully discuss the articles in dispute" (from the theologians' reply to the patriarch).
Described by the author of the book review as "remarkable correspondence" and "unmistakable evidence that true Christian ecumenism is a centuries-old project."

Now to clear up the false impression that this excerpt gives. It should be obvious that the "ecumenism" spoken of was a failure as the Tübingen "theologians" went on being their Lutheran selves. Here is another quote from the so-called "theologians": "If they [the Orthodox] wish to take thought for the eternal salvation of their souls, they must join us and embrace our teaching, or else perish eternally!" Finally after three letters and three rebukes of the "theologians" teaching Patriarch Jeremias asked them not to try and pawn off their beliefs: "Go your own way, and do not write any more on doctrinal matters; and if you do write, then write only for friendship's sake." Going a little deeper into the matter we learn that the whole correspondence was a set up, if you will.
The preface [to the Greek translation of the Augsburg Confession] is surely a red herring, serving to camouflage the real purpose of the enterprise. It is not a 'simple' translation; nor is it intended for intra-ecclesiastical purpose in Germany. The author is in fact adding much of his own..... The document is clearly an ecumenical overture to readers who are unfamiliar with the religious developments of sixteenth-century Germany. -Jorgensen, Augustana Graeca
If this didn't reveal to you the pompousness of said "theologians" maybe this quote from the horses mouth will:
As far as we know, we have both embraced and preserved the faith which has been handed down [to us] by the holy apostles and prophets, the God-bearing fathers and patriarchs, and the seven [ecumenical] synods that were built upon the God-given scriptures.
Mr. "Theologian" evidently didn't realize that he was holding correspondence with one of said patriarchs... In Patriarch Jeremias' replies he emphasized that no one, even the enlightened "theologians" had a right to innovate...Patriarch Jeremias: "We reiterate these matters again, although we have been well-informed by your letters that you will never be able to agree with us or rather, we should say, with the truth."
we request that from henceforth you do not cause us more grief, nor write to us on the same subject if you should wish to treat these luminaries and theologians of the Church in a different manner. You honor and exalt them in words, but you reject them in deeds. For you try to prove our weapons which are their holy and divine discourses as unsuitable. And it is with these documents that we would have to write and contradict you. Thus, as for you, please release us from these cares.
And yet the bombastic pompousness continues:
And even if you ask us to no longer trouble you with such writings (although we have conversed with you with much love and much kindness and with due respect) yet we are hopeful that the matters which have been written to you by us up to now will in time be re-examined and reconsidered more accurately and much better. ... Therefore, standing together with Your Holiness, Patriarch and Most Reverent Sir, we offer to the God of all, our true friendship which we have shown to you and which we will continuously afterwards keep.
When do the "theologians" learn? and when will people learn that the only 'ecumenism' is entering into the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church?

Love part V

Follows Love part IV
Only one who has come to know the Triune God can love with a true love. If I have not come to know God, have not come to commune with His Being, I do not love. And contrarily, if I love, I commune with God, know Him. But if I do not love, I do not commune with Him and do not know Him. There is a direct relationship between knowledge and love for creatures here. The center from which this knowledge and this love proceed is my abiding in God and God's abiding in me.
St. Pavel (Florensky)

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

120 million owners of the Book of Mormon testify...

''Of course we're Christian. The very name of the church declares that,'' said [President] Gordon B. Hinckley
Just put "Christian" in your name and you're saved? That's much easier than filling out the back of some Chik track and sending it in...

Rowdy teens take extreme measures to "ask Jesus in their heart"...

Violent take it by force...

O Great Mystery

The mystery of the Trinity only becomes accessible to that ignorance which rises above all that can be contained within the concepts of the philosophers.
Vladimir Lossky

Belated but apropos nonetheless.

Monday, January 02, 2006

Love part IV

Follows Love part III
Man's knowledge of God is inevitably revealed and manifests itself as active love for creatures, a love that is already given to me in immediate experience. And manifested love for creatures is contemplated objectively as beauty. Whence the pleasure, the rejoicing, the consolation in love during its contemplation. That which makes one rejoice is called beauty; love as an object of contemplation is beauty.
St. Pavel (Florensky)

Sunday, January 01, 2006

The rightful suppression of heresy

...if any treatise composed by Arius should be discovered, let it be consigned to the flames, in order that not only his depraved doctrine may be suppressed, but also that no memorial of him may be by any means left. This therefore I decree, that if any one shall be detected in concealing a book compiled by Arius, and shall not instantly bring it forward and burn it, the penalty for this offense shall be death; for immediately after conviction the criminal shall suffer capital punishment.
St. Constantine the Great