ORLAPUBS--R: INDEX--ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN INFO & APOLOGETIX

E KOMO MAI A'E NEI, HOA

ORCHID LAND PUBLICATIONS

ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN INFORMATION, APOLOGETICS, AND LINKS

A LARGE UNOFFICIAL PAN-ORTHODOX WEBSITE ASPIRING TO
OFFER A CONSERVATIVE VIEW OF HOLY ORTHODOXY TO
ORTHODOX WORSHIPERS AND ANY OTHERS WHO MAY
WISH TO LEARN ABOUT THE ORTHODOX MIND AND
HOW ORTHODOX BELIEFS AND PRACTICES HAVE
BEEN ESTABLISHED AS TRUE AND SOUND
ENOUGH TO BE ABLE TO LAST AS
SUCH OVER TWO MILLENNIUMS

[This site begun in 1993; last updated 20081105]

THE ALL-HOLY TRINITY HAS SAVED US THROUGH GOD THE SON'S RISING FROM THE DEAD

Christ "was HANDED OVER because of our sins
and RAISED UP for the sake of our being
made righteous" [Romans 4:25]

IF YOU CLICK ON THE TABLE OF CONTENTS BUTTON, YOU WILL
FIND NEAR THE BEGINNING OF THE PAGE YOU ARRIVE AT
A LISTING OF THE MAIN TOPICS DISCUSSED ON
THIS WEBSITE; IF YOU THEN CLICK ON THE
LINK TO A TOPIC THAT YOU WISH TO
READ ABOUT, YOU WILL COME TO A
PAGE THAT LISTS ALL OF THE
PAGES ABOUT THAT TOPIC
ON THIS WEBSITE

Search WWW Search www.orlapubs.com

Our Savior's final commission (at the end of St. Matthew's
Gospel): "Make disciples, . . . teaching them . . ."
St. Peter adds, (1 Peter 3:`15) "being ever ready
for a rational response to everyone asking
you for a reason for the hope in you."
[CLICK HERE and HERE as well as HERE]

LightSpan's StudyWeb Award for Academic Excellence

I Peter 3:14 admonishes you, if you are a Christian, to be "alreadys ready with a clarifying account (apoloyían) to every-one asking you for the rationale (lógos) for the hope in you."

THOSE WHO ARE NOT AWARE OF THE PRESUPPOSITIONAL STRUCTURE OF THEIR COGNITIVE PARADIGM (Greek nous "mindset") ARE DOOMED TO BE THE
UNWITTING VICTIMS OF THOSE ASSUMPTIONS! (CLICK HERE!)

One is often unaware of the axioms that constitute the matter and form of one's cognitive paradigm (everyone has assumptions about this or that sort of reality) or of the fact that axioms are assumptions that are neither true nor false BUT fence in what can be accepted as true or must be rejected as untrue. Without this awareness, one can arrive at truthiness but not truth. However, axioms constitute the only place where a person can begin rational discusions, since they determine what individual propositions mean. Examples are given in a box below. Ecumenics does not need to discuss the different doctrines of Chritians so much as the PREMISES of the different Christian paradigms that cause the meaning of belief X to mean Y for some and Z for others!!

You cannot disprove a statement (other than [most] factual claims) in one paradigm by invoking the axioms of a different paradigm; a truth-vulnerable empirical fact can be counterexemplified but not seldom there is the argument that what is true of one example cannot be generalized to all examples of the category in question. At any rate, one cannot successfully use the axioms of an alien religious paradigm to demonstrate that some belief of either Orthodoxy or Latin Catholicism or Protestantism is wrong, though one can compare or contrast the assumptions of a given Christian paradigm with those characterizing, say, the Apostle Paul's paradigm. It is not easy to prove wrong one who accepts a given mistranslation of the Greek Bible (the Greek OT was canonical for the Apostles) by citing the original Greek; nor can one who accepts "the" original Greek Bible be realistically controverted by citing a mistranslation that s/he misterms "the" Bible.

That many self-avowed literalists reject the literal sense of this or that passage of Scripture (e.g. John 6:35, 6;53-45 or the place where the Apostle Paul calls matrimony a great Mystery (sacrament in Westspeak) . . . or of course 2 Peter 1:4 . . . exhibits the force of a paradigm. What seems blatantly contradictory to others─a literalist's rejecting the literal sense of a passage─goes unnoticed by the ideologue, who assumes that there is no other valid paradigm but one's own. One remembers Calvinists who correctly called Sunday the Lordsday (it is called that or Resurrectionday in Greek and the languages of Orthodox nations and in the Romance languages) but, in accordance with their radical antitraditionalist ideology, insisted that the Day in question is a sombre Sabbath, rather than the greatest feast or festival of the Christian calendar . . . as in non-radical, traditionalist forms of Christianity.

