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Liturgical Extracts from Ivan the Terrible

ndvanderhoofven — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:20:36 CDT

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Links

John_Alden — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 12:54:12 CDT

The International Old Believer Internet Radio Program
http://radioavvakum.moeradio.ru:10000/RadioAvvakum.m3u

The Orthodox Medievelist
http://www.rusjournal.com/

DREVLEPRAVOSLAVIA

OLD RITE RUSSIAN ORTHODOXY

http://starowier.bloog.pl/index.html?
I have bought crosses and other Old Faith items from him.

Ancient Orthodox Christian Wiki

http://oldorthodoxy.wetpaint.com/

Old Believer Museum

http://starover.eu/en/preface/

The Pomors (in Russian)

http://www.pomorian.narod.ru/
.

Conservatives in Sumara (in Russian)
changed their Internet address from
samstar.ru
to
http://samstar.ucoz.ru/

(see also http://samstar-biblio.ucoz.ru/)
[the two above are interlinked, one is more of a news source, the other a document source]
[sister Irina and her community have done a lot of historical work indieed]
.

Old Believer Architecture Photos from Latvia

http://www.starover-pomorec.lv/index.php?link=24&cat=hrami
.

The Complete Domostroi (in Russian)

http://www.hronos.km.ru/dokum/domostroi.html
.

A discription of the 1666 Sobor in Moscow-in Russian
(it is significant that it was not one year earlier or one year later)

http://oldbelief.chat.ru/senatov/despised.htm
.

Old Believers in Estonia - expounds on the heresy of knotted kerchiefs,
or neckties for that matter. (Judas, the betrayer,
is known for making a knot under the chin)

http://www.starover.ee/history.html
.

Old Russian Manuscripts

http://www.hist.msu.ru/ER/
.

Map of the Wealthy - we know where not to be going

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0011/earthlights2_dmsp_big.jpg

.
Nikolaevsksy Alaska - I said hello to Nina before

http://www.russiangiftsnina.com/
.

Old Believers Discovered in America (links to many photos)

http://www.belovodije.com/amerika01.html
.

Nikita's Website

http://www.synaxis.info/

Holy books of the Old Believers have to be copied by hand

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bergie/321444742/in/photostream/
.

THE DISSENTERS
http://www.nalanda.nitc.ac.in/resources/english/etext-project/history/rus/chapter18.html

Old Russia Transplanted
http://www.cnewa.org/mag-article-bodypg-us.aspx?articleID=512

Strict Pomorsky Lestovka - with triangle edges sewn up
The Seven Sacraments are there, just more hidden
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Поморская_лестовка.jpg

The Life of Avvakum (in Russian)
http://www.starovery.ru/pravda/history.php?cid=455

The Animals Are Heading For the Hills
Perhaps they know something we don't ?
http://www.livescience.com/environment/061214_animals_retreat.html

Agafia Lukov is still in the Altai Mountains
http://samstar.ucoz.ru/news/2008-02-01-319

Four Sacred Caves in the life of Christ
http://www.sacredsites.com/middle_east/israel/4_sacred_caves.html

Heritage of Byzantine Ikons,
the Old Believers rejected the western influence
http://samstar-biblio.ucoz.ru/publ/182-1-0-1184
.
Old Believers in Detroit, Michigan
http://detroitoldbelievers.org/en/main.html

"PO USTAVU" – According to the Typicon: The Rituals and Singing of the Russian Old Believers

http://www.synaxis.info/psalom/research/simmons/finland/presentation_2007.html

Orthodox Kellion of the Holy Trinity and St Sergius

http://members.tripod.com/old_rite_orthodox/

Old Faith Documents

http://starajavera.narod.ru/

Home

fatman2021 — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:49:55 CDT

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Heretics

ndvanderhoofven — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 01:32:43 CDT

Heretics are those who separate themselves from the Faith of the Church, the Apostolic tradition, the Gospel, rejecting dogmas or adding newly-devised doctrines to it, thus corrupting it. Some examples are: Arians (who deny the divinity of Christ), Monophysites (who merge into one single new nature the divinity and humanity of Christ), Roman Catholics (who corrupt the teaching of the Gospel concerning the Persons of the Trinity, grace, the Church, and many other doctrines), etc. In consequence of their spiritual separation from the Church, the Church rejects them from Her communion until their repentance.The Teaching of the Scriptures, Church Fathers, and Ecumenical Councils on the Absence of Salvation Among Heretics and Those in Communion With Them.

Preface

We have deliberately chosen to display below the harsh words and strong warnings of God's beloved servants in regard to the deadliness of heresy and communion with it, not for the purpose of gleefully attacking and condemning our fellow human beings for whose sake Christ in inexpressible divine love condescended to become man and endure His saving Passion, but rather so that nothing that we could have prevented will impede them from inheriting both in this age and in the age to come that wondrous gift of which He desired and ever desires to make them partakers. Since "whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth" and He corrects us "for our profit, for us to partake of His holiness" "and sanctification, without which no one shall see the Lord" [cf. Heb. 12:6-14], will it not be an act of love on our part toward those who are depriving themselves of the grace and life in God by their wrong course to tell them of their peril and warn them, "Make straight paths for your feet," lest that which is lame should be put out of joint, but that it rather might be healed" [Heb. 12:13]? We truly wish for the healing of each and every soul, but so often the sick man thinks that he is in health, the blind that he sees, and the lame that he is running swiftly down the path to salvation, when in fact he is only limping down the broad path at the end of which he will lose his soul; therefore it is necessary to be blunt with those upon whom the careless ecumenical spirit of our times has settled so as to wake them up out of their stupor and deliver them from the unhappy delusion of the evil one and bring them to the straight and narrow path that leads to Christ, the true God and Life. In speaking the truth bluntly but in love, we follow the teaching of the much-suffering, great servant of God, St. Maximus the Confessor, whose exhortation we have reproduced here below:

"I write these things not wishing to cause distress to the heretics or to rejoice in their ill-treatment -- God forbid; but, rather, rejoicing and being gladdened at their return. For what is more pleasing to the Faithful than to see the scattered children of God gathered again as one? Neither do I exhort you to place harshness above the love of men. May I not be so mad! I beseech you to do and to carry out good to all men with care and assiduity, becoming all things to all men, as the need of each is shown to you; I want and pray you to be wholly harsh and implacable with the heretics only in regard to cooperating with them or in any way whatever supporting their deranged belief. For I reckon it hatred towards man and a departure from Divine love to lend support to error, so that those previously seized by it might be even more greatly corrupted."

-St. Maximus the Confessor
(Patrologia Graeca, Vol. 91 col. 465c).

Once again, we pray that our readers will not mistake for the spirit of hate the spirit of true love and care for your salvation in which we present the exhortations and warnings of the Saints. If the reader should find himself to have been in error and in need of correction, let not the reader be offended and, with shame and wounded pride, turn away from the truth and the Church that would heal him, clinging, instead, to the innumerable number of false shepherds and physicians that will tell him that he is healthy and in no danger in this or that Ecumenist jurisdiction. Such is a deadly temptation and such deceitful words are full of true hatred towards man. Do not be deceived, but rather read carefully the words of God's holy servants below and hold fast to them when the tempest of worldly cares, trials, and criticisms from others threaten to sweep you back into the false church of the Ecumenists. If we follow the same path that the God-pleasing Fathers followed, then certainly we shall find the same inheritance at its end.

The Teaching of the Church on Heretics and Those in Communion with Them: Selections from the Holy Fathers

"Heresies...shall not inherit the Kingdom of God"

[The Holy Apostle Paul, Epistle to the Galatians 5:20-21]:

"We know that salvation itself is a property of the One Church, and that no one can be outside of the catholic Church and yet share the Faith of Christ, or be saved...Neither do we offer any part of that hope to the ungodly heretics, but we place them entirely outside of that hope; indeed, they have not the least participation in Christ, but vainly assume for themselves that saving Name."

-St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople (4th Century AD)
[Migne P. G. 59:725]

"Another thing the blessed man taught and insisted upon with all was never on any occasion whatsoever to associate with heretics and, above all, never to take the Holy Communion with them, 'even if', the blessed man said, 'you remain without communicating all your life, if through stress of circumstances you cannot find a community of the catholic Church. For if, having legally married a wife in this world of the flesh, we are forbidden by God and by the laws to desert her and be united to another woman, even though we have to spend a long time separated from her in a distant country, and shall incur punishment if we violate our vows, how then shall we, who have been joined to God through the Orthodox faith and the catholic Church -- as the apostle says: 'I espoused you to one husband that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ' (2 Cor. 11:2) -- how shall we escape from sharing in that punishment which in the world to come awaits heretics, if we defile the orthodox and holy faith by adulterous communion with heretics?'

"For 'communion', he said, 'has been so called because he who has 'communion' has things in common and agrees with those with whom he has 'communion'. Therefore I implore you earnestly, children, never to go near the oratories of the heretics in order to communicate there.'"

-St. John the Almsgiver, Patriarch of Alexandria (7th Century AD)
[Three Byzantine Saints, "The Life of Saint John the Almsgiver",
Translators: Elizabeth Dawes & Norman H. Baynes,
St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, Crestwood: 1977; p. 251]

"'But if,' they say, 'we had devised some middle ground between the dogmas (of the Papists and the Orthodox), then thanks to this we would have united with them and accomplished our business superbly, without at all having been forced to say anything except what corresponds to custom and has been handed down (by the Fathers).' This is precisely the means by which many, from of old, have been deceived and persuaded to follow those who have led them off the steep precipice of impiety; believing that there is some middle ground between the two teachings that can reconcile obvious contradictions, they have been exposed to peril."

-St. Mark of Ephesus, "Encyclical Letter" (see Orthodox Word , March-April-May, 1967)]

Without the True Orthodox Faith, No One Will Be Saved,
For Heresy Separates One From God, the Church, Grace, and Salvation:

"Several brothers once visited Abba Agathon, for they had been informed that he was possessed of great spiritual discretion. And wishing to test him, to see if he would become angry, they said: "Are you Agathon? We have heard about you that you are debauched and proud." He replied, "Yes, it is so." They said to him once more, "Are you Agathon the loose-tongued lover of slander?" "I am he," he responded. And the visitors spoke to him a third time, "You are Agathon, the heretic?" To this, he answered, "I am not a heretic." After this answer, they asked him to explain: "Why, when we called you so many things, did you admit them, while you would not, however, endure the accusation that you were a heretic?" And the Abba said to them: "The first things I accepted since they were beneficial for my soul; but not the accusation that I am a heretic, since heresy is separation from God." On hearing this reply, the visitors marvelled at the spiritual discretion of the Abba and departed, benefitted in soul."

- Abba Agathon, Desert Father
[ The Evergetinos: A Complete Text ,
Translatored by Hm. Patapios &
Bp. Auxentios, CTOS:
Etna, CA, 1999; Bk. II, Vol. I,
Hypothesis II, p.44]

"Heresy separates every man from the Church."

- Seventh Holy Ecumenical Council
[Mansi, Vol. xii, col. 1022cd;
Praktika, Vol. II, p. 733a (First Session)]

"The universal [catholic] Church is a great paradise...and should anyone be found in the Church ailing with heretical error from the teaching of the serpent...then he is cast out of this paradise, even as Adam was cast out from the paradise [of old]."

- St. John Chrysostom
[PG 59:545CD]

"'There is one Lord, one Faith, one baptism' [Eph. 4:5], and this is what we believe with all our soul, with all our heart, and with all our mind, that there is salvation in none other than in Jesus Christ the Nazerene [cf. Acts 4:10-12]. And this is what we piously believe and follow. And we recognize that works without true doctrine are not accepted by God, neither is true doctrine without works accepted by God. For what profit is it, to know well the doctrines concerning God, and yet to be a vile fornicator? And again, what profit is it, to be nobly temperate, and an impious blasphemer? A most precious possession therefore is the knowledge of doctrines: also there is need of a wakeful soul, since there are many that make spoil through philosophy and vain deceit. The Greeks on the one hand draw men away by their smooth tongue, for honey droppeth from a harlot's lips: whereas they of the Circumcision deceive those who come to them by means of the Divine Scriptures, which they miserably misinterpret though studying them from childhood to all age, and growing old in ignorance. But the children of heretics, by their good words and smooth tongue, deceive the hearts of the innocent, disguising with the name of Christ as it were with honey the poisoned arrows of their impious doctrines: concerning all of whom together the Lord saith, Take heed lest any man mislead you. This is the reason for the teaching of the Creed and for expositions upon it."

- St. Cyril, Archbishop Of Jerusalem
[ Catechetical Lectures - Lecture 4:
On Ten Points Of Doctrine]

"I therefore, yet not I, but the love of Jesus Christ, entreat you that ye use Christian nourishment only, and abstain from herbage of a different kind; I mean heresy. For heretics mix up Jesus Christ with their own poison, speaking things which are unworthy of credit, like those who administer a deadly drug in sweet wine, which he who is ignorant of does greedily take, with a fatal pleasure leading to his own death."

- St. Ignatius the Godbearer, Hieromartyr of Antioch
[ Epistle to the Trallians ]

"Just as the fishermen hide the hook with bait and covertly hook the fish, similarly, the crafty allies of the heresies cover their evil teachings and corrupt understanding with pietism and hook the more simple, bringing them to spiritual death"

- St. Isidore of Pelusium
[Letter to Timothy the Reader,
Patrologia Graeca 78, 252C]

"In The Spiritual Meadow of St. John Moschus, we read:

"Once a monk called Theophan came to see the great elder Kyriakos..." (He tells the elder that in his country he is in contact with Nestorians whereupon) "the elder begins to try to convince the monk of his error and to pray that he abandon that fatal heresy and join himself to the holy catholic and apostolic Church."

"'It is impossible to be saved ('without right belief).'" (The monk is interested and the elder offers him his cell saying:)

"'I have hope that God in His mercy will reveal the truth to you.'"

"And leaving the monk in his cave, the elder set out for the Dead Sea, praying for the monk as he went. And indeed the next day about the ninth hour the monk sees someone, strange in appearance, who says to him, 'Come and find out the truth.' And taking him he leads him to a gloomy, stinking place emitting flames and shows him Nestorius and Theodore (of Mopsuestia), Eutyches and Apollonarius, Evagrius and Didymus, Dioscorus and Severus, Arius and Origen, and others. And pointing at them he says to the monk, 'That is the place prepared for heretics and those who taught falsely about the Mother of God and those who follow their teachings. If you do not want to taste the same punishment turn to the holy catholic and apostolic Church to which the elder who is instructing you belongs. I tell you: even though a man be adorned with all the works of charity, but does not have right belief he will find himself in that place.'

"With these words the monk came to himself. When the elder returned the monk told him everything that he had seen and in a short time joined himself to the holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. Staying in the monastery of Kalamon he lived with the elder for some years and died in peace.""

-St. John Moscus
[ Spiritual Meadow ; cited in
"Commentary on the Latest
Recommendations of the 'Joint Commision
For Theological Dialogue Between
the Orthodox And Oriental Churches'",
Orthodox Life , vol. 42, no. 3 (May-June 1991),
pp. 5-18.; quotation appears on p. 17]

Anyone That Would Be Saved Must Depart From Heresy and Join the True Orthodox Church:

"One might say much more against this detestable and antichristian heresy...But...in order that our words may not be too many, it will be well to content ourselves with the divine Scripture, and that we all obey the precept which it has been given us both in regard to other heresies, and especially respecting this. That precept is as follows; `Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of them, and be ye separate, that bear the vessels of the Lord' This may suffice to instruct us all, so that if any one has been deceived by them, he may go out from them, as out of Sodom, and not return again unto them, lest he suffer the fate of Lot's wife; and if any one has continued from the beginning pure from this impious thing, heresy, he may glory in Christ and say, `We have not stretched out our hands to a strange god; neither have we worshipped the works of our own hands, nor served the creature more than Thee, the God that hast created all things through Thy word, the Only-Begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom to Thee the Father together with the same Word in the Holy Spirit be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen."

- St. Athanasius the Great, Patriarch of Alexandria
[ History of the Arians , 80]

"Abba Theodore used to say, "If thou hast affection for a man, and it happeneth that he fall into temptation, stretch out thy hand to him, and lift him up therefrom, but if he fall into heresy, and will not be persuaded by thee to return, cut him off from thee immediately, lest, if thou tarry long with him, thou be drawn unto him, and thou sink down into the uttermost depths."

- Abba Theodore, Desert Father
[ Sayings of the Desert Fathers , 315]

If We Are In Communion With Heretics, We Likewise Will Perish:

"As for all those who pretend to confess sound Orthodox Faith, but are in communion with people who hold a different opinion, if they are forewarned and still remain stubborn, you must not only not be in communion with them, but you must not even call them brothers."

