By Father Geoffrey Korz, (Nativity, 2006)

See original article at: http://www.orthodoxcanada.com

“If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” - John 8:31-32

Media coverage of the recent visit by Benedict XVI to Istanbul illustrated vividly the great gap between popular illusion and Christian reality.

For instance, consider the repeated references to Patriarch Bartholomew as “spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians”. For the ninety percent of Orthodox Christians not under the jurisdiction of the bishop in Istanbul, this seemed as strange as describing the American president as the Leader of North America. Clearly, the Patriarch lays claim to an ancient see, one which is now numerically bereft of faithful, but which still claims jurisdiction over all Orthodox in so-called “barbarian lands” (apparently places like Russia, the United States, and Canada).

This claim to a kind of semi-universal authority is propped up by supporters in the West, who emblazon the Patriarchal standard on their letterheads, but who do not muster the energy to advocate a return to the monarchy of the Byzantine Empire which gave the Patriarch his title in the first place. Even in its far-flung holdings in Europe, Canada, and the United States, the Orthodox who are under the Patriarchate of Constantinople are in speedy decline, a result of low birth rates and severely limited mission work.

Greek TV: “Historic Meeting”It is of course the mystique of this office, not the realities, which make her worthy of a visit by the Roman Catholic leader. Without question, Benedict XVI is the magnet of media attention around the world. It is this mythology of the Patriarchal office - a mythology paralleling the Roman Catholic claim to the universal authority of one bishop - which makes the Latin “vicar of Christ” so eager for “ecumenical” dialogue, and eventually, eucharistic union.

The bishop in Istanbul is somehow seen by Rome as the key to this unity, and the Patriarch is eager to oblige. Life in Turkey has not been easy for the Orthodox minority and their local spiritual leader (for so he is, like any bishop in his home city). Numerous assassination attempts, coupled with micromanagement of patriarchal affairs by the Turkish government, make it easy to understand the reasons one would welcome media attention in the Phanar (the enclosure that houses the Patriarchal offices). It is much more difficult to lob molotov cocktails through the back window of the Phanar while the Papal motorcade is parked outside. This is at least part of the reason the Roman Catholic leader was greeted at the Phanar by the singing of “Many Years” by the Patriarchal chanters, a practice strictly reserved for visiting Orthodox bishops. Apparently, they were especially happy to see him.

Posted on 02/13/07. Filed under: Ecclesia • Ecclesiology: The Church and Ecumenism • • Email This Entry

ELDER PAISIOS OF THE HOLY MOUNTAIN

Elder PaisiosMany of the holy Martyrs, whenever they were unfamiliar with a dogma, used to say:  “I trust whatever the Holy Fathers have instituted”. If anyone dared to say those words, they would suffer martyrdom.  In other words, although they did not know how to present any proof to their persecutors, they did, however, have faith in the Holy Fathers.  They would think to themselves: “How can I not trust the Holy Fathers? They were far more experienced, and virtuous, and saintly. How can I agree to something that is nonsense?  How can I tolerate someone abusing the Holy Fathers?” We must have faith in Tradition. Nowadays, unfortunately, we notice that “European good manners” have shown up, and they strive to present a benevolent face.  They try to be superior, but in the end, they head towards the worship of the two-horned devil. “Only one religion must exist” they tell you, and they flatten everything. 
I’ve had people come to me too, who suggested: “All of us who believe in Christ should form one religion”. 

I said to them: Now what you’re telling me is to take gold and copper – gold of so many carats quality – which they took so much trouble to purify, and then gather the metals and melt them into one mass.  Is it right to mix them together again?  Ask any goldsmith:  “Should we mix inferior elements with gold?”

Well, the same trouble was taken to filter-clean the dogma. The Holy Fathers must have known something, when they forbade every association with a heretic.  Nowadays they say: “We should all pray together – not only with a heretic, but also with a Buddhist and a fire-worshipper and a demon-worshipper.  The Orthodox should also participate in these common prayers and conventions. It is a matter of [being] present.”

What do they mean by “being present”? They strive to solve everything with logic, in order to justify the unjustifiable.  The “European spirit” is convinced that spiritual matters can also be made a part of the Common Market.

