Transcript for:
Lesson 17: The Public Ministry and Passion of Christ

all right tonight again lesson 17 the public Ministry and passion of Christ and we begin with his place of habitation that's a typo we were rushing to get things going we won't have that in the final copy by the way all of these PDFs all of these PDFs are um edited hopefully well and posted eventually on our patreon page and our Orthodox ethos.com page so if you're interested in these PDFs you want to get the book essentially before the book is published because that's what we're doing We're translating the book 10 pages at a time presenting it here it'll of course be edited in footnotes and everything in the final version but if you're interested in this text you want to gain access text you join us support us uh and um you'll be able to access the text 10 pages at a time over the next year until finally we publish the book and it'll be as a bound hardback in circulation God willing God willing so we start with his PL place of habitation the prophet Isaiah foretells that Galilee will be the messiah's place of habitation and the beginning of his ministry where the great light of his teaching would shine and it says as recorded in Isaiah 9: 1-2 and Matthew 415-16 well known to all of us I'm sure and especially those in the Orthodox Church who are paying attention to the hymnography of Holy Week o land of zabulon land of nephthalim and the rest inhabiting the Mediterranean Sea Coast and the land Beyond Jordan galileia of the Gentiles the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light in other words the Messiah they that dwell in the land and the shadow of death the a light of Salvation and joy shall shine upon you right there in Isaiah clearly foretelling and the coming of the Messiah and pertaining to our Lord with regard to his work now we have the following after his stay in the wilderness as he began his public Ministry uh if you ever been to the the holy land and we've been thank god um able to go twice the uh the place of his 40-day fast is still uh maintained and there's a pilgrimage that's made out to the out to that spot uh out side uh toward the uh the desert places and after this period where of course he was tempted by the enemy of Salvation uh and was Victorious of course after his baptism went into the Wilderness came back now he he teaches in the synagogues in the synagogue of his own Hometown they gave him to read the book of the prophet Isaiah and he found and read the pro the following pericope in other words passage this is Isaiah 61 1-2 as recorded in Luke 4:18-19 the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me and other words as a man with it he has sent me to preach Glad Tidings of the poor to heal the broken in heart that is broken by the weight of sin to Proclaim Liberty to the captives of sin and recovery of the sight to the blind those blinded by the darkness of the passions to declare the acceptable year of the Lord because in this new period perod The M the Messiah realizes his counsel regarding men's salvation so of course here as you can see with the editing that's done by the authors of our of our text they want to make sure that and this is essential this is key otherwise you you can pick up the Bible you can pick up the prophecies and not understand a word unless you have the right presuppositions the right experience the right General Orthodox Christian 2,000 years same yesterday day forever Outlook the patristic continuity this consensus throughout the ages how to understand these texts and Jews sit to this day and and unfortunately don't understand the text many Protestants pick up the Bible thinking pouring over that with amazing Zeal do not understand the text many times not saying this text but many texts and so it is essential that you understand properly the mission of the Messiah right if you have a worldly ruler as the Messiah of course none of this will make any sense right why would it matter if he is uh healing the broken heart or uh and and and certainly they wouldn't interpret it in a spiritual manner so essential uh brothers and sisters for understanding the scriptures is the patrisa consensus and this is why we sit at the feet of these athonite fathers who are following the holy fathers Faithfully the Lord said to those present that this prophecy was fulfilled on that day by the preaching to those who were listening meaning that he is himself the Messiah who came into the world anointed to fulfill anointed to fulfill his Divine Mission and to do what the prophet mentions succinctly in this prophecy so if there's any doubt whether this has been uh fulfilled the Lord takes that all away and says I am the one here spoken of in this prophecy the same Prophet describes the messiah's work which we which will be soundless without cries and external displays will Quicken the pain and will be infused with love and compassion another significant characteristic is that it will be addressed to all the nations since Christ came to save all men not only the Jews and so let's read further Israel I that is he whom I have sent is My Chosen Israel that is he whom I have sent is My Chosen my beloved and my only begotten my soul hath accepted him I have put my spirit upon him he shall bring forth judgment that is a new perfect law to the Gentiles he shall not cry that is argue nor lift up his voice nor shall his voice be heard without in the public squares like the demagogues who Rouse the people in noisy rallies to serve their own selfish purposes Souls like a bruised Reed shall not he not break and smoking flax that is the hearts in which Divine illumination is almost extinguished shall he not quench but he shall bring forth judgment to truth he shall shine out and shall not be discouraged until he have sent judgments on the Earth and in his name as Christ and savior shall the Gentiles trust this is in Matthew 1218 to 21 it's referenced it's referenced but it's from Isaiah 421 to4 so if you go to 421 to4 read the text and then look back at this uh analysis and and the further commentary on it with these brackets you'll see properly the understanding here of the Messianic prophecy right how it should be properly interpreted Christ who took on our sins and suffered for us guilty ones although he was sinless and innocent has the power to heal even the bodily illness which are the result of sin and is as in fact he did throughout the whole got a typo there as well make sure I corrected whole duration of his Earthly public life as it says in Isaiah 53:4 he Bears our sins and is pained for us as the prophet characteristically writes when the Baptist when the Baptist from his prison sent men to ask Christ if he was the Messiah whom they were expecting the Lord replied by referring to another prophecy of Isaiah so again and again Isaiah we're going back to Isaiah again again for the public Ministries are very much are very much laid out here and he says there in is in Isaiah 355 and quoted referenced in Matthew uh or quoted in Matthew 114 to five Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see what do you hear and see the blind receive their sight and the lame walk walk the lepers are cleansed the deaf hear the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them these are all signs of the Messiah these are Messianic characteristics and he's saying to those sent to those questioning who is he I am the Messiah this is his confession that I am the Messiah the one who has been sent that's been expected by the people's for Generations upon generation in other words he since he was doing the works of the pro prophesied Messiah The Works themselves testify that he is the Messiah there's such an abundance of evidence how can men remain indifferent and ignorant that's the question why do they not care why do we all not care why do we not pay attention to the innumerable unending witnesses that Christ is indeed the God man the theanthropos the Messiah awaited from generation to generation let's talk about his public Ministry with regard to the Forerunner oos as we see in Greek the the one who came before that prepared the way the one who baptized the greatest of the prophets you see here in this icon famously this icon going back probably over 1,300 years I'm not sure with the original version of this but shown with an angelic wings and that is to symbolize the Angelic life that he led both in the desert and as the prophet of the Messiah the prophet Malachi prophesies the coming of the Messiah and also of his Forerunner St John the Baptist confirming this Prophecy of the Prophet Mal Malachi concerning the venerable Forerunner the Lord himself proclaimed this that is John is he of whom it is written behold I in other words the Father in Heaven send my messenger before thy that is the messiah's face which shall prepare thy way before thee in other words which shall prepare men's souls to accept thee as Savior and that's exactly what John was doing by baptizing what was the whole Bap what was the point of baptizing it is to to prepare the way how do you prepare the way for the reception of the seed of the Gospel in the heart of men repentance it was the baptism of repentance it was the first uh the type which would be fulfilled of course with the the true baptism of Christ in the church and it was preparing the people to have the ears to hear and so this teaches us something very very important for our own spiritual life how are we to have ears to hear why don't we understand why don't we listen or our our our relatives our friends our neighbors many people write and ask Father Peter how can I help my my non-orthodox or or indifferent parents brothers sisters either they're heterodox or they're indifferent entirely how can we help them well the way that they're all every human being will be helped is if they they come to syn or Contrition they come to self-knowledge they come to humility they come to submission and a dis disposition to submit to God they come to a point where they're open for the grace of God the process of purification or repentance leading to purification so this is this is essential and St John was sent to prepare the people of God who had heard again and again and again that the Messiah is coming of course but it's not enough to intellectually know you have to also internally spiritually prepare through repentance and it's not insignificant that the Pharisees and the scribes did not go out to John for the most part we don't have any witness of that anyway it isn't apparent they went out to John to repent actually we have evidence to the contrary yet even the Forerunner very preaching of repentance which prepared the way of Christ had been foretold by the prophet Isaiah as we read in Isaiah 43 the voice of one crying in the wilderness prepare ye the way of the Lord make straight the path of our god this is pertaining to the Forerunner he was in the wilderness he was a cry he was a voice crying that they prepare in other words repent the way of the Lord that is their hearts that receive the Gospel make straight the path means to keep his Commandments and stay on the narrow path of submission and obedience to God let's talk about Israel's Disobedience foretold again in Isaiah 6:9-10 that this was going to be the stat status of things when the Messiah came so even that the fact that the Pharisees scribes and others refuse to accept refus to understand refus to know right they would not know it wasn't that they couldn't know they would not know there's a difference free people are free they prepare themselves either to receive the enemy's seed or the Lord's seed of Truth uh and so it is prophesied that there would be a that would embrace the Messiah of course and there would be those who would disobey in the days of Christ Isaiah's prophecy referring to Israel's deafness to the Messianic Divine message was fulfilled quote ye shall hear indeed but ye shall not understand and ye shall indeed see but ye shall not perceive for the heart of this people hath become gross gross and their ears are dull of hearing and their eyes of their intellect that is have they closed they had physical eyes we're not talking about the physical eyes they saw the Lord his physical eyes the in the intellect or the spiritual eyes they closed lest they should see with their eyes their spiritual eyes and hear with their ears their spiritual ears and understand with their heart have a broken open Supple heart and be converted that is repent and I should heal them so this is essential so much so many messages here for our own spiritual life did you hear did you hear the gospel if you're on the the calendar the Gregorian calendar and not the church or traditional calendar if you're on the Gregorian calendar which many Orthodox Christians in America and the West are you would have heard today for the Feast of St Anna the Repose the the U the falling asleep or the Repose of the mother of the mother of God Anna you would have heard heard the Lord say in the gospel which we heard today from Luke that take care as to how you hear right so the way of hearing well doesn't say what you hear but how how you hear and so it says here their ears are dull of hearing so they very very common that we hear but we do not hear right we we or you could say we hear but we do not listen listen or we could say we hear but we do not pay attention we do not understand and put into practice what we hear so the Lord is saying take care and so here the heart of this people has become gross their ears dull of hearing their eyes spiritual eyes have they closed so it is on us brothers and sisters on Humanity that we do not want to do not have the disposition to do not have the Zeal the love to open our eyes to open our ears to listen to repent and so it's all all this has been prophesied that in the days the Messiah when he came to heal them they would not be healed they would not understand they would not perceive and of course this continues this spiritual state of things continues uh and will always be present in this world there will be those who are even in the church even among the clergy who will not hear not understand not live the straight paths Furthermore with regard to the Disobedience of Israel basil the revealer of things Divine we're talking about St basil the great of kesaria the great hierarch one of the three great hierarchs of the church that is commemorated the three hierarchs that are commemorated basil the great Gregory of thean John cusum St basil fourth Century course great Church Father reposed in 380 right before the second ecal Council St basil says explains this prophecy and he says the these words clearly and incontrovertibly refer to the years of the Lord's presence on Earth as Paul also said in acts when conversing with the Jews in Rome so go to acts 28 go get your Bible go get your new testament if you want to and acts 28 25- 27 and you'll see that the Apostle Paul also interprets as the B great basil does as the church