- St. Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesaria in Cappodocia
(*Patrologia Orientalis*, Vol. 17, p. 303)

"Another thing the blessed man taught and insisted upon with all was never on any occasion whatsoever to associate with heretics and, above all, never to take the Holy Communion with them, 'even if', the blessed man said, 'you remain without communicating all your life, if through stress of circumstances you cannot find a community of the catholic Church. For if, having legally married a wife in this world of the flesh, we are forbidden by God and by the laws to desert her and be united to another woman, even though we have to spend a long time separated from her in a distant country, and shall incur punishment if we violate our vows, how then shall we, who have been joined to God through the Orthodox faith and the catholic Church -- as the apostle says: "I espoused you to one husband that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ" (2 Cor. 11:2) -- how shall we escape from sharing in that punishment which in the world to come awaits heretics, if we defile the orthodox and holy faith by adulterous communion with heretics?'

For 'communion', he said, 'has been so called because he who has "communion" has things in common and agrees with those with whom he has "communion". Therefore I implore you earnestly, children, never to go near the oratories of the heretics in order to communicate there.'"

-St. John the Almsgiver, Patriarch of Alexandria (7th Century AD)
[ Three Byzantine Saints , "The Life of Saint John the Almsgiver",
Translators: Elizabeth Dawes & Norman H. Baynes,
St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, Crestwood: 1977; p. 251]

"With all our strength let us beware lest we receive Communion from or give it to heretics. 'Give not what is holy to the dogs,' says the Lord. 'Neither cast ye your pearls before swine', lest we become partakers in their dishonour and condemnation."

- St. John of Damascus [ An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith , IV, 13]

"Even if one should give away all his possessions in the world, and yet be in communion with heresy, he cannot be a friend of God, but is rather an enemy."

- St. Theodore the Studite
(PG 99, 1205)

"Chrysostomos loudly declares not only heretics, but also those who have communion with them, to be enemies of God."

- St. Theodore the Studite
[ Epistle to Abbot Theophilus ]

"Guard yourselves from soul-destroying heresy, communion with which is alienation from Christ."

-St. Theodore the Studite
[P.G. 99.1216.]

"The heretics were totally shipwrecked with regard to the Faith; but as for the others, even if in their thinking they did not founder, nevertheless, because of their communion with heresy they are perishing."

- St. Theodore the Studite
[Patrologia Graeca 99, 1164]

We Must Abandon Bishops That Are Heretics Or Are In Communion With Them:

"As we walk the unerring and life-bringing path, let us pluck out the eye that scandalizes us, not the physical eye, but the noetic one. For example, if a bishop ... who is the eyes of the Church conduct himself in an evil manner and scandalize the people, he must be plucked out. For it is more profitable to gather without him in a house of prayer, than to be cast together with him into the gehenna of fire together with Annas and Caiaphas."

- Saint Athanasius the Great, Patriarch of Alexandria
(Migne PG 26, 1257 C)

"Do not err, my brethren. Those that corrupt families shall not inherit the kingdom of God. And if those that corrupt mere human families are condemned to death, how much more shall those suffer everlasting punishment who endeavour to corrupt the Church of Christ, for which the Lord Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God, endured the Cross, and submitted to death! Whosoever, "being waxen fat," and "become gross," sets at nought His doctrine, shall go into gehenna. In like manner, every one that has received from God the power of distinguishing, and yet follows an unskillful shepherd, and receives a false opinion for the truth, shall be punished. "What communion hath light with darkness? or Christ with Belial? Or what portion hath he that believeth with an infidel? or the temple of God with idols? "And in like manner say I, what communion hath truth with falsehood? or righteousness with unrighteousness? or true doctrine with that which is false? For this end did the Lord suffer the ointment to be poured upon His head, that His Church might breathe forth immortality. For saith [the Scripture], "Thy name is as ointment poured forth; therefore have the virgins loved Thee; they have drawn Thee; at the odour of Thine ointments we will run after Thee." Let no one be anointed with the bad odour of the doctrine of [the prince of] this world; let not the holy Church of God be led captive by his subtlety, as was the first woman. Why do we not, as gifted with reason, act wisely? When we had received from Christ, and had grafted in us the faculty of judging concerning God, why do we fall headlong into ignorance? and why, through a careless neglect of acknowledging the gift which we have received, do we foolishly perish?"

- St. Ignatius the Godbearer, Hieromartyr of Antioch
[ Epistle to the Ephesians ]

"How then does Paul say, 'Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves'? (Heb. 13:17) After having said before, 'Whose faith follow, considering the end of their life' (Heb. 13:7), he then said, 'Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves'. What then (you say), when he is wicked, should we obey? Wicked? In what sense? If indeed in regard to matters of the Faith, flee and avoid him; not only if he be a man, but even if he be an angel come down from Heaven; but if in regard to his life, be not overly-curious."

-St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople (4th Century AD)
[ Homily Thirty-Four on the Epistle to the Hebrews ]

"Is the shepherd a heretic? Then he is a wolf! You must flee from him; do not be deceived to approach him even if he appears gentle and tame. Flee from communion and conversation with him even as you would flee from a poisonous snake."

- St. Photius the Great, Patriarch of Constantinople
[ Homily Fifteen , 10]

Numbers And Official Titles Do Not Matter,
Only the Sound Confession of the Orthodox Faith;
Those Who Remain True Cannot Be Condemned,
But Rather Receive Salvation:

"'That thou mayest know,' he says, 'how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.' Not like that Jewish house. For it is this that maintains the Faith and the preaching of the Word. For the truth is the pillar and the ground of the Church."

- St. John Chrysostom
Homily XI on the First Epistle to St. Timothy, commenting on verse 3:15

"They that are of the Church of Christ are they that are of the truth; and they that are not of the truth are not of the Church of Christ...for we are reminded that we are to distinguish Christianity not by persons, who have ecclesiastical titles, but by the truth and by the exactness of the Faith." [e.g. 'Patriarch of Constantinople', etc.]

- St. Gregory Palamas, Archbishop and Wonderworker of Thessalonika
[ Collected Works , II, 627, pp.10-16]

Even if false hierarchs, while being in heresy, "will succeed in deceiving and enticing a certain number of ignorant ones and in gathering even a considerable number of followers, then they are outside the sacred walls of the Church just the same. But even if very few remain in Orthodoxy and piety, they are in the Church, and the authority and the protection of the ecclesiastical institution resides in them. And if they should suffer for true piety, then this will undoubtedly contribute to their eternal glory and salvation of their souls."

- St. Nicephorus the Confessor [ PG 100, 844D]

"I exhort you, therefore, not to faint in your afflictions, but to be revived by God's love, and to add daily to your zeal knowing that in you ought to be preserved that remnant of true religion which the Lord will find when He cometh on the earth. Even if bishops are driven from their Churches, be not dismayed. If traitors have arisen from among the very clergy themselves, let not this undermine your confidence in God. We are saved not by names, but by mind and purpose, and genuine love toward our Creator. Bethink you how in the attack against our Lord, high priests and scribes and elders devised the plot, and how few of the people were found really receiving the word. Remember that it is not the multitude who are being saved, but the elect of God. Be not then affrighted at the great multitude of the people who are carried hither and thither by winds like the waters of the sea. If but one would be saved, like Lot at Sodom, he ought to abide in right judgment, keeping his hope in Christ unshaken, for the Lord will not forsake His holy ones. Salute all the brethren in Christ from me. Pray earnestly for my miserable soul."

-St. Basil the Great
[ Epistle CCLVII,
To the Monks Harassed by Arians ]

"It is your prerogative to prefer the drowned multitude to Noah who was saved; but as for me, allow me to run to the Ark along with the few." "One who is well-pleasing to God is to be preferred over myriads who are invested with presumption."

- Saint Theodore the Studite
[PG 99, 1081C; PG 99, 1084A]

"Let us not raise a stumbling-block for the Church of God which, according to the teaching of the Saints, is made up of even three Orthodox, so that we may not be condemned according to the Lord's verdict."

- Saint Theodore the Studite
[ Epistle to Abbot Theophilus , PG 99, 1049C.]

"When Saint Hypatius understood what opinions Nestorius held, immediately, in the Church of the Apostles, he erased his name from the diptychs, so that it should no longer be pronounced at the Oblation. [This was before Nestorius' condemnation by the Third Ecumenical Council.] "When Bishop Eulalius learned of this, he was anxious about the outcome of the affair. And seeing that it had been noised abroad, Nestorius also ordered him to reprimand Hypatius. For Nestorius was still powerful in the city. Bishop Eulalius spoke thus to Hypatius: Why have you erased his name without understanding what the consequences would be? Saint Hypatius replied: From the time that I learned that he said unrighteous things about the Lord, I have no longer been in communion with him and I do not commemorate his name; for he is not a bishop. Then the bishop, in anger, said: Be off with you! Make amends for what you have done, for I shall take measures against you. Saint Hypatius replied: Do as you wish. As for me, I have decided to suffer anything, and it is with this in mind that I have done this."

- From the Life of Saint Hypatius (Sources Chretiennes, No.177, pp. 210-214)

"Of old the anathema was fearful and something to be avoided when it was imposed by the preachers of piety upon those who were guilty of impiety. But ever since the daring and insolent mindlessness of the pernicious contrary to every divine and human law and contrary to every way of thinking, both Greek and barbarian, became so insanely arrogant as to turn the anathema, which they deserved, back on the proponents of Orthodoxy, and as they bickered, in their barbarian frenzy, to accomplish their ecclesiastical transgression, then that fearful and last extremity of all penalties became degraded into a myth and a joke, or rather it became even desirable to the pious. Certainly, it is not the utterly presumptuous opinion of the enemies of truth that makes penalties (especially ecclesiastical penalties) fearful, but rather the culpability of those who are condemned; for guiltlessness changes their punishments into a mockery, and turns their condemnations back upon them, and results in undefiled crowns and immortal glory, rather than condemnation, for him who is castigated by them. Therefore, all the pious and holy prefer to be reviled myriads of times by those who are alienated from Christ rather than, with splendid acclamations, to have communion with their Christ-hating and God-hating villainies."

- St. Photius the Great
[Letter to Ignatius, Metropolitan of Claudiopolis,
PG 102, 833 A-C]

"For a long span of time, every heretical council and every assembly of the Iconoclasts anathematized us (and not only us, but our father and our uncle also men who were confessors of Christ and the lustre of the hierarchy); but by anathematizing us, they caused that we be raised, though unwilling, to the archiepiscopal throne. Therefore let those who, together with the former, have irrationally strayed from the Master's commandments and have thrown wide open the gate of all iniquity, anathematize us even now so that they may raise us, though faltering, from earth to the Heavenly Kingdom."

- St. Photius the Great
[Letter Sixty-four to Gregory,
the deacon and archivist,
PG 102, 877 B-C]

To Deviate A 'little' Or ' A Lot' In Regard To The Faith Is Equally Sin Unto Death

"The fact that we do not become indignant over small matters is the cause of all our calamities; and because slight errors escape fitting correction, greater ones creep in. As in a body, a neglect of wounds generates fever, infection and death; so in the soul, slight evils overlooked open the door to graver ones . . . But if a proper rebuke had at first been given to those who attempted to depart from the divine sayings and change some small matter, such a pestilence would not have been generated, nor such a storm have seized upon the Church; for he that overturns even that which is minor in the sound Faith, will cause ruin in all."

-St. John Chrysostom
[Homily One on the Epistle to the Galatians]

"To sin in respect of the dogmas whether in small or great is the same thing; for the law of God is disregarded in either case."

- St. Tarasius of Constantinople
[1st Act of the 7th Holy Ecumenical Council;
cited in The Pedalion {The Rudder},
tr. D. Cummings, p.775]

"It is incumbent upon everyone to observe the letter of all that is common to all, and, above all, the points touching the Faith, where to deviate a little is to commit a sin unto death."

- St. Photius the Great, Patriarch of Constantinople
[ Epistle to Pope Nicholas of Rome ;
cited in The Rudder ,
D. Cummings translation,
pp. 775-776]

Everyone Is Called To This Struggle;
One Cannot Simply Be 'Orthodox In One's Heart', While Apostatizing by Silence Outwardly

"Not only if one possesses rank or knowledge is one obliged to strive to speak and to teach the doctrines of Orthodoxy, but even if one be a disciple in rank, one is obliged to speak the truth boldly and openly."

-Saint Theodore the Studite
[ Letter Two (Book Two) to Monastics ,
(PG 99, 1120 B)]

"It is a commandment of the Lord that we should not be silent when the Faith is in peril. So, when it is a matter of the Faith, one cannot say, 'Who am I? A priest, a ruler, a soldier, a farmer, a poor man? I have no say or concern in this matter.' Alas! The stones shall cry out, and you remain silent and unconcerned?"

- Saint Theodore the Studite
[ Epistle Eighty-One ,
(PG 99, 1321 AB)]

"Many people were being irrational by trying to convince the martyr to deny Christ with his words only, and keep his faith in his soul, in his inner disposition, claiming that God does not pay attention to our words but to our disposition. However, Gordios the Martyr was rigid in his belief and replied, "The tongue, which is created by Christ, cannot bear to utter anything against Him... Do not deceive yourselves, God cannot be mocked, He judges us according to our own mouth, He justifies us by our words, and by our words, He convicts us".

- St. Basil the Great
[ Homily on Gordius, the Martyr ]

There Can No Peace or Common God With Those of Another Faith; To Allege This Is Heresy

St. Gregory of Nyssa writes in regard of peace with heresy that "better is a laudable war than a peace which severs a man from God." "For disagreement over piety is better than emotional concord."

-St. Gregory of Nyssa
Oration 2.82 (In Defense of his Flight to Pontus; PG 35:488C);
and Oration 6.11 (First Eirenic; PG 35:736AB):

"Live in peace not only with your friends but with your enemies; but only with your personal enemies and not with the enemies of God."

- St. Theodosius of the Kiev Caves (+1074)

"Beware, my son, of heretics and all their talking, for our land too, has become filled with them! If anyone will save his soul, it will be only through life in the Orthodox Faith. For there is no better faith, than our Holy Orthodox Faith. My son, it is not meet to praise another's faith. Whoever praises an alien faith is like a detractor of his own Orthodox Faith. If anyone should praise his own and another's faith, then he is a man of dual faith and is close to heresy. If anyone should say to you: "your faith and our faith is from God", you, my son, should reply: "Heretic! do you consider God to be of two faiths? Don't you hear what the Scriptures say: "One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism" (Eph. 4,5). Thus, my son, beware of such people and always stand up for your Faith. Do not fraternize with them, but avoid them and pursue your own Faith with good deeds!" "My son, even if there would be the need for you to die for your holy Faith, dare to embrace death! Thus the Saints died for their Faith, and now they are alive in Christ."

- St. Theodosius of the Kiev Caves Lavra (+1074)
[From his "Testament" to the Great Prince
Izyaslav of Kiev (1054-1068) whom the Papists
attempted to convert to their delusion
[I.P. Yeremin, "The Literary Heritage of Theodosius
of the Kiev Caves Lavra", TODRL,
1947, vol. 5, p. 171-172.]

Self-Immolator Saints & Sacraments Without Clergy

John_Alden — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:16:54 CDT

One of the differences we find between Old Believers is self-immolation; some Old Believers found self-immolation acceptable, while most rejected the idea. There are misleading accounts of self-immolation. The Nikonites were already burning Old Believers alive, so the Old Believers were under this very real threat to their lives. The Nikonites would go to Old Believer churches where the faithful had barricaded themselves to pray. The Nikonites pounded with such force on the doors that candles would fall onto the floor where straw was laying, which then caught fire. The Nikonites blamed the Old Believers for suicide, when that is not what actually happened. There are, however, early christian records of self-immolator saints. The tradition of “passion-bearing” in Russia is long standing, Boris and Gleb accepted death without resistance. Below is a photo of their 14th century icon.
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Some Old Believers have talked about baptism by fire (or fire baptism), and have said that starvation is a purifying fire. I try to give here a few examples of saints that some might call suicidal, which also record for us some examples of Sacraments without clergy. Self-immolation is dying for a good cause while under threat of death, whereas suicide is killing ourselves for no good reason at all. No matter what we might like to think, it is not possible to make bishops for ourselves, accept fugitive new-rite clergy or receive deposed hierarchs, which is what many Old Believer groups have done. As we can see from such sources as are given here, we do not require residing earthly clergy for earthly Church Sacraments to exist. This is a mystery, inside a mystery, inside yet another mystery. These old Russian nesting dolls are one example of the mysteries; they also show the proper head covering for women at worship, with a pinned kerchief, not knotted. In these it is not error to understand the Mysteries in a hidden manner, as if they were invisible sacraments.
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St. John Chrysostom, in his homily on the Epistle to the Hebrews makes this comment at chapter 11, verse 38 where it mentions those whom the world was not worthy, who went into caves and holes of the earth, “Elia (Elijah) was driven out, persecuted, and compelled to struggle with famine... But what is this that 'they were made to wander'? They were made to wander like exiles and fugitives, as those caught and detected in shameless crimes, as those not worthy to see the sun. They found no refuge from the wilderness, but must always be fleeing, must be seeking hiding-places, must bury themselves alive in the earth, and ever be in fear.”
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Prior to the Great Schism between the Eastern and Western Churches St. Apollonia was seized and threatened to be burned. “Given, at her own request, a little freedom, she sprang into the fire and was burned to death.” See Here. .

