Saint Rasputin - no such chance

[Myhrr]

Fr Ambrose:

I’d just like to focus on what Patriarch Bartholomew wrote:

“With this opportunity, the Ecumenical Patriarchate reminds everyone that the basic prerequisite of peace is the respect for the sanctity of the human person and his freedom and dignity. From this respect are born all other prerequisites for the peaceful co-existence of all human beings on Earth in the love of one God and Father, who is not a God of war and battle but of reconciliation and peace.”

He is quite correct. The basic requisite for peace is the respect for the sanctity of the human person and his freedom and dignity.

In Iraq respect for the sanctity of the human person was almost non-existent. Freedom and dignity had virtually ceased to exist in Iraq. A war of liberation was needed to restore this human respect and sanctity, human freedom and dignity. The same type of war of liberation was endorsed by the Ecumenical Patriarchate to free the Greeks from the yoke of Islam.

Look at how freedom and dignity had been destroyed in Iraq…

Where was the sanctity of life and dignity of the human person for the Iraqi citizens who were tortured by branding, electric shock administered to the genitals and other areas, beatings, removal of
fingernails, amputations without anesthesia, burning with hot irons and blowtorches, suspension from rotating ceiling fans, dripping of acid on the skin, rape, breaking of limbs, and denial of food and water, murdered by shredding through plastic shredding machines,

Where was the sanctity of life for the approximately 3,000 people killed in Iraqi prisons in the last 5 years before the Allied Powers went in.

Where was the freedom and dignity for the 30,000 - 60,000 people killed in the gory 1991 suppression of Kurdish and Shia insurgencies in Northern and Southern Iraq,

The estimated 100,000 - 180,000 of the Kurdish population systematiclly annihilated in Northern Iraq in 1987-88,

The 5,000 people killed by poison gas in Halabja in 1988,

The thousands of Iranian prisoners of war, summarily executed,

The 200,000 Kurdish and Turkomen families forcibly deported from northern to southern Iraq,

The thousands of Marsh Arabs who were killed in southern Iraq and their civilisation obliterated,

So yes, the Patriarch is right. There could be no peace in Iraq until measures were taken to return human dignity and freedom.

And where was there respect from the invaders? They lied about the weapons of mass destruction in order to gain popular support for invasion which had zilch to do with alleviating the horror of Saddam’s rule.

America supported Saddam against Iran when Iran kicked America out of its country, America in fact provided Saddam with the poisons that he used against the Kurds. ETC. ETC. ETC. War is a sin.

“From this respect are born all other prerequisites for the peaceful co-existence of all human beings on Earth in the love of one God and Father, who is not a God of war and battle but of reconciliation and peace.”

That’s the bottom line for Orthodox.

 

[Myhrr]

Brendan:

What is your answer on that question Myhrr?

In Lev 13: God commands the Israelites to put to the sword whole towns if they worship false Gods.

If the Israelites do so DO THEY SIN?

YES OR NO

It’s a simple question, really. How about telling me your answer.

I answered you, but since you didn’t find it clear: Yes, they sin and more to point, the one who causes them to sin, orders them to sin, is culpable, God sins here.

 

[Myhrr]

## And this is relevant to Catholicism in what respect ?

I was answering your question here:

" but was the UK to avoid involvement in WW2 ? We could have kept out - and nearly did. But we had moral obligations to Poland."

As I explained, Britain helped bring it about by its own previous actions, it only defended Poland because it had given Poland some of Czechoslovkia and had promised to help defend Poland’s new borders…

…is it relevant to Catholicism? Yes, I think so, you asked what could Britain have done, but in the circumstances it had already acted immorally and its reaction to the changes was the only response it had and this wasn’t from some superior moral stance.

I’m sorry to contradict, but in our terms, it does not.​

Unam Sanctam is the infallible reasoning of faith and morals as held by the RCPC.

None if this makes a dogma out of a former practice of the Church.​

Where has it been stated so specifically, unequivocally and with the full authority of infallible teaching?

Orthodox are named in that.

