Orthodox response to Coronavirus / Great Reset

DanielH

DanielH

Pelican
SingularityOne said:
theduran.com

The tragedy of faithless Church leaders

On February 2, 2021, the Orthodox Church in America's Diocese of the West sent this letter out from Archbishop Benjamin. This originally appears on the Orthodox Christian site Monomakhos.com, and we are indebted to George and Gail Michalapulos for their dedication in running it. We reprint it in...
theduran.com theduran.com
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The arguments his Eminence uses for masks and social distancing and multiple spoons will literally never go away. The flock is now 50% germaphobes and I doubt that can be undone within a generation. Everyone assumes the risk of getting sick and dying every time they leave their house. Churches didn't close, and we didn't quarantine healthy people during the Spanish Flu, which was 10x as deadly, so why are our countermeasures many times more strict for a virus not even 10% as deadly?
Hermetic Seal said:
What a complete farce OCA has become.

When I was deciding which parish to attend, OCA and ROCOR were about the same distance from home. While the priest of the OCA parish seemed like a great guy and didn't buy into the Coovid fear narrative, I would hate to be under the authority of bishops who believe stuff like that.
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I have to conclude now that the best course of action going forward is probably to move near a ROCOR monastery and attend their services. There's one in Wayne, WV I've considered moving to.
 
DanielH

DanielH

Pelican
Roosh said:
Visit first. There enacted strict lockdown measures last year. Not sure how it is now.
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Thanks for the heads up. St. Tikhons (OCA) is closer to me and they haven't allowed any pilgrims since two weeks to flatten the curve. I just don't understand... Visiting them with my then fiancee was one of the most wonderful days of my life. Oh well, God is still with us.
 
DanielH

DanielH

Pelican
Roosh said:
I suspect that the Orthodox Churches will fall one by one until the end times. It will be hard to watch.
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I can't understate how fortunate I was to be baptized just a few months before the lockdowns started. I was able to explore Orthodoxy how it should be, with a bright outlook for the future when I was much weaker in the faith. Lord have mercy on the catechumens and those who have inquired but have fallen away. I cannot blame them.
 
Wutang

Wutang

Hummingbird
Gold Member
Roosh said:
As we approach end times, all Patriarchs will bend the knee to secular authorities, one by one. We will be very alone during those last days, and I'm sure many of us are already starting to feel it now.
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If all the Orthodox leaders and patriarchs can't be trusted to speak for the faith, then who can? An possible answer would be the individual believers interpreting past tradition and teachings, but how can this be done without lapsing into Protestantism?
 
DanielH

DanielH

Pelican
Wutang said:
If all the Orthodox leaders and patriarchs can't be trusted to speak for the faith, then who can? An possible answer would be the individual believers interpreting past tradition and teachings, but how can this be done without lapsing into Protestantism?
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Well there's still good ones, Metropolitan Morphou of Cyprus has explicitly called all of this out. Even before covid he said homosexuals give off a stench. But yeah it is distressing. I recommend giving this series on Apostasy and the Antichrist a listen, originally by Archimandrite Panteleimon in 1978. Lays out how the end times will go (4 part audio series)

 
DanielH

DanielH

Pelican
Another thing I want to do is compile concise teachings by the Church fathers on specific things. I started one such thread on genesis and evolution so I could figure out what the Church and her Saints have believed instead of the modern consensus.

Future things I'd like to look into are how the Church has dealt with persecution, especially under the USSR and how it has dealt with pandemics in the past. I really need to read more to do this though.
 
DanielH

DanielH

Pelican
Blade Runner said:
I am guessing this means that the vaccine will not change much, although by all accounts that was its whole purpose. Are Tikhon and Elpidophoros "all in" together, or something?
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I haven't seen one incidence of someone who was terrified before the vaccine be less terrified post vaccine or advocate less strict covid measures. This goes for normal people and clergy I know of to (of course) politicians and media talking heads. This makes sense because the fear is not based in logic or reality, so changes in the real world will have no affect on their fear. Only a change in the root cause of their fear will stop that, and the root of that is indoctrination through media brainwashing or spiritual illness which either manifests itself in a fear of death and rejection of Christ or a fear of being blacklisted by an unbelieving society. It is the same exact fear that will cause people to submit to the mark of the beast. I pray I'm strong enough to withstand the temptation.

I don't like talking about specific bishops because I don't know their hearts.
 
HKBhusal

HKBhusal

Sparrow
DanielH said:
Thanks for the heads up. St. Tikhons (OCA) is closer to me and they haven't allowed any pilgrims since two weeks to flatten the curve. I just don't understand... Visiting them with my then fiancee was one of the most wonderful days of my life. Oh well, God is still with us.
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Reminds me of an orthodox church I wanted to visit while down south in some beach town last summer (while the covid scare was still fresh on everyone's mind)... an early bird parishioner was chilling out in his car in the parking lot, and I started up some small talk with him. He told me point blank within a minute that the church would not allow visitors ("you have to be a member") in order to partake in the service. I was composed, but really wanted to rapid fire go toe-to-toe with the guy with the following questions:
  • would Jesus turn anyone away for some pandemic, real or faked?
  • didn't early Christians rush to put hands on the sick to heal them?
  • Does secular deception override the healing power of God? I guess it does in most people's minds.
  • What happened to the Holy Unction sacrament? And so on.
I'm not one to judge. However, it seems like there are a lot of posers in the Christian community at every echelon, in various denominations, orthodox, catholic, and protestant alike. They might go to church, but they don't believe in it. They just want to go through the motions thinking they'll secure their spots into heaven that way.
 
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