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It is more important to remember God than it is to remember to breathe - St. Gregory the Theologian
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In the second century we have the record of 7 holy sleepers in the cave of Ephesus who lived during a time of great persicution and desired no longer to be in this world. They desired death and to be with God more than to live in this wicked world with the idolaters any longer. So they retreated one last time in a cave to fast and pray, then they all fell asleep. When the Romans came to arrest them they were all found in their tombs and so the cave was closed up with rocks. Hundreds and hundreds of years passed when an owner of the land with this cave wanted to use it to keep animals in. After proceeding to uncover the entrance to the cave the seven men who had been sleeping all this time awoke, as if being risen from the dead. They thought it was only the following day, when in fact centuries had past and the Roman Empire had become Christian. What a surprise to everyone. The Muslims also share this story, and their story goes like this. Somebody went to Mohamed and asked about this story, then Archangel Gabriel recounted the entire story to Mohamed and he was then able to give the record of this Christian story. It so happens that Islams to this day tell about this and even made movie that is around 12 hours long. This is like several movies in one. It has many interesting thoughts to consider along these lines, if you wish to have a look the quality of the video is low, but watchable. It is captioned in English so to read all of it might be a little dull for some people, but I say there is never a dull moment. The film is broken up into 6 parts.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Part 4, Part 5, Part 6.

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Greater love has no one than this, to lay down his life for his friends.

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DROSIS and the 5 NUNS of ROME

Drosis...lived during the reign of Emperor Trajan. Drosis was the daughter of Trajan...

[the Emperor killed Christians casting them into unclean sites]

… five devout nuns, who were replete with every virtue for which they earnestly labored, also took on the indispensable work of collecting the sacred relics of the saints. They scented the relics with myrrh…Drosis, who loved the Christians, was informed of this God-pleasing labor...
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The guards… apprehended the five nuns together with the emperor’s daughter…the women were escorted to the emperor. When Trajan beheld his daughter, he was astonished. The five nuns…he commanded to be burned in a large smelting-furnace…

in a dream, Trajan beheld five pure lambs that were pasturing inside a green field. Among the sheep was the shepherd who had a dreadful countenance. The shepherd then looked upon the emperor, and said, “O impious emperor, the nuns...the good Shepherd (Pastor) Christ has taken from thee. He hath established them in...Paradise which, in the future, thy daughter, Drosis, the pure lamb of God, shall also enter.”

...out of stubbornness...he charged that two huge ovens...be fired and placed on either side of the city. They were designated to immolate every Christian. Each furnace exhibited the imperial order on a placard, reading: “Galilean men, those that worship the Crucified One, deliver yourselves from many torments and save us the trouble. Unhindered, each of you may cast himself into whatever furnace he desires.”

...multitudes offered themselves as sacrifices, rational and acceptable, inside those roaring furnaces; for “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1...

Drosis passed through the city so she might cast herself into one of the furnaces, she thought to herself, “How shall I go unto God without a wedding garment, since I have not received holy Baptism, without which I am unclean? Yet, behold, O King of all, Lord Jesus Christ, I have departed the imperial court for love of Thee that I may be appointed a door-keeper in Thy Kingdom...Thou Who wast baptized for us, baptize me by the Holy Spirit.” Straightway, upon uttering this to herself, she drew from her bosom holy myrrh which she took from her bed chamber. She anointed herself and then was baptized inside a nearby vaulted pond...saying, “The handmaid of God, Drosis, is baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

...On the eighth day after her Baptism, she besought God in prayer to direct her. She then departed to her beloved Lord.

[Further Sacraments Without Clergy]

Holy 26 Saints of the Goths

...twenty-six martyrs lived during the reigns of the Hunnic khan...(375-383). For their pure confession of the Christ, the holy men and women received the imperishable crown of martyrdom by a fiery death...

As this took place, a certain Christian was bringing the prosphora* to church when he was captured by the idolaters. Therefore, instead of the soulless prosphora, he himself became a living prosphora to God. He, too, became a burnt offering, as he confessed Christ...

* The prosphora (meaning “offering” in Greek) is the altar bread.

Excerpted from The Holy Women Martyrs, by Holy Apostles Convent, Pages 104-111
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The Nikonites asked the Pomorsky 106 questions and from them came the Pomorsky Answers written by the Denisov brothers. One question was how the Old Believers were able to keep the sacrament of Confession and Repentance having no ordained clergy left. The answer was that at various times in the past, when faithful found themselves without clergy, as with St. Anthony and many others, the confession to brothers was considered complete as it was, without having an ordained priest. In the book St. Symeon the New Theologian, On the Mystical Life, The Ethical Discourses, Vol 3 in the introduction it says that the sacrament of confession has often been done without ordained priests. Timothy Ware (now Bishop Kallistos of Diocleia) is quoted, "First there is the visible succession of the hierarchy... Alongside this, largely hidden, existing on a 'charismatic' rather than a official level, there is secondly the apostolic succession of the spiritual fathers and mothers in each generation of the Church." Here is a link to the 187 KB PDF file for this introduction. Moreover, in this introduction [pages 16-19] there contains two other quotes of Saints, John the Ascetic and John of Antioch, who affirm the practice of non-clergy hearing confessions and even go so far as to specifically say that the granting of absolution and assigning of penances were handed over to non-priested monks and not the clergy in their times. At the end of the Pomorsky Answers it explains at length how monastics continued without the blessing of bishops starting with St. Anthony the Great. So there are still monks even though there are no faithful clergy around. St. Anthony himslef was never tonsured by clergy and never was ordained. There are still monks even today, without earthly bishops, I personally know some. Agafia, mentioned in the book Lost in the Taiga, is a nun.

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Sampson is understood as having obeyed God in the end, it is suggested that he committed suicide.

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Saint Pelagia (the subject of two sermons by Chrysostom), at age 15, chose death by jumping from the top of her house, in order to stop threats to her virginity.
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The strict Old Believer condition of having no earthly clergy was foretold by the Holy Prophet Daniel as the, “sanctuary that is desolate” - Daniel 9:17. This is due to the Abomination of Desolation and this Great Apostasy, where all the existing earthly churches are impostors, counterfeit and fake.
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If someone is preparing for Baptism, or is favorably disposed in this way, and if there is danger of their dying before he/she can be baptized, any lay man or woman “has the right, and indeed the duty, to perform the rite by thrice repeated immersion, or even by aspersion, or by pouring of water on the bed, with the words, ‘the servant (or handmaiden) of God (name) is baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.’ Such a baptism is entirely valid, as far as it goes. Later on, the priest does not repeat the rite, but only completes it by saying the omitted prayers and performing the omitted rites, then enters it into the church register.” (From – A Manual of the Orthodox Church's Divine Services)

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Concerning the Antichrist - St. Chrysostom says, “he will be seated in the temple of God, not that in Jerusalem only, but also in every Church.” Commentary on 2 Thess. 2:3,4. [It is the bishops throne in the churches that he is speaking of]

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Once at trapeza I recall the story from a book about young St. Basil. He, along with fellow Christian youths and a nonchristian youth were at a beach. The nonchristian youth was willing to become a Christian so the young St. Basil organized all his friends and baptized this willing youngster in their midst. The bishop learned of the happening and called all the youths to himself. The bishop, St. Athanasius, inquired into all that happened and decided everything was in order. The only thing necessary was to complete the priestly portions of baptism, which was then done. St. Athanasius, noticing the good desires of the young St. Basil took him under his wing from that time. If anyone can give an exact reference, or more details about this account, I would be most happy.

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Tsar Ivan IV, who did truly and justly assemble the Stoglav Council, also rightly mentioned this historical Christian teaching. Those who suffer a death of martyrdom prior to baptism, with wholehearted repentance and having right faith, are in fact cleansed by their own blood. The blood of martyrs be the seed and resurrection of the Church. This is because the life is in the blood, and those who find themselves in such a situation are to be understood as having been baptized in their own blood. It is not unlike the idea known as baptism of desire.

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Nicholas Cabasilas lived in 14th century Constantinople. His Commentary on the Divine Liturgy is part of lay theology from his time. His uncle was, Archbishop Neilos (or Nilus) of Thessalonica. In the Commentary on the Divine Liturgy Nicholas mentions, “Then, you will say, if a living man has the dispositions you mention in his soul, and yet does not partake of the holy mysteries, will he nevertheless receive the sanctification which the sacrament gives? Not in all cases; only when it is physically impossible for him to receive the elements, as it is for the dead. Such was the case of the solitaries who lived in the desert, or in caves and grottoes in the mountain-side, and could not avail themselves of priest or altar. Christ gave them this sanctification in an invisible manner. We know this because they had life, which they could not have had without partaking of the sacrament, for Christ himself said: ‘Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.’ Another proof is the fact that God sent angels to several of these men with the sacrament.”

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Below is a short segment from the video, Savoniha: A Siberian Old Believer 1997. At 90 years of age she gave this record of Avvakum teaching on the Sacrament of Confession. “...all trees are sacred... but above all Birch is holy... the Birch cleanses away any illness...” Avvakum foretold, “...that a time was coming when we might not find a priest... when this time arrives we are allowed to confess to our brothers... but if it is to remain secret we must go to the Birch...” Savoniha being with the priested Old Believers often found herself without a priest. The trees are like angels who we owe confession, along with the entire creation, for our offense towards them.
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From the beginning of man’s history there has always been marriage, so marriage is always acceptable. Speaking about the early Christian marriages in the book, St. John Chrysostom On Marriage and Family, we find on page 11, “For a long time there was apparently no specifically Christian marriage.”
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The strict Old Believer Pomorsky clergy, when the numbers of real earthly priests began to drastically diminish, provided portions of Holy Communion for those Christians who were about to find themselves in the position of being without any earthly clerical representative. Not very many people know about this fact. But there is indeed actual Holy Communion for people living today. This is available to those who are at the end of their earthly lives. It is not impossible to find this as Agafia Lukov (which we read about in the book, “Lost in the Taiga”) found a strict Old Believer monastery where this Sacrament continues to exist today. Agafia says that today salvation can only be found in the wilderness.

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The more strict Old Believers, “Instead [of a priest use], a nachetchik, nastavnik or nastoyatel (layman), who is elected as spiritual leader, leads the community. He substitutes for a priest by conducting services, baptisms, and marriage rites, and by teaching church grammar to village youth. He is also consulted about spiritual questions and he holds confession.” p. 19, Old Russia in Modern America, by A. B. Dolitsky.

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Concerning the Antichrist - St. Chrysostom says, “he will be seated in the temple of God, not that in Jerusalem only, but also in every Church.” Commentary on 2 Thess. 2:3,4. [It is the bishops’ throne (seat) in a church that he is speaking of.]
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From early Christian times people would go on long journeys, say on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, people would be without priests for an extended period of time. Though they might find many heretic churches along the way they would not worship with them. Such people should not believe themselves lacking any Grace or Sacrament, for the fullness of Faith certainly had not left these faithful pilgrims. They would receive Grace spiritually, by the many prayers offered during their courses. There are of course many lives of saints who lived most of their lives without Communion, yet we do not think any less of them. St. Mary of Egypt and St. Mark the Ascetic are just two of them. We too can be pilgrims to heaven, like these saints. Should we not ever find any faithful earthly clergy we can rest assured that there is a good example of such waiting for us on the Last Day, if we have done everything possible to be standing right and believing correctly.
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Within the Holy Gospels the Lord offers a rhetorical (persuasive) question; will there be the Faith on earth when He returns to the earth? The answer a resounding “No!” If then the Church is where the bishop is, will there be any bishops on earth in the end? If St. Ignatius of Antioch from the 1st century A.D. was correct when he said, “Where the bishop is, there let the multitude of believers be; even where Jesus is there is the Catholic Church.” Then, as the Lord’s Kingdom is not of this world and as it has always been known that the last bishops would be martyred, should we not all accept the position of the more strict Old Believers?
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Did not the Lord clearly explain that in the end it would be like the days of Noah, when one faithful man, and his children, were alone left on the earth? We should not think that the last faithful have a earthly breathing bishop. The Church does not consist only of bishops, and not only of earthly people. It is possible for a bishop from above to participate in earthly affairs. Did not the Lord say it would be worse than Sodom, when only lonely Lot and his daughters were saved from the destruction? Even Lot’s wife was lost to worldly pride. During this Great Apostasy are we to believe that we could find a faithful bishop presiding from earth? I do not see a one. Noah did not see any earthly bishops presiding on earth, yet Noah is part of the Church, so it is today. Noah did not believe the Devil had prevailed, neither do I. Simply said, earthly bishops, or none, do not determine the status of the Church.
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I agree with the strict Old Believers that say it something like this: “How can there be any earthly orthodox bishops during the age of this Great Apostasy?” If you believe there is a right believing bishop residing on earth today, I am willing to reconsider. Each “bishop” I see today has a broken succession due to many heresies, in both Faith and Practice. Even if they have one or two things right it is not possible to separate the others. From ancient times those Christians who lived in rural areas would rarely, if ever, see clergy.
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Some people wish to argue that Christ said the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church; but these words here do not contradict the Lord. The Church will always exist in heaven. Those few souls on earth who keep right faith and correctly worship, in spirit and truth, are also present with heaven. While being on earth they enjoy the company of all right believing bishops who are in heaven. Their altar is the same as the Heavenly Altar. God is able to complete that which outsiders falsely claim is lacking in the strict Old Believers. This Great Apostasy is not a fault of the faithful, or that their clergy were all brutally martyred, but this is rather one of many evidences, proofs, facts and the truth that shows to everyone exactly how spiritually powerful and strong these few people are. Their bishops and their Lord are in Heaven where nothing can destroy them. In this manner the Eternal Liturgy is brought down to earth spiritually, even if worldly minding folks do not see it. God is still here, without God there are no sacraments anyway, and heretical clergy have only a spirtually harmful immitation of sacraments. I do not believe the strict Old Believers to be without sacraments or without priests, they have heavenly assistance, which is the substance of those things they each represent.
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The strict Old Believers do not reject the priesthood, they only obey God in rejecting all unrepentant heretical priests. They are convinced that they will see no clergy until the Second Coming of Christ. Jesus Christ Himself is understood as being their Heavenly Great Archbishop (Pastor). Christ said that as long as there were 2 or 3 good Christians that He would always be with them in their midst. Yes, these kind and exceptional people do still exist in this mixed up world, but at a good distance from its present societies.

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Better even is unbaptized saintliness than baptized earthliness. Saintliness includes goodness and sacrifice, and excludes all the earthly impure spirits of selfishness, pride, quarrels and conquests. Therefore, if we return to the pure Christian ideal, we will have that elementary simplicity in which the Church was so powerful as to move mountains and empires and hearts at the beginning of her history. That is what the world needs now just as much as it needs air and water, i.e., the elementary spiritual power by which we could be moved, cleared up, purified and brought out of our chaos to a solid and beautiful construction. It is greatly sorrowful that we have so entirely polluted and poisoned all the air and water that we have. I took the liberty to edit some of the lines from, “The Agony of the Church” 1917, a eBook, free online. Though it has an idea or two right it is not on my recommend list.

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The early Christians always thought negatively towards dogs

John_Alden — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:19:34 CDT

Matthew 7:6 “Give not what is holy unto the dogs...”

Matthew 15:26 “It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and cast it to the dogs.”

Philippians 3:2 Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of concision.

2 Peter 2:22 ... according to the true proverb: “A dog returns to his own vomit.” ...

Revelation 22:15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoeremongers, and murders, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.

The ancient Christian rule is that, “Should a dog happen to find its way into a church building, any service must immediately stop, all people are to depart (the animal being evacuated as well) and the doors locked – till such time as the bishop can again consecrate the house of God [Old Christian Council].” Inasmuch as the home is a little pocket of the Church, dogs are not to be allowed inside of them either. I do not see the need of a service dog, other cleaner animals can serve if there is a need. But in our home or church the need to keep animals does not exist.

In the Fathers of the Church, volume 68, we find a reference in the section by St. John Chrysostom, that the doglike hyena is not only a wild beast, but “a filthy wild beast”.
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From The Journey Beyond Death, Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 1968, at the Twelfth Torment, it says of the accusing demons that, “they licked their chaps like dogs”.
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Some false Christianities go to great heights, or depths; see this Wall Street Journal article: Episcopalians Allow Dogs Communion

Wolves are part of the dog family, there is no need to explain the many other negative connotations that the Lord gave in the Holy Gospels about wolves in sheep’s clothing, etc.

Beware of the false prophets,

who come to you in sheep’s clothing,

but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
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Above is a 18th century Russian Christian drawing portraying a demon as a dog.

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From an article titled, A Look At The Early Church, we can see that Nero had the early Christians “torn by dogs”. Since the first Christians were left to the fury of the wild dogs it is not a good practice to be keeping them.

