A Question that caused a Crisis.

[Jean-Serge]

They taught it during centuries... and now they renounce to it... Moreover, "ex cathedra" is an invention of 1870-71; you cannot find this word in the patristic litterature... Another papal innovation as usual as if thinking one thing was not thinking one thing; but now you have "ex cathedra" opinion and normal opinions... So the Pope can say a heresy not "ex cathedra" and after that he will say, "oh do not worry, I did not say it ex cathedra". With the limbo affair, they acknowledge they had erred doctrinaly... If the primacy is divine and prevents them from falling, how could they have erred so many centuries?

[Cyprian]

St. John Chrysostom:

What then happens, when the care for the husband is withdrawn, and the care to please God does not constrain them? They naturally become idlers, tattlers, and busybodies...And nothing is so unbecoming to a woman, as to busy herself in the concerns of others, and it is no less unbecoming to a man. This is a great sign of impudence and forwardness.

[Lenexa]

What Eucherius has posed, in essence, is the "problem of evil," or theodicy. How can an omnipotent, omniscient, just God permit evil in our world--such as the terrible suffering of an innocent child? This question caused me to stumble greatly in my youth, many years before I discovered the true Church of the Orthodox. The answer to the question is simple, but profound.

The Triune God saw that it was good to create a cosmos of beings in His own image and likeness, capable of exercising rational and creative capacities in freedom. He did not choose to create a cosmos of automatons, robots who would always obey His perfect will. Both the bodiless hosts (angels) and man were created with freedom of the will. This freedom was good in the sight of God, but also presented opportunities for the bodiless hosts, and man, to sin. Evil in the world arises from sin on the part of both men and bodiless hosts who have fallen from grace (i.e., demons.) There is also so-called natural "evil" (earthquakes, etc.) arising from processes inherent in the physical properties of the created cosmos, which can be influenced by spiritual forces if God so wills. Christ God, for example, was able to calm the Sea of Tiberias, and taught that even man "could move mountains" through faith.

With regard to the murdered child, recall the teaching of Christ God: "Offenses will come into the world, but woe to him by whom the offense comes!" Christ also said of those who abuse children, "It would be better for that man if a millstone were tied around his neck and he were cast into the sea...."

• Pravoslavnik

Pravoslavnik I believe that you are missing the crux of the crisis for me. I had no problem understanding the basic problem of Evil. I can accept that Evil is an un-avoidable byproduct of Free Will. However if God is truly omnipotent and omniscient and intervenes insofar as to influence our Free Will through miracles than why not swing the closet door open that the little girl was locked in for three days? Why not work a miracle then? That is what sickened me! and still sickens me! If I was dying of cancer I would ask God to please save those little innocent ones and but let me die cleansed and blameless that I may intercede for all and especially those in need, my family, friends and the Orthodox around the world. I guess I just couldn't get over the enormity of it and the pain it caused in me. I appreciate the quote and I used to go back to it time and time again when I would promote idea of making new legislation to make child molestation a capital offense. Only looking death in its face and facing certain death by execution while sitting on Deathrow will such sick people be put in a place to repent and die blameless. Believe me all who read this! I know first hand!

I appreciate the advice all of you have given however I am shocked that anyone would think a little eight-year-old girl brutally tortured, raped, and murdered would die deserving hell-fire!
Evfimy you are knowledgable of Roman Catholic doctrine. Do not draw to close to Feeneyism. I agree Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus but Baptism of blood and Baptism of desire do not amount to universal salvation. I don't think that any of us assuming the salvation of innocents who are murdered though they are not Orthodox before dying constitutes our embracing universal salvation or claiming to know that which is known to God alone.

Regarding unbaptized babies, I am not sure on the Orthodox teaching on this.

I believe Catholics teach that an unbaptized baby will not experience the beautific vision of God. But they will go to Limbo, a place of natural peace and joy.

I personally believe God removes some people from life early if He knows they have no potential of ever converting to Him. And also their deaths might help the spiritual development of other people, such as their families, etc.