does generally that this applies to the Lord and his presence on this Earth his public Ministry see also Isaiah chapter 6 and uh on Isaiah rather chapter 6 by St basil the uh the great if you have the patristic text now there is such a thing as a typic Honor by the Israelites and that is not an essential substantial right honor but a typic superficial honor given by the Israelites to the Lord this is also prophesied in Isaiah 2913 you want to look and then Mark 76-7 the Lord himself elswhere commemorates the word of the prophet Isaiah he himself commemorates the prophet which found application among his listeners and refers to the typic or hypocritical honor and veneration neither true or heartfelt quote this people honth me with their lips but their heart is far from me how be it in vain do they worship me teaching for doctrines the Commandments of men so this is if we know a little bit about and we paid attention to the scriptural passag but also if you know about the the sojourn of the Jewish people before uh the coming of the Lord and what they had gone through in terms of the Babylonian captivity and how they had a segment of them had apostasis and had adopted uh the satanic idolatrous worship of the people in Babylon and brought it back in part to to Israel and that this was indeed when the Lord addressed the phes and said that their father the devil this was not hyperbole this was not metaphor this was this was a literal and intentional calling out that they had left the Worship of the one true God and now we're serving the ruler of this world of the passions and so they continued to play the part honor with lips but the heart the true veneration was far from the Lord and they worshiped but they worshiped in vain ritualistically externally superficially they taught the doctrines as doctrines the Commandments of men because it suited them much more right they created their own oral tradition back going back to the Babylonian captivity and then you see that resurface in Earth nest after the fall in 70 AD and among the first gener Generations after Christ and this is what has come down to it is the talmud right the tud is the written down of these oral traditions of men the interpretations and the Commandments that uh are are contained in these interpretations essentially they're telling people how they should interpret and they apply what they're reading the scriptures then they take it and they twist it and they pervert it and distort it and this becomes essentially a different scripture right it's it's it's a totally different reading of the scripture and therefore it's it's essentially in practice is not the scriptures are following but their own Traditions their own interpretations and this is what has happened and happened in the day of our Lord and is prophesied here in Isaiah it is a Messianic prophecy and it applies to our Lord now let's look at the triumphant entry into Jerusalem of our Lord and its prophesy its prophecy uh the prophecy of this in Zariah 99 and in Matthew 215 you can see there uh it referred and the prophet Zechariah foresees and describes the triumphant entry of the Messiah into Jerusalem at top a donkey what else do you want has there is there has there ever been anybody claiming to be the Messiah who came into Jerusalem triumphantly on a donkey do they expect the Jews today that they're Messiah will come on a donkey listen to what Zechariah says Rejoice greatly oh Daughter of Zion Proclaim it aloud oh daughter of Jerusalem behold the king is coming to thee just and a savior he is Meek and riding on an ass and a young fo course ass is the proper scriptural uh term for donkey that we we usually refer to as donkey today because of its Distortion perversion by uh distorted and and perverted men but the the word is perfectly uh fine and used throughout scripture to describe that animal so he is Meek and he's riding on this donkey and a young fo right there and it's of course commemorated in Matthew and we all know it very well another another prophecy another prophecy was likewise fulfilled at this time and we read in Psalm 82 and in Matthew 21:15 out of the mouth of babes and suckling means thou Hast perfected praise this is from the subagent the translation uh of the according to the to the 70 uh uh this is the English translation by Holy Transfiguration Monastery the version there and the numbers are going to be different than the Protestant version so out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast thou perfected praise this is the Lord this the Lord attributed to the cheering of the small children who cried out hosana and the phrase of the prophetic psalm blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord of 11725 again the numbering is according to the Orthodox suban and greeted him as the king of Israel and of course if you remember from the scriptures the Pharisees took issue with this and the Lord defended them and pointed them to the scriptures and attributed this uh this passage from Psalms he applied here to the children he says have you never heard this have you never heard what it said in the Psalms with but the prophet David said out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou perfected praise indeed the Hebrew word hosana itself is a prophecy as it is it interpreted as save now which is the version the interpretation of the scripture the translation that we have in the in the uh Salter according to the 70 or save we pray but we prefer save now and that is in Psalm 117 let May correct that as well here all right so that itself is a prophetic utterance save now who's going to save the Messiah and the fact that they were singing enchanting hosana was saying that you are the Messiah and you will save us salvation has arrived and with regard to the Zeal that the Lord showed afterwards when he threw the money changers out of the temple the prophetic words are applied the Zeal of thine house hath eaten me up C 6810 uh let's see I don't have the uh I don't have the actual scriptural passage there hang on a second [Music] 6810 let me see one second uh that should be 6810 of the Psalms Psalms 68 yeah the Zeal of thine thine house hath eaten me up and so those words also applied the the the apostles remembered those words when he threw out the money changers now let's go to the passion crucifixion and death of Christ the rejected Cornerstone the rejected Cornerstone the Lord speaking to the scribes says says the following about himself did you never read in the scriptures the stone which the builders rejected the same is become the head of the corner the stone which the builders rejected the same is become the head of of the corner Matthew 21:42 the Lord is referencing here Psalm 117: 22 Christ is referred to as a stone which has been rejected disdained and crucified by the builders the scribes the Pharisees the high priests but which marvelously was made the head of the corner and what is the what's the point of the head of the corner in a house what does it do it unites two walls in this case two peoples the Jews and the Gentiles or Nations into one building the church this is a beautiful imagery let's let's just take a moment and think about this he is the Cornerstone rejected by the builders the Pharisees describe the high priests the builders they supposed to be building the people of God to prepare them for the Messiah and when the Cornerstone of this building which makes it all hold together arrived they rejected him this Cornerstone was partly rejected because it was going to unite and it did unite two peoples who had been totally divided due to idolatry and due to the the inability of the people to come to the fullness of the Gospel until the Messiah came so now he comes now the two peoples Jews and Gentiles the nations in other words are united with the nation of God to become one nation of God one people of God the church that was the purpose of the people of God it was not an end in itself it was not a messiah only for the Jews to rule over the Gentiles and put them under their feet as they so perversely interpret things today seeking worldly power over all the Gentiles and the non-jews as they see it no it was to unite all of them in the one Church Apostle Peter when preaching to the rulers those same who had those same Builders those same scribes Pharisees High priests who had rejected the Cornerstone what does he say this is the stone you Builders rejected he he says exactly this is fulfilled with our Lord calls them out and says you Builders rejected the Cornerstone he has become the Cornerstone and you are left desolate your house is left desolate because now a new and wondrous people people of God have been formed on the basis of this Cornerstone the prophet Isaiah calls the Messiah child or servant of God quote he became indeed this is from St Gregor Theologian he became indeed a servant in as much as he put on flesh and our sufferings he United the Divine image with the form of a servant so this is the form he took look at the form in in the image here the longsuffering Lord crucified for us in our Salvation this is the the image that we're going to talk about over the next five slides but such a moving such a exceptional image no one can even approach this image never will there be and never can there be anything like this image of the Savior the Messiah fulfilled here pay attention the poor Jews who are are awaiting a worldly Messiah will never have never understood or seen or embraced this image of the long-suffering Lord it is a tragedy for Humanity and now in this latter these latter days so many are running after the false Messiah preparing themselves to receive the the preacher of a worldly Utopia that they think is going to be the Messiah here is the image of the Messiah he is the chosen of God who will redeem man his human or are humble he carries within him the spirit of God and has a prophetic tongue is blameless and sinless this is the Messiah not some worldly vain temporal ruler over some piece of the Earth how pathetic compared to our Lord and the true Messiah Isaiah 53 38 describes the sufferings of the Messiah in an incredibly majest Majestic and graphic manner this is a most important Messianic prophecy which according to the preaching of the ancient Church found its fulfillment in Christ this is the Christ which suffers for us and accepted a crown of thorns this is not the Glorious King of the Jews the one the Jews the the ones who had apostas were expecting those Jews who were still faithful they embraced them as Messiah the simple the loving the obedient the fishermen and all those who followed the fishermen they embraced the Messiah those Jews became the TW those who will sit on the 12 Thrones of Israel and judge and this is why they were disappointed those Jews who expected a messiah a worldly Messiah a king to sit on a throne they were disappointed they were scandalized by our Lord when they saw Christ crucified on the cross they expected or wanted him to be an invincible and Victorious King to free them from the temporal bonds of the Romans but he didn't come for that purpose but to free them from the Eternal bonds of the enemy of our Salvation far far more important with the form of the suffering servant of God the prophet Isaiah provides us with the most complete image of his sufferings Isaiah 532 to three it says we brought a report as of a child before him he is a root in the Thirsty land he has no form nor cess and we saw him but he had no form nor Beauty but his form was ignoble and inferior to that of the children of men he was a man in suffering and acquainted with the bearing of sickness another translation would be acquainted with grief for his face is turned from us he was Dishonored and not as esteemed so there's various translations here uh and used in English but and you've heard other ones I'm sure and but this is the image of Our Lord a man of suffering a man acquainted with grief a man who was Dishonored a man who was not esteemed among men right turns everything upside down all the vanity and the worldliness of men turns it all upside down and says that what you're looking for which is empty and temporal in vain do not look any further look here at this form of a servant this suffering servant of God who is the Messiah Isaiah the most thunderous of the prophets upon seeing Jesus led as a lamb to the slaughter was not drawn away from his passion the Lord's passion nor was he jolted by this extreme humility but rather with spiritual eyes he gazed mystically upon the glory which was hidden therein as was meat this was meat and good and true to do Isaiah did not turn away think about it you're a man and you're looking upon the suffering you're seeing this graphic image that you're trying to portray you're seeing the future crucifixion of Our Lord it would have been out overwhelming it would have been extremely difficult to gaze upon he did not turn away but with his spiritual eyes he gazed mystically upon the glory that was hidden therein can we see the glory hidden within if we're going to be his disciples we have to see the glory we have to understand this is the glory of this of the servant of God this is the glory of all who would imitate and follow after and become God's by Grace become truly his likeness this is the path of the Saints who follow the Savior and become like him he says you follow after me pick up your cross this is the life of the Christian how many of us are deluded today looking for a worldly power worldly esteem thinking the church will have this kind of success in all the rest no the path is one of faithfulness to the Cross this is the path of the Christian this is the path our Lord showed himself it is so so far from the worldly mindset his was such that although he saw that the beauty and form of Jesus had been obliterated in addition to his other sufferings nevertheless confessed his divinity nevertheless he confessed his divinity right so this is this is amazing think about that Peter who saw the Lord by divine revelation said Thou Art the Christ and a and the Lord said upon this cross this this this rock I will build my church right so here now be long before the Incarnation Isaiah sees his divinity in the midst of sufferings only by Divine illumination of such spiritual stature was all of the prophets peering noetic into the meaning of things through the radiance of the spirit this is from kalistos in the falia we're quoting the falia one of the greatest spiritual if not the greatest collection spiritual text ever uh the Orthodox Church holds it very dear five volumes in uh in English I think they're more in Greek but um uh this is a great patriarch and writer and hesus of the church beautifully put here right of such spiritual stature was all of the prophets peering noetic with their noose with their in spiritual intellect into the meaning of things it says in Greek the no the meaning of things or the the the noetic reality let's say of things through the radiance of