The Shocking Truth about Christian Orthodoxy - John Behr 

I was raised and baptized at 12 years old in the Church of Christ. I had heard about the Orthodox Church, but it was not till last December 2015, when I saw an documentary about Jerusalem, that I heard a statement which struck me hard. The Orthodox Church was said the be the church that Christ established. I pondered as how could this be when the Church of Christ was said to be the first church. Nonetheless, lead by the Holy Spirit, I researched my history and compared to discover that while I received a strong foundation from the Church of Christ, that foundation came from the Orthodox faith. With that said, I found an Orthodox Church and now converting to the faith.

Converted to Orthodoxy from Reformed Protestantism in 2014. We found the True Faith!

I converted to Orthodoxy in 2019, at first it seemed foreing, but then, paradoxicaly. I realized I had come back home. All Glory to Jesus Christ!

appreciate this, from an indian orthodox.

I’m Catholic and I love my Orthodox brothers and sisters!

Wonderful and powerful Orthodox Christian teaching here! A great video to watch during Holy Week.

I saw father John today for real in Durham, England, he radiates a lot of grace. God bless him.

Unless you experience it and LIVE it, you can't understand why the orthodox Church is simply the Church, the only one. God is an experience, not a theory.

Just left the Catholic Church now joining the Orthodox church

Wonderful Lecture. We need to hear more of this kind of Christian Scholarship.

I am very interested in the Orthodox Church. My wife, not so much. Prayers are welcomed. Thank you all.

Thank you so much for this! I discovered orthodoxy whilst doing a course on the parallels and differences between it and Buddhism. The same wish to give real love and the desire to overcome hate - within our hearts and in the world- are present in both. Orthodox belief shows me how to be me in Christ and how to allow Christ to be Christ in me . 🙏

Wonderful summation. Not until Christ announced on the cross "It is finished" did God finish Man. Christ is what it means to be human.

John Behr absolutely is a good historian. No use bashing a real scholar.

divine inspiration still exists, not all is written, listen to the inner voice of God. The light of Jesus Christ only begotten son of God is within us all. Let is shine through humility and love of each other.

I have met Fr John around 2002. He is a truly extraordinary scholar and a very gentle man.

very true my god be with you all orthodox God bless you ⛪💒

Mon Dieu, Il est Magnifique!...Illuminé!

We know Jesus lives and we belong to the family of God by the Spirit of Christ in us. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, "neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand".

"What made the Church catholic was that it embraced diversity." A statement for the ages.

fantastic love this. Would love to become orthodox

This is one of the most insightful talks I've ever heard. Completely in accord with Catholic theology by the way. The first half of the talk is absolutely devastating to Sola Scriptura. The second half discusses how John calling Jesus the Logos of God means that Jesus is the very *definition* of what it means to be divine. It also makes clear that our purpose in being on earth is to learn to be a fully divinized human through obedient self-sacrifice. Scripture concurs. Heb 5:8 says of Jesus "And whereas indeed he was the Son of God, he *learned obedience* by the things which he suffered." (DRV) If Jesus needed to learn obedience, then how much more do we need to learn the same lesson?

The man is highly intelligent and very highly qualified. He is a man worth listening too.

The amount of trouble i got in for asking these questions, only to be seeing teachers treat them so seriously is WILD

Remarkable talk. Some beautiful insights I had not heard before. Pity the audio wasn't the best... Thanks.

I will give you a fact that will move you. Did you know that the holly lights in the tomb of Christ ONLY appears to the Christian Orthodox? that says everything.

WONDERFUL! Thank you for posting this video!

Thank you for these videos! I'm a new inquirer into EO from Catholic SSPX.

What a brilliant man, and a great theologian!

This is a wonderful lecture. Thank you for posting this.

This is revelatory! Several salient points that make excellent connections and conclusions that expound the foundational truths of Christianity. This is worthy of seminary quality. Thank you!

Listening to this I feel as though I never really heard the Gospel before! Is there a transcript of this talk somewhere?

Aaahhh...I see now. It seems my interpretation "historicism" was off basis, I apologize. Thank You for clearing that up, as Well as posting this very commending video! Praise Augustine College!

The real Jesus, "before Abraham was born I AM" And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began. I have believed and prayed to Jesus a far back as my memory goes. My access to Christ wasn't by understanding theology but by the faith of a child. Jesus answered back.

I am Roman Catholic of Russian descent. I fully enjoyed this lecture!

