So the Pope met with Putin. And the media (corporate and free) is full of all sorts of opinions, analyses, interpretations, etc. Frankly, I have no interest in commenting either on the visit (though I have an opinion about it, of course) or, even less, on the mostly sophomoric and ill-informed about it. What I propose to do is to expose you to a dramatically different point of you to the one you are typically exposed to. So let’s go on that trip into the “far elsewhere”:
Today’s so-called “Christian world” includes several “branches” or “denominations” of Christianity who differ from each other in dogma, rite, traditions, culture, history etc. Contrary to what a lot of people like to declare, these differences are far from trivial, especially the dogmatic ones. In fact, they are huge. To the point that the that the only politically correct meaning of the word “Christian” is “anybody who claims to believe in Christ, whatever that means“. Kinda vague, no?
That ambiguity or opacity is quite deliberate. The ideology en vogue now demands that we all nod our heads in agreement when we here the cliché about “irrelevant and obscure points of fine theology”. Fine. Though I totally disagree with that, I won’t argue about this today (maybe some other day). Today I want to look into something different: the collective/corporate memory of some, but not all, Orthodox Churches.
Most modern Christian Churches have a very short collective memory, a century or so, max. Even the Latin Christians who claim to be “The Church” usually have no idea about Vatican I, nevermind the Middle-Ages or Antiquity. Most Orthodox Christians, who also claim to be “The Church”, don’t fare much better. Most Russians will have some pretty good notions about the history of the Russian Orthodox Church, most Greeks about Greek Orthodoxy, most Serbs about Serbian saints, etc. In fact, the sad reality is that most so-called “Orthodox” Churches are no less cut-off from the roots of Christianity than their Protestant or Latin counterparts. To make things worse, most “mainstream” or “official” Orthodox Churches participate in the so-called “Ecumenical dialog of love” with the other Christians, and sometimes even non-Christian, denominations/religions out there. As a result, if you just walk or drive to the nearest putatively “Orthodox” church nearby you are most likely to find a parish very similar to any Latin or Protestant parish, with a “Father Bob” in charge, and maybe some exotic singing or rituals, but very little difference in ethos. The folks attending that church will be just like their non-Orthodox counterparts: trying to live by Christians ethics, generally respectful of what they think are “Orthodox traditions” (which in some case are less than a century old!) and often very focused on their national/ethnic identity. One term to describe this kind of “Orthodoxy” is “world Orthodoxy”. This designation fits not only because this kind of “Orthodoxy is very worldly”, but also because it is accepted, endorsed and even protected by secular world powers which have correctly identified that this kind of “Orthodoxy” presents no threat to their rule.
But there is another Orthodoxy still out there. Much smaller, much poorer, recognized by nobody (at least in this world), completely marginalized and often ostracized. I call it “Traditional Orthodoxy” or “Patristic Orthodoxy”.
This is the Orthodoxy whose cultural and historical roots go directly into the first centuries, whose idea of what is Christian and what is not, is the same one as the one of the Church Fathers of the first 10 centuries of Christian history and whose daily life (the ortho-praxis) tries as hard a possible to emulate the one of the early Christians. There are numerous differences between this “Traditional Orthodoxy” and “World Orthodoxy” of “Father Bob”, and I won’t go into them right now. But one such difference is the collective/corporate memory of these ancient Christians. Today I want to share with you one such aspect: the understanding and interpretation of the so-called “Schism of 1054” by traditional Orthodox Christians.
Since the Pope and Putin have met, there will be a lot of (totally vapid) discussion of the Schism, of how to “reconcile” “East and West” and all that kind of nonsense. So I think that it is important for you, my readers, to know why this is all rubbish and how genuine Orthodox Christians view this topic.
First, I want to share with you a video produced by the Greek Orthodox Christian Youtube Channel, a channel organized by members of the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians in America, which is a part of the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece. This Church is one of the four traditionalist Orthodox Churches who united most, but not all, traditionalist Orthodox Christians worldwide (the other three are the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Romania, the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria).
This is a series of nine short videos entitled “Franks and Romans“. To make the viewing easier, I have collated all these short videos into one which I am now posting below.
The panel discussion, lead by Father Christodulos, centers on the book “Franks, Romans, Feudalism, and Doctrine” by Fr. John Romanides. I have made this book – along with another of this books, “Introduction to Romanity, Romania, Roumeli” – available for download here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1NvJMqDM9JKRNibJ1xd6yDyEDwKqnaozP
This is one zipped file which contains both of these books by Father John in three formats: PDF, DOCX, ODT and FB2 along with several videos on the topic of “sickness of religion”.
Here is the video itself:
You might think that reading a book (or two) and watching a 80min long video is too much work, but that this really the minimum to give you even a first indication of how different the worldview and collective memory of “Traditional Orthodox Christians” is from the mainstream “Christianity” you see everyday, including from the representatives of “World Orthodoxy”. In fact, if you go to your local “official” parish Orthodox parish and ask “Father Bob” what he thinks of the views presented here, he will either denounce them as “zealotry” or, most likely, he will tell you that never have heard of them. And yet, things are not quite as simple.
Above I said that Traditional Orthodoxy forms a small subset of the much bigger Orthodox world out there. This is true, and it is also not true. The reality is that inside the “official” Orthodox Churches you will find a lot of people who are spiritually much closer to their traditionalist brothers than to their modernist clergy. Not only that, but even inside the clergy of the “official” Orthodox Churches you will sometimes encounter clergymen who have remained personally very close to ancient Orthodoxy. The best example is Father John Romanides who not only was part of the (very “wordily”) Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and the (“official”) Church of Greece. He was even a member of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches. Hardly the typical bio of a traditionalist, to say the least!
The reality is that the border between “world” and “traditional” Orthodoxy can be very porous and that while the “visible” traditionalists are a small minority in the Orthodox world, there are a lot of traditionalists inside the “official” Orthodox Churches too. Not only that, but the presence of a highly educated and motivated traditionalist minority forces the (often modernist) majority clergymen to “look over their shoulder” and be very careful of what they say or do lest they be accused of apostasy.
Which brings me (finally!) to Putin and the Pope.
Putin and the Pope can meet as much as they want, and the Pope can also meet with Patriarch Kirill, the current head of the “official” Russian Orthodox Church. This is nothing new, similar meetings have happened many times in the past, and not only with Russians, but also with Greek and other Orthodox bishops and Patriarchs. In 1993 some Latin and Orthodox clergymen signed what can only be considered a “union”, the so-called “Balamand Declaration“. Heck, in the 15th century, Latin or Orthodox bishops even signed an official union between the two Churches, this was the so-called “False Union of Florence“. Only one Orthodox delegate, Saint Mark of Ephesus, refused to sign. And yet even this project rapidly collapsed. Why?
Because the reality is that in matters of faith, Orthodox bishops do not have the exclusive responsibility of maintaining the “which the Lord gave, was preached by the Apostles, and was preserved by the Fathers. On this was the Church founded; and if anyone departs from this, he neither is nor any longer ought to be called a Christian” (St. Athanasius). This is the personal responsibility of each Orthodox Christian, including laypeople, women and even children! To use an image borrowed from Iran, each Orthodox Christian is a “guardian of the faith”. And on many occasions in the history of the Church it was a small minority, or even one single person (like Saint Mark of Ephesus or Saint Maximos the Confessor) who upheld the truth.
Sure, there will be apostate and lapsed bishop (the history of the Church if full of them), and the big leaders will be corrupted and bought. From that point of view, the situation in Orthodoxy is very similar to the one in Islam, where a lot of so-called “leaders” are corrupt and have been long paid for, but where the masses, the flock, remains incorruptible even when the “elites” are. So it is possible that most (or even all) of the “official” Orthodox Churches will one day sign some kind of “surrender” document in which they will basically trade their Roman heritage for a neo-Frankish one, but even that is rather unlikely. Usually, as soon as the modernists try to pull off some ugly deed behind the back (or over the head – pick your metaphor) of their flock, it ends up with a revolt of the “base” against the rulers, which is exactly what happened in 1923 when some Orthodox Churches decided to switch to the Papal Calendar (aka “Gregorian Calendar”). I very much doubt that the current “official” Russian Orthodox Church (the “Moscow Patriarchate”) would accept any kind of union with Rome, but if that happens I can absolutely guarantee that a huge backlash from many, and even maybe most, of the bishops, priests and laymen. So it is really simple: since the people will never accept a union with Rome what their “leaders” do matters very little. And if the Russians don’t go there, then it is most unlikely that he others will dare to go at it alone.
In the case of Putin, I have no doubt that his meeting with the Pope has nothing to do with any plans for a “union”, but since that “union” is discussed every time a senior Russian politician or clergymen meets the Pope, I figured I might as well explain here why it ain’t happening.
If you take the time to watch the video above or, better, read Romanides’ books, you will immediately see why all this empty talk about “reconciliation” is not only devoid of any substance, as it totally misses the point of what really separates today’s East and West and which was yesterday’s North and South:
The “West”, the so-called “Western civilization” has absolutely nothing to do, no connection whatsoever with ancient Rome or, even less so, ancient Greece. “Our” modern civilization does in no way originate in ancient Greece. Modern Europe, the “West” is a product of the Frankish civilization and modern Western Europe it was built on the ruins and blood of the Roman civilization. It took the Franks centuries to fully root-out the (Orthodox) Roman civilizations of southern Europe and to substitute themselves as the “new Romans”. In contrast, Russia is still today the direct heir to the Roman civilization and while Orthodoxy is weak in Russia, especially traditional Orthodoxy, it is already powerful enough to make any attempts at submitting Russia to the neo-Frankish world absolutely futile. So all these Latin dreams about “dedicating Russian to the Virgin Mary” and all the other ways to subjugating Russia to the Pope (which is, of course, the real objective here) have absolutely zero chance to succeed, at least long as a sufficient part of the Russian Orthodox people (not just clergy!) keep their traditional “collective/corporate” memory about the true history of the Church of Christ and the roots of Russian Orthodoxy.
In conclusion, I want to tell you that I have no intention of entering into any polemics with those who will be outraged by what I wrote above. I realize that what I wrote is in direct contradiction with what most of us have been told since our childhood. That is why I said that today I wanted to take you to a trip into the “far elsewhere”. That “far elsewhere” is, quite literally, “not of this world” and this is why Saint Paul wrote that “worldly wisdom is foolishness to God“. My sole purpose it to share with you what was handed down to me because I strongly believe that it is highly relevant for a true understanding of modern Russia. While I am offering to share with you a point of view admittedly very different from the one of the mainstream, I am not trying to make converts or sell anything. I want to give you the tools which I believe are crucial to the understanding why this constant talk about some kind of “reconciliation” is nonsensical, but if you prefer the mainstream version, by all means – ignore every word I wrote about. I hope that for the rest of you this post will be helpful.
Kind regards,
The Saker
UPDATE: I took a look at some of the comments this post has elicited and I have decided to introduce a merciless trashing of ignorant and stupid comments. I don’t know how much the mods will send to trash, but I want to you know that this time around I will do some of the garbage collection myself :-P
probably has to do with this story.
finalizing last minute plans for a consolidated worldwide lockdown into the NWO.
What else would it be!
only just over 3 months to go to the big shew Sept 24, right.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-11/pope-pissed-after-feds-force-fatca-down-vatican-city-bankers-throats
Interesting writing asking the question: Was the original NT written in Greek? If yes why not in Hebrew?
http://www.ntgreek.org/answers/nt_written_in_greek.htm#Caiaphas_Tomb
Easy to figure out that ntgreek has nothing to do with Greece but it stands for new-testament-greek.
Lewis Black – On Bush, Bible, Fossils, Evolution, and Reality . Link to youtube.
Will science and religion, one day, in the foreseeable future, be able to live in harmony?
Daniel, since and religion have lived in complete harmony in the Roman Empire. That retrograde “anti-scientism” shown by the Vatican in the later years is no different that its previous hatred for the “Greeks”. After the fall of the city of Rome in the West, the (eastern) Roman empire saw a very harmonious co-evolution of theology and science with the Emperors promoting both.
Cheers,
The Saker
From what I’ve heard, the Vatican was never anti-science — they wanted to keep it all for themselves, and the Jesuits were always big into science (when asked about theology they would say “You don’t think we really believe that stuff, do you?), but would not admit it or let the peasants know about it. After all, how can you control the peasants if you allow them to know things?
Sure smoking is bad for you, but do you think R.J. Reynolds would have admitted to that? Nah — ‘Camel is the brand most doctors recommend’.
The Catholic Church has no trouble reconciling religion and science at all — which is why they have a telescope named ‘Lucifer.’
Looked it up
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=892382
Not their telescope.
Vatican is pretty good with science now, but that was not always so, of course, at least publicly. Scientists got into trouble with them when they published their findings.
Organized religions are run by people, with political goals, and not much different from anyone else in that regard, and are also populated by people who are not always the brightest, and tie themselves in knots over beliefs and dogmas (similar to economists — but scientists do that too).
Science is the new religious establishment. Witness the suppression and ostracization of any scientist who expresses skepticism that fossil fuels are the cause of global warming.
good point. there is an australian politician who spends lots of his time going over the manmade nonsense all the time. malcolm roberts. also armstrongeconomics is a pretty good website for that TRUTH.
If I understood an article read some years ago, Orthodoxy maintain that God created the fundamental natural laws (identified currently as gravity, electromagnetism, strong and weak forces that interact in ways described by quantum mechanics, relativity, etc.). We can help understand God by discovering the fundamental basis of these God-created underpinnings of our world. I may be wrong but Islam may also hold a similar view.
Western Christianity excluding the Vatican maintain that there are no natural laws that run more or less independent of God. They believe that God moves ever electron in its orbit around an atom, moves every molecule, arbitrates every chemical reaction, etc. Thus there is no predictability in nature – its all God’s whim.
The Vatican is supposedly somewhere in the middle in this belief spectrum.
Per the above Orthodoxy can live in good harmony with science while western Christianity can not.
I find Orthodoxy much more aligned with the real world (or vice versa) and less subject to religious-based intolerance of new ideas.
PS – Happy Father’s Day Saker!
Some interestng ideas are presented at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eC14GonZnU
[hour 1/2]
A New Kind of Science – Stephen Wolfram
University of California Television (UCTV)
Uploaded on Apr 24, 2008
Noted scientist Stephen Wolfram shares his perspective of how the unexpected results of simple computer experiments have forced him to consider a whole new way of looking at processes in our universe. Series: “Frontiers of Knowledge” [4/2003] [Science] [Show ID: 7153]
Daniel Rich….the school of science was invented by man. So was religion. But religion at least goes to show reverence for that which is God created. Man can live a thousand years and he will never with all his descedants decipher the mystery of creation.
@ Daniel,
I believe science and religion can live in harmony; but they meet on the level of reason as such. Science today typically refers to the more empirical and practical pursuits of man, which by their nature can obscure our focus on the nature of intelligence or the intellect itself but also on metaphysical truth and reality. Physics by its nature assumes a physical world – assumes the act and reality of Creation. But even still, the most learned physicists still wonder at the fact, as Einstein once famously did: “that there is anything at all” is the real mystery or question. At that point you are beginning to enter into increasingly metaphysical questions, such as what it is to exist and what it is to be or have a nature; and what such things imply or necessitate.
One reason for the apparent rupture between religion and science in the West is exactly that the Church emphasized that faith cannot be separated from reason nor reason from faith. The Church’s mission it to lead souls to salvation, and what she basically said is you can’t stop being a believer or a Christian the second you walk into a lab. A similar rupture occurred in the separation of the Church and the State along similar grounds: you can’t stop being faithful to God when you are engaging in politics, basically, and you can’t set aside religious truths or morality. Seen from this light, it makes perfect sense, but it must be remembered in context: the Church in these pronouncements was addressing believer and potential believers in order to safeguard their salvation and preserve their faith.
The very word `rational´comes from the greek. The ratio, or golden mean, denotes beauty, and refers to a way of being in relation and in proportion. So rationality has come to mean something much less in our time.
I totally agree that physics and metaphysics are a unity. Two ways of looking at phenomena, which are complementary. As we understand the new sciences like epigenetics, we move deeper into the understandings of our interrelatedness, and the beauty and wisdom inherent in being.
I will add
In an interview with The New York Times in November 1930, Einstein said: “I do not believe in a God who rewards and punishes, in a God whose goals are molded from our human goals.
I don’t believe in the immortality of the soul…
Let the mystery of the eternity of life remain unsolved – it is enough for me to contemplate the wonderful structure of the existing world and strive to understand at least a tiny particle of the Main Cause that manifests itself in nature.
Einstein did not consider himself a religious person in the traditional sense of the word. However, in plain text he claimed that he believes in some Main Cause of all things. Moreover, he treated this Cause with a certain reverence, since he designated it in the text with a capital letter.
Putin, the Pope, Schism, Franks and Romans
What a wealthy discussion, thank you! Beautiful, freeing.
After reading Frazer’s “The Golden Bough” for which the British Queen gave him a knighthood, and about 30 years of thinking about it, I joined Islam after a few classes with an inspired Egyptian Muslim young mother. In Cambridge, Massachussetts just a few months before the false flag 9/11, the high-jackers planes having taken off from the Boston airport 15 minutes from the YWCA residence hall I lived in. In fact walking distance to the kettle bomb blast area of the Boston Marathon years later. Also a false flag. In fact every Arab/Muslim “terrorist” threat set in the USA was a false flag, every one.
Which brings one back to the Frankish version of Christianity. During WW11 the then Pope colluded with the Third Reich, during the hundred of years of Frankish Christianity that practiced and hid priest pederasty having led inevitable to the ease with which Nazi-ism was agreed to.
In Greece the Orthodoxy refused to name any Jewish names at all. The head father wrote his own name a thousand times instead.
The Church condemned, under both Pius XII (1) and Pius XI, the Nazi ideology. You can read the encyclical Mit brennender sorge(2), which was issued to the German Church 10 March 1937, that was a scathing criticism – both on Christian and intellectual grounds – of the Nazi ideology, and which every Bishop had to read to the faithful gathered.
(1) Encyclical letter Summi Pontificatus, October 20, 1939,:
From wiki:
“It critiques major errors at the time, such as ideologies of racism and cultural superiority and the totalitarian state…The encyclical laments the destruction of Poland, denounces the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and calls for a restoration of independent Poland.
Summi Pontificatus sees Christianity being universalized and opposed to racial hostility and superiority. There are no racial differences, because the human race forms a unity, because ‘one ancestor [Adam] made all nations to inhabit the whole earth’.”
(2) Mit brennender sorge:
From wiki:
“Written in German, not the usual Latin, it was smuggled into Germany for fear of censorship and was read from the pulpits of all German Catholic churches on one of the Church’s busiest Sundays, Palm Sunday (March 21 that year).
The encyclical condemned breaches of the 1933 Reichskonkordat agreement signed between the German Reich and the Holy See. It condemned “pantheistic confusion”, “neopaganism”, “the so-called myth of race and blood”, and the idolizing of the State.”
Pretty amazing post, Saker. I have strong doubts about whether the Russians would really refuse an “union” if it was worded in the usual all-pleasing ambiguous language of politics, but i am definitely not as well informed as you are, especially about the proverbial “jew on a cross”.
Thank you. The discussion in the videos is fascinating.
As for all that talk about “union”, it seems to me that the effort is about improving relations. A joint discussion framework set up in 2004 for discussing these problems in Russia is known as “Joint Group for Considering Problems in Relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church in Russia.” They also exchange views on “personal and social ethics, scientific and technological progress, bioethics and other issues of today,” and now also the persecution of Christians in the M. East and elsewhere. Then there is an international Joint Commission to discuss issues on a broader level, including theological divergences, but this particular effort doesn’t seem to have got very far. And no wonder. A document written under Pope John Paul II, “Domine Iesu”, make the very firm claim that the Roman Catholic Church is the only Christian church that has “the fullness of the means of salvation.” (The non-Christian religions have none at all…)
In any case, given the fundamental divergences that still exist between the two churches, union is clearly not on the cards, Even a meeting between the Patriarch and the Pope is still, according to Patriarch Kirill, pointless in the current circumstances:
“I believe that for this meeting to be a success it is necessary, if not settle the conflict problems in full, but at least to try to settle them more energetically. To make it really beneficial for the further development of relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church it is necessary to radically improve the atmosphere of these relations through joint efforts in settling the problems existing in our relations.” (Interview to Serbian newspaper ‘Evening News’ – https://mospat.ru/en/2012/01/29/news57353/)
“A document written under Pope John Paul II, “Domine Iesu”, make the very firm claim that the Roman Catholic Church is the only Christian church that has “the fullness of the means of salvation.” (The non-Christian religions have none at all…)”
Sorry, but the above is a grave misrepresentation of what Domine Jesus encyclic actually says.
You can find the text here (paragraphs 17 and 22 is important) : http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_en.html
You can also report to the Wikipedia summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominus_Iesus#Relations_between_Roman_Catholicism_and_other_religious_communities
First, the encyclic says that people believing other religions “are in a gravely deficient situation in comparison with those who, in the Church, have the fullness of the means of salvation”. Therefore, it does not claim that believers in non-Christian religions have no way and no means to be saved, the claim is that only the Church offers all the ways and means to salute.
Second, the encyclic does not say that only the Catholic Church is a Church in that sense. It actually makes a distinction between Orthodox Churches, which it claims are albeit not in perfect communion with Catholic Church “true particular Churches” and Protestant Churches which lacking apostolic succession are described as more distant and called “ecclesial communities” to account for that difference, while the encyclic asserts that Protestant individuals (not churches) have a degree of communion with Catholic Church.
To sum up, according to Domine Jesus:
– Believers in non-Christian religions have lesser means of salvation compared to believers in a true Church
– Orthodox Churches are “true particular Churches”, while Protestant Churches are not, which does not preclude Protestant believers to be in a form of communion with Catholic Church, through Baptism
Dear Saker,
This is your explanation why Pope is loving Putin right now.
Pope Pissed After Feds Force FATCA Down Vatican City Bankers’ Throats
While Pope Francis has called for an end of “the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy,” The Vatican City has been forced into sharing information with the US. Despite the oft-quoted Book of Proverbs prose that “[T]he borrower becomes the lender’s slave,” in the case of the world’s largest borrower – the US government – it still acts like everyone’s master, including dictating the most ridiculous terms on financial agreements like this.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-11/pope-pissed-after-feds-force-fatca-down-vatican-city-bankers-throats
Did somebody said that this one is going to be the last Pope?
The US bankers want his money. Rumors have it, Pope has about 50, 000 tones of gold in his sock drawer.
Pope might need Putin’s polite people and S-400s to protect him
Pope Francis is a Jesuit…first Jesuit pope ever.
Right: the figurehead ‘white’ pope, and the jesuit ‘black’ pope – now both are jesuits.
Sorry, I meant to include the exact quote from “DOMINUS IESUS”:
“If it is true that the followers of other religions can receive divine grace, it is also certain that objectively speaking they are in a gravely deficient situation in comparison with those who, in the Church, have the fullness of the means of salvation.” http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_en.html
Hmmm.
Can’t help wondering how much of that claim has to do with the former pope’s Polishness…and he was *very*Polish.
“And all humankind will see God’s salvation!” (Luke 3:6).
As a follow up with a few notes on what was being discussed in the vid . 1st . The Church was born on Pentecost . They were not a small group or just a few that grew but at one point were at 5000 in a short order . I think of it as a tower of Babel in the reverse order where there was instead of a explosion of confusion it was a explosion on a unified message of salvation bridging all linguistic barriers .
Det 32:8 When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.
Deu 32:9 But the LORD’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.
At Pentecost God was turning back to the nations and creating the body (the church) out of every nation and tongue . To think that the church is only composed within the borders of the old empire is to forget that North America has over 300 First Nation tongues .
2nd . Hint . Paul was very specific that he didn’t go to all synagogues because it seems that not all Jews were actually Jews . He mentions false brothers as well . The key to this mystery was that some were practicing Idolatry .2nd 3rd century synagogues were dug up to show that they were anything but Orthodox .I feel the same way when looking at the RCC today .Gnosticism played a direct roll in the RCC and most of it is the Mystery religions of today and has within it the doctrine of devils .. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDyl1qrpj_Q
What happened in Rome was that the slaves by the thousands once their owner died were freed from slavery and became Roman citizens .Some slave owners had 1000’s . For the regular roman citizen he couldn’t compete and moved to one of the provinces under Roman rule .The slaves were not all of the same class either and had what would be considered high ranking jobs .They had kids who never knew their parents mother land and so assimilating into the culture which they were now freed slaves offspring spoke there parents mother tongue which was Greek . Ask a black person in the states and he will say that he is American but he also knows that at one time his for fathers came from Africa only dew to his skin color .