the spirit so the spirit of God was speaking to Isaiah Illuminating him teaching him mystically about the coming savior moving on the prophet of the Divine passion explains why the Messiah suffers why does the Messiah suffer let's pay attention this is Isaiah 53 4- 69 and 12 he Bears our sins and is pained for us yet we accounted him to be in trouble in suffering in Affliction but he has wounded on he was wounded on account of our sins and was bruised because of our iniquities chastisement of our peace was upon him and by his bruises we were healed and the lord gave him up for our sins for he practiced no iniquity nor craft with his mouth therefore he shall inherit that his win over many because his soul was delivered to death and he was numbered among the transgressors and he bore the sins of many and was delivered to death because of their iniquities everything for us and for our Salvation everything for our freedom everything for our Liberation our Salvation all of it nothing nothing was because he deserved anything right all of it was for us and for our salvation in no other Prophet does one find so clear and so developed the teaching concerning the Messiah as in the prophet Isaiah it is mainly for this reason that he became the greatest of the prophets about whom St Jerome remarked that he is an evangelist rather than a prophet called him the fifth evangelist prophet Isaiah believes fully in the coming of the Messiah whose personality he examines in the most masterly and skillful manner so as to present a spiritual Masterpiece having none other as its equal in the Old Testament that's from a article called religious personalities Old Testament now he says here the greatest of the prophets we also call St John the Baptist the greatest of the prophets in course because he actually baptized the one who had been prophesied so you could say they're both the greatest in different ways um so this is the end of this section on the public Ministry and we began here tonight the passion the crucifixion and the death of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ next week or next time we get together which will be we haven't really determined that have we Justin we need to determine that exactly let everybody know um but it will probably be two weeks from now if I understand it two weeks from now um I think it's I think we yeah two weeks from now so we're going to be talking then about the lamb that is voiceless before the sheerer that's another prophecy the innocent lamb the sufferings of the just the offering of his body as a sacrifice uh the the the Betrayal of Judas we're going to talk about the 30 pieces of silver we're going to talk about the the scattering of the of the of the disciples all this is prophesied all of it's already in Prophecy it's all foretold in the Old Testament the false Martyrs the false Witnesses and we'll look at the great uh christological Psalm 21 we'll look at the torturing and the hitting and the spitting upon the savior we'll look at his abandonment and the offering of the the bitter vinegar and of course the crucifixion all of that next time the the darkening of the sun we'll look at the end of our Lord before we go on to the next section and then and that'll go on that'll be the following uh lesson the burial and the resurrection of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ yet another wonderful collection of tremendous Witnesses with regard to the Lord and the witnesses from the Old Testament all right let's open it up to questions I know we have a bunch of questions already in crowdcast we'll start over there if you have questions please put large question all caps question so that we don't miss it right so we can we can answer your questions over there um in YouTube and Rumble and the other places that we're live streaming to it's wonderful to see how many people are coming out tonight wow what a big turnout on x i we have tremendous turnout on X tonight that's really good A lot of people on uh YouTube as well good to see it all right so we're in 52 minutes we'll go for at least another hour and a half just on questions I bet will take us that long so let's start over at crowdcast nectarios has a question but I want to leave that question for a little bit later I want to get to the questions that are a little more pertinent narius you got some great questions nario two questions but I'm going to bring those in a little bit later so stay tuned narius if you're here and because it matters the order we take things um first before we go to the questions let me say welcome to Antonios and has has a picture of Elder isak how about that that's Elder isak of the cell of the resurrection of course the book here that we're doing is from the cell of the resurrection and the Elder here that we have on the screen Elder isak was the dis was this elder of Elder AOS Who's the present Elder of the of the Kelli of the cell Elder isak from Lebanon was a disciple of St pus the Holy Mountain and I had the great blessing although unfortunately I didn't know Greek at the time to meet Elder suck uh and uh I'll never forget it didn't didn't couldn't talk too much but he greeted me in the middle of the summer with Christ as risen he was filled with joy and radiating and he walked me out even though we couldn't couldn't Converse he walked me out to the to the end of the uh the the cell there and I always wonder what was he thinking to this day what was he thinking because he seemed to be looking at me like I don't know what it was a weird so thank you very much good to have you Antonio is glad you're joining us and I had the opportunity to remember the great Elder isak probably going to be glorified as a saint someday Embrace Orthodoxy gives us 119 whatever that is from Norway thank you very much for the donation always gracious very gracious God bless you give you many spiritual blessings for your great your generosity and Nick thank you much Nick for your contribution of $10 all this is very helpful for us in our Publications if you haven't been uncut Mountain Press go to uncut mountain press.com look at all of the present offerings I think we have 30 books right now that we published we have another 10 that are on the page for forthcoming titles and we actually have several more that we're not even listing there that we're working on and uh check them out and uh you know I think you'll be edified uh by all of those offerings but all of this these donations here are going to go toward this publication and other Publications uh in the future and this uh this is very helpful we appreciate it first question part one this comes from a Protestant I was debating he does not doesn't see the point of praying for The Departed claiming we can't petition God's judgment uh can our resting place can our resting place change before the final judgment all right so that's an interesting question thank you for the question so there's no doubt no doubt whatsoever that the church for 2,000 years in The Divine Liturgy offered up every day every single day for 2,000 years the church has offered the Divine lit in other words the Eucharist right that is the heart of the church do this in remembrance of me this is the heart this is where man and God commu are united man communes with God the Divine energies are imparted to man and he is transfigured he's transformed he's purified illumined this is the heart and in this great mystery of the Divine Eucharist The Divine Liturgy which happens every single day in the Orthodox church somewhere on the face of the Earth right there's no doubt that we've always commemorated the reposed that have gone before us prayed for them prayed for their souls this is a universal practice until it was questioned long long long after it was established in the west among certain Protestants and I don't really know the history of their questioning of it but certainly it's unheard of and never questioned in the Orthodox church the church believes fervent in the love of God and that indeed we have two things in tension here on the one hand it's clear as we see in the writings for instance of St John Damascus that mat and DOI there is no repentance in Hades what does that mean that there could be no change whatsoever in Hades on the part of the person who's departed no they cannot change in other words what is repentance there's reorientation toward Christ right it's a change of stance of spiritual stance and and The Noose is now now Matan has the word noose in it right not the rational intellect but the the heart or The Noose of man it now is changing from gazing on the created world and and and outside of communion with God is now returning to communion with God and this this on their own cannot happen after the departure of the soul from the body because they're no longer fully human right they're not Body and Soul together and the time of repentance is very clear is this life one has to repent in this life having said that that's on one side we have the love of God the love of the church and the power of surpassing all things everything is possible in God what is possible in God for the love of God and the love of the church to be visited upon these souls for them for them to be embraced by this love and for this love to lift them as it were up and to Aid in their communion and Union with God the love and the prayer of the righteous the Saints and those who have gone before us aileth much to bring about the change uh not from the side of man but from let's say the uh side of other men the love of men for the Fallen one right and the the love of God which then is as it were uh spurred on by our fervent prayers and he seeks us he begs us to pray for the the reposed and to come and and petition him so that he might visit them and they might come closer and closer to his light and so this is a mystery church is never dogmatized we don't do the like the like the legalistic West we don't go around have the need to State this for the sake of non-orthodox we have nothing to fear or apologize to to those who are outside the life of the church they won't understand it anyway you have to have an experience of the life of the church to understand these things and so the church has lived this mystery of the love of God for the Repose for 2,000 years there's no doubt about it we have many many witnesses in the lives of the saints that the prayers are efficacious and so we continue to offer them and there can be a change on the part again not of the person changing himself saying I will now live for Christ and therefore I'm gonna take myself out of whatever state I'm in right let's say that they and of course we're talking now about people who've reposed in the life of the church we talking about people in the church who had a life in Christ right that are already let's say in the trajectory and on the path and yet they did not live a life of uh strict loving aestheticism they had had let's say many things that they left they were negligent perhaps or they were ignorant or they were they did not uh properly struggle or whatever it might be and then the love of the church comes to Aid them we can see this also in the teachings concerning uh surrounding the the atic literature that's surrounding the question of uh the state of the Soul after the departure from the body and its Ascent to Heaven that the angels and the SA sa uh and the prayers of the Saints assist in those times as well but this is not something that you're going to easily convince uh someone who has no experience of the life of the church and does not trust the witness of the Saints and does not uh submit to the 2,000 year practice and tradition of the church uh so it's a question of trust the Protestant who's questioning you does not trust except maybe himself uh and his interpretation and reading of the of the scriptures right so he puts his his reading his interpretation and he puts his uh position as one who's alien or not in the life of the church as um you know insignificant like this is not this is not something we need to pay attention to it doesn't matter that I don't have any experience of life of the church this is a rational discussion and debate and we're going to figure it out by sitting down and analyzing scripture this whole approach is foreign to 2,000 years of Orthodox Christian experience right we submit to Christ where and how in the church not in our heads not verbally uh on our own U take the Bible and make a pledge in the body of Christ through and in the disciples through and in the Mysteries these are the presuppositions for one to have Divine Enlightenment and understand these things so so often we're sitting there debating apologetics Etc with people who don't have the presuppositions or interested in obtaining those to properly understand the life of this is the words of tallan are very much applicable that the Bible is a closed book to those outside the church they will never understand them because it presupposes the life of the church it came from the life of the church and it and it presupposes the life of the church in fact it presupposes more than just the life of the church it presupposes spiritual enlightenment and advancement right there's a saying with regard to the Saints you cannot write or even understand the life of the saint if you do not have a analogous experience a saint in other words is necessary to write the life of a saint well the same thing with the scriptures we understand the scriptures not on our own but only through those who have the experience of what's written in the scriptures in other words the the theosis of the of the of the Apostles those great Saints those great church fathers those great confessors and teachers of the faith that have come down to us the consensus of what they have to say and and the experience that they have of God becomes the interpretive key let's say through their wisdom and their understanding their experience we understand scripture so all of that is presupposed if you're going to have a discussion on these things that are inner life of the church it's almost impossible for them to ex understand and embrace because they don't have any experience of these things they don't have the trust as necessary uh the scriptures are not to be understood outside of that life and and therefore uh you know their experience is is is basically so foreign right so far that it's it's it's it's it's impossible for us to really come to an understanding they have to Humble themselves and submit to Christ in the church and then experientially we'll see that the prayers of the church for the reposed have uh efficacious Eternal significance question can the August 1 to 14th thecus fast be mentioned explained for a deeper appreciation for it yeah I mean we're not going to be able to do much on it but a quick a quick reference here uh the church the Orthodox Church of course uh always talking about the Orthodox church has the 14-day Feast from 1st to the 14th and then the 15th of