A spiritual climate

… man's cure is found not just in some psychological support and some individualistic practice, but first and foremost in man's journey from isolated individuality towards a personal relationship. This is a journey from self-love to love of both God and man, from self-seeking love to self-denying love. It is precisely for this reason that cure takes place within a particular spiritual climate.
Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos

The wiles of the wicked one

Spiritists of our day accept every manifestation from the spiritual world as though sent by God, and immediately they boast that God has been "revealed" to them. I knew an eighty year old monk whom everyone respected as a great spiritual director. To my question: "Have you ever in your life seen anything from the spiritual world?", the monk answered me, "No, never, praise be to God's Mercy." Seeing that I was astonished at this, he said, "I have constantly prayed to God that nothing appear to me, so that, by chance, I would not succumb to pride and receive a fallen devil as an angel. Thus far, God has heard my prayers." This recorded example shows how humble and cautious the elders were. The devil, clothed in the light of an angel, appeared to a certain monk and said to him: "I am the Archangel Gabriel and I am sent to you." To that, the brother responded, "Think! Were you not sent to someone else, for I am not worthy to see an angel?" The devil instantly became invisible and vanished.
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

A thief in the night...

Let us make preparation, my brethren, for the clouds are gathering and the divine lightning may descend from them at any time.
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

On progress

O marvelous progress! O sage progress! O progress drawing one near to the bottom of hell!—And what of the progress of living, heartfelt faith? what of the progress of Christian love? …Christian love not only in the most basic, immediate sense, but also the kind that fills the glaring, horrifying needs of others who do not even have their daily bread, their necessary clothing and their shelter? Where are you, true progress? They have forgotten you, they have stolen your name away from you and applied it instead to this monstrous, satanic progress!
St. John of Kronstadt

On "extra-Scriptural" terms

The Holy Fathers of the Church did not hesitate to use terms which did not exist in the Holy Scripture in order to express the truth which the Church possesses. For example the Fathers of the 4th century applied the term "co-essential" (of one essence) to Christ and said that Christ is of one essence with the Father.
Met. Hierotheos Vlachos

Who is so great as our God?

It is in creatures—beings created from nothing by the divine will, limited and subject to change—that the infinite and eternal energies abide, making the greatness of God to shine forth in all things, and appearing beyond all things as the divine light which the created world cannot contain.
Vladimir Lossky

That Divine truth would permeate

…consciousness of the Divine is equally compatible with all stages of rational development. But, in order that Divine truth might permeate, enliven, and guide man’s intellectual life, it must subordinate external reason to itself and dominate it, not remain outside its sphere of action. Divine truth must stand above other truths in the general consciousness as the sovereign principle pervading all culture.
Ivan Kireevsky

The contemplation of love

For if reason is not associated with being, then being is not associated with reason, is alogical. Illusionism and all kinds of nihilism, which end in flaccid and pitiful skepticism, are then inevitable. The only way out of this quagmire of relativity and conditionality is the recognition that reason is associated with being and that being is associated with reason. And if that is the case, the act of knowing is not only a gnoseological but also an ontological act, not only ideal but also real. Knowing is a real going of the knower out of himself, or (what is the same thing) a real going of what is known into the knower, a real unification of the knower and what is known. … Considered within me (according to the mode “I”), “in itself,” this “entering into” is knowledge. “For another” (according to the mode “Thou”), it is love. Finally, “for me,” as objectifies and objective (i.e., according to the mode “He”), it is beauty. In other words, perceived in me by another, my knowledge of God is love of the one who perceives. Contemplated objectively, by a third, love of another is beauty.
St. Pavel (Florensky)

Books galore

So it seems pretty cool to put a reading list on one's blog...so I want to be in the cool club so I've added a reading list. This way as well you, my dear readers, can see where I'm getting all these crazy ideas.

Ceaseless agitation

Every day, in her ceaseless agitation, the West declares her own thoughts to be lies and exchanges the old lie for a new one, or exchanges its own old scandals for new ones.
Aleksey Khomiakov

True in 1845 true in 2006.

The good of the nation

'...I am going to steal this book from here because this is an institution, and tomorrow you and I will go to any office and say that we are workers and peasants. You and I will sit down in some administrative office and start thinking for the good of the nation.'
...
'We are members of the working class,' Peter said to the highest official. 'We have an accumulation of brains, give us power over the oppressive bureaucratic bastards.'
Andrei Platonov’s Makar the Doubful

Matt's good deed for the week: he returned this sweet bling found on the train to it's rightful owner and conquered the urge to keep it for himself. Way to go Matt! I don't know if I could resist sweet bling like this!

