About Me

By all means facebook message me. Love to know where you plan on going to seminary. May God bless you.

This consent is not widespread, though the silence is. Take Monotheletism. For a period of time, every major Patriarch fell under it–including Rome and arguably Jerusalem (though traditionally the bishopric was “vacant” due to the Arab invasion.) Did Christianity disappear? Sometimes true teaching hides in the fringes, with a few faithful Bishops. I am grateful to kow a few, and interestingly sometimes these bishops are publicly different than their private convictions as they play a careful political game.

I think Satan is tempting you and making you dispair. As I teach my employees, tell yourself, “Not my problem.” You should worry about your own faith, your own humility, your own love of God.

Please pray for me.

Ps 131:1 Lord, my heart is not [a]haughty,
Nor my eyes [b]lofty.
Neither do I [c]concern myself with great matters,
Nor with things too [d]profound for me.

2 Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul,
Like a weaned child with his mother;
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.

3 O Israel, hope in the Lord
From this time forth and forever.

I honestly think the populace were not too involved with the Christological heresies outside of hotbeds in Egypt and the Middle East. This is why as soon as Byzantine policy turned against it, it disappeared without a trace.

Thank you for the thoughtful questions

“1. I couldn’t help but see the ethno-nationalist character that often seems to pervade the Church. Or, rather, an almost hauntingly colonial character to it’s organization. 195 countries on the earth and only 14 (or so) autocephalous churches. ”

This is a reality, but in the West we are often blind to how the West is identical. Go to Germany, Scotland, the Netherlands, and Scandanvia–state churches who then export their brand internationally. Go to America and see the dominant stretch of southern baptist churches…in the south. And the export of their brand. The Capitalist organization of the USA pervades its religious institutions and they literally export their brands, organizational strategies, and their equivalents overseas are controlled by US investors and their organizations near equivalent. The same is true with Korean Christians who have largely followed this model.

Then look at Roman Catholics. In my city, there are Polish specific churches and irish specific churches. The Italians, feeling snubbed, purposely built a statue of Columbus outside of the Cathedral because they did not have an Italian bishop in 100 years. 

We will see Orthodoxy become less ethnically subjugated as we see the rest of the world be the same. But sadly, we will see new forms of subjugation based on education, access to markets, and social class. Lord have mercy.
This is why God has permitted the Eastern Orthodox to be persecuted far and away more than any other religion. We had great persecutions in the 20th century. If history is an indicator, we *should* expect a repeat.

“2. How could the evangelizing, energized Orthodox Church of God have lapsed into embodying only a tenth or so of all professing Christians?”

Evangelism historically has been mainly a mercantile and imperialistic endeavor. So when Ethiopia converted to Christianity, it helped establish trade relations with the Roman Empire. Ditto with the Goths and Germans. Then the Slavs, Etc. ANd so, with the political collapse of the Greek and then Russian Empires, the precapitalist mode of evangelism has been disintegrated. Orthodoxy is now behind historically capitalist countries who have a leg up in a neo-liberal world and the rules its plays by.

So in short, I’d say you’re asking the question in the wrong century. This question would make no sense in 1720 or 1220 or 720 or 320. Will it make sense in 2120 if we make it that long?

“…considering that the Orthodox Church considered the Church in the West invalid after the schism (and continued to believe such about the Protestants), how could it have allowed Christians in these lands for nearly a thousand years to possess no access to the True Church?”

FOr the reason I just stated, because to evangelize effectively meant beating western armies on the battlefield, which was not geopolitically in the cards.

” If true belonging in the Orthodox Church is essential for the life of the Christian, how could dueling politics among bishoprics allow for Orthodoxy to largely remain isolated in the East and MidEast?”

If we asked this question in 1650, one could ask “why are baptists relegated to the British isles, why is reformed theology only in central and western europe.” In 1050 one can ask, “why is latin theology on is western europe, but not the Caucasus, Russia, the Far East, Ethiopia, Egypt, Greece, Asia Minor, etcetera.” Often times, we fail to realize what colors our perspective are essentially things relevant in a given window of time when we happen to be alive, but not other times.

“3. I read often that Orthodox prayers to the saints willingly indulge in “hyperbole” i.e. Mary as our “only” hope. How can Orthodoxy work so zealously in preserving doctrine, while seemingly imprecise in matters of prayer and liturgy?”

I suppose we do not put a governor on emotion. Additionally, many of these texts were written when not calling emperors “your holiness,” bishops “the most excellent,” and other such titles would have been grave insult. Hence, to not have this language while using such laudatory language with everyone else, would have been blasphemous. It’d be like praying to God by saying, “Yo dawg, que pasa?”

“4. Last, while it is evident Orthodox (rightly) see the liturgy as a precious treasure, is it’s preservation really worth further division among Christians? Could there not be a great many liturgical variations akin to the so-called Western rite?”

Orthodox do have liturgical development and I’d say we don’t split over these things, but we don’t permit for diversity without condition. The lived-in condition of the CHurch is needed to test drive what is worth keeping. So, the Western Rite IMHO on the theoretical level may work, but whether it stands the test of experience we shall see. Just so people don’t see this as an ethnocentric comment, the ancient western rites at the paracelsis, for example. So I don’t doubt we can have good liturgies that appear very western. Whether that includes what people consider western today, like the roman mass and what not, I reserve judgement.

“Is not a universal church united in belief “greater” than a deeply divided church that bickers over regional rite and practice?”

The Orthodox are far less diverse in belief that Protestants and RCs. It is really no context. Arminianism versus Calvinism. High church versus low church. Gender and sexuality issues. You have the full gamut in those communions (the RCs tend to have their own equivalents). Thank God, these are considerably muted (though not non existent in liberal circles) within Orthodoxy.

I hope this helps!

God bless
Craig