Mopac

In relation to orthodoxy in which God is ultimate reality, atheism would be nihilism. Nihilism is the doctrine of negation. 

The defining characteristic is the rejection of ultimate reality or absolute truth. It is to say there are only relative truths.

Of course, without absolute truth, there can not be relative truths.

It is silly to say this is not a worldview.

Silly wizard, no reply is ever really needed. Nevertheless, I must pick up the mic you dropped lest you in your conceit believe that your thoughtless opinions carry any actual weight.

What is the Christian God? The church fathers are very clear that we recognize The Truth as God. Our God exists. If you say The Truth doesn't exist, you are an idiot.

To take self declaration as proof of identity reduces Christianity to something meaningless. You make it into an arbitrary thing that is easily dismissible.

Where does the idea of self identification being proof of identity lead to? It leads to men identifying as pangendered giraffes being humored by a society that thinks it is loving to lie to someone and feed into their delusions.

Fallacy misidentification is in itself a fallacy. It is not a fallacy to say someone who calls themselves a Christian but is not in the Christian Church is not a Christian anymore than it is a fallacy to say that no true cube is spherical. For something to be a fallacy, it cannot be true. This is where over reliance on reason leads you, to conclusions that are false and even stupid but allegedly come from reason. That is why nihilism is the fruit of men putting an over reliance on reason. They managed to reason themselves into a black hole that destroys everything, even the foundations of reason itself.

So where is the Christian church? Common sense makes it clear which churches cannot be the Christian Church.

Were there any baptist churches even 500 years ago? The answer is a clear no. Were there any mormons or jehova witnesses even more than 200 years ago? The answer is a clear no.

But The Christian Church is an historical reality, and only through willful ignorance can one dismiss this being the case.

You want an objective criteria for what constitutes a Christian? The first question on the flow chart is "Are you a member of The historical Christian Church, that is, The Orthodox Catholic Church?". If you answer "No", follow the arrow to all the way to "You are not a Christian".

And truly, if we stop concerning ourselves with offending others, what I am saying is consistent with historical opinion of the church regarding this manner. Schismatics do not divide the church, they cut themselves off from it. There is One Church.

I am not elevating myself above other Christians. Rather I am elevating the church over those who are not truly Christian as they are not with the church. The ones who are arrogant are the self guided. They make themselves out to be their own bishops. I submit to the church. This is not something that can be used to accuse me of arrogance.

During our liturgy before partaking of eucharist, we sing

"I will not speak of thy mysteries to thine enemies, neither will I give thee a kiss as did Judas."

Why is this? Because historically people like you would accuse us of being cannibals, which would lead to our persecution. You do not accuse us of being cannibals, but rather you spread misinformation about our faith. You are deceitful with what is available to you, and you take it upon yourself the mission to undermine the faith. Thus you and those like you who are full of pride and absent of charity are not worthy of the mysteries.

The Arians had the same gospels, but their beliefs were heretical. The interpretations you yourself have of scripture are so unique to yourself that no one ever seems to agree with you. You are the best evidence against sola scriptura. As if the hundreds or maybe thousands of churches who believe in sola scriptura and disagree with eachother weren't!

Who actually believes in sola scriptura? You yourself and even most nominal Christians look to other sources.

If someone who calls themselves a Christian believes the same about the birth, life, death, and ressurection of Jesus as us, what can I say? Their belief on these things are at least orthodox.

Someone with just a bible is at a great disadvantage though when it comes to other things. It can be shown in scripture that God is one with his Word and Spirit, but is The Trinity expressly stated in the bible? It isn't, yet this is very important. The faith is in Trinity. Christology certainly can be shown in scripture, that Christ is The Word of God made incarnate, that the nature of the incarnate Christ is fully man, fully God, and these 2 separate natures are united without confusion in one hypostasis or person. That the energies and wills of these 2 natures are distinct but that the human will and energy is in total synergy with the divine will and energy.

It can be shown through scripture that salvation is unification with God, partaking of what God is by nature through grace. It can be shown through scripture that without works, faith is dead and effectively not faith at all.

Yet those who have just the bible struggle with the most basic things pertaining to salvation, because there was never a point where the bible was supposed to be used to teach the faith independently of the church. The New Testament canon wasn't even settled until hundreds of years after Christ! It is our book, and we use it to teach what it is we teach.

The body of Christ is not divided. Denominationalism is a heresy. The church is Catholic, that is, whole, and complete.