The struggle of philosophy

Although engaged in a life-and-death struggle with the falsehood of pagan mythology, Christianity did not destroy pagan philosophy; rather it took it and transformed it in accordance with its own superior knowledge. The brightest lights of the Church — Justin, Clement, Origen (insofar as he was Orthodox), Athanasius, Basil, Gregory, and most of the great Holy Fathers upon whose work, so to speak, Christian teaching became established in the midst of a pagan culture — not only were thoroughly versed in ancient philosophy, but utilised it for the rational construction of the first Christian gnosiology, which combined the development of science and reason into an all-embracing vision of faith.
Ivan Kireevsky

An impersonal number?

...on the anthropological level one may surmise that if the divine Persons are such interchangeable identical units, then the human person made in the image
and likeness of God also becomes an interchangeable and thus dispensable, expendable unit - an impersonal number.
Philip Zymaris

The important issues...

‘Excuse me,” began Andrei Fokich, stunned by this sudden attack, ‘but I didn’t come about that, the sturgeon’s not the issue.’

‘How can it not be the issue if it’s spoiled?’

‘They sent us sturgeon that’s second-grade fresh,’ said the bartender.

‘Dear fellow, that’s absurd!’

‘What’s absurd?’

‘Second-grade fresh—that’s absurd!’ Freshness comes in only one grade—first-grade, and that’s it. And if the sturgeon’s second-grade fresh, that means it’s rotten!’

‘Excuse me,’ the bartender said once again, not knowing how to escape the artiste’s tongue lashing.

‘I cannot excuse you,’ the latter said firmly.

Mikhail Bulgakov - Master and Margarita

Seeker sensitivity

… there is, in our days, such an abundance of those who are "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" (2 Tim. 3:7). A new sport has been created, if we may call it that, a sport of "god-seeking." "God-seeking" has become the goal in itself and if their efforts were ever crowned with success, they would feel themselves highly unfortunate and immediately turn, with their former zeal, from "god-seeking" to "god-fighting" (i.e., theomachism).
St. Hilarion (Troitsky)

Foundations

The Saint receives and passes on not an abstract teaching about God -of course, he may do this as well in the beginning- but, first and foremost, he passes on the way-method by which we attain to communion with God. I believe that the basic point which distinguishes Orthodox tradition from any other is the method through which man is cured. The background of the dogmas, of Orthodox arts, of social work, etc. is purification, illumination and theosis.
Met. Hierotheos Vlachos

Insidious self-esteem

Self-esteem is so deeply rooted in us and so firmly enmeshed in us, making us think that we are something, and something not unimportant, that it always hides in our heart as a subtle and imperceptible movement, even when we are sure that we do not trust ourselves and are, on the contrary, filled with complete trust in God alone. In order to avoid this conceit of the heart and act without any self-reliance, led only by your trust in God, take care always to preserve an attitude in which the consciousness and feeling of your weakness always precede in you the contemplation of God's omnipotence, and let both alike precede your every action.
St. Theophan the Recluse, et al.

Of cosmology

…the cosmology of revelation is necessarily geocentric…copernican cosmology, from a psychological or rather spiritual point of view, corresponds to a state of religious dispersion or off-centredness, a relaxation of the soteriological attitude, such as is found in the gnostics or the occult religions. The spirit of the insatiable thirst for knowledge, the restless spirit of Faust, turning to the cosmos breaks through the constricting limits of the heavenly spheres to launch out into infinite space; where it becomes lost in the search for some synthetic understanding of the universe, for its own understanding, external and limited to the domain of becoming, can only grasp the whole under the aspect of disintegration which corresponds to the condition of our nature since the fall.
Vladimir Lossky

Hunger and want

…in those days there were universities and academies in all the districts because the people wanted to advance their knowledge as quickly as they could; like hunger and want, the senselessness of life had tormented the human heart too long, and it was high time to find out what the existence of men was all about, was it something serious, or a joke?
Andrei Platonov. The Potudan River.