We can see from the link here that Saddam Hussein’s son Uday fed a christian woman to the dogs--- still alive.
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Clerics from the heretical western churches proudly wear their Dog Collars, even neo-style Orthodox clergy are often known to be “Dog Collared”.
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An expression given to the heartless society we live in today appropriates it as a “Dog-Eat-Dog Society”.
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In the statute of Prince Vladimir the Great, at article 9, it specifies that Church courts have juristiction over crimes such as leading a dog (or anything else not fitting) into a Church.
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There is a book titled Ways of Russian Theology. In Chapter 3, at footnote 88, it explains how the uncle of Tsar Aleksei mocked Patriarch Nikon by training his dog to mimic Nikon’s new style hand blessing. It reminds me of just how loathsome and disgusting dogs (and the corrupted form of the hand) truly are.
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German Ambassador Baron Sigismund, in the account of his visits to Russia during the years 1517 and 1526, mentions that “a dog is regarded among them as an unclean animal, and it is a defilement to touch a dog with the naked hand”.

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From a booklet called, A Brief History of the Old Believers, compiled in the fall of 1995, is an illustration on page 12 of how the Brazilian Old Believers kept dogs, below. Notice how they were kept in a pen, outside, rather far away from the home. Dogs might serve a purpose, as protection, for they were made to bark at intruders. But we should be careful what we do with them.
.

. .

. I also know, in Russia today,
that many drivers will go out of their way
to run over stray dogs on the road.
Dogs can be a menace.
(This does not mean that I condone using wheels or indiscriminate killing)
Free-ranging dogs survive largely on what people leave behind.

A Hindu gets at least one thing right in this area, as the quote below offers:

“A dog goes here and there on four legs; we go around on four wheels. Is that progress?”
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I do not hate animals, I just believe they have their places.

Ecclesiastes 3:21 Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward,
and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?
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There will be a renewed example of every part of Creation in Eternity.
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Russian Bear Fight

John_Alden — Sun, 31 May 2009 20:13:55 CDT

(Do not mess around with bears - if you have right Faith, Christ will protect you)

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Custom to arrange fighting of a man with a bear was known in medieval Russia as a "bear fun". Such funs were represented on frescos of the Kiev-Sofia cathedral (1037). In old manuscript by Daniil Zatochnik the author, listing different sorts of funs wrote about fighting with wild animals. The plot of a fighting of person and bear is met on medieval Russian coins and seals.
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Two variants of duels of an armed man with a bear practiced. In first of them a single combat was absolute, in other - a fighter if he was threatened with obvious danger, was insured by other hunters with pitchforks. In single combat of the unarmed man with a bear used with specially trained animals.
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In Middle Ages in Russia bear fights was rather popular and became a steady tradition. Fights with bears were arranged in villages and towns, in small and big cities on market squares, at fairs and national holidays.
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Bear fights when a man armed with a cold steel struggled with a wild bear were held as a show and fun down to the first decades of XIX century. Single combat of an armed person with a wild animal as a kind of mass show was stopped in 20th century.
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Alongside with bear fight down to the end of 1920-s there was in many places a hunt for bear with very primitive weapon that was called rogatina - a wood pitchfork. Being business rather dangerous, such bear hunt was accompanied various superstitions, legends and histories. That is why there were so many volunteers who wanted to fight with bear for fun or for a certain compensation. It is necessary to take into account that for east Slavs a bear was one of the main characters in a number of tales about animals.
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(God controls the animals, unless they are influenced by evil)

"If you talk to the animals, they will talk to you,
and you will know each other.
If you do not talk to them, you will not know them,
and what you do not know you will fear.
What one fears, one destroys."
Chief Dan George

A Bear Documentary Film
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Rules for Hair and Beards

John_Alden — Sun, 31 May 2009 18:01:08 CDT

Leviticus 19:27 Ye shall not make a round cutting of the hair of your head, nor disfigure your beard. (LXX)

Leviticus 21:5 And ye shall not shave your head for the dead with a baldness on the top; and they shall not shave their beard (LXX)

Deuteronomy 22:5 The apparel of a man shall not be on a woman, neither shall a man put on a woman’s dress; for every one that does these things is an abomination to the Lord thy God (LXX) – shaving is making oneself effeminate.

Kings II 10:4-5 And Annon took the servants of David, and shaved their beards, and cut off their garments in the midst as far as their haunches, and sent them away. And they brought David word concerning the men; and he sent to meet them, for the men were greatly dishonored: and the king said, “Remain in Jericho till your beards have grown, and then ye shall return.” (LXX)

Matt. 5:19 “Whosoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven”

Matt. 10:30 “The very hairs of your head are numbered,” says the Lord.

Apostolic Constitutions Book I Sec II (from Syria, circa 250 AD)
[note, the first 4 books are before Monophysitism, the rest are influenced by that heresy]

That beauty which God and nature has bestowed on thee, do not further beautify… It is not lawful for thee, a believer and a man of God, to permit the hair of thy head to grow long, and to brush it up together, nor to suffer it to spread abroad, nor to puff it up, nor by nice combing and platting to make it curl and shine; since that is contrary to the law, which says thus, in its additional precepts: “You shall not make to yourselves curls and round rasures.” Nor may men destroy the hair of their beards, and unnaturally change the form of a man. For the law says: “Ye shall not mar your beards.” For God the Creator has made this decent for women, but has determined that it is unsuitable for men. But if thou do these things to please men, in contradiction to the law, thou wilt be abominable with God, who created thee after His own image. If, therefore, thou wilt be acceptable to God, abstain from all those things which He hates, and do none of those things that are unpleasing to Him.

Sec VI continues: Propose to thyself to distinguish what rules were from the law of nature, and what were added afterwards, the additional rules were introduced and given in the wilderness to the Israelites after the making of the calf; for the law contains those precepts which were spoken by the Lord God before the people fell into idolatry, and made a calf – that is, the ten commandments. But as to those bonds which were further laid upon them after they had sinned, do not thou draw them upon thyself: for our Saviour came for no other reason but that He might deliver from wrath that which was reserved for them, that He might fulfill the Law and the Prophets, and that He might abrogate or change those secondary bonds which were super-added to the rest of the law.

[notation – it is important to recognize that the term “natural law” can have several meanings such as laws of nature that control the universe and also the instinct of all creatures for survival. I would use the term “natural law” on this page in a strictly ethical meaning, as in the code of conduct given by God to us moral creatures. Even St. Paul in his epistles often speaks of this (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves – Romans 2:13, 14) and the Lord Himself teaches us thusly (Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven – Matt. 7:21)]

Rudder interpretation of Apostolic Canon 85 - Michael, too, the patriarch of Constantinople, sir-named Cerularius, together with the synod attending him, living A.D. 1053, adopted testimony against the cutting off of the beard which is found in Book I of the Apostolical Injunctions, ch. 3, reading as follows: “Ye shall not depilate your beards: for God the Creator made this becoming in women, but unsuited to men.”

St. Clement of Alexandria 195 AD - Book III from the treatise “The Instructor” “A youth with his first beard: for with this, youth is most graceful. By and by he is anointed, delighting in the beard ‘on which descended’ the prophetic, ‘ointment’ with which Aaron was honored. And it becomes him who is rightly trained, on whom peace has pitched its tent, to preserve peace also with his hair... How womanly it is for one who is a man to comb himself and shave himself for the sake of fine effect, and to arrange his hair at a mirror, shave his cheeks, pluck hairs out of them, and smooth them! For God wished women to be smooth, and rejoice in their locks alone growing spontaneously, as a horse in his mane; but has adorned man, like the lions, with a beard, a sign of strength and rule”.

More from St. Clement of Alexandria – “This, then, is the mark of the man, the beard. By this, he is seen to be a man. It is older than Eve. It is the token of the superior nature... It is therefore unholy to desecrate the symbol of manhood, hairiness.” And, “It is not lawful to pluck out the beard, man’s natural and noble adornment.” Also, “The hair of the chin showed him to be a man.”

St. Clement, in another work, The Stromata, under the subsection entitled Elucidations, describes the various stages, consisting of seven years each, in a mans life, as he progresses from infancy to death, and says that during the third stage, when a man is from 15 to 21 years of age, is when the beard begins to grow, which is a sign of a man’s passing from childhood to adulthood: “And in the third, the beard on growing cheek, with down o’erspreads the bloom of changing skin.”

Lactantius (appr. 250-320 A.D.), tutor of Emperor St. Constantine’s son Crispus, writes in his work The Workmanship of God, ch. VII: “Then the nature of the beard contributes in an incredible degree to distinguish the maturity of bodies, or to the distinction of sex, or to the beauty of manliness and strength.”

St. Cyprian of Carthage also plainly reaffirms, in Treatise XII, in his Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews, in which he compiles a list of 120 things that God-pleasers should be doing, states from 250 AD: “84. The beard must not be plucked. ‘You will not deface the figure of your beard’.”

Again, in his Treatise on The Lapsed, St. Cyprian notes that one of the practices of those fallen away from sound faith is the disfiguring of the beard: “Among the priests there was no devotedness of religion; among the ministers there was no sound faith: in their works there was no mercy; in their manners there was no discipline. In men, their beards were defaced; in women, their complexion was dyed: the eyes were falsified from what God's hand had made them; their hair was stained with a falsehood.”

St. Basil the Great – “When I grab my beard, I know I am not a woman.”

As early in Christian history as the year 250 AD, during the reign of Emperor Decius, we learn in A Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century A.D. that “by the confessions of the great Christian teachers, who owned that the church deserved its sufferings, the lives of its members did not then present a very lovely aspect. Christian men were effeminate and self-indulgent, trimming their beard and dyeing their hair; Christian women painted their faces, and brightened their eyes with cosmetics.”

From http://www.rollins.edu/Foreign_Lang/Russian/Lubok/lubok.html

Above on the right side the barber is saying, “Let me cut your beard” The Old Believer on the left side says, “Barber, respect that I do not want my beard shaved or cut otherwise you will be in trouble.”

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Little Russian Philokalia, Vol. 3, St. Herman. Pages 71-72 Metropolitan Gabriel (Petrov) of Petersburg and Novgorod was once going to a service, where the Archpriest Andrew Samborsky, whose beard was shaved off, was supposed to serve together with him. Seeing Samborsky, the Metropolitan said: “What kind of man are you? Our Church does not accept those who shave the beard. Get out!”

Old Believer men saw their beards as “a mark of humility”. p.127, Solovki, by Roy Robson, 2004.
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The Stoglav Church Council of 1551: QUES.25. Concerning those who shave their heads and beards: Through our sins, weakness and indifference and negligence have come into the world. At the present time men who call themselves Christians and are thirty years of age and older shave their heads, beards, and whiskers, and wear clothing and costumes taken from lands of dissident faith; how then can a Christian be recognized? . . . CHAP.40. Concerning the sacred rules on the shaving of beards: The sacred rules likewise forbid all Orthodox Christians to shave their beards and to cut their whiskers. For such is not an Orthodox but a Latin and heretical tradition . . . and the rules of the apostles and church fathers strictly forbid and denounce this . . .

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The Orthodox Church of England would tonsure a youth's new fully grown beard and the service recites Psalm 133:1-2 (LXX) See now! what is so good, or what so pleasant, as for brethren to dwell together? It is as ointment on the head, that ran down to the beard, even the beard of Aaron; that ran down to the fringe of his clothing. – With the Antiphons: Blessed art thou in the city and blessed in the field and blessed are thy remains. Blessed shalt thou be entering in and going out. Glory to... Blessed art thou... Also Glory and majesty shalt Thou lay upon him, O Lord.

1 Corinthians 11:14
Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? – St. Paul used the Greek word for hair which means ornate hair as an ornament. St. Paul's use of words shows that stylized hair contradicts Jewish and Christian modesty.

The 96th canon of the Sixth Ecumenical Council says: “Those therefore who adorn and arrange their hair to the detriment of those who see them, that is by cunningly devised intertwining’s and by this means put a bait in the way of unstable soul.” [1]

It says in a document titled, The Oregon Old Orthodox and Their Faith, by Brother Ambrose (page 13), “The men do not shave in imitation of Christ (canon 96 of the ecum. council) and as an expression of their belief in the veneration of icons, since shaving was the practice of the early opponents of this dogma as others burnt their dead in opposition to the dogma of the general resurrection.” As there is no good example of shaving it is sinful to even desire to shave.

The Greeks were shocked to find out “that Latin priests shave off their beards...”. (from the Book; The Pillars of Orthodoxy by the Holy Apostles Convent). Shaving the beard was a pagan custom.

One of the reasons of the Anathema from the Pope on Constantinople in 1054 (causing the Great Schism and many heresies) was due to the godless practice of shaving: “While wearing beards and long hair you [Eastern Orthodox] reject the bond of brotherhood with the Roman clergy, since they shave and cut their hair.” N. N. Voekov, The Church, Russia, and Rome, (in Russian), p. 98.

Up to a point even the Latin’s had beards and Jerome is a good testimony against their current practice of cutting the beard. The western church father Jerome is today called a saint by the Latin church. His tendencies toward the antichrist Masoretic text are more than problematic, but he did mention the beard in a Christian manner. His writing Against Jovinianus, attests to the great purpose of why man was given the beard: “Why are you distinguished from the female sex by a beard, hair, and other peculiarities of person? How is it that you have not swelling bosoms, and are not broad at the hips, narrow at the chest? Your voice is rugged, your speech rough, your eyebrows more shaggy. To no purpose you have all these manly qualities...” Also Jerome explains the wrong teachings about the resurrection in his To Pammachius Against John of Jerusalem, “...if there is to be the same flesh and if our bodies are to be the same, there will again be males and females, there will again be marriage; men will have the shaggy eyebrow and the flowing beard.”

A Greek saying: “There are two kinds of people in this world that go around beardless - boys and women, and I am neither one.”

We do not see a prophet, apostle, priest or any man of God that did not have a beard, with the exception of Joseph; he was forced to shave, being a prisoner and seeing the Pharaoh (according to Egyptian law). The only other time a godly man was without facial hair was during purification rituals. Shaving is not natural, needing constant attention. Cut throat razors are just that. As with the ways of this world that are contrary to the ways of God, they have a high price. God made the hair of a woman and beard of a man as a differentiation – to delineate between us. Men... grow a natural beard as God intended, it is a disgrace to cut it. As with all things, let’s be conforming ourselves to the everlasting ways of the Creator, not going right or left, then we shall have the blessings that are for those who obey God. Seeing the evidence it is shameful for a man to shave, therefore, let us rejoice in the ways of the Lord. For men to have a beard is to all the more to be imitating Christ. To do otherwise is contrary to the Lord, antichrist, devilish, evil and wicked. We are simply not allowed to shave. As God made man in His image we, in a round about way, mutilate God if we cut beards. It is mockery of God for a man to have his beard removed, and so it is that this was one of the sufferings the Lord Himself encountered. The holy prophet Isaiah foretold of the trial of Christ just before His crucifixion, of how the guards plucked out His beard to mock His good practice of keeping one. “I gave My back to the smiters, and My cheeks to them that plucked out My beard: I did hide my face from shame and spitting.” Isaiah 50:6 If it be the will of God may we likewise suffer in more ways than He did. The beard is a sign of beauty particular to man and to not have a beard would, conversely, mar the beauty and make a man ugly in the sense that one is trying to improve on what God has done. Growing a beard is an obligation on men. Men who cut or trimmed their beard have been compared to a eunuch.

Peter the Great, that Russian snake, was so western minded that he forced men to shave, or else face a “luxury” beard tax. The tax collectors at the gates of each city took 100 rubles from those above the lower class and a kopec from all the rest. In 1705, after having paid to have a beard, a man would be given a Beard-tax coin to show he had already fulfilled the law. If the coin was lost it would be required to pay again. Clergy may have been an exception to this law and could be where the false notion that only clergy were required to have beards came from. Here is a page showing one of the round Beard License Tokens and here below you can see a square one.

The new style Slavonic reads: “The Beard is an Unnecessary Burden” This also illustrates the bad change of practice in calendar dating.

In the book titled Peter the Great, by Robert Massie we will see on page 244: “For most Orthodox Russians, the beard was a fundamental symbol of religious belief and self-respect. It was an ornament given by God, worn by the prophets, the apostles and by Jesus himself.” Ivan the Terrible expressed the traditional Muscovite feeling when he declared, “To shave the beard is a sin that the blood of all the martyrs cannot cleanse. It is to deface the image of man created by God.” Priests generally refused to bless men without beards; they were considered shameful and beyond the pale of Christendom. Patriarch Adrian said, “God did not create men beardless, only cats and dogs. Shaving is not only foolishness and dishonor; it is a mortal sin.”

The Pomorsky Old Believers from Pennsylvania caught the eye of the National Geographic Magazine in the July, 1935 issue. They noted that the Old Believers keep the rules from Scripture that men may not cut their beards and women may not bob their hair. Here is an image of the color plates.

