In Response To Slander Of Elder Ephraim

[CGW]

Without proof, you cannot found your claims, and it is kind of hard to maintain I do not have a voice on the topic when your star witness says that I AM a FIRSTHAND witness and confidant of his.

Perhaps you missed this the first time around: I don't consider you to be a reliable witness. Indeed, as far as I am concerned you might as well be considered a partisan of the monastery, attacking its enemies in every venue you can find. Who is persecuting whom? Nobody mentioned the Indiana list thread until you reappeared here, a ghost from the past, railing against Mr. Smith and any who dared to even entertain that there might be something to his complaints. I am increasingly bothered by the practice of using this forum as a vehicle for attacking people who aren't here. Mr. Kapner has done this, you have done it, and now I see that Vladimir Moss has appeared to do it. It is one thing to discuss such screeds once they have been posted, as to whether they (a) are credible, and (b) demand or even justify some response on our part. In the case of the deposed Gregory what I have mostly learned is that I really don't want to have anything to do with any of the parties; but in the case of St. Anthony's, mostly what I've learned from you is that you are, as I said, a partisan, not a source of information.

And anyway, you have a bad history here. If I am "unsigned", you have been told my name before. In that very discussion you took to tossing insults at me as through they were weapons of infallible argument.

The issue here is whatever we make it to be. Right now, you have made yourself the issue, because your conduct hasn't improved at all in two years, and neither has the quality of your witness to the "truth". If I want to find out about holy Orthodox tradition, you are the last person I would ask. If I want to know about unholy traditions passing themselves off as holy among the Orthodox, well, you witness to them abundantly.

If you want me to believe that the elder does not believe the protocols, your best bet is to cough up some evidence that he disdains them. I don't think that you can, and I don't think that you will. As it is, it is perhaps only by my forbearance (and thus that of the moderators) that you are able to continue your program of slanders against me. Perhaps the supreme irony in this is your invocation of McCarthy, since your continual attempts to associate me with Soviet persecutions replicates his program exactly.

[Kollyvas]

In other words, Mr. Smith's own mentioning of me doesn't matter. Truth doesn't matter. The only thing that matters to you is what you feel and the agenda and accusations which up puff up your feelings REGARDLESS OF WHETHER OR NOT THEY'RE TRUE. Without specifics or any real presentation of your position, you now find it necessary to jump from the monastery to me to Mr. Moss to etc. and in the same breath accuse me of attacking Mr. Smith. My response to him is not unsympathetic, but a liar should not go unchallenged. That you are uncomfortable with FIRSTHAND testimony and Truth and specifics moreover further illuminates the weakness of your position for you DO NOT PRESENT THEM TO BOLSTER your big lie template. If you wish to discuss what I have said in the past or now, find some specifics and start a new thread without engaging in ad hominem. The only thing you've further illustrated is that you can accuse and despise without foundation. Get thee behind me, satan.

Orthodoxia I Thanatos!
R M Malleev-Pokrovsky

[CGW]

In other words, Mr. Smith's own mentioning of me doesn't matter.

To tell the truth, I didn't even notice that Mr. Smith had mentioned you. And now that you've brought that up, and I've gone back and reread that particular message more carefully, I see that you've now opened up the possibility that this is also a personal vendetta against him on your part. And while I was at it, I looked back at those old posts. I'm not sure whether Bishop Tikhon had you identified correctly, but it also brought to mind the time you decided to "take over" alt.religion.christian.east-orthodox.

In short, no, before it didn't matter; and had you not brought it up, it still wouldn't matter. Now it matters.

Truth doesn't matter.

Your posturing about "truth" grew tiresome years ago. You want me to agree to your "truths"? Then make a serious effort to convince me.

The only thing that matters to you is what you feel and the agenda and accusations which up puff up your feelings REGARDLESS OF WHETHER OR NOT THEY'RE TRUE.

What I feel? I feel a sense of annoyance, of course, and a sense of amusement (that you tipped your hand about the relationship between you and Mr. Smith), and a sense of intellectual superiority (hubris, I know), and a sense of disgust that you would represent Christ in so vile a tone.

Whether my feelings are "true"-- which I can only interpreted to mean that they are merited-- isn't very important. What is done about them is more important. Whether you understand me well enough to make assertions about my unstated feelings is at best doubtful.

Without specifics or any real presentation of your position, you now find it necessary to jump from the monastery to me to Mr. Moss to etc. and in the same breath accuse me of attacking Mr. Smith.