Salvation is very simple according to scripture . Repent ( in order to repent you need to both turn away from one thing and turn to another .Next is believe . This process has nothing to do with the heart at the time of undertaking .We use our mind . The first thing we feel is peace with God because He made peace on our behalf on the cross . There is nothing we can add to our salvation . This faith we now have allows us to love and have joy in the peace we have in God this is all to do with the Word of God . There is one mediator between man and God and that is Jesus .Anyone who goes to Him, He will in no way forsake .
Gnostic Christianity was a valid branch of early Christianity, but it eventually was pushed out by what we now call the Catholic and Orthodox. Gnostic thought, which can be found in the Nag Hammadi manuscripts, is evident in the Gospel of Thomas, which was contemporary to the time period of the earliest Gospels, and the Secret Book (Apocryphon) of John. These Gnostic’s were Christians, they however viewed the order of the universe in a different light than do the Orthodox and Catholic.
Gnosticism is Christian Mysticism, where there is an esoteric aspect in all scripture, and the body of the Church is seen to have an outer cloth (exoteric), and an inner chamber (esoteric). True revelation has depth of meaning, to be a Gnostic was to seek the inner chamber through Gnosis of Christ. In most Gnostic understanding Yahweh, the God of the old testament, was a demiurge, or fallen entity. Only the Christ is recognized as the incarnation of God, the old testament is therefore viewed differently.
In Gnosticism there is also a belief or recognition of human reincarnation until such a time that one attains Christhood. The belief of return, or reincarnation, was cast out of the Catholic and Orthodox worldview entirely as a pagan belief. However the Gnostic’s maintained that reincarnation was in essence our failure to achieve perfection in Christ. Since the world was ruled by a demiurge, or fallen god, if we loved the material world more than the Christ we would fall into forgetfulness again after death and be pulled back in.
Reincarnation is mentioned in several places in the Gnostic manuscripts, and it has been argued that certain canonized scriptures contain reference to previous lives, but many would contend otherwise…
To be sure, in the Gnostic theology the world of man is an illusion created by a fallen Yahweh, and it is Yahweh who in the desert tries to tempt the Lord with dominion over the world.
Early pre-Christian Gnosticism can be evidenced in the Book of Enoch (non-canon), which is mentioned in Jude, but was not incorporated into scripture by the Rabbinical councils. Someone on Yahoo Questions asks this interesting question – “Why does Jude quote the non-canonical Book of Enoch as prophecy (Jude 14-15)? Did the Holy Spirit fail to inspire Jude with the fact that the Book of Enoch would not be accepted into the canon?”
The book of Enoch however is canon in various African Orthodox Churches.
Gnostic’s were not devil worshipers, they did not practice magic, they sought after knowledge of Christ, magic being the realm of deception, or the art of noetic trickery, was practiced by certain Jewish sects in their Cabbalistic systems. Some modern neo-Gnostics have hybridized Gnosticism with Cabbala and other forms of spiritual practices, but that’s a whole different thing from traditional Gnosticism.
The Gnostic’s view of evil was that it was an error, that Gods freedom was so complete they he allowed an error to be born by one of his first creations, Sophia. Sophia gave birth to the demiurge, or fallen realm as a microcosm of what God had created above, giving rise to ignorance, and thus evil.
Franks—I’m betting 90% of Americans are thinking hot dogs.
Individual responsibility? Is there an app for that?
The topic of the sovereignty of individuals is loathsome to the ruling class.
They hate it as much as the sovereignty of nations.
Interesting that the nexus of both are Russia/Putin.
Maybe that explains the dread of Russia rising to world power and Putin as the leader they must demonize and defeat.
Just some bits about my personal views regarding being a Christian:
Christ said, “be like your father in heaven, he lets rain fall on the fields of the good and the bad” etc. That’s the first clue.
Then we have this:
“6:1 Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.
6:2 Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
6:3 But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: 6:4 That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.
6:5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
6:6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”
This is (allegedly) from Jesus himself. AndIMO, there is no higher authority, nor do we need any mediators to tell us what the meaniong is – it is as clear as day.
And the bold part tell us that ALL the self-titled “christian” churches (= incorporated entities, even including moneychangers-banks that Christ himself whipped out of the temple) are just a bunch of heretics selling a fraud.
You don’t need any churches to be a Christian. Just adhere to the words of Jesus in your own life, that’s all.
P.S.: one more detail, the only truly Christian church that adhered to his teachings was the Bogumil church in medieval Bosnia, that got completely exterminated by the Turks and later Austrians. Not a single bit of their history has survived, so thorough was the extermination and conversion, as well as destruction of all their written history and teachings.
@merciless trashing of ignorant and stupid comments.
RE: You don’t need any churches to be a Christian
These are ones escaped the deserved trashing.
The Bogumil have passed their “flame” to the Cathars… This is how their “living heritage” has survive.
Then the Cathars did a so truly christian testimony (of living) in the south of France… that the catholic church invent the “holy inquisition” first of all, to burn them all till the last one…
Those who claim the Bogomils as the true church are the Anabaptists, who reject the historical Church and must substitute some other lineage to prove their descent from the Apostles. Bogomils were very similar to modern Pentacostals and Baptists. The Bogomils were millenarians just like today’s fundamentalists, expecting the end of the world next week, or the week after for sure.
Speaking as a Christian, the rejection of the institution of the Church is individualism, which misses the point of the Christian religion. Christ came to save the collective called the Church. The Church is made up of individual people as well as congregations. No one is saved alone. You are saved only as part of Christ’s body, which is His Holy Church. Christians are in communion with Christ and with each other through membership in the local congregation. Orthodox, Catholics and Protestants all agree on that.
Spot on, dear The Saker,
I am not a particular Church going individual, I am though through spirit and soul Orthodox.
I am also married to a westerner. The difference is huge even though I am married for a very long time. The wife behaves as all orthodox women do when we went to Orthodox church. But she cannot understand the nuances of that particular WAY OF LIFE.
Now about the clerics in the Official Greek church, many of them are clerics for a very particular reason , Job Security.
In my time I have met a few proper Vicars and a couple of Bishops that espouse what you very graphically mean here.
The war in Yugoslavia was the very beginning of the assault of the Franks (The Bastard Children of Charlemagne), That terminology is from a Greek Economist Dimitris Kazakis, a self proclaimed atheist, but with a proper love and understanding of what the dedicated to their faith clerics serve.
I know personally one such vicar (Papa-Ilias, one of his preaching places: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odY0jZmED9Y ) that he preaches what he believes is an assault on our way of life. He has been banned from the “Official Bishop” to preach in churches, the reason being is that unpalatable truth that the Fascist West in the form of NATO and the EU based in Brussels represent. Also the degradation of the faith and Universal MORALS
And another Papa-Ilias with fighting spirit here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LizsDkVakzo
There is an awakening of the backlash of the good against the Evil, we see it in the Paedofilia and moral degradation not only in the everyday people but especially from so called our Political and financial leaders. The so called intelligentia are morally bankrupt also.
The universal morals are under assault on the entire Planet.
Lastly I thank you for the multi layered writingand reporting that you do.
I am also fighting for my Country. The reason ? WE ARE UNDER OCCUPATION by the same evil forces.
Russia may consider itself a “descendant” of Rome by virtue of its forceful behaviour. As for who the wardens of Orthodox Christianity are, they are most definitely not the descendants of people who moved into Europe several centuries after Christianity was well established. I agree that the Pope is fantasizing about expanding the Catholic flock (with decreasing membership in Europe) and Putin is fantasizing about dissuading the Catholic nations (France, Italy, etc.) from a possible active fight as part of NATO against him. Neither will succeed. I agree that the “masses” (both Catholic and Orthodox) are unlikely to be convinced that Reunion is in the cards. Are the Brazilians going to agree to tweak their most Christian liturgy to match the Greek one? Nyet. As for how seriously we can take Vladimir the Bear Fighter if he were to say he actually believes in God, let’s be serious on that – personally I think he’s as devout as Barack himself. Russia may think it holds the moral high ground against the loosening Western morality and “prostitutes Poland and Romania” but neither Warsaw nor Bucharest will buy that. As for those who think the aforementioned “prostitutes” are mere lackeys, history plays itself out over centuries and most devout Christians may submit to your face and laugh behind your back. Barack and Putin both think they’re the smartest guy – one will lose face, the other may well lose “his” country. Which is which methinks is irrelevant.
Solitaria?
@ Anonymous wizzard
If you mean me, no; that’s some other old flower. I mostly lateralize these days as per the advice of our Data Collector friend, who insisted that the linear approach is non-productive.
And I don’t agree with what this Fleur guy says. The Pope is not fantasizing at all, he knows very well what he’s doing. He knows that although most Novus Ordo Catholics will look at him dewy-eyed when he talks about unity, the Orthodox will be continually p*ssed by it and the animosity between the two denominations will only grow. Which is as it should be to make everyone else happy.
Re the moral high ground, the few of the Brazilians who remained Christian are mostly pentecostal. The rest have gone to the other side, following the regla of the Dark fellow. Prostitutes are prostitutes, and the most devout Christians will not laugh behind anybody’s back.
The wardens of Christianity are the Greeks themselves.
So not the Russians.
By Greeks I don’t mean people that live in Greece(although I do think they have a very privileged position within Christianity by simply knowing how to speak Greek and having that “ethos”) but people who have a Hellenic paideia.
Without an attempt to offend other Orthodox Christians, with my sincere apologies:
I second that.
@ The Saker: one thing I categorically disagree with: of course the west is based on Rome, in fact it still IS Rome, alive and well and still kicking.
As for Greece, there are also other conclusions. I read a book from 1902 where the linguistics of the supposedly greek writings got thoroughly analysed, along with many historical records, poetry, semantics etc. His conclusion was that they were all written in Italy during the Romanticism along with a complete re-write of what we know as the bible today.
The book is from Robert Baldauf and in original German it’s called “Historie und Kritik : Einige kritische Bemerkungen.”
https://archive.org/details/BaldaufHistorieUndKritikBd1DerMoenchVonStGallen
http://www.sinossevis.de/upload1/_EOD_Digitalisat_Historie_und_Kritik_Bd_1.pdf
Full: http://www.dl.yrotsih.com/books/b/Historie%20und%20Kritik.pdf
A very haeavy reading mind you, also lots of roiginal latin and greek in there and it was a real piece of work to chew through it, but it paid off IMO. I’m not yet quite sure what to conclude from it, but make your own opinion.
The guy was definitely real, there are proven copies of his immatriculation from the Basel university still kept in the archives.
This seems to resonate somewhat with the work of Anatoly Fomenko.
Beautiful article—so full of information. I am Latin Christian but am very fond of Orthodoxy. Traditionalist Catholics (such as Society of Pius X) will bemoan the new rite imposed after Vatican II
and the laxity in morality–but most of them still cling to a very centralized Vatican. Your article covered it all.
Saker:
As your resident Latin Frankish Traditionalist, thank you for posting this. You are certainly aware that the Latin Church suffers from the same destruction of its traditions as Orthodoxy at the hands of ecumenists and masons. Most Catholics have no idea of their spiritual heritage from anything prior to 50 years ago.
It is a good thing to have eyes wide open. Still, I remain optimistic for the union of those who profess Christ within the True Church and I believe this will take place under the leadership of Russia when she finally realizes her political responsibility to Christendom as the 3rd Rome. In this sense, the meeting of the political leader of Russia and the Pope of Rome is auspicious. Ut unum sint.
I also hope one day the Orthodox such as yourself will forgive our Popes and my Frankish people for what they did in their ignorance and zeal after being abandoned by the Empire in the face of the threat Muslim wars, and also recognize their spiritual and political responsibility to us as heirs and children to Rome.
I wish to make one last tangentially related comment. Christendom is bigger than the Roman Empire and its East and West and daughter civilizations, and so is thus bigger than the division of Orthodox and Catholic. At the very beginning of the history of Christianity, the Aramaic speaking Apostles such as. Sts. Thomas and Jude brought Christianity to Lebanon, Edessa, Persia, and India. From these lands, Christianity spread to across the Asian Continent into Central Asia, China, Japan, Arabia and elsewhere for over 1000 years until it was nearly destroyed by Tamerlane. Due to the political conflict between Persia and Rome after the Roman Empire became a Christian Empire under Theodosius, the Catholic Church of the East, as it called itself, had to make itself “independent” in a political-ecclesiastical sense so as to not be seen as a foreign agent under the control of Rome, since Persia was officially Zoroastrian. While maintaining theological and sacramental unity, the Christian east of Roman Syria and Armenia could not express ecclesiastical unity with Roman Christians without becoming political traitors to their own countries. It is egotistical of Catholic and Orthodox Christians to think that they form the wholeness of Christendom and encompass all of Christian history between them and to ignore their Eastern brothers, from whom both still remain seperate today. The pictures you posted from Lebanon are very likely from the descendants of these Aramaic speaking Christians. Straining at unity between Catholics and Orthodox misses the bigger picture of disunited professors of Christ and those who need the protection and unity of the Christian Empire.
I also hope one day the Orthodox such as yourself will forgive our Popes and my Frankish people
Dear Andrew,
The issue is most definitely not one of me, or any other Orthodox Christian, “forgiving” anybody, much less so people who died hundred of years ago. Nor is it about blaming their spiritual descendent (modern Latins) for actions they never participated in. In fact, it would be pathetic for modern Orthodox people to hold “grudges” for events they did not even personally witness. No, that is not at all the problem. Here are the real issues:
1) Recognition: most Latin Christians are completely unaware of this history, but those who are typically deny it or use the “same” argument and say that the Latin attitude towards the Orthodox was no worse than the Orthodox attitude towards Latins. From our point of views, those Latins who engage in that make themselves accomplices of these misdeeds of the past because they deny them and cover them up.
2) Misrepresentation: even though the Latin Church has a history of 1000 years of innovation and departure from the ancient Christian tradition, it denies that it innovated and claims that all its innovations were already “implied” in the past tradition. This is how you end up with an 19th century Vatican I council which introduced both the Papal Infallibility and the Immaculate Conception 19th centuries after the birth of Christ. Now, while it *is true* that the notions of Papal Infallibility date from at least the the times of the Dictatus Papae (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatus_papae) and that the origin of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception is a logical consequence of the mistaken views on Original Sin of Augustine of Hippo (4th century) – neither of these notions was ever part of the corpus known as the consensus patrum which it directly contradicts. If the Latins stopped impersonating us and admitted, finally, that they have been innovating for 10 centuries that honest recognition would go a very long way towards reconciliation between Orthodox and Latin Christians.
3) Submission: as you well know, all the truly traditionalist branches of the Latin Church still want to “unite” us under the authority of the Pope. Modern Latins are naively ignorant of that, I know that you fully know that to be true. Thus, from our point of view, the *real* Latins (the Traditionalists) still want “our souls”. Nothing have changed from the times of Constantine XI Palaiologos, Saint Alexander Nevsky, Saint Mark of Ephesus or the Saint Hermogenes (Patriarch of Moscow). Accept the fact that we won’t submit to the Pope, and you will find us much more open to any form of dialog.
In sum: stop covering up the past, stop impersonating us and stop trying to submit us to your Pope.
Is that really so hard for you?
Kind regards,
The Saker
Dear Saker:
Nevetheless, reconciliation is impossible without forgiveness. And the Apostolic soul cannot but hope for reconciliation.
And there is nothing to fear from submission. Rather, the one to whom submission is made should fear the responsibility for souls laid upon his shoulders. St. Luke 12.41-48.
If you have the faith and the understanding to practice it – the essence of Orthodoxy – why should you fear that someone might try to direct you otherwise?
The problem in the Latin Church, that we traditionalists have now recognized and learned thanks to Vatican II and the destruction of our Liturgy and really also thanks to your example, and that you have seen all along, is the placing of authority above tradition instead of in service to it. But because authority is misused or abused or co-opted by evil, does not mean it does not or should not exist. St. Luke 12 that I cited above is clear. There is a steward over the family of God.
Dear Andrew,
You write And there is nothing to fear from submission. How can you write that when the Church has glorified amongst the saints the confessors and martyrs which have refused to submit to your Pope not out of pride or stubbornness, but because doing so would be a betrayal of Christ, His Church and everything they stand for?! Surely you are aware that for Orthodox Christians Latin innovations are heresies, and that Patristic ecclesiology holds that heretics are severed from the Theandric Body of Christ, the Church, and thus cut away from the salvific Grace contained therein? Don’t you understand that for us martyrdom is much, MUCH preferable than the submission to your Pope? Have 1000 years of Orthodox witness not shown you that you will never succeed in submitting us? Do you sincerely believe that we are so ignorant of the spirit of the Fathers (the phronema ton pateron) that we would believe you when you say that there is no danger in apostasy?
For 2 millenia we have lived according the the words of Christ Who told us “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” and now you expect us to feel no danger in submitting to a heresiarch?!
But you know what baffles me the most? You have made an utter mess of your own dominion, of those lands which you have subdued and conquered since the 5th century. The West is now post-Christian thanks to your stewardship of these lands and with that damning record of turning and entire civilization away from even the *notion* of God you STILL entertain thoughts of subjugating us.
Amazing. Baffling. And very very sad.
The issue, Andrew, is not our forgiveness but your absolute inability to face the truth: The sole authority we accept is the one of God Who speaks through His Church. We remember the words of Christ Who told us “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” What need to we have for a Vicarius Christi when Christ Himself sent us the Spirit of Truth?
But whether you are willing to accept that or not, most of us will much rather die than to submit to your Pope and everything he stands for. What some of our bishops do or do not do will have no impact upon us. We will always follow the example of Saint Maximos the Confessor was willing to give a heretical Patriarch: ” “If even the whole universe should begin to commune with the Patriarch, I will not commune with him. For I know from the writings of the holy Apostle Paul that the Holy Spirit will give over to anathema even the angels, if they should begin to preach any other gospel, introducing anything new.”.
So why don’t you just *leave us alone*, let us be. Stop trying to convert us. Until you do so, no real coexistence shall ever be possible between us, nevermind a dialog. It’s really that simple: are you will to let us live as we have chosen to or not? Will you ever recognize our *right* and *choice* NOT to be you?
Dear Saker:
Will you ever recognize our *right* and *choice* NOT to be you?
No one is asking you to be us. Communion does not mean subjugation or forgoing your own identity.
But as far as some “right” to be seperate and ignored, you know that is impossible for a Christian to accept that some people on earth should not become part of the Church, or that there are two or more Churches.
St. Matthew 28:19 Therefore, go forth and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
St. Mark 16:15 And he said to them: “Go forth to the whole world and preach the Gospel to every creature.
St. Luke 14:23 And the lord said to the servant: ‘Go out to the highways and hedges, and compel them to enter, so that my house may be filled.
St. John 17:21 So may they all be one. Just as you, Father, are in me, and I am in you, so also may they be one in us: so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
Ephesians 4:3 Be anxious to preserve the unity of the Spirit within the bonds of peace.
Ephesians 4:4 One body and one Spirit: to this you have been called by the one hope of your calling:
Ephesians 4:5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
Ephesians 4:6 one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in us all.
But as far as some “right” to be seperate and ignored, you know that is impossible for a Christian to accept that some people on earth should not become part of the Church, or that there are two or more Churches.
Aha! so you are now saying that the Orthodox Christians are not part of the Church. Good. That is, indeed, the traditional Latin position which I much prefer to the modern hypocrisy of pretending that we have the same confession or faith. We do not, of course. Not a single verse which you have quoted justifies that and, in fact, not a single verse in the entire scripture justifies that.
So yes, communion with the Pope does *ABSOLUTELY* require full subjugation and abandonment of our identity.
What you are missing though is this: for 1000 years the Latins have tried to convert us by hook or by crook, but mostly by crude violence and deception, really. Like this abomination called an “Eastern Rite” or disguising your clergy in Orthodox vestments. It is one thing to open your doors to those who knock on them, and quite another to use every dirty trick imaginable to try convert us.
Finally, of course, there is “minor detail” that we don’t have a Pope. No super-bishop who claims to rule the entire world in the name of Christ, nobody to partition the world between various powers (as at the Treaty of Tordesillas). Our only loyalty is, of course, to Christ Himself and so somebody who becomes Orthodox does not place upon himself a duty to submit to a “super” man like the Pope. This is, of course, THE key demand and condition of the Latins: submit to the “Holy Father” and everything can be accepted, even married priests, even a Credo spoken without a filioque, and even a cardinale in pectore communing at the schismatic cup. This is what is so unthinkable to us and so unacceptable to us. You act just like the Mossad: by way of deception, and all you care about is subjugating the other.
Andrew, we have ONE THOUSAND YEARS of experience of interaction with Latins, and we know them very, very well by now. I don’t know if you are trying to convince yourself, or the readers, but to try to convince us, Orthodox Christians, that submission to the Pope is almost a “minor detail” and that doing so would not be an apostasy is futile. Your own words here clearly show (and I sure hope that the modern Latins have read them carefully so as to stop kidding themselves with the notion that no, the Vatican has no subjugation plans for the Orthodox) that you yourself are very much on the position I outlined above: recognition, misrepresentation, subjugation. Again, this is not a surprise to me, but it is useful for me to be able to show it in your own words.
Dear Saker:
That is, indeed, the traditional Latin position which I much prefer to the modern hypocrisy of pretending that we have the same confession or faith.
Yes, it is the traditional position that there is one true Church to which all humans should become members.
As far as the common people go, they do have the same profession of faith and they share in the same eucharist. Most of them have no idea of the intracacies of theological arguments undertaken by our Bishops and theologians. Generaly I feel we are lucky such common people show up for the Sunday liturgy, occasionally go to confession, have their children baptized, receive marriage from the Church, and attempt generally to conform their life to the moral code of the Church. This is also true for the Fr. Bob Smiley’s of both sides of the Church. I don’t condemn any of them for their ignorance.
The schism, such as it exists, is between our bishops and theologians, and a handful of laymen who hurl castigations and condemnations at the other side. They are obviously not in any sort of union. That said, I still embrace people such as yourself as my brother in faith and hope that one day we may join truly in one confession at one eucharist in the peace of the Church. I do not feel you are my enemy, so I hope I am not viewed by you as yours, despite my loyalty to the Catholic heirarchy. I again ask pardon for wrongs you believe done by “my side” against yours. Peace be with you.
As far as the common people go, they do have the same profession of faith and they share in the same eucharist. Most of them have no idea of the intracacies of theological arguments undertaken by our Bishops and theologians.
Speak for yourself. While you will find a lot of ignorant Orthodox Christians in the “official” Churches, the average level of theological education of traditionalist Orthodox Christians is very high, sometimes even higher amongst lay-people then amongst clerics.
The schism, such as it exists, is between our bishops and theologians, and a handful of laymen
You are completely kidding yourself. Why would you chose to deliberately ignore the fact that there is no “schism” – we have two MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE religions. This does not depend on the ignorance of your (or our) rank and file parishioners. Only an approach of “ignorance is bliss” can make somebody overlook this reality.
Throughout this conversation you have tried to MINIMIZE the differences between us, while I have tried to SHOW THEM. Why? Because your entire world view of “one day re-uniting all of Christendom under the Holy Father” is based on the tactic of obfuscating the essentials. Like when Latins go on long disputations about the filioque hoping to avoid the fact that ANY additions to the Symbol of Faith have been forbidden by two Councils.
Maybe you sincerely believe that this kind of obfuscations and denial of differences are all okay, that the end justifies the means, that it is all ad majorem Dei gloriam but we rather live by there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known. If ye continue in My word, then are ye My disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
Ignorance, Andrew, is not a virtue, at least not for us.
How can you say in the same breath that ” it is the traditional position that there is one true Church to which all humans should become members” AND that they share in the same eucharist.?! Do you know that this statement would make you fail your class in “Orthodoxy 101”? Are you seriously saying that you, as a “traditionalist” Latin believe that Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus AND that the mysteries of schismatics are valid?! Or are you saying the the non-valid mysteries of schismatics retain a soteriological potential as long as the schismatic partaking of them is an ignoramus? Surely you must know that the validity of Mysteries (which you – mistakenly – call “Sacraments”) depend on the bishop and not on the individual priest or layman. Or have you forgotten that? You seem to have your dogmatics and ecclesiology completely confused and, crime of crime for a Latin, self-contradictory.