CLICK HERE FOR A SHORT LIST OF INTRODUCTORY READINGS ON
EASTERN ORTHODOXY FOR THOSE OF AN INTELLECTUAL BENT

A FORM OF RELIGION

√ THAT REQUIRES YOU TO FLUSH YOUR BRAINS OR HEART DOWN THE
SEWER HAS GOT TO BE INVALID AND INDEED SUPERSTITIOUS;

√ THAT REQUIRES YOU TO THROW YOUR NOBLEST EMOTIONS
DOWN THE SEWER IS INVALID; IT’S DESICCATED;

√ THAT REQUIRES YOU TO TOSS ACTS OF GOODWILL AND LOVE
DOWN THE SEWER IS INVALID (IT’S STERILE).

LOVE is the greatest of all, BUT irrationality chooses
the wrong things to love in our fallen world.

PLEASE CONTRIBUTE TO

IF YOU HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT ANYTHING
ON THIS WEBPAGE, PLEASE EMAIL IT

OR POST IT TO

Orchid Land Publications, HCR1 Box 5740,
Kea 'au, HI 96749 USA

and pray for the goodness of this website and its publisher

Since the internet is full of misleading information about Eastern Orthodox Christianity (information that not seldom offers the "Vatican Lite" parody), despite large differences between the paradigms of Eastern and Western Christianity, visitors to this site should be made aware of these frequent misportrayals─which are worse than misleading because the emphases are wrong, and the basic differences get misunderstood . . . and indeed totally lost to sight.

To see the correct English renderings of Greek basic "techncal terms" often mistranslated by Orthodox and other writers in English, view the box on the first two pages of R56.

CLICK HERE FOR PUBLICATIONS AVAILABLE
other than those online and available from the
Table of Contents

TO LEARN THE NATURE OF A VERY SERIOUS PROBLEM WITH
ENGLISH-LANGUAGE WRITINGS AND WEBSITES ON
EASTERN ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY, CLICK HERE

WHERE ARE YOU COMING FROM?

WHEN OUR MENTAL FURNITURE IS NOT YOURS, YOU
ARE NOT SAYING THE SAME THINGS THAT WE ARE
SAYING WHEN WE BOTH SAY THE SAME THINGS

(Second, enlarged Edition, 34 pp. of text; 2006)

This item is available by clicking HERE

[CLICK ON THE IMAGE OF THE FRONT COVER AND
AGAIN ON THE SECOND IMAGE WHEN IT COMES UP!]

For a sample of the booklet, CLICK HERE.

If you are heterodox, click HERE.

      ECUMENICS? Insofar as religion involves beliefs─and therefore the truth or falsity of individual beliefs─one has to consider the axioms that a group holds, since these determine whether individual beliefs can or cannot be true. It is often pointless to compare or otherwise discuss beliefs held according to differing axiomatic para-digms, since what is obvious true according to the axioms of one paradigm may be obviously falsein some other paradigm. If discussing individual beliefs across paradigms is futile, discussing axioms themselves is also parlous, seeing that axioms, premises, and definitions are neither true nor false (as noted earlier) but are merely premises that one has assumed for whatever reason, . . . which, however, constrain what can and cannot be accepted as true.

     At best, a Christian might agree to discuss the paradigms of the Apostolic writers of the Greek New Testament─the ontic (and also energetic) view of reality which the Apostle Paul spoke of so frequently and which Eastern Christians still do. Alternatively, one could set out with the assumptions of Semitic religions about law and legality─perhaps discussing whether something is commanded because it is right, in the sense of promoting a nature; or whether something is right because it has been commanded by some authority that both parties accept. But this of course involves differentiating nature (energies) from essence: God's ESSENCE is widely granted to be changeless and imparticipable. Yet, 2 Peter 1:4 speaks of partaking of the divine NATURE (or Life, for which Greek had two words). Nature refers in the Greek Scriptures to God's Energies ─both eternal (outside of time, not just everlasting in time), which vary in their relation to different worshipers and what they do. Predestination would be the norm if God's Nature were as invariant as His Essence.
     Given inarguable (because not truth-vulnerable) axioms like the following

─"religion has got be simple";
─"materiality is anti-spiritual and cannot be part of religious belief
   or practice";
─"temporality (evolution in creation, revelation, and salvation) are
   incompatible with a spiritual (Gnostic) religion; or
─human deeds are evil and cannot facilitate salvation;
─"the" Bible is the English mistranslation of the Greek that I have
   access to─very likely mistranslated because of the paradigm
   difference between the ontic view of the Apostles and the latter-
   day deontic outlook of Western Christians . . .

certain conclusions inexorably follow, say about the rôle of images or of mysteries (sacraments) or tradition (time) in religion. If these ontic realities are excluded in favor of deontic (will-based, juridical) premises, given terms will have quite different import. Assumed views of governance and law pre-define certain out-ooks certain relating to religious thinking and practices..