Some of the rather shallow Orthodox want to project [ecumenism as] “Missionary work”, so they convene meetings with the heterodox for the sake of being heard, and they think that this is the way to advertise Orthodoxy – by mingling in the same pot with cacodoxies.  Then we have the hyper-zealots at the other extreme: they even blaspheme the Sacraments of the New-Calendarists etc., and they excessively scandalize those souls who are pious and have an orthodox sensitivity.  The heterodox on the other hand usually attend meetings, they pose as know-it-alls, they take any good spiritual material that they find with the Orthodox, they take it to their own workshop, add their own colours and brand names and they present it as something original.

Holy Gregory Palamas, Pillar of OrthodoxyToday’s strange world is actually moved by such strange things, and it is eventually destroyed spiritually.  But the Lord – when the time is right – will bring forth new Marks of Ephesus and the Gregorys of Palamas, who will muster all of our scandalized brethren, who will confess the Orthodox faith, consolidate the Orthodox Tradition and give great joy to our Mother the Church.

If we were living Patristically, we would all be enjoying a spiritual health that would have been the envy of all the heterodox; it would have made them abandon their sick fallacies and render them saved, without any sermons.  At present, they are not moved by our holy Patristic tradition, because they are waiting to see our Patristic continuity – our true kinship with the Saints. 

That which is obligatory for every Orthodox, is for them to sow the “good uneasiness” in the heterodox as well; in other words, to bring them to the realization that they are living a lie and that they should not light-heartedly relax their thoughts, for fear of depriving themselves in this life of the bounteous blessings of Orthodoxy, and in the life to come, the infinitely more and everlasting blessings of God

I was once visited by some Catholic youth who had good intentions, and were ready to acquaint themselves with Orthodoxy. “We want you to say something to us, so that we will be helped spiritually”, they told me. 

“Look”, I replied, “find a book on Ecclesiastic History, and you will see how we once used to be together, and then see where you wound up. This will help you immensely.  Do it, and the next time, we will talk about many things.”

In times past, people used to respect something because it was their grandfather’s, and they used to safeguard it like an heirloom.  I once met a very good lawyer.  His house was very simply furnished, and it relaxed not only him, but his visitors also.  He told me this, some time ago:

“A few years ago, Father, my acquaintances made fun of me because of the old, family furniture that I had. Now they come and admire them as valuable antiques. While I make daily use of them and enjoy them because they remind me of my father, my mother, my grandparents, and I am always emotionally touched, those acquaintances now go around collecting various old pieces of furniture, to the point that they have turned their lounges into curiosity shops, in an attempt to take their minds off their problems and forget their secular stress.”

In the past, one would hold on to a tiny little coin of insignificant value as though it were a vast fortune, only because it was given to him by his mother or his grandfather. Nowadays, if someone has an expensive coin – a gold Pound for example – that was given to him by his grandfather, and that coin’s value is slightly higher than its original value, he will give it away to be sold. He will not show any respect, nor will he be concerned about any mother or father.  It’s that “European spirit” that is slowly creeping in and is sweeping us all away....

Posted on 02/07/07. Filed under: Ecclesia • Ecclesiology: The Church and Ecumenism • The Royal Path & the Two Extremes • • Email This Entry

The Holy Mountain
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A Letter Addressed to the Twenty Ruling Monasteries on Mount Athos from the Monks of the Kellia and Sketes Regarding the Recent Visit of the Pope to the Phanar in Constantinople

December 2006

Holy Abbots and Holy Fathers,

Bless!

We desire with this present letter to express our deepest concern and sadness for all that is happening to our Holy Orthodoxy for years now: things destructive to the teaching of the Holy Apostles and of the Holy Fathers and contrary to all the Sacred Canons enacted by the Oecumenical and local synods. 

We wonder if some Oecumenical synod has been assembled and has abolished the Canons which forbid joint prayer with heretics, or if the Pope has repented and renounced the heresies of the Filioque, of primacy, of infallibility, of unleavened bread, of the purifying fire [purgatory—trans.], of created grace, of the immaculate conception of the Most Holy Theotokos, and many others, most of which have been condemned and anathematized repeatedly by Orthodox synods and by the entirety of the Holy Fathers. 