Maybe this kind of self-evident nonsense flies with your “common people” but they will never be accepted by our laity (or clergy). Your latest comment just further illustrates the immense chasm separating us.
there is no “schism” – we have two MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE religions
I fully understand that you and a number of others regard this as true and that you also have quite valid grounds to argue this point. From my own years of study and prayer, I do not personally believe this is so, which is why I can be optimistic.
Like when Latins go on long disputations about the filioque hoping to avoid the fact that ANY additions to the Symbol of Faith have been forbidden by two Councils.
You are well aware from reading the Acts of the the Council of Ephesus that when the Council made this decree, which I believe you are also misreading, it did so regarding the original Nicene Creed of AD 325 which ends “And the Holy Spirit”, because the Fathers quoted that original version of the creed. Taken literally in the way you argue, it would condemn the Creed of the 150 Fathers at Constantinople of AD 381. I would argue that the anthema you refer to regards the introduction of a new creed as a symbol of a new faith, not the clarification of THE creed to combat new heresies.
How can you say in the same breath that ” it is the traditional position that there is one true Church to which all humans should become members” AND that they share in the same eucharist.?!
There is only one Eucharist. All who partake of it share in it and are thus part of one Church unless they cut themselves off by their own pride. See 1 Corinthians 10 and 11.
Are you seriously saying that you, as a “traditionalist” Latin believe that Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus AND that the mysteries of schismatics are valid?!
That is the clear teaching of the Roman See since at least the time of Pope St. Cornelius and the Donatist schism. The sacraments of a schismatic are actually and spiritually valid but illicit to participate in except in a case of necessity or ignorance. Therefore, it is not necessary to rebaptize and reordain converts from schismatic sects who otherwise use the sacred rites of the Church, they just need to confess their sins and make a profession of faith.
Or are you saying the the non-valid mysteries of schismatics retain a soteriological potential as long as the schismatic partaking of them is an ignoramus? Surely you must know that the validity of Mysteries (which you – mistakenly – call “Sacraments”) depend on the bishop and not on the individual priest or layman.
We believe the Sacraments (our Latin theological term for Mysteries) of themselves, depend on using the right matter, an approved Liturgy, and the intention of the celebrant to do what the Church does in celebrating the sacrament. The spiritual value of the sacraments depends on the soul of the recipient. An adult who purposefully goes to a schismatic for the eucharist participates in a real Liturgy in which the sacrifice is really offered but condemns himself by his purposeful separation from the unity of the Church. On the other hand a child raised by schismatics who is baptised and receives Holy Communion and given a basic catechism of the faith and becomes an adult is considered a real member of the Church.
In the view of the Catholic Church, all right believing Christians who have valid sacraments and valid priests and thus a valid Liturgy are part of the Catholic Church. Only those who manifestly and obstinately profess theological and moral errors knowing that those teachings are condemned by Church Councils and the Roman See are cut off as heretics. Schismatics are those who purposefully seperate themselves from the unity of the heirarchy and the common celebration of the Eucharist and who are manifestly unwilling to accept the judicial decisions of the Roman See. A separation due to the accidents of history is not a schism. This is clearly seen historically in the initial reaction of Christians in Ethiopia, Persia, and India when they met the Portuguese Catholics in the 1500’s (not to say we didn’t manage to muck it up later by our western pride) – full visible unity was immediately proclaimed among them with great gladness as they immediately recognized each other as brothers in Christ even though the Christians of Persia and India and the West had not had real contact since AD 424.
You are admitting to the lack of understanding of the meaning of the word “schism”.
The word in Greek means “Rip”, to say “schizo” means “I am ripping something/somebody, etc…”. Schisma besides it’s main meaning also suggests “divide, partition”.
Hence the deep divide between the main streams of the church. Notice I totally ignore the protestants.
Dear Saker:
Surely you are aware that for Orthodox Christians Latin innovations are heresies, and that Patristic ecclesiology holds that heretics are severed from the Theandric Body of Christ, the Church, and thus cut away from the salvific Grace contained therein?
Of course I know this doctrine. What I cannot accept is that you term the theological writings of the Latin Fathers of Italy, Africa, and France as innovations and heresies, as if the only legitimate theology was that written in Greek.
What I cannot accept is that you term the theological writings of the Latin Fathers of Italy, Africa, and France as innovations and heresies, as if the only legitimate theology was that written in Greek.
Straw man.
I never said that, not did I ever imply that. If I did, I would be also rejecting all the writings of the Russian saints, for example.
Dear Saker:
Straw man.
No, not a straw man. Otherwise, why would the Orthodox not accept as bearing real doctrinal value what was written by Sts Hillary of Poitiers, Ambrose, Augustine of Hippo, Fulgentius of Ruspe, Pope Damasus I, Pope Leo the Great, Pope Gelasius I, Pope Hormisdas, Pope Gregory the Great and so many others in the Latin west concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit, the primacy of the Roman See, purgatory, the celibacy expected of the Latin clergy, and other things? Of course to do this would mean, for example re-evaluating in the first place the Second Council of Lyons and the Council of Florence in this light, interpreting them with the clear lens that St. Maximus the Confessor gave to understand exactly what the Latin Church was saying and that St. Gregory Palamas gave regarding how the filioque clause could be understood in a way compatible with the the Creed, the Cappdocians and St. Photius.
The saintly Russian theologians built of course on the theological teachings of the Greek east, so it is besides the point to cite them in this way. My point was that the Orthodox very often cite a “consensus of the Fathers” among the Greeks (and subseauent Slavic authors) and then proceed to ignore the Latins by claiming every Latin author was merely expressing a personal theological opinion because they believe the latin theology is wrong, even though it extends back to the beginnign fo the use of Latin in the Church. In this way, the entire corpus of theology writte in Latin and contained in Patrologia Latina becomes a dead letter among the Orthodox as mere personal opinions that cannot be compared to the writings of the blessed Fathers associated with the Church in the east, these authors held out as being truly authoritative.
why would the Orthodox not accept as bearing real doctrinal value what was written by Sts Hillary of Poitiers, Ambrose, Augustine of Hippo, Fulgentius of Ruspe, Pope Damasus I, Pope Leo the Great, Pope Gelasius I, Pope Hormisdas, Pope Gregory the Great and so many others in the Latin west concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit, the primacy of the Roman See, purgatory, the celibacy expected of the Latin clergy, and other things?
That is not quite true.
Some Orthodox (too many) are ignorant ethno-phyletists who don’t seem to realize that other people can be Orthodox too. This is a typically Russian “disease” the kind of attitude which makes one ignore almost all the non-Russian saints and Fathers. But this is an ignorant minority.
Second, you are mixing apples and oranges. We don’t put Saint Ambrose of Milan in the same category as Augustine of Hippo, for example. Most of your list completely pales in quality/relevance with true theological giants of the East (but not all, of course).
Third, you yourself gave the answer when you wrote “the Orthodox very often cite a “consensus of the Fathers” among the Greeks (and subseauent Slavic authors) and then proceed to ignore the Latins by claiming every Latin author was merely expressing a personal theological opinion because they believe the latin theology is wrong”. Here you are spot on. Where you are wrong is when you add “even though it extends back to the beginnign fo the use of Latin in the Church.” as if that proved anything. I am sorry if that offends you own ethno-phyletist feelings, but the fact is that most of “western” theology *IS* indeed wrong due to two factors: a much MUCH lower level of education of the “West” at the time, the devastating role of the Frank invasions, and a general alienation from the eastern centers of Christianity. If you have any doubt about the western theological illiteracy, then just look at the disputes between Saint Gregory Palamas and Barlaam. Much of the reason for this western theological illiteracy can be traced to the western over-reliance on Augustinian writings, of course. But the main point is this: most (all?) heresies have an old history, most (all?) appeared almost immediately, such as Simon Magus’ Gnosticism whom great Church Fathers regarded as the source of most (all?) heresies. So by tracing the roots of western heresies to a distant past you prove nothing.
There *is* a consensus patrum which *is* the criterion of both ortho-doxa and ortho-praxis. If you chose to deny you, you only further remove yourself from the original the faith “which the Lord gave, was preached by the Apostles, and was preserved by the Fathers. On this was the Church founded and from the that “which has been believed everywhere, always and by all” (to quote a =>WESTERN< = Saint and Father!)
In fact, your argument show a very old Frankish claim: we are as good as the Greeks!! we know as much as the Greeks!! we are as good theologians as the Greeks!!
Guest what? You are not. Sorry.
Our rejection of both the deviations of western theologians and, even more to, your claim that "we are just as good!!" is not based on narrow-minded nationalist pride (I don't have a single drop of Greek blood [alas!]), but on the fact that *objectively* you don't measure up to the high standard set by the Church Fathers.
You want to argue with the Fathers. We tell you to humbly accept them, submit to them, and seek to shed your "old man" and put on the "mantle of Christ" to quire the "mindset of the Fathers", the "phronema ton pateron” which is a lifelong struggle in humility , ascesis, prayer and study. Instead, you jump on a very small footstool (of a few western theologians) and try to challenge the true giants of Christian theology.
It all boils down to pride. You rather put up with:
1) “infallible” Popes contradicting each other
2) a “traditionalist” theology which says that, yes, the Pope is infallible, but that the current papal see is vacant and the current Pope unworthy. Which begs the question: so no active Vicarius Christi or is there an “occulted one” in a mode similar to the Hidden Imam?!
3) a West which has been totally de-Christianized on YOUR watch and which has now turned into a post-Christian neo-pagan hybrid of Babylon and Sodom.
And you completely forget the words of Christ “A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit.”.
All that in a desperate effort to do the obvious: admit your mistake and humbly return to the Theandric Body of Christ. What prevents you (personal and collective “you”) from showing the same wisdom as the Prodigal Son?
Pride. Nothing else but Pride.
Hence your ruffled feathers about us not taking “your” theologians as seriously as you wish we did. Some will will (Saint Ambrose), but most we indeed won’t. Because we *DO* remember that a good tree does not bear fruit.
Try to understand this: when we look at you (collective Latin “you”) we have the same reaction on a spiritual level than we Russian looks at the Ukraine (on political level): we are horrified and saddened by what we see and we only feel strengthened in our determination to avoid that condition. You have no idea how utterly uninspiring a “reunion” the Pope and the Latin Church looks to us: the harder you try to convert us, the more repulsive you appear to us. The harder you try to show us your equality (or even superiority!), the more sophomoric and clueless you appear to us. And if we will always welcome Latin *individuals* wanting to join the salvific Church of Christ we have no illusion, no hope and no desire for any *corporate* conversion of Latins to Orthodoxy. On a corporate level we will just let you be, and hope that you will return us the favor even if we are under no illusions that you ever will because just as the (modern rabbinical) Judaism is nothing more than an anti-Christianity, so the Latin Church is, at its core and identity, nothing more than an anti-Orthodoxy.
So you see, dear Andrew, that the issue is not the Orthodox “forgiving” the Latins for past deeds, or letting bygones be bygone. The dynamic of our relationship is much more akin the the one of matter and anti-matter (Orthodoxy and anti-Orthodoxy, Christianty and anti-Christianity): we don’t expect anti-matter to ever marry itself with matter, not in the past, not in the present and not in the future. Again, *individual* positrons might, by the Grace of God, turn into electrons and join our atoms (parishes) but anti-matter will never “re-join” with matter, at least not in any other way than a massive energy-releasing and violent explosion :-)
The Saker
Dear Saker:
Most of your list completely pales in quality/relevance with true theological giants of the East (but not all, of course).
You are illustrating my point very well.
“the Orthodox very often cite a “consensus of the Fathers” among the Greeks (and subseauent Slavic authors) and then proceed to ignore the Latins by claiming every Latin author was merely expressing a personal theological opinion because they believe the latin theology is wrong”. Here you are spot on. Where you are wrong is when you add “even though it extends back to the beginnign fo the use of Latin in the Church.” as if that proved anything.
Any “consensus of the Fathers” must of necessity include Fathers from across the whole Church and in all times or it is not much of a consensus. There cannot be a “consensus of the Fathers” that consists of the Cappadocian Doctors and no one else. This is similar to the technique some in the past used in the West of saying, “well, St. Augustine said this, so it is so because St. Augustine”, ignoring or being in ignorance of every other Father. This is the origin of our Jansenists, for example (and also the Calvinists and Lutherans).
most of “western” theology *IS* indeed wrong due to two factors: a much MUCH lower level of education of the “West” at the time, the devastating role of the Frank invasions, and a general alienation from the eastern centers of Christianity.
The Popes I mentioned, who I know the Orthodox revere, were citizens and inhabitants of the Empire of Romania in constant communication with the East, they were highly educated and multi-lingual, and their theological writings were identical to the other Latin Fathers.
Much of the reason for this western theological illiteracy can be traced to the western over-reliance on Augustinian writings, of course.
This was true in the Dark Ages, which are properly understood as the period subsequent to AD 880 up to the late 1000’s, when education fell off a cliff and the knowledge of the Fathers in the west was reduced in the main to St. Augustine. The selection of saintly western Fathers I mentioned, which is just a small selection of a much larger group, were all citizens and inhabitants of the Empire of Romania, not Franks and again highly educated men.
*objectively* you don’t measure up to the high standard set by the Church Fathers.
The men I listed are Church Fathers. They are part of the measurement of high standards against which others are set. I can’t see on what basis you would argue otherwise or have a set of criteria with which to even make such a judgement seeing as they are celebrated as Saints and Doctors in the Liturgy and none of them were ever condemned by the Church.
You want to argue with the Fathers.
I’m sorry I gave this impression if I did. I want nothing of the sort.
2) a “traditionalist” theology which says that, yes, the Pope is infallible, but that the current papal see is vacant and the current Pope unworthy. Which begs the question: so no active Vicarius Christi or is there an “occulted one” in a mode similar to the Hidden Imam?!
I am not a sedevacantist. Pope Francis is the Pope.
I am not a sedevacantist. Pope Francis is the Pope.
And you accept that he is infallible when speaking ex cathedra on issue of faith and morals and you also accept that anybody disputing this is anathema and wholly cut-off from the Church?
As for your point about the Cappadocians vs western Fathers it uses circular logic: since the western Fathers are no less authoritative than the eastern ones, and since the eastern ones do not accept that, that means that the eastern ones are wrong in their rejection [of some of the teachings of] these western Fathers since the western Fathers are as authoritative as the eastern ones.
The reality being, of course, that some teachings of the western Fathers are part of the consensus patrum and others are not. The exact same can be said of the eastern Fathers some of whose teachings are part of the consensus patrum and others are not.
The real question is, of course, who gets to decide. And the reply obvious: those who did not depart the Church in 1054 :-)
“those who did not depart the Church in 1054”
That would be the Catholics.
It is not the tree (1,200,000,000 Catholics) which leaves the branch (280,000,000 Orthodox), but the branch which leaves the tree.
@reconciliation is impossible without forgiveness.
But forgiveness is impossible without asking for forgiveness and repentance, (change of mind and ways). But it looks pretty obvious that the “Latins” ask us to forgive them without amending their ways. They continue to ask us to “submit” to the Pope (obliquely, “There is a steward over the family of God”!). They are unable to see that the Pope is NOT the one).
Well it’s difficult to forgive, remembering that Vatican refused to help saving Constantinople from the Turks, and thus is co-guilty in the loss of this pearl of Christianity.
How can you say it’s lost ? Don’t you know that it was transferred to the Russians ?
The Turks only got the big oyster.
@ Saker & Andrew
For once I agree with you about submission to the pope. This guy is so sly that nobody should submit to him. And luckily there are a few courageous souls among the clerics who don’t agree with his destruction of the Catholic Church and speak up about it. Like Cardinal Burke in the U$ and Bishop Stefan Oster of Germany, and many others. This will probably mean schism, but it’s happened before and the Church survived.
Would love you to elaborate.
I don’t have that ‘sly’ impression – at all.
But I do think there are machinations – as ever – operant in the Vatican.
Francis is playing to the gallery. To the world at large that is, and especially the so-called liberal part of it with everything that entails. He received VVP and recognized Palestine to court the favour of people like most of those who write on this site (presumably there are more at large). And at the same time he and his wrecking crew are tirelessly digging at the foundations at the church.
http://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/1788-the-situation-is-officially-out-of-control
http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/confidential-meeting-seeks-to-sway-synod-to-accept-same-sex-unions/
http://voxcantor.blogspot.ca/2015/06/has-pope-francis-chosen-malthusian-to.html
The sly part will be seen soon at the synod, where Francis will do what he thinks “the gallery” will like most – possibly to allow the unions and declare himself ‘powerless’ in the face of the ‘overwhelming desire’ of the bishops and cardinals. Or he might even oppose it. He will do that if he feels that the time has not come yet to completely ‘liberalize’ the Church, and the coming schism will be too big. He naturally doesn’t want powerful (and many) opponents, so he might wait a little before unleashing the most radical things. Problem is his backers are in a hurry to see the fruits of their support, and there is not much time left, because many of them are getting old and, presumably, going to meet their Maker.
The really masterful touch is that due to this crew’s cunning work the real keepers of the Catholic faith will be seen by the world as bigots and ‘medieval’ and so on. This stage has been prepared for a long time, mostly at Vatican II. The flow has been slowed down by JP2 in 2000 with his “Dominus Iesus”; that’s when ‘the preparers’ realized JP2 was not their man, and that’s when the media’s love affair with him ended. Since then there has been a steady campaign to vilify him, and more and more scandals have been created in the church to compromise him.
When Ben 16 was chosen as pope in 2005 instead of the modernist expected, the world media positively went bonkers. They called him ‘God’s Rottweiller’ and started digging up and inventing all sorts of absurd stories about him. Kind of like what they write now about VVP. And because Ben 16 persisted in staying alive and slowly continuing to turn back the Catholic Church towards its centuries old tradition, a huge scandal was fomented inside the church and they threatened him to expose it if he didn’t resign.
And so “the preparers” got their man. But I say that they were in too much of a hurry. And people who are in a hurry make mistakes. Buth then the devil is not really a very good adviser, even to people who work for him, because he is The Betrayer par excellence and The Father of Lies. The hurry was because of the coming anniversaries, and some people are very fond of celebrating them.
Like 1789 – 1989. Or 1517 – 1917.
@ FLOR
So you think the Pope will soon allow same-sex unions…or maybe he won’t… and if not then only because he fears a schism….. and this is your evidence that he is sly? How does the POPE get to be sly because of something YOU invented out of thin air?
How is meeting Putin “playing to the gallery”? the Pope (this or previous ones) usually agrees to meet with any national leader, and Russian Presidents normally seek to visit the Pope any time they are in Italy on business. Routine and normal.
Anyway the discussion here is not about this individual Pope but about Papacy-as-institution.
smh
@ Kat Kan
My reply was to Eimar Clark, who asked me to elaborate. Yes, it is a sly thing to dig at the foundations of a Church when you are supposed to lead it. It is a sly thing to try to change the doctrine of the Church when pretending to modernize it and ‘bring it into the world’. If the links I gave were not enough to convince you, you should read more articles on those blogs (that is if you really want to know) and many others who are truly traditionalist, and not just pretending to be.
There are many which have information directly from Rome. One of the most informed is
http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.ca
Having Belgian prelates previously imbroiled in pedophilia scandals to dictate the Church policy on family is also a sly thing to do. Forbidding the Latin Mass, while pretending not to, is another one. And the most despicable of all was forcing Pope Benedict XVI to resign.
If you really want to know all the sly things this ‘papacy’ is doing, I can provide you with a steady supply of links on everything in real time. It will be my pleasure.
I am sending on the comments of a Russian friend – not my own:
Дорогой Робин
Here is my commentary:
The Saker is absolutely right in describing the state of the modern churches.
However, he is missing the point about the nature of this horrific problem. And the point is that this problem is supernatural and will be only resolved by the supernatural means.
The pride and the presumption of the two legitimate and apostolic (in the past), churches is that they think they can do whatever it takes to survive in the world, by condescending to the world’s fashions and whims – be it western “easy going”, or eastern Potemkin village of державность.
There is only one Mandate given by Christ to Peter on the shores of the Lake of Tiberias, in the year 32 AD:
“And I say also unto thee, Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it
Et ego dico tibi quia tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversum eam”
(Matthew XVI : 18)
And that was so up to 259th successor of Peter, Pope Pius XII. Then the churchmen decided to become the keepers of the gates of hell in order to “survive in the modern world.”
The Russian Orthodox, with their barely 16 Patriarchs, are “surviving in the world” by toying with the idea of державность.
Well, in the Old Testament we have the story of the 10 tribes of Israel, (they went after gods of the age), whom God Almighty spat out of his mouth after 400 years of waiting for their repentance.
If the Lord could do it to the then chosen people, (their status was assured 47 times before) , He can surely do it to Peter. And He does it now. And to the rest of the churches too.
The believers and those who are asking the question why, thinking and saying what they think , are the only His ilk now.
These are my reflections on the problem.
Kindest regards
Вадим
I think your views are a modern day form of Protestantism, but good luck.
The former Spanish PM has no license to practice law in Venezuela, but he will act as adviser to the defense. Gonzalez, who arrived in Caracas on Sunday, also noted that he would be meeting politicians as well as family members.
Antonio Ledezma, the former Mayor of the Metropolitan District of Caracas stands accused of being among the ringleaders of paramilitary groups which were arrested by Venezuelan authorities during violent protests last year. The violence cost 43 lives. Ledezma is, like Leopoldo Lopez, a member of the right-wing Popular Will party.
http://nsnbc.me/2015/06/10/fmr-spanish-pm-felipe-gonzalez-in-caracas-as-adviser-to-defense-of-jailed-opposition/
@Salvation is very simple according to scripture…There is nothing we can add to our salvation. Just repent and believe.
That would be indeed very simple. Typical protestant.
The thing is that actually we have to DO something for our salvation.
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
“And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves: For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come. And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you”.
We have to work for our salvation. And that is done in the Church. Repentance (metanoia=change of mind) was followed by mystery of Baptism (necessarily by three immersions) in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and the Sealing of the Holy Ghost in the newly baptized by the mystery of Chrismation with sanctified oil. And then through the mystery of the Eucharist by which we thank God for everything that He has done for us and participate in the body and blood of Christ.
A bit more than just believing that Jesus did everything for us and we just can sit back and twiddle our fingers because we are already saved.
Eph 2;8 New International Version
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God–
New Living Translation
God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.
English Standard Version
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
New American Standard Bible
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
King James Bible
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
@Terry,
You didn’t have the patience to read the whole “Bible”.
http://nsnbc.me/2015/06/07/israeli-official-government-out-of-ways-to-combat-bds/
Israeli Official: Government “Out of ways to combat BDS”
IMEMC : Israeli officials, last week, launched a war against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which has been gaining ground in recent weeks.
According to thge PNN, Hebrew, international and Palestinian media sources have, this past week, been documenting Israel’s concern over growing support for the BDS movement after a series of unions, groups and companies declared their affiliation to the international boycott of Israel.
Boycott_israelIsrael’s Channel Ten reported that the decision of Orange company, to end its brand licensing deal with the Israeli firm Partner Communication and quit its operations in the country, has ignited a storm of BDS victories. Success stories kicked off this week with Britain’s National Union of Students’ (NUS) successful vote to affiliate themselves with BDS.
Surely Nutty must be on the verge of going postal.
Franks and Romans: hey, hey, they were just getting into the juicy stuff on the Logos ! and then there was a cut off. sigh, what is this? the cliff hanger hook for next week, well, one can certainly hope so.
OK so if “uncreated energies of G-d ” is tantamount to the transcendence of G-d so is the Saintly person the transmitter of these that become experienced as immanent energies? One would think that this whole transcendent/immanent split is a play of the duality that the human mind likes to entrap itself in anyway. “Uncreated energies”: I like that phrase: Also that phrase really outdoes even the Latin idea of ex nihilo… language is the sign post and so it is important because it can lead you into the cul de sac or the feedback loop not to the spiral galaxy. Poetry is a better form of language for these discussions actually.
Franks and Romans … Poetry is a better form of language for these discussions actually
“So long as Jove’s great eagle was in flight,
Bearing the fire of Heaven’s menaces,
Heaven feared not the dire audaciousness,
That so stoked the Giants’ reckless might.
But soon as the sun’s fierce burning light
Singed the wings that had abased the Earth,
Earth sent forth, out of her weighty mass,
That ancient horror that assails the right.