My own mother's death awoke me to the realization of how fleeting everything in this world is.
-Evfimy

Indeed this life flies!
After Vatican II and the acceptance of Liberalism, a great heresy, into Roman Catholicism and turning mass into a show or at worst a circus, literally, have you seen the clown mass pics? Limbo was a doctrine that disgusted me and moved me right out of Roman Catholicism. At a much younger age nothing would have made me happier than to go to Latin Mass and be a Traditional Roman Catholic saying the Rosary and believing in Fatima but due to Jesus Christ's intervention I was pulled from the quicksand. Do you really believe that God willfully allows the murder of innocent children to save them? In that case why would he not act as such to save those who died great sinners and separated themselves from God? Your belief just seems cruel and strange to me.
As far as Papal Infallibility goes I am always amazed by this doctrine since Roman Catholics teach that it has always been there. I just spent my lunch break at home and watched a History Channel show on Lucretia Borgia. I know a bishop can be a great sinner but how can the Pope be a truly infallible mediatrix for the Holy Spirit when we have had pope's who fathered and raised children pursuing political power loving this world?!
But I am not making fun. I have a few Traditionalist Roman Catholic friends who just do not want to read Guttee's book.

Back to the issue at hand. I definitely want to have a spiritual father/confessor again and get back to Church as often as possible. When I went to a small Serbian Church one Sunday I remembered what I was missing! I really love to be at Church and I have since I was a child. For those of you in TOCs I know that the Serbs are World Orthodox but at least it is better than nothing and at this time I am still very sceptical about the claims of the TOCs.

Let me tell you how I have partially answered the question that so troubled me. I know that during the martyrdom and or torturing of many saints God removed their pain that they would not feel the pain. I know that this was the case with the late Blessed Hierarch Philaret of New York when he was tortured in China by the Communists though, thankfully, not to death. I also believe this was the case with St.George? But I also know that God does not remove the pain and suffering in every case. One of hagiographies that so moved me and that I re-read several times late at night after work or on break at work while still a catechumen was that of Sts. Adrian and Natalie http://users.sisqtel.net/williams/stsad ... talie.html
Suffering and dying for Christ scares the **** outta me! but I am strengthened to read about it. It is too much for me to have to think about a little baby suffering this way from the lusts and hate of a disgusting human being.
However I do believe that suffering and death have the power to sanctify. When I pray and fast not gloating or succumbing to hate and anger that God is cleansing me. I cannot help but believe those innocents who die are Baptised in their own blood. I also believe that in most if not all cases God does remove the pain. I have to believe this!

I also have to admit that I am disgusted by the age and country I live in. Movies like "Hostel" and "Saw" sell out! Why! Absolutely Evil disgusting books like "American Psycho" are Best-Sellers! Why! Eighty percent of us walk about in debt barely getting by. Most of us are not Orthodox and getting our central relief from sex, alcohol and marijuana or some other pain-killer. This is not overly explicit or something to be hushed up by Orthodox. I confess I am more guilty than anyone. I fell away from the Church to be a worse sinner than I had been before. But by God's grace I have a wonderful woman in my life and am expecting a child! Pray for our lawful union in God's Church. Pray for my family.

With love for all of you and your help and prayers!
In Christ,
Eucherius

[GOCTheophan]

Joasia:
It's Mrs Budinski and there is a saying about it taking one to know one...
If I had known you meant this to be your private thread I wouldn't have bothered.....

Maybe you can convince Craig to finally get dunked once and for all....

Katya

Katya,

I feel guilty that my "bull in a china shop" at times approach has driven you away from the way of Salvation and I am frightened of answering for such at the Judgement. Do you not think that maybe your tone towards Cyprian/Craig/whatever you want to call the said person might be equally counter-productive?

Theophan.