course is the great feast of the mother of God the Theus the Derm Mission the falling asleep of the mother of God and to Greater prepare and honor this great feast of the church going back till its earliest days and the um along with the fast that we do which is a strict fast uh like the great Lent fast with exception of the Feast of the of the Transfiguration on the 6th of August uh and of course Sunday and Saturday where we eat uh we uh will eat food with oil in other words we'll put olive oil and use wine otherwise it a strict fast uh meaning we don't eat meat we don't eat any dairy uh we don't eat fish of course or or or seafood except on the weekends with the oil and therefore your fasting very simply simple food less food all of that along with an increased prayer life so every evening at least in the uh patriarches the Greek tradition every evening we have the supplication service to the mother of God supplication service the Great and the the the small supplication and the great supplication they're in they're one after another each night Sunday night to Friday night Saturday night there's no supplication service and so we begin with the great supplication then we go to the small and then great and small and all the way up to the feast uh and so it's very important for us if we want to have the spiritual preparation necessary to really uh walk away from the Feast of the mother of God in a substantially spiritually edified and changed manner right and not just another Feast another day another meal or whatever it might be but we actually are engaged for 14 days in supplication fasting prayer in preparation for the great feast on the 15th it'll make a a world of difference for us and what we experience and what we take away uh so pay attention uh closely uh to the uh life of the church during the the fifth 14 days fast as much as you possibly can according to the church's teaching go to the services if you have Parish that has them every evening and chant along uh with the church the supplication to the most holy theotokos and I think you'll be very edified uh and there's going to be tons of material uh even online just from different websites and places but also you could purchase things uh about the feast and about the mother of God and about the Miracles the Myriad of Miracles that have happened from the mother of God of the m period of holy icons and all the rest it'll be a heightened period of attention to the place and the uh the glory and the Holiness of the theotokos the uh the birthgiver of Christ of God uh blessings father I'm going to cup to a cup I'm going to a cup I'm not sure what that means that can last up to a week I'm not sure what that means what is a cup cup cup what what do you think was meant to be written there I don't think it was cup I find it hard to pray when others watch can I pray morning and evening prayers in only in the mind uh are you allowed to pray in bathrooms okay interesting questions does anybody know anybody you have any idea Justin what the cup is referring to I don't know I'm trying to figure out what this question let me see okay soccer cup all right football cup okay I don't I don't think I've ever heard it referred to as a as a cup maybe I'm just totally out of touch huh with the soccer crowd uh so look uh yeah I mean praying uh among other people especially obviously verbally uh is a problem because you're G to You're Gonna you're going to be cognizant of them you're going to be probably not very focused on Christ you're going to be possibly calling attention to yourself and that's not going to be probably beneficial for you uh they're they're not going to understand really so yeah obviously uh we're not going to stand and do public prayers verbally in front of other people uh in terms of our morning prayers right not not the Divine services but on our own so it would it would require that you uh that you either go somewhere else uh and pray uh find a way to get out walk around say you're take the Jesus prayer and walk and and say the Jesus prayer as you're walking uh or I guess as you say just stand mentally but uh you know if we can do that without being gazed upon and you being self-conscious about it that would uh I guess work uh but the best thing is to actually get away go away walk away do something where you can be alone uh we pray always uh the question can you pray in the bathroom you you we we are constantly praying praying because we're playing the Jesus prayer all day long no matter what we're doing no matter where we are and so can you pray in the bathroom yes you you you can pray everywhere and always Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me um but should you go in in a bathroom and pray like the morning prayers and sit with the prayer book probably not that's a bit that's a bit weird but I guess you know there's absolutely no other way to say your morning prayers and you really have this uh I would say instead of instead of the morning prayers pray the Jesus prayer and walk somewhere that would be my solution to that uh the the morning prayers are short anyway if you're doing the just you know a couple Pages it's done in like three minutes four minutes uh if that's what you're talking about but you can you can you can replace that with the Jesus prayer just saying the Jesus prayer um that would be also permissible our physical illness is the result of our sin our our ancestors sin or the sin of others unrelated to us so there's a there's a variety of Origins and reasons for uh for illnesses uh there's the general fall of human human mankind and all the consequences of this there's the sin that brings certainly sickness directly we have this obviously from addictions and everything that cause all kinds of illnesses uh and um uh sometimes uh it's allowed by God because it's going to be great spiritual benefit so even the things that are coming about as a result of sin God turns them and transforms them and makes them spiritually beneficial for us if we uh if we are cooperating and we're humble and meek and lowly and longsuffering all the rest all of this can be transformative in fact we have we have many Saints who spent portions of the life bedridden like St saram of Vita for instance one great uh recent saint of the Russian Church in the 1940s he was bedridden uh but there have been many Saints in Russia notable Saints in the last 60 70 years who were bedridden or blind or what it might be and they and they through their suffering through their sickness they became purified illumined and glorified uh so uh the origins uh are generally sin ancestral person personal uh communal uh and then directly you know personal sins bring on sicknesses yes certainly not God God is not the origin of any sin or sickness but he does work through them and try to use them um for our Salvation do you have any advice for someone who is converted to Orthodoxy who has always been a Believer but has no prior Church affiliation due to family reasons um I I I don't think I have any special advice for you than I would have for anyone else I mean uh um you might you might have it even better um in a way because you if you're not if you didn't grow up in a Protestant or or papal Protestant uh confession you don't have the baggage uh that they had in terms of distorted understandings of this spiritual life or Christ or the Mysteries and so you so some people come to Orthodox Church they're coming from you know a very zealous Community uh of of people really trying to follow Christ but they've been extremely confused or or or they're really departed far from Christian the true Christian Gospel and life and now they have to unlearn things they have to unpack things they have to you know disinvest and so if you had none of that uh in a way you have less uh to get rid of but now you also have less um whatever benefit they had uh through the through you know reading the scriptures and all the rest you you don't have that but uh uh every single person coming to the church today has need of patience prayer study spiritual father spiritual guidance and visiting monasteries or the old country to see examples that you probably can't find as easily among those around us so I would say those are some of the pillars of what we're going to be doing generally to make progress in the spiritual life um don't rush that would be one of my Maj major advises to everyone who's like either an Inquirer or cuman make sure the cuman prayers are right over you you do the exorcisms uh make sure that that's that's done when you become a cumin many priests don't know to do that or don't do that for some weird bizarre reason those should be read at the beginning of the kakum in it and they're very beneficial for you and then you need to go in Earnest deeply into the life of the church and that's the whole process of purification from the old the old man um and uh I would say you know obviously this is true for everybody but if you're coming from a non-church background you got to spend a lot of time reading the gospels a lot of time reading the gospels not just alone with the gospel no no no read the gospel with the commentary get the commentary and read the gospel for instance we have these two volumes here the Orthodox New Testament this is one of several New Testament translations that one could Avail themselves to but this is good because it's got tons and tons of commentary in the back of the uh scriptural passages right so you have the you have a very good literal translation which is good for study because you're getting the Greek as close to the Greek as you can then you have the commentary in the back you need to pour over patiently and over a long period of time pour over the gospels and the Epistles with theit patristic commentary if you want to acquire the mind of the church since you grew up as you say um without any connection at all Antonio says when stating that one cannot attain sanctity outside of the church's Mysteries papists often refer to their Saints Miracles and incorrupt Relics how should we one respond to this uh well I don't I don't think we I don't think we have to necessarily become you know super polemical and antagonistic and say well I don't you know that's all fake and foreign and all the rest um we certainly as Orthodox can never comment in a positive way and say oh yeah these are incorrupt relics because God Favored them and they're Saints or these are Miracles or real Miracles and all the rest all of that's going to be from an orthodox perspective we're going to stand simply at the very least with agnosticism and skepticism uh and depending on what we're talking about because there are examples of uh according to the patristic analysis that's that's been made by different people and it's very clear in some instances this grave grave delusion uh among those that are called Saints contemporary or Catholicism called Saints and I'll just give you one example uh you can go back to a live stream we did uh when the pope um blessed same sex couples same sex couples were blessed as couples they were they received a blessing and he wrote that in cico we did a live stream on that if you want to go to Orthodox EOS you can see it in the last last section of the live stream we presented about six or seven major Saints considered Saints by the Roman Catholic communion in the last three four 500 years uh who were overthe toop just unbelievable zealots for the papacy to the point where they they said things like even if uh I forget the quote now I'm not going to quot I'm not quoting so I'm not trying to quote now because I don't remember the exact quotes but the sentiment was something like even if the pope is the Devil Himself we still we're still going to do obedience um and the some of these s some of these Saints like St Katherine of Sienna uh have spoken about Christ and their experience with Christ in ways that are so sensual and so outlandish from an orthodox bistic perspective that we can say with certainly that this is delusional it's like absolutely un unbelievably bizarre and not of God right because it is never in any remotely anything like that has ever been witnessed to by any Orthodox Christian Saint in 2,000 years and it would be seen always as delusional like that would not be embraced uh her her fleshly like you know expressions of sentimental uh love and all all the things that you see and I don't I don't remember the details now but that that whole exchange and and and the way that they spoken about is just so beyond the pale that you can say this this is absolutely not not not of God right this is not blessed so there's certain things that we can unequivocally come back and say well no these things are delusional they're not even on the realm of Christian experience I mean they're the way they spoke about the pope those six or seven Saints is delusional it's it's utterly uh spiritual delusion and so uh that's I would say if you get into the discussion you want to and you want to say well this is how you know what what I would say first I'm not really gonna speak about things I have no experience of right because that's just a basic epistemological thing right we're not gonna speculate but we can certainly say these things you know Francis of aisi for instance uh praying to be like Christ crucified and getting the stata and and all everything trying to imitate Christ like physically imitate Christ like as Christ did this we do the same I send the apostles everything about that stance is is unheard of among Orthodox saints that kind of imitation for instance was never done never has never been done by any saint in the church 2,000 years nobody supposes that we're gonna have a literal material physical in this world imitation of Christ as Christ right I want to be crucified too I want to have the stigma that whole that whole desire itself would have been rejected by spiritual father if Francis bisi had come to an elder on man AOS he would have said utterly reject this desire it's not of God we don't imitate Christ and the Saints like that there's only one Christ there's only one Saint pick your Saint and there's not they're not repeatable in you know literally repeatable trying to imitate them um to the to the uh letter uh and so there's certain things that we've seen and that you know with little study actually on our part at least in my experience has not been massive Orthodox analysis of this but they just jump off the page as as beyond the pale and they're delusional and so we could never we can never say oh yeah this is something akin to Orthodox Saints as far as incorrupt relics go there can be incorrupt relics that are not of God that are not witnessing to sanctity in and of themselves we do not consider them uh without any support from the whole life as signs of uh you know sanctity deification together with the life together with the Orthodox faith and teaching and the life then these things can be seen as the fruit of holy life but we have for instance