The destruction of satan and the "invisible church"

An abstract federation of communities whereby each body is a member of a more general body reduces the Eucharist to a secondary position and makes possible the heretical idea that there is a membership in the body of Christ higher and more profound than the corporate life of local love for real people and thus the whole meaning of the incarnation of God and the destruction of Satan in a certain place and at a certain time in history is destroyed.
Fr. John Romanides

'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

To clarify your history books

[Ecumenical] Councils were convened by the Roman Emperor, beginning with Constantine the Great, in coordination with the Roman Patriarchates of Elder Rome, New Rome, Alexandria, Antioch and finally Jerusalem by 451. These Councils are (1) Nicea 325, (2) Constantinople 381, (3) Ephesus 431, (4) Chalcedon 451, (5) Constantinople 553, (6) Constantinople 680, (7) Nicea 786/7, (8) Constantinople 879 and (9) Constantinople 1341. We have here Eight Ecumenical Councils which were promulgated as Roman Law by the signature of the Emperor after their minutes had been signed by the Five Roman Patriarchates and their Metropolitans and bishops. Then we have the Ninth Ecumenical Council of 1341, whose minutes were signed by only Four Roman Patriarchates and countersigned by the Roman Emperor. Gone was now the Patriarchate of Elder Rome which had been forcefully captured by the Franks, Lombards, Germans and with the help of the Normans. This struggle began in intensity in 983 and was consummated in 1009-1046. After 1045 the Popes of Rome, except for Benedict X (1058-9), were no longer Romans, but members of the Franco-Latin nobility who enslaved the Roman population.
Fr. John Romanides

The Bible: your key to millions!

Let the Oil flow!

May I remind you of some pertinent quotes:

In the hands of neurologically sick people the Bible becomes a source of «uncontrollable fantasies.» And indeed religion is one of the most dangerous. Instead of being a manuel for the cure of the sickness of religion the Bible becomes a book for the propagation of the sickness of religion.
Fr. John Romanides

...the expressions about God in the Bible are not intended to convey concepts about God. They act only as means to guide one to the purification and illumination of the heart and finally to glorification by the Pre-Incarnate and Incarnate Lord (Yaweh) of Glory...
Fr. John Romanides

Concerning Greeks and Latins

We begin with the fact that there are no "Latin" or "Greek" Fathers of the Church. All Fathers of the Church within the Roman Empire are Greek-speaking and Latin-speaking Roman Fathers of the Church with their localities attached to their description. The Carolingian Franks literally invented the distinction between "Greek" and "Latin" Fathers of the Church. Why? In order to cover up the fact that they had no Father of their Church until Rabanus Maurus (776-856). So they simply broke the Roman Fathers in two and began calling them "Greek" and "Latin" Fathers of the Church. In this way they simply attached Rabanus Maurus and his successors to their so-called "Latin" Fathers of the Church. But the Fathers of the Church who wrote in either Latin or Greek or in both Latin and Greek, were neither Latins nor Greeks, but were simply Roman Fathers of the Church.

Fr. John Romanides

The Eighth Council

Without ever mentioning the Franks, the Eighth Ecumenical Synod of 879 condemned those who either added or subtracted from the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, and also those who had not yet accepted the Seventh Ecumenical Synod. It must first be emphasized that this is the first instance in history wherein and Ecumenical Synod condemned heretics without naming them. In this case, the heretics are clearly the Franks.

Fr. John Romanides

Under lock and key

That religion is a sickness with a specific cure is known from the tradition of the Old and New Testaments. However, that this sickness and cure exists in the Bible is known only to those who know that it is there and know how to use the Bible as a guide to said cure. For this reason the Bible is a closed book to all others, even to most Jews and Christians today. This means that Jews who accept the Old Testament alone, or Christians who accept both the Old and the New Testament, yet are not in the process of being cured under the guidance of one already cured, i.e. "glorified" (1 Cor. 12:26), automatically and unknowingly distort these books into supports for the sickness of religion, rather than its cure. Many such students of the Bible become Fundamentalists and at times quite dangerous. On the other hand the critical Biblical scholar, who uses whatever tools he has at his disposal to understand the Bible, cannot complete his task unless he knows the existence of the sickness of religion and its cure, and indeed in a Bible which is supposed to be his specialty.

Fr. John Romanides

St. John, St. Gregory, St. Symeon, St. Gregory Palamas and Calvin(?)

Calvin the "Theologian"

A true definition of Theologian from Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos:

...theologians of the Church should be called "those who have reached theoria (vision of God)", who formerly purified their heart from passions or at least are struggling to purify them.