Enemies of sound doctrine

The one aim of the whole band of these enemies of sound doctrine is to shake the faith of Christ down to its foundations, by utterly levelling apostolic tradition to the ground. They clamor for written proofs and reject the unwritten testimony of the Fathers as worthless, proving themselves worse than debtors who refuse to pay what they owe when there is no written evidence of the loan.
St. Basil the Great

The source of all Christological heresy

No one can speak the truth about the Lord who judges Him only with their eyes. That which the eyes can see of Him is but a small veil behind which is hidden the eternal mysteries of heaven and the greatest mysteries of time and of earth. In order to see that which is hidden in Him, behind the physical veil, one must have spiritual vision, which is the Spirit of God in one's heart, the Spirit Who draws back the veil and reveals the mysteries.
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

The task of modern Cross bearers

In times past, when heresies prevailed, many chose death through martyrdom and various tortures. Now, when we through the grace of Christ live in a time of profound and perfect peace, we learn for sure that cross and death consist in nothing else that the complete mortification of self-will. He who pursues his own will, however slightly will never be able to observe the precepts of Christ the Saviour.
St Symeon the New Theologian

On "dialogue"

For the Saints, the truth was not an object of research. They did not negotiate it; they merely offered it. If the dialogue did not lead the heterodox to the rejection of their mistaken belief and acceptance of Orthodox faith, they did not continue it.
Holy Monastery of the Paraclete

The coherence of knowledge

…the lovers of God are not simpletons because they know God well enough that they are able to love Him. Of all human knowledge, this knowledge is more important and greater. To this must be added that the enemies of God cannot be more knowledgeable, even though they consider themselves as such, because their knowledge is unavoidably chaotic, for it does not have a source and does not have order. For the source and order of all knowledge is God.
St. Nikolaj Velimirovic

A reminder to the "educators"

1. Man is a being who can be perfected and completed in the most ideal and real way by the God-man and in the God-man.

2. The perfection of man by the God-man takes place with the help of the evangelical witnesses.

3. The illuminated and educated man sees in every man his immortal and eternal brother.

4. Every human work and action—philosophy, science, geography, art, education, culture, manual labor, etc.—receives its eternal value when it is sanctified and receives meaning from the God-man.

5. True enlightenment and education is accomplished through a holy life according to the gospel of Christ.

6. The saints are the most perfect illuminators and educators; the more holy a man is the better an educator and illuminator he becomes.

7. School is the second half of the heart of the God-man; the first is the Church.

8. At the center of all centers and of all ideas and labors stands the God-man Christ and His theanthropic society, the Church.
St. Justin (Popovic)

A lenten reminder

You have to be tired in church. It is the least you can do for Jesus Christ; He died on the Cross for us.
Fr. Roman Braga

Knowledge according to love

For if reason is not associated with being, then being is not associated with reason, is alogical. Illusionism and all kinds of nihilism, which end in flaccid and pitiful skepticism, are then inevitable. The only way out of this quagmire of relativity and conditionality is the recognition that reason is associated with being and that being is associated with reason. And if that is the case, the act of knowing is not only a gnoseological but also an ontological act, not only ideal but also real. Knowing is a real going of the knower out of himself, or (what is the same thing) a real going of what is known into the knower, a real unification of the knower and what is known. … Considered within me (according to the mode 'I'), 'in itself,' this 'entering into' is knowledge. 'For another' (according to the mode 'Thou'), it is love. Finally, 'for me,' as objectifies and objective (i.e., according to the mode 'He'), it is beauty. In other words, perceived in me by another, my knowledge of God is love of the one who perceives. Contemplated objectively, by a third, love of another is beauty.
St. Pavel (Florensky)

The bloom starts in the seed

If Photios is correct and the Filioque is as serious a matter as he claims, then what can we say about Western society, which is historically based on the theology which produced the Filioque?
Philip Zymaris

Shocking evidence

Now...no need to depend on faith! All your questions answered here!

Ah, the refreshing optimism of a socialist

'The revolution is here for good, now it’s all right to have children,' Nikita said. 'There’ll never be unhappy children again.'
The Potudan River - Andrei Platonov

On assimilation

...the assertion that Christianity is founded on the views of the ancient Greek philosophers constitutes a great error, unless we mean by "Christianity" a philosophical-theological system, like that of Thomas Aquinas or some other rationalistic Western theologian. As I emphasized at the beginning of my address, true, Orthodox Christianity is not a work of men and is not based on human conceptions, on human inventions; it is a work of God, a Divine revelation. It took many terms from the ancient philosophers, but assimilated them completely to the essence of the Gospel. These terms did not impede in the past, and do not impede us today, from comprehending this essence—on the contrary, they aid us. As in the past, so also today, the concepts and terms of ancient Greek philosophy assist theology, as well as every science, to express its special content.
Constantine Cavarnos