many experiences have been written down and passed on to us over the years in Greece where all the relics are Exum in Greece like every I don't think anybody ever remains in the grave in Greece it's just the way it is in Greece everybody after 3 to seven years or maybe 10 years or more maybe there's some exceptions but 99% of the time when I was there as a priest we would go and say prayers over the relics when they were exhumed and they were put in the uary and the bones were put in boxes and then eventually many of the bones were put down into the ocer into the ground and the skull was kept uh and so that's the way it's done on monos that's the way it's done all over Greece that's just the way it's always been done and so we see relics all the time like literally all the time thousands upon thousands of people are exume probably every few months right in Greece and so there are relics that are incorrupt that are not blessed right they're blackened they're darkened they might not be darkened but they're not blessed in fact there's there's stories of people who cursed a priest for instance and their hand um uh was incorrupt until the prayers were read over and then and then put back in the grave and then they were they were dissolved so so the point I'm trying to make here is not that that's what they they you know their relics are necessarily I don't know I can't speak to what those relics are and what God has done but I can say that in and of itself it's not a proof that we have sanctity uh because there's been many cases uh where they're not considered Saints and yet the relics uh have um are you know partially uh corrupt or incorrupt and then they're put in the grave and then they eventually decompose uh so there's signs of the life going along with the relics and then also the relics themselves there's there's often times in the Orthodox experience a beautiful Aroma that comes out of relics even those that are not incorrupt there is there's certain signs about the relics that point to sanctity so we see this as a pattern 2,000 years we've seen a pattern of because we've the Orthodox Church generally exhumes the bodies and so they've seen the relics over thousands of years they know this saint had this this saint had that there's a pattern all these Saints they have certain things that their relics their the color the aroma all these things are God's way of saying this was a holy person and and not just like saying it but the holy spirit dwelt in this person the Holy Spirit Sanctified there's a literal impact on the body the flesh the bones of a human being that has the Holy Spirit dwelling in them it transforms them and you have four tastes already of the general Resurrection uh pointing to the general General Resurrection so again just because they say they're Saints and just because they say they have in relics none of that really is definitive or conclusive as to whether they are true saints of God or whether they're true relics uh and incorrupt do you think there are many more miracles experienced by the saints that they never told anyone about certainly absolutely yeah there's no doubt about it there's a lot of things we don't know about the Saints we only get a portion right right only get a portion a lot of things they hide uh I just listening to I was just listening to before we go on I say this I was just listening to a homy by metropolitanos of moru in which he uh talks about a prophecy of um of St yakobus of Evia and somebody was walking with st yakobus and somebody was saying to St yakobus something like you know oh the world today or something like this and and he just turns around and says oh there a time when people will drop like fly like chickens they're going to drop dead like chickens and then he went oh what did I say oh nothing nothing and he made the sign and cross over his mouth and he said who am I to prophesy I don't know anything and he kept walking and so he kind of forgot himself for a minute and he didn't and he said a prophecy and then he said oh and I don't I don't want to talk about it because the most important thing he had was humility so out of humility he certainly did not say everything he knew he certainly did not say all his Pro all the prophecies he didn't tell everybody clairvoyantly uh you know he would have he would see things and the Saints would see things and they would uh n they might say nothing to the person but may they might turn to the disciple and say that person has this this and this so absolutely because humility is the most important thing in the lives of the Saints so they're not going to say everything what does the future look like for Orthodoxy in America what are some of the obstacles and how much is it increasing thank you Father that's a hard I'm not a prophet so I mean you're asking me to be kind of like uh you know I don't know what are these people who forell the future of the economic situation you know what what what they expect to see coming in the next year or something I I would say it's if if Orthodox Christians all of us tonight all the people around the world if we truly are about the work of repentance in our life going deeper the prayer all the things that make up true spiritual life and Disciples of Christ in Earnest then there's a great future for Orthodoxy in America uh if we're all repenting and we're going deeply there's a danger though it's a huge danger for Orthodoxy in America and I'm very concerned that there's not deep and extensive catechism going on for all these new converts they're not being properly received by baptism they're not being properly catechized uh and therefore the foundation that's being laid for them spiritually is weak and and it will it will crumble under the weight of persecution and and and difficult days if not even sooner and so if if there's not a a serious uh double doubling down on the part of the clergy to to thoroughly catechize and prepare people for the Mysteries uh then I think there is a great danger for you know secularization further further secularization but also a distortion of Orthodoxy there'll be a rise and a and a temporary or maybe maybe more uh rule of a kadox among Orthodox in America and I don't think I don't think the general trend of these uh folks online who are so uh invested in debates and and and Analysis and and uh and apologetics is is necessarily any kind of fix or or or bright light and I'll tell you why because that's not how the church if you look at the lives of the Saints look at the lives of the missionaries look at the lives of you know St Herman of Alaska or St stepen of perm or innocent of Alaska or father kosas G just to take a couple of the people in the last 200 years they didn't sit around and debate ad nauseum and they they didn't rely on their rational intellects to figure it all out they didn't call people out left and right for heresy for the for things that the church has either not spoken on or there's some gray Area Debate I mean there's a tendency here among some of the zealous converts to become AU authorities overnight about Orthodox theology I think it's a it's a big trap uh go spend time uh with monastics go spend time on monos go spend time in monasteries go spend time with people who are living deeply the spiritual life uh go deeply in a in a relationship with a spiritual father make progress in the in fasting make progress in prayer make progress in these things and then take up in earnest uh whatever you might take up in terms of uh apologetics or uh catechism or whatever you think that you're called to because if you if you just rely on your rational intellect and you don't have an experience which then gives you discernment uh you will you will fall away you will make a mess of it you will end up uh you know just creating a lot of contention and confusion if not worse so I think there are a lot of pitfalls for the Orthodox in americae and I think we've got to double down on serious deep patient catechism which means purification which means a change of way of life and and an aesthetic life that's the key when we're purified then Christ has a reason to send people to our parish for them to learn to be purified if we're a bunch of hotheads for a bunch of ethnic uh you know uh uh Orthodox who are committed to whatever but not the spiritual life or whatever else we might be doing that is not at the core repentance fasting prayer uh loving and following the Saints imitating the Saints etc etc then um then there's no telling what can happen to Orthodoxy right I I don't I don't like these and and the whole question of Orthodox Unity is a secondary issue in terms of jurisdictional unity we need to have unity in life unity in asceticism unity in confession of faith and then the administrative Unity will come I think we'll see a great increase your question says how much is increasing I think there's G to be a great increase in Orthodoxy I think in spite of it all people are still coming to Orthodoxy and discovering it and realizing it's the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic church and there tremendous future for Orthodoxy in terms of people coming to Orthodoxy but that's just the beginning that's just the beginning right if we're not going deep each one of us then it's just a it's it's going to be disaster I mean I'll just give you some some examples there are several clergy who went to Seminary who ended up going back to the vomit in other words heterodoxy they were they were preaching or teaching for a couple years after Seminary and then they got up and left and went to the Protestants or the papal Protestants or the UNS uh maybe three or four uh that have kind of come to my attention over over the last year two years how is that possible it's impossible to imagine anyone leaving heterodoxy and then going back to heterodoxy after knowing but did they know what did they know what did they experience what was their catechism were they made a priest who quickly did they actually were they baptized were they chrismated did they get married in the church was the grace of God really flowing in their life were we taking advantage were they and are we taking advantage of all that the Church offers in terms of the grace of God that's what we need to be thinking about baptism Chism these are the these are the things that heal the soul this is what makes a man a new creation and then so if you you can't walk away from any of that and then talk about Orthodoxy and then become an apologist for Orthodoxy and then and then you know style yourself as some kind of missionary of Orthodoxy this is this is delusional we've got to go deep into a spiritual relationship with a spiritual father that is TE that is experienced and and and go through all the stages of the P spiritual life the purification illumination all the stages of obedience prayer and learning how to walk the Narrow Path if we do that more and more of us more and more converts more and more priests we all double down the Lord is free then to bring even more people right why would he bring I'm in a little Parish priest and I'm got like you know 50 people 100 people 200 people and we're living worldly lives and we're a bunch of rationalists and we're a bunch of you know debaters and and you know we sit around and judge people whatever it is the the various ailments of contemporary orth America and then Orthodox Americans who are bringing the baggage with them if that's what we're about why would the Lord send people to that Parish why for what to get to become bigger sons of Hell or you know more sick I don't think so right so it really depends on us depends on every priest and every parish and every uh you know how much we're going deep this whole tendency among this there's a very small minority thank God but they're very loud in the you know in forom and other places they're totally alienated from Orthodox patristic Orthodoxy they're on the path of I don't know where God helped them where they're going Innovation LGBT uh soft on all the you know various moral issues uh running into the arms of the papal Protestants all these people who are in these various groups they're on the way out of Orthodoxy if not already out they're already got one foot in heterodoxy and in delusion in the world if they ever became Orthodox because the positions they're taking the Innovations they're they're they're promoting uh is you know Dead on Arrival right so that's the kind of thing I'm looking at and I'm saying that you know what what are what are we all looking for what's the future of Orthodoxy it'll all be determined on what's our priorities what's our our examples who are we imitating are we loving the Saints are we going deeper in the assetic I life father do do remarkable Miracles like Prophet Elias be taken up in Chariot still happen they only happened in the days when Society was less perverse uh so great Miracles Great Divine consolations happen when there's great need of divine intervention and when there's human consolation there's human consolation through God arranges and gives that right so when there's no human consolation then Divine consolation or divine intervention comes we're reaching a point according to St pus there's going to be a divine intervention in history it'll seem like the second coming is coming that's what he says that's I'm quoting St pesos they it'll be like as if the second coming it won't be the second coming It'll be such a divine intervention why would that come about because things are going to get worse and worse and worse we're going to get to the point of course where we're going to have a World War raging that's coming and there's going to be even more apostasy more delusion among so-called Christians there's going to be tremendous pressure uh from the various dark Forces in the world we're going to get more and more it's going to get worse and worse right so there'll be as it were no human consolation and no human ability to withstand the onslaught of these of this evil and then there'll be this divine intervention according to St pus that gives you the criteria about divine intervention Divine uh manifestation on the one hand yes when there's Faithful Servants but not necessarily the whole society I mean the time of prophet Elias most people the prophet thought that they're all apostates right remember how he called out and he said I'm the only one and the Lord said no I have 6,000 sons of the prophets that have not uh bow their KNE to ball okay but they were still as it were hidden right so the vast majority of the people of Israel with their King and their and Jezebel and all the rest they were all apostates right they were Idol worshippers and so on one level they're it's not it's not like well only when there's uh all everybody's holy no the time of prophet Elias there was one or two or a couple thousand compared to the vast majority of people so I think it's uh I think it's when there's a need when this has to happen because the salvation of the world