Heaven was angered and the Holy Fathers exceedingly saddened by seeing and hearing all that took place at the Phanar at the feast of the Holy Apostle Andrew on the 30th of November of the current year—unprecedented and unheard of things in the two thousand year history of the Church: “The dogmas of the Fathers are held in contempt, the Apostolic traditions are disdained, the churches are subject to the novelties of innovators,” as St. Basil the Great says, regarding the events of his own times. 

Everything happened literally upside-down. Instead of the heretical Pope being placed below, as we see the heretics depicted in the icons of the Holy Synods, and being dismissed from the Divine Liturgy, on the basis of the liturgical command, “the doors, the doors, in wisdom let us attend,” we elevated him to a high throne, where he sat wearing an omophorion; the Orthodox deacons censed him; the Patriarch exchanged the kiss [of peace] with him at “let us love one another;” as the proestos [the one presiding—trans.] he proclaimed the “Our Father;” the choir of sacred cantors chanted “Many Years” to him, as well as a specially composed troparion from an Athonite hymnographer – Lord, have mercy! – if, of course, the news reports are true; he was [also] permitted to give the congregation his blessing [ευλογία], or, rather, his folly [αλογία] according to the Sacred Canons. 

We allowed the Church militant on earth to be divided from the Church triumphant of the Saints in heaven, and to be united with churches and assemblies of the cunning heretics.  We insulted all of the holy Martyrs and Confessors who struggled to the point of blood against the heresies, because we presented their struggles, their martyrdoms and their confessions as to no avail and unnecessary. Will not the blessed Hagiorite Fathers martyred under [Oecumenical Patriarch John] Vekkou, who refused to accept and to commemorate the Pope, lament, seeing that not only do we reject their example by our silence, but to actually do the opposite?  Why then did these and all of the previous Martyrs undergo martyrdom, and why did the Confessors stand fast in their profession of the Faith?

You know, Reverend Fathers, better than we do, the anti-Orthodox and blasphemous actions, declarations, and decisions of the Oecumenical Patriarch, and of the other Primates and Bishops who vociferously and visibly advocate – bare headed – the acceptance and teaching of the chief heresy of Ecumenism, the greatest ecclesiological heresy of all the ages. This heretical teaching disavows the uniqueness of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church and equates it with the heresies, by accepting their sacraments as having and imparting sanctifying and saving grace. Besides recognition of the baptism of the followers of the Pope and of the Lutherans, we also have participation in the chalice with Monophysites, and in many cases with Papists in the Cyclades and in the Diaspora.

We take stock with much greater sadness that over the last few years the spiritual leadership of the Holy Mountain has not confronted these manifestations of apostasy with fortitude and the courage of confession, as did earlier Athonite Fathers. The Patriarch has gauged our responses, and because they are half-hearted, and many times non-existent, he proceeds without hindrance toward union with an unrepentant Pope, who remains enmeshed in heresies. He evaluated us and rejoiced greatly during his last visit to the Holy Mountain, as well, such that one would say that he came in order to take the consent and blessing of the Athonites for all that he had planned to do with the Pope a few days later.


+Holy Elder Dionysios of Colciu
the Blind, a Non-Commemorator (+2005)

We, lowly hieromonks and monks, confess to you that we have been scandalized by the silence and inaction of our spiritual leaders on Mount Athos, and together with us, the entire assembly of monastic-loving Orthodox Christians, both in Greece and throughout the world. They are all waiting to hear the voice of Mount Athos.

From you, the wiser and more erudite, we learned that when the Faith is endangered we are all held accountable if we are silent and shrink back, as St. Theodore the Studite says.  A monk, in particular, must not allow the slightest innovation in matters of the Faith, according to the [aforementioned] Holy Father and great monastic leader, organizer of monastic life, and the Elder of us all.  He did not fear the threats and the persecutions of the iconoclast emperors and patriarchs, but within Constantinople, within the enclosure of the Great Sacred Monastery of Stoudion, he organized a procession with a thousand torch-bearing monks, who held the forbidden Holy Icons in their hands. 

Saints Sabbas the Sanctified and Theodosios the Cenobite, likewise great monastic leaders, assembled ten thousand monks of Palestine long before in Jerusalem, and saved Orthodoxy from the heresy of Monothelitism.