    One has only to compare Genesis 1:26, John 1:1, 3:5, 6:53-54, Philippians 2:12-13, II Peter 1:4 in the respective ontic and deontic paradigms of Eastern and Western Christianity to see the tremendous effects.

    The dangers of psychospeak are grave when they drown out Biblical language. There are very many modern ideas─relationship, intimacy, and others of this ilk─ lying in wait to oust Biblical ideas like St. Paul's frequent use of energy terms . . .   without which many Biblical ideas (John 3:5, 6:53-54, 2 Pet. 1:4) are in danger of being sublimated and metaphorized─anything but taken in their proper literal senses.

     Western Christianity has long since lost the notion (embedded in Hellenistic Greek and the original New Testament; see references a few lines above) between, say, God's Essence and Nature/Energies. Partaking of the divine Nature (2 Peter 1:4)is a problem, since God's Essence is imparticipable and can in the West only be under-stood in some non-literal manner. Obviating the clash of Grace and works in the manner of Phlp. 2:13 is out the window without energy and synergy concepts. Further, being members of Christ's Body, sharing the uncreated Energies of His divine Life has to be side-stepped and metaphorized. Importantly also, the difference between the first humans' essence (the icon/likeness of God) and the Assimilation (to God) in Genesis 1:26) ends up as a mind-numbing tautology ─"image and likeness of God" . . . as though a likeness anything but an image!!!
     This is a brief sample of the opaqueness of the original Greek Bible (considered by the Apostles to be canonical) for Western Christians, who have lost key concepts of the original Greek─including the Apostle Paul's 26 uses of energy words and many deverbative nouns referring to energizations, not to speak of words for "synergizing."

CLICK HERE FOR THE PROPER DEFINITION OF "RELIGION"

CLICK HERE FOR WHAT SALVATION IS IN THE BIBLE?

CLICK HERE IF CURIOUS ABOUT THE MANY MISTRANSLATIONS FOUND IN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE BIBLES

WANTED

MEDIA ERRORS ABOUT THE FAITH

    Persons who would furnish lists of Orthodox worshipers with erro-neous statements on the media about holy Orthodoxy + corrective messages (soon to be obtainable from this site)* that they can send to errant journalists and broadcasters.

TWO ITEMS NEAR THE THE TOP OF THE LIST ARE ESPECIALLY IRRITATING

1. That CONSERVATIVE Christians reject evolution, whereas the second most numerous group─and the only one preserving the Apostle Paul's original ontic-energetic paradigm─does accept the evolution of creation, revelation (tradition), and salvation (with three phases).**

2. The twofold error that "the Orthodox Church BROKE OFF from the Catholic Church" [Charles Gibson, 20061130, World News Tonight]

   *They will contain appropriate links to the correct information that tell not only what the facts are but why they are what they are..

**Katharsis, phōtismós, théōsis, i.e. purification, enligh-tenment, Divinization (partaking of the uncreated Energies of God's Nature [2 Peter 1:4]─not a partaking of the imparticipable divine Essence (Deification) at one's bodily Resurrection.

     CLICK HERE for a recently published and very informative article that─permission being obtained from Orchid Land Publications─can be made into a pamphlet or tract concerning the foregoing questions and their history: WHAT IS MISSING IN MEDIA DISCUSSIONS OF EVOLUTION AND RELIGION. See also the booklet advertized above: WHERE ARE YOU COMING FROM? When our mental furniture is not yours, you are not saying the same things that we are saying when we both say the same things. This booklet contains a wealth of information for inquirers and for catechumenate classes.

Two questions for otherdox Christians:

√ How can you regard the Bible as inerrant if you regard the Orthodox Church, which selected which books were or were not to be included in the Bible, as being not only fallible but indeed wrong in many essential respects?

√ How can you maintain that you accept the Bible as being literally true if you deny that passages like John 6:53-54 and 2 Peter 1:4 are literally true?

CLICK HERE for texts of Greek chants for days in the Church calendar

How do Jesus's worshipers benefit from His saving works?
Two views.

THE TRADITIONAL-CONSERVATIVE ONTIC VIEW

   A worshiper benefits from Christ's saving Incarnation, Cruci-fixion, and bodily Resurrection by becoming a member of His Body, ontically sharing the uncreated Energies of His divine Life

─ONTICALLY ACHIEVED through a devout and pious partaking of the Christian Mysteries (sacraments), whose validity stems from the first Mystery (the Incarnation) and the ultimate Mystery─Resurrection, Divinization).

   The Life-giving Cross makes that realization possible through the perfect worship of offering a perfect part of Creation (Jesus's body) to the Creator on the Life-giving Cross as an acknowledge- ment of the divine Ownership of all that has been made.