depends on it one of the reasons why those those those uh priest of of the idol worshippers was were slaughtered which is a scandal to the Contemporary Christians most of the time how is it possible that God had the prophet Slaughter these people in those days in those times this this kind of intervention of God came about because what was at stake was the salvation of the world in other words the people of Israel were the hope of the world right because from then would come the Bania the most holy Theos and from the the most holy would come the Savior the Messiah and so he had to keep this this people on The Narrow Path and so drastic things happened in order for that to happen and we're gonna see similar things in our day because we're getting to the point of mass secularization which is the spirit of antichrist massive amounts of compromised uh clergy in terms of a humanism and so it's going to be for the sake of the Salvation of the world there's going to be a divine intervention that's the criteria I think that I can you know bring about and then of course the Holiness of the prophets of every age so he had in the times for instance of the great stylites in the fifth sixth seventh centuries you had Daniel you had Simeon you had Simeon the younger these were amazing prophetic figures like Prophet Elias who stood on on on pillars for for TENS for decades and decades and and and we're we like living um you know examples of Angels in the flesh among men and great and amazing things happened through their prayers through their the gifts that God had gave them and through God's Own uh good pleasure because of their love right so on the one hand the great love of a few and the great apostacy of the many those things usually come together for a clear divine intervention in history the crucifixion symbolizes the necessary process of facing and transcending deep sorrow to reach a more profound and Ur enduring Joy I'd like to like to hear Father's thoughts if possible that's an interesting comment interesting question a little bit sideways right uh I don't really I don't I don't really like to wax you know I'll just wax poetically on this interesting theological thought um usually I like to deal with more concrete pastoral issues but the crucifixion symbolize the necessary process symbolizes the necessary process of facing and transcending deep sorrow yeah I don't I'm not I'm not sure I agree I don't know I don't know where you where you getting this this thought is this just your thought you sat down and had this thought and thought this makes sense to me um the crucifixion is I don't I don't think it I don't think I would talk about it as symbolizing a process uh and transcending deep sorrow I guess it's true I don't know I don't have much to say about it actually so I'm sorry I don't know I like to I like to talk about scriptural passages or the patristic wisdom s of I'm just a donkey I don't know I don't know anything is it correct to think that the Israelite people who rejected the Messiah the Jewish the Jewish will Embrace Antichrist with passion uh so the Israelite people who are the Israelite people um today's people who are Jews are not really related to the people of Israel in the Old Testament they're not really related in terms of the worship or the religion or anything so I'm not sure what you mean so but but let's just say the people who reject the Messiah will Embrace Antichrist with passion I mean yeah it's fairly obvious that um if you reject the Messiah that we talked about tonight the longsuffering suffering servant all the things that we see prophesied in the Isaiah and elsewhere um and you're looking for a worldly uh a worldly uh savior to give you worldly Utopia you will embrace the Antichrist and unfortunately that seems to be the vision of many Jews that they think that their Messiah will be a human being who will bring great days for the Jewish people andu you know rule over the Gentiles and U and rebuild the Temple and all these things and it's a very fleshly worldly vision of of um of the um of the Messiah and uh that will be the person of antichrist like the the person in the place of Christ who says that I am the Christ right and they're they're going to embrace him and they're expecting that kind of Messiah so yeah I think it's not hard to see that those who want a worldly Messiah as the Jews tend to think of their Messiah when they're still waiting for um they'll embrace the Antichrist because that's what he'll be he'll give that to them you should watch our our lesson on Revelation every Tuesday night every Tuesday come over there if you're not and uh follow because we're talking all about those kind of issues which of 12 Apostles will sit in heaven specifically will the 12 go to or Paul I don't know I've never read anything that says it'll be one or the other I mean Mias was the one that replaced so I guess Messiah Mias I've never read anything that um specifies that so you know if you read anything let me know I have not read anything that specifies oh Mias will be it and not Paul he did replace so I guess I don't know I don't know I go with Mias can you explain the concept of deification and theosis where does it come from it's all over the scriptures it's all it's everything we're talking about for the last 17 weeks it's it's there because when God becomes man takes man's human nature upon Him dies is resurrected is ascended and sits at the right hand of God with that human nature that flesh our flesh flesh what has happened to that human nature that human being that that that flesh that he took on what is it it's deified it's glorified that is our Salvation he's calling us to that to follow him follow me pick up your cross and follow me unite yourself to me what does it happen what what happens when we United to Christ we become one with Christ what happens the Divine energies of God himself Grace is him self Grace is not created Grace is uncreated when we commune with God grace himself what happens to us we have a Divine human Unity don't we what is that called that's called theosis it's called deification what what is salvation Union communion that is what that is literally what salvation is right so so another way to understand it is it's the likess it's the full fullness of the likeness with God how did he create Us in the image in likeness we fell from the image it was blackened likeness was totally lost it comes he takes on our nature we're baptized in him We Begin Again a new the image is totally restored but the likeness is just like with Adam has to be Synergy has to be cooperation it's a process Adam did not reach it he fell from it he he was on the pro in the process of it and the same with us but now even much more with Christ gives us with Incarnation much more more than what Adam would had or would have had and so what do we have we have a whole process in the church the virtues the ticism everything the prayer everything is meant to take us to a total likeness and what does it mean the likeness all the virtues everything that Christ is he gives to us that in his human nature he gives To Us by Grace right he Imports to us he wants us to be like him we shall we shall see him as he is it says right we shall see him as he is doxology that and it's quoting the Apostle right so that is possible when you have a communion and a union and a likeness what does the Apostle Paul Peter say partakers of divine nature in his epistle what is that that's theosis that's deification salvation is theosis that's what it means to be saved right it's a but so that that is just all over the place like if you have eyes to see you see it that's that's what that's what he's talking about that's what he came to do that's what the fathers talk about incessantly that's what the great Archbishop of Alexandria athanasius says God became man that man might become God by Grace that's the whole purpose of his Incarnation to take us up into heaven and make us like himself father I've seen some of your videos pertaining to the Holy Eucharist and that you have you have to crucify your intellect in regards to the disciples saying that it was cannibalism is there no way to rationalize it because it is of the spirit should we not should we just so we should just trust God right um so you're telling me that you can rationalize it what do you mean by that you can rationalize it try to figure it out are you gonna are you gonna figure it out it's still a mystery even if you call describe it as a spiritual reality Christ says I'm talking about the spirit but the spirit is not less real less manifest less concrete than the flesh I mean that's that's not true so it's not some dichotomies that's some kind of opposition well I'm not really talking about the flesh no he's talking about the flesh too it's not less flesh it's just a transfigured like after his resurrection what happens he walks through the door right he's eating the he's eating the meal and yet he's still somehow walks through a door how does that happen we don't know it's a mystery but it is the Flesh of Christ that's the Eucharist that's what's happening and so you will crucify your intellect there's no doubt about it you can get a sense of it through the various the theological reflections of the Saints they give us insight into this mystery but it's still a mystery they didn't understand at the time of course we have much more understanding today after the Lord himself said that we would do even greater things he said and of course with the holy spirit guide you in all truth and so the church with The Descent of the Holy Spirit UND experienced let's say more fully than what Peter would have understood in that discourse this mystery of the Incarnation obviously and the Saints of great insites throughout church history into this mystery but it's still a mystery and you're still gonna have to crucify your you're never gonna understand it like you know rationally figure it out right Christ took on all of our sins wounded for our sake would it be wrong to think he took on all suffering since many who reject Christ suffer in that rejection or in lack of repentance yeah there's no distinction here because like you know we're not they're not Christian and that his suffering is they're he's indifferent to the suffering or there all of that uh for them it's it's a potential for all of that suffering to become Redemptive if they offer it back and up to God and participate in his in the mystery of his of his passion uh so uh all of humanity is uh is embraced by our Lord uh there's no yeah I would sure sure he did hope I'm understanding you and replying properly I don't know father I was thinking about going to a monastery in Orlando Florida should I get the blessing of my priest do I have any advice before I go you should absolutely go to the monaster I've been I've begging everybody here go to a monastery go to a monastery you know what happened in the old country what are they doing go they go to monasteries all the time what if you're in Romania they're all over the place there's monasteries all over the place and people are going constantly to monasteries how about in Greece all the time faithful people are all the time going to monasteries going to their local Monastery going to mon AOS it's just what Orthodox do like that this whole dichotomy in America of oh the monastery over there and the parish over here there's like a comp people have like this inferiority complex or something I don't know what's going on oh don't go to the monastery or I don't know it's just weird of course you should go to the monastery go uh call them up say I want to come for a visit I want to go to Vesper whatever or go and spend a couple days uh yeah you should get a blessing of your priest uh if he's denies the blessing I don't think that's legitimate I don't think you in other words I don't think he can veto you go to the monastery I don't I don't see on what on What basis would I as a priest say you have no blessing to go to a monastery like why what am I afraid of what what could what could be bad about that why you know you know unless I don't know maybe there's one in one in aund the priest has some legitimate reason why people shouldn't go to a monastery but genuinely speaking I can't imagine any priest legitimately denying someone the blessing to go to a monastery so and yeah you should always ask blessings of your spiritual father um this is a difference also with I think the old country in America uh nobody in the old country I I think I can speak generally for the old country but definitely for my experience in Greece uh nobody that I ever met said uh the parish priest is going to micromanage anybody in the the parish and expect everybody to come to him for all these little blessings or more importantly demand they all be his spiritual children it's like comical like seriously really like as a parish priest I could I would demand all of you must come to confession to me not happening that's a non-starter if I said it I I just show my total ignorance of reality but I hear that in America and I just I'm just shocked when I hear priests say that in America you can't demand anyone to be your spiritual child this is a this is a decision they make after prayer and and reflection and and it's a serious decision and they have to freely make the decision I could never Force anybody to be my spiritual child that's like gross it's like what you're free go find your spiritual father as long as he's Orthodox and he's struggling I mean Choose Wisely right so these kind of decisions of may I have a blessing they go to your spirit ual father now you might have a priest at your spiritual father then then then you go then the same person or you may not or you might not have a spiritual father yet and you're going to your Parish priest as your spiritual father for the time being but you haven't asked him and there's not a relationship like that right these are serious things we take these things seriously in the church we need a spiritual father and a guide but we also have the freedom and and and responsibility that goes with that freedom to choose and then be obedient to our spiritual father right and so uh the whole question of do I need a blessing do I need a blessing that's the relationship and even then it's not the kind of obedience you find in the monastery the monastery obedience is not repeated in the world it's that level of of of of closeness and observance and you know blessings here blessings there does not happen outside the monastery this is not practically possible and nobody's expecting it you go to blessing you get go to your spiritual father for major and serious uh you know Insight Direction in your life uh but they can't mic they're not going to micromanage or or or be involved in like you know should I buy a red car or a blue car kind of thing I mean okay maybe you can go and ask if you want but that's not nobody's expecting that nobody's uh saying that that has to be