Who will now save the Church from the most terrible heresy of Ecumenism and the deceit of Papism? The letters of protest, which the Holy Community [of Mount Athos] has sent at various times to the Oecumenical Patriarch, have not had any effect. It is no longer time for words, but for actions. We do not want to teach you, we the unlearned and wretched sinners, neither do we want to have ourselves appear as Confessors. Rather, we want to set at ease our monastic and Orthodox conscience; we want to honor and follow the conduct of the Holy Martyrs and Confessors, particularly those martyred under Vekkou. We do not want to shrink back, nor to place the monasteries and our brotherhoods above the purity of the Faith, above God and the Truth.

We believe that after so many written and oral protests and objections, back-peddling [i.e., going back on one’s word—trans.], retreats and compromises, the only thing that will gladden the Orthodox and shame the kakodox is to cease commemoration of the patriarch and of all the bishops agreeing with him or remaining in silence.

The Three Pillars of Orthodoxy

Gather together, Holy Fathers, the monks of the coenobium, the sketes and the kellia into an all-monastic, fighting assembly—either within or outside of the Holy Mountain—and topple the towers of heresy, of Papism and of Ecumenism. Take up the good fight of the Faith. If you fail to act, we will prefer to do that which is God-pleasing, not man-appeasing.

Posted on 02/05/07. Filed under: Ecclesia • Ecclesiology: The Church and Ecumenism • • Email This Entry

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REGARDING THE RECENT VISIT OF THE POPE TO THE PATRIARCHATE OF CONSTANTINOPLE

Karyes, Mount Athos
The Sacred Community
Of the Holy Mountain Athos

Protocol No. F. 2/7/2310

Karyes, 30 December 2006

The recent visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the Ecumenical Patriarchate on the occasion of the feast-day of Saint Andrew (30th of November 2006) and thereafter the visit by His Beatitude the Archbishop of Athens Christodoulos to the Vatican (14th of December 2006) gave rise to a multitude of impressions, evaluations and reactions.  We shall bypass those things that the secular Press had evaluated as positive or negative, to focus on those things that pertain to our salvation, for the sake of which we abandoned the world to live in the barrenness of the Holy Mountain.

As Monks of the Holy Mountain, we respect the Ecumenical Patriarchate, under whose jurisdiction we fall.  We honor and respect the Most Holy Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and we rejoice in all that he has achieved and so diligently labored for, in his love of God, for the Church. We particularly commemorate the stolid and untiring defence of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, amid the many unfavorable conditions that exist, as well as the impoverished local Orthodox Churches and the care that is taken to project the message of the Orthodox Church throughout the world.  Furthermore, we the Monks of the Holy Mountain honor the Most Holy Church of Greece, from which most of us originate, and we respect His Beatitude the Primate.

However, the events that took place during the recent visits of the Pope to the Phanar and of His Beatitude the Archbishop to the Vatican brought immense sorrow to our hearts.

We desire and struggle our entire life to safeguard the trust of the Holy Fathers, which was bequeathed to us by the holy Founders of our sacred Monasteries and the blessed reposed fathers before us.  We strive to the best of our ability to live the sacrament of the Church and the unblemished Orthodox Faith, according to what we are daily taught by the divine Services, the sacred readings, and the teachings in general of the Holy Fathers which are set out in their writings and in the decisions of the Ecumenical Synods.  We guard our dogmatic awareness “like the pupil of our eye”, and we reinforce it, by applying ourselves to God-pleasing labours and the meticulous study of the achievements of the holy Confessor Fathers when they confronted the miscellaneous heresies, and especially of our father among the saints, Gregory of Palamas, the Holy Martyrs of the Holy Mountain and the Holy Martyr Kosmas the First, whose sacred relics we venerate with every honor and whose sacred memory we incessantly celebrate. 

We fear keeping silent, whenever issues arise that pertain to the trust that our Fathers left us. Our responsibility, towards the most venerable fathers and brothers of the overall brotherhood of the Holy Mountain and towards the pious faithful of the Church who regard Athonite Monasticism as their non-negotiable guardian of sacred Tradition, weighs heavily upon our conscience.

The visits of the Pope to the Phanar and the Archbishop to the Vatican may have secured certain benefits of a secular nature, however, during those visits, various other events took place which were not according to the customs of Orthodox Ecclesiology, or commitments were made that would neither benefit the Orthodox Church, nor any other heterodox Christians.