Then was the German raven seen, disguised,
Echoing the Roman eagle in the skies,…”
The text used is from the 1588 edition of Les Antiquités de Rome by Du Bellay
No offense saker.. but i really think ..
that after your claims that the catholic church backups the nazis in Ukraine..
You really show your lack of knowledge of how the catholic church works..
If people see the Pope , with Yatsenut or Poroshenko shaking hands and smiling,
will say how they sold out.. and were bought.. This remembers me a lot the claims of Putin
betraying novorosiya..
But what people fail to understand about Christianity and Good Catholic Church Priest..
Is the they are called to see each human being no matter how evil or good they are.. as a creature
of God.. SO if the pope talks to Ukrainian Government is to try to influence them to STOP the war..
Catholic Church goal is to influence their faith on others ,even if that means to shake hands with
sinners.. Is not the role of the Christian Church to Judge people.. their role is merely to promote
the Values and teachings of Christiniaty in others. What do i know about Catholic Church after having not one but two family members who are Priest of the catholic Church.. and contrary to
all the conspiracies of the vatican and non sense the are the most humble ,and simple people in the world.. And dedicate many days to helping others , visits to sick people etc.. a real missionairy life.
They are not perfect.. they still humans and some of them abuse of minors.. as it happesn in all religions..and non religious people too.. but is a minority.
One of the main arguments against catholic Church is their help to some Nazis in world war 2..
Not to kill people.. but to save their lives.. But is because they do not understand at all.. that christianity teach.. to NOT.. i repeat.. to NOT Judge people ,to see them a creatures of God , and try to promote in people ,even in evil one ,the best of part of them..Christianity of Jesus says to Forgive seven times seven.. and turn the other cheek. and the Apostles of Jesus ,had problems with Justice
and some of them commited crimes.. but they all turned into Good people in the end.. Jesus provoked in them a change.
Many claimed jesuist “rule the world” and other non sense.. people forgot how the pope visit
Palestine and fully welcomed the Palestinian state .. annoying the hell of israel. catholic church was indeed very corrupt in dark ages.. when they were in control of kings.. but those times have passed.
There is also very good Evangelical Protestant churches.. and really the only differences between
them is very small things .that most of them have to be traditions and how to manage the church..
Some protestant churches reject the praying to virgin mary or angels or saints.. because they see
that as an offense.. To God.. and for catholic church thats merely a non issue.. purely optional that people can do if that allows them to concentrate better in God.. etc.. There are other minor issues
about marriage of priest.. etc.. But there is next to no difference when it comes to jesus being the center of everything in Christianity. The most radical Christians.. are the Zionist American Christians that Totally move away from Jesus teachings and goes to the old testament of the bible.. and preach about Exceptionalism of israel and how needs to be defended no matter what because the bible of jews claims is the “chosen people”
In short Zionism have a war against Christianity.. and the Catholic Church is one of their major targets.. but also the orthodox christianity of Russia too. why the Anglozionist attack Christianity?
What are they afraid of? Is because the American Imperialism/NATO depends of provoking violence and divisions in nations for their to interfere.. and Christianity is the only religion that can really oppose as the use of violence for people solving their differences. So if you go to youtube ,you will
find thousands of videos of conspiracies about the modern Catholic Church that are not true.. ie..being Satanic or Illuninaty or having trillions in gold.. ignoring completely the vatican is not the owner of any Church outside vatican . any infrastructure outside is property of organizations who build the church with people donations and at times with the vatican help..
Dear hrc,
I like much of what you say here. Truly impressed by your views of forgiving 7 times 7….but I was raised by Catholic nuns and I say their true natures bubbled to the surface time and again, Their teaching was very biased, and it was only afterwards that I understood how many lies they pounded into us as children and how much of history they kept a secret from us….
and I was approached by a Catholic priest in a despicable way. and while I agree that such negative characters appear everywhere and fortunately are in the minority, the Catholic Church is richer than the Queen of England. Being so rich, why do they not distribute as least a portion of that wealth to assist the needy? They have enough riches to make a big difference to alleviate a lot of suffering.
Let me add, that I worked for a very large investment and trading bank.
Our 2 largest clients were: The United Nations and the North Eastern Diocese of the Catholic Church in the USA. I have therefore, first hand knowledge of their wealth…and this was just only one Diocese in the US.
Centuries of exploitation contributed to this obscene wealth. I do not see such huge corruption in the orthodox christian churches.
an ex-roman catholic
Christine
“I was approached by a Catholic priest in a despicable way”
Very unusual, as everybody knows that those who do that prefer boys.
@FLOR
I hope you are not insinuating that I am lying? Why would I do that?
My mother was typing a thesis for this priest and my mother was asking him to help me find a babysitter. He saw my picture. He showed up at my place of business in layman’s clothes and identified himself as a priest and a friend of my mother’s and invited himself to my home “for a cup of tea”. I agreed thinking he would actually help me to find a babysitter.
Fortunately I had a friend staying with me, so he invited me to go to a bar up the street for a drink. There, he propositioned me and I was shocked. I told him, “you are a priest, how can you behave that way?” His reply? “It’s just a job”. He said he did not believe in celibacy. He told me that he had had numerous “affairs” and even that he had a child with one woman. My reply to him “but we are supposed to go to you for help.” He walked me home and a few days later, I received a holy card from him in the mail. I never told my mother.
Hard to believe?
I also want to add that all of the nuns I grew up with were not all bad. One in particular Sister Amy was the personification of purity. A beautiful soul that I always remember with fondness, but I view her as a victim of a false religion as well.
Like all corrupt institutions, the evil begins at the top. The head of the snake. Yes, false to the very core. As the saying goes “It’s just business”.
There are many priests and nuns who do not behave like that, who truly believe they are doing good, and sometimes they do do good, but to me they are just fools being used by a very evil institution.
My personal experience confirms that for me, and not just this one experience.
Christine
@FLOR
Regarding “Everybody Knows”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lin-a2lTelg
Enjoy
Christine
@ Christine
I am saying it was very unusual. The scandals in the Catholic Church were mostly caused by priests with a same-sex orientation. The internal investigation of the Church revealed that the proportion was around 98%, which prompted Pope Benedict XVI to issue a special recomendation about the seminarians. That was promptly leaked to the media and they had a field day accusing Ben 16 of homophobia, even worse than when they blasted ‘The Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations’ originated by JP2 before his death and regarding the same problem.
The reports that are still around show that the number of incidents began to grow significantly in the 60s and 70s and then declined as before. Which would suggest indeed like you said that the evil begins at the top, as in that period were the ‘liberal’ papacies of John XXIII (who curiously took the name of an anti-pope) and Paul VI; the two popes who unleashed the flood of modernist confusion with the Vatican II.
I have an have an interest in understanding your view on 7 churches…?
I have posted before on the inclusion in the Gospel of John of a clue number being 153 and how this number relates to 666. That 153 is the sum of minor Pythagorean triangle. And that 666 is the sum of the major Pythagorean triangle. And that the text says let he who has knowledge of things hidden calculate number of the beast….a mans name. A Gore is a triangular piece of cloth or land. A Gore is a horn. Gore is the blood of murder. If you are so well versed dearest Saker, what think you of this.? Does it interest you that Barack means small powerful horn..? Do you wonder at his unheralded appearance and the way he crushed all in his path.? That he was acclaimed a man of peace.?.but is a man of war.? Is he not making crooked the path of the man of sin who is to come.? Does sin in that instance relate to the sin of the mad priest who stretched out his hand to steady the cart carrying the Ark of the Covenant.? Does he who comes seek to save the world but in attempting to insults God.? And is the mark of the beast really to be better understood as ‘the signifier of all life’..?..That is, carbon.?
Dear Saker, please clarify! Do you deem the liturgy in the official Orthodox Churches, as you put it, to be real? Or are the worshipers there just visiting a theater and intaking plane brad and wine instead of partaking in the communion?
Zdraka,
You are asking an extremely complicated question which can only be answered on a case by case basis (“official” Orthodox Churches are *very* different from each other) and, really, one which has to be answered by a Church Council, not just some layman. Furthermore, the Greek Church has no authority to judge the Russian Church and neither does the Russian Church have any authority to judge the Greek Church. And that applies to all the other local Churches. Thus, it is primarily for the “genuine” or “traditional” Greek Orthodox Churches to deal with the issue of the status of the “official” Greek Orthodox Church, the Russian with the Russian, the Serbian with the Serbian, etc. Considering the complexity of the issue involved, it is possible that it would take a pan-Orthodox council of “traditional” (or “genuine”) Orthodox bishops to jointly deal with this issue.
I would most definitely *not* affirm that the faithful attending the official Orthodox Churches are “just visiting a theater and intaking plane brad and wine instead of partaking in the communion” but at the same time I believe that the Traditional Orthodox Church are right when they wall themselves off from the innovators and sever communion from them at least until a Church Council statuates on this matter. Thus neither would I affirm the opposite, that the “official” Orthodox Churches Mysteries are most definitely valid (If I did that while I was personally not in communion with them that would make me a schismatic at the very least).
As you certainly know, during the Apostolic Council in Jerusalem those present used the following language: “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” thus clearly indicating that Church Councils, when they are true and not robber-councils, are infused with the Presence of God through the Holy Spirit. This is why simple laymen, or even individual bishops, cannot adopt an affirmative declaration on the question you ask, but only a Church Council can: because only God really knows the answer.
For laypeople as myself the exercise of what I jokingly call “gracometry” (the endless discussions about whether this or that jurisdiction has or as no Grace) is spiritually very unhealthy and can lead to πλανη/прелесть (spiritual delusion) and, in fact, it often has lead otherwise good people astray. The only sober attitude to this issue is to leave it to the competence of a future council.
Dear Saker,
Thank you for your response, I really appreciate you taking the time. I concur that the matter is complicated and an individual can not decide upon it, yet an individual is responsible for recognizing which is “(just) an official” and which is “the traditional (rightly walled off)” Church. The way the duplicity arises in some cases makes it hard to see straight. Or worse yet, you see the divide forming, but neither of the two sides seems completely right in their stance. Anyway, I understand where you stand now better and that was important to me, your keen reader who developed friendly affections to the man behind the letters. May God help us not to be led astray!
Kind regards!
thnks Saker,
your post goes a long way in helping explain the stumbling block that Orthodoxy poses.
Humanity is a collection of billions of individuals, each of whom is a unique imprint of Divine Love. No manmade institution has a monopoly on the truth which comes down from above of which Jesus Christ was a messenger and embodiment. Diversity between east and west in interpreting this miracle is a good thing. Politically-imposed constructs that try to force the masses into lockstep hardens and kills. Institutional unity is a delusion. “Praise God from whom all blessings flow!” Thank you Saker.
I hope that you do not believe that the Church is a “manmade institution”. The truth which came from above was embodied in the Church.
This man is not the Pope of Catholic church, seriously.
He’s a kind of limb of the devil.
No Pope since 1965’s revolution in Vatican.
as an Orthodox Christian, THANK YOU for this
Indeed, speaking of union between Catholic Church and Orthodox Churches is nonsensical, for such a thing is obviously impossible.
However: Matthew 19,26.
Cheers,
Alexis
On what True Orthodoxy stands for, the Wikipedia entry is useful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Orthodoxy#Doctrine
In a nutshell, what separates True Orthodoxs from Orthodoxs looks to be the following:
– Strong rejection of ecumenism
– Condemnation of “Sergianism”, that is distortion of parts of the faith so as to appease persecution by worldly powers, which Metropolitan Sergius is accused to have been done in 1927 towards Soviet authorities when he declared loyalty to the Soviet Union and interests of its government
– Refusal of the Revised Julian calendar established 1923 and use of the Old Julian calendar
Given that #2 is not actual since the USSR is no longer around, it’s rejection of ecumenism and rejection of calendar change which presently motivate True Orthodoxs refusing communion with the Orthodox Churches.
It is more complicated than that. For example, while the original Sergianism is, indeed, dead, it has been replaced by what can be called “neo-Sergianism” that is the subservience of the Church not only to the state, but also to the “world” in general. And, let’s be honest, the “official” Orthodox Churches have that “official” status precisely because they have the backing of the secular powers and not for any other reason, this is especially true of the Russian Moscow Patriarchate. As for the rejection of the Papal Calendar or the Ecumenical movement it has its cause in a very different view of what the Church is (a different “ecclesiology”). The Papal Calendar and the Ecumenical movement are just symptoms of a much deeper phenomenon inside the “World Orthodoxy” which is a fundamental shift in worldview, in ethos (for example most modernist jurisdictions accept Freemasons, something categorically banned in Traditional Orthodoxy). The ortho-praxis of the Traditional Orthodox (prayers, services, fasting, etc.) is also very different from the one seen in the modernist jurisdictions. The importance and role of monasticism is yet another difference. The list is long, really, and I could go on listing differences for quite a while. But truly this is something which can only be experienced, not described.
As am amusing, if rather sad, sidestory, I can tell you that it is quite amazing how hostile the “official” Orthodox jurisdictions are towards their traditionalist brethren. While they are quite happy to pour loads of “Christian love” towards the non-Orthodox Christians and even non-Christians, they often have a hateful rage against the traditionalists whom they call all sorts of unflattering names. It is quite pathetic, really.
May I know which are the official Orthodox jurisdictions which are pouring Christian love upon the non-Orthodox Christians ? I’m afraid I may have been a tiny bit unjust (in a non-Christian way) towards them and would like to redeem myself if that’s the case.
Thanks for these explanations, Saker.
Regarding the rage which you report among Orthodoxs of the largest branch towards True Orthodoxs, such examples of rage are obviously regrettable. The one example of attitude in such a case which I can report was much more Christian, however. Having Orthodoxs in my family (my wife is Russian), I can say that an Orthodox priest of the main branch in Paris, asked a few years ago about the Notre-Dame-de-Lesna monastery in Normandy which had joined True Orthodoxy in 2007, answered: “It is our sorrow”. That is: their separation is painful to us. Indeed, all separations between Christians are painful, for example between these branchs of Orthodoxy. And feeling pain is evidently a valid attitude in such circumstances, while rage is not.
Personnally, all I can say are two things:
– ‘ Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” ‘ (Matthew 19,26) – for hope in God
– “First of all, do not do any harm” – for what any of us can do, following the Hippocratus principle for medecine which applies in so many other venues of life
I can say that an Orthodox priest of the main branch in Paris, asked a few years ago about the Notre-Dame-de-Lesna monastery in Normandy which had joined True Orthodoxy in 2007, answered: “It is our sorrow”. That is: their separation is painful to us. Indeed, all separations between Christians are painful, for example between these branchs of Orthodoxy. And feeling pain is evidently a valid attitude in such circumstances, while rage is not.
Oh yes, I know the Lesna convent very well, I spent many month living there and I am very close to some of the monastics there. It is somewhat of a special case as, alas, when they did refuse to union with the MP they also joined a rather unstable group which now puts them in a difficult position. I don’t think that this will last for very long.
And yes, I agree with your priest’s feelings and this is also why I am not at all losing hope for most of the faithful and clergy of the currently “official” Orthodox. As I said, the border between “official” and “traditional” is very porous and there is movement (spiritual, intellectual and, of course, physical) both ways.
By the way, this has ALWAYS been the case in the 2000 years of the history of the Church which has been one long struggle after another. The iconoclasts were, for example, infinitely more powerful then than the Ecumenists today. Same for the Monophysites and Monothelites. The constant state of struggle, internal and external, for the preservation of the fullness of Orthodoxy is something to be expected in the world and amongst weak and sinful people. But eventually, the Truth prevails :-)
…that is distortion of parts of the faith so as to appease persecution by worldly powers, which Metropolitan Sergius is accused to have been done in 1927 towards Soviet authorities when he declared loyalty to the Soviet Union and interests of its government…
What happens when you change Sergius to Vatican, and Soviet Union to Nazi Germany? should that be an obstacle perhaps?
Dear Saker,
I have to say, the great majority writing here that have some problem with your piece you wrote here are just not worth it….they just don’t get it and never will.
I just hope one day the countries of Orthodoxy, like Russia or Greece will devote some regions of the country where these traditional Orthodox Christians can live uninterrupted by the rest of the world that only calls themselves by the name of Christians, but don’t practice it.
Lord have mercy.
As a person who was born into Orthodox Christian family, and even visited Mount Atos at the age of 17,
and who refused ever to be baptized,
after many years of thought, and studying the history of religion, I can only conclude what has been obvious to me: we should have all stayed pagans!
Monotheism simply is not working in any of its forms, or to be more precise, it is the silly idea which generates intolerance and evil. All of history proves me right. Just look at the source of this: the Egyptian pharaoh Akhnaten, who was the first person EVER to introduce monotheism, was considered by the other Egyptians as the greatest traitor of the ancient Egyptian cultural heritage. They tried to destroy all traces of him after his death. And according to the historians and Sigmund Freud’d book “Moses and Akhnaten”, the ancient Hebrews were just the followers of Akhnaten’s priests. Historical record of the sects which sprang out from Judaism (and these sects are: Christianity and Islam), including Judaism itself, is so terrible that many great philosophers like Schopenhauer correctly concluded that monotheism itself is the cause of that record.
Polytheism, henotheism and religious atheism (like Buddhism) are simply more tolerant and cause less harm than all monotheistic forms in history.
I hope this comment will not be removed. Until now, the Saker’s blog has been liberal. I hope it stays that way.
I appreciate your post. Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall has a great chapter, chapter 13 I believe, about the early years of Roman Christianity and the schisms and discussions of who and who wasn’t a heretic. An interesting question he raises is whether or not ANY civilization went to war over religion before monotheism. I.e., over resources, to plunder, all of that, yes, but because of differing religious views? I don’t know if this existed before monotheism. When the (pagan) Romans conquered a city, they didn’t care if the locals put their gods alongside the roman ones in a temple. Food for thought. Nevertheless, I’ve learned more about Orthodoxy on this blog than anywhere else! Of all the Christian ways of life, Orthodoxy seems the least hypocritical and most human, to me anyway. Thanks for another great dialogue and the best forum on the planet, Saker! Always interesting to read your thoughts, great to have civilized debate somewhere on the oft-wretched internet.
That same reasoning can be applied to any form of civilization past hunter-gatherer societies, because, at some point, people started warring for land, influence, material wealth, and political ideology rather than for better hunting grounds. Unless of course Rome didn’t actually regard the Europeans as backward barbarians in need of progress by the end of a sword (pro-tip: all of them chose the sword initially) and just went on bloody campaigns of needless land grabbing because they had mouths to feed (a notion that becomes untenable by the time they’re marching on France).
Very true, of course they thought the Germans/anyone non-Roman were barbarians, but their reasoning wasn’t religious as I understand the word. Tacitus mentions the gods of the Germans by comparing various Roman gods to Nordic ones, I believe, but it’s a small part of the Germania (if I remember right). He didn’t blast them for being heretics.
It looks that your “Orthodox family” was not Orthodox at all if they did not baptize you. So there is not much to boast how by your own lights you discovered that Orthodoxy is not good. Your parents were pagans and you were a pagan like them. So, you were already better off than us poor “monotheists” (not necessarily cleverer).
It just looks that way.
I grew up with my grandparents who were atheists (anarchists in a communist country – which was very dangerous for them and risky, and they went to prison for their beliefs) and didn’t baptize me. My parents were religious though, Orthodox Christians. That is why my father brought me to visit Mount Atos when I was 17, to see the center of all Orthodox world, and to be baptized. I refused.
So you can say that I am simply more like my grandparents then like my parents.
But that is not the point of the story at all.
I have seen all the hypocrisy of people who were atheists for 50 years and suddenly all of them turned Orthodox Christians. I am not saying that communism is better then Orthodoxy, at all!
I was studying religion for years. It is a very complex matter. I even wrote very scientific books about Slavic heathenism. I even posted here which books I wrote, thus revealing my identity. The Hindus on this blog understood the significance of what I wrote. And for that matter, Christians and Muslims consider Hindus – pagans. That is exactly my point. Because the Hindu religion is henotheistic, not monotheistic!
You can believe in one god, but it is wiser not to deny the existence of others. That is Hinduism. It is wiser. And it was never destroyed, in spite of all grandiose efforts of Muslims and Christians. The greatest genocide in recorded human history was the one done by monotheists (Muslims) to the Hindus. It is estimated that around 80 million Hindus were slaughtered between 1000. to 1525. by the Muslims. And you never, ever hear about this anywhere.
Dear Wend,
I want to read your work!
Christine
Dear Christine,
I can give you ISBN of my major work on Slavic heathenism, but unfortunately it is published only in Serbian language. I hope this can help – ISBN-10: 8690456937
ISBN-13: 978-8690456932.
Cheers.
Dear Wend,
Thank you very much…..can’t read in Serbian :(
My mother was Croatian, my father French. I am ashamed to say that I never learned the Croatian language and seriously now [as old as I am] considering attempting to learn it online. As well as Russian. My cousin told me Croatian is easiest language to learn because it is “phonetic”, but I guess Serbian would not be quite so easy to learn…..don’t think I have enough years left for that task.
I learned only 2 Croatian phrases while vacationing there: Yednum Kru and Yednum Lakum. Do you have bread? Do you have milk? Course I’m sure I am mispelling.
You speak excellent English. Have you considered publishing in English?
Guess you have more current projects in the works.
But many thanks for the ISBN
Best
Christine
Dear Christine,
it’s a pity that you can’t read in Serbo-Croatian! Yes, that is the correct name for the language of your mother and mine. “Serbian” and “Croatian” are one and the same language (some words are different, but still it is one tongue). But because of the imbecile policies in the countries of former Yugoslavia since the war began in 1991., we have now 4 “languages” out of 1 (Serbo-Croatian) ! Everybody understands everybody in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro, but they officially speak four different languages. I don’t know any other place in the world where such calamity took place. (This disaster which took place in Yugoslavia is one of the reasons why I began researching about the Slavic roots).
Anyway, thanks for the compliment (about my English). I actually feel insecure about it :-).
Regards
The Wend
Actually there is another place in the world where people speak the same language, but the language is called two different names for political reasons. It’s in Moldova, where the Romanians speak Romanian just as in Romania, but the soviets used to call it Moldovan language. They still do, apparently not realizing the irony of the fact that Moldova is still called by the name of a province in Romania, from which it was taken.
Flor:
They still do, apparently not realizing the irony of the fact that Moldova is still called by the name of a province in Romania, from which it was taken.
There was no country called Romania at the time Bessarabia was annexed by Russia. Moldova was given its name by the Communists in the time of Lenin and Stalin and referred to what is now Transnistria and adjacent parts of Ukraine, not Bessarabia.
Other examples of a language gaining new names when crossing a border is Flemish and Dutch, Bulgarian and Macedonian, and also formerly Rusyn/Ruthenian/Little Russian/Ukrainian.
What is now called the Republic of Moldova was taken by the Russian Empire from the Romanian Principality of Moldova. The Russians named it at first Bessarabia (Basarab was a Romanian prince so it’s rather funny that they chose this name). It included small parts of Transdnistria and the Budjak (Bugeac in Romanian).
Dear Wend,
Thanks …please excuse me for continuing this side topic. Just intrigued by the idea that Serbian and Croatian are the same language.
What confuses me is that I thought Serbian has a cyrillic alphabet and Croatian has latin script?
I will research more. Thank you so much.
Totally agree with you about the tragic imbecilic policies of the fractured countries in Yugoslavia. But really wasn’t all this instigated by outside forces? divide and rule? Starikov’s anti-thesis comes to mind eh?
Time to review the video Saker has so generously provided us.
Take care,
Christine
@scientific books about Slavic heathenism
How scientific can be talking about something you know almost nothing?
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths” (Hindu, Germanic, Slavic….). All these people are to be pitied. But they should not be let poison other people minds.
Yes, it can be scientific, because we know something. Science is dynamic, things change, there is archeology, there is a comparative religion… The ancient Slavic religion has many similarities with two other great religious products of the Indo-European race: Hindusim and the ancient Iranian religon.
Btw, Slavs belong to the “Satem” group of the Indo-European languages, not “Centum” group. That means that Slavs are the closest relatives of the people of India and Iran who are both “Satem” (unlike Romans, Germans, Celts, Greeks, who are all “Centum”.)