[Lenexa]

Thought some of you might like this Roman Catholic statement of belief with regard to the Papacy

The spirit of error has ever been busy among men opposing God's work, but in the end truth shall prevail. The God-man was misrepresented and his death secured by calumny, and His Vicar on earth may expect no better treatment. Man's reason and Will are weak, and a divinely constituted authority alone can guide him into truth. Our Lord knew this, and gave us in His Vicar the corner-stone of His Church, this infallible authority. The enemy of our salvation knows it too, and hence his endeavors to pull down the Papacy by impugning its doctrinal infallibility. Had this authority once erred, Christ's promises were vain; His work a fraud or a failure. The Council of the Vatican decreed that the Pope, teaching ex cathedrâ, is infallible, which decree insures Catholics that neither Liberius, nor any other occupant of Peter's chair, has ever taught the Church error. Nevertheless, it is highly useful and satisfactory for us to know that the voice of history reechoes that of authority, and proclaims that no shade of error has ever clouded the brow that wears the Papal crown. As the ruins of ancient greatness, discovered in Egypt and elsewhere, confirm many things related in Scripture, so, as fresh manuscripts and monuments of other days emerge from the dust of centuries, we shall find vindications of many who are now maligned, not because they deserve it, but because they represent Him who said to His followers, "Blessed are you when they shall revile you and persecute you; speak all things evil against you untruly for my sake; be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven." Matt. v.2.

The Pope no longer wears the Papal Crown.
Vatican II in many instances is in direct contradiction to previous Papal declarations/statements. It is so sad and tragic that after all that has happened these nearly two thousand years that there are people who still cling to the Papacy and argue that because as an institution it still exists is proof that the Church is the Roman Catholic church. Then those who so strongly clung to and defended Papal Tradition, Latin Liturgical Tradition, Roman Catholic Dogma are then so harshly and shamelessly persecuted by the very Papal See after Vatican II while giving license to all the gross heresies which rose up throughout the world during the '70s.
I just cannot explain to those of you who did not grow up wanting Traditional Roman Catholicism what it is like. You see pictures of clown masses, hear about all the un-trained and heretical priests with sermons about any number of things that are wrong. You have priests even teaching theology in Universities defending homosexual rights and giving sermons on how Jesus would have marched in homosexual Rights Parade! This is much harder to deal with when you hear it first hand.
Get out of the Latin heresy! It has lost almost every vestige that even resembles Orthodoxy!

[joasia]

Lexena

We are such fools to think that we can rationalize God's plans for mankind with our feeble, corrupt minds. The only way that we can understand God's purpose in everybody's lives, that HE created, is by being in communion(participating) with His Holy Grace. And since we don't do enough to reach that union, then of course, we fall back on our rationalistic, humanistic views that we are connected to with our society. The Holy saints have the answers. They made the connection.

How can the created mind (limited) understand the uncreated mind? There is no mathematical formula for that or scientific observation. At this point, it becomes the essence of pure faith and only the holy saints and martyrs are a witness to that. We are a mere sorrowful lot that try to make sense of the world.

It's as if we are somehow restrained from attempting that union that the saints reached. We are being combatted by a plethora of invisible spiritual attacks on our thoughts to make us feel that we are doing the best that we can. We are being influenced into a state of non-compliance with God. If that would happen in our jobs, then we would be fired. The judgement would be passed. But, with spiritual matters concerning God, we think that we can get by. Not so. Our time of judgement will come and we will see how little we get for how little we gave.

The one lesson of faith that I have learnt from all the readings of saints' lives and their writings, is that God MUST BE UNQUESTIONED. Meaning...trust in God, no matter what. And that includes all the things we hear about the sufferings of others.

It may not make sense to us, but God's will is evident in EVERYBODY'S lives. The biggest spiritual struggle of our times is to have full trust in God. To believe that He is present in every moment of our lives. And for that, we should make the greatest effort in going to Holy Confession and Holy Communion.

You ask; why this subject? Because if you look at it with a greater scope, the whole point of our existence is to rely on God for everything(to be united with our Creator) and therefore, when we doubt(which Adam did), which becomes sin, because we do what WE will and not what God wills, then that becomes our defiance of God and becomes our greatest sin. Sin is defiance of God's will.

And to correct that is only through Holy Confession and Holy Communion. So in answer to the horrible event of the murdered child...God is our Creator and knows all and as a person who worships God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we should give all our heart, mind and body to His Will and trust that whatever happens in life, that God is watching over us, for our salvation.

In Christ,

Joanna

[Evfimy]

You think the clown mass is bad? How about their dorito potato chip mass, dracula, baloon, guitar, nude mass, etc.

These are all the innovations of the post Vatican II Freemasonic conspiracy against the Church.

I'll stay with the traditional mass.