Patriarch Serves Divine Liturgy with the Pope Enthroned as one Presiding First of all, the Pope was received as though he were a canonical bishop of Rome.  During the service, the Pope wore an omophoron; he was addressed by the Ecumenical Patriarch with the greeting “blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord” as though it were Christ the Lord; he blessed the congregation and he was commemorated as “most holy” and “His Beatitude the Bishop of Rome”.

Furthermore, all of the Pope’s officiating clergy wore an omophoron during the Orthodox Divine Liturgy; also, the reciting of the Lord’s Prayer, his liturgical embrace with the Patriarch, were displays of something more than common prayer. And all of this, when the papist institution has not budged at all from its heretical teachings and its policy; on the contrary, the Pope is in fact visibly promoting and trying to reinforce Unia along with the Papist dogmas on primacy and infallibility, and is going even further, with inter-faith common prayers and the pan-religious hegemony of the Pope of Rome that is discerned therein.

As for the reception of the Pope in Fanarion, we are especially grieved by the fact that all of the Media kept repeating the same, incorrect information, that the troparion that was (unduly) sung at the time had been composed by Monks of the Holy Mountain.  We take this opportunity to responsibly inform all pious Christians that their composer was not, and could never be, a monk of the Holy Mountain.

Representing Himself in Rome Then there is the matter of the attempt by His Beatitude the Archbishop of Athens to commence relations with the Vatican on social, cultural and bio-ethical issues, as well as the objective to mutually defend the Christian roots of Europe (positions which are also found in the Common Declaration of the Pope and the Patriarch at the Phanar), both of which may seem innocuous or even positive, given that their aim is to cultivate peaceful human relations.  Nevertheless, it is important that all these do not give the impression that the West and Orthodoxy continue to have the same bases, or lead one into forgetting the distance that separates the Orthodox Tradition from that which is usually presented as the “European spirit”.  (Western) Europe is burdened with a series of anti-Christian institutions and acts, such as the Crusades, the “Holy” Inquisition, slave trading and colonization. It is burdened with the tragic division which took on the form of the schism of Protestantism; the devastating world wars, also the man-centered humanism and its atheist view.  All of these are the consequence of Rome’s theological deviations from Orthodoxy.  One after the other, the Papist and the Protestant heresies gradually removed the humble Christ of Orthodoxy and in His place, they enthroned haughty Man.  The holy bishop Nicholas of Ochrid and Zitsa wrote the following from Dahau: «What, then, is Europe? The Pope and Luther.... This is what Europe is, at its core, ontologically and historically». The blessed Elder Justin Popovitch supplements the above: «The 2nd Vatican Synod comprises the rebirth of every kind of European humanism.... because the Synod persistently adhered to the dogma on the Pope’s infallibility» and he surmises:

Saint Justin Popovich«Undoubtedly, the authorities and the powers of (western) European culture and civilization are Christ-expellers». This is why it is imperative to project the humble ethos of Orthodoxy and to support the truly Christian roots of the united Europe; the roots that Europe had during the first Christian centuries, during the time of the catacombs and of the seven holy Ecumenical Synods.  It is advisable for Orthodoxy to not tax itself with foreign sins, and furthermore, the impression should not be given to those who became de-Christianized in reaction to the sidetracking of Western-style Christianity, that Orthodoxy is related to it, thus ceasing to testify that it is the only authentic Faith in Christ, and the only hope of the peoples of Europe.

The Roman Catholics’ inability to disentangle themselves from the decisions of their pursuant (and according to them, Ecumenical) Synods, which had legitimized the Filioque, the Primacy, the Infallibility, the secular authority of the Roman Pontiff, ‘created Grace’, the immaculate conception of the Holy Mother, Unia.  Despite all these, we Orthodox continue the so-called traditional exchanges of visits, bestowing honors befitting an Orthodox Bishop on the Pope and totally disregarding a series of Sacred Canons which forbid common prayers, while the theological dialogue repeatedly flounders, and, after being dredged from the depths, it again sinks down.

All indications lead to the conclusion that the Vatican is not orienting itself to discard its heretical teachings, but only to “re-interpret” them – in other words, to veil them.