   The three phases of Salvation are purification, enlightenment, and Divinization (ontic théōsis).

THE LATTER-DAY, NON-ONTIC, JURIDICAL VIEW

   A believer benefits from Christ's Crucifixion through God's forensically (juridically) imputing His merits─which are qualitatively and quanti-tatively inexhaustible─to a believer─instantly, by divine fiat . . . on condition of the believer's repentance and belief.

   One reason for Vatican Lite presentations of Orthodox Christianity is that the Orthodox (many theologians in the past have not been native-speakers of English) have not succeeded in communicating effectively with speakers of English . . . often the result of paradigm-caused mistranslations using English words that have Western, not the original Greek, import. Their use of theological terminology is all too often derived from Latin and Protestant uses, not least the archaic English of the KJV, . . . in short, from terms conceptualized in a paradigm that is radically different from that of the unbroken historical paradigm of the Christian East. (On Christian paradigms, see R265; on terminology, see R297.) That the senses of terms used to conceptualize Eastern Christian beliefs are determined by the axioms of Western paradigms has made these usages grossly counter-productive: They has thrown dust in the eyes of readers, seeing that a Western usage cannot avoid invoking non-Orthodox ideas built into the Western frames of reference. For example, Grace is an uncreated Energy in the East: for Thomist Latins, sanctifying/justifying Grace is neither uncreated (it is supernatural) nor energetic (operativa); for Reformation Protestants, Grace is not even ontic, i.e. it is not "something" but rather God's benign volition to treat a sinner as though she or he were righteous.

    The reason for these comments is not to denigrate or cast aspersions on other forms of Christianity, admirable in so many ways, or to portray them in a bad light. The reason for these com ments is to distinguish Orthodoxy clearly from others and to display its Apostolic paradigm. For, IF Orthodoxy is viewed as a less vigorous or pale form of some other Christianity, who would be attracted to it except a person looking for a watered-down version of a vigorous form of Western Christianity—not the right reason for becoming Orthodox. In a modern format, not very competitive advertizing!

     The many differences between Eastern and Western forms of Christianity are (partly the result of by 700-750 years of mostly illiterate Dark Ages in the West) self-evidently due to the paradigm differences just alluded to. The scores of telling (and diagnostic) differences between Eastern and Western Christianity go back to this basic factor. An example is the Western teaching of original sin. (The idea of being guilty for or blamed for someone else' evil deed is abhorrent to Eastern Orthodoxy and to the writers of the Old Testament, despite the Old Testament idea of later generations pay ing for the misdeeds of earlier generations). The terminological failing is ultimately due to a translation confusion of ‘amartía with ‘amártēma and of a dozen like pairings; cf. the confusion of the Assimilation (an energy noun in Greek derived from a causative verb) to God with the Image (eikón, 'omoíōma, etc.) of God in Gen. l:26 (LXX) and the difference between Eastern Divinization (in the uncreated Energies) and Latin concept of Deification (by essence).

The three Eastern ideas just mentioned have ontic import,
while the corresponding Western ideas have
moral/volitional import (cognitive form):
It's two different thought worlds!

     When Peter the Great invited the Jesuits to take over the education system of Russia, they changed the study of Greek to the study of Latin—which indirectly resulted in the perplexing place given to Augustine of Hippo in Russian branches of holy Orthodoxy. Life for the Orthodox was much worse in Greece and the Balkans during the years of Turkish hegemony (370 years in Greece), a time when Orthodox books sent to Venice to be printed (the Turks disallowed the printing of most religious books)—where they got bowdlerized, Latinized in crucial ways, if only by subtraction. Even the universal Canons were subjected to this treatment. At the end of the Balkan Dark Ages, the new theological faculty in Athens was (as I have been reliably told) set up on a Roman model—with Western, not Eastern, (see http://www.orlapubs.com/AR/R7.html) categories in theological studies.

HOW CAN A WORSHIPER BE CLOSER TO GOD THAN WHEN REVERENTLY RECEIVING CHRIST'S BODY AND BLOOD
AFTER A GOOD CONFESSION?

THIS SITE IS DEDICATED TO THE ETERNAL GLORY OF THE ALL-HOLY TRINITY AND TO THE EVERLASTING GLORY OF THE UNSINNING MOTHER OF GOD, THE HOLY
NEO-MARTYRS, AND ALL OF THE SAINTS

Information about Part R

THE CHURCH OF THE NINE
ECUMENICAL SYNODS

CLICK HERE for the (first) Nine Orthodox Ecumenical Synods, of which the West recognizes only seven
CLICK HERE for "statistics" and HERE for the most reliable independent statistics.
For criteria that are proper to use for accepting (or rejecting) this or that
form of religion, see HERE.