"solid ammunition"

One of the multifarious problems when one disregards 1500 years of Christian history:
Is Jesus the Only Savior?
Finally, solid ammunition against religious relativists, multiculturalist totalitarians

Of "Spiritualities"

While Western Europe (and its later extensions in the Americas) offers a history which, after the conversion of the Norsemen, presents a single, relatively smooth and increasingly triumphant growth into world dominance, in contrast to the nearly uninterrupted dislocations and catastrophes of the Christian East, the inward story is very different. From particularly the High Middle Ages, through the late Medieval to the Reformation, Counter-Reformation, Enlightenment, Romantic, Victorian, and modern periods, one finds a never ending efflorescence of different spiritualities, from the growth of the Medieval orders to the ever more manifold expressions of Protestantism.
Fr. Alexander Golitzin

On "free will"

…hesitation in our ascent towards the good we call ‘free will’.
Vladimir Lossky

The ways people avoid a theology of theosis

...just use the ambiguous and ubiquitous "holiness," "faith development," or "spiritual transformation".

The founder of the research institute, George Barna, said that holiness is a matter embraced by the Christian Church, but not many Americans focus on it in their faith development. ... Many adults describe holiness as possessing a positive attitude toward God and life. ... When asked what makes up holiness, 21 percent answered, “I don’t know." Other responses fell into categories such as “being Christ-like” (19 percent), making faith your top priority in life (18 percent), living a pure or sinless lifestyle (12 percent), and having a good attitude about people and life (10 percent). Categories receiving still smaller percentages included focusing completely on God (9 percent), being guided by the Holy Spirit (9 percent), being born again (8 percent), reflecting the character of God (7 percent), exhibiting a moral lifestyle (5 percent), and accepting and practicing biblical truth (5 percent).

Holiness, holiness is what I long for....Holiness, holiness is what I need (CCM band now kick in)

The virtue of foolishness

Either we are fools for the world because of Christ or we are fools for Christ because of the world.
St. Nikolai (Velimirovic)

The Church and "Christian morals"

Christianity is not concerned with the interests of reason; but only with those of the salvation of man. In Christianity, therefore, there are no purely theoretical tenets. Dogmatic truths have moral significance, and Christian morals are founded on dogma. Included in the concept of the Church is this: the Church is that point at which dogma becomes moral teaching and Christian dogmatics become Christian life. The Church thus comprehended gives life to and provides for the implementation of Christian teaching. Without the Church there is no Christianity; there is only the Christian teaching which, by itself, cannot "renew the fallen Adam."
St. Hilarion (Troitsky)

Faultlines

Christianity has always been reproved by atheistic socialism for not having made men happy and given them rest and fed them, and by preaching the religion of earthly bread socialism has attracted millions and millions of followers. …it is because it (Christianity) has not wished to violate the freedom of the human spirit, because it appeals to human freedom and awaits therefrom the fulfilling of the word of Christ. Christianity is not to blame that mankind has not willed the accomplishment of that word and has betrayed it; the fault lies with man, not with the God-man.
Nicholas Berdyaev

Super Duper WCC

In light of the current "council":

We explained, first of all, that the very name “World Council of Churches” is untenable, since the Holy Fathers of the Second Ecumenical Council laid down the dogma that there is one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, and not many, out of which it would be possible to build or create some kind of “council” or “union” which would be a type of super-Church.
Bishop Artimije of Raska and Prizren

On Oneness

The presence of human imperfection among her members is powerless to obliterate the unity, for Christ Himself promised that the "gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church." Satan has always sown tares in the field of the Lord and the forces of disunity have often threatened but have never actually succeeded in dividing the Church. No power can be mightier than the omnipotent will of Christ Who founded one Church only in order to bring men into unity with God. Oneness is an essential mark of the Church.
Oberlin Statement of Orthodox - North American Faith and Order Study Conference

The guise of altruistic emotions

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)

The virtue of selfishness

Don't you worry...the materialism of our modern world will forever perpetuate the desire for such books:
Have your 'God' and eat it too!

Concealed curves

I read, savored the words, and observed, as I savored them, the concealed curve in Lenin's straight approach.
Isaac Babel

Ah, yes, the justification of terror through "concealed curves".

The foundation of glorious America?