This claim by the Father that catholicism is toleration and diversity and heresy is intolerance is absolutely bizarre. It's just declaring black is white and white is black. He then has the nerve to marvel at how so many people think white is white and black is black. This guy is introduced as the greatest Orthodox theologian in the western hemisphere, and then he just gives us secular progressivism. This is what we get from the leftists who insist that men can be women and women can be men, that everyone will be better off if we raise taxes, that humans are hairless apes, and other such nonsense while they ridicule people of faith who hold to self evident reality. The church councils would decide between two sides of an issue, and then declare whoever believed in the other side was condemned. It's beyond twisted to try to claim that they were the tolerant ones and the people they were excommunicating where the intolerant ones. I'm deeply disappointed to hear this trash coming from someone described as a brilliant theologian. This is nothing but secular progressive style gaslighting being shoved on the faithful. And it's not that I misunderstand him - I get what he's trying to convince us of - that Marcian, in not accepting the consensus of the church, was the one attempting to impose his minority view on the majority, but the view is upside down. It's victim blaming. You can say the rape victim invited being raped by their behavior or dress and that is a logically understandable position while at the same time being wrong and morally reprehensible. That is clearly what is going on here - demonizing people who think for themselves as responsible for the intolerance and persecution that results from them voicing their opinions. Saying Marcian is to blame for separating himself from the church is just ignoring the fact that he separated himself because staying would have required him to stop thinking for himself. Father Behr tries to portray it as the church politely listening to him and then him leaving out of intransigence, which is like blaming someone who was assaulted for being in the position of being assaulted. Marcian left because he was told to change his thoughts, not because he refused to accept others disagreeing with him.

I pray constantly for Christian unity. That´s what our Lord wanted when he prayed "that they all be ONE." It´s the only way the world will believe. I think the Orthodox churches and the Roman Catholic church should lead the way.

Welcome Yarnell McGee my sister in Christ! With conversion, there is a great responsibility that comes with it. Remember it is a way of life, Holy Apocalypse and not a religion (man made). It is the Church of many martyrs. God bless!

Thank you! If Mr. Sudarevic, is truly Orthodox . . . he/we should tell all we know about our faith, and have all join us. In the true faith of Jesus Christ.

I really enjoyed this talk.

i do not know your religious affiliations, and it is not my business to ask. if you are protestant, however, i would ask you to consider this somewhat funny statement 'protestants believe every single christian is infallible except the pope'.

I was really liking this piece until I read the comments; this is not an apologetics video for Eastern Orthodoxy. It's not. He begins, and throughout, makes reference to Kostenberger and Kruger's "Heresy of Orthodoxy" for a reason, and it's not simply because of a provocative title. What he says, the Patristic sources, the Church Councils he appeals to, are in no way exclusive or particular to Eastern Orthodoxy - nor *excluded by*, say, the two dozen Catholic Churches and many-thousand-odd Protestant denominations - it's common to Classical Christianity, and even most Protestant denominations (of which the authors of the book are members). I'm confident the authors would appreciate this piece, and not think themselves less Christian for not being Eastern Orthodox or Catholic (whether they should or not).

brilliant, enlightening lecture!

Beautiful! God bless you!

Give us the truth of the gospel and we can have all the unity you want but without that you can't have any unity. You must be converted. you must repent. you must be born again

"Greeks [don't] have a problem with them," it was two Greek brothers, Sts. Cyrill and Methodios, sent by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, St. Photios the Great, to proclaim the message of Jesus Christ and His Holy Church to the Slavs in Moravia, and they created a written language for them, "Cyrillic," which is the alphabet of the Russians, Ukrainians, Serbians, and others in nations of Orthodox Christians, and translated Divine Services of the Church, and one of the Gospels.

Fabulous!

To become perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect, is to give of yourself selflessly and in the great pleasure and joy the Father showed to the prodigal son.Give of yourself selflessly,in love of mankind and the joy and pleasure of giving gives us the uttermost spiritual satisfaction.I do know how this feels.If it is from your own need,as the widow's mite,as she was exaulted by the Christ, the spiritual reward is exceedingly wonderful.Our Father's Command is Life Eternal,his Good Pleasure

Christ , like Socrates, wrote nothing. People wrote about Christ.

@9:27"its a fact that our only access to Christ is through interpretation". I'm perplexed. How about living experience of Christ?

And here is the question: when is ‘not seeing something to be true’ a matter of refusal and ‘intolerance’? And when is it a matter of fidelity (to the Scriptures, the Constitution, etc.) and a thing beyond our control? - The term ‘tolerance’ applies to situations where you have a choice to tolerate, no? But do you have that choice here? And what gives it to you? 2/2

Unfortunately not, but there is a supplementary reading available on our website (link posted in description above).