From the Service of the Ordination: 3) In the questioning period of the candidate before the ordination, the candidate to the priesthood, in the presence of his spiritual father makes the following promise: “I promise to wear the clothing appropriate to my priestly rank, not to cut my hair nor my beard... for through such unseemly behavior I risk belittling my rank and tempting believers” (Promise #5). It is important to note here that, in confirmation of his promise the candidate kisses the Gospel and the Cross and signs his name.

In Antioch, the place where the followers of Christ were first called Christians, a clean shaven man is believed to have been abandoned by his wife, which brings him to act in this unbecoming manner.

In Byzantium and Rhodes the shaving of the beard was prohibited by law - Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

Hair is closely connected with many of the brain functions - for instance memory. Samson wore his hair long, and the biblical allegory shows that health and strength and the very life are connected with the length of the hair. If a cat is shaved it will die in nine cases out of ten. A dog whose coat is not interfered with lives longer and is more intelligent than one whose coat is shaven. To see where the information in this paragraph is from click this link The Spirituality of Hair.

Here is another thought, about goatee’s. As the Lord will separate the sheep from the goats (Matt. 25:23) it is not at all a good idea to be thinking that we should have such a thing as a goatee. The devil is often represented by westerners as having a goatee. There just is no good reason for the sinful habit of trimming or shaving the beard or mustache, no matter who it is that says otherwise. It is a real shame to see the mandates to shave. The world is quickly coming to its end. If a man practiced shaving or trimming his beard he would be temporarily excommunicated from worship until he had stopped for a good amount of time. Such a man would not be allowed Christian burial unless he began to practice correctly the way of God. I have worked to show the distinct Christian perspective about beards but believe it important to show other views, such as Jewish. Everyone gets at least one thing right. This means there is no excuse for not getting everything right. Half-truth is no truth at all. So here are further references about beards.

According to the Zohar, the beard is considered to be a channel of holiness and blessing and therefore is not to be shaven or trimmed by any method.

Rebbe Yisroel Newman, known as the Tzemach Tzedek, said that any means of removing hair from a man's face is forbidden. Period.

Responsa 93, a commentary on the Yoreh De’ah legal code, ruled that shaving a beard is against Halacha, or Jewish law.

Negative Mizvah #44 states that one should not shave.

In the kabbalah [mysticism], the beard is said to represent on earth the “beard of the Holy Ancient One” on high, that is, the stage in the unfolding of the sefirot [divine emanations] at which the divine grace, symbolized by the strands of the beard, begins to flow throughout all creation.

In kabbalistic circles the beard becomes a sacred object and some kabbalists would not even remove a single hair from their beard. The statement that, according to the kabbalah, there is no need to wear a beard outside the Holy Land, is unwarranted. Hasidism follows the kabbalah and all Hasidim wear long beards and sidelocks.

The Talmud describes the beard as an “adornment of the face” and implies that a beardless man cannot be said to be handsome.

The 11th-century North African sage Maimonides understands the beard as a protest against idolatry, conjecturing that the heathen priests shaved their beards.

In the UK the compulsory rule to shave in their military is lifted for all Sikh on religious grounds. Guruka Singh explains the purpose of the beard for men in this YouTube video and says it protects.
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The heretic Thomas More was beheaded in 1535 when he refused to sign the Act of Supremacy which declared the heretic Henry VIII Supreme Head of the Church in England. A comment he is believed to have made to the executioner is that his beard was completely innocent of any crime, and did not deserve the axe; he then positioned his beard so that it would not be harmed. This is gleaned from Henry Hyde, US Congressman (9 September 1988). United States Congressional Record, Conference Report on H.R. 4783, Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriation Act. Proceedings of the 100th Congress, Second Volume 134, Page H7333 (noting that when Thomas More was beheaded by Henry VIII, More gave notoriety to his beard with his famous line. He said to the axeman, “Be careful of my beard, it hath committed no treason”).
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Policemen in Russia wear beards even today. The U.S. Supreme Court rules for the beard of uniformed police officer(s) [youtube video]. An Old Believer in Woodburn decided to become a policeman and had to shave, so he was no longer allowed to pray with men [LA Times].
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In a strict Islamic court any man who practices shaving his beard is not allowed to give witness in court as he is disobeying Allah (God), his testimony is not worth anything.

[1] The Rudder, trans. D. Cummings, p.403

Evils of Wheels

John_Alden — Sun, 31 May 2009 16:59:43 CDT

Evils of Wheels

The above film footage was taken from an expedition to the bottom of the Red Sea, where chariots were found in a straight line. This is exactly where we would expect Moses to have participated in the parting of the waters. The chariots are identical to other archeological findings from the dynasty of the Pharaoh who pursued Moses. In the chariot house of this Pharaoh was found a lone chariot up on a block with one wheel, as if it was in the process of being repaired. These wheels that are in a straight line at the bottom of the Red Sea match perfectly the style of wheel made only during this dynasty. It is mentioned that Israel walked on dry land, and that God had commanded his people not to have man-made chariots. God causes chariots (Literally any kind of cart with wheels) to get clogged and stuck in the mud, as in Exodus 14:25.

Elsewhere God commands wheels to be burned, Joshua 11:6,9. God Himself promises to destroy the things that man makes with wheels, Ezekiel 1:16. There is just no good example for the use of wheels. The holy prophet Isaiah, in speaking for God says, “Woe to them that trust in chariots” at chapter 31, verse 1. Wheels are unnecessary and a bad example for us here on earth.

There is this external link about how Pharaoh’s chariots were found at the bottom of the Red Sea, here.

Here is another link I found about a book titled The Exodus Case.

Some believe that stories like the one in Ezekiel 1:16 give allowance for wheel use. In this instance (and others like it) we are seeing something otherworldly, which merely has the “appearance” of a wheel, so we are not to conclude it is an earthly man-made wheel. Man-made wheels of this world are not allowed to be used by the people of God. In Judges chapter 4 we see how God placed an army of chariots (which some people might consider a great advantage) into the hands of Israel at Mount Tabor.

Wheels are so bad that the account of the man who was killed when attempting to steady the Ark of the Covenant is recorded twice in the Scriptures (2 Sam 6, 1 Chron 13). God commanded that the bars for the Ark were always to stay in the rings, the Ark was only to be transported while being carried by walking men. Never before this accident had the Ark been transported by wheels (the Ark had been in a pagan land, the source of wheels), King David was so frightened by this deadly accident that they did not immediately complete the journey and never again did they use wheels to move the Ark. It is important to note that they were also playing all kinds of musical instruments at the time of the accident, if they followed the instruction of God no accident would ever have happened. [a footnote that does not necessarily apply here (but one that I think is important to mention since I found it whiles studying this area) is that from the time of Solomon’s Temple the Ark no longer had inside it the manna or the rod, but only the Law]

Tsar Solomon was prohibited three things. The hoarding of money (he kept for himself 666 talents of gold per day); having many wives (he had hundreds); and lastly, possessing chariots (he was the first king of Israel to keep wheels).

At the time of Christ we know that chariots were well known, yet Christ chose to not ride on one, and we do not see any Christian or godly man making a practice of using such a man-made apparatus. All this goes to show that our most common form of transport is really nothing less than a wreck on wheels, or if you prefer, death on wheels.

The situation with The Road to Moscow is a bit unreasonable if you ask me. Here are some other views of Russian Federal Highways. If it were me I would stay as far away from such craziness as possible. The road crews that worked on these roads quit because they would be attacked by stranded motorists. I do not blame the workers for quitting.

Below is a photo from a truck accident showing the letters of G.O.D. on the trailer, no wonder such things happen. People really should be more careful with what they are doing in the name of God.

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The first Russian cannon (which itself is inherently unclean due to the petroleum product of gunpowder) was around the 17th century (a time when Russia began going downhill in many areas). Such heavy things were not put on wheels at this time, but only traveled on a sledge.

In Roy Robson’s book, OLD BELIEVERS in MODERN RUSSIA, there is a chapter on Ritual Prohibitions and the epigraph mentions “about railways”. A little further on in the chapter it continues to say that the more strict Old Believers have a ritual prohibition on “using railroads”.

An ancient law exists for the oldest surviving monastic community in the world. It forbids being built any “road upon which a wheel can run”. This is none other than the famous Mount Athos.

“Gathering Clouds” is an account of the life of St. John Chrysostom. While he was a priestmonk an acquaintance asked him to travel on a chariot. He gave a good reason as to why he could not go. Then his comrade astonishingly and violently seized him against his will. He was greatly agitated about being entrapped by the chariot. Being unaware of the purpose he was taken at high speed to Constantinople. It was the only chariot ride he ever took. At the end of the journey he was forced to be Patriarch. Afterward, as Patriarch of Constantinople, he often preached against chariots.

The first record of the wheel in the bible is shown as an invention of men for the purpose of ungodly warfare, to divide, brutally conquer and spoil. It is really no different today. People speed around, rushing here and there, without much care towards the harm they cause or being conscious of how truly violent and dangerous wheels are. Wheels are suicide. People in my family have been harmed and killed by them.

Hidden Kitezh

John_Alden — Sun, 31 May 2009 14:48:23 CDT

A legendary city of Kievan Rus’, which became invisible (or was submerged in a lake) at the time of the Mongol invasions, and continues to exist unseen to this day. The story is especially popular with the Old Believers, since Kitezh is the one place where “pure” pre-Nikonian Russian Orthodoxy continues. To many, Kitezh is a symbol of the ideal Holy Russia which ought to exist, or exists in the heart. Where was Kitezh? The most popular version of the story associates the lost city with Svetloyar Lake near Nizhny Novgorod. Others tie it in with Paradise, which was lost. Some claim it is now underground, in a cave.

The film by Werner Herzog: Bells from the Deep,

is primarily concerned with the legend of the Lost City of Kitezh.

Old Belivers/Old Ritualists Videos

John_Alden — Sat, 16 May 2009 15:24:51 CDT

..

Old Believers Faith carried by younger generation
http://www.russiatoday.ru/Top_News/2007-08-19/Old_Believers_faith_carried_by_younger_generation.html

Below is a link to a video that is about 5 minutes long.
This was an international meeting about the scientific
and practical history of Old Believers.
The meeting took place at the university in Vilnius.
The guests included author Ron Robinson who lives and works in Philadelphia
(whose mother is Russian and father American).
One of his books is, Old Believers in Modern Russia.
There were interviews with instructors
and present heads of communities.
They spoke about the life of these conservatives,
about the basic problems that have taken a toll on
and changed the Old Believers today.
http://rutube.ru/tracks/1596394.html?v=4c98f036a95185473315ba459a87316f

Old Believer expessions on the Russian Schism
(in Russsian - 52 minutes)
http://rutube.ru/tracks/303676.html
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Made for Russian TV
5 minute movie trailer
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1j9hx_vieux-croyants_dating
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A New Video 15 minutes
(in Russian)
Tour Bus to the Christains
Christians from Baltika visited christians from Poland
with their dancing it is clear that these people do not know what it means to be Christian
http://www.baznica.info/index.php?name=Video&op=page&pid=85

The National Film Board of Canada presents the film

The Old Belivers directed by John Paskievich

Here is a link to an excerpt that says of the Old Belivers that they believe

"Orthodox Christianity long ago solved all problems of why & how humanity should live"

http://www.nfb.ca/collection/films/fiche/vPlayer.php?id=18032

.There are at least one or two Nikonite Icons in this Old Believer Google Video

The Chant sounds right though.

You can see a little of this video from the

Real-Player link here

http://www.folkstreams.net/pub/stream.php?s=252&f=171
with a photo showing many of their tigers

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Below is a link to a 14 minute segment of a new film from Latvia
Celebrating 100 years of Sunday School
The film is title, "On The Earth To Learn"
About an Old Believer community in Russian with Znammeny Chant
http://vision.rambler.ru/users/lionikas/1/23/

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Here are a few other videos
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Old Believers of Altai
To avoid inconvinience, it is easier for the visitors to bring paper cups and plates,
it makes it easier for both hosts and visitors.
It is not clear what kind of Bespopovsty these Old Believers are.

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Oh ye my slaves, my bondmaids

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Rosun'ka (Vepsian folk song)

Schism. Ural Mountains. History of Persecutions Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj-fO8M6AoM

Schism. Ural Mountains. History of Persecutions Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKbEaGPB1B8

Schism. Ural Mountains. History of Persecutions Part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-Pv90wZ3KQ

Schism. Ural Mountains. History of Persecutions Part 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcgQjIuUrBI

Schism. Ural Mountains. History of Persecutions Part 5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRwLWFdBF_w

Schism. Ural Mountains. History of Persecutions Part 6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTq1reiHFUw

Lipovani Old Believers Uspenia Monastery 0:44
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXfU5INUPkQ

Lipovani Old Believers Uspenia Monastery 1:42
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDMDpsBVySA

Lipovani Old Believers Uspenia Monastery Liturgy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm3xrc-6kdw

Gospel reading - John 6:48-54
Old Rite Church of the Ascension of Our Lord in Gervais, Oregon http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7C3xQy306g

Folk song of Nekrasov Cossacks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9GrsfwnI54

'O Gladsome Light'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE_7619DOFU

Homily for the Second Week of Great Lent
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff_8KRxl6vM

Here is a video about ikon painting today, but there is not really much of an example of good icon painters left in such days as we live in. Many of the modern style ikons shown here are obvious heresy. The teachers here are women that cut their hair, men who shave or trim their beards, etc. We should know what to expect, but still there are a few things they get right, like we really should not say much about ikons, they are sacred things. It is in Russian with English subtitles.
http://samstar-biblio.ucoz.ru/publ/306-1-0-1397

Electronic devices such as video cameras are spiritual compromise. There are compromises left and right nearly everywhere. I hope that I do not remain trapped with this world. It is possible to make a escape.

Christmas Concerns

John_Alden — Thu, 14 May 2009 09:51:36 CDT

Will the real holy day please stand up

Among the many misguided ideas of Christmas is the modern Santa Claus. His real life is mocked; he is not the fat and jolly sort that Coca-Cola commercialism has promoted him to be. Early in the 4th century St. Nicholas was known for giving gifts in stockings to the needy. It is good to remember and follow his example of sacrificial giving. He was a bishop who struck the heretic Arius in the face for his blasphemies against the Son of God and His Most Pure Mother. The day of his commemoration is about 3 weeks before the Nativity of the Lord.

Webster’s dictionary says that the word “Christmas” comes from the Middle English word “Christemasse” (from just before the 12th century), it means “Christ’s Mass” in the Pope’s church. The Old Orthodox Christians believe the Latin church to have departed the faith since 1054 A.D., so the word “Christmas” should not even be used. The Protestants have continued in erroneous western inventions of Christmas themselves.

When considering which calendar to use for dating there are many things to consider. When Christ was born the known world was using the Julian calendar. Christianity became legalized in the 4th century and finally had an opportunity (being guided by the Holy Spirit) to established its own calendar. The Christian calendar corresponded with the Julian calendar, as no calendar has a monopoly on days of the year.

The early Christians dated years according to the chronology that has become known as Anno Mundi (A.M.), which actually counts years from the creation of Adam and Eve (not the creation of the world; the early church saw where God waited between creating the heavens and the earth, and creating living things and man). The early Church reckoned dates counting the weeks it had been from the feast of Pentecost (a movable feast) and such, stating the day of the week first, then the week and lastly adding the years from the creation of Adam and Eve.

So the Christian calendar dates are calculated each year, by calculating the movable feast of Pascha (the Greek word for Passover; the day of Christ’s Resurrection is the Christian Passover, as Christ passed over death). Many people who wrongly suppose that they are Christians call the day of the Resurrection by the pagan goddess name of Easter, what an atrocity. So the proper way for an Old Orthodox Russian Christian to specify the date of the next Nativity of Christ is, “The forth day of the 31st week after Pentecost, of the year 7518 from the Creation of Adam and Eve”. That is, if I have my calculations right.

On the original Christian calendar evenings are the start of the day, and then there is the morning. Each day starts and ends with sunset, so the evening of the Nativity is the start of the day, not the end of the day before. A great number of people in the world use the Gregorian calendar. It was commissioned by the Pope Gregory in 1582 A.D. (the calendar being created by pagans). The date for the Old Orthodox Nativity of Christ would begin on the sunset on January 6th, according to the Gregorian calendar that most people use; it ends at sunset on their January 7th. According to the reckoning of the ancient Julian calendar this is the start of the actual day of December 25th.

December 25th on the Gregorian calendar is at this point 13 days earlier than the day the Old Orthodox recognize as the Nativity of Christ. The Old Orthodox Russian Christians believe that the popes had been making many mistakes long before Pope Gregory; for them the new pagan made Gregorian calendar is just another terrible mistake, or one of many heresies. This ‘out of order’ calendar of the pope is what most of our godless society uses today. I see the Old Calendar date as being more correctly assigned, because those with the best judgment used it, it has been used for the longest time and by all the good Christians. I see no good reason for recognizing one holy day twice in a single year, so I stay with the time tested one. To mix up holy days only sows yet even more discord among an already fouled faith of the popes and the rest.