Oh, if you say so…
This is your monotheism in its finest hours:
” Hindu Kush means Hindu Slaughter
All Standard reference books agree that the name ‘Hindu Kush’ of the mountain range in Eastern Afganistan means ‘Hindu Slaughter’ or ‘Hindu Killer’. History also reveals that until 1000 A.D. the area of Hindu Kush was a full part of Hindu cradle. More likely, the mountain range was deliberately named as ‘Hindu Slaughter’ by the Moslem conquerors, as a lesson to the future generations of Indians. However Indians in general, and Hindus in particular are completely oblivious to this tragic genocide. This article also looks into the reasons behind this ignorance.”
http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/modern/hindu_kush.html
More of the beauty of monotheism :
———————
In his book “Negation in India” Famous Belgian historian Koenraad Elst wrote:
The Blitzkrieg of the Muslim armies in the first decades after the birth of their religion had such enduring results precisely because the Pagan populations in West- and Central-Asia had no choice (except death) but to convert. Whatever the converts’ own resentment, their children grew up as Muslims and gradually identified with this religion. Within a few generations the initial resistance against these forcible converions was forgotten, and these areas became heidenfrei (free from Pagans, cfr. judenfrei).
The Muslim conquests, down to the 16th century, were for the Hindus a pure struggle of life and death. Entire cities were burnt down and the populations massacred, with hundreds of thousands killed in every campaign, and similar numbers deported as slaves. Every new invader made (often literally) his hills of Hindus skulls. Thus, the conquest of Afghanistan in the year 1000 was followed by the annihilation of the Hindu population; the region is still called the Hindu Kush, i.e. Hindu slaughter. The Bahmani sultans (1347-1480) in central India made it a rule to kill 100,000 captives in a single day, and many more on other occasions. The conquest of the Vijayanagar empire in 1564 left the capital plus large areas of Karnataka depopulated. And so on.
According to some calculations, the Indian (subcontinent) population decreased by 80 million between 1000 (conquest of Afghanistan) and 1525 (end of Delhi Sultanate).
But the Indian Pagans were far too numerous and never fully surrendered. Against these rebellious Pagans the Muslim rulers preferred to avoid total confrontation, and to accept the compromise which the (in India dominant) Hanifite school of Islamic law made possible.
Alone among the four Islamic law schools, the school of Hanifa gave Muslim rulers the right not to offer the Pagans the sole choice between death and conversion, but to allow them toleration as zimmis (protected ones) living under 20 humiliating conditions, and to collect the jizya (toleration tax) from them.
Normally the zimmi status was only open to Jews and Christians (and even that concession was condemned by jurists of the Hanbalite school like lbn Taymiya), which explains why these communities have survived in Muslim countries while most other religions have not. Akbar (whom orthodox Muslims consider an apostate) cancelled these humiliating conditions and the jizya tax.
It is because of Hanifite law that many Muslim rulers in India considered themselves exempted from the duty to continue the genocide on the Hindus (self-exemption for which they were persistently reprimanded by their mullahs). Moreover, the Turkish and Afghan invaders also fought each other, so they often had to ally themselves with accursed unbelievers against fellow Muslims. After the conquests, Islamic occupation gradually lost its character of a total campaign to destroy the Pagans.
Many Muslim rulers preferred to enjoy the revenue from stable and prosperous kingdoms, and were content to extract the jizya tax, and to limit their conversion effort to material incentives and support to the missionary campaigns of sufis and mullahs (in fact, for less zealous rulers, the jizya was an incentive to discourage conversions, as these would mean a loss of revenue).
More about the true history of your “lovely” Abrahamic monotheism, this time from Arthur Schopenhauer, whom Leo Tolstoy considered the greatest philosopher in history :
“I have already touched upon these matters; but when in our day ‘the Latest News from the Kingdom of God’ is printed, we shall not be tired of bringing older news to mind.
And in particular, let us not forget India, that sacred soil, that cradle of the human race, at any rate of the race to which we belong, where first Mohammedans, and later Christians, were most cruelly infuriated against the followers of the original belief of mankind; and the eternally lamentable, wanton, and cruel destruction and disfigurement of the most ancient temples and images, still show traces of the monotheistic rage of the Mohammedans, as it was carried on from Marmud the Ghaznevid of accursed memory, down to Aureng Zeb, the fratricide, whom later the Portuguese Christians faithfully tried to imitate by destroying the temples and the auto da fé of the inquisition at Goa. Let us also not forget the chosen people of God, who, after they had, by Jehovah’s express and special command, stolen from their old and faithful friends in Egypt the gold and silver vessels which had been lent to them, made a murderous and predatory excursion into the Promised Land , with the murderer Moses at their head, in order to tear it from the rightful owners, also at Jehovah’s express and repeated commands, knowing no compassion, and relentlessly murdering and exterminating all the inhabitants, even the women and children (Joshua x., xi.); just because they were not circumcised and did not know Jehovah, which was sufficient reason to justify every act of cruelty against them. For the same reason, in former times the infamous roguery of the patriarch Jacob and his chosen people against Hamor, King of Shalem, and his people is recounted to us with glory, precisely because the people were unbelievers.”
Parerga und Paralipomena II, volume 2,Page 39.,
Diogenes edition of Schopenhauer’s original complete works
“old and faithful friends” that’s an amusing way to describe slave drivers.
No, your comment just illustrates how much has Judeo-Christian propaganda perverted the true historical facts established long ago. The Jews (or Hyksos, as they were called then) were NEVER the slaves of the Egyptians !
To understand what was going on in ancient Egypt, you should read the Egyptian historian Manetho, who lived in 3rd century BC. He gives us the Egyptian version of the story, which is amazingly opposite from what the Bible gives us. I trust Manetho rather then the Jews.
Quote from Manetho:
” Unexpectedly, from the regions of the East, Israelite invaders marched in confidence of victory against our land. By main force they easily seized it without striking a blow; having overpowered the rulers of the land, they then burned our cities ruthlessly, razed to the ground the temples of the gods, and treated all the natives with a cruel hostility, massacring some and leading into slavery the wives and children of others.’
And this is exactly my main point about the most important truth which we are discussing here on Saker’s blog.
We will forever be under the Zionist yoke, because of the one simple fact : the refusal to examine our own religious beliefs and indoctrination.
Face it.
I think you gravely misunderstand me. In regards to the Israelites and Egypt your Schopenhauer quote states: “Let us also not forget the chosen people of God, who, after they had, by Jehovah’s express and special command, stolen from their old and faithful friends in Egypt the gold and silver vessels which had been lent to them,”, Whereas your Manetho quote says: “Unexpectedly, from the regions of the East, Israelite invaders marched in confidence of victory against our land.”
Unless you can show me evidence that states otherwise then I have no reason to believe that Schopenhauer was in any way referring to Manetho’s account of Egypt as the labels “old and faithful friends” and “Israelite invaders” don’t exactly meet eye to eye with each other (i.e. two people facing opposite directions).
It’s also notable that he continues onward with “made a murderous and predatory excursion into the Promised Land, with the murderer Moses at their head,” but try as I might I can find no account of these Hyksos doing the same of the Canaanites or even having anyone among their number named Moses, perhaps you can account for this as well.
And third: “For the same reason, in former times the infamous roguery of the patriarch Jacob and his chosen people against Hamor, King of Shalem, and his people is recounted to us with glory, precisely because the people were unbelievers.” Schopenhauer is clearly just putting an atheist spin on Biblical accounts at this point as I can’t seem to locate ANY account of Hamor or Shalem archeological or otherwise that isn’t from the Bible (and I suspect this would fall under “examining our own religious beliefs”)
I thusly conclude (unless you can give me reason to think otherwise) that Schopenhauer was not referring to Manetho or, for that matter, any historian at all and was just hiding anti-theistic sentiments under a veil of Biblical “reinterpretation”.
As for your crack about Zionism: I’m not one, I don’t even regard Jews as particularly benevolent folk (any more than the average group of people), however, I am incredulous at this DAJOOS business because it does nothing to explain the oceans of blood spilled by races that didn’t have contact with them until well after 1,000 A.D. in some cases (China, Japan, Inca, Aztecs, Mongols) or the Romans, and they seemed to get along just fine with their violent imperialism and rampant crucifixions, with or without the Jews.
p.s. I did seem to find multiple accounts (mostly from unaccredited websites and wikipedia, to my shame) that implied these Hyksos worshiped some sort of storm deity that became associated with the Egyptian god set, and so that seems like another point against synchronizing Schopenhauer (multiple allusions to Jehovah rather than set or random storm gods) and Manetho.
We will forever be under the yoke of Violence, because of the two simple facts: Maxillary and Mandibular canines.
Face it.
But I think that you gravely misunderstood me.
You wrote: “old and faithful friends” that’s an amusing way to describe slave drivers.” So you imply that the Egyptians were “slave drivers”, and that the Jews were “the slaves”. Right ? Schopenhauer wrote clearly that the Jews were simply the thieves. Manetho on the other hand wrote that Jews were the oppressors of the Egyptians. Whether Schopenhauer read Manetho is beside the point. The both accounts clearly state that the version of history which you endorse is false. And I am correct here. What is anyway terrifying is that this same version of history is endorsed by all followers of Judeo-Christian creed. A fundamental lie which lasts for over 2 500 years.
As for your final conclusion about the Violence, I think I was again pretty clear, though I supposed that some of the general knowledge about certain religious- historical facts were well known. I was talking about India and Hinduism. I was describing what monumental atrocities were committed there. Why is India so important, so crucial in our understanding of the malevolent history of all Abrahamic monotheism ? Because precisely of the importance that non-violent philosophy has in the history of India! You read what Muslims and Christians did in India, and since you don’t dispute that, i suppose that you agree. But WHY DID THIS HAPPEN?! Because Hindus are “pagans” , that is why! That is why the greatest genocide in human history took place – the genocide over Hindu pagans. Are you aware of the fact that India (“the cradle of our race”) managed to produce such religious phenomenon as Jainism, where it is even forbidden to kill an insect, and that such philosophy survived under the circumstances where there was “ a rule to kill 100,000 Hindu captives in a single day, and many more on other occasions.” Do you understand now the level of strength of this particular culture and this particular civilization ? There lies your true answer about the Violence and how to end it. But we can’t. We can’t precisely because of the marvelous product of Judaism, and that is monotheism.
@ The Wend
In relation to what you wrote above, I agree with what you are saying, and the Gnostic’s viewed the situation in a similar vein, modern Christianity has grafted itself to a rotten branch. I wrote above, and this directly correlates to Judaism and Hinduism as you described:
“In most Gnostic understanding Yahweh, the God of the old testament, was a demiurge, or fallen entity. Only the Christ is recognized as the incarnation of God, the old testament is therefore viewed differently.
In Gnosticism there is also a belief or recognition of human reincarnation until such a time that one attains Christhood. The belief of return, or reincarnation, was cast out of the Catholic and Orthodox worldview entirely as a pagan belief. However the Gnostic’s maintained that reincarnation was in essence our failure to achieve perfection in Christ. Since the world was ruled by a demiurge, or fallen god, if we loved the material world more than the Christ we would fall into forgetfulness again after death and be pulled back in.”
The ‘pagan’ view of reincarnation was ruthlessly cast out, even though in early Christian circles it was a topic of debate, and maintained by several early sects, the council of Nicea basically endorsed an anti-Gnostic dogma, and the rest is history.
What is also interesting to note, is that the ascetic ideal, which acts as the cradle for true Christianity has been so greatly eroded, especially on the Lutheran branch, where we see such deviation from Christs message that we essentially have pastors and mega churches that promote a type of prosperity gospel, a teaching that is completely antithetical to the asceticism of the early followers of Christ. The main thrust of these westernized manifestations of Christianity is the complete and abject subservience to the Israeli state, and the overt emphasis on the old testament and the ‘chosen people’. It is in fact anti-Christianity.
Christ spoke of the Kingdom of God, which all peoples could enter into communion, the idea of a chosen people died with Christ, yet today it is as strong as ever, a result of a complete failure of the modern Church, which carries within it a zombie of a doctrine because of the improper grafting unto a branch which was unfit.
@ Angelo
I agree with everything you said. I especially liked this part:
” What is also interesting to note, is that the ascetic ideal, which acts as the cradle for true Christianity has been so greatly eroded, especially on the Lutheran branch, where we see such deviation from Christs message that we essentially have pastors and mega churches that promote a type of prosperity gospel, a teaching that is completely antithetical to the asceticism of the early followers of Christ. The main thrust of these westernized manifestations of Christianity is the complete and abject subservience to the Israeli state, and the overt emphasis on the old testament and the ‘chosen people’. It is in fact anti-Christianity. ”
Exactly! Schopenhauer once wrote that Roman Catholic Christianity is a “grossly misused Christianity” while Lutheranism is a “degenerated Christianity”. He actually noticed that the Lutheran branch is just bringing back Christianity to Judaism.
You could say that the Christianity is a Hindu branch (The Gospels) on the Jewish tree (The Old Testament).
It is worth noticing that literally all of the Christian sects destroyed in the Middle ages have only one thing in common: they didn’t recognize the Old Testament at all! Which brings another question to the historians of religion – how was this possible to happen?
@Wend,
I would like to point out that Christianity, and particularly Orthodox Christianity, carries over from Hellenism which means basically one thing “tolerance”.
This is why you never read in history books about Orthodox Christians killing in the process of converting others, so common with Western branches of Christianity.
The funny thing though is that now in the West there are all kinds of Christian branches, and have been for hundreds of years (more and more of them); whereas in the Orthodox area there are very few except Orthodoxy.
Ok, I am willing to accept the assertion that Orthodox Christianity is not that fanatically intolerant as the Western branches of Christianity.
But I pose a few questions:
– who killed Hypatia in a bestial manner in 415. in Alexandria ? Tha Franks ? .-) Or was it the true Romans, which would mean Greek-Christian mob? Can we describe them as Orthodox Christians, although it was long time before the schism?
– who closed the Platonic Academy ? The Franks or the true Orthodox Romans (Greeks) ?
– who burned the Alexandrian library ?
The quasi-eternal BS questions. All have been already answered and the answers are not exactly what the Neo-Pagans would like. The Library of Alexandria has been burned by the Muslims.
@The Wendy
You read your statement as yet another attack at Christianity.
Let me quote: from Wikipedia:
“… Possible occasions for the partial or complete destruction of the Library of Alexandria include a fire set by Julius Caesar in 48 BC, an attack by Aurelian in the AD 270s, and the decree of Coptic Pope Theophilus in AD 391.
After the main library was fully destroyed, ancient scholars used a “daughter library” in a temple known as the Serapeum, located in another part of the city. According to Socrates of Constantinople, Coptic Pope Theophilus destroyed the Serapeum in AD 391. …”
We see that the last one is what interests you as the other have nothing to do with Christianity, o no.
Let’s look at other sources:
“ … The Serapeum housed part of the Great Library, but it is not known how many, if any, books were contained in it at the time of destruction. Notably, the passage by Socrates makes no clear reference to a library or its contents, only to religious objects. An earlier text by the historian Ammianus Marcellinus indicates that the library was destroyed in the time of Julius Caesar; whatever books might earlier have been housed at the Serapeum were no longer there in the last decade of the 4th century (Historia 22, 16, 12-13). The pagan scholar Eunapius of Sardis, witnessed the demolition, and though he detested Christians, his account of the Serapeum’s destruction makes no mention of any library. When Orosius discusses the destruction of the Great Library at the time of Caesar in the sixth book of his History against the Pagans, he writes:
So perished that marvelous monument of the literary activity of our ancestors, who had gathered together so many great works of brilliant geniuses. In regard to this, however true it may be that in some of the temples there remain up to the present time book chests, which we ourselves have seen, and that, as we are told, these were emptied by our own men in our own day when these temples were plundered—this statement is true enough—yet it seems fairer to suppose that other collections had later been formed to rival the ancient love of literature, and not that there had once been another library which had books separate from the four hundred thousand volumes mentioned, and for that reason had escaped destruction.
—Paulus Orosius, vi.15.32
Thus Orosius laments the pillaging of libraries within temples in ‘his own time’ by ‘his own men’ and compares it to the destruction of the Great Library destroyed at the time of Julius Caesar.
…
John Julius Norwich, in his work Byzantium: The Early Centuries, places the destruction of the library’s collection during the anti-Arian riots in Alexandria that transpired after the imperial decree of 391 (p. 314). Edward Gibbon claimed that the Library of Alexandria was destroyed by Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, who ordered the destruction of the Serapeum in 391.[17]
…
In 642 AD, Alexandria was captured by the Muslim army of Amr ibn al `Aas. There are five Arabic sources, all at least 500 years after the supposed events, which mention the fate of the library.
Abd’l Latif of Baghdad (1162–1231) states that the library of Alexandria was destroyed by Amr, by the order of the Caliph Omar.[18]
The story is also found in Al-Qifti (1172–1248), History of Learned Men, from whom Bar Hebraeus copied the story.[19]
The longest version of the story is in the Syriac Christian author Bar-Hebraeus (1226–1286), also known as Abu’l Faraj. He translated extracts from his history, the Chronicum Syriacum into Arabic, and added extra material from Arab sources. In this Historia Compendiosa Dynastiarum[20] he describes a certain “John Grammaticus” (490–570) asking Amr for the “books in the royal library.” Amr writes to Omar for instructions, and Omar replies: “If those books are in agreement with the Quran, we have no need of them; and if these are opposed to the Quran, destroy them.”[21]
Al-Maqrizi (1364–1442) also mentions the story briefly, while speaking of the Serapeum.[22]
There is also a story in Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) which tells that Omar made a similar order about Persian books.[23]
…
Another source:
The next fire came 300 years later, in 273 AD, when the Roman Emperor Aurelian invaded Egypt as part of his war with Zenobia of Palmyra. Much of Alexandria was burned, including the Brucheion district. Whether this fire destroyed the entire library or whether some portion was rebuilt is not known.
…
The final fire was in 645 AD, when the Moslem caliph Omar conquered Egypt. The story is that Omar was asked what to do about the books in the library, and gave the reply: “If the books agree with the Koran, they are not necessary. If they disagree, they are not desired. Therefore, destroy them.” According to tradition, the scrolls were used as fuel to provide hot water for the soldiers’ baths for six months.
”
Well, well, well, I guess we could go on forever trying to blame Christians, while there are other culprits keeping their dirty fingers in the pot.
I didn’t answer the last question, I just posed the question!
And, btw, why would “Neo-Pagans” preffer Muslims to Christians ??? Impossible !!
So, we don’t know who actually burned the library.
But we know who skinned Hypatia alive, and who closed the Platonic Academy. That is at least not disputable.
@ The Wend
Oh, I am sorry.
I forgot to send my comment to my editor. Just replace my starting “You” with “I”.
No, we do know who burned the Library, calif Omar. The suggestion that Theophilus destroyed the library is clearly a fiction invented by the anti-Christian Edward Gibbon, who made also all the fuss about the closure of the Academy of Athens, to illustrate his biased thesis that the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was due to Christian fanaticism. Shifting the blame on Christians is a “politically correct” deflection of the charge of “Islamophobia”.
Neither was the Library burned by the killers of Hypatia (St. Cyrill in that instance), nor was Hypatia because of her “pagan” beliefs or because she was a Galileo avant-la-lettre by “fanatic mobs” of Christians, as Hollywood style of “history” would have it (you took at face value the BS peddled by ‘Agora’, which deliberately lies about the reasons of the conflict). She was in the wrong place at the wrong time at the time of an exacerbation of the endemic Greek-Jewish conflict (i.e. Jews indulging in mocking Christian feasts and actually massacring Christians) in Alexandria (taking their part too blatantly and arrogantly).
@WizOz
Well said, I stopped short of saying what you did, although I did suggest “the other parties”.
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/The_Great_Game
Dear Saker,
Thank you for sharing this very interesting and actually heartfelt post. Although I realize I am probably too late (as usual), I would like to take this opportunity to ask restate a question I posed to you previously, which I think you probably missed.
In my view, the modern Western civilisation has inherited much from the civilization of ancient Athens, as well as of the ancient Roman republic – and this is not necessarily something for Westerners to be proud of. Of course, many centuries passed from the fall of the Roman republic to the dawn of modern Western civilization, so it may be difficult to argue that it is a direct inheritance, but nonetheless modern Western civilization has been built on a similar logic, a similar ethos, if you will. There are several commonalitites between modern Western and ancient Roman and Athenian civilisation, namely:
– A curious combination of representative government (during the Roman republic) and imperialism. The ideal of “free citizens” in ancient Athens was a mirror-image of the very exploitative slave-based economy of this society. Athens and Rome were the two ancient civilizations who most embraced slavery as a system of pure exploitation by the property-owning, free men. On the other hand, the pyramids of Egypt were not built by slaves, contrary to popular belief. In a similar fashion, modern Western “freedom” advanced hand in hand with the expansion of slavery. For instance, the “liberal” American revolution went hand in hand with expulsion of indigenous peoples and reintroduction of slavery in Texas (see for instance the book Liberalism: A Counter-History, by Domenico Losurdo).
– A tendency to view individual private property as sacred, as exemplified by the Roman law inherited by the West in medieval times where individual property owners do not have any obligation for how to use their property even if people are starving. Russia, if I am not mistaken, did not adopt this law system until later (and today it has become universal).
– A pragmatic, rationalistic outlook on life and a fundamental lack of piety. Note, for instance, that the Romans never had much of a religious mythology to speak of.
Now, I do not want to denigrate your view of what it means, or could mean, to be a “Roman”, which apparently means something different for you than the above. It may well be that Russia and Orthodox Christians inherited a kind of “Roman-ness” from Byzantium, which I know little of, but wasn’t this already quite different from the “Roman-ness” of ancient Rome? Perhaps it is crude and unfair to view the schism of Christianity as one between “Romans” and “Greeks”, but what about Western and Eastern Romanity? I at least see a clear similarity between the principles of civilization of today’s “West” and the Roman Republic, as well as part of ancient Athens (which does not mean that the Athenian heritage belongs only to the West, of course!).
If I may ask you directly: What is your understanding of Roman civilization or culture, in its positive sense?
Kind regards
Zuzim
What is your understanding of Roman civilization or culture, in its positive sense?
Wow, again a complex question! I will try to give a short but hopefully coherent answers.
The Rome that I am referring to is, of course, the Christian Rome, not the pagan Rome. Of course, Christian Rome does have roots in the pagan Rome too, just as Christian Rome does have roots in ancient (pagan) Greece. Finally, Christianity does have roots with the religion of the ancient Jews (which is not modern, rabbinical, Judaism, by the way).
So in some way you can say that (Orthodox) Christianity is a mix of:
1) Jewish mysticism
2) Greek philosophy
3) Roman law
Again, this is a very VERY crude over-simplification, but for our purposes it will work (although purists will kill me over this!). All these “ingredients” were mixed together by Christ and His Apostles, but they were no only “mixed” but re-appropriated and changed into something qualitatively new: the Christian Rome which roughly began under Saint Constantine (4th century) and ended with the fall of Constantinople in 1453, roughly 1000 years later. It is THIS “Christian Rome” which the Orthodox Church today still represents and THIS “Christian Rome” in which the Russian culture traces her roots (that, the ancient Slavic people and the Tatar period).
The “Rome” which the West traces its roots form are to a small degree the pre-Christian pagan Rome and, much more importantly, the “post-Hellenic” Rome of the Franks after the 5th century.
Allow me another crude parallel. America. Before, say, the 16h century the only (real) “Americans” were the Native Americans (“Indians”). Nowadays Americans are mostly Anglos, Blacks and Hispanics. Okay, now imagine one civilization having its roots in pre-Columbian “America” and another in modern day America. They both would call themselves “Americans” but in reality they would have NOTHING in common as the birth of the latter America meant the death of the older America just as the Frankish Rome meant the death of the Hellenic Rome.
Does this reply make sense to you?
Cheers,
The Saker
Okay, so pagan Rome + Frankish influence vs. Christian Rome – this makes more sense! Thank you for replying!
No doubt this is a very complex subject, and one which I never learnt much about even though I have studied religious history at university level. Thank you for raising this important topic.
Zuzim
It would be better to say “the religion of the House of Israel”. What we call Jews are the tribe of Judah, just one of the twelve Hebrew tribes (if the Judahites of the time of Christ were themselves “true Judahites” (which might be debatable) who made the “House of Israel”. Judah was part of Israel, but then separated and went its own way.
Keep in mind that Israel was just the nickname of Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, “the one who wrestled with God”. Who was the God of Israel?
“But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” (Matthew, 22, 31-32). It is the Christ, of course.
So, when the Christ said to the Jews: “If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham. But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do.You are doing the deeds of your father”, “the devil…a liar and the father of lies”, you must think twice before claiming that Christianity has roots with the religion of the ancient Jews.