DISCLAIMER

   This website is private and does not claim to represent the official position of any Orthodox jurisidiction on any matter. The editor is neither an Orthodox theologian nor an Orthodox clergyman. He is committed to the conservative Patristic tradition and opposed to incompatible Western influences (for which see below on this page:
HERE & HERE).

THIS SITE FUNCTIONS TO OFFER SUCH INFORMATION AS IT CAN. IT DOES NOT FUNCTION TO OFFER SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE OR MORAL ADVICE. AS NOTED EARLIER,
THIS PART OF THIS WEBSITE IS NOT OFFICIALLY SPONSORED BY ANY ORTHODOX HIERARCH OR
OTHER AUTHORITY.

CLICK HERE on the misuse of the term "spirituality"

CLICK HERE FOR ORTHODOX CROSSES OF DIFFERENT SIZES YOU MAY WISH TO COPY

    Some don't realize: The more Orthodoxy assimilates to Western religions, the less Orthodoxy is able to offer seekers in the West!

     Do you know that some of the greatest Eastern Fathers accepted evolution in creation as well as in revelation (tradition) and salvation (with its three phases)? CLICK HERE.

CLICK HERE on how properly to defend Orthodoxy

CLICK HERE for misconceptions about "The" Bible

RELIGION includes worship and usually some kind of morality.
Without worship, morality─whether a philosophical system or simply a positivistic code of DOs and DON'Ts, is NOT a religion.

   Since the soul and goal of theology is right worship, it is not surprising that, at the very end of the extensive account by Prof. Andrew Louth of Patristic thinking in his St. John of Damascene (Oxford University Press, 1001, p. 288), he states the priority of worship thus:

". . . his liturgical poetry [in the Church's anthems] in which this harvest of patristic theology is turned into song and cele- bration. This is not a matter of mere poëtical embellishment; rather, in this disciplined praise and confession, theology finds its most fundamental rôle, in interpreting, as it were, the return of the whole human beng, both soul and body, to God, the beginning and the end, the alpha and omega."

♫

    The editor's view of liturgical English is exemplified in the final pages of WHERE ARE YOU COMING FROM? (But in the translation of the Lord's Prayer there─instead of the references to debts and debtors, which are very amenable to a commercial understanding by Western readers─the following would be preferable: "And forgive us for what we owe, just as we forgive others for what they owe us.")

   English should be elevated and current modern . . . no -est and -eth endings, no thou or ye pronouns, or the like; and above all, no O before a vocative─except (perhaps) in the few places in the Bible where Greek has this. There are so many obvious reasons for this position that they need not be enumerated here.

WHAT'S OUT OF TUNE IN AMERICAN RELIGIOUS POLITICS?

√ The “religious/Christian” RIGHT may be what counts as the political right today, but it is at the opposite extreme of the Christian right, being the mirror image of the Apostolic and Greek Orthodox paradigm, rejecting tradition, and espousing beliefs like being guilty of Adam’s sin (the result of a confusion of an ontic concept* with what a non-ontic (volitional-juridical) paradigm or semantic framework required.

√ The Greek Fathers believed in the evolution of the cosmos, also of revelation (tradition), and also of Salvation. The Christian left rejects both materiality (sacraments) and temporality (time, development, process, evolution) . . . a point most commentators have missed.

────

     *The improbable idea that one can inherit someone else's sin or guiolt began with a confusion of Greek hamartía ("an ONTIC state of deprivation of Divinization (for which see 2 Pet. 1:4) with what a VOLITIONAL-JURIDICAL called for: "sin." The contrary of the first, ontic holiness, got similarly blended with righteousness, the contrary of sin.

Do not click HERE or HERE unless you have a background that equips you to compare abstract ideas; if you have the background in question, note that these two pages show how different forms of religion can be validly compared.

For Hellenistic and New Testament Greek, click HERE

     On the rôle of language in religious belief, click HERE. The correct understanding and translation of theological terms in the Bible and in the Fathers is also discussed HERE. Note the differences between senses imposed by the original Greek ONTIC paradigm on crucial terms and the senses imposed by the VOLITIONAL-JURIDICAL paradigm that centuries later developed in the West and imposed its differing import on the original terminology.

     When the Prince of Kiev, Vladimir, sent emissaries to investigate the known religions of the book, they reported (in The Russian primary chronicle of 988) that they had found the Muslim religion (in Bulgaria) not to their liking; and that among the Germans (Latins), they "beheld no glory"; . . . but of Constantinople's Great Temple of Christ the holy Wisdom (Ayía Sophía) of God the report ran:

     "We did not know whether we were in heaven or on earth. For on earth, there is no such splendor or such beauty, and we are at a loss as to how to describe it. We only know that GOD dwells there among humans, and their service is fairer than the ceremonies of other nations. For we cannot forget that beauty."

     And so Waldemar the Viking, established Orthodoxy in Russia and became St. Vladimir.

