Maria wrote:Justice wrote:The World Orthodox "elder" Epiphaneos Theodoropoulos has supposedly had a "revelation" proving that the Traditional Orthodox Church is wrong. If you want to read about his "revelation" I'll give the link: http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2010/02 ... c-old.html
Do not trust John Sanidopoulos.
He is hard line World Orthodox.
And do not trust private revelations as they can be of the devil.
Even signs and wonders can be from the devil. One must learn to discern.
Yes, Maria is right to distrust private revelations. I know I do. (Though, it should be noted, the linked article is a letter explaining the writer's position, not a private "revelation" as Justice claimed).
That being said, I don't think it is good to dismiss something such as this because of the messenger. And this case, the messenger is being dismissed not because the messenger was of low moral character, but simply because he was not in the "in-group"!
I must find myself in agreement with this quote:
What is a heresy, dear Fr. Nicodemos? It is an adulteration of the Faith! But what is an adulteration of the Faith? Is it the breaching of Dogmas? That too is an adulteration of the Faith, but it is not only that. An adulteration of the Faith is also the elevating to the status of a Dogma of the Faith those things that are not. That is to say, if someone were to render a secondary thing, even if a good one, as a Dogma of the Faith, as a condition for salvation, then that someone automatically becomes a he-re-tic!
During my time on this forum I believe that I have demonstrated my sympathy to the Old Calendarist movement, even if I myself am not one of them. I am also very sympathetic towards the Old Believers. Yet, why do I not become one? Because ultimately both groups have done the above: rendered something secondary to be of importance that they are not.
Additionally, it is worth noting that in the case of both the Old Believers and the Old Calendarists, they are in schism due to something changing in the Church - even though the thing that changed has historically changed before! For most of the early history of the Church, various areas were using different calendars, up to even the sixth century. Indeed, when we were still in communion with the Copts and the Armenians and all the other Christians outside of Imperial Roman territory, there was always at least one section of the church which remained in full communion with us that had a completely different calendar. The English-Irish even celebrated Pascha on a different day than everyone else up until the Synod of Whitby in 664 A.D., and the English-Irish tradition only got changed because the British bishops present argued that Rome held supreme authority - one of the earliest recorded incidents where this occurred. Meanwhile the Old Believers are in schism over the sign of the cross being changed from two fingers to three, which originally was traced in a plus sign over the forehead, lips, and chest, as the Latins still do before the reading of the gospel.
So please, deal with the actual content of the letter instead of dismissing it out of hand due to the messenger not being affiliated with the "in-group". It's not intellectually honest.