Well I understand on the day of Judgement God will not ask which costume party you belonged to but "How well have you loved one another"? Amen.

THAT'S MY FRIEND'S DAD

Glad to see that the comment section isn't full of people hating on religion. God bless you all.

I've been migrating toward EO for 42 years. But I'd never wave a flag and call anywhere the one true anything.

The Gospels of Mathew, Mark, Luke, John, are Not interpretations, they are eye witness accounts, written by their own hand.......

It's just struck me how his entire argument concerning the failure of the original disciples to understand and even recognize Christ -- passionate and fascinating as it is -- depends on silently forgetting the three women to whom the resurrected Christ chose to show himself first. They needed neither the book nor the bread to find access to him, i.e. direct experience is more than possible and was so for those Jesus chose to show his resurrected self to first. It's only by accepting the already patriarchally-interpreted and formed official Christian narrative which recognizes only 12 (male) disciples and privileges them even in Behr's lecture here -- he mentions the women only to drop them from the picture -- that Behr can produce a reading which privileges canonical text and ritual over direct experience. I think that, for a variety of reasons, both of the two catholic churches -- the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox church, which also bears the title of catholic, i.e. universal -- have been wise to be wary of claims of direct, unmediated, private experience; yet, and even more than any of the Protestant churches, both do depend for their deepest springs and continued existence on Christian mystics, whose personal spiritual experiences (however much they are mediated by church teachings, as thy indeed are) testify to the ways God transcends both canonical texts (the Bible) and ritual (the bread/communion host). [Paradoxically, it turns out to be Protestantism, so often self-reduced to the idolatry of a text, which has least use and respect for the direct spiritual experience as exemplified by Christian mystics.]

at 51 mins on are some great points. "There is no surplus of divinity existing someplace else attainable by some other means." Great line.

[cont 1] listen to reason, refuse to reject heresy, and go on to spread said heresy, should and must be excluded, for the good of all, themselves included. They are not excluded out of hatred, but love. We seek to prevent them from leading others astray - which constitutes a grave sin. We also seek to ensure the Truth remains amongst us - not because we see the Truth as fragile, but because we may fall away from it. [cont 2]

10:00, the first writer in the 2nd Century who gave a coherent & comprehensive account of Orthodoxy.

BTW, I put the little picture of an Icon of St. Stephen beside my name because he is my favorite saint and my personal hero; NOT because I equate myself with him in any way... is this an acceptable practice? (I am new to internet; I don't the rules yet) 😃

Very well put.

Would it not be more realistic to recognize that some "heretics" left because they were intolerant but that other "heretics" left because they saw the intolerance they were up against was unacceptable. What group of people has at all times been properly tolerant and properly divisive?

Lecture begins at @2:16

brilliant!

This is frankly brilliant, an absolute tour de force.

Christ Has Risen. ❤️☦️

I think now I am beginning to catch your drift (looking back to your earlier comment), but please tell me if I am following you. Could Arius say, ‘Those people speaking for the Church are intolerant?’ Fr. Behr (if I recall, but I am counting on memory) seems to suggest that Arius left the Church of his own free will because it stubbornly would not be persuaded of the truth he saw. Were those bishops intolerant? They were certainly inflexible. 1/2

Why does everybody think Christianity has to be "tolerant"? When did Jesus or one of the Apostle even use this word?

How does history and legend interact? I know that Rev. John Behr believes that not everything in the Gospels actually happened, but he speaks as though they did. How is that possible? I would love to hear on that.

The canonical bishop in North America were previously under SCOBA, then recently changed the name to the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops. Nothing has changed and the real issue of a unified church is swept aside. There exist no excuses, if the desire is strong. Meanwhile, they have dialogue with the catholics instead of pursuing the unity issue amongst all the Orthodox.

Any transcription of this? Please.

Catholic crusader here. Sending squad love to all allied oriental and Greek orthobros ✝️☦️

Greetings from Orthodox Bulgaria, brothers in Christ +

and this astute ascertainment does what exactly to orthodox theology?

Thank you so much. Is there a transcript available?

15:19, Arinaus' quote from a letter to Pope Victor.

If I have misunderstood you, please accept my apology. I still stand on God's Word "a new command I give you, that you love one another." May God's love minister to each child of God in the Body of Christ.

Nice.

