Post by themadgreekcatholic on Feb 3, 2019 20:15:51 GMT -5
CIX! (Russian/Ukrainian/Old Church Slavonic short-handed form for "Glory to Jesus Christ!", the standard greeting the members of the various Greek-Catholic Churches - and their Eastern Orthodox sister Church counterparts.)
I just wanted to stop on in and thank Voxx for inviting me to the boards and also to introduce myself. Alas, I can't quite give away my complete identity as there are some very concrete reasons for doing so, which I am sure you can guess why. The long and short of it is that I am a Greek-Catholic priest (you can guess the ethnic/national background from my greeting). Those who know me well will tell you that I am very orthodox in my praxis and outlook, almost quite fanatic about it, yet I have a very unorthodox and easy-going way of dealing with issues and themes that affect our Church, yet always remaining faithful to the teachings of Scripture and the Church Fathers. (I will never forget the advice a very traditional and holy Roman Catholic Dominican Friar once told me and has served me well for years - "Tenaciously cling to the traditions of the Church, but be flexible in how you approach the world".) While this may seem to make me a raging, boorish, and borderline heretical heterodox, it actually makes my liberal counterparts foam at the mouth and gnash their teeth. I will explain more of this later if you ever wish to know.
I took on the nome-de-plume of "themadgreekcatholic" as there are trends happening in our Church (you will notice I do not call it a 'rite' - I am not doing this to be snarky; consistency in nomenclature is a rather important thing to me) that are extremely disturbing. These trends show the rot of the heresy of modernism that has infected the Roman Catholic Church has also seeped deeply into our bones as well. Good priests are being punished at the expense of hierarchs (and fellow priests/deacons/religious/laity) who simply luxuriate in being members of the "pink narcissist mafia" that line their pockets and seek the acclaim and glory of men rather than seeking to teach the Truth of the Gospel of Our Lord. A holy priest (who happens to be my spiritual director and mentor) once told me that there are new "white martyrs" today - these are men and women who are ostracized, banished, mocked, and reduced to abject poverty for patiently and fearlessly proclaiming the Truth. All because those in charge (or who wish to have the Church yield to the whims and dictates of the world) wish to have their skirts all nicely pressed while proclaiming that they are the sole arbiters of truth. Unfortunately, while they yammer away at how to make the Church "relevant" in today's world, in their folly, they render themselves irrelevant while trying to drag the rest of the Church down into the depths of hades with them.
I can be found if one does enough digging, but bear in mind, I, along with a precious few fellow priests, monastics, and lay people, have to lay low and wage a guerilla style of war to protect people against the ravening wolves (occasionally I will pop my head above the barricade to take a few potshots at those who are ravaging the Church). I love teaching people about the Eastern Catholic Churches, the deep wellspring of spiritual treasures that God has granted them, and also showing the diversity of theological/philosophical views that the Eastern Churches bring to the table. I always tell people that there is nothing superfluous in the Church, there is nothing that does not have meaning - everything that the Church has is, in one form or another, a marker to show us the way to Salvation in God. There may be slight variances in how those markers point the path out to us, but this is normal - remember, in the first millenium, there was not one major center of Christianity but five. While the existence of five centers of Christianity do not necessarily cancel out Rome's primacy, it does not mean that everything MUST be viewed with a Roman lens either. Nor does it imply that EVERYTHING Rome (or Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem by extension) puts out is totally infallible and above examination or criticism.
I may have jangled a few people's bells with an introduction like this, but then again, I have a reputation for jolting people (sometimes intentional, sometimes unintentional) in an effort to fire the synapses between the ears so people can begin to see things in a different lens, almost like Morpheus giving Neo the red pill in the movie, THE MATRIX. But then again, when one has been bitten by "the bug", so to speak, one becomes on fire. Having once drifted away from the Church and the Truth way earlier in life, I will never go back to that state of living again. My soul is too precious to surrender it on the altar of money, power, lies, etc., and I consider my vows as sacred, to do my utmost to open the eyes of everyone under my pastoral care to the state of things around them, and how to allow God into their hearts so that, through the intercession of the Holy Theotokos and all the saints, the Holy Spirit may dwell within them. I am not a perfect man, and definitely am not a holy priest by my own standards - if anything, the whole cult of putting bishops, priests, and religious on pedestals has been so harmful to the Church as a whole that I consider it on the same level as idolatry.
One final thing I always remember in my dealings and my life is what another "almost holy" man once taught me, Father Robert J. Taft, SJ, the famous (or infamous, depending on what camp you are in) Eastern Catholic liturgist - "Know your faith, love your faith, live your faith." This dictum, much like the other one I stated before, guides me in what I do and has helped me to learn not only my faith but to learn about myself and my relationship with God and His people/creation. What I am is a sinner who has seen a merest glimpse of the Light of Christ, and wish to share that glimpse with others. And this is the definition of my vocation as well as being a major definition of my very being. Please keep me, a sinner in your prayers, so that I may have the strength to be a good and faithful steward of God's Holy Mysteries (Eastern parlance for The Sacraments of the Church). God bless!
