Justice wrote:I'm in a weird place right now. If the church hasn't been following all of the cannons, then Christ's prophecy was false and has ceased to exist. Even if its one or two cannons, it still mattered as the church is self-condemned for disobeying even one of them correct? also regarding the Old Believers, they seem to have been correct about Old-Rite and the Nikonian reforms wrong. I need some time to think this over my faith is struggling at the moment. I'm sorry you all have to see me go through this again.
Justice,
You must realize that even the Holy Canons, which have been published in a huge book, are not God's commandments. Priests will tell inquirers not to read these canons, because they can be confusing.
The Holy Fathers were not attorneys who had huge libraries available at the touch of a finger as we do today with computers. On writing the Holy Canons, they were concerned with current heresies and how best to combat them, so if a prior canon had been written dealing with an older heresy, and a new heresy developed, there might be two canons that are almost identical. Both would be good, but one may have been written in a more ambiguous manner, so that one seems to contradict the other, when in actuality, they do not.
This is why it helps to have a good spiritual father, one like Father Irineos who has studied law.
Know that I will be praying for you. I too struggled greatly when I was an inquirer and a catechumen, but it helped being near a church and attending the Holy Services, which are awesome. I felt God's graces.
In Christ,
Maria
p.s The World Orthodox condemn us for being schismatic and for not being under their bishops, yet their heretical bishops and priests violate the Holy Canons repeatedly whenever they pray with heretics. The EP holds ecumenical vespers services whenever he visits the USA where he and his associates invite Methodists and Evangelical female priests along with Anglicans and Lutherans to help lead the service along with Orthodox priests and bishops. Thus the Holy Canons are violated in the presence of all. Not only are these heretics leading the Holy Services, which become unholy, but also the EP has taken out portions of the service which offend. In other words, prayers mentioning: King, Master, Lord, Son, Father, He, Him, etc. are rephrased so as not to offend militant feminists who dislike any mention of masculine nouns or pronouns.
I do not know if you have heard Archbishop Demetrios of the Greek Archdiocese of America (World Orthodoxy) give a prayer before the Republican or Democratic National Conventions, but if you have, there is no mention of Jesus Christ in that prayer. It has ceased to be a prayer.