Click HERE for pictures & HERE on "The Beauty of Orthodoxy"

CLICK ALSO HERE AND HERE on certain critical moments in Christian history. CLICK HERE for the correct skinny on "conserva-tive" Christianity; it's not the sectarian anti-traditionalist kind!

CLICK HERE FOR AN ORTHODOX APOLOGETIC
RESPONDING TO ATHEIST ATTACKS

Temple of St. Aikaterínē's Monastery on Mt. Sinai

For ORTHODOXY IN A NUTSHELL, click HERE

CLICK HERE FOR MYSTERY & WORSHIP

CLICK HERE FOR THE ESSENCE OF WORSHIP



CLICK HERE FOR HOW ORTHODOX DOGMATIC THEOLOGY IS ORGANIZED

     If you would like a summary portrayal of the Orthodox outlook (not its organization, customs, and moral views), CLICK HERE; see also HERE.
     Links to readings and links on Holy Orthodoxy
     CLICK HERE for a list of Western beliefs (aside from
different definitions of key terms like Grace, etc.)
that are absent in holy Orthodoxy.
     Click HERE for a list of pages with prayer services
on this site
     Beliefs of Eastern Orthodox Christians
     An Orthodox information website

Holy Orthodoxy is not about assimilation and being Vatican Lite:
It is NOT simply about not having a pope or the Filioque and
having married priests and unleavened bread [CLICK HERE]

                         When Christians of different       Understanding
                               paradigms say the same       Orthodox
                                        things, they are not      terminology:
                                             saying the same       A brief
                                                              things!       TUTORIAL.

That terminology creates a phrónēma ("mentality, mindset, outlook") is a truism that many Orthodox writers are ignorant of, to the detriment of the Orthodox message.
On this topic, CLICK HERE.

For a list of pages critiquing ecumenism, CLICK HERE.

ARE YOU CURIOUS ABOUT CHRISTIANITY--esp. a kind that is not opposed to matter and time (tradition, evolution)? CLICK HEliE

     Why can't we all have the simple Gospel of Jesus? CLICK R25 and R334 for a "simple" religion"; if you click here, you will go to a table that shows the different senses of crucial Christian terminology in Eastern and Western Christianity.

CLICK HERE for A SHORT INTRODUCTION TO EASTERN ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY FOR INQUIRERS AND NEWCOMERS



     Note the table in the just mentioned Short Introduction on R335 (it is also HERE); it shows great differences in the original Greek (and Orthodox) and the otherdox (Western) meanings of basic terms of Christianity; see also here CLICK HERE

TO BECOME AN ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN, YOU HAVE GOT
TO MAKE A PARADIG,=SHIFT BECOME ORTHODOX,
YOU HAVE GOT TO MAKE A PARAADIGM-SHIFT

For hints on how to go about
doing that, CLICK R306#mind-fix.

CLICK HERE AND HERE for GRACE in different kinds of Christianity
CLICK HERE for daily Bible readings
CLICK HERE for some Orthodox liturgical music
CLICK HERE on the Old Calendar
CLICK HERE for the extremes of rationalism and relativism.
CLICK HERE for making converts (and refuting attacks on Orthodoxy)

For comments on the nature and destiny of a Church or one of its parishes, CLICK R264. For a complete listing of Orlapubs webpages on Orthodox Christianity, CLICK HERE.

CLICK HERE for questions about the holy Bible
CLICK HERE for an Orthodox response to a Protestant scholar's critique of Orthodoxy.
CLICK HERE for the over-romanticizing of holy Orthodoxy

CLICK HERE for possibly interesting and hopefully not offensive comments on
     conservative" Christianity

     Oriental Christian and Muslim children are starving in Ethiopia. The International Orthodox Christian Charities are there. Shouldn't we all help to alleviate the pitiful situation of our religious cousins? Please check out this link:
http://www.iocc.org/newsletter_frameset.html

         Did you know that one American Orthodox directory shows that there are more Orthodox chaplains in the armed forces than there are missionaries?



The meaning of the Greek word ORTHODOX has two stratums:

The BUILDING : RIGHT PRAISE [WORSHIP]: Piety--Love and Worship of God and love toward other humans-what belief if for.

The FOUNDATION : RIGHT BELIEF is the prerequisite to right piety, since piety inevitably goes wrong and may become superstitious without the foundation of right belief.

    Eastern Christians speak of "worshipers" where Western Christians
speak of "believers."   The West inverts the right ordering, since God-
directed activities should be more urgent than human-directed activities
--sermons and readings, prayers for human needs, &c.   Essential as such
human-benefiting activities are, they should be subordinated to the
adoration and praise of God. If one's idea of Worship (Greek latreía) is so
attenuated as to amount to what the Orthodox call veneration (Greek
douleía), then of course one will view the Orthodox veneration of Saints
and holy things as (false) "worship"!

