Against the Pan-Heresy of Ecumenism 

Reading it now, halfway through it. Insightful.

My priest tells me not to read it or anything by Fr Seraphim Rose. I’m wondering why now.

@@the.good_guy.1 What jurisdiction are you in?

@@kudryavkalaika875 Oca

Father Mikhail does a great service for those who do not have a parish near them! You also have taught good virtues to have in the scope of combatting hedonistic lifestyle, so thank you very much, my great brother Kyle..

God bless you! That is a tough situation to be in and you and your family have my prayers. As for your question. St. Paul isn’t giving ascent to ecumenist worship as for one, the athenians were pagans at the time and worshipped demons, and two; God doesn’t give His spirit out at the measure. He’s not affirming a worship towards God in the sense of “shadow” or proxy worship. Rather, St. Paul is communicating the idea of logosmoi being present within the culture of the people. A kind of natural, in-born understanding and desire to seek God. Which is precisely what the function of the human Spirit is in Orthodox anthropology.

@@living_orthodox That is exactly the answer I was looking for. Thank you for the clarity Father. God bless you and your beautiful family! Should I ever find myself in Ontario, I will be sure to pay your parish a visit! Greetings from Tennessee!

Psalm 135 in Byzantine chant performed by Beirut mens choir

I think it’s fallacious and equal to casting the sin of Judas on the other apostles. What? Leave Christ because of Judas? Makes no sense.

@@living_orthodox Thanks for the response, Fr. Mikhail. You make a great point.

According to the Orthodox mine, you wouldn’t be receiving “another baptism” but rather, you’d be baptized for the first time. My policy (and my bishop’s) is to baptize everyone.

​​@@cameronoleary3916 So ROCOR are Donatists? Is the Antiochian Archdiocese Donatist? Because many "baptisms" that are performed in the West aren't considered Valid by the Canons and the Service Books and Economy is improperly applied or Baptism denied. This is the Clerics' fault not the convert's.

​​​@@cameronoleary3916 ROCOR is not a Donatist body. Donatism is referring to Clerics inside the Church not having valid Sacraments because of their sins. Not refusing to accept the Sacraments of Heretics is not Donatist. Baptisms performed by Heterodox Laymen, because that's what they are in reality, are not "Valid" but the Bishops can condescend to accept them out of Love for the individual if receiving Baptism would be a stumbling block for their Faith in the Church and receive Converts by Chrismation. What we see today is not a condescension out of Love but a exclusion of Baptism out of a misguided Ecumenistic standard, which I have seem firsthand damage people's Faith later down the line. ROCOR has made the choice to follow the Cappadocian standards and receive everyone by Baptism because they don't even trust the Heterodox to do anything right. Many sects in America don't even perform Baptisms at all, just sprinklings or even neglecting the practice entirely. 90% of American Converts from Protestantism should be Received by Baptism and probably the same number for Catholics. Also Chrismation is repeated if someone commits apostasy and confesses a false faith according to the same Canons that allow for Condescension of Reception by Chrismation. And if we went by the 5th Century standard, which only included direct Schismatics, then most Heterodox would still need to be Baptised since the Protestants are not directly Schismatics.

The stretches and the pagan names were developed at the same time. Always be careful to not try to reduce everything. Words and names can change meaning with time and be applied differently. We must be careful to again, avoid equivocation and thus blind ourselves to the main point. Stick with non yoga stretches and stay close to our Lord and His mother.

@@living_orthodox I promise to be careful Father. Non-pagan stretches. As still an inquirer for a few mores days, I found that learning often comes from making mistakes until someone points out where the stumbling blocks are.

@@stevelenores5637 God bless you and help you dear brother! I am glad. I pray that soon you’ll be united to our Lord in His mysteries

It doesn’t. You have to learn to separate what the Church says and teaches, from the errors of individuals. Placing everything on what groups of individuals say over what the saints and the fathers teach is common error in modern thought.

My advice to you as a priest is to work more on learning what the fathers and the saints teach, rather than trying to figure it all out. The Church is over 2000 years old. It takes time to learn. Don’t worry about trying to figure out and solve the problems on your own until you’ve become a member of the Church, and have gone through more catechesis.

No. The only good “ecumenism” is baptizing Protestants and Catholics into the Orthodox faith. To quote Bishop Luke “if you want to have communion with Catholics and Protestants, baptize them.”