I think you may have missed the point I was trying to make. Which is this: From time to time, Orthodox Christians make remarks about things done by Catholics. Remarks which are in part true. The problem is, they sound like accusations - as though you were saying that somehow, the deeds mentioned are in some way a uniquely RC failing. The problem is, that they are not. Worse still, this not something it is gracious (IMO) of certain non-RCs to mention, because they too have some nasty things in their pasts. So when you mention our failings, you are tempting us to respond in kind - and that sort of “atrocity-slinging”, IMO, has no place among Christians. Not from Catholics to Orthodox, nor from Orthodox to Catholics. Not at all, from any to any.​

I understand that and empathise with the problems you have here, however, I’m actually focusing on doctrines which the RCPC has held for many centuries and understood by those like Stepinac in the last century to be current, he didn’t think he was doing anything wrong because he was obedient to these doctrines. This is a problem specific to the RCPC and these doctrines are still in force, nothings changed. The emphasis now is to ignore them, but if circumstances were different, perhaps in a century or two, the RCPC could quite legitimately act according to them. This is the very real problem with them, since they haven’t been superceded by anything said with any degree of authority.

How are we loving one another in the Love of Christ, Our common Saviour, if we dig up each other’s sins ? Can’t we leave that to the devil to do ? I think it is hideous that Christians cannot leave each other’s pasts alone. So for the love of God, please, let’s not do that. Let us build each up, instead of ripping each other to pieces.

I hope I’ve explained my concerns here adequately, the past sins are but an example, the effects from the cause of specific RCPC doctrines. In the Love of Christ formally and infallibly reject them.

That is why IMO we should leave the past and its hatreds behind. ##

What guarantee can you give me that future generations won’t suffer from these doctrines brought into action again?

 

[Brendan]

Myhrr:

I answered you, but since you didn’t find it clear: Yes, they sin and more to point, the one who causes them to sin, orders them to sin, is culpable, God sins here.

Can you explain how you feel that is possible. Sin is, after all, an action opposed to God’s Will.

How can God be opposed to His own Will?

 

[GrzeszDeL]

Myhrr:

I’m actually focusing on doctrines which the RCPC has held for many centuries and understood by those like Stepinac in the last century to be current, he didn’t think he was doing anything wrong because he was obedient to these doctrines. This is a problem specific to the RCPC and these doctrines are still in force, nothings changed.

Myhrr:

Yes, they sin and more to point, the one who causes them to sin, orders them to sin, is culpable, God sins here.

Myhrr:

The East did not seek to answer questions concerning the correct conditions for entering war and the correct conduct of war on the basis of the possibility of a “just war,” precisely because it did not hold to such a view. Its view of war, unlike that of the West, was that it is a necessary evil. The peace ideal continued to remain normative, and no theoretical efforts were made to make conduct of war into a positive norm. In short, no case can be made for the existence of an Orthodox just-war theory.

Those of you with nonsensometers attached to your computers may wish to disconnect them for the duration of this thread, lest they burn out. :whacky:

 

[aimee]

GrzeszDeL:

Those of you with nonsensometers attached to your computers may wish to disconnect them for the duration of this thread, lest they burn out. :whacky:

Good one

 

[Myhrr]

prodromos:

Myrhh,
in all the above verses the word translated as kill should actually be murder (from the Greek “fonevw” [w=omega]). I believe it is an important distinction.

John.

Yes, it is an important distinction. It’s interesting that what we call the 10 Commandments are better described as the Ten Thingies, 10 Words, and thought of as ‘categories’. In that, the key concept here ‘thou shalt not kill’ might be an extrapolation to mean ‘thou shalt not murder’ because It’s not certain that the original word meant murder. But it was used that way in Christ’s time as shown in the Greek. Do you know how it’s been translated in Aramaic?

The 613 laws of the Jews are also extrapolated from the 10 Thingies, in a sense this is commentary, but I think some of these could themselves be derived from the commentary on what could be seen as the ‘original’ 10 Thingies.