Dear Saker:
That is quite a bit of oversimplification regarding Latin Christianity, which shares the sources you mention for the East but also with different proportions of emphasis and additional cultural overlays not present in the east.
Latin Christianity that became the guiding force of Francia and Anglia and Hispania is visible theologically already fully formed in the writings of the African Fathers and the Roman Popes from the 200’s onwards, which is also where the Church first began to use the Latin language and should be attributed to the differences in civilizational mentality of the Latin speaking Romans from the Greek speaking Romans. To this later is added the overlay of Germanic Frankish culture and law as opposed to retaining the entire purity of Roman Hellenic culture as was done in the East.
The main differences then should really be attributed to the encounter of Romans and Christianity with the Phoenicians of Carthage and Spain and the Celts and Germans – the natives of the western Empire and its neighbors. To imagine these people would take up a Hellenic mentality and civilization that was entirely alien to their native culture and their Roman Latinization is pretty far-fetched. We do not expect the ancient Christians of Assyria, Ethiopia and India to be cultural Hellenic-Romans do we, just because they are Christians?
It is also wrong to speak of a “post-Hellenic” Rome of the Franks prior to the 8th century since Rome was still part of the Empire until then and no Franks had won election to the Papal See up until then. And yet all the west submitted itself to the Imperial Roman Patriarch throughout that period – the Pope. Frankish Rome is a synthesis from Charlemagne and later when Rome adopted the modified western Liturgy from the imperial court at Aachen.
In my own humble view, the over-identification Orthodoxy with the Christian Roman Empire and its civilization is why it has little existence beyond the cultural bounds of the eastern part of the Empire. Even its Russian daughter is hardly much of a new land seeing as Crimea and Budjak were in the Empire and the civilizations were kindred from before the conversion through Black Sea trade relations.
When I introduced myself last year you had asked why I did not become Orthodox despite my understanding and I told you because Orthodoxy over identifies with a civilization that is foreign to me and that is exemplified by the nearly complete non-use by the Orthodox of the Liturgy of St. Peter – also known as the traditional Latin Mass. As much as I can appreciate and enjoy chanting the Slavonic (or Greek) Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom for its innate divine beauty, it will never be for me because that is not who I am. I am a westerner, and our own Liturgy developed out of our own cultural mentality is what goes directly to touch my soul just as the Slavonic Liturgy hits home in your Russian personality.
When you start castigating Latins and Franks as even somewhat illegitimate Christians, we hear you saying that we cannot be who we are and also be Christians in the Church and that we need toss our culture and history and become Hellenized Romans to truly become Christians. It may not be your intention and I know you aim at fraternal correction of our faults, but it is what we Latin westerners hear and why Roman Orthodoxy makes so little headway once it crosses past Serbia and Belarus.
The West did not start to look increasingly non-Christian because of imaginary “cultural or mental differences”, but because at a certain point in time it ceased to baptize people. The so-called baptism of the West is not a baptism at all (baptism means immersion). The Holy Spirit does not come through sprinkling! And it is not only the form of the baptism in question, but the infinitely graver question of the heresy of the Western church. Through heresy and schism the apostolic succession was broken. Their priests do not receive the power to perform sacraments anymore. They cast away the central mystery of the Church, the Eucharist, to show that they are not to become “Hellenized”, but they did not find anything wrong in becoming like Jews (azymes, iconoclasm). It is a sad, even tragic situation (as the frequency of the stigmata and the unhealthy emphasis on the sufferances of the Christ shows). It is even sadder to see the obdurate rejection of the “Rest” patterns of worship as not fit for the “West” (read “Whites”) natives of Europe.
When Christ was baptized in the Jordan by John the Baptist, He was not submerged three times. Also when Christ told the Apostles to “go and baptize in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” He did not specify they needed to submerge people three times.
In any case Baptism comes from baptizo which means “immersion”. The papist invention of pouring water instead of plunging into the water was a concession to “concerned” parents who were afraid that their baby would catch a cold!
@ Aquaticus
And what did they do in the desert ?
Use a baptismal font.
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=baptism+in+the+desert&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CCgQ7AlqFQoTCO77npbBk8YCFQQRvAodj4kAIQ&biw=960&bih=479 (with images).
That’s a modern thing. They never did that 2000 years ago. And they couldn’t even have done it, when they were baptizing en masse. Water was difficult to get in those times, as it is proved by the Samaritan woman whom Jesus met at the well and who had come a long way to get it (literally, not just figuratively).
The Jordan flowed through the desert, like today. Qumran does tell anything to you? They had pools. Anyhow, people in the desert would have to live close to a water or not live at all. People were not lazy in those times. They would have gone for the water, instead of waiting the water to come to them (Acts, 8, 36). Don’t forget that baptism was done in running waters (rivers) or in the sea, initially and if not, in tanks or fonts. The normal, overwhelming practice was immersion. Pouring or sprinkling could have been accepted only “in extremis”. But there are not the exceptions that establish a rule. It is dismaying to see to what ridiculous length the papists can go to justify their innovations, like “Βαπτιζω can also mean “immerse”. Baptism means always immersion and not anything else. To call pouring or sprinkling baptism is an abuse of language. B
And that was the intention of Christ:
“Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Romans, 6, 3-4). Now, one almost dies when immersed, near to suffocation.
Yes indeed you must be a “Hellene”(have a Hellenic paideia) to be christian, simply because Christianity is a Hellenistic religion and not Latin, Germanic, Slavic, Iranic, Egyptian etc. And yes I say this as someone who is, although not very devout, a Catholic. Christianity can take many forms superficially but essentially at its core it is Hellenistic.
Once again, I totally agree.
You guys are all wrong. The Didache, which is believed to be the first century teaching of the 12 apostles on church practice, specifies to baptize in running water, or if that is no available to use still water, and if that is scarce to pour the water over the head (sprinkling). People who say one is right and others are wrong are schismatic and raskols.
“And that was the intention of Christ… Now, one almost dies when immersed, near to suffocation.”
This must be the most horrifying explanation of baptism that I have ever heard: to say that Christ intended new-born children to be traumatized by being immersed, near to suffocation.
Romans 6:3,4 refers to the baptism of adult converts who are cleansed from sin by it: “dead to sin” (Romans 6:2).
And “buried with him by baptism into death” is a metaphor, and it’s explained in the next sentence: “that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life”.
“You err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God” (Matthew 20:29)
The power of God is not automatically brought upon someone by a certain ritual, that’s pagan superstition. And also it is not impeded in its work if that ritual is not followed in all its details; to believe that is also pagan superstition. There are other more important requirements, which are on the spiritual side, not on the material one. Matter does not have the power to bring the Spirit upon it – the Spirit is the one which descends upon it.
This is an article I once wrote for my defunct blog. The emphasis, italicization and links are sadly not included.
————————————————————————
The Catholic Empire 950-1350
The history of the world knows many past empires, some are still visible others quite forgotten, but only one has been to a successful degree concealed from history and a veil drawn on its existence and the role it played in the history of mankind; a role that still echoes in our present life.
Once we view the medieval age in Europe as the age of a specific empire then we can understand the reason behind many events and see them as parts of a whole pattern, rather than just a series of random events. As a modest contribution I list here some of the most important dates in the history of the Catholic Empire:
910: The Empire Sows its Seed
These monasteries were to play the role of the incubator for the ideas and men who would later build the Catholic Empire.
942-996: The Empire Co-opts the Normans
The Normans were the last of the northern tribes that settled in the lands that were part of the Roman Empire and yet they were the first to adopt the feudal rule and played a major role in spreading it, and by extension the rule of the new empire, into lands were it did not exist and by example they helped to spread it to the rest of Christendom.
962: The Empire and the Tribes
As the Germanic tribes rise up as a single political unit they influnce the rise of the church (see 1045-1058).
987: The Empire and the Dynasty
With Hugh Capet the Franks abandon the tribal election of their leaders and adopt the feudal hereditary inheritance, following the Normans. While Germany was a collection of fiefdoms that elected their king, France was a kingdom that gradually absorbed all surrounding fiefdoms.
1012: The Empire Sets down the Rules
1030: The Empire under the Sun
1045-1058: The Empire in Formation
The empire was built from the bottom up; when its elements reached a critical point it pushed the pope to become the supreme head of the church and Christendom, which was not acceptable to the Greek Church.
1054: The Empire is all Latin
1066: The Empire Crosses the Channel
1073: The Empire Finds its Man
After a centaury of formation the empire finally achieves its goal:
1086: The Empire Wounded in the West
1099: The Empire Invades the East
1128: The Empire own Soldiers
With the drive of the Normans spent up-those in Sicily actually setting themselves apart from the rule of the Pope (Roger II to Manfred)-the need for organizations to replace them gave rise to the military orders.
1147-1227: The Empire Marches to the North
1147: The Empire Reaches the Ocean
Lisbon was, later, the first port of European colonial expansion.
1150: The Empire at Zenith
After reaching a peak there is only one forward: decline. As the power of the papacy declined alternative powers in the empire grew.
1189: The Empire and the Warlords
With the failure of the Second Crusade it was apparent that only regional warlords could successfully wage war. The kings of England and France and the Holy Roman Emperor were those warlords (see 1305 below).
1195: The Empire Checked in the West
1209: The Empire Crushes Separatism
1212: The Empire Triumphant in the West
1242: The Empire Sinks in the North
1282: The Empire in Turmoil
Crusades are launched against Christians while the East is lost, this is the clearly a century of decline.
1291: The Empire Loses the East
1305: The Empire in Captivity
A strong regional warlord takes the emperor into his protection and removes him from the capital into his own region, a very common occurrence in the history of empires; the Avignon Papacy is just the same.
1307: The Empire Disarmed
With the emperor under the protection of the warlord there is no need for independent military powers.
1315: The Empire Hungry
1337: The Empire in Civil War
1348: The Empire Sick
Wackypedia is the most egregrios disinfo & BS spewing outlet out there, the very last “source” anyone should quote on any subject, be it science, politics, religious dogma, or anything else.
University students writing papers are not even allowed to use it as reference material in their essays’ bibliography references.
what really went on in the early 14th century (1300’s) is clearly documented through deep research dendrochronology a recent book:
http://www.amazon.com/Light-Black-Death-Mike-Baillie/product-reviews/0752435981/ref=cm_cr_dp_see_all_btm/185-7020827-6885255?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
If the Black Plague and other previous plagues were merely diseases spread by rats, why are there anomalous amounts of ammonia and nitrates concentrated in the ice cores at depths that correspond to AD 1348, 1014, 626, 539 and 430 B.C. ? And why are there sharp climatological events in the Dendrochronological(tree ring) record at many of these dates?
(And just how do these dirty rats magically cause tree rings to narrow markedly at the exact time they’re spreading the ‘plague’?)
The other absolutely key dates to note are Venice AD 1348, & Rome Justinian “Plague” AD 540-, right after that AD 539 date!
The Venice banksters collapsed the entire banking system in late 1347, a collossal collapse that was not seen again til the Great Depression 1930’s.
The usual excuse given is “their English warmonger bloodthirsty king client defaulted on his debts”.
Maybe the Venice bunch saw what was unfolding & got out of Dodge.
If it is clearly documented, how about you TELL US, instead of asking 8 questions in a row about why? are you just advertising the book? and if Wikipedia were to use this book as a source, you’d reject the Wiki entry?
And how does this theory tie in with the banking system being collapsed? how was that done?
I believe that some of the earliest continuous Christian communities are in India.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_the_Apostle:
“Thomas is traditionally believed to have sailed to India in AD 52 to spread the Christian faith, and is believed to have landed at the port of Muziris (modern-day North Paravur and Kodungalloor in modern day Kerala state) where there was a Jewish community at the time.[2][5] The port was destroyed in 1341 due to a massive flood that realigned the coasts. He is believed by the St Thomas Christian tradition to have established Ezharappallikal or Seven and half churches in Kerala. These churches are at Kodungallur, Palayoor, Kottakkavu (Paravur), Kokkamangalam, Niranam, Nilackal (Chayal), Kollam and Thiruvithamcode (half church).[27]”
Another possible locus of the earliest genuine Christian teachings.
Katherine
Re “Wackypedia is the most egregrios disinfo & BS spewing outlet out there, the very last “source” anyone should quote on any subject, be it science, politics, religious dogma, or anything else..”
Actually, I have read a couple of articles that discuss the issue of Wikipedia’s accuracy specifically—one was in The New Yorker, I believe—and the consensus seems to be that Wikipedia entries are actually pretty accurate.
As for “University students writing papers are not even allowed to use it as reference material in their essays’ bibliography references,” I am quite sure this is not specific to Wikipedia but relates to all encyclopedia entries. Scholars are expected to be familiar with and quote primary and secondary sources, but not to go to a gloss on a broad subject such as an encyclopedia entry is. That applies to any encyclopedia. This does not, however, imply that the information in an encyclopedia is incorrect or unreliable. Most enc. entries and Wiki entries specifically have numerous references to the works their writers have used in order to compress a wide range of information into a relatively brief, informative, useful format for nonscholars. I think that grammar school and high school students can use sources such as an encyclopedia for their papers without incurring any opprobrium.
Katherine
Ooh, the New Yorker! Excuse me while I smooth out the goose bumps!
@Anonymous
1. Wikipedia on historical subjects is basically the view of Western Academic world wort’s and all. I am just picking historical events, so whatever distortion there is minimal.
2. I am not a university student and this is not a school paper, so….
3. I know what happened in the early 14th century, so thanks but I don’t need a link to any book I’ve got all the books I need ;)
4. I don’t care about the source of the Black Death, just the results Ma’am!
5. “key dates” key for what? every year is a special little year for someone!
6. King Edward didn’t default on the Venetian bankers, he defaulted on Florentine bankers but hay you are not making any sense anyway so why bother with accuracy (and you say Wikipedia is not accurate!!).
Your 1054:
The quote from wikipedia is somewhat incorrect, as only certain orthodox churches were forced to submit to the control of Vatican. This applies to parts of Ukraine, Romania, etc. This is because at some point in their past they were subdued by Catholic countries like Poland or Austria. There may have been other cases, but it does not matter who and by whom. The point is Russia, Bulgaria, Serbia, etc. do not submit to Vatican, hence they are not Orthodox-Catholic. They are Orthodox.
Just two comments; but first, full disclosure: I have an Orthodox heritage but I am a convert to Roman Catholicism since 2000.
1) While some subconscious sentiment may exist in some Catholics that the ‘conversion of Russia’ [as Fatima Catholics often refer to it] would ‘subjugate Russia to the Pope’ as Saker puts it, in the unlikely event of Russian Orthodoxy unifying with Rome, Russia as a political entity would be no more ‘subjugated…to the Pope’ than the US, France, or any other country. So, to cite the alleged and fantastical hope that Russia would be subjugated to the Pope in the event of Orthodox-Rome unification as a reason for rejecting such unity is merely to create a bogeyman.
2) Jesus Christ prayed that ‘they will all be one, just as you and I are one–as you are in me, Father, and I am in you.’ Here Jesus Christ refers explicitly to the relations of the Holy Trinity within Itself to be the equivalent hope that He prays will obtain in regard to His Church. This is extraordinary when you think about it, since the Holy Trinity exists as One God in a relationship of three hypostases [‘persons,’ in English, but in theology it is a term of art.] Like all efforts made towards Christian unity, the Church, wherever it is found, is obliged to seek Rome-Orthodox unity in faithfulness to the prayer of Jesus Christ.
God bless you all…
the alleged and fantastical hope that Russia would be subjugated to the Pope in the event of Orthodox-Rome unification as a reason for rejecting such unity is merely to create a bogeyman.
Speaking of various “men” your is a straw-man :-) Nobody believes that the Pope will replace Putin in the Kremlin or that that a Cardinal will take the nuclear weapons “keys” from Shoigu. We are talking about *spiritual* subjugation, of course.
Jesus Christ prayed that ‘they will all be one, just as you and I are one–as you are in me, Father, and I am in you.’ Here Jesus Christ refers explicitly to the relations of the Holy Trinity within Itself to be the equivalent hope that He prays will obtain in regard to His Church.
Yes, but that unity is a unity of FAITH/TRUTH, not a formal, external unity of submission to one individual. Which is one of the major differences bewtween the Latins and the Orthodox: the Latins see unity as unity under the Pope whereas Orthodox Christians see unity as a unity in confession, in faith, in doxa>. We don’t need, and in fact don’t want, a visible world sign of our unity, especially not in a man.
I disagree.
First, you are the one that stated that Russia would be ‘subjugated’ [and counting your use of the term in the comment box, more than once]. In the context, it seemed that you meant political, not spiritual subjugation. If you did not mean the former, then I am glad we agree that Orthodox-Rome unity does not affect the political independence of Russia or any other Orthodox country. One bogeyman slain.
As for rejecting a ‘visible sign’ of unity, the Orthodox churches are highly structured and highly visible. They have taken this form from the very beginning of Christianity. Visible unity with Rome therefore would not be foreign to their historical self-understanding or self-expression, either historical or present.
We have unity in confession already: the Nicene creed, which even John Paul II agreed to confess in mass with the Orthodox without use of the filioque.
I will try to avoid quibbling about unity under the Pope, since this would involve a debate about early Church understanding of the role of the bishop of Rome in relation to the rest of the Church which I think is not appropriate in this venue. In any event I will concede to you my belief that Rome must be open, both intellectually and in practice, to other understandings of what its role should be in the Body of Christ. I hope my preceding comments about the inevitability of the manifestation of a hierarchical structure between the members of the Church given the nature of the relation between the individual believer and God Himself will give you some food for thought on the subject.
Pax…
As for rejecting a ‘visible sign’ of unity, the Orthodox churches are highly structured and highly visible.
You are wrong. Two churches can have the same kind of buildings, iconography and singing, but not be in communion with each other. The perfect example of that are the Uniats which disguise themselves as Orthodox but are in reality Latins. The sole visible sign of unity is the joint partaking of the Mysteries at the same Cup and that is only possible if there is a unity in faith.
We have unity in confession already: the Nicene creed, which even John Paul II agreed to confess in mass with the Orthodox without use of the filioque.
You are kidding, right? You really believe that saying the Creed without the filioque but while believing in the filioque will convince the Orthodox that we have the same confession?! Not in a million years. In fact, in convinces us of the opposite. And then I won’t even go into the long list of other dogmatic differences. We do most definitely not have the same faith.
early Church understanding of the role of the bishop of Rome in relation to the rest of the Church which I think is not appropriate in this venue
Yes, yes, that is typical. It is called “syncretism”: let’s set aside our differences and focus on what we agree upon. LOL!! Can you imagine that kind of approach towards, say, the Arians or the Iconoclasts?! Do you know what the difference was between the Orthodox and the Arians? One letter, the smallest in the Greek alphabet: ι. (look up “homoiousios vs. homoousios”). Can you imagine the Fathers of the Church agreeing with Arius if he told them “hey, we have the same confession, there is only one tiny letter separating us”?! :-))
I believe you have misconstrued my replies.
First, I never said we must set aside our differences, or that our differences are insignificant. I believe all our differences are significant, viewed from one side or the other. What I thought I said clearly was that I didn’t think it was appropriate to discuss at length the historical evidence for and against papal supremacy, or the historical evidence for what that should mean for the Church IN THIS VENUE. That is a very, very long discussion not to be undertaken with the hope that it could properly be resolved in internet comment boxes.
So I am most certainly not advocating the kind of simple syncretism that you describe. As you correctly point out, such a syncretism is untenable. I would say that is the case because where there is one God, the source of all truth, ultimately there can only be one correct truth, one correct understanding, to which human beings must aspire to apprehend with all their heart, soul, mind and strength.
Second, I agree we don’t have the same faith, looked at from the point of view of doctrinal differences. I carefully used the word confession, not faith, to describe our unity. The confession is nevertheless a confession of faith, to which we may advert, as the Renaissance humanists did to the Bible, ‘ad fontes.’ The creed is the summary of our faith, and the source and light to which we may return in order to build commonality of understanding in regard to doctrines derived from that faith.
Finally, I didn’t say that visible unity is equivalent to actual unity. I simply responded to your rejction of the need for visible unity by stating that if visible unity were really undesirable to the Orthodox, they would not have displayed visible, structural unity as Orthodox churches from the beginning of Christianity. Since then it is incontrovertible that the Orthodox themselves proudly manifest visible, structural, hierarchical unity, it is absurd to reject unity with Rome on the basis of your assertion that ‘[w]e don’t need, and in fact don’t want, a visible world sign of our unity, especially not in a man.’
Peace…
There can be no hope of unification if the Papist won’t renounce their heresies.
I was wondering what you would say about Putin’s meeting with the Pope. I always find your discussions of this subject fascinating.
This (absolutely fascinating) link was posted in a comment to an article on this meeting. It claims the chronology on which Western history is based, particularly it’s sources/materials from antiquity is false.
Using mathematical, astronomical and other up-dated analytic techniques, the Russian scholars claims the civilizational history of the West, particularly that of the Roman Catholic Church, is the work of a concerted pogram from the beginning of the XVII century to the twentieth.
This is particularly interesting in the light of the refusal of the Orthodox tradition to adopt the Roman Gregorian calendar.
What do you make of it Saker?
http://chronologia.org/en/how_it_was/preface.html
With your kind permission, one more comment:
Though Orthodoxy and Rome were separated by 10,000 years of antagonistic history and if their populations occupied, not different parts of earth, but entirely different planets [i.e. were literally ‘worlds apart’ as Saker puts it]; yet, through their one baptism [and other sacraments] they partake of one and the same Spirit. It is the Spirit that is the source of ecumenical outreach and, being God, He will in every generation continue to inspire all genuine efforts towards Christian unity so that we may all be one body, with one Shepherd, Jesus Christ.
If there is any obstacle to this unity on the Roman side, I think it is that in certain individuals there is a lack of openness about the possible institutional forms and relations within those forms that might best accommodate the Spirit’s work. Clearly a form of this obstacle [along with many others] exists also when Orthodox Christians imagine that ‘unity’ in reality constitutes ‘subjugation.’
Nevertheless it can be admitted that the use of the term ‘subjugation’ in this contest expresses an essential kernel of truth. The Father has made all creation subject to the Son, putting everything under His feet. As we each personally accept the absolute rule of God in our hearts, thereby making ourselves His vassals, it would be surprising if the relationships between the members of the Church did not also in some way manifest a hierarchical structure in which absolute, unconditional obedience was a notable element. What transforms this Christian vassalage from absolute despotism into the highest form of freedom is the Father’s and Christ’s gift of the Spirit of sonship, which consequently makes all Christians a brotherhood of equals. Consequently, human abuse of any hierarchical structure within the Church has historically resulted in an increased consciousness of our human and Christian dignity. It is my hope that consciousness of that historical phenomenon would help mitigate legitimate concerns that the potential for abuse inherent in hierarchical structures should counsel for a refusal to be, or remain, part of those structures.
Finally, it should be remembered by all those fearful of ‘subjugation’ that Christ Himself left us His example to follow in completely subjecting Himself to the will of the Father for the salvation of the world. I pray we all take courage from that.
I am away from home and I will reply to posts by this evening.
The Saker
Sad that an article that speaks about the history of the church should not mention the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.
You mention the ‘roots of Christianity’, but don’t you know that a great many of these roots come from the coptic church! Such as the Nicene Creed, Monasticism (St Anthony the Great), the wealth of homilies and patristic writings by the ‘desert fathers of Egypt’, St Athanasius whom you quote was a Coptic Christian!
No other Church has suffered (and continues to suffer) for her unwavering faith in Christ like the Coptic church.“If the martyrs of the whole world were put on one arm of the balance and the martyrs of Egypt on the other, the balance would tilt in favor of the Egyptians” says Tertullian.
http://www.coptic.net/EncyclopediaCoptica/
I believe that some of the earliest continuous Christian communities are in India.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_the_Apostle:
“Thomas is traditionally believed to have sailed to India in AD 52 to spread the Christian faith, and is believed to have landed at the port of Muziris (modern-day North Paravur and Kodungalloor in modern day Kerala state) where there was a Jewish community at the time.[2][5] The port was destroyed in 1341 due to a massive flood that realigned the coasts. He is believed by the St Thomas Christian tradition to have established Ezharappallikal or Seven and half churches in Kerala. These churches are at Kodungallur, Palayoor, Kottakkavu (Paravur), Kokkamangalam, Niranam, Nilackal (Chayal), Kollam and Thiruvithamcode (half church).[27]”
Another possible locus of the earliest genuine Christian teachings.