CHB! (again, Ukrainian/Russian/Old Slavonic short-hand for "Glory, now and forever!" - the standard response to CIX!, "Glory to Jesus Christ!")
I just wanted to stop on in and thank Voxx for inviting me to the boards and also to introduce myself. Alas, I can't quite give away my complete identity as there are some very concrete reasons for doing so, which I am sure you can guess why. The long and short of it is that I am a Greek-Catholic priest (you can guess the ethnic/national background from my greeting). Those who know me well will tell you that I am very orthodox in my praxis and outlook, almost quite fanatic about it, yet I have a very unorthodox and easy-going way of dealing with issues and themes that affect our Church, yet always remaining faithful to the teachings of Scripture and the Church Fathers. (I will never forget the advice a very traditional and holy Roman Catholic Dominican Friar once told me and has served me well for years - "Tenaciously cling to the traditions of the Church, but be flexible in how you approach the world".) While this may seem to make me a raging, boorish, and borderline heretical heterodox, it actually makes my liberal counterparts foam at the mouth and gnash their teeth. I will explain more of this later if you ever wish to know.
I took on the nome-de-plume of "themadgreekcatholic" as there are trends happening in our Church (you will notice I do not call it a 'rite' - I am not doing this to be snarky; consistency in nomenclature is a rather important thing to me) that are extremely disturbing. These trends show the rot of the heresy of modernism that has infected the Roman Catholic Church has also seeped deeply into our bones as well. Good priests are being punished at the expense of hierarchs (and fellow priests/deacons/religious/laity) who simply luxuriate in being members of the "pink narcissist mafia" that line their pockets and seek the acclaim and glory of men rather than seeking to teach the Truth of the Gospel of Our Lord. A holy priest (who happens to be my spiritual director and mentor) once told me that there are new "white martyrs" today - these are men and women who are ostracized, banished, mocked, and reduced to abject poverty for patiently and fearlessly proclaiming the Truth. All because those in charge (or who wish to have the Church yield to the whims and dictates of the world) wish to have their skirts all nicely pressed while proclaiming that they are the sole arbiters of truth. Unfortunately, while they yammer away at how to make the Church "relevant" in today's world, in their folly, they render themselves irrelevant while trying to drag the rest of the Church down into the depths of hades with them.
I can be found if one does enough digging, but bear in mind, I, along with a precious few fellow priests, monastics, and lay people, have to lay low and wage a guerilla style of war to protect people against the ravening wolves (occasionally I will pop my head above the barricade to take a few potshots at those who are ravaging the Church). I love teaching people about the Eastern Catholic Churches, the deep wellspring of spiritual treasures that God has granted them, and also showing the diversity of theological/philosophical views that the Eastern Churches bring to the table. I always tell people that there is nothing superfluous in the Church, there is nothing that does not have meaning - everything that the Church has is, in one form or another, a marker to show us the way to Salvation in God. There may be slight variances in how those markers point the path out to us, but this is normal - remember, in the first millenium, there was not one major center of Christianity but five. While the existence of five centers of Christianity do not necessarily cancel out Rome's primacy, it does not mean that everything MUST be viewed with a Roman lens either. Nor does it imply that EVERYTHING Rome (or Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem by extension) puts out is totally infallible and above examination or criticism.
I may have jangled a few people's bells with an introduction like this, but then again, I have a reputation for jolting people (sometimes intentional, sometimes unintentional) in an effort to fire the synapses between the ears so people can begin to see things in a different lens, almost like Morpheus giving Neo the red pill in the movie, THE MATRIX. But then again, when one has been bitten by "the bug", so to speak, one becomes on fire. Having once drifted away from the Church and the Truth way earlier in life, I will never go back to that state of living again. My soul is too precious to surrender it on the altar of money, power, lies, etc., and I consider my vows as sacred, to do my utmost to open the eyes of everyone under my pastoral care to the state of things around them, and how to allow God into their hearts so that, through the intercession of the Holy Theotokos and all the saints, the Holy Spirit may dwell within them. I am not a perfect man, and definitely am not a holy priest by my own standards - if anything, the whole cult of putting bishops, priests, and religious on pedestals has been so harmful to the Church as a whole that I consider it on the same level as idolatry.
One final thing I always remember in my dealings and my life is what another "almost holy" man once taught me, Father Robert J. Taft, SJ, the famous (or infamous, depending on what camp you are in) Eastern Catholic liturgist - "Know your faith, love your faith, live your faith." This dictum, much like the other one I stated before, guides me in what I do and has helped me to learn not only my faith but to learn about myself and my relationship with God and His people/creation. What I am is a sinner who has seen a merest glimpse of the Light of Christ, and wish to share that glimpse with others. And this is the definition of my vocation as well as being a major definition of my very being. Please keep me, a sinner in your prayers, so that I may have the strength to be a good and faithful steward of God's Holy Mysteries (Eastern parlance for The Sacraments of the Church). God bless!
CHB! (again, Ukrainian/Russian/Old Slavonic short-hand for "Glory, now and forever!" - the standard response to CIX!, "Glory to Jesus Christ!")