The Orthodox do not allow portrayals of our Savior in agony, but portray Him only in Repose.
Vespers on Great Friday

    You Who are clothed in a vesture of Light, when Joseph with Nicódemos took you down from the Cross and beheld You dead, naked and unburied, he was filled with pity and took up a song of lamentation and grieving said: "Ah me, sweetest Jesus, just now the sun, seeing You hanging on the Cross, was shrouded in darkness; and the earth quaked with fear the veil of the temple was rent apart. But see, I behold You willingly undergoing death for my sake.    How am I to attend to You, my God? Or how am I to wrap You in linen? With what hands am I to touch Your pure Body? Or what hymns am I to chant at Your parting, merciful One? I praise You for Your Sufferings; I also sing a hymn to Your Tomb; and with rejoicing I cry aloud to Your Resurrection. Lord, Glory to You!"

CLICK HERE on the question of whether Orthodoxy is too spiritualistic or too materialistic

At Midnight on Great Pascha

    The day of Resurrection! So let us shine forth in the festive celebration and embrace one another. Let us, brothers and sisters, speak; and together on the Resurrection , let us forgive those who hate us in every way.   Let us also cry aloud: Christ has risen from the dead, trampling death with death and bestowing Life on those in the graves.

CLICK HERE for a convincing, uncomplicated, and non-juridical view of Christian Salvation
CLICK HERE to download Palladios's fascinating Lausiac History, 71 short biographies of the early monastics in the Thebaid (a mostly desert area east of the lower Nile in Egypt)

     Let us praise the Glory of the entire creation, having been born of humans and having borne the Master, the heavenly gate, let us sing hymns to Mary the Virgin, song of the unembodied Beings and ornament of the faithful. For she herself has revealed Heaven and the temple of Godhead; she herself has brought down the dividing wall of enmity, has issued peace in, and opened up the Kingdom.   Possessing her therefore as the anchor of Faith, we have an invincible Lord borne by her. So now let courage take hold, people of God.   For He, the all-powerful One, will combat our foes.

PICTURES OF THE DIVINE LITURGY SERVED BY FR. ANATOLE
ON THE ISLAND OF HAWAII AT MY HOUSE

Needed on the Island of Hawai'i:

A well-funded and well-managed radio station to air Orthodox music,
Orthodox information, etc. You provide the funds and a tested
and experienced manager; we'll provide the content!

CLICK HERE for the early American Orthodox Martyrs; HERE for those under the Turks in the twentieth century.
CLICK HERE to obtain an English translation of the Philokalia--4 vols. of texts on Orthodox piety collected by elders of the Holy Mountain--at 20% off

     Since the holy canons forbid the Orthodox to join in public prayers with non-Orthodox, it will be clear why the Orthodox oppose school prayers--praying is the Church's job and the job of individuals--and decline to join in prayers with the OTHERdox at interfaith meetings. The pagan custom of praying around poles (asherim; phallic symbols) is condemned in the Old Testament.

CLICK HERE for conditions on Orthodox marriage and funerals
CLICK HERE for "statistics" and HERE for the most reliable independent statistics of Orthodoxy in the USA.

CLICK HERE for a review of an impartial, full account of the origin of Uniatism (moving from Orthodoxy to the papacy) in Ukraïne.
CLICK HERE and HERE for the Oriental Orthodox
Orthodox vs. Papalists: Orthodoxy is not Papalism Lite (CLICK HERE);
     it's not all about the pope, the Filioque (an addition to the Orthodox Standard of Belief), married priests, and leavened bread:

THE EASTERN CHRISTIAN OUTLOOK AND THE OUTLOOK OF THE WEST
(PAPAL CATHOLICS, PROTESTANTS, AND OTHERS)

Seven teachings held by the Orthodox but not by Western Christians

(The essential doctrinal incompatibilties of the Eastern
and two Western Christian paradigms are found HERE.)

HOLDING WORTHWHILE DISCUSSIONS ON RELIGION

The first desideratum is to know where the other person
is coming from; how often people argue against
positions not held by the other person!

Above, boy kissing a Bishop's hand; below The Three Holy Pillars of Orthodoxy
(left to right) St. Gregory Palamâs, Great St. Phōtios, & St. Mark of Ephesos

The great defender of the Faith is Great St. Athanasios

Links to pages that offer help on
how to discuss religious issues:

R161     R177     R109     R163     R175     R240

and many more here: R265

    BEWARE OF WESTERN (AND EVEN EASTERN) TRANSLATIONS OF ORTHODOX WRITINGS, ESPECIALLY IF THEY MIS-TRANSLATE THE ENERGY TERMINOLOGY, IF THEY RENDER MYSTERIC AS "MYSTICAL," IF THEY CALL THE CREATOR A "WORD" OR THE ASSIMILATION TO GOD "THE LIKENESS OF GOD" OR OTHER DISTORTIONS OF THE ORIGINAL GREEK OF THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE GREEK FATHERS.   OF COURSE, IF A TRANSLATION CALLS PASCHA "EASTER" OR COMMITS LIKE DISTORTIONS, YOU SHOULD CONSIDER WHETHER IT IS WORTH READING. INCIDENTALLY, ST. GREGORY THE THEOLOGIAN'S HOMILIES ARE HARDLY "ORATIONS" IN ENGLISH.