there for you to be obedient to your spiritual father uh okay father bless how should I approach my priest who his going to accept a Catholic via chrismation I believe this person will regret not being baptized into the Orthodox Church look you know you're not the priest and you're not the bishop and you're not in charge of that parish and you uh need to respect the the people's Authority if they're making a mistake uh pray for them uh if you think that uh they want to hear your thoughts and you have that relationship go ahead and say you know I'm just want to express this for the sake of saying it because I you know I love you as as a my priest and I love this person I is it you know maybe you ought to rethink this if you have that kind of boldness go ahead say it um if you uh know the person who's going to be received uh and they're open uh you might also say look this is not the patristic way this is not patristic teaching um here's some literature here's what the fathers say I mean I we've done obviously a lot of work on this we think that it's very clear after uh many many years I'm 33 years an Orthodox Christian and uh I've probably spent most of those 30 years 33 years probably 30 years working reflecting reading on this topic and then I've combined with other people to produce the book that that we published uh on come out press uh and I'll tell you exactly what that book is uh I think I got it here yeah so this is the book that we published you can go read more about it on the reception heterodoxy the Orthodox church and if the person is interested and wants to know more you can say go read this book um but I don't think you can do you know much more than just offering uh offering your thoughts offering your prayers uh and uh it's you know I think it's a traged it's a tragedy that today that we have uh this confusion and that uh people are uh not being received by baptism when most people want to be baptized and if you just catechized a little bit most people would say sure of course you know just explain it to me what's going on what does this mean but some people have a whole different vision of of I'm afraid the church itself I think that's where we're at uh I've talked to people I've talked to people priests who are Style style they style them as uh as kind of U experts and uh and they say to me you know you can't baptize I mean so they a different vision of the church and uh it's it's they might not consider themselves ACC humanist but this is an ACC humanist Vision ultimately it's not an orthodox vision of the church so it's very tragic but your position as a Layman is uh prayer U suggestions counil um but probably not you know think wisely about what can be a what can be done accomplished in a good way like you got to do it in a good way it's a good thing to say be baptized but you gotta do it in a good way right not just s not just say the truth say the truth in a way that's the way of Christ and so uh in your position as Layman I think there's you know that's it like you're not in Authority position you're not gonna like make make it happen it's just going to have to be um the the priest himself and the people themselves are have to come to that conclusion they're gonna have to start second guessing their that position that that they should be crism made and that's the process that it's between them and God ultimately and we work very hard to you know share the patristic wisdom and hope that the more priests will understand that this is the way to go but they nobody's gonna force them nobody can force anybody to do the right thing and and virt and virtue is not forced so God pray for them and offer a word I would say can one be catechized through a monastery or only through a parish um generally speaking it's a parish but there are exceptions I mean in the there's there's monasteries at monos that uh try to catechize people who come directly to monos and they want to be become Orthodox they spend a short amount of time and try to cat I mean there's exceptions to every rule generally speaking you go to a parish uh if there's some reason pastoral that the Abbott thinks you really shouldn't you need to go to him then okay there's exceptions it can be done but generally speaking no the parish is the place of catechism thank you very much consciously aware always very gracious for your support again Embrace Orthodoxy can I get a received by chrismation just to take part of the sacraments and later in my life go to monos hopefully to get baptized that's not you wouldn't consciously do that like you wouldn't consciously no no that's not a good idea no um I I don't know your particular situation and maybe you're telling me that you there's no way locally to be received by baptism because the mentality of the parishes there around you are all going to be uh you know that other vision of things uh then you then you want to consider maybe go to mount Athos for a visit before and be received by B I don't know what to tell you pastorally but I don't think you should plan if you know what to do and you know what's right go do it right go do it don't don't don't intentionally do something which is not is not the order and the blessing and the and the first will of God um that doesn't make sense to me there there are many people who who go to mons and are baptized I mean it's it's well known I'm I'm not telling you anything new here this is well known all the Bishops know it people go from all the world and are baptized and monos not like as if they can be baptized locally they will but if it's if it's just impossible and that's that's their options then sometimes that's what they have to do where can I go to verify and look over the with guidance on some theology notes I have if I if I could share a note having felt a good heart I seek out that out by subtle and voluntary struggle okay well I mean that sounds fine to me I don't see anything jump off the page that's weird but uh uh ideally you would go to your spiritual father you're priest you'd go to some uh some catechist some Deacon somebody uh close to you you have a relationship with them you're you're you're your godfather you go to your godfather uh I don't know um to share those kind of things generally don't trust yourself it's good that you want to ask questions don't trust yourself and generally fol focus more on listening reading digesting what the Saints have to say the fathers have to say the lives of the Saints as opposed to speculating and and REM and kind of uh reflecting the speculative reflecting not very profitable it's not I understand there's a process there you're going to go through that process and you're interested in it's a way of for you to consider things and you know maybe you're taking notes and you're you have a diary or whatever that's fine but if you were to put it on the scale of what's going to be really profitable for me that's probably pretty low uh but it is part of the process I remember doing it myself when I was early on I would write you know little articles I would write uh notes I would write things and and it was it was at the time it was good but it it fell away I think over time what were the cultural and ecclesiological issues that led to the fall of Constantinople the cultural and ecclesiological these are like massive like you know three hour two hour documentaries on on this on this kind of question um but uh I'll give you two cents uh certainly the ecclesiological question of the day as you you probably already know was the question of Union with the Pope and the papal West and there was a false Union it was agreed to in Constantinople it's there were unionists and the unionist uh liturgy served not long before the fall and many Orthodox including Saints considered the fall largely due to this apostasy on the part of those Orthodox in constant ople and of course St Mark of emphasis and the Orthodox had separated themselves from the emperor and the patriarch uh and then after the fall of course there was a restoration of Orthodoxy uh and repudiation of the false Council uh so certainly ecclesiastically and spiritually that would be one of the causes of the fall from an orthodox perspective um ultimately that's the that's the major reason right because the con no been around for what 1,200 years and uh 100 years and so you're talking about many times that the that the city was about to fall right fell unfortunately to the Latins and the Western uh soldiers uh the fall of conop was the only time it fell before the final fall what a tragedy what an irony but there were many times when it was about to fall and God saved it miraculously so why not then well because they were not with the grace of God anymore they had fallen away from Orthodoxy they didn't have boldness they didn't have the they didn't have the prayer to stand before God and and and the mother of God I think that's the main thing cultural political we can go on for hours that somebody else can answer that I won't get baptized in the church if I go to and if I get if I go to oh I go to and if I get baptized I won't get Triple immersed so can I get chrismated to partake of the sacraments later on get baptized I'm those correctly I don't know what to tell you I don't know what to tell you I'm not your spiritual father I'm not in your position I don't know your situation but I would say I don't understand why not find somebody to baptize you why would you just wait don't don't rush to get it's not I don't know how long You' been a catak humanum I would ask that was the first question I would ask is how long you've been a catak human if you been if you've would been a catak humanum you know six or eight months that's not a long time uh yeah I I would strongly encourage you to go somewhere and be baptized and then come back and finish you know and go back to the church and U and continue on there that's what I would suggest so I I don't I couldn't in conscious tell you to do something I don't think is the patristic te teaching where is a good place I mean practically I understand what you're saying it's not hard to understand [Music] but you don't have to listen to me I'm just you know do whatever you think but that's that's my gut feeling um and I don't know your situation it's hard for me to to really speak to it in authoritatively where is a good place someone who was brought up in Protestant Faith to learn and explore more about Orthodoxy your local Parish that's that's the best place your local Parish go to your priest nearby um as far as online uh there's a lot of citical places today thank God Orthodox ethos of course does tons of tons of citical lectures you can you can listen to our Channel and then Patric nectar father Josiah tram's channel is that is that what you're talking about in terms of uh in terms of catechism uh try patristic father Josiah trenum there's a lot of other theologically oriented toward protest answering Protestant inquiries there's a lot of stuff online I mean you just search Orthodox you know Orthodox teaching on X you probably have a number of articles that come up um I don't know maybe Justin you can put in any other links for him uh and um that I don't remember right now like good good sources Orthodox info.com has a lot of good a lot of good articles I mean ancient Faith ancient faith is geared toward Protestants if you if you are you know like that approach that they have you could probably get a lot of information from ancient faith on a lot of these little articles and things have been written for Protestant inquirers so ancient Faith would be another place can we pray ourselves or ask our spiritual father to pray on us the ex and prayers at any time and often no you you don't pray yourself you ask a priest to pray the exorcism prayers and you can pray them at any time indeed anytime there's a need There's No Limit let me go over here now start answering the folks over at crowdcast excuse me bless father the Russian church maybe not rore has the ceremony of vesting where a Roman Catholic priest kind of co- celebrates a liturgy with an orthodox bishop and is immediately made an orthodox priest monk well it's not exactly like that he comes in the church and he has to repudiate his heresies uh and I think uh there's a little service there he does out in the Nave and then they vest him so there is there is that at least uh there not even a chrismation to my knowledge I find it a very heretical thing or at least super problematic for several reasons Am I Wrong do other churches do this as well when did this start okay Nick tardus so to my knowledge no other Church besid the Russian Church does this to my knowledge okay so the Russian church is unique this is not an orthodox practice universally it has not been done historically I don't know if any patristic teaching or any any church father or Council that would teach this or or mandate this or talk about this I think it's a development of the last two to three hund years it's heavily uh reminds me of the augustinian view of things it makes sense that it flowed from that and not from uh the patri consensus uh where he basically sees um the church in a position to do these do this kind of reception actually even Augustine didn't even Embrace this totally actually believe it or not this is even post Augustine I don't even think Augustine embraced this idea I think he he took it up to chrismation but the same logic of economy uh of received by by by chrismation uh seems to be implied here but then what we're have now is the idea that they're already chrismated and they're living the life of the church but they're not priests I mean how does that work I I I don't see I don't I've never seen a defense of this theologically like how do they defend this theologically it's just mo more or less by economy we can do this the church does this without meaning anything you know they kind of just write it off to the realm of economy but there the idea that economy is just a free-for-all is totally unsubstantiated and not right there are pre suppositions to economy uh they can't just willy-nilly do things so I really don't know the defense of this I've never seen or heard or in English a defense of vesting except very you know General comments uh so I don't know what else to say about it except that it's not the Orthodox practice like the traditional Church fathers Patria consensus ecumenical councils uh practice um in my my understanding of my experience now I'm happy to be proven wrong if that's wrong but I it does does seem to be very unique to the Russian church and not in the history of the Russian church I mean up for the first 500 and something years of the Russian Church they certainly were not doing this because they were baptizing papal Protestants for 500 and something years so at least from the 1700s on it's got to be 1700s on this practice if not 1800s I don't know where it begins in Russia um I think I think it is problematic I I and I think that it leads to another ecclesiology