Katherine
Yes, the Indian, Syrian, Ethiopian, Armenian and Coptic churches are in full Communion with each other and are collectively known as the Oriental Orthodox Church. They have the most ancient rites and rituals that were never changed because they were never mixed with politics, empires etc.
The primary characteristic of the Roman Catholic Church is hierarchy, and this is essentially an attempt to imitate, replicate and sustain forever the hierarchical structure of the Roman Empire. It has nothing to do with Christianity as a particular form of devotion to God. It is more cunning than holy. As for those dreaded anathemas Saker speaks of, they are themselves equally loathsome attempts to subjugate the minds and feelings of those who would express devotion to God. They are attempts to use the power of shunning to enforce group think. Both supposed Empires of God, east and west, should be ashamed.
God bless the Saker. He bites hard, but lacks teeth and can only gnaw.
A very insightful article. I started studying (and taking notes) various Bibles – from the Orthodox Bible to Mormon Bible, back in 1995. It has been a great endeavor, and a great experience. I learned a lot, and was able to dispel many misconceptions.
This essay by ‘Saker’ is to the dot. In comparison to the “modern” Christianity, even the “mainstream” Orthodox Christianity is closer to its roots.
A point to note, though: by mentioning the “Traditional Orthodoxy” or “Patristic Orthodoxy”, he is pointing to a Pandora box that is waiting to be opened.
I have not viewed the video or read the “Franks, Romans, Feudalism, and Doctrine” yet, but going to do it over the weekend.
Thank you Saker for a very informative piece.
I am sending the link to The News Scouter for inclusion on their site.
The Old Testament, the New Testament or the Final Testament
The Holy Quran that many western scholars say was written by Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him and all the true messengers before him) and according to them is not the word of Allaah (God). Leaving aside the fact that the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him and all the true messengers before him) was completely untutored and not a man of letters, an illiterate man who could not even write or read his own name, there is something I want to present to the reader to ponder upon.
We would start by assuming that the Holy Quran is not the word of Allaah. This would mean that Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him and all the true messengers before him) is the author or had it written under his supervision (which would defy commonsense as I wrote above, but let’s assume it was so). Now some statistics; the Holy Quran has 114 chapters with a total of over 6,600 sentences dealing with hundreds of topics. Authentic Islamic traditions report that Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him and all the true messengers before him) had the whole book memorized as do millions of Muslim children and adults have until today.
Let’s focus on this retention of the 6,600 sentences; these differ in their contents from line to line and most places do not have a continuity of topic beyond a few verses. If we believe the western scholars, then it will be implied that the Book is a compilation of 6,600 lies. Now, I would like you to please ponder on the following facts:
1. Is it possible for a human being to remember 6,600 lies ?
2. Is it possible for that human being to distribute those lies into 114 separate chapters just by memory and then being able to recall the lies of each chapter ? Some chapters with over 200 verses.
3. He also names each chapter and remembers each line of each chapter and in sequence, did God fit an Intel processor in his Messenger’s brain ?
4. The Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him and all the true messengers before him) used to recite the whole Book from memory while praying. Millions of Muslims have done the same until this day, with many reciting the whole Book in one night especially in the coming month of Ramadhan.
Please ponder on the above and ask yourself who else but The Almighty Allaah is the source of this Final Testament for mankind.
I am not delving into the many scientific facts mentioned in the Holy Quran centuries before modern science discovered them, like the determination of the baby’s gender by the male sperm or the big bang creation of the universe. The Quran is not a book of science, its Divine Revelation to guide all mankind; so please focus on the four points, pray to Allaah/God the Almighty to guide you and ask your heart.
Luvnpeace
The Pope is infallible – since 1871
Jeder seine Ansichten. Auch ”The Saker Original” . OK . (!)
https://www.facebook.com/derdeutschesaker?ref=hl
Saker:
I think you’re missing the point slightly raising religion above the Slavic blood.
I also know that my knowledge is not as deep and concise as to others who write here.
I write empirically as Slavic who lives in Brazil.
My perspective differs a lot of writing above the equator.
Do not fool yourself.
The Slavic, the guys who have Slavic blood (Poles, Russians, Czechs, Slovaks, Ukrainians etc.) are hard as stone.
I can write this because I come from Gozdawa Clan (look at Wikipedia’m very proud of my origin).
You know Argentina, Slavs my family is from southern Brazil, people who migrated around 1870 to Brazil, my father before he died recited in Polish and Russian (died in July 2012, was born in 1932).
My grandmother, Bronislava, talk in six languages!
Slavic can be to some extent the mistake of a ruler, but when it gets really, people explode.
I saw this happen in full military dictatorship in Brazil in 1976! The Slavs settled in Ponta Grossa, Parana State rebelled against the military, I was there!
There were no shots, the class of “come on” calmed the thing.
Any historian with half a brain or who has read a brochure know that the Roman Empire did not fall by the sword of German or Saxon much less by “Anglos.”
He fell because Slavs invaded Rome and spent the knife, looted, made the devil with the Romans.
After that, they returned home.
What remains of elites linked to the Roman Catholic Church created the feuds and organized themselves into kingdoms.
He turned the damn what is now Europe.
The Slavs in Russia endured until 1917 the feudal yoke and, guess what!
Ironed, fire, hemp in the form of strings and lead and gunpowder ALL elite again!
In the West believe that Russia “imploded”!
No, what happened was that they were all fed up, just do not more people died because it is not interesting to kill his brothers.
Russian Slavic supported Yeltsin bitterly swallow democracy and elected Putin.
The same is happening in Ukraine, a lot of Ukrainian Donbass against mercenaries and other regions.
Make no mistake, if and when the Ukrainian Slavs settle, there will be a mercenary or “Yeat’s” (dear Nuland) alive to tell the story of how they died or where they are buried.
Historically, if you put on a graph (economists love graphics), the Slavs leave a government climb right, but when stabilize, die at the hands of the people.
Most of you have pets at home, can be cat, dog, etc.
Well, I’ll put a hunter language, I shot with weapons since the age of seven and has hunted many animals in my 52 years well lived.
The Slavs are and act exactly alike, I will explain:
A acoado animal, kicks first.
Steps back to get a better view of how to protect / escape or attack.
In the second acoado moment, unable to escape the attacks and insanely aggressive strikes.
Obama is acoando the Russian bear to a year and a half, he steps back, looking at the ground in front, tried to flee Ukraine, tries to flee Syria.
Russian is acoado.
God have mercy on you.
If your President (USA) acoar more.
We are on the threshold WW III.
Unfortunately.
: – /
Living on the this planet for 70 years, humanity constantly surprises me.
Most people that post comments, remind me of Harvard MBAs. That way of perceiving the world.
For humanity to blossom, love, generate new knowledge, and not forget the past historical insights from hallowed people; to me, is incompatible with with a basic bureaucratic world view,
The bureaucrats are the destroyers of the human soul.
They are necessary, but must be tethered.
Saint Paul would never have survived in the Soviet Union, nor in Nazi Germany.
He would never have had the chance to preach for even one week.
The Vatican – fantastic institution.
More political & financial; than spiritual.
For Eastern Orthodoxy to even come close to a union (not reunion) with this institution, would be to commit seppuku!
Orthodoxy opens to the believer more spiritual insights than the other Christian sects/institutions.
If the Pope had any guts, he would have excommunicated the Uniates 12 months ago.
This does not suit the institution. The Polish prelate invested in making sure that crazies, such as Uniates, were to prosper under the institution.
Plus he engaged in lots of PR stuff. “Our older brothers in God.” Etc. etc.,
Nothing wrong in pulling down the walls of ghettos!
But, the question of evil in humans cannot be addressed, nor nullified, until the West (including the institution) purges itself of its evils, and accepts that only Christ & God can create beauty in humankind.
..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHhth9CmbJ8
I am fascinated by this read. Just wondering if you know of any more great books out there on top of what you have already provided that go into both the histories and dogmas and practices of both churches as well as their relationship to each other?
Saker: Thank you for your explanations in “the Pope, the Schism, Franks and the Roman’s (Updated)”. I have been meeting tantalizing hints of the ancient Orthodoxy for many years.
I became Muslim in Boston MA, USA after having read years before “The Golden Bough” by Frazier, for which tome Queen Vitoria knighted him. A learned compilation of all religions at the time. He respected Islam the best because of it’s effective system of law and much bedsides that protects human and global life. A flexible religion that gave rights and protections to women, food sources and animal husbandry, the laws of social control baked into the religion using Arab tribal methods, not Frankish methods. Which is still in process of genocidally removing all Muslims and Islam since the Frankish Spanish monarchs began the Crusades. Would the Schism had not happened.
9/11, a false flag as all US terrorist alarms have been, was nearby, walking distance away from where I lived, after my Shahada in the Cambridge Mosque. Having had J.E.Hoover issue a top secret FBI file on me the year my first son was born, 1960, and knowing 9/11 was Federally done, I was deeply frightened. (I watched the complex of buildings being built, knew all the ins and outs) Frightened I might be federally killed or close when a Geek music professional living also in the YWCA offered me safety by inviting me to become Orthodox. We did it, she my duenna.
My reason for writing you this is to state that Islam and Christian Orthodox religion have identicle rules: speak truth to power. Frankish Christianity does not. Frankish Christianity does not reflect the messenger, Jesus, at all after WW11. Frankish Christianity seems instead to yearn for the ancient Orthodox. American powers want to remove all religion and end the questioning, debate, dissent. A result of the Schism?
I hope you will blog more of these facts we lose with so many deliberate genocidal wars now and planned. The US is actually rewriting history using Google, NSA, 100% surveillance, and the freezing fear it enthusiaticly spreads. Of us 7 billion I would guess 6/12 billion are on Russia’s and China’s side.
Saker: ” There are numerous differences between this “Traditional Orthodoxy” and “World Orthodoxy” of “Father Bob”, and I won’t go into them right now.”
We have in Catholic Church same problem. There is also “Traditional Catholicism”, which holds all of the moral & dogmatic teaching, represented by FSSPX and bishop Williamson (he have same opinion about war in Donbas as we all gathered here) etc. They are considered as “schismatics” too. I will not go deep in into doctrinal issues to start some flame war, but i have hope that God will some day fix all the problems. Probably He ll use Russia as tool to clean the World.
Keep in mind, that moral and doctrinal decay among Chritstians, especially among clergy, is not suprise and it was predicted in prophercies – mainly writings of Church Fathers, as a sign of End Times.
My understanding is that the RCC tolerates NO other religion or ‘competitor’; it plays a VERY long ‘game’ typically hundreds of years or rather, however long it takes. Consequently, ALL must fall under its authority…the problem with that is, the RCC is the FALSE Church, see Revelations 17 & 18. NO other institution fits that description.
P.S. The EU is a Roman Catholic creation, some of its founding fathers were jesuit, the Polish (Catholic) push into the former western Soviet states, through its (EU approved) Eastern Partnership, is one of the main reasons for the crisis in Ukraine. biden is a catholic and his son is jesuit trained.
I must say you are quite the scholar, lol.
A short comment:
Without getting into lengthy historical explanations. What people in the videos and most “pseudo-schollars” spewing falsehoods about origins of Rome fail to admit to:
Is the following:
That contrary to Etruscan BS generally accepted today, Rome was established by Greek escapees after the fall of Troy. The name Aeneas ( Priams cousin) comes to mind (XII century BC). This is the real reason for the Greek connection in Rome, after it was overtaken by Etruscans from the north. Not to mention the Greeks populating the peninsula to the south of the Rome, who today call themselves Italians.
The Roman/Latins were a mix of Archaic Gauls(all Italic peoples descend from the Umbrians and these in turn descend from Celtic populations in Central Europe(Halstatt area), Archaic Greeks(Arcadians under Oenotrius, Arcadians under Evander, more Hellenic peoples under Hercules, and finally the Trojans), and also Etruscans. Its essentially those same migration patterns that you see in the Classical era, Homeric Greeks colonizing southern Italy and “new” Gauls under Brennus invading Italy from the North and settling all the way to what was called by the Romans the Gallic field, which not surprisingly was an area very close to Umbria. So Rome basically stopped a constantly recurring process of Northern Gauls and Southern Greeks invading and meeting in the center. Practically the same process happened again in Medieval times just not with Gauls but Franks. God geopolitics and population patterns are a bitch.
Aeneas was a Trojan, not a “Greek” escapee.
Sorry for bad news. Forget Hollywood. Troy was a Greek City and Apollon was her protector.
Small addition:
This is why Greek gods participated in the war. Long before and during the war. Reading Iliad (in Greek preferably) you will notice that to start with Paris was asked to settle the dispute between three goddesses. He chose Aphrodite who promised him Helen.
At the time when Paris fired an arrow towards Achilles it was the Apollon who carried the arrow towards the only and famous place ( you may have stumbled on it’s name) on Achilles’ body in order to kill him.
Have fun educating yourself It’s really a wonderful read.
One more addition from wikipedia:
In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas (/aɪˈniːəs/; Greek: Αἰνείας, Aineías, possibly derived from Greek αἰνή meaning “praised”) was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Venus (Aphrodite). His father was the second cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas Priam’s second cousin, once removed. He is a character in Greek mythology and is mentioned in Homer’s Iliad. Aeneas receives full treatment in Roman mythology, most extensively in Virgil’s Aeneid where he is an ancestor of Romulus and Remus. He became the first true hero of Rome.
orry to be such a pain, but I decided to add one more and last comment on this subject.
Notice that his name starts with “ai” which in Greek is sounded out as “eh” h is soundless, hence the Latin conversion “ae”.
Just like one of many Greek-Roman emperors, who is famous in England: Hadrian (his Greek name was Adrianos accent on “o”), but because Greeks start it with strong pronunciation of an “a” Latin conversion puts “ha” it’s place in order to make the “A” sound hard just like in Greek, although not quite.
If you are still in doubt, pay attention to his father’s Greek name “Anchises which would sound out like Anxisis accent on the first “i” and an “x” is a strong “h”.
My regards, and I promise to talk about this any more.
My apologies, for the scrambled up post. I had some weird problems posting it. I am not going to do any corrections you will have to jump around it and add missing letters.
Troy was founded by the Thracians.
Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.
It looks like they really needed to fear the Greeks because the Greeks stole their history after defeating them.
@Troy was founded by the Thracians
It would be (as it was) a surprise and a shock to hear the theory of Iman Wilkens exposed in his rarissime book “Where Troy Once Stood”, that the city of Troy was located in England and that the Trojan War was fought between groups of Celts!
His arguments were turning upside down centuries of research and our understanding of Ancient History (and modern as well!). But his arguments are not to be dismissed lightly. His book is almost unreachable (and when copies turn up, they sell in the thousands of $!). A short summary in Wiki:
“Wilkens argues that Troy was located in England on the Gog Magog Downs in Cambridgeshire. He believes that Celts living there were attacked around 1200 BC by fellow Celts from the continent to battle over access to the tin mines in Cornwall as tin was a very important component for the production of bronze.
Wilkens further hypothesises that the Sea Peoples found in the Late Bronze Age Mediterranean were Celts, who settled in Greece and the Aegean Islands as the Achaeans and Pelasgians. They named new cities after the places they had come from and brought the oral poems that formed the basis of the Iliad and the Odyssey with them from western Europe. Wilkens writes that, after being orally transmitted for about four centuries, the poems were translated and written down in Greek around 750 BC. The Greeks, who had forgotten about the origins of the poems, located the stories in the Mediterranean, where many Homeric place names could be found, but the poems’ descriptions of towns, islands, sailing directions and distances were not altered to fit the reality of the Greek setting. He also writes that “It also appears that Homer’s Greek contains a large number of loan words from western European languages, more often from Dutch rather than English, French or German. These languages are considered by linguists to have not existed until around 1000 years after Homer. Wilkens argues that the Atlantic Ocean was the theatre for the Odyssey instead of the Mediterranean. For example: he locates Scylla and Charybdis at present day St Michael’s Mount.”
Accessible on the net: http://www.troy-in-england.co.uk/index.htm,
http://www.troy-in-england.co.uk/trojan-kings-of-england/trojan-kings-of-england.htm
Wow, unbelievable! Those bleeding thieving Greeks, NOT!. So what happened to those Celts? The came did all those great things and went back home.
I guess the 80% of Greek-Latin words in western languages that’s also stolen by those bloody Greeks.
Well, I have a good one for you and this is true. The name Scotland comes from Greek “Scotia” which is derived from the word “scotadi”, which means darkness in Greek (thanks to Roman Empire).
What is more amazing is the fact that people give money for this nonsense.
There are no Greek-Latin words. Either Greek or Latin. The Latin influence is around 80% (more or less) in the Romance languages. The Greek influence – not too much anywhere outside Greece.
You’d be surprised. Here is what this site says:
http://dictionary.reference.com/help/faq/language/t16.html
It’s text is here:
What percentage of English words comes from Latin? What is the percentage of English words derived from other languages?
About 80 percent of the entries in any English dictionary are borrowed, mainly from Latin. Over 60 percent of all English words have Greek or Latin roots. In the vocabulary of the sciences and technology, the figure rises to over 90 percent. About 10 percent of the Latin vocabulary has found its way directly into English without an intermediary (usually French). For a time the whole Latin lexicon became potentially English and many words were coined on the basis of Latin precedent. Words of Greek origin have generally entered English in one of three ways: 1) indirectly by way of Latin, 2) borrowed directly from Greek writers, or 3) especially in the case of scientific terms, formed in modern times by combining Greek elements in new ways. The direct influence of the classical languages began with the Renaissance and has continued ever since. Even today, Latin and Greek roots are the chief source for English words in science and technology.
Your own link doesn’t specify the percentage of Greek words.
@Flor
Science you say? Ain’t it a bitch, when it turns out the opposite stuff, like “those damned Greeks were here before, again”.
Here is one, it appeared in Haaretz in 2007, I’ll provide the address of the article but it’s not reachable any more. Hmm, I wonder why.
The address is here:
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/a-serving-of-philistine-culture-boar-dog-and-fine-wine-1.228823
I”ll provide a small quote:
“Few peoples are described in the Bible with as much hostility as the Philistines, who lived in the coastal plain during the period it documents…
Unlike most of the peoples living in the region in the biblical era, the Philistines were not Semites, but rather one of the Sea Peoples who immigrated from the Aegean Sea region of today’s Greece and western Turkey. They brought with them technologies new to the area, including a wide range of pottery vessels and a sophisticated political organization. …”
Ain’t it beautiful? Just for people like you, who hate Greeks.
One more:
‘According to one estimate, more than 150,000 words of English are derived from Greek words.’
http://www.britishcouncil.org/blog/how-has-greek-influenced-english-language
According to one estimate of a Greek person.
An article written by two Greek persons who quote the estimate of another Greek person.
Sorry. Not reliable and definitely not scientific.
Here is an interesting one for you.
Many of us love Lord of the Ring. Tolkien being language prof. who grew up little while ago, in the days when people were taking Latin and Classic Greek in “Liceum-Gimnazium-High-School depending on the country” called his main villain “Sauron” which means lizard in Greek. The same for Sauroman a combination word. How about Dinosaur? Pure Greek.
@ Anonius
There is no place to reply to your comment above, so I am replying here.
Haaretz, you say ? No, I’m afraid I don’t consider it a reliable source either. I don’t mean any offence of course; perhaps to someone who is very knowledgeable about that geographical area like for example Ann, or Terry, or Uncle Bob 1, it would be reliable, but to me it’s just a newspaper like any other.
Besides I don’t understand why some people automatically think that, just because I don’t agree with or question what they say, I must hate them or their ideas. I believe it was Aristotle who said that “It is the mark of an educated mind to entertain a thought without accepting it”. So, naturally, I express my doubts if I have them.
As for the Greeks, I neither hate them nor love them – on the whole they do not interest me very much. Of course, their contribution to the development of European culture is indisputable: what made Europe a beacon of civilization were Greek philosophy, Roman law and Catholic Christianity. Nobody can deny that. Therefore we will give Greeks their due. It is true that now they are rather a spent force, having fizzled soon after accepting Orthodoxy; and whatever gains for humanity might have still come from them is unknown, since they preferred to turn themselves towards the East. Perhaps Russia is in a better position to elaborate.
Anyway, returning to the question of hatred – Andrew Korybko said not long ago that it would be completely mistaken to assume that criticism is an expression of hatred. And he may have a point there, because otherwise certain groups who are continually criticized on this website (like for instance the Catholics) might begin to think that they are really hated, and that is not a very Christian thought to entertain, guilt trip or not.
@Flor
There is no place to reply to your comments below, therefore I am replying here.
I do not give rat’s a$$ what you think about the real facts of English vocabulary, as it’s not up you to approve or disapprove the reality on the ground, that’s the way it is.
@ Anonius
Ok, but express it scientifically.
@Flor
First Haaretz:
Article in Haaretz like some other one I read which referred to Christ and the people principally involved in his demise, often brings the topic involving 60 years of archeological research for Israel’s history. Articles like that represent research. I am not going to wast my precious time finding original archeological reports. You can look for them yourself at the university of Tel-Aviv.
Next Catholic church:
Every time you open mainstream media you find some form of bashing either Vatican, or it’s clergy. Give me a break.
You just love undermining others’ comments, statements, etc. Do you think that by doing this you show that you possess supreme intellect? I have news for you, but I’ll not go past that point. I am going to ignore all your comments from now on.
Sorry, I do not mean to troll, as I said not to get involved more wit this topic, but let me refer you to wikipedia:
Thrace in ancient Greek mythology
Ancient Greek mythology provides them with a mythical ancestor, named Thrax, son of the war-god Ares, who was said to reside in Thrace. The Thracians appear in Homer’s Iliad as Trojan allies, led by Acamas and Peiros. Later in the Iliad, Rhesus, another Thracian king, makes an appearance. Cisseus, father-in-law to the Trojan elder Antenor, is also given as a Thracian king. Homeric Thrace was vaguely defined, and stretched from the River Axios in the west to the Hellespont and Black Sea in the east. The Catalogue of Ships mentions three separate contingents from Thrace: Thracians led by Acamas and Peiros, from Aenus; Cicones led by Euphemus, from southern Thrace, near Ismaros; and from the city of Sestus, on the Thracian (northern) side of the Hellespont, which formed part of the contingent led by Asius. Greek mythology is replete with Thracian kings, including Diomedes, Tereus, Lycurgus, Phineus, Tegyrius, Eumolpus, Polymnestor, Poltys, and Oeagrus (father of Orpheus). In addition to the tribe that Homer calls Thracians, ancient Thrace was home to numerous other tribes, such as the Edones, Bisaltae, Cicones, and Bistones.
Thrace is also mentioned in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in the episode of Philomela, Procne, and Tereus. Tereus, the King of Thrace, lusts after his sister-in-law, Philomela. He kidnaps her, holds her captive, rapes her, and cuts out her tongue. Philomela manages to get free, however. She and her sister, Procne, plot to get revenge, by killing Itys (son of Tereus and Procne) and serving him to his father for dinner. At the end of the myth, all three turn into birds—Procne, a swallow; Philomela, a nightingale; and Tereus, a hoopoe.
….
Democritus was a Greek philosopher and mathematician from Abdera, Thrace (c. 460–370 BC.) His main contribution is the atomic theory, the belief that all matter is made up of various imperishable indivisible elements which he called atoms.
Herodicus was a Greek physician of the fifth century BC who is considered the founder of sports medicine. He is believed to have been one of Hippocrates’ tutors.
Protagoras was a Greek philosopher from Abdera, Thrace (c. 490–420 BC.) An expert in rhetorics and subjects connected to virtue and political life, often regarded as the first sophist. He is known primarily for three claims (1) that man is the measure of all things, often interpreted as a sort of moral relativism, (2) that he could make the “worse (or weaker) argument appear the better (or stronger)” (see Sophism) and (3) that one could not tell if the gods existed or not (see Agnosticism).
A number of Roman emperors of the 3rd-5th century were of Thraco-Roman backgrounds (Maximinus Thrax, Licinius, Galerius, Aureolus, Leo the Thracian, etc.). These emperors were elevated via a military career, from the condition of common soldiers in one of the Roman legions to the foremost positions of political power.
That’s it.
Wikipedia is not a serious source as it can be manipulated by anybody.
Well, try to manipulate some of the staff that’s tightly controlled and we will see how far you’ll get with that.
I have read stories, where people could not change their own personal information, because it did not suit the people behind wikipedia.