FOR THE TYPE OF ORTHODOX BOOKS THAT AN INQUIRER SHOULD AND SHOULD NOT BEGIN WITH, CLICK HERE

WRITER WANTED for a page with a title something like "Unlike friendship,
marriages of complementary individuals often fare better
than marriages of similar partners."

     When one is reviled or spoken to harshly, one feels pain; but this pain becomes a healing balm for one’s passions—for the wounds of one’s soul. No virtue purifies the passions of pride and unchastity as much as insults and contempt endured with patience and silence.    [Elder Ephraim]

       GET IT RIGHT!

_____________________________________________

“Be ALWAYS ready with a reasoned defence [apología, literally “reply, answer”] to everyone questioning you about the reason [lógos] for the hope in you.” i Peter 3:15

“And God said, Let Light be made; and it became light. (Light is the purest form of energy in Greek, and the basis of all ontic reality; Gen. 1:4) And God said, Let’s make a human being according to God’s Icon [human essence] and according to the Assimilation [the Energies or Life of a nature, in this case human nature].“ Gen. 1:26.
“ . . . so that you all may become sharers/partakers [of the uncreated Energies (Grace)] of the divine Nature, having escaped decay . . .” (2 Pet 1:4)

NB: Sharing the uncreated Energies of Christ’s Life makes a worshiper His member!

“At the outset there was Reason [or: the Maker of an ordered creation in the Greek of John’s time] . . . and apart from Him was made not one thing that was created. . . . The true Light was to come into the cosmos. (John 1:1,3,9)

“Behold God’s Lamb, the one removing the hamartia of the cosmos.” (John 1:29; hamartía is not sin[ning] but the ontic state or condition left by sin)

“To Him—able to accomplish far more than all that we could ask for or think of according to His ability [d‎ýnamis] being energized within us—may there be glory . . . throughout the ages.” (Eph. 3:20f)

“In Christ Jesus [nothing] is of value except faith being energized by love.” (Gal. 5:6)
--------------------------------

NB: If you’ve read Aristotle, you will understand why Paul (fashionably in his day) pairs energy, energize (“actualize”), and energés (“effective”) so often with d‎ýnamis “potential, ability, power.”



My Dalmatian, Matey, is often dog-matic but less often
doctrinaire!

Hits on this website from 1998.11.22 till 2003.07.11

333,722

WANTED	MEDIA ERRORS ABOUT THE FAITH
Persons who would furnish lists of Orthodox worshipers with erro-neous statements on the media about holy Orthodoxy + corrective messages (soon to be obtainable from this site)* that they can send to errant journalists and broadcasters.	TWO ITEMS NEAR THE THE TOP OF THE LIST ARE ESPECIALLY IRRITATING 1. That CONSERVATIVE Christians reject evolution, whereas the second most numerous group─and the only one preserving the Apostle Paul's original ontic-energetic paradigm─does accept the evolution of creation, revelation (tradition), and salvation (with three phases). 2. The twofold error that "the Orthodox Church** BROKE OFF from the Catholic Church" [Charles Gibson, 20061130, World News Tonight]
They will contain appropriate links to the correct information that tell not only what the facts are but why they are what they are.. *Katharsis, phōtismós, théōsis, i.e. purification, enligh-tenment, Divinization (partaking of the uncreated Energies of God's Nature [2 Peter 1:4]─not a partaking of the imparticipable divine Essence (Deification) at one's bodily Resurrection.
CLICK HERE for a recently published and very informative article that─permission being obtained from Orchid Land Publications─can be made into a pamphlet or tract concerning the foregoing questions and their history: WHAT IS MISSING IN MEDIA DISCUSSIONS OF EVOLUTION AND RELIGION. See also the booklet advertized above: WHERE ARE YOU COMING FROM? When our mental furniture is not yours, you are not saying the same things that we are saying when we both say the same things. This booklet contains a wealth of information for inquirers and for catechumenate classes.
Two questions for otherdox Christians: √ How can you regard the Bible as inerrant if you regard the Orthodox Church, which selected which books were or were not to be included in the Bible, as being not only fallible but indeed wrong in many essential respects? √ How can you maintain that you accept the Bible as being literally true if you deny that passages like John 6:53-54 and 2 Peter 1:4 are literally true?