For example, the Sabbath day Thingy is to remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, followed by more instructions. The Orthodox Jews of today do not even switch on a light in order not to break the extrapolation/commentary(?) that rest on the Sabbath means doing no work whatsoever which they arrived at by analysing in great detail what ‘to work’ actually meant, but resting on this day could simply be extrapolation, as could ‘keeping it holy’?

There were some fascinating arguments on another RCC board when 7th Day Adventists came to challenge. I hadn’t thought about this until these arguments, but we do still remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy in memory during the liturgy that day. In the Slav tongues Saturday is still called Sabbath day, Sunday being Resurrection day. Perhaps the injunction against graven images could also be a reason why we have icons, St Luke the first writer of these would have been aware of such nuances at the time. Christ of course took to task those Pharisees who would starve their own parents rather than giving them the shewbread to eat - an extrapolation to a letter too far…

 

[Myhrr]

Originally Posted by Myhrr
I answered you, but since you didn’t find it clear: Yes, they sin and more to point, the one who causes them to sin, orders them to sin, is culpable, God sins here.

Brendan:

Can you explain how you feel that is possible. Sin is, after all, an action opposed to God’s Will.

How can God be opposed to His own Will?

The different view we have of “sin” would have to be taken into account in answering you here, for the Orthodox sin is mostly thought of a ‘missing the mark’ rather than the juridical base in the RCPC that sin is disobedience to God’s will.

Maybe you’ll find this page useful, it give a summary of how sin perceived in some of our belief systems.

wordiq.com/definition/Sin

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

GrzeszDeL:

Incidentally, Father, by way of a niggling point, shouldn’t that be “Dominus,” not “Domine”? After all, one is not addressing the Lord at that point, one is simply stating that He has absolved.

AAAAAaaaarrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhhh! You’re right!

 

[GrzeszDeL]

Hey, no big deal; don’t be too hard on yourself, Father.

(Boy, I’m glad that I didn’t mention that “per auctoritas” should really have been “per auctoritatem”…)

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

Myhrr:

I answered you, but since you didn’t find it clear: Yes, they sin and more to point, the one who causes them to sin, orders them to sin, is culpable, God sins here.

Oh Myrrh, I have watched with sorrow as you bundled yourself up into intellectual knots over women priests, and now I suspect you are about to break forth into more arguments to justify the blasphemous accusation against God that He sins. Please, I beg you, do not do it. Think about what you are saying and where you are going with the argument. Most of all, think of WHO it is that you are accusing of sin. Please, Myrrh, do not go any further with this. I am begging you, as a brother in Christ.

 

[Brendan]

Myhrr:

The different view we have of “sin” would have to be taken into account in answering you here, for the Orthodox sin is mostly thought of a ‘missing the mark’ rather than the juridical base in the RCPC that sin is disobedience to God’s will.

Maybe you’ll find this page useful, it give a summary of how sin perceived in some of our belief systems.

wordiq.com/definition/Sin

Fine, So now explain how God could have “missed the mark” How can God do or command anything that is imperfect?

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

(Boy, I’m glad that I didn’t mention that “per auctoritas” should really have been “per auctoritatem”…)

Grz, I am getting old. Vae mihi! Languages start to slide into one another

Per auctoritas is good Italian, and per auctoritatem is correct Latin.

 

[GrzeszDeL]

Fr Ambrose:

Grz, I am getting old. Vae mihi! Languages start to slide into one another

Nihil est, Pater. Sicut Domino dixit Petrus, “tu scis quia amo te.”

 

[Myhrr]

Fr Ambrose:

Oh Myrrh, I have watched with sorrow as you bundled yourself up into intellectual knots over women priests,

As I said, Matt understood my reasoning, pointing out that this is also the position of other Orthodox he’s questioned, so if there are knots they’re not of my making …

and now I suspect you are about to break forth into more arguments to justify the blasphemous accusation against God that He sins.

In context, God sinned in the the example I was asked about.

If it is a sin to murder then God not only sinned in murdering, but sinned in ordering the murders.

Please, I beg you, do not do it.

Do what?

Think about what you are saying and where you are going with the argument.