If the pope wasn't a heretic, he would be orthodox and we would respect him as first among equals when he is in council with the other patriarchs and bishops. All Patriarchs are considered first among equals within their jurisdictions, as are metropolitans(big city bishops) to other bishops(country or small town bishops) in more local synods. This is not the same as papal supremacy. The leading is supposed to be by example, not despotism.

Apostolic canon 34 that you quoted says everything. The church at large did not accept the bishop of Rome's addition to the creed. They changed the creed without church consensus and have thus seperated themselves from the church. The church at large also rejected the bishop of Rome's attempts to meddle in the affairs of the other self headed churches.

In the ancient Christian creed, creed meaning "I believe", we confess "One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church".

If you are not in the church, you do not have the Christian faith. You are not an "orthodox" or "right faith" Christian. You are rather "heterodox" or having "different faith".

The Orthodox Catholic Church is the original Christian Church, the one church. There are no valid churches outside of it. Rather, these churches are all schismatic and heretical.

This is a temporary situation for the edification or education of this community here. I am not sitting around browsing the web. I have been using my phone exclusively to arrange travel up until now, and like Castin said, I am going to cut that off soon. I have not been keeping up with the news at all. We have pilgrims, that is it.

The most common type of monasticism is cenobitic monasticism, that is, monasticism within a community. We Orthodox understand how easy it is for someone living in solitude to become delusional. That us why we train for it first in community. 

It is said that you can tell the maturity of the church in a region by the state of monasticism. You can tell the maturity of monasticism in a region by how many hermits there are.

Make no mistake though, all the monks here and even myself are practicing ascetics. I was an ascetic before I started pursuing monasticism. All orthodox Christians are supposed to practice asceticism.

Also, good nonks don't talk much, they tend to pray in their rooms.

The Ultimate Reality is God.

I certainly do not discount God, but all the wisest men of ages past understand well that God's essence is unknowable. They also understand that Truth is not knowledge(information), but The Way of Life.

To abide in this Eternal Way of Truth is to share in God's divinity. It is the secret of eternal life. For The Truth is eternal, and only in unity with The Truth does one find salvation. To be made divine by grace what God is in essence.

The Ultimate Reality is God.

I certainly do not discount God, but all the wisest men of ages past understand well that God's essence is unknowable. They also understand that Truth is not knowledge(information), but The Way of Life.

To abide in this Eternal Way of Truth is to share in God's divinity. It is the secret of eternal life. For The Truth is eternal, and only in unity with The Truth does one find salvation. To be made by grace what God is in essence.

Look, Merlin up there and the weaker edge are so confused he says I committing a no true scottsman fallacy. He doesn't understand that you aren't a Christian if you aren't in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Any claim is just as valid as any other! That is where we are now. Self identification is proof of identity. To say no true doctor lacks a doctorate is a fallacy. To say no true man has a uterus is a fallacy. This is the age we are in now. It is absolutely the result of western Christianity's apostasy. Because once God is dead, I am God! Reality is what I can get away with! There is no absolute truth! The age of Nihilism is here! Absurd, isn't it?

There was a time when there was no confusion about this. To the question, "Are you a Christian?" The first in response would be "Where you baptised and/or Chrismated into the the church?" If the answer is "no" that means you are not a true Christian.

Protestant ecclesiology is an outright attack against the church. They are working for anti-Christ without even knowing it.

Only back temporarily. Then gone for good. This is the only monastery I have been at with cell reception. I still have been using my phone to coordinate travel arrangements and talk to my councils. I am eager to finally be able to put it down. Since I am about to become a novice, that time is soon. I figure I could at least share here some before then. Being in monasteries this whole time has helped me to mature pretty quickly. A healthy monastery is a good place for healing. Maybe polemics isn't the best thing for me to go off with, but Hopefully it will be edifying.

The Orthodox Catholic Church is not a denomination. The creed professes One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. That being the case, a denomination is by definition not catholic. A denomination is by definition a division. Catholic means whole, complete, without division. A schism doesn't divide the church. Schismatics leave the church. The church is unharmed.

If you read what the ancient church fathers write about what the church looks like and how it operates on Earth, the only church that even resembles this is one church. Protestants don't even have the same understanding of salvation as the historical church. They don't have the same understanding of grace. Why, protestants don't even have apostolic succession, something the ancient church pointed to as onenof the identifying marks of the church. Where are the bishops? Where are the priests? Even the denominations that have them lack apostolic authority. Even the form of worship is alien to the ancient church. How many of these churches even have altars? How is it that when one reads the canons of the ecumenical councils, it becomes clear that no protestant church meets even the basic qualifications to be considered a church?