Then you’ve forgotten what St. Paul warns in regards to false teachers. This isn’t based on opinions or who is “nice” or political affiliation. Those outside of the Orthodox Church teach a false gospel. There is one Christ and there is one Church. Jesus isn’t a polygamist with multiple brides who can’t even agree on what the Bible teaches. Everyone cannot have the Holy Spirit and come up with vastly different interpretations. God isn’t schizophrenic.

Thanks

@livingorthodox5260 23And Jesus said unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, It is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. 24And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. 25And when the disciples heard it, they were astonished exceedingly, saying, Who then can be saved? 26And Jesus looking upon them said to them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible. Matthew 19.23-19.26. With God all things are possible. God is not schizophrenic. He doesn't have several brides. Truth is one. However everything is possible for God. Even what is impossible for men. God is beyond everything. I hope you agree.

That’s a logical fallacy called equivocation. Though the Olympics were part of a broader pagan societies worship, the movements aren’t worship based. Yoga’s aim is to be used as worship. The stretches are named for and meant to invoke their gods. It isn’t something that can be divorced from it. So again this is the problem with the reductionism of western people. They are so open minded their brains fall out and so spiritually blind, they think Satan can’t outsmart them. Many, many modern saints such as St Paisios and St Porphyrios who had spiritual sight, warned against it. We aren’t Protestants who pick and choose. So no. Disagreeing with saints isn’t respectful. It’s demonic pride to think you have more wisdom or insight than they do. In fact it’s the same foolishness that left Adam and Eve prey to the serpents temptations. You also misunderstood Acts. This isn’t talking about specific delicacies but the notion of the heavy dietary restrictions of the Jews. The reason this is lifted is because Christ has made all things new. When humanity fell through Adam, the whole cosmos fell with him. When Christ rose from the dead He became the New Adam, and now creation is being renewed by the Holy Spirit. St Paul makes it explicitly clear that one doesn’t eat food offered to idols. This literally means you don’t eat food blessed by pagans or offered before their false gods as the Hindus and Sikhs do for example. That will lead to spiritual ruin. I can tell you haven’t read much of the early Church Fathers. Some of who learned at the feet of the disciples. For the love of your soul one cannot be so careless and trusting of something so inconsistent as personal opinion. People will obsess over politics and how this affects them. They’ll obsess over diet and exercise and put in the work to have a basic understanding of these things in order to benefit or to pursue vainglory. But when it comes to their souls? They suddenly don’t care. They suddenly think that it’s too hard, it’s too much work. Pick up your cross and put aside yourself for Christ. If you can’t do that, then you’re in love with an idea, a Christ who doesn’t exist. Not the sober Christ of the Bible who warns that even looking at a woman with lust, is committing adultery with her in your heart. So again. Look up a logic book. The fallacy of equivocation is all over your argument. You’re failing to distinguish between culture and praxis. Apply what you said in the reverse and you’ll see how ridiculous the argument is. I suppose reductionism of this sort would also lead one to drink water from the toilet because it’s just water after all. Yoga is a praxis. Its ban in the Church is because it is intrinsically inseparable from worship. If you want to eat chicken korma that’s fine. No yoga. No demons. As for warfare and its training, the Jews did this as well. So again, not a good argument. God is also referred to as a “Man of War” in the OT. This is why we have to be careful not to confuse terms and set up poor arguments based on poor reasoning.

@@living_orthodox I did look this up and apparently Palates is demonic also according to Orthodoxy. I suppose massage therapy is also prohibited but it helped heal my body from arthritic pain. As I started to say before almost every created thing has had a deity, including the Earth itself. I believe as Christians we need to separate the pagan gods from the creation or we won't be able to do anything at all. In Genesis God says creation is good. Just because humans came along later and spoiled it by worshiping the creation and not the creator, it shouldn't prevent Christians from enjoying what God has declared is good. I believe this is discernment and not equivocation IMHO. ☦ I will concede that some have used Yoga for the worship of false gods which is indeed sin. Yet God created us in his image and that which benefits the image which glorifies God, just as all creation glorifies God, can't be that far from Godliness.

Yoga philosophy is one of the six major orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy, though it is only at the end of the first millennium CE that Yoga is mentioned as a separate school of thought in Indian texts, distinct from Samkhya. Ancient, medieval and most modern literature often refers to Yoga-philosophy simply as Yoga.

@@johnnyd2383 I cut almost all the Yoga exercises except one for arm rotation. It's just so I can reach up without restriction. I don't do any of the others. I haven't done any Palates for a while but if I do it will only be the ones for the legs which help keep me from cramping. Like I said if you had to avoid everything that has had a false god named after it you couldn't even walk on the ground or look at the sky because of all the ancient gods people named them.