Not in the same breath. I do interpret what you say as an attack on the credibility and character of Mr. Smith, because it is. And I do link you with Messrs. Kapner and Moss. But it doesn't seem obscure to me that the linkage of the second part is in likeness of action, not as some sort of a conspiracy (which is how I would normally read "link", under the circumstances). And it doesn't seem difficult to understand that the specific target of your screed isn't germane to the likeness.

My response to him is not unsympathetic, but a liar should not go unchallenged. That you are uncomfortable with FIRSTHAND testimony and Truth and specifics moreover further illuminates the weakness of your position for you DO NOT PRESENT THEM TO BOLSTER your big lie template.

There is your firsthand testimony, and there is Mr. Smith's, and there is testimony from any others. And then there is myself, and another, and the next person after that to sift through all the testimony and judge the truth for themselves. At this point I doubt you could accurately state my conclusions thus far-- conclusions, I would add, that are hardly fixed. The only position for which I am a proponent is that circumstances vitiate your continued claim as an oracle of the truth, and reduce you to exactly a party in the dispute and a claimant to being a witness.

That indeed is one of the three points here. The other two points are these:

First, as to the whole "protocols" end of the discussion you have no witness to offer and are simply a member of one party.

Second: There is no ad hominem in considering your previous testimony in evaluating what you say this time around.

[Kollyvas]

You simply dont have anything to say. And what you've offered now is moving on from the monastery to Vladyka Tikhon to me to others, all about how you don't believe anything except what you want to believe. Please don't waste our time and get back on your meds.

Praying for your tortured soul,
R M Malleev-Pokrovsky

[CGW]

You simply dont have anything to say. And what you've offered now is moving on from the monastery to Vladyka Tikhon to me to others, all about how you don't believe anything except what you want to believe. Please don't waste our time and get back on your meds.

Anastasios, I believe this is your bailiwick.....

[spiridon]

have we forgotten that we have been left the writings of many saints and elders for the very purpose of not Abandoning us at this time and they were aware that this time would come...it doesnt mean the time is near the end,or maybe it is near, no one human is for sure,not even our Bishops, or Metropolitans -Only Christ is for sure of that dreadful day..until then Thank God that he gave his Saints and Servants the mental capacity to leave such instructions and writings for us in these lonely and confusing times....I believe these are times that certain people are preparing for that guidance that people will need and seek in about 20-50 years to come,when our children will also be in the same predicament as us today ,But hopefully with God`s help they(our children) will learn from our mistakes...............

[chrsstms]

Without proof, you cannot found your claims, and it is kind of hard to maintain I do not have a voice on the topic when your star witness says that I AM a FIRSTHAND witness and confidant of his.

... I am increasingly bothered by the practice of using this forum as a vehicle for attacking people who aren't here. Mr. Kapner has done this, you have done it, and now I see that Vladimir Moss has appeared to do it...

Personally, I would think than only ignorance would attempt to tie these two names together. Firstly, the subject of which Mr. Moss speaks in these posts is a tried-and-true heresy, from the more United Church (more united than today, anyhow.)

Mr. Moss is one of the few (although the only one I can think of) modern theologians who can truly give the other side a fair shake. And this is coming from one who accepts the "Dogma of the Redemption" and "The River of Fire" to the point where he allowed himself out of the Church! (This last statement shall go unexplained, however.)

Mr. Moss at least allows the other side of his argument tell their side of the story fairly, without characterization and ad hominem attacks. In other words, he appears to me to be a very fair and thorough theologian. He is the only one who has seriously caused me to question the above (by his article "THE MYSTERY OF REDEMPTION" http://romanitas.ru/eng/The%20Mystery%2 ... mption.htm ), and for that I would like to ask him to elaborate on the conclusion one could take from such teachings:

1) If there are tollhouses, how could one who is a great sinner like myself find any hope for salvation if he had to be tried by his sins? I know there are attempts to answer this question, but they seem unsatisfactory to me. Remember, I have left the Church (over a decade ago).

2) If a large part of the pain of hell (according to the "River of Fire" theory) is the anguish of separation from God and the hatred caused by such a sentence, what of those who know they are horrible sinners and expect Hell anyway, and would praise God for a just decision in sending them to where their mind is at anyway, and would realize that it is their own weak will that landed them there in the first place?

(Also, the Lamians left for administrative purposes, NOT Heresy, which, as far as I can determine, is the only canonical excuse to seperate from your Bishop.)

Thank you.

Chrysostomos