Roman Catholic ecclesiology varies, from one encyclical to the other; from the so-called “open” ecclesiology of the Encyclical «Ut Unum Sint», to the ecclesiological exclusivity of the Encyclical «Dominus Jesus».  It should be noted that both of the aforementioned views are contrary to Orthodox Ecclesiology.  The self-awareness of the holy Orthodox Church as the only One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church does not allow for the recognition of other, heterodox churches and confessions as “sister churches”.  “Sister Churches” are only the local Orthodox Churches of the same faith.  No other homonymous reference to “sister churches” other than the Orthodox one is theologically permissible.

The “Filioque” is promoted by the Roman Catholic side as yet another legal expression [theologoumenon] of the teaching regarding the procession of the Holy Spirit, and theologically equivalent to the Orthodox teaching that procession is “only from the Father” – a view that is unfortunately supported by some of our own theologians.

Moreover, the Pontiff is maintaining the Primacy as an inalienable privilege, as one can tell from the recent erasure of the title “Patriarch of the West” by the current Pope Benedict XVI; also from his reference to the worldwide mission of the Apostle Peter and his successors during his homily in the Patriarchal Temple, as well as from his also recent speech, which included the following: «...within the society, with the Successors of the Apostles, whose visible unity is guaranteed by the Successor of the Apostle Peter, the Ukrainian Catholic Community managed to preserve the Sacred Tradition alive, in its integrity» (Catholic Newspaper, No.3046/18-4-2006).

Uniatism is being reinforced and reassured in many and various ways, despite the proclamations by the Pope to the contrary.

This dishonest stance is witnessed, apart from other instances, by the provocative intervention of the previous Pope, John-Paul II, which led the Orthodox-Roman Catholic dialogue in Baltimore into a dead-end, as well as by the letter sent by the current Pope to the Cardinal Ljubomir Husar, the Uniate Archbishop of Ukraine.  In this letter dated 22/2/2006, the following is emphatically stressed: «It is imperative to secure the presence of the two great carriers of the only Tradition (the Latin and the Eastern).... The mission that the Greek Catholic Church has undertaken, being in full communion with the Successor of the Apostle Peter, is two-fold: on one side, it must visibly preserve the eastern Tradition inside the Catholic Church; on the other, it must favour the merging of the two traditions, testifying that they not only can coordinate between themselves, but that they also constitute a profound union amid their variety».

Seen in this light, polite exchanges such as the visits of the Pope to the Phanar and the Archbishop of Athens to the Vatican, without the prerequisite of a unity in the Faith, may on the one hand create false impressions of unity and thus turn away the heterodox who could have looked towards Orthodoxy as being the true Church, and on the other hand, blunt the dogmatic sensor of many Orthodox.  Even more, they may push some of the faithful and pious Orthodox, who are deeply concerned over what is taking place inopportunely and against the Sacred Canons, to detach themselves from the corpus of the Church and create new schisms.

Posted on 02/05/07. Filed under: Ecclesia • Ecclesiology: The Church and Ecumenism • • Email This Entry

What do mega-church pastors, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Jewish groups in Jerusalem all have in common? They are all awaiting their “messiah” who will reign on earth. They are all chiliasts, or hold the belief that their respective kingdoms and messiahs will set up their reign on earth. But, this will actually be the reign of Antichrist, for Christ’s kingdom is “not of this world.” He has “no place to lay His head” below. His reign is eternal, as we confess in the Symbol of Faith of Nicea (and have for 1700 years): “And [He] shall come again, with glory, to judge both the living and the dead; Whose kingdom shall have no end.” On the other hand, he who will attempt to set up a kingdom on earth over the entire earth will be none other than the Antichrist - apparently he who these three religions (or sects within religions) are expecting…

Read the original story here.

‘End Times’ Religious Groups Want Apocalypse Soon

‘End times’ religious groups want apocalypse sooner than later, and they’re relying on high tech—and red heifers—to hasten its arrival.

By Louis Sahagun, Times Staff Writer

June 22, 2006

For thousands of years, prophets have predicted the end of the world. Today, various religious groups, using the latest technology, are trying to hasten it.

Their endgame is to speed the promised arrival of a messiah. 

For some Christians this means laying the groundwork for Armageddon.

With that goal in mind, mega-church pastors recently met in Inglewood to polish strategies for using global communications and aircraft to transport missionaries to fulfill the Great Commission: to make every person on Earth aware of Jesus’ message. Doing so, they believe, will bring about the end, perhaps within two decades.