The fact of the matter is, protestants are playing pretend church. Most of my life was spent in protestant/evangelical Christian world. I am familiar with it. You are not familiar with Orthodox Christianity. After tasting the real thing, I could never go back. It is not possible for you to understand what you are missing, because you don't have the real thing to compare what you have to.

You say it matters little that people know next to nothing about early Christianity, but this is a ridiculous thing to say. It is important because it destroys the protestant narrative and makes it clearer that the way the ancient church fathers understood the church is in line with how we, The Orthodox Catholic Church do. Why is that? Because it is the same church.

The Orthodox Church did not break away from the Roman Church. It wasn't that we couldn't live in peace because we couldn't reconcile in Christ. You don't know the history behind what happened. Why am I Orthodox instead of Roman Catholic? Because when I started to serious study church history on my own it became clear that what I was taught beforehand was wrong. Rome was unambigiously on the wrong side of the issue, and they were the ones who broke away from the church. This happened because even back then they were heretics. After the schism, the rate at which they innovated only accelerated.

I suggest you listen to the playlist in the OP as the first part of it shows how quickly Roman Catholicism deviated from the common piety of the church of the first millenium.

Luther was a heretic who violated his vows of monasticism, married a nun, made corrupt translations that altered what scripture said in order to back his bad theology, and if he were alive today to see the state of the church that bears his name, he would be LIVID. His only saving grace is that he was right about one thing... Roman Catholicism had slid into heresy. That is why they aren't Orthodox! John Calvin is even worse, he was a monster who believed in a monster God!

The Orthodox Church does not reject the authority of scriptures, in fact, we read a great deal more bible in our church than any protestant church I have ever been to. We are supposed to read the bible every day. If you read a pamphlet on confession, not reading the bible everyday is even something to confess! The monks at the monastery I am at now are required to at least a chapter of the New Testament a day, not including what is read in church. In the course of a week, we go through the entire book of psalms in church. The bible was also compiled by us. If it wasn't for The Orthodox Church, you would not have a bible.

The Protestant Churches do not all agree on things. Such an opinion only comes from a lack of attention to detail. They can't even agree on fundamental things like the nature of the eucharist, or whether we have free will or not. The one thing they have in common? They are all heterodox, and none of them is the historical church.

You are correct in identifying this humanistic spirit. You are also correct that a longing for classical age of past helped fuel this. What you don't see is that all of this resulted from the deviations that the Latin church had made from Orthodoxy. An over reliance on reason and romanticism. All of this is shown and traced through the playlist I posted in the OP.

Where did the anti-Christianity come from? Eventually reason and romanticism detached itself from the heretical form of Christianity that held it back, eventually even rejected God. Anti-Christianity in the modern sense comes from an apostasy from Christianity. The seeds of this apostasy were sown in the forms of Christianity that these currents ultimately ended up rejecting. The playlist I posted goes through the history of this very well.

The Orthodox Church is easily the most conservative church there is, we still practice a liturgy that is well over a millenium and a half years old. Have you ever been to an Orthodox Church? There is absolutely no adapting to the modern age, rather, the modern age has produced more martyrs of the church than all of the rest of history combined. To add insult to injury, protestants not only aren't with the chirch but arrogantly try to prosletyze us like to count our martyrs and slain as their own. Yet secretely they hate us. The proof is in how many converts have been disowned by their friends and families simply for becoming Orthodox. Even I have been through this! It is very common. I lost almost all my old church friends. Not even for anything I have done. My brother has disowned me. For what? Because they all hate Orthodoxy. It is not unlike those people who say, "I have no problem with such and such lifestyle", but as soon as their child gets into it, oh no!

Considering The Orthodox Church all but did away with the polytheism of the ancient world, having cast out the demons of ancient Egyptian and Greek religion, your claim that we are polytheists is laughably stupid. We are not polytheists. This is a ridiculous and ignorant claim. Christians were accused of being atheists, and were slain for it. Who accuses us of being polytheists? Muslims. Why do they do this? Because they in their ignorance take our Trinity as being 3 Gods. The Church fathers write quite a bit about how this is a mistaken belief, even before the rise of Islam.

The Orthodox Church is the church that remembers, honors, and studies the church fathers. We know what the early church taught because we are that same church! The oldest protestant church hasn't even been around but for a few hundred years. They have no memory of history. They in vain try to reconstruct the church from the crumbs that manage to fall of the church's table. Not only is what they do vain and impossible, but they in turn end up being used as a tool for Satan to act as a stumbling block for those who would otherwise find The Church. Protestants are the reason we have atheists in the modern age. Listen to the playlist! It shows a very clear tragectory that is the natural consequence of western Christianity's deviation from the true faith. Everything about what is going on today could have been predicted at the time of the schism, because there is a natural path these things take!