Many claim that we should not even celebrate a day of the Lord’s Nativity due to it previously being of pagan origin. I do not see how pagans can make any day their sole possession. It certainly would be wrong to do the practices of pagans. To recognize a day of God’s salvation plan, where His Son is given to the world, is not wrong. It further shows what God actually has done and gives us the opportunity to give Him more glory, to dedicate even more time to that specific thought and make it more a part of our own lives. I believe we should stop and remove any pagan practices that are contradictory to God, but we cannot remove a whole day from the calendar just because somebody wrongly claims it is paganism.

There are so many pagan festivals that it would be a practical impossibility to avoid all of them anyway. God set a calendar with dates of recognizing His plan for mankind. Pagans cannot overrule what God has done. Those who say that godly people cannot use a pagan day (which God actually made in the first place) are missing the whole point of our days here on earth and they oppose the celebration of holy days which God in His infinite wisdom instituted long before we were born. There are also people who question the use of Christmas trees, the Yule log, holly, mistletoe, etc. I really do not know of any good source for the use of such items in the home. I personally think that the trees are a waste of time and money, something that makes a complete mess and is not easily disposed of. Till I find some good reason to use such decorations I will not. I also think that the words of the holy prophet Jeremiah should make us reconsider doing such things. Jeremiah 10:2-4 Thus saith the LORD, Learn ye not the ways of the heathen, and be not alarmed at the signs of the sky; for they are alarmed at them, falling on their faces. For the customs of the nations are vain; it is a tree cut out of the forest, the work of the carpenter, or a molten image. They are beautified with silver and gold; they fix them with hammers and nails. (LXX)

Christ said that when He would leave the world His people would fast. As the commemoration of His birth is a great Feast for ages the wisdom of the Church has prescribed a 40 day fast to precede the commemoration of His Nativity. It is not proper to have parties during this time of fasting, as so many in our modern world do. The practice of decorating during the fast is also contradictory to the ancient Christian practice. Old Believers actually take down the decorations in the home, making it as bare as possible so it will be clean in preparation for the feast of the Nativity. The same thing is done at Paskha. So many things are actually mixed up today with how people look at this time period of the year.

It should be noted that when the USA was founded it followed the ancient Julian calendar just as the original Christians did, but then changed to the papal calendar about 100 years ago. England changed their civil calendar at the same time and there was an outrage by the people there saying, “give us back our eleven days” which was the difference between the two calendars at that time. So the 4th of July is not really the actual commemorative day of USA’s independence. This throws off other days like the Nativity of Christ.

Also, Pope Gregory changed his calendar thinking that it was an improvement, but it is disputable whether or not his new calendar is actually more accurate. Besides, for faithful Christians, astronomical accuracy is not of utmost concern; having historical continuity, a changeless of faith and commitment to doctrine is the concern. Being in union is critical.

The day chosen by the ancient Christians for the day of the New Year corresponds to September 14th on the Gregorian calendar (September 1st on the Julian calendar), but it should be specified in the Church according to how many days and weeks it has been from Pentecost. We should not bring into Church liturgical practices the names of pagans as are specified in the days of the week or months. Today Christians should use the Christian form of dating their liturgical days, even though pagan or heretical dates correspond. The world in our modern times celebrates their New Year on January 1st (Gregorian calendar) and this happens to conflict with the Old Orthodox Christian 40 day fast prior to the Nativity of Christ. This is a bad influence we should work to avoid as much as possible, even to the point of being separate from this world.

Poinsettias in America are a hybrid mutation and the use of them comes from the Papist’s. There is really no good example for the way they are used nowadays. In a time when everybody works to be so traditional they are a contrary invention. I simply would not even consider having something which tries to out do God’s design, like the development of the modernist Poinsettia. There is almost nothing left that is the way God planned it, nearly everything is genetically altered and fake. We truly do live in more of a make-believe world than we know. My goal is to get away from it all.

One more thing is that the Gregorian calendar, which most people use for their civil calendar, sometimes causes the calculation for the Resurrection of Christ to fall before the Jewish Passover. This contradicts the ancient Christian teaching that the Resurrection of Christ is never to be placed before the Jewish Passover. Christ actually rose from the dead after the Jewish Passover.

The bottom line is this. I hope, with all tenaciousness, to keep what I have found which is good. That would include not using the heretical terminology of “Christmas”, not following the questionable practices of the papal calendar and not having pagan-like decorated trees, etc. To decorate during a time when restraint is called for (the Nativity fast) makes no sense at all. I do not wish to be mean-spirited toward others who follow a different way, but if others would reconsider these things for themselves I think it would be nice.

The Needful Poyas

John_Alden — Mon, 11 May 2009 16:13:22 CDT

OUTER BELT

We should not go anywhere without our Poyas (Sash), to gird our loins as with a belt around and over the waist and hips. There are a great variety of Poyas and I know that sometimes they are tied on different sides for men and women. If we think about it we should know that even people like Moses considered such an item indispensable. These encircle like an environ (like some monasteries), encircling and confining ourselves from outside influences as a defense and protection. In the Jana Sevcikova film documentary about the Old Believers in Romania we have illustrated for us the use of an inner belt, not merely an outer sash. So there are two of them that are used. It is this inner belt that must not ever be taken off at any time. This can be a small rope or cord as well as a thin leather strap that is made for this purpose. It doubles back on itself and then is looped to tie. It is a reminder that God is as a hedge about us., a buffer zone that keeps harm at bay, like a girdle. He binds us and shuts us in that we never leave the Temple. The Old Believers explain to us that only the devil goes around ungirded. It is an example of a godly wheel. It is symbol of strength and power worn by soldiers (1 Sam. 18:4, 2 Sam. 20:8, 1 Kings 2:5, 2 Kings 3:21, Isa. 5:12, Ezek 23:15) or women (Isa. 3.24) and something bound and worn by prophets (2 kings 3:21) by kings (Job 12:18) and is called the “curious girdle” (Ex. 28:8, R.V., “cunningly woven band”). One was attached to the ephod being made of the same material. The common girdle was made of leather (2 Kings 1:8, Matt 3:4), a finer sort of linen (Jer. 13.1, Dan. 10:5). Girdles of sackcloth were worn in token of sorrow (Isa. 3:24, 22:12). They were variously fastened to the wearer (Mark 1:6, Ezek. 16:10). As pockets are an invention of men the girdle is used as to hold things instead. In the Manual for Educators, on pages 25, 26 and 27, are simple instructions on how some of these are made, here is a link. http://urlite.com/belt/

INNER BELT

There is a bit more to say about the inner belt. It is given at baptism. It is a molitveniy poyas (prayer belt) and can be multicolored. The ends are tasseled and is lengthy enough to go twice around and then tied with loops. From each end of the tassels there continues a thin rope where they meet a 1 inch wide section in the middle that has Old Slavonic letters and geometric designs. Along the edges of the wider area of this inner belt are three narrow lines.

When this inner belt is given to the new slave of God at baptism by the sponsor, the sponsor crosses themselves and reads the prayer on the belt.

"Bozhe milostiv buddi nam greshnim Bozhe ochisti grehi nasha e pomiloi nas amin"

("God be merciful to us sinners God cleanse our sins and pardon us Amen." Then the godparent kisses the newly baptized slave of God on the forehead and says, "This is for you to wear for protection and safekeeping for the rest of your days on earth.")

Money or tradition: Amish face uneasy choice

John_Alden — Mon, 11 May 2009 12:41:54 CDT

Money or tradition: Self-reliant Amish face uneasy choice as jobless numbers soar in Indiana

Tom Coyne, Associated Press Writer
On Saturday May 9, 2009, 5:13 pm EDT

TOPEKA, Ind. (AP) -- A part-time construction job sturdied Orva Fry's financial foundation after he was laid off from an RV factory. It also kept the 41-year-old Amish father of two on steady spiritual ground.

Another way to make ends meet that Fry briefly considered -- unemployment checks -- went against his faith, which shuns all forms of government assistance.

That Fry even pondered signing up for jobless benefits illustrates a marked shift in the nation's third-largest Amish settlement, which is suffering steep unemployment following a decades-long shift from farming to factory work. Church and economic leaders say a growing number of the area's 23,000 Amish are breaking with centuries of tradition and taking government help to stay afloat.

Fry chose not to take jobless benefits and was called back to work at the RV factory in March after working alongside his brother for three months repairing a fire-damaged home. But the community pressure to adhere to this tradition is easing amid the worst recession in decades.

Bishops who once might have censured those who sought public assistance are reluctantly looking the other way.

"We prefer to supply ourselves, but I told people that if they have no other option and no other way to make ends meet then they can take it," said Paul Hochstetler, bishop of an Amish district east of Goshen.

The unemployment rate in the Elkhart-Goshen metropolitan area approached 19 percent in March -- the most recent month for which data are available -- in large part due to the misfortune of recreational vehicle factories that have laid off thousands of workers. It is the country's fourth-highest unemployment rate and is up 13 points from March 2008, the largest increase in the U.S.

The Amish's refusal to take assistance such as unemployment and welfare is shared by like-minded Anabaptist traditions that grew out of 16th century German sects that sought to separate themselves from the world, said John Farina, an associate professor of religious studies at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. That would include Hutterians, the Church of the Brethren and the Church of the United Brethren.

It's part of a simpler way of life for the Amish, a Christian denomination with about 227,000 members nationwide that uses bicycles or horse-drawn buggies instead of owning cars and avoids hooking up to the electrical grid because of a belief that doing so will lead to a dependence on the outside world.

"We want to be producers, to be an overall good to the community and to the nation and not be dependent upon the nation for our livelihood or for the federal or state governments to give us our livelihood," said David Kline, an Amish minister from Mount Hope, Ohio, whose county hosts the nation's largest Amish population.

For centuries, that has meant taking care of their own, supplying food, shelter and other necessities in times of need. Those who seek outside help can risk being forced to make public confessions in church or told to refrain from taking communion for six months, said Steven Nolt, a Goshen College history professor who has written several books on the Amish.

But tradition has had to bend as northern Indiana's Amish continue to move away from their roots, becoming heavily reliant on a single industry.

A survey of 3,358 Amish heads of households living in Indiana's Elkhart-LaGrange settlement in 2007 found that 53.3 percent earned their livings working in factories. In contrast, the economies of the nation's largest Amish centers -- the Holmes County area of Ohio and around Lancaster, Pa. -- focus primarily on small shops, construction trades and, to a lesser extent, farming.

"When the RV industry shut down here as well as the mobile home industry, it hit them really hard," said LeRoy Mast, director of the Menno-Hof, a nonprofit information center in nearby Shipshewana that teaches visitors about the Amish and Mennonite.

"They can't handle the 19 percent unemployment rate on their own because the needs are just so great."

Hochstetler said it is impossible for his church district, where about half the 31 families had people employed in the RV industry, to make up the lost wages. The Amish who work in factories pay into the state unemployment system and are eligible to receive jobless benefits of $50 to $390 a week.
Even so, those benefits remain an uncomfortable subject.

Of more than two dozen Amish approached recently in Topeka, a town of 1,100 about 40 miles southeast of South Bend, only six would talk, and all were reluctant to be identified.

But each spoke of tough times. A dairy farmer is struggling with declining milk prices and the rising cost of hay. A father of three who lost his RV factory job in December said he had accepted jobless benefits to provide for his children but hadn't told anyone outside his family.

"This is a situation that's very difficult for everyone involved," Nolt said. "In a society that's relied so much on tradition, there isn't a precedent."
Lester Chupp, 62, an Amish deacon in Nappanee, says those who need unemployment should take it. He did so several times while working in an RV factory for 24 years. He now owns a furniture and crafts shop, where business is down 40 percent.

"Most people say they're tightening their belts. Well, we don't use belts, so I guess we can say we're tightening up our suspenders and rolling up our sleeves and going to work," Chupp said.

Hochstetler and other Amish leaders hope the area's joblessness ultimately leads more Amish to return to their roots, opening woodworking shops or raising chickens or livestock to make extra money.

"I think it's helped that we have slowed down and are not spending so much time at work," Hochstetler said.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Money-or-tradition-Ind-Amish-apf-15192646.html

Amish couples must leave their homes

John_Alden — Mon, 11 May 2009 12:40:20 CDT

By Sandra K. Reabuck
The Tribune-Democrat

EBENSBURG May 08, 2009 12:31 pm

— Cambria County Judge Norman Krumenacker today ordered two Amish couples to leave their homes by 10 a.m. Monday or face eviction by the sheriff because they’ve not complied with sewage and building code regulations.

Krumenacker said that sheriff deputies will padlock the houses and any barns or outbuildings on the properties, and the padlocks will remain in place until the properties are brought into compliance.

He held in them in contempt of court for not following his January order that gave them 60 days to be in compliance.

The couples are Joely and Mary Swartzentruver, who, along with their three young children, live along Amadei Road in Barr Township, and John and Susan Miller, who with their one child, living along Duman Road in Blacklick Townships.

They are members of the ultraconservative Swartzentruver sect which does not use modern conveniences.

http://www.tribune-democrat.com/local/local_story_128111158.html/resources_printstory

Amish teens choose between faith or uncertainty

John_Alden — Mon, 11 May 2009 12:38:23 CDT

The Outsiders: Teens Caught Between Freedom and Faith

Amish Adolescents 'Run Around' Before Committing to Church or Leaving Community

By SAMANTHA WENDER and KATIE ESCHERICH June 24, 2008 —

Adolescence is typically a time of experimentation and testing boundaries, but if you're an Amish teenager, you're faced with a confounding choice between family or isolation, tradition or the modern world, faith or uncertainty.

For the past year, ABC News has had unprecedented access into the lives of a group of Amish adolescents at a crossroads, as they come of age and decide their future.

ABC News' Jay Schadler profiles four teenagers in central Ohio during the Amish rite of passage known as rumspringa that usually begins at age 16. This period of discovery, loosely translated in the Amish's Pennsylvania Dutch language as "running around," gives Amish teens the chance to explore the usually forbidden modern world before deciding whether they will forever commit themselves to the Amish way of life.

That way of life means living according to a strict set of religious rules, with no electricity, no cars, no music and no education beyond the 8th grade. The Amish wear traditional clothes and stay away from the outside, which they call the "English" world.

The Amish believe that only adults can make informed decisions about their own salvation. Baptized once as children and then as adults, the decision to join the church means they consciously take on the responsibility of following the "ordnung" -- unwritten rules -- that have sustained the culture for several centuries.

The challenge is that if the outside temptations prove more powerful than the world they have always known, the teens will spend the rest of their lives severed from their families. It's a high stakes choice between the enticement of freedom or returning to the faith and comfort of family and community life.

"If you don't grow up in the Amish then you don't know what it's like," said 18-year-old Danny.

ABC News was there as Danny ran away from his Amish family by jumping from the second floor of his father's farm house late one night. He negotiated his way through a series of first encounters with the modern world, including remote controls, text messaging and drunken nights, to find that he had escaped one set of rules for another he didn't understand. Danny's internal conflicts about the decision to be or not to be Amish landed him first in trouble, and then in jail.

"They think I'm lost," Danny said. "If I were to die, they think I can't go to heaven. I mean, I might not go to heaven, but not every Amish is going to heaven."

During the day, 17-year-old Lena cleans houses, and at night she texts and talks secretly on her cell phone by candlelight.

"You have a big decision if you want to stay with the Amish or if you want to leave," said Lena, the youngest of 11 children. "I'm confused in my life."

Although Lena dresses in Amish clothes, underneath her simple dress and white bonnet she wears a T-shirt and blue jeans.

Lena still lives at home with her mother, who very much wants her to embrace the Amish lifestyle, but on weekends she parties with her boyfriend and other Amish teens going through Rumspringa.

"Well, my dream right now is to leave the Amish and do what I want to," she told Schadler. "I want to do a lot of stuff, and just go out and have freedom for a while, complete freedom."

Lena's act of rebellion is that she plans on getting her GED -- a full high school diploma. The Amish traditionally only go to school through eighth grade. They believe that life experience trumps formal education and that young people should apprentice to learn the basic skills needed to make a living.

An hour buggy ride down the road from Lena, 18-year-old Nelson drives a souped up buggy, complete with a stereo system, subwoofers and a iPod charger.

He laughingly calls himself a "hi-tech Amish," but even so, Nelson says he is not much different then the generations before him. "It seems like every generation takes it a little further and a little further. My grandpa told me when he was my age, they had a little radio, but it was a real old type and they still had to crank it to get music out of it."

19-year-old Harley knows that life outside the Amish community isn't for everyone. He left the Amish with just the clothes on his back and $21 in his pocket.

"Some people can take it, and some of them can't," he said. "For me, it's like, my best choice I ever made."
Harley tries to maintain a relationship with his family but said his parents don't want him to visit very often, as they are afraid he'll be a bad influence on his 11 younger siblings.

"My one little brother, he was about a year old when I left," Harley recalled. "Every time I'd come home and I'd walk in the door, he'd run up yelling my name, 'You going to stay at home this time?' And I tell him, 'no.'"