In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has a far different vision. As mayor of Tehran in 2004, he spent millions on improvements to make the city more welcoming for the return of a Muslim messiah known as the Mahdi, according to a recent report by the American Foreign Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank.

To the majority of Shiites, the Mahdi was the last of the prophet Muhammad’s true heirs, his 12 righteous descendants chosen by God to lead the faithful.

Ahmadinejad hopes to welcome the Mahdi to Tehran within two years.

Conversely, some Jewish groups in Jerusalem hope to clear the path for their own messiah by rebuilding a temple on a site now occupied by one of Islam’s holiest shrines.

Artisans have re-created priestly robes of white linen, gem-studded breastplates, silver trumpets and solid-gold menorahs to be used in the Holy Temple — along with two 6½-ton marble cornerstones for the building’s foundation.

Then there is Clyde Lott, a Mississippi revivalist preacher and cattle rancher. He is trying to raise a unique herd of red heifers to satisfy an obscure injunction in the Book of Numbers: the sacrifice of a blemish-free red heifer for purification rituals needed to pave the way for the messiah.

So far, only one of his cows has been verified by rabbis as worthy, meaning they failed to turn up even three white or black hairs on the animal’s body.

Linking these efforts is a belief that modern technologies and global communications have made it possible to induce completion of God’s plan within this generation.

Though there are myriad interpretations of how it will play out, the basic Christian apocalyptic countdown — as described by the Book of Revelation in the New Testament — is as follows:

Jews return to Israel after 2,000 years, the Holy Temple is rebuilt, billions of people perish during seven years of natural disasters and plagues, the antichrist arises and rules the world, the battle of Armageddon erupts in the vicinity of Israel, Jesus returns to defeat Satan’s armies and preside over Judgment Day.

Generations of Christians have hoped for the Second Coming of Jesus, said UCLA historian Eugen Weber, author of the 1999 book “Apocalypses: Prophecies, Cults and Millennial Beliefs Through the Ages.”

“And it’s always been an ultimately bloody hope, a slaughterhouse hope,” he added with a sigh. “What we have now in this global age is a vaster and bloodier-than-ever Wagnerian version. But, then, we are a very imaginative race.”

Apocalyptic movements are nothing new; even Christopher Columbus hoped to assist in the Great Commission by evangelizing New World inhabitants.

Some religious scholars saw apocalyptic fever rise as the year 2000 approached, and they expected it to subside after the millennium arrived without a hitch.

It didn’t. According to various polls, an estimated 40% of Americans believe that a sequence of events presaging the end times is already underway. Among the believers are pastors of some of the largest evangelical churches in America, who converged at Faith Central Bible Church in Inglewood in February to finalize plans to start 5 million new churches worldwide in 10 years.

“Jesus Christ commissioned his disciples to go to the ends of the Earth and tell everyone how they could achieve eternal life,” said James Davis, president of the Global Pastors Network’s “Billion Souls Initiative,” one of an estimated 2,000 initiatives worldwide designed to boost the Christian population.

“As we advance around the world,” Davis said, “we’ll be shortening the time needed to fulfill that Great Commission. Then, the Bible says, the end will come.”

An opposing vision, invoked by Ahmadinejad in an address before the United Nations last year, suggests that the Imam Mahdi, a 9th century figure, will soon emerge from a well to conquer the world and convert everyone to Islam.

“O mighty Lord,” he said, “I pray to you to hasten the emergence of your last repository, the promised one, that perfect and pure human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace.”

At the appropriate time, according to Shiite tradition, the Mahdi will reappear and, along with Jesus, lead Muslims in a struggle to rid the world of corruption and establish justice.

For Christians, the future of Israel is the key to any end-times scenario, and various groups are reaching out to Jews — or proselytizing among them — to advance the Second Coming.

A growing number of fundamentalist Christians in mostly Southern states are adopting Jewish religious practices to align themselves with prophecies saying that Gentiles will stand as one with Jews when the end is near.

Evangelist John C. Hagee of the 19,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio has helped 12,000 Russian Jews move to Israel, and donated several million dollars to Israeli hospitals and orphanages.

“We are the generation that will probably see the rapture of the church,” Hagee said, referring to a moment in advance of Jesus’ return when the world’s true believers will be airlifted into heaven.