Can anyone spell the name of the saint he mentions @ the 10 min mark? It sounds like r e nay us? Thank you

Well, explain more what you mean by “the intolerance they were up against”. If the 4th-C bishops said it was truer to Scripture (etc.) to understand Christ as both man and God (pointing to Scriptural evidence and rejecting Arianism as heresy), would that be intolerant? Or take the reading of the Constitution: if Supreme Court justices say it is true to the Constitution to reject some proposed legislation, could that be called intolerance?

What exactly conflicts in these two creeds?

Perchance, what scriptures brought about by "those" of the Protestant tradition from the Hebrew Scriptures which you refer to as "false"? Would you be so kind to list which ones that you think fall in that category? That is a very broad statement you have made.

There is something very special about Christianity and you get or don't get it. I think what stands out to me is that death is no excuse to stop fighting the devil. And the devil kicks back at this statement always. He can't run from, block, hide or kill a real Christian. I am his doom in the long run.

I want to ask about the Supreme Court. ‘The moment an appeal to authority is used to settle a difference of opinion authority is blowing smoke.’ Well, the Supreme Court settles such differences by ‘ruling’ on what’s Constitutional. Why is that ‘blowing smoke’? ‘If anything be true it can stand on its own,’ you said - so who needs the SC? - Are we not able to identify people who know better than us? People who have studied a thing deeper? Must the only supreme authority I recognize always be me?

What is the orthodox view of what happens to non-Christians after death? Is it the same or similar to Catholic doctrine?

It is common for Orthodox Christians to distress the Primacy of Peter by saying that the Bishop of Rome is first amongst equals, which in itself shows a certain respect to the pope's office. While it might seem as though the Orthodox have this pristine faith where ancient rites are still performed as before, you must keep in mind that the problem with Orthodoxy is that is it autocephalous, there are no two churches that agree with each other, which is a shame as it undermines 'that they be one.'

that is the scapegoat used to justify departure from the Church. Most of those who participated in Nicea were shown with mutilated limbs and marks of torture. Where persecuted 13 years before that meeting. Saying that is saying that all those comunities founded by the apostles e.g. Antioquia Jerusalem, Rome....suddenly and unanimously decided to betray what they were being Martyred for. hmmm The same fallacy is been repeated over an over but never proved.

No they were not heretics. They were simply labeled as heretics because they disagreed with the "in crowd." Those thought to be heretics should be tolerated because they might actually be right in their fight against the narrow minded and misguided mainstream. It is intellectually dishonest to fail to deal with an honest and open dialogue with those who disagree. That sort of cowardly attitude is what has ruined Christianity. The church obviously has no clue how heretical the main stream is.

7:19, an important section.

Nijjhar, do you know what "Prelest" is?

wonderable teaching

Yes, agreed, but here ‘historical approach’ means inheritance from the Church’s tradition of interpretation.

Yarnell McGee, do you know that the Orthodox Church is a break-away of the present Catholic Church? In year 330 A.D., Emperor Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Byzantium, which was changed to Constantinople. With this transfer of the Capital of the Roman Empire, Emperor Constantine declared Christianity (now Catholic Church) as official religion of the Roman Empire and a “branch” of the Christianity, which was based in Rome, was put up in Constantinople. This branch of Christianity in Constantinople, later, considered itself as the head-seat of Christianity. This led to animosities between Rome and Constantinople, which ended in the “Great Schism” in the year 1054 A.D. Christianity in Rome and in Constantinople excommunicated each other, and since then, the “branch” in Constantinople called itself “Orthodox Church” and the seat of Christianity was called “Catholic Church”. But, in 1965, report says, they have reconciled and the Orthodox Church has recognized the Pope in Rome as successor of the apostle Peter.

I do enjoy this video though. You are a well informed good speaker.

Doesn´t believe in the Evangelium, but believes in Dan Brown...what can I say? It speaks for itself...

I've often thought that God revealed what a cheribum looked like in order for the image to be put on the curtains separating the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies, as well as placed on the ark. Outside of those two occasions, God forbid the generating of a "likeness" for what happens is that we will usually draw/fashion an image/likeness after our own image. This is evident in icon works around the world. I do recognize that icons are an important part of Eastern Orthodox worship.

I watch lots of these seminars at colleges and universities on all kinds of topics. I'm always amazed how careless and poor the camera work, visuals, the sound. Originally I always thought an attendant used own phone to record event, then at a later time added video to RU-vid. Vids I watch are often at rich influential university. Why so poor? Taping done by volunteers on lunch? People doing recording are employees paid minimally, quick set up done, then takes smoke break? What?

On google you'll find some descriptions...