"When I first left the Amish, I missed my family like very bad," he said, and he still drives by his family's home sometimes. "I try and stay away so to respect mom and dad," he said. "They're, they're disappointed in me."

According to studies done by Thomas J. Meyers, a sociology professor at Goshen College in Indiana, more than 80 percent of Amish youth eventually join the church.

All the teenagers ABC News followed will have to decide for themselves if those family bonds are enough to keep them in the community. "Basically the reason I'm staying is my family right now, at home. I know I'd miss them and they;d miss me," Nelson said. "I just like the lifestyle, it's a simple life. Work hard, play hard, it's just fun."

http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/Story?id=5195105&page=1

Petroleum Warning

John_Alden — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 15:59:10 CDT

. Petroleum Warning .

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Petroleum products (like plastics, synthetic clothing and man-made chemicals) are formed by the damned dead remains of people, plants and animals that were trapped underground from things like Noah’s flood or Korah, etc. We should not even touch such things due to them being spiritually defiling. Those things are unholy, evil, wicked, unclean and toxic, to say the least. Petroleum is poison. From the earliest times we have known that the remains of godly people turn white and are fragrant, while the remains of the damned turn black and stink. The Industrial Revolution would never have happened if not for the dead from the Great Flood. People generally return to the dust that they were made from, but petroleum is incorrupt, still retaining an example of their curse, by not returning to dust.
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This is why plants can grow from dirt which was from the dead, because they have totally returned to what they were before. Petroleum has not completely returned, being so poisonous that plants will not grow in raw crude oil or tar pits.. Petroleum still is made up of blood, which we should abstain from. Even any apostate bible a person reads (in the book of Acts) will clearly explain how all Christians must abstain from blood. One reason why petroleum has its dark color is because of the blood remaining in it, causing foul odor and other bad traits. In this Origin of Crude Oil web page we will learn that the porphyrins in it are also found in blood, these scientists suggest it is from the people Noah left behind. Today the good Christian rule to abstain from blood is long forgotten by almost everyone, as meat is slaughtered by electrocution in order to keep as much blood in the meat as possible. Most people today do not practice bleeding animals from the right side, as was done in Christian places long past.
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Petroleum products seep into our food even with “food grade” plastics which are used as containers. To show further that blood is forbidden I quote a book, “The Russian Church and Russian Dissent” page 194, that Old Believers forbade the use, “of sugar, as it is refined with blood, by the Scriptures man may not eat the blood of beasts”. Also from this same page the Old Believers “objected to the paving [with asphalt] of the streets” because it is not proper to make use of such defiled earthly remains as petroleum. Blood is also used, from petroleum products, as formaldehyde, in adhesive for plywood, in cheese-making, foam rubber, intravenous feedings, and medicines. Unchristian formaldehyde is also found in many american foods, such as ice cream or lecithin, and in foods like rice noodles and tofu. Bone Char (also known as animal bone ash) is used in bone china and often to make sugar white. This bone ash has blood cells in it from the marrow and serves as the charcoal used in aquarium filters. Death by food poisoning from these kinds of chemicals happens more often than we think, to both people and animals. .
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Modern society has mutated to the point where they cannot live without petroleum products, becoming so addicted that every person now uses over three hundred pounds of it per day. It is amazing to think of how something so disgusting as petroleum could become so much an integral part of our daily lives. It is now so bad that there really is no place to go on earth to get away from it all. Acid rain falls all over the world, even in the pristine Canadian wilderness. The exhaust from burning fossil fuels makes everyone sick, it is a cancer causing agent. All the air on earth and all the water is poisoned.
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100% cotton clothing is not good for us as over half of today’s pesticides (which are made with petroleum products) are used on cotton crops. There is no getting around it, petroleum use, something practically everyone on earth practices, constantly and indisciminately kills and harms people. There is no possible way to safely use petroleum products. It causes birth defects like arms that go from the hips of babies and many other harms like diabetes and diseases we do not even think about. The photo below is a warning in the state of California, gasoline has the same warning.

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Pesticides, heavy metals and other airborne contaminants are raining down on us, see the reports Here. .
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People do not realize all the things we would have to do without if we were willing to obey God for once and get rid of all our sinful petroleum habits. Basically, modern medical treatments would be thrown out the window, including vision lenses. By the time the industrial age was in full swing we had already become totally dependant upon petroleum products. Even the things people buy to clean with are really harmful to us because they are made with spiritual defiling and dangerous petroleum products. Here is a link to a Canadian report. There are statements by experts that sound like famous last words which say chemicals do not “appear” to pose health risks, but there are more worthy conclusions as are told in this ABC video about Chemicals Inside Us. Scientists do fear that plastics are harmful as this text shows. Just so we do not delude ourselves, it is important to realize that alternative fuels can be just as spiritually defiling and pollution boosting as what were previously used, read this revealing news column. Of course Greenpeace explains well enough how computers, which are made with petroleum products, are also toxic. Computers are only a cursed machine anyway. .
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All of our recent wars have been due, in large part, to the demand people have for petroleum. People just do not know how to get along without it. So humanity has now dropped to the lowest point ever, working and fighting for possession of what is totally abominable, petroleum. The power of petroleum to corrupt societies can be clearly seen by any contemporary observer. Petroleum will be the death of us all if we are not careful. In a manner of speaking we already are spiritually dead due to this present situation before us. It is significant that the Holy Land has not produced any major petroleum; Israel has so departed the ways of God that it now imports ungodly petroleum products. Here is a news report about one American man who has spared no expense in attempting to find black gold in Israel, and an introduction for Nightline’s show on Oil in the land of milk and honey. Some deluded people believe that because Israel is blessed of God that it must have petroleum, but what they are not realizing is that petroleum is truly a curse, not a blessing. If oil is a blessing, then Saudi are the most blessed people from God followed by Iran and others like them. How is it that God is on their side? We already know petroleum causes environmental problems. It also makes a target for terrorists. .
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Originally it was the pagans who thought it a good religious practice to use petroleum. It is my stand that it was the devils who suggested to them that there would be nothing wrong in its continued use. Any quick study will provide a person with more than enough information to reveal the true nature of this predicament. A good quote I found suggests that, “when enough is too little, nothing is ever enough”. Many people today are talking about our need for energy, but what they appear to forget is that for centuries the race of man had no need for such energy. These energy minded people are thinking that we must have this standard of living where it does not matter what parts of Creation we kill off, so long as we are comfortable. Shame on them. .
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When the jew Dimitry Medvedev was inaugurated as Russia’s new president it had been a while since Red Square saw so many military vehicles. The subway tunnels underneath had to be given extra support to hold the heaven artillary. The photos of the tanks revealed as much black smoke as I have ever seen from vehicles. Another photo was of a famous Russian Orthodox Church with its onion domes, in the background of this photo were Russian jets flying past in the sky, spewing chemtrails behind. Quite a grim picture of just how spoiled the entire world is. It is very much like when the blood is said to rise all the way to the bridles. If we are not already at, we are very close to, the war of Armageddon. . .
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A search for Chemtrails and will learn about these effects.

Even in the distant Siberian wilderness the air and water are poisoned.

There is a “Miscellaneous” article in the Turbo Diesel Register, issue 47, about the historical perspective on the auto and truck industry starting from before 100 years ago. On page 122 it mentions, “Some looked at the auto as a menace, for it spooked horses and it could be dangerous to pedestrians...” In issue 52 the chronicle continues and on page 124 talks about the book by Murchison titled, Dawn of Motoring, saying, “It was somewhat amusing to read that the first problems of early motoring in England were the same as here in the U.S. They included the fact that motoring pioneers in England had to put up with ‘prejudices, hardships and insults’ from non-owners just as in the U.S.” And finally on page 126 it quotes this same book, mentioning how law enforcement changed with the coming of the automobile, “It is very interesting to observe how, among many other ways, how motoring has affected the every day life of the country, it has completely changed the work of the magistrates in town and country districts alike. Whereas thirty years ago all the charges were for drunkenness, poaching or petty larceny, now most of them concern motoring, bicycling or other road offenses.” The article mentions a speed limit of 12 miles per hour and says, “And as we saw with our English friend, the early car owner met with a great deal of opposition and antagonism. The first automobiles terrorized horses, splattered pedestrians with grease and oil, and shook from vibrations. Ordinary citizens thought that autos belonged on race tracks where drivers would be free to kill each other and not innocent bystanders. They expressed themselves in many ways: threats, violence, legislation, cartoons and poems.”
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Here is a link to the cartoon against the automobile from Harper’s Weekly, November 9, 1901
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Horses, policemen, children and everything else are obliterated by the auto in this cartoon
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In this area of American there has been a ban on motorized vehicles since the year 1898
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In 1904, Breeder’s Gazette, a farm magazine, showed the Automobile owners in this light. “A reckless, blood thirsty, villainous lot of purse-proud crazy trespassers” . Before his presidency Woodrow Wilson worked to abolish automobiles in 1906. While president of Princeton University he said, “Nothing has spread socialistic feeling in this country more than use of the automobile...They are a picture of arrogance and wealth, with all its independence and carelessness”.
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People do not realize the honest truth about just how violent they all truly are when they turn the ignition key in a car, or when they even simply open the door to one. After taking several road safety classes I can assure everyone that there is nothing safe about our vehicles or roads made with petroleum products. There are only degrees of unsafeness. We truly take our life out of the hands of God (and place our souls in the hands of the devil) every time we venture out with all these things around us. Any way we slice it petroleum is just NOT safe. People lived for a long time without using petroleum, I agree with the prophets: “The beaten path is the safe path; the old way is the safe way”. Jeremiah 6:16.
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Some people have argued that since Noah used pitch on the outside of the Ark that petroleum use must be acceptable. However, the pitch which was used to seal ancient boats was not a petroleum product at all, but only a pine tree product. Any wooden container that needed to be waterproof, especially boats, would have been pine pitched (or fir pitched, something which is evaporated from fir needles).
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Here is an article on it: Wiki on Pitch Pine
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The basket of Moses was also had pitch like the Ark of Noah, but even Creation Scientists correctly explain this topic The Pitch of Noah’s Ark
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The ancient reed ships of Egypt floated with help from draining the sap from the reeds, the hollowed tubes being fillid with air. Such sap likewise makes a good pitch.
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Here is a page about why plastic petroleum products are a threat: Why Paper Bags
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Both Los Angeles and San Francisco have outlawed plastic grocery bags.
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I believe that the strange incense mentioned in Exodus 30:9 is connected with the strange fire in Leviticus 10:1-2. The kind of fire used can be spiritually defiling if it is from a spiritually defiled source. Sulfur is derived from petroleum and is often used to burn incense. Petroleum is spiritually defiling (Ecclesiasticus 13:1) and is most improper for God fearing persons to be making use of. We know that if we touch a dead person we are defiled (Lev. 5:2; 21:1-4, 10-12; Num. 5:2; 6:7, 9-12; 9:6-10; 19:7-13, 16-22). As petroleum is the product of damned people, plants and animals we should be far more careful with our associations with it. Truly, all petroleum gasses, like butane and propane, should not be used either. Also, lighting fluid used to barbeque food should be off limits. Often times even charcoal used to cook food is saturated in poisonous petroleum from the source. Gunpowder is also made with petroleum products, something which is unnecessary, dangerous, noisy, smelly, messy and unhealthy to use. What part of these equations need to be explained more? . Even this modern orthodox priest knows that petroleum chemicals are evil, “God and His Church are honored by the natural products. Any chemical product falsifies the creation of God. For this, church uses only natural products as wine, beeswax, prosfora from pure flour, etc. Honoring God, the Church and a new born baby, we can not use faked offerings.” - Father Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa.
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Coal is nothing but rock saturated in oil, petroleum. It kills and harms people too and is used to generate half or more of the electricity people use. In the year 1233 England mined coal for the first time. Around 1285 smog problems develop as coal is burned for heating and cooking. So their officials appoint a commission to study the problem. It was found to be so bad that by 1306 there is a death penalty for coal use. Authorities put a man on trial for the crime, and being found guilty he was executed. At this time only a tiny fraction of the world’s energy cames from sources other than manpower, animal power or wood. Things change in 1589 when coal burning gained widespread popularity due to firewood becoming scarcer and more costly. This forced an end to the ban on burning coal that had existed for nearly three centuries, since the early 14th century. From 1615 onward England became increasingly dependant on cheap coal as there is less timber which made firewood even more costly. This is why coal was so famous over there.
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From the book OLD BELIEVERS in MODERN RUSSIA we read on page 86, “It is not pleasing to God to burn lamp oil [petroleum] for it is necessary that a sacrifice be clean, unlike the sacrifice of Cain. Likewise, only pure beeswax candles are acceptable, not inexpensive paraffin ones.”
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Buddhist monks “fight” over the price of fuel in Myanmar
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On page 137 of the Commercial Driver Handbook 2007 given out by the California DMV it gives the new law that idling is illegal because it, “Can cause health problems like cancer, asthma, lung disease, bronchitis and heart disease.” If they recognize that much, then it is even worse to be driving such vehicles around, as more toxins are put into the atmosphere during driving than idling. Why don’t we stop using all such toxins? They should have never began using petroleum products to start with.
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Mechanics are now saying that Ethanol causes problems like damage to the engine. Ethanol Driving Up Repair Bills
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Alternative fuels, such as Ethanol, Hybrids, Electric and Fuel Cell all presently rely upon the use of petroleum in order to be produced in the first place. There is really no escaping the terrible influence of petroleum except to stop using it, to completely repent from practices that use it.
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Take a look at this recent news report on how our air is Too Dirty to Breath. .
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Even the Pope gets something right about our sins, saying Pollution is a Sin. .
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Pittsburgh surpasses Los Angeles as nations Most Sootiest City.
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“The chemical war is never won and all life is caught in its violent crossfire.”

SILENT SPRING

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We should only produce things that are bio-degradable, bio-safe and compatible with healthy living. From the start we all should have known the murderous nature of petroleum, ignorance is no excuse. Hopefully we will learn to stop and totally repent before it is too late.

Better for Sodom Than This Generation

John_Alden — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 15:53:49 CDT

There can be no doubt that this generation is worse than Sodom. Just look around and see that everyone is a bunch of cross dressers and transvestites. Women like to wear the pants in the family and wearing their hair loosely and/or cutting it. There clothing, as a rule, is so immodest that they look as bad as any prostitute. What can be said about men, they cut their beards or shave them off completely, looking like they have the face of a woman, or closely to that of a woman. Many men think it good to have long or stylish hair. Most people have stood idly by and allowed this to take place. Clothing was given by God from the beginning. Before Adam and Eve first sinned they were not naked, they were clothed with light according to their nobility. When they became naked due to their own negligence God provided animal skins as a covering. There is no word as to what was done with the remainder of such animals, but I am sure they were not used for food. Then, later, God designed more clothing, specifically for men. These might be called britches, or as you might read in your bibles as “breeches”. These were given by God only for men to be seen wearing. God gave natural laws, pertaining to the whole race of man, explaining that it is wrong for a woman to wear the apparel of a man, and vice-a-versa. I would recommend thinking twice about what we all are doing in such mixed up times as these where people ignore the common sense of things like this.