“In Christian theology, the first thing that happens when Christ returns to Earth is the judgment of nations,” said Hagee, who wears a Jewish prayer shawl when he ministers. ”It will have one criterion: How did you treat the Jewish people? Anyone who understands that will want to be on the right side of that question. Those who are anti-Semitic will go to eternal damnation.”

On July 18, Hagee plans to lead a contingent of high-profile evangelists to Washington to make their concerns about Israel’s security known to congressional leaders. More than 1,200 evangelists are expected for the gathering.

“Twenty-five years ago, I called a meeting of evangelists to discuss such an effort, and the conversation didn’t last an hour,” he said. “This time, I called and they all came and stayed. And when the meeting was over, they all agreed to speak up for Israel.”

Underlining the sense of urgency is a belief that the end-times clock started ticking May 15, 1948, when the United Nations formally recognized Israel.

“I’ll never forget that night,” Hagee said. “I was 8 years old at the time and in the kitchen with my father listening to the news about Israel’s rebirth on the radio. He said, ‘Son, this is the most important day in the 20th century.’ “

Posted on 07/02/06. Filed under: Ecclesia • Eschatology: The End and Our Age • • Email This Entry

Strange “forces of evil” have kept the Roman Catholics and Orthodox apart, and inventiveness born out of our mutual love will lead us onto new paths to overcome these forces. . .

These words of the Pope [see below] wonderfully express the great error of ecumenism and delusion of ecumenists. It is not anyone’s error or pride, nor dogmatic error, and certainly not heresy, that has created and maintained the division, nor will humility and repentance overcome it, but “inventiveness”, as if
Thomas Alva Edisonwe were called to imitate Thomas Edison in some laboratory. The Pope and those with him - including some Patriarchs and bishops - resemble technicians or mathematicians who are seeking after some formula for which to “discover” unity - a unity which essentially already exists, like some hidden power of nature, but which simply awaits the right “moment in history” to make its debut and revolutionize humanity, etc. No repentance is necessary. No repudiation of heresy or even admitting that heresy ever existed. Rather, we will “invent” a new path out of our great love for one another.

All of this is such nonesense it is simply astounding that some Orthodox bishops and theologians go along with it or even, at times, believe in it. It is precisely inventiveness - i.e. innovations - that the whole of Orthodox tradition and patristic witness work against. We “follow the Holy Fathers” and preach and proclaim “as the Prophets fortold, as the Apostles proclaimed, as the Fathers declared” etc. The spirit underlying the Pope’s words and the whole mentality on display in the Ecumenical Movement is totally one with the age and is chiliastic, promising new and ever greater things and a kingdom of this world. In the end the only ones at fault here are “forces of evil”. (One is reminded of Eve in the garden who essentially said that “the devil made me do it”. The only problem is that man is free and responsible for his actions, and, what’s more, if he is truly spiritual and of Christ not under the control or sway of the evil one.)

All who would save their soul in this day and age must fight this spirit and delusion with all his might - first in himself and then for the sake and love of the brethren.
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Pope: Catholics, Orthodox will find full unity
By Cindy Wooden
2/28/2006

Catholic News Service (http://www.catholicnews.com)
Pope Benedict XVI
VATICAN CITY – With deeper conversion and greater love, Catholics and Orthodox will find the path to full unity, Pope Benedict XVI told staff and students from a Greek Orthodox theological college.

Meeting the group from the Apostoliki Diakonia theological college of Athens, Greece, Feb. 27, the pope said that, despite “the forces of evil” that have kept Catholics and Orthodox from full unity, visits, cultural exchanges and joint projects have brought new hope to ecumenism.

Progress in dialogue, he said, brings hope for “a new dawn, that of the day on which we will understand fully that being rooted and grounded in the love of Christ means concretely finding a way to overcome our divisions through personal and communal conversion, the exercise of listening to the other and prayer in common for our unity.”

The pope said the exchange program with the Orthodox Church of Greece, which includes a scholarship program for Orthodox priests and seminarians to study in Rome and Catholic priests and seminarians to study in Athens, is especially important for preparing future church leaders for ecumenism.

“I am certain that mutual love will increase our inventiveness and will lead us to follow new paths,” the pope said.

Posted on 03/01/06. Filed under: Ecclesia • Ecclesiology: The Church and Ecumenism • The Contemporary World • The "New Christianity" • Neo-Roman Catholicism • • Email This Entry