In that case is not Wikipedia’s fault. It takes mostly uncritically in general what the scholarship of the day has to offer. Troy in Turkey is so much entrenched in our culture that any doubt cannot be viewed but with suspicion. It entails a real mental earthquake. Few people are prepared to absorb it. But who was prepared for Catal Huyuk and Hacilar 60 years ago? Or Gobekli Tepe few years ago?
The Trojans were descended from Dardanians who were originally from Arcadia. Maybe not Hellenes(which is the race that eventually integrated all other Hellenoid peoples) but the Trojans were a Hellenoid people.
Well, Arcadia is as Greek as it gets. Check out Wikipedia. It’s in Peloponnese. Almost Sparta. Most of the Greeks in today’s Turkey belonged to Ionian linguistic group of Greeks (Thessaly, Macedonia, etc). Although this is not to say that number of cities were not established by central Greece (Athens) or the cities from Peloponnese.
Judah, patriarch of the Israelite tribe of Judah, had two twin sons. Pharez was given the scepter or right to rule all Israel while Zarah felt cheated out of the right to kingship by his brother. Zarah’s people eventually left the rest of Israel’s tribes. One of Zarah’s sons was named Darda, the Dardanelles waterway may have been named after him. Some anthropologists believe it was these people who settled the city of Troy.
Roman Church becomes the “Frankish” church….the Russian Orthodox church becomes the Soviet Orthodox Church…..
Your comment is, like much else you write, characterised by a curious mix of arrogance, attention-seeking and desire for presenting yourself as a member of some ‘traditional Orthodoxy’, which stands as an antithesis to the ‘sold-out’ official Orthodoxy. You naturally believe yourself knowledgeable on the subject of Orthodox Christianity, but your knowledge is burdened by you negative perception of clergy and and the average believer.
This are quite different once you step ‘into the world’, and look at things face-to-face, rather than by proxy of your computer somewhere in Florida. The Ecumenism of the Orthodox clergy that you speak of comes in two forms. One, the natural openness to contact and desire to return those who have fallen away from the Church back to the true path. And another, which is rightly perceived by us Orthodox Christians as a modern Uniate movement, and is characterised by the unacceptable usage of words such as ‘Bishop of Rome’, in reference to the Pope, and ‘sister Church’, in relation to the Roman Catholic Church, as well as a whole range of other serious dogmatic and canonical breaches. The notion of churches that are not in communion with each other being ‘sister Churches’, and the usage of the turn ‘Church’, with a capital ‘C’ – highly significant in many languages, but alas, not English -, is itself in beach of the Church’s key dogmas.
My point is that, yes, the so called ‘dialogue of love’ is largely fake, and simply serves to hide the Vatican’s thirst for power behind a veil of Christian love and a desire for unity. However, the blanket accusation of clergy, and the division it causes among the clergy and the faithful, is neither fair, not helpful. Less still, something that is good for the Church.
Schism or no schism is an academic controvercy because there’s NO any god at all, so what to break bones about. That’s plain stupidity.
There’s only one Christianity: Ortodox & Roman, two riets: Bysantine and Roman.
In fact Rome after Vatican 2 get itself into schism of its own.
Nitschez was unlogical by saying: God is dead because someone which does not exist cann die.
He ment it as a fictional character death I assume.
Rome has tendency to get into corruption. It made by corrupted men like others,e.g polititions and sometimes reform itself like in Council of Trent, 1645-63. That’s the real Reformation.
Luther and other heretics are NOT any reformers. They created a new heretical religions which has nothing to do with true Christianity.
They and they followers have been anathemised and are in Hell as any Jew, Baptist, Methodist, etc, goes after them.
Only God could declare that God doesn’t exist – how would YOU know He doesn’t??? Even mathematicians and scientists talk of the possibility of other dimensions, thereby implying that there is more to life than our 4 dimensional one. The New Scientist magazine had an article, I think it was about 6 years ago, on dimensions, including 2.5 (sic).
I find this post, and subsequent comments, very interesting.
However, nobody commented the fact that the Pope gave as a present to Putin a medal with the image of an angel-peacemaker.
Clearly, no act or word of the Pope in such visits is left to chance, so I found this present very significant. I consider it a clear acknowledgement of Putin’s role in present world crises.
What a topic ….. brilliant ….. its 02:00 at the morning hours and I left from duty at the station at 22:00 yesterday ….. I had a small late diner and I had decided for a short web surfing, mostly about the Southfrond news of Donbass ….. and look at this !!!!
well done to this three yang Americans, for managing such a topic ….. I am not sour that this program made it on air, even in a local tv network …… that kind of a subject is off limit for the western intellectual institutes ……
bravo Saker ….. God bless …
p.s. a quick question please …. have you ever visited the monastic community of mount Athos?
what has been forgotten here is kievan-rus interaction with the eastern (Germanic) frankish empire in the tenth century.
The Rafelstettin agreement permitted Rus preferable trade access as far west as Prague.
Rus became byzantine christians around AD 989 under Vladimir 1 and later the rest of the Rus’ civilisation. Not taken also into account here is the Khazar and volga Bulgar assimilation and syncretism and Bulgarian conversion to christianity earlier than Rus.
This part of history is fascinating and this should be a focus on the beginning of politicized Byzantine eschatalogical Christianity in “eurasia.”
I like Fr. Romanides, I think he should have worded his ideas differently but generally I agree with him. The Franks, especially the Carolingians, wanted to establish their own Roman empire which basically meant establishing a Christian “ecumene” distinct from the one centered in Constantinople and therefore introducing a new Christianity. Before Frankish aspirations the new kingdoms in the Latin West were assumed to be subordinate to the Roman emperor in Constantinople maybe not politically but religiously and culturally indeed(sort of like how in post Orthodox Europe all kings and lords had to be subordinate to the Pope). As for modern day “Western” civilization(which is just so vague and meaningless) I generally think that there is the Papal Latin west and the Protestant north-west(this latter can be divided into many because Protestantism continuously fragments into a bunch of little groups). Catholicism or Papism is dying/fragmenting and I really doubt that it will ever get back the prestige and dominance it once had; Protestantism is just confusing and lacks that ascetic ethos. Ex oriente lux, ex occidente luxus.
Re ‘ex oriente lux’ a very interesting thing is that the biggest heresies which rocked Christianity from the beginning appeared in the East. Arianism, Monothelitism, Nestorianism (Nestorius was even an Archbishop of Constantinople), Monophysitism (Eutyches was an Archimandrite in a monastery near Constantinople) and Iconoclasm (Byzantine Emperor Leo the Isaurian).
I’m not speaking only of Christianity but spirituality in general.
You mentioned only Christianity in your comment.
Christianity and Spirituality.
Estoy contigo en cada palabra que has dicho.
A los que nos gusta estudiar la Historia tenemos meridianamente claro todo ésto.
Solo agregaría que lo que hacen los políticos, y sobre todo El Vaticano, no tiene nada que ver con el Cristianismo.
Another expert..
Saker
You remain a beacon of light and reason in a divided and ill-informed world. Long may you prosper.
I believe Jesus Christ to be the chief corner stone of the spiritual temple being built for a habitation of God. All of us as living stones are being refined & fitted together into the true temple of God which endures forever.
I don’t believe we have to be members of an earthly, temporal, organized by men church to have part in the true spiritual eternal building.
I will say that Eastern Orthodoxy, to which I adhere devoutly, and Western Christianity both have within their ranks over the centuries holy persons whose devotion to Christ go further in many ways than mine own. Not only that, but also many who profess no faith or have other religious traditions are following Him far better than I do.
All of this is consistent with the New Testament Gospel teachings, which do not go into canonical this and/or that (I don’t fault these convolutions but only say they are not the teachings that Jesus gave – they are not!) In their place the canons are helpful, but they are not the Gospels – everything must point to the Gospels or it is not in Christ, for how else do we know him? He said ‘Do this in remembrance of me.’ That is the call to us, to every believer. Don’t put any one of these believers in quotes! You cannot be the judge of their faith. One is holy; one is the Lord who is judge.
Christ himself went outside of the Jewish faith to find true believers, true lovers of humanity. What else is the tale of the Good Samaritan on which the example of faith in God depends? The Samaritan! Outside the faith that has become burdened with custom and hypocrisy. Beware of selfrighteous claims to be the one true faith. It is not good to be so strong against others. The Canaanite woman? How come she is accorded such respect for her strong statement – even the dogs have a right to the crumbs! These are Gospel truths and we are nothing without the Gospel, we Orthodox, nothing. Nor should we fight for the best seat at the table like the mother of two of the disciples. That’s not for us to say.
History can be pointed to for shameful deeds and there is plenty of history East, West, North, South. Only one is holy. We are all sinners. We all could do so much better.
It saddens me that devotion to the trappings of church tradition which truly are so beautiful seem to have replaced an adherence to the teachings themselves in many hearts. The beautiful trappings only have radiance in light of the Gospel. Judge not, lest ye be judged; love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your intelligence. When asked how they should pray, Jesus said to the disciples to pray the Our Father – which great prayer many Christians use, and which is so beautifully set into the liturgical diadem of the Orthodox church – but it needn’t be – it can be prayed by anyone. I as a child had this prayer memorized, before I ever heard of Orthodoxy! And I think my childhood prayer was heard.
St. John the Theologian, carried into his church as an aged man was simply said to say “Little children, love one another.” Do you love the pope, Saker? Hold fast to the good. Yes, Orthodoxy is beautiful, and yes we feel most wonderfully and mercifully tended by a loving God in the midst of our brethren, but we cannot say we’ve got it made and the rest don’t – it’s fine to point out the differences – that’s what won me to Orthodoxy. But I never have said disparaging things about any Orthodox church and I never will. People love their churches in this country, the US, and have built them while Russia was losing touch because of the persecutions and destruction, the fear, the murders, churches as torture chambers, even in tsarist times. None of us are perfect.
Dear Lord, who lovest mankind, have mercy on us all.
@Do this in remembrance of me
It is very beautiful what you say, but do you know exactly what is the Christ asking from us when he said “Do this…”?
And what did He mean when He said:
“What God has joined together, let no man separate” ?
It said that the Popes had no right to separate what God had joined together.
But did He say that all the Orthodox priests had the right to marry twice more in church people who had been separated by human will ?
The Church may (very reluctantly) allow a second marriage, when the marriage has ceased to be a reality. And permitted only because of “human weakness”. As the apostle Paul says concerning the unmarried and widows: “If they can not control themselves, they should marry” (1 Cor. 7, 9). It is permitted as a pastoral concession in the context of “economia,” to the human weakness and the corrupt world in which we live. It is true that “akrivia” is the norm. But it is better to marry, as St. Paul said, than to fornicate.
St Paul said “marry”, not “marry, than divorce, than marry again, than divorce, than marry again”. That would have meant contradicting Jesus, who said “what God has joined together, let no man separate”.
Blum, splitting hairs is a Talmudic practice.
Correction: “then” instead of “than”
Oh my,
Finally someone who understands the difference between “than” and “then”. It is an intractable problem, even among highly educated people. I tried repeatedly to bring people to think about the problem, but to no avail. Same with “its” and “it’s” (used wrongly all the time!).
Of course, it is “better to marry than to fornicate”, than “marry then fornicate”. Good on you Blumchen!
@ mods and saker
Of course, this is how your people always “win” the debates. Any question which would show that your church twisted Jesus’ words to suit the emperors’ desires is swept under the rug. Very empire-like. But who is interested to know already knows that. However twisting is twisting, and you might have a surprise. From up there…
Preventing the coalition between (real) Islam and the (real) heir of Christianity – the (real) Orthodox belief – not necessarily “church”.
Russia was betrayed by her “allies” after the WWI who managed to funnel the “revolution” against the Tsar just in time – so that the Russian army couldn’t take Constantinopel although it had been “promised” by the Alliance.
See: https://farsight3.wordpress.com/2015/03/18/fi-wir-treiben-einen-keil-zwischen-deutsch-und-russland/
Christians as anyone who believes in Christ isn’t that bad of a generalization, insofar as such people really do happen to have a sincere commitment to following Christ and his teachings. Of course, a proper baptism would seal it but arguably even a desire for baptism would suffice. The early Church Fathers would go so far as to claim that before Christ and the proclamation of the Gospel to the Gentiles, anyone who sincerely sought God and lived in accordance with reason and their conscience belonged to God. I generally worry about right wing approaches to who is and isn’t a Christian, as this typically results in a “remnant” ideology that damns the super majority of the human race to eternal hellfire, including most baptised Christians. It also results in the Church becoming a bit of a joke and typically results, in effect, in an invisible Church. It also tends to lead to a puritanical mindset and make Christianity seem unreasonable and impossible. No one said Christianity was or would be easy; but a excessive rigorism can easily cause most people to lose all hope and despair and also tends to make God look cruel and tyrannical, an image already all too easily formed by fallen man who feels himself so alienated -even abandoned and forsaken- from and by God.
I am not sure by what you mean about Catholics having no idea about Vatican I? Church doctrine typically becomes imbibed in or by liturgical practice, general practice and formal instruction. It’s hardly necessary to point out where or when each dogma was authoritatively defined or given. Catholics know about the Real Presence even though they probably haven’t the faintest clue which Councils and Magisterial documents articulated, formed, affirmed or defended that doctrine and dogma. That’s a matter of Church history, which of course can be very important and informative.
Moreover, Vatican II took up just about everything Vatican I said and reiterated it anyways, but in the broader context of the Church as a whole – Vatican I was restricted by war and external military threats to only focusing on the Papacy. Exactly so, this did indeed result in an excessively Pope-centric view of the Church and Church authority, which was not the original intention of the Council, which wanted to go further and outline doctrines about the proper authority and function of the bishops, priests, religious and laity and how they all worked together. Vatican II finally did that.
(1) “I am not trying to make converts” – Why not?
(2) If there never really was anything “Roman” about the Catholic Church, and it in fact was always a creature of the Franks, then how can we explain the 70 year phenomena of the Avignon Popes? If the Franks totally usurped and controlled “Rome”, then why was “Rome” held hostage in Avignon for 70 years from 1309-1370? Was simply a political spat – two factions of the same clan – having a political dispute?
I’m not trying to pick a fight, just genuinely trying to understand. Also, are there any other sources besides Fr. Romanides we can go to to corroborate his ideas?
Thanks in advance for answering these questions, Saker.
@ If there never really was anything “Roman” about the Catholic Church, and it in fact was always a creature of the Franks, then how can we explain the 70 year phenomena of the Avignon Popes?
Not precisely by the fact that Avignon is in France, Francia and King Philippe IV le Bel was a Capetian King, a most Frankish dynasty? Practically Papedom was a creature of Frank Kings (“The “Donation of Pepin”, the first in 754, and second in 756, provided a legal basis for the formal organizing of the Papal States, which inaugurated papal temporal rule over civil authorities. The Donations were bestowed by Pepin the Short only three years after he became the first civil ruler appointed by a Pope, about the year 751….Pepin confirmed his Donations in Rome in 756, and in 774 his son Charlemagne again confirmed and reasserted the Donation.” From Wikipedia (for convenience). It is a story of the slow usurpation of Empire by the Franks with the help of the Popes (“You scratch my back….).
I suspect (and that’s my personal opinion) that the move to assert the papal domination starts much earlier, with Pope Gregory the Great. Seconded by Gregory of Tours, who initiated the falsification of the history of the Evangelization of the Gauls, attributing it to Rome, instead of the traditional (“Latin”) view that it was done by the direct disciples of the Apostles.
Papdom was always considered by the Franks “their thingy”.
THE question begs to be asked: WHO imparted Christianity upon the Slavs?
The answer is easy: Constantinopol (Byzantium). Cyril and Methody created for them alphabet known as Cyrillica. They were murdered by Germans in Prague. Next step was to force Cheks to convert to Catholicism. Following that Polish Prince Mieszko decided to talk to Vatican in order to stay alive.
Sorry for the typo: it was supposed to be Czechs.
Saker, normally I like what you’re writing (about Ukraine, etc), but this article is really stupid.
Especially the part, in which you portray Russia as some kind of heir to Rome, which means you’re believing really low-quality Russian propaganda.
Russian civilisation is mostly a mixture of Slavic (no suprise here) culture and Mongol influences (Russians are often in denial about this). And for that matter, not only are Russians not Romans, they are not even Byzantines, because the real Byzantines, who are GREEKS are kind of still alive.
You are a dissapointment – I thought you are better than that, I mean above believing in propaganda nonsense, but it turns out you are just like some many other people – you refuse to believe in stupid propaganda of one side (Western), but believe in stupid propaganda of the other side (Russian). Dissapointing.
Ironically, you sound like a Pentacostal in your claim to be part of the “real” church that practices the way the first century church did. Orthodox are a lot more like Protestants than they will ever admit.
Rome was good at conquering other nations and looting them, not unlike the USA today. This culture of conquest and pillaging raised the money to build the public works of Rome. However, I am not so sure it was a civilization we should really want to emulate. The rise of Constantine was the end of Rome as the head of empire. Constantine went North and East for a new start in Byzantium, who is the spiritual mother of Russia. Rome is corrupt now as it was then.
No, Rome was more like the Spanish Empire. The US seems more Viking, raiding but not interested in creating there own society in any lands that are under their control and sure as hell not willing to integrate peoples of other races and ethnicities like the Romans did in Gaul and Spain.
Excellent article and resources provided. Thank you. Keep THE FAITH!
Romanides is generally regarded as dishonest by serious academics. His political support for the radical right in Greece may be regarded as the fruit of his endeavors.
A good look at Christian history is provided by the five volume work, “The Christian Tradition,” by the Jaroslav Pellikan, the 20th Century Lutheran biographer of Luther who converted to Orthodoxy following his work on the Christian tradition.
It would be profitable to study the works of one of the great theologians of the 20th Century, the Romanian Orthodox priest, Dumitri Staniloae. He is quoted in an interview late in life (in Romanian) that there is no significant theological difference between Latin an Orthodox churches.
Recent scholarship worth study includes the books “Orthodox Constructions of the West,” “Orthodox Readings of Augustine,” and “Orthodox Readings of Aquinas.”
As the Melkite archbishop, Elias Zoghby, once wrote, “we are all schismatics.” It does us Orthodox little good to ignore good historical scholarship and theological writing. God, after all, is Truth.
If Dumitru Staniloae really said that, it will be a balm on the wounded souls of the Romanian Greek-Catholics, seeing as he was one of the principal architects of forcing them back in the Romanian Orthodox fold in 1948.
Well, this is a complete misreading of Father Staniloae.
Dear Saker,
Thanks for the history lesson. As a teacher and practitioner of Tibetan Buddism who was raised as a Roman Catholic, I really appreciate the perspective. It is so important to winnow out the political and historical distortions from the teachings of the anointed ones. How is it that so often the message of personal and collective liberation and the practice of an ethical life is perverted to some dogma which subjugates some and elevates others?
In Peace and Solidarity,
RG
Very interesting to read the debate and thank you for your great work,I recommend the book ‘Commonwealth of Byzantium – Eastern Europe 500 to 1453’ by Dimitri Obolensky ( I own the english translation).
Thankyou Saker – this was the puzzle piece I needed to at last have the story of Jesus make sense to me (and also explains why Roman sculpture is inferior to Greek!)
Hello from another sub in the desert!
Like you often say – what I have to share with you here will probably make a lot of people angry, but I want to apologise in advance that if I deny fundamentals of Orthodoxy in my assertions I guarantee that if you read Carottas work it will not only make amends but probably even make you weep. A fiction can never be as powerful as the true story it sets out to replace.
If you take the time to follow me you will discover that Putin in a sense is the resurrection of Julius Ceasar and perhaps even an opportunity for the moral integrity of the early Roman empire to be given a belated second chance.
To begin – first let the Orthodox Christian’s here allow the redacting of scripture to dissolve before their eyes and see the first religion of Rome that the Orthodox Christian men in the movie above speak about. The church of the original Roman Empire which worshipped Divus Julius;
Jesus was Julius Ceasar:
http://www.sott.net/article/264532-As-important-as-the-scientific-discoveries-of-Darwin-and-Galileo-Linguist-Francesco-Carotta-proves-real-identity-of-Jesus-Christ-to-be-Julius-Caesar
Next let us wonder at how it was that the illiterate Gauls and Franks could do such a complete bait and switch rewriting the history of the early church, dividing the empire which then replaced Divus Julius with Jesus?
Quite simply they didn’t, the Flavian’s did this work before them, weakening and in an inherent sense destroying their own empire in the process. The Ceasar’s egos could no longer tolerate living in the shadow of Divus Julius and the wealthy landholders that murdered Julius Ceasar in the first place helped finance the creation of the new holy Roman church to replace the widespread worship (and just values) of the cult of Divus Julius.
The Flavian’s set about creating the gospels replacing the first commander of the Roman Legions with a meek Jewish messiah they hoped would dampen jewish military and revolutionary zeal. They also set out destroying much of their own empire, sacking Jerusalem, wiping out the Druids, killing Cleoptra and Marc Antony and burning the libraries in Alexandria (blaming it later on Julius Ceasar) and replacing the statue of Julius Ceasar in every town square throughout the Roman empire with a statue of Jesus in whose newly created gospels (treated as history) was clearly encoded the military campaign of Titus Flavius:
http://www.caesarsmessiah.com
Titus had the gospels written with Jesus foretelling his own (Titus’s) coming when he sacked Jerusalem in 70ad.
But Titus was double crossed by the wealthy people who financed this fiction and who set up the original Roman church. Instead of himself being ordained as the new divine God whose coming Jesus gospels had foretold, his wealthy patrons had tired of dealing with the Ceasars egos and planned to let people worship a fiction while they moved their real power to the bishops and cardinals at the head of their new legalised institution of control.
After the Romans had weakened their own empire in the process of rewriting it’s moral code and history, the Franks and Gauls took this opportunity to move in and take over. In a sense they were the first Neocons, illetrate and brutish warlords seeking feudal slaves and ready to invade and run covert operations to steal other cultures wealth and resources.
So we need to ask 1. Who was this great man Julius Ceasar who the desecrators of true history have tried so hard to conceal? 2. Why was he such a threat to the wealthy landholders that the they created such an elaborate plot to fictionalise their own history, restructure their political system and destroy the values and culture of their own empire just to erase his memory? 3. How could Julius Ceasar possibly have secured the wealth and beauty of his vast empire from it’s destruction after his death?
My suggested answers follow . . .
1. Preserved in the character of Jesus, created by Titus Flavius and friends, Julius Ceasar was known first and foremost for his forgiveness and protection. His motto (later bastardised by the Neocons) was, ‘He who does not take sides is on my side”. In effect this meant that his armies vowed to protect anyone who did not fight against them. He was also known for his tolerance of other cultures. Rome may have wanted taxes and aquiescence, but they did not enforce culture oppression. This combined with Julius Ceasar’s notoriety for giving good jobs to his prisoners of war – led to a reputation which caused vast regions without protest to readily accept Roman rule.
2. Julius Ceasar promised land and pensions to his veterans and in the end bequeathed his fortune to the people. These actions set him at odds with the majority of right-wing optimates on the senate creating the motive for his death and once martyred and deified the need to destroy the values he stood for and legacy. This politically also set the backdrop for the drama of his funeral and deification. When studied in Carottas work, Jesus’s trial, crucifixion and resurrection are obvious dramatisations of the assassination of Julius Caesar, his funeral, all still reanacted by churches to this day.
https://youtu.be/gvga-98x6Nk
3. I would speculate that while Julius Ceasar was a great man it is probably true he also had a sizeable ego. This hid even in his benevolence. It became hard for some men’s pride to live by his charity. Brutus for instance had been forgiven after a military defeat that he ran against Cesaer may have preferred a noble death on the battlefield that to live in the humiliation of Ceasars benevolence and charity.
This leads to my thoughts on Vladamir Putin, whose values it would appear, align with those of Julius Ceasar. Unlike the US, he has not insisted that other countries profess their support of Russia but has acted very much in the credo of ‘He who does not take sides is on my side”. Russia has always claimed it has many more allies than the US pretends it does and if we see US aggression subside there will likely be more and more neighbouring countries who find the courage to admit they would welcome Russia as a friend. Like early Rome, the spread of Russian influence will more likely happen through invitation than through aggression.
I have no knowledge on point 2 of how Putin deals with social security but would suggest on point three that how he deals with those caught plotting against him will determine the long term security of the legacy he leaves mankind.
Forgiveness is indeed a virtue – but it may have been better if rather than largesse, Brutus was given the opportunity to earn his reprieve.
May Julius Ceasar’s true legacy be remembered and long live Vladmir Putin!