One would think that men who had sacrificed their friends, their family, and their native land to a religious conviction would be wholly absorbed in the pursuit of the treasure which they had just purchased at so high a price. And yet we find them seeking with nearly equal zeal for material wealth and moral good,—for well-being and freedom on earth, and salvation in heaven. They moulded and altered at pleasure all political principles, and all human laws and institutions; they broke down the barriers of the society in which they were born; they disregarded the old principles which had governed the world for ages; a career without bounds, a field without a horizon, was opened before them: they precipitate themselves into it, and traverse it in every direction. But, having reached the limits of the political world, they stop of their own accord, and lay aside with awe the use of their most formidable faculties; they no longer doubt or innovate; they abstain from raising even the veil of the sanctuary, and bow with submissive respect before truths which they admit without discussion.
Alexis de Tocqueville

The self interpreting Bible?

The interpretative understanding of the New Testament for Orthodoxy is not just a matter of using human logical capabilities. The interpretation presupposes first and foremost the correct understanding of the Church, which is the ecclesiological base upon which we build the interpretation of the texts, fulfilled with an ecclesiastical ethos and infused by the liturgical grace of the sacraments. In the Orthodox interpretation it is not the method which is most important, but rather the faithful life of the interpreter in the Church.
Konstantin Nikolakopoulos

Rehab for the R-man

Alcoholism=problem!
Homosexuality=no problem!

Doctrinal minimalism

...Christian unity is grounded and expressed in the unity of the Apostolic Tradition, and that the divisions among Christians, complicated as they might be by “non-theological” (cultural, historical, socio-psychological, etc.) factors, are ultimately rooted in deviations from the one faith. These divisions cannot be healed by compromise or doctrinal minimalism.
SCOBA guide for ecumenical diaogue

Life preservers

The falseness of an opinion is not for us any objection to it… The question is, how far an opinion is life-furthering, life-preserving…
Nietzsche

Responsibility

In making the individual responsible, Christianity thereby acknowledges his freedom. In making the individual dependent on every flaw in the social structure, however, the doctrine of the environment reduces him to an absolute nonentity, exempts him totally from every personal moral duty and from all independence, reduces him to the lowest form of slavery imaginable.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

The 'authority' of the Church

No—the Church is not an authority, just as God is not an authority and Christ is not an authority, since authority is something external to us. The Church is not an authority, I say, but the truth—and at the same time the inner life of the Christian, since God, Christ, the Church, live in him with a life more real than the heart which is beating in his breasts or the blood flowing in his veins. But they are alive in him only insofar as he himself is living by the ecumenical life of love and unity, i.e., by the life of the Church.
Aleksei Stepanovich Khomyakov

True Philosophy

Rationalism, i.e., the philosophy of concept and rationality, the philosophy of things and lifeless immobility, is wholly connected with the law of identity and can be succinctly characterized as a homoiousian philosophy. It is a fleshly philosophy.
By contrast, Christian philosophy, i.e., the philosophy of idea and reason, the philosophy of persons and creative acts, is based on the possibility of overcoming the law of identity and can be characterized as a homoousian philosophy. It is a spiritual philosophy.
The tendency to pure homoiousiansism as to its limit determines the history of modern philosophy in Western Europe, whereas the attraction to pure homoousianism constitutes the distinctive nature of Russian (and of all Orthodox) philosophy.
St. Pavel (Florensky)

In Spirit and Truth

Christian unity cannot be realized merely by determining what articles of faith or what creed should be regarded as constituting the basis of unity. In addition to subscribing to certain doctrines of faith, it is necessary to achieve the experience of a common tradition or communis sensus fidelium preserved through common worship within the historic framework of the Orthodox Church. There can be no true unanimity of faith unless that faith remains within the life and sacred tradition of the Church which is identical throughout the ages. It is in the experience of worship that we affirm the true faith, and conversely, it is in the recognition of a common faith that we secure the reality of worship in spirit and in truth.
Oberlin Statement of Orthodox, North American Faith and Order Study Conference

On the natural law

Why then is sodomy against the natural law? First of all, because man is a species-being and, as we have said, the species to which he belongs-the species that defines his nature-is both rational and social. Men cannot live at all-much less live well-except by the mutual protection and mutual support of other human beings. Morality refers to those rules that mankind has learned, both from reason and experience, are necessary for surviving and prospering. The inclination of many men-what we might call the inclination of their lower nature-to take their sex where they can find it (whether their partners consent to it or not) and ignore the consequences, must be subordinated to their higher nature, which includes the interest of society (and their interest of nature in the species).
Harry Jaffa

