Orthodox Practices Origin

[sojourner_tim]

Sean,

At the beginning of your thread you claimed to have once been a member of the "GOC." To which GOC jurisdiction did you belong? What parish did you attend? Who was your priest?

I don't remember all the details but I was part of 2 greek orthodox parishes in my life. The first i attended until i was about 9. That one was in I believe it was the city of Riverside, maybe San Bernardino, CA. The priest's name was Father Peter. The second was from when I was 9 until i was about 16. That one was in Temecula, CA. There, we actually had multiple different priests during that time as it was a small congregation and i seem to remember the priests were like loaners kind of. They were not permanently assigned.

Forgive me, but from reading your posts, I don't believe you were ever an Orthodox Christian, much less an Old Calendar Traditionalist. I have seen on many occasions the use of outright fraud on behalf of Protestant sectarians who are proselytizing members of various faiths, in that they claim to have once been a member of that person's faith, and misrepresent it in order to "save" them.

I give you my word that everything i have said here is the truth. You have the option to not believe me of course but my word is all i can give you.

If the Church is not your Mother, God is not your Father. You are not a member of the Church, therefore you have no authority to comment on "our" scriptures, much less teach the members of the Body of Christ about them. There isn't a single thing you could point out to us that we would find new or profound. There isn't a thing you could teach us that we haven't already thoroughly considered and utterly rejected, as many of us are converts from your sectarianism.

I can see this thread going on ad infinitum, since your interest seems only to be that of poaching for souls, and no matter how well one may refute your novelties with the authoritative teachings of the Church, you would still blather on about Sola Scriptura. If you are who you claim to be, then please show us some credentials. If you are just a wolf, trying to disperse the sheep, then please take your sectarianism elsewhere.

Coming from a background in the Greek Orthodox church, i was once just as adamant as you about it being the only church. Then one day God opened my eyes to the dead religiousness that I lived. My allegiance was more to a "church" than it was to Christ. Admittedly, part of this was my fault as we are all individually responsible for seeking out God. Part of it though, and I believe the larger part, was the church's failure to teach the Word of God faithfully. There was maybe 5 or 10 minutes of teaching from the scriptures and then the rest of the service consisted of a few hyms (which is not wrong at all, except the couple that pray to Mary) communion (which i have no problem with of course) and then the rest of the time was spent repeating essentially the same liturgy every week. I spent 16 years of my life in that church and no one ever told me what it was to be redeemed. I never knew truly what Jesus's sacrifice meant for me, what He saved me from, what heartfelt worship was like, how to read my bible or that i even really should search the scriptures on a daily basis. Then I met Jesus for real about 6 years ago. Since then He has changed my life immensely. He gave me a purpose I never had before. Every day my goal is to glorify Him with everything i do. I used to be deathly afraid of talking to people or in front of crowds. Now through the power of His Holy Spirit, God has grown me into a bible teacher and worship leader. He is real, He is personal, He redeemed me not any work or church.

I don't believe that everyone in the orthodox church is going to hell of course. As long as you accept Jesus's atoning work on the cross and trust in that alone for your salvation from sin and death then you are a child of God. The Orthodox church, baptism (although it is necessary), prayer to saints or Mary cannot save you from your sins but Jesus Christ can and will when we ask. I know you may take this as an attack on you but please know that i am doing this because i have a heart for those trapped in this sad line of thinking. I have been where a lot of you are so i just ask you to be a Berean, compare what you are taught with scripture and be willing to change our will and beliefs and line them up with the scriptures.

[Jean-Serge]

There was maybe 5 or 10 minutes of teaching from the scriptures and then the rest of the service consisted of a few hyms (which is not wrong at all, except the couple that pray to Mary) communion (which i have no problem with of course) and then the rest of the time was spent repeating essentially the same liturgy every week. I spent 16 years of my life in that church and no one ever told me what it was to be redeemed.

Well, you were probably a christian on the Sunday who does not attend matins and verpers whose theological teaching is very developped... Well, the fathers of the church talked about being redeemed. Why did not you read them? People ara not responsible of your ignorance!

[sojourner_tim]

Well, you were probably a christian on the Sunday who does not attend matins and vespers whose theological teaching is very developped... Well, the fathers of the church talked about being redeemed. Why did not you read them? People are not responsible of your ignorance!

Well actually in my first church I was pretty young as I said so i don't know about that but my second church was very small and we did not have those.

As i said, it was partially my fault for not reading the bible at the time but the church did absolutely nothing to encourage us. Which is my criticism mainly, that the church emphasizes infant baptism and continual church attendance for salvation and not the true gospel message. Thank the Lord though that I saw the error of my ways and did read the Word, it was through my reading and the teaching of some godly men that I saw that my trusting in the Greek Orthodox Church would get me no where eternally.

[sojourner_tim]

What Orthodox are you all here? Mostly Eastern? Are any of you Greek Orthodox?

[GOCPriestMark]

...God does not guarantee that tradition would last forever but he does say his Word will.

Do you read to what you write? "He says His Word will" last forever, He does not say "My scriptures which my Apostles will later write" will last forever.

St. John the Theologian says: "And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written."

This would include other things which Jesus Christ said, for previous to this St. John had not only written things which Jesus "did", but also things He said.

[Pravoslavnik]

Tim writes: "I pose this: How, exactly, do you presume to know that God has preservered the mystical theoria and praxis of the church through the traditions of Orthodoxy? How could you know this?"

Tim,

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  Did not Christ God explicitly tell the Apostles that the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, would come and [i]guide them in the way of all truth?[/i]  Did He not also explicitly tell them that the gates of hell [i]would not prevail[/i] against this Church? If you postulate that the Church formed by the Apostles (i.e., the Orthodox Church) has not established and preserved the true theoria and praxis of the Church, you are, in effect, saying that Christ God and the Biblical scriptures are false regarding the formation of the Church by the Holy Spirit.  Furthermore, Christ could not have been referring to the Protestant "churches" in this prophecy, because they never existed until after the 16th century--they were not invented by Luther, et.al., until 1,500 years after the coming of the Holy Spirit at the first Pentecost.

[sojourner_tim]

Do you read to what you write? "He says His Word will" last forever, He does not say "My scriptures which my Apostles will later write" will last forever.

I was quoting from 1 pet 1:24-2:3

“ All flesh is as grass,
And all the glory of man[f] as the flower of the grass.
The grass withers,
And its flower falls away,
25 But the word of the LORD endures forever.”[g]
Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you.
1 Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, 2 as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby,[a] 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.

It's quite clear that he is referring to the scriptures as the word and I don't think you deny that the NT is inspired scripture right?

St. John the Theologian says: "And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written."

This would include other things which Jesus Christ said, for previous to this St. John had not only written things which Jesus "did", but also things He said.

This passage shows that obviously there were many other things Jesus said and did that were not recorded in the Gospels. I believe that you accept the Book of John as being scripture inspired by the Holy Spirit of God correct? This verse shows us that despite the fact that Jesus did many other amazing things, the Holy Spirit chose very specific events that He wanted recorded so they would last forever. The same is true of all the bible.