English is Hodge-Podge and Mumbo-Jumbo

John_Alden — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 15:51:17 CDT

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From the start of the English language, a thousand years ago or so, the faithful Christians never allowed English to be part of worship, prayer or scripture. The vulgar, mundane and profane English language is a tradition of men made by ungodly witches (pagans). The strict Pomorsky explain how English simply does not have the tools to rightly express sacred thoughts. Today, modern English is a mixture of nearly every aberrant language imaginable. Here are a few references:
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“English arrived on the scene like a furry from hell...by fearless fighting pagan men.” The Adventure of English by Melvyn Bragg, page 1 (see also page 8) note: Christians are soldiers of Christ and opposed to Pagan inventions.
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The author here says that English is, “from a Christian point of view...pagan mumbo-jumbo.” A History of English Words by Geoffrey Hughes page 170
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“As elsewhere in medieval Europe, writing was in the hands of clerics, who often had strong views about what was proper to record, so that we learn little about the heathen English from their writings...pagan lore has...remained fossilized in the language.” The English Language: A Historical Introduction by Charles Barber, page 106
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Here is a reference from the Latin source of the Seven Ecumenical Councils in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers which admits in the footnotes that, “It is impossible in English to reproduce the play upon the words”. It is at note 526 here
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If language is not sacred and inspired to start with, how could we ever expect there to be no loss in translation? To put Sacred language into English is by default interpolation (or bad translating). It is better to error on the side of caution and not have the opportunity for the devil to misguide unsuspecting people with such a loss. People might actually have the mistaken idea that they are holding a holy book in their hands; when in truth it is not inspired, is non-sacred and is totally unholy. Such examples of books should be burned, as the good example of the Apostles shows us. Even ancient sacred books, after being in the possession of ungodly people, should be seen as questionable.
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It is only a mamby-pamby argument which brought about the use of English in this demeaning manner in the first place. The heretic, King Henry VIII of England, maintained the previous good practice of disallowing English for use in his church. The penalty at the beginning of his time for breaking the law of using English for sacred purposes was death. England was already apostate, as t was with the Latin church, but then the king did more than any other person to change it from a medieval state to a modern antichrist state. He divorced his first wife for another woman and in this frenzy succumbed to the devilish idea to change the status of the English language. The present identity that England enjoys in the world is due to Henry’s large influence. He made himself head of the Church of England, beginning its Protestantism. Today his church has begun to house practicing homosexuals, even in its bishops. He had ungodly tennis courts, yet like many Englishmen he became more and more obese as he grew older. Due to greed he wickedly dissolved monasteries that were under his control. He was a warmonger. Things like these show how England’s power and majesty had actually fallen ages ago. It also shows how the English language should not have the place it has today. Everyone should take note of how the English language fueled the multitudes of heresies within Protestantism. He was truly ruthless, sinking his apostate kingdom further into the bottomless pit.
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In the fifth paragraph on this page we can see that many people recognize English bibles as pernicious. Such language killers as English or modern Russian have brought us to the chaos of our age. Truly, these extreme language diversities bring the world into a spiritually unhealthy position, a weakness that brings with it the Great Delusion warned of at the end of this world. In the second section of the next link “Born out of Blood” in the first paragraph, we learn that use of English as scripture brought the death penalty. For the person who is a serious student they can find many more confirming references to what I show here. In my 20 years of study I have found numerous references to these realities. Almost all the false churches of today make use of English in their worship and scripture. So they twist history, making it sound like a crime not to use English, when really it is the other way around. Preaching is something that leads to conversion and therefore does not contain worship, prayer or scripture. The holy things are for the illuminated, after they are baptized. This is partly why the ancient liturgies often contained the catechumens depart, for even those who are officially a catechumen could not partake of all the holy gifts. So the simple act of preaching does not necessarily contain any Sacred Language at all and the good news of Christ can be initially explained without holy words, everyone has to start somewhere.
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English is not capable of reproducing adequately the sublime conceptions or relations of God. Also, English is most unable to offer the subtler, and more complex religious ideas for which true godly language is known for. Most people understand that to really learn ancient truth it is needful to use ancient language. Modern English is especially bad, foreigners who try to learn English as a second language explain how bizarre, contradictory and confusing English is. English is almost the most difficult a language that there is. Many people of the world are desiring to learn the English language in order to make better use of all the devilish things America has. What they do not realize yet is that English is a very wimpy language. Any good writer will explain how English does not have enough words, and any good linguist will explain how English does not have enough letters.
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Not all languages were created equal. English, like so many devilish languages, simply does not have integrity. The Ten Commandments were given in the 70 inspired languages which God gave the race of man at the Tower Babel. This shows that the natural law is for all mankind. Today we have hundreds, if not thousands, of unholy neo-languages which are corruptions of the devil and traditions of men. The neo-orthodox christians should at least take note of their Theophan the Recluse who was chastised by his fellow bishops because he translated their sacred texts into the modern Russian language. But Russia had begun going downhill already when Nikon Latinized their Slavonic language much earlier.
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Greek has been spoken since the early part of the second millennium BC and has a documented history that goes back 3,500 years, the oldest of the Indo-European languages. At the time of Christ the Temple in Jerusalem was a Greek speaking Temple. Archeology has shown us that the inscriptions of that Temple were in Greek. Likewise the Jewish tombs from that time were also inscribed in Greek. Jewish priests had taken on Greek names for centuries. The priest Symeon, to whom the babe Christ was presented in the Temple, was one of the scribes who worked on the “inspired” Greek Septuagint (Old Testament). Christ worshipped in Greek, when in the Temple He read from the Septuagint. The early Church accepted this inspired Greek text as their primary Scripture.
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The first Christians did so well at using the Septuagint that the antichrist Jews who rejected Christ decided to remake a Hebrew text that would not, so convincingly, show Jesus is the messiah. Before the time of Christ the Hebrew language had gone into disuse, except by those like the exiled Gnostic Essenes who believed they alone had the truth to the damnation of all others. It is no surprise then that the apostate Hebrew Masoretic Text aligns itself so well with ungodly Dead Sea Scrolls, one of the rare Hebrew sources of that time. The Essenes, I should note, first began the idea of Jihad, saying that it is alright to kill somebody so long as no enjoyment comes from it. The apostate Masoretic Text which most Protestant English bibles wrongly use for their primary “original” Old Testament text. We might notice today how Jewish people hold the Dead Sea Scrolls in such high esteem, this is because the Jews who condemned Christ were of the same mind as the keepers of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
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English is not accurate or precise enough for science or medicine, this is why we see the use of Latin and Greek in life science and biological terms. If English is not acceptable in these areas, how can English be acceptable in the spiritual arena? Certainly no doctrine can be established based upon such a meaningless languagae as English. Amos 8:11 - “Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord God, “That I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord”. So it is today. Language is a wonderful thing. It can be used to express our thoughts, to conceal our thoughts, or to replace thinking. What is also diabolical is the use of text message slang, which is now proven to hinder writing ability in students.
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Joseph Campbell was in a PBS documentary series titled The Power of Myth which was produced by Lucas Films. Even though Campbell was rather universal in his religious views he does see clearly the idea of Sacred Language, at least to a point. In Program 3 of this series, “The First Storytellers”, at about 38 minutes running time, we will find Campbell speaking of how the Roman Catholic Church has lost so much by giving up Latin for English. Campbell suggests that the abolishment of sacred language in liturgy...ruins the experience. Here is a link to this free online video.
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The French are aghast at the new English incursion to their language.
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The good old Russians accepted Christianity from the good Greek Christians of 1000 years ago. The Greeks gave the Russians a language based in large part from the Greek. This language is known as Old Slavonic. Only the Old Believers continue to use Slavonic in its pure form today. The Latin’s entered the final Great Apostasy shortly after the Russians accepted Christianity. Then the Greeks were influenced by the Latin Crusaders that sacked Constantinople, and also because of the Latin union at Constantinople’s fall to the Turks. So from that time the Greeks no longer were able to offer good Faith or inspired language to the world. For most intents and purposes the Greek language is now spiritually dead. This leaves only the strict Old Believers maintaining the last inspired Christian language.
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In 1998 the Erie Historical Society gave an exhibit about the Old Believers which shows how using the devilish language of English was one of the major causes for division among their people. Here is a photo showing portions of the exhibit catalog pages 13 and 14, exhibits 45 thru 49. Some Old Believers were strong enough to stand up for what is right and not allow their sacred language to be desecrated.
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King James so imposed his will onto the text of his famous bible that he forced his name into it. He wished to have his name in their somewhere, but sadly the english word “James” is not a translation of any name found in the Scriptures. Things have only gone worse and worse.
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Below is a photo from an old Harper’s Weekly (A Journal of Civilization), the December 16, 1865 issue, showing how the Protestant mindset gained sympathy when English bibles were forbidden. Only heretics used such an improper language as English. When the English language first began, good Christians forbade it use in bibles. Those were not the dark ages. This age of “enlightenment”, which is worse than the days of Sodom, is the darkest of ages. Everyone gets something right, and it is right to reprove the use of English bibles. It is sad that things are only worse and that most of the world is still illiterate today.
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Strict Old Believers use only handwritten books in the pure Old Slavonic language for their prayers, worship or scripture. This is due to the fact that their language is the last inspired language and because of the care practiced in hand copying. Also, when a printed mistake happens, which always does, the error is repeatedly reproduced without consideration, until such a time as somebody finally learns of the mistake, which often does not happen or is far too late because the damage has already been done. Printed books contain many mistakes simply because of the loss of attention that hand written scriptures always were given. Here is an example of a Psalter from this sound belief.
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The many people that suggest all languages are acceptable for bibles are not taking into account the vast distances there are in linguistics from ancient languages to modern ones. Modern languages really do not compare and cannot truly be considered language in any original idea of what that would have meant. As far as sacred use, English is tainted beyond repair and cannot be used as such. Wicked language is like magic and can never be considered Sacred. For those who would listen carefully they might learn something modern language will never teach them. Here I work to point others in the right direction. Daniel 12:10 - None of the wicked will understand, but the wise will understand.

nonChalcedonians

John_Alden — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 15:42:17 CDT

Orientals ~ Miaphysites ~ Monophysites ~ Coptics

Anti-chalcedonians ~ Armenians ~ Tewahedo

Jacobites ~ Malankara ~ Syriac ~ Eritrean ~ Ethiopian

Indian ~ Abyssinians ~ Maronites ~ Egyptian

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One thing that is undeniable is that the Church never taught such an error as monophysitism, the Lord and Savior never acted with a single nature after the Incarnation. Those who insist that Jesus Christ acted with one nature reject not only the last 4 Ecumenical Councils but they also reject the Saints of old who wonderfully and accurately explained the correct faith about the natures of the Lord. The Coptic Pope Shenouda III did say that they are miaphysites and not monophysites. They believe Christ consisted of two natures that united becoming “one nature” (“mia physis”). They also continue to commemorate Monophysite saints, such as Dioscorus, all the same. Miaphysitism is also heresy, not just monophysitism. In the end both miaphysitism and monophysitism see the Incarnation as a single nature. What they are is differences that have no real distinctions. Either way it is heresy. They might try to give explanations as to how we can “imagine” Jesus Christ as having two natures but they always come back and settle with their being one acting nature. Historically the term monophysites was not limited; Monophysites is an accurate term for all Non-chalcedonians even if they do not appreciate the designation. To say St. Cyril taught that Christ acted with one nature confuses the meanings that the word ‘nature’ has. Besides, St. Cyril approved of “two natures” in the famous Formula of Union in 433, which the last 4 Ecumenical Councils upheld. The Twelve Chapters, as they are called, do not bring any stigma upon St. Cyril as he was relating to the heretic Nestorius in a different heretical issue. Chalcedon was dealing with monophysite heretics, miaphysites use the term monophysites themselves. Emperor Zeno, with all his efforts in 482, was not able to reconcile with monophysites and nothing has changed. These Monophysites helped the Arabs and Turks to defeat the Byzantine empire. For the Orthodox that accept the Seven Ecumenical Councils, the additional books of the Apostolic Constinutions which were added by Monophysites after their denial of the Council at Chalcedon are not to be accepted as Orthodox. A case in point would be the new section that specifies that lay persons cannot baptize. St. Basil the Great accepted lay baptisms, as far as they go.
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Here is an excerpt from the file
CREEDS EARLY Definition of Chalcedon (451 AD)
Following, then, the holy fathers, we unite in teaching all men to confess the one and only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. This selfsame one is perfect both in deity and in manhood; this selfsame one is also actually God and actually man, with a rational soul <meaning soul of man> and a body. He is of the same reality as God as far as his deity is concerned and of the same reality as we ourselves as far as his manhood is concerned; thus like us in all respects, sin only excepted. Before time began he was begotten of the Father, in respect of his deity, and now in these "last days," for us and behalf of our salvation, this selfsame one was born of Mary the virgin, who is God-bearer in respect of his manhood. We also teach that we apprehend this one and only Christ-Son, Lord, only-begotten -- in two natures; and we do this without confusing the two natures, without transmuting one nature into the other, without dividing them into two separate categories, without contrasting them according to area or function. The distinctiveness of each nature is not nullified by the union. Instead, the "properties" of each nature are conserved and both natures concur in one "person" and in one reality <hypostasis>. They are not divided or cut into two persons, but are together the one and only and only-begotten Word <Logos> of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus have the prophets of old testified; thus the Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us; thus the Symbol of Fathers <the Nicene Creed> has handed down to us.
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A few links for further reference:
Coptic.net says, “the See of Alexandria was split between…Chalcedonian from Constantinople, and… Monophysite who does not recognize Chalcedon
Monophysites supported the Turkish conquest of Constantinople.
Coptic Church calls monophysite heretic Dioscorus a Saint.
8th Annual prayer service between SCOBA and Monophysite heretics for the Antichrist One World Order. These type of One World Order spiritual unions are most unfortunate and only promote falsehoods. The Monophysites are founding members of the WCC and have underhanded dealings with the Soviet MP.

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Heretics

Preface

The Teaching of the Church on Heretics and Those in Communion with Them: Selections from the Holy Fathers

"Heresies...shall not inherit the Kingdom of God"

"For 'communion', he said, 'has been so called because he who has 'communion' has things in common and agrees with those with whom he has 'communion'. Therefore I implore you earnestly, children, never to go near the oratories of the heretics in order to communicate there.'"

Without the True Orthodox Faith, No One Will Be Saved, For Heresy Separates One From God, the Church, Grace, and Salvation:

"Heresy separates every man from the Church."

"The universal [catholic] Church is a great paradise...and should anyone be found in the Church ailing with heretical error from the teaching of the serpent...then he is cast out of this paradise, even as Adam was cast out from the paradise [of old]."

"Just as the fishermen hide the hook with bait and covertly hook the fish, similarly, the crafty allies of the heresies cover their evil teachings and corrupt understanding with pietism and hook the more simple, bringing them to spiritual death"

"'It is impossible to be saved ('without right belief).'" (The monk is interested and the elder offers him his cell saying:)

"'I have hope that God in His mercy will reveal the truth to you.'"

"With these words the monk came to himself. When the elder returned the monk told him everything that he had seen and in a short time joined himself to the holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. Staying in the monastery of Kalamon he lived with the elder for some years and died in peace.""

Anyone That Would Be Saved Must Depart From Heresy and Join the True Orthodox Church:

If We Are In Communion With Heretics, We Likewise Will Perish:

"As for all those who pretend to confess sound Orthodox Faith, but are in communion with people who hold a different opinion, if they are forewarned and still remain stubborn, you must not only not be in communion with them, but you must not even call them brothers."

For 'communion', he said, 'has been so called because he who has "communion" has things in common and agrees with those with whom he has "communion". Therefore I implore you earnestly, children, never to go near the oratories of the heretics in order to communicate there.'"

"With all our strength let us beware lest we receive Communion from or give it to heretics. 'Give not what is holy to the dogs,' says the Lord. 'Neither cast ye your pearls before swine', lest we become partakers in their dishonour and condemnation."

"Even if one should give away all his possessions in the world, and yet be in communion with heresy, he cannot be a friend of God, but is rather an enemy."

"Chrysostomos loudly declares not only heretics, but also those who have communion with them, to be enemies of God."

"Guard yourselves from soul-destroying heresy, communion with which is alienation from Christ."

"The heretics were totally shipwrecked with regard to the Faith; but as for the others, even if in their thinking they did not founder, nevertheless, because of their communion with heresy they are perishing."

We Must Abandon Bishops That Are Heretics Or Are In Communion With Them:

"Is the shepherd a heretic? Then he is a wolf! You must flee from him; do not be deceived to approach him even if he appears gentle and tame. Flee from communion and conversation with him even as you would flee from a poisonous snake."

Numbers And Official Titles Do Not Matter, Only the Sound Confession of the Orthodox Faith; Those Who Remain True Cannot Be Condemned, But Rather Receive Salvation:

"It is your prerogative to prefer the drowned multitude to Noah who was saved; but as for me, allow me to run to the Ark along with the few." "One who is well-pleasing to God is to be preferred over myriads who are invested with presumption."

"Let us not raise a stumbling-block for the Church of God which, according to the teaching of the Saints, is made up of even three Orthodox, so that we may not be condemned according to the Lord's verdict."

To Deviate A 'little' Or ' A Lot' In Regard To The Faith Is Equally Sin Unto Death

"To sin in respect of the dogmas whether in small or great is the same thing; for the law of God is disregarded in either case."

"It is incumbent upon everyone to observe the letter of all that is common to all, and, above all, the points touching the Faith, where to deviate a little is to commit a sin unto death."

Everyone Is Called To This Struggle; One Cannot Simply Be 'Orthodox In One's Heart', While Apostatizing by Silence Outwardly

"Not only if one possesses rank or knowledge is one obliged to strive to speak and to teach the doctrines of Orthodoxy, but even if one be a disciple in rank, one is obliged to speak the truth boldly and openly."

There Can No Peace or Common God With Those of Another Faith; To Allege This Is Heresy

St. Gregory of Nyssa writes in regard of peace with heresy that "better is a laudable war than a peace which severs a man from God." "For disagreement over piety is better than emotional concord."

"Live in peace not only with your friends but with your enemies; but only with your personal enemies and not with the enemies of God."

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nonChalcedonians

Without the True Orthodox Faith, No One Will Be Saved,
For Heresy Separates One From God, the Church, Grace, and Salvation:

Numbers And Official Titles Do Not Matter,
Only the Sound Confession of the Orthodox Faith;
Those Who Remain True Cannot Be Condemned,
But Rather Receive Salvation:

Everyone Is Called To This Struggle;
One Cannot Simply Be 'Orthodox In One's Heart', While Apostatizing by Silence Outwardly