Further:

…the beholders of God, specifically those who follow the whole methodology of the Church and attain perfect faith -the illumination of the nous.

From the pen of Fr. John Romanides:

The true Orthodox theologian is the one who has direct knowledge of some of God's energies through illumination or knows them more through vision. Or he knows them indirectly through prophets, apostles and saints or through scripture, the writings of the Fathers and the decisions and acts of their Ecumenical and Local Councils. The theologian is the one who through this direct or mediated spiritual knowledge and vision knows clearly how to distinguish between the actions of God and those of creatures and especially the works of the devil and the demons.

And from St. Neilos:

"If you are a theologian, you will pray truly. And if you pray truly, you are a theologian"

From a true Theologian:

...He makes my disobedience His own as Head of the whole body. As long then as I am disobedient and rebellious, both by denial of God and by my passions, so long Christ also is called disobedient on my account. … But when all things shall be subdued unto Him on the one hand by acknowledgment of Him, and on the other by a reformation, then He Himself also will have fulfilled His submission, bringing me whom He has saved to God. For this, according to my view, is the subjection of Christ; namely, the fulfilling of the Father's Will. But as the Son subjects all to the Father, so does the Father to the Son; the One by His Work, the Other by His good pleasure, as we have already said. And thus He Who subjects presents to God that which he has subjected, making our condition His own. Of the same kind, it appears to me, is the expression, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" It was not He who was forsaken either by the Father, or by His own Godhead, as some have thought, as if It were afraid of the Passion, and therefore withdrew Itself from Him in His Sufferings (for who compelled Him either to be born on earth at all, or to be lifted up on the Cross?) But as I said, He was in His own Person representing us. For we were the forsaken and despised before, but now by the Sufferings of Him Who could not suffer, we were taken up and saved. Similarly, He makes His own our folly and our transgressions; and says what follows in the Psalm… For in His character of the Word He was neither obedient nor disobedient. For such expressions belong to servants… But, in the character of the Form of a Servant, He condescends to His fellow servants, nay, to His servants, and takes upon Him a strange form, bearing all me and mine in Himself, that in Himself He may exhaust the bad, as fire does wax, or as the sun does the mists of earth; and that I may partake of His nature by the blending. Thus He honours obedience by His action, and proves it experimentally by His Passion. For to possess the disposition is not enough, just as it would not be enough for us, unless we also proved it by our acts; for action is the proof of disposition. …by the art of His love for man He gauges our obedience, and measures all by comparison with His own Sufferings, so that He may know our condition by His own, and how much is demanded of us, and how much we yield, taking into the account, along with our environment, our weakness also.

St. Gregory the Theologian

And a swift kick in the pants from Khomyakov:

...having rejected legitimate tradition, it has deprived itself of every right to condemn a man who, while acknowledging the divinity of the Holy Scriptures, might not find in them the refutation of the error of Arius or Nestorius

Aleksei Stepanovich Khomyakov

Malpractice

...from the viewpoint of Protestant needs, the WCC is certainly the best kind of medical treatment possible for the maladies of Protestantism. However, from the viewpoint of Orthodox needs, membership in the current organizational structure of the WCC is an aimless adventure, simply because the maladies of Orthodoxy and Protestantism are not the same.

Fr. John Romanides

Pertinent article: WCC One correction: they think there is a difference between the "Catholic" church and "Protestant" churches.

ecclesiology schmecclesiology...

In the ancient Church, whenever they talked about the body of Christ, or about Christ as the Head of the Church, they did not mean that Christ was extended to the entire world in a bodily (corporeal) fashion, having, as it were, his head in Rome, his one hand in the East and the other in the West.

Fr. John Romanides

Caution: hot potato...

During 1009-1046 the Franco-Latins completed their expulsion of the Orthodox Romans from the Church of Old Rome and finally replaced them with themselves, thus inventing today's Papacy.

Fr. John Romanides

Neither from the 7th century till 1054, nor since, have the Franco-Latin bishops and popes have had the slightest knowledge of, or interest in, the cure of the human personality via the purification and illumination of the heart and glorification (theosis). They still have a magical understanding of apostolic succession which many Orthodox have also have been accepting since the so-called reforms of Peter the Great.

Fr. John Romanides

Just a little something to ponder at this current juncture...

The Doctor is in

In the hands of neurologically sick people the Bible becomes a source of "uncontrollable fantasies." And indeed religion is ... most dangerous. Instead of being a manual for the cure of the sickness of religion the Bible becomes a book for the propagation of the sickness of religion.

Fr. John Romanides