I remind you, I didn’t think I’d have to, that our God is not a God of war, but a God of peace. I ask you to think about what you’re saying since you appear to be objecting to this.

Most of all, think of WHO it is that you are accusing of sin. Please, Myrrh, do not go any further with this. I am begging you, as a brother in Christ.

So tell me, who am I accusing of sin?

Officially, the Orthodox Church has never accepted the “just war” theory. The Church believes that war is never, ever justified. War is the work of the Devil and therefore can never be seen as “just.” However, the Church does recognize the lesser of two evils. So during war she prays for peace, repentance, and the defeat of the Enemy: the Devil.

stlukeorthodox.com/html/evangelist/2003/justwar.cfm

From: A “Just” War?
By Father Andrew Harrison

War is the work of the Devil and therefore can never be seen as “just”

That’s what I have always been given to understand is the Official Orthodox view, it is what I was taught as a cradle Orthodox.

I gave, in the Original Sin thread, my own story in coming to understand this. Perhaps Volodymyr, Vyacheslav and Prodromos would come in here, to confirm or deny that this is Orthodox doctrine.

 

[jimmy]

Myhrr:

The martyrs pick up their own crosses and follow Jesus, martyr means witness. So no, the Church hasn’t changed we still have martyrs now, millions from Russia alone in the last century. It’s said that there were more martyrs in Russia at this time than all those counted from the beginning of Christianity. Picking up a sword is not an option here.

Fr Ambrose is saying that war is sometimes necisary according to the EO church and you said that is not how it used to be.

Either you are wrong or the EO church has changed its beliefs. I tend to believe Fr Ambrose is correct here.

 

[Brendan]

Myhrr:

In context, God sinned in the the example I was asked about.

If it is a sin to murder then God not only sinned in murdering, but sinned in ordering the murders.

Do what?

Myhrr,

Please go talk to your pastor on this one. Print off this thread, take it in hand and go talk to him.

I’m sure he is a very learned man, Holy in Christ. Listen to him and learn from him. There is much you are missing that we cannot teach you.

Please go, I humbly beg, Please?

 

[Myhrr]

Who am I accusing of sin?

From the Orthodox Study Bible, (Nelson, Nashville, Tennessee)

Luke 4:1-13

1. Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,
2. being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry.
3. and the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.”
4. But Jesus answered him, saying, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’”
5. Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
6. And the devil said to Him, "All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.
7. “Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.”
8. And Jesus answered and said to him, “Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.’”
9. Then he brought Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here.

10.   "For it is written:

‘He shall give His angels charge
over you,
To keep you,’

1.    "and,

‘In their hands they shall bear
you up,
Lest you dash your foot against
a stone.’"

1. And Jesus answered and said to him, “It has been said, ‘You shall not tempt the LORD your God.’”
2. Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time.
3. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. and when He had opened the book, he found the place where it was written:
4. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon
   Me,
   Because He has anointed Me
   To preach the gospel to the poor;
   He has sent Me to heal the
   Brokenhearted,
   To proclaim liberty to the
   captives
   And recovery of sight to the
   blind,
   To set at liberty those who are
   oppressed;
   To proclaim the acceptable year
   Of the LORD.”

biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?passage=LUKE+1:16-18&language=english&version=KJV&showfn=on&showxref=on

biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?passage=MATT+23:29-31&language=english&version=KJV&showfn=on&showxref=on

biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?passage=MATT+12:49-51&language=english&version=KJV&showfn=on&showxref=on

%between%

biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?passage=MATT+11:24-26&language=english&version=KJV&showfn=on&showxref=on

biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?passage=Matthew+15%3A1-20&KJV_version=yes&language=english&x=13&y=7

 

[Brendan]

Myhrr,

It is a fundamental tenet of Christianity that God is All Perfect. He cannot sin, His commands cannot be sin. He can never “fall short of the mark” because HE IS THE MARK.

I really and honestly suggest you discuss this with your pastor.

 

[Myhrr]

Ephesians 6:12
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

**Colossians 2
**14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;
15 And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:

Or in doctrine from any calling themselves infallible magesterium, etc.