Apropos to the feast of St. Photius the Great

…you, who bring forth the fathers as being pridefully against the dogmas of the Master, recall the violence of the ecumenical councils which proclaimed godly doctrine throughout the whole world, are you neither troubled nor humbled by the threat? You make these your fathers without living the life in yourselves; you neither reverence the incorporeal nature, not hold the common devotion to the Master. This allows no occasion of appeal, because the earthly is included in the same anathema. You call Ambrose, Augustine and other good men your fathers. But does this make it any more tolerable, since you suppose them to be armed against the Master’s teacher, to draw the condemnation on yourselves and also on these men? For you certainly assign your own evil reward to the fathers. But it is only the offspring of this novelty which is evil. Your anathema will not pass through you into those blessed men, because not one of your godless and senseless sophism will be found with them. You presume that they partake in your ungodliness. With bright works, however, and with their whole voice they cry against the anathema which you would bring upon them.

But I do not affirm that all the things that you assert are taught by those blessed men. Even so, if any among them has fallen into something unseemly – for they were all men and human, and no one composed of dust and ephemeral nature can avoid some step of defilement – then I would imitate the sons of Noah. I would cover up the shame of my father with silence and gratitude, instead of garments. I would not have followed Ham as you do. Indeed, you follow him with even more shamelessness and impudence that he himself, because you expose the shame of those whom you call your fathers. Ham is cursed: not because he uncovered, but because he did not cover, his father. You, however expose your fathers and glory in your vanity. Ham exposes the secret to his brothers; you tell yours not to one or two brothers, but in your rash and reckless abandon, proclaim it to the whole world, as if it were your theater. You behave lewdly toward the shame of their nakedness and with luxury toward their dishonor, violently pursuing them, and rejoicing when you expose their nakedness to the light!
St. Photius the Great

"Modern Art" you say?

Man, in this art, is no longer even a caricature of himself; he is no longer portrayed in the throes of spiritual death, ravaged by the hideous Nihilism of our century that attacks, not just the body and soul, but the very idea and nature of man. No, all this has passed; the crisis is over; man is dead. The new art celebrates the birth of a new species, the creature of the lower depths, subhumanity.
Fr. Seraphim Rose

The harmony of the Divine Liturgy

…what…is the baptismal formula? [In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit] It is essentially no more and no less than an expression of the dogma of the consubstantiality of the Holy Trinity. Thus, everything that precedes the Creed is a preparation for 'attending' to the word 'consubstantiality,' ὁμοούσια. 'Consubstantiality' is precisely 'wisdom.'

The idea behind this order of the liturgy is clear: mutual love alone is the condition of 'unity of thought,' ὁμόνοια, the one thought of those who love one another, in contrast to the external relation to one another which yields nothing more than 'similarity of thought,' ὁμοίνοια, on which secular life is based: science, social life, government, etc. But 'unity of thought' provides the ground that makes possible joint confession ὁμολογήσομεν, i.e., understanding and acknowledgement of the dogma of consubstantiality, ὁμοούσια. In or through this unity of thought, we come into contact with the mystery of the Triune Divinity.
St. Pavel (Florensky)

The ideal society:

We cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge without effeminacy…
Thucydidis

The legitimacy of Orthodoxy

It is not possible to subject faith events to the arid judgment of postmodern scientific research and experimentation. Orthodoxy, as a system of beliefs of faith and principally as a way of life, does not need the faux analyses and research of types of psychology which give the appearance of being scientifically legitimate.
Konstantin Nikolakopoulos

Putting the mind to the Cross

The dogma of the Trinity is a cross for human ways of thought. The apophatic ascent is a mounting of calvary. This is the reason why no philosophical speculation has ever succeeded in rising to the mystery of the Holy Trinity. This is the reason why the human spirit was able to receive the full revelation of the Godhead only after Christ on the cross had triumphed over death and over the abyss of hell. This, finally, is the reason why the revelation of the Trinity shines out in the Church as a purely religious gift, as the catholic truth above all other.
Vladimir Lossky

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)

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)

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

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)

Now that's some messed up eschatology...

'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

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

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)

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

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.

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"

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...

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)

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

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

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)

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)

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)

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

"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)

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

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)

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.

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)

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.

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)

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