Now look, Nihilism has overtaken the world, and where are it's roots? The apostasy of western man from Christianity caused by an over reliance on reason, frivilous romanticism, and PRIDE.

Where do you get this idea that Orthodoxy connects with the modern masses? Ours is the only viable worldview that stands in opposition to modernism.

Why are you offended at how we interpret the bible? You can find typological interpretation of the Old Testament even in the new. The interpretations we have for the bible come from the ancient church. This is how they interpreted the bible. Oh, not exclusively. But you don't really know how we use scripture, because you are not Orthodox. Neither have you ever been catechuminized. If you get your information from heretics, do you really think it is possible for you to come to truth? Of course not.

Who is the head of The Orthodox Catholic Church? Jesus Christ. Why is it that the Roman Catholic Church is in heresy? Because they made the bishop of Rome head of the church! If you read the writings from the time of the schism, this is one of the reasons why the schism happened!

Protestants? They aren't in the church, therefore the head of their faith isn't Christ. One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism. Make no mistake, we do not share the same faith. Protestants don't even share faith. It is a house divided against itself. Look at those churches who pray with Muslims, who embrace sodomy, who think worship is throwing a rock concert, who have disgarded the altar for a pulpit. A total mockery of real Christianity. You share faith with these people? Protestants don't even know how to pray. There are some who babble in gibberish and call it speaking in tounges. Like some atheist's parody of my faith!

When you protestants debate atheists, you use the same reasonings your ancestors used that created modern atheism in the first place! These atheists can't tell the difference between real Christianity and heresy. To them, heterodox and orthodox are the same.

If you read the writings of the early church, even the earliest surviving writings like those from St Ignatius of Antioch, going up to Nicea and beyond, it was clear that the Orthodox Catholic Church was partially identified by apostolic succession. This was essentially to distinguish the true church from the multitude of heresies that existed even in the early days. You are wrong to say there is only implication, because the church fathers are very clear. Papal claims of supremacy on the other hand are made by implication as well as taking quotes from church fathers out of context. They like to ignore instances in church history where the rest of the church would rebuke Rome for acting outside its jurisdiction. They like to ignore popes who denounced the filoque. They like to ignore the popes who claimed that the title of supreme pontiff was a forerunner to anti-christ. There was a time when Rome was orthodox. Then they elevated their patriarch to be able to depose bishops at will, and he totally corrupted the church in the west, invalidating their apostolic succession.

Someone can't be a bishop without apostolic succession, and a presbyter must be made so by a bishop. That in itself disqualifies all protestant denominations from being the church.

There are no church fathers who were not recognized as such without qualifications. When it comes to matters of what constitutes true Christianity, what the church teaches is innerent. That doesn't mean priests or bishops can't be wrong about things. There is a consensus of the church. We have taught the same doctrine since the start. There is a consistency in what we call Holy Tradition. Holy Tradition is the teaching passed down from the aposyles and through the church. Among the different churches, you will see variation of customs. Protestants a lot of time equate all tradition with custom. Then they are surprised when their children abandon the tradition of their faith and embrace worldliness. They were only following the example of their parents who claimed to reject traditions of men! There is a difference between tradition that we are supposed to keep, and customs which are cultural.

Holy Tradition is the faith itself, of which The Orthodox Catholic Church is the rightful guardian of. We have been around since the start. No protestant church can make this claim.

I am not avoiding the question. My answer is yes, at the exclusion of your interpretation of things.

Teresa of Calcutta is not an orthodox saint.

You were not raised Christian, because you were not raised orthodox. The only Christianity that was "forced on you" was heresy.

Waddaya know, hosted online.

Though I recommend buying the book from St Herman's press of course, as that would support the monastery.

"All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes; but the LORD weigheth the spirits.

Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established.

The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD: though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished.

By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil."

I know plenty of nihilists who have their life set on auto destruct. I even know one guy who claims that nihilism saved his life! His face and body is covered in cheap tattoos, he drinks and does drugs all day. He sleeps outside and fornicates with anything that has legs. 

There is nothing rational about nihilism. It is fundamentally an irrational spirit. Self deification is the natural hubris that results from this. Sure, so is suicide. There are a lot of ways to commit suicide.

Quickly

Slowly

But then there are those who also want to take everyone down with them.