it might not there may be some Orthodox attempt at an explanation within the Orthodox ecclesiology but comments made by Leading Russian hierarchs that I've read see seem to the rationale is well if we receive them by vesting there for we must recognize their Mysteries therefore they have Mysteries so if that's the logic if that's the logic that seems to Prevail and why they think that whole thought process is not patristic right it's already Beyond The Pale it's not what we see in the church fathers and the Cannons I mean you can't reconcile that with St basil the Great's cannons or or um you know the Canon for instance the 95th Canon of trulo it has particular Heretics particular way of reception everyone else by baptism uh so no mention of vesting no mention ofis of foregoing any of that um there's this idea that in that Canon they're accepting certain Heretics by confession of Faith that's not accurate there is no mention of a Third Way besides baptism and chrismation by economy uh in um you know all the other literature that we have so I think this is a misreading of the 95th Canon anyway this is you can read about it our in our book all these intricacies let's go on to Mary Mary says recently we had a baptism for a baby in the family the the parents were told that the baby would be immersed three times however on the day water was only poured over the baby's head what would you suggest uh why don't you write me privately I don't I I need to know more about it Mary um and I would probably suggest going to one of the church the wiser men than I in one of the monasteries and trying to determine what you uh what you should do I know I've heard uh I mean most people would tell you of course don't sweat it right no problem just keep going no worries uh there are there are people who like athonite Elders that would say no that's that's not that's not something just to let go and um in fact um there's a video in Greek uh that just watched a couple days ago where Elder St yakos of eia uh is telling someone um that the improper baptism that they receive needs to be corrected and I think the corrected way that I've heard about from different spiritual fathers on Mount AOS is that through through at the end of another baptism they they're they're immersed in a in a um in the Sanctified Waters but I don't think that that's something I've ever read in the church fathers but it is something that you hear going on today I don't it's so crazy today that it's really hard it's a lot of discernment is necessary to navigate these things you know unprecedented uh practices that are justified in unorthodox ways and they create super big pastoral problems conscious problems um and it's a it's a it's it's you know it's a tragedy doesn't have to be this way we just do do the do the proper baptism why can't we just baptize just immerse the the person why why is this hard I don't understand my godson who converted from Catholicism and brought a Protestant friend along with him into the Orthodox Church both of these have become critical of Orthodoxy due to the ethnic culture uh they experienced in certain churches my Protestant friends also stopped going to liturgies because they couldn't understand a word in Romanian and felt excluded due to an ethnic wall this makes me very sad but I can't change it as there's no liturgies in the tongue of the country the only thing which came to mind was the prophecy I think is from Elder F that a new crew no it's St pus actually the new crew will come after the war I don't know what else I can do it's really horrible well I think they should watch the interview we did with the spiritual children of father Sarah from Rose you should watch it go back it's a couple weeks ago we posted it it's on our website uh and on our Orthodox ethos um YouTube channel I did an interview with this Gods God children and spiritual children of father Sarah from Rose and she came into the church in the 1960s in the Russian Church there in San Francisco with St John he had just reposed but with father sarap from as her Godfather and there was not a word of English or if there was it was like one petition and father saram has some really interesting counsel for her and she remained in the church besides knowing almost nothing until this very day right what is it 50 years 60 years ago right 60 60 years ago so if she can do it we can all do it so I think there needs to be a certain crucifixion of the Mind here why what are we doing yes we understand obviously the language of the people yes we agree with that that should be a priority everybody can see that what do you do when it's not walk away from the church leave the grace of God you haven't you didn't get catechized well you didn't understand where you're going you don't understand what the church is beyond the intellectual rational understanding of the words there's the participation in the mystery the prayer and the communion of the Mysteries you can't live with without these how did they not get this in catechism they need to go back and understand the experience of the Divine energies in The Divine Liturgy and in the Eucharist that's what they're missing you can't get that at home you're not going to get it outside the church you're not g to get into the Protestant bad idea to walk away from that that's the heart of everything so you know pray that uh there's a lot of things we can do that longsuffering that patience that love will bring much spirit spiritual benefit to them pray and become a part of the solution in terms of the language barrier there's no other option the fact that they think there is that's that shows you they weren't properly catechized if cumans must do a life confession before they become baptized and receive as members of the church is the confession just a conver conversation or is it the mystery of confession therefore are they participating in the mystery of the church before they be actually become members all right so the answer is neither both and how's that you like that answer it is not the mystery of confession per say that happens after the mystery of baptism it's the mystery of confession that happens before it's a different type of mystery of confession it's not sacramental and yet it's not just a conversation there's prayers read and God who works there and is present and the cuman has been made a cuman in the prayers has the person been made a cuman did they have the exorcisms read over them did they confess the faith did they spit on the devil did they Embrace Christ did they go through that first part of the baptism service which is called the making of a cuman this is really important now as a cumin they are a part of the Orthodox people they're no longer heterodox and this is a part of the preparation for the mystery of baptism it's a mystery it's a Mis it's a mystery in the sense of the larger mystery of salvation don't be rationalistic about the Mysteries don't be a a legalistic Scholastic you're thinking a little bit too scholastically it's a part of the preparation for the mystery of baptism the the the sins we forgiven in the baptismal font all right don't overthink it father bless glory to God my spiritual father has given his Blessing for me to attend Seminary did you notice I didn't jump for joy I I pray to God that you make it through and you're you're you're spir spiritually benefited I'm not so sure depends where you're going hate to have to say that but I went to Seminary I went to theological school I spent a lot of years there from 1999 to 2012 I was at the theological school it's not all it's not all you know roses all right so you got to be prepared that you're going to have moments when you're wondering and scratching your head and saying what is this guy teaching me because that's where we're at today there's some there's some doozies out there all right I'm praying to God that you're going to a seminary where that's not the case I'm sure they exist uh but they're not they're probably in the minority today along with much prayer my wife and I are working through the OE reading list particularly the one for those preparing for Seminary that's good this has raised the question do you you have recommended readings or other works for future presas oh that's interesting thank you for the question Jordan the best thing for a future presbytera is to be around another Presa who's an Oldtimer a Pious humble struggling Presa that is the best best thing that a presbytera can do forget a lot of the intellectual Reflections I mean certainly there are good books out there but you know the main thing that a pres is going to do is is going to be support the priest with a lot of sacrifice a lot of time alone with the kids a lot of time praying alone uh and that that's going to be a spiritual struggle of of great a great spiritual struggle and so she needs to be a woman who who who Embraces that sacrifice and Revels in supporting the priest not it's not necessary for her to become you know some great teacher or some great you know social butterfly or some whatever she's got the gift okay she'll be wonderful because she's got the gift but uh those things aren't that important what's important is that she's clinging to Christ and to her husband the priest supporting him in every way she's learning to support the parish uh in subtle beautiful spiritual ways helping the women uh you know getting ahead of Temptations counseling the priest with in terms of spir personal relationships many times women see things the men don't see she can be very helpful to the priest in that way she can help in terms of catechism of children she can help uh in terms uh of baking prosphora uh of of helping uh with uh the the various preparations for Divine Liturgy uh you know during the week maybe she even ends up having to chant for the priest if there's nobody who's coming to Divine Services during the week and there's no priest uh no nobody to chant um it's blessed in that that situation as an economy not as something that is normal like everyday occurrence but as an economy she could help the priest chant the Divine service when there's no one there or nobody else can chant or nobody's coming to the service because the priest is going to want to serve Divine Liturgy often right that's really really helpful and important in his spiritual life and for the people so I don't have any big literature that oh this is a perfect book for a presbytera she's got to read this before she becomes a pres now I don't have anything to offer there are books out there you know I think one or two that I saw over the years that are written by Presa for Presa maybe it was in Greek I can't remember now but those are be fine she reads those are good you know Orthodoxy is a living tradition it's passed down it's passed down from human beings to human beings and the role of the Presa is really important in a parish but it's it's not it's not the it's not the the the role uh that is can be prepared by in an academic matter it's prepared by following the example of a of a self-sacrificing Discerning humble servant Presa that's how the best way to prepare for that father there was good news today about about you today really okay uh Justin who is Chinese Orthodoxy Orthodoxy in China has showed a video which you have talked about who may be a true Christian at some Chinese Orthodox groups online when I saw it uh I have introduced you uh as the following uh a priest who dared to speak the truth in the face of Devil's persecution and threats through the powerful he's also a true missionary of the Orthodox Church attracting Orthodox and non-orthodox Christians to repentance truly connecting with all the saints etc etc and resolutely resisting the the humanism advocated by the second vaan Council well that's Tito oh that's Tito hey Tito thanks Tito appreciate apprciate that that's really nice thanks for sharing that all right we're done with the pr the crowdcast folks let's go back over to our folks over here in YouTube and other places X um so right now we've got who we got here can we pray ourselves or ask our to father to pray okay you already did that one next one is there a way to tell in hindsight if an experience was prelest or theosis uh like a way no it's called discernment on the part of the spiritual father or maybe yourself if you've come to certain spiritual experiences and and insight uh it it's yeah I think there there's no way like you know I got a special way that if you just apply it it you know the answer comes it's called having experience of the spiritual life knowing the criteria seeing the signs of delusion having experience and uh so you go to a spiritual father you go to your spiritual father and you say or you go to an Abbot of a monastery or or somebody who's advanced in the spiritual life and you say what do you make of this is this is this is this theosis or pre list the fact that you're asking it leads me to think that it's preist right because somebody who has an experience of theosis is gonna know what preist is all about but I don't know what you're talking about so I can't really comment were the two witnesses in Revelation Peter and Paul who were both executed by Nero whose name is 1616 Nero tried to create a universal mind system no the answer is no and the answer is no again those are not the two because we know who the two are it's Elias and it's Enoch and it's at the end with the Antichrist uh so are is is that maybe a type maybe it's not certainly not the Fulfillment no is the Third Temple Christ is the Third Temple Christ I don't even know what you're talking about I I'm sorry what do you mean by that my guess is no I never heard this idea the third temple being Christ what do you mean by that do you have to be more specific maybe maybe you're assuming things do you agree that crucifying ourselves reveals our deep sinfulness and that nothing human is strange to us leading to True humility a cry to God and experience a profound Joy through the spirit so if the stench is coming out right that's a good sign right if you're smelling the stench of your sinfulness you're on a good good you're in a good way and uh that means first of all that you're you're praying you're asking God to show you the way you're Desiring self- knowledge you're making some progress in humility and you're starting to see at least how sinful you are and you're starting to smell the stench as it were and so that is a part of the whole process of self- knowledge and certainly uh if you're not struggling aesthetically and you're not denying your will which is a part of the whole crucifixion process right then you're not going to see see your sins you're not going to smell the stench and U so yes I think those two things go together um true humility uh is is is is return deeply to yourself and to reality right it's it's no longer sojourning in the realm of delusion about who you are in the realm of falsehood being a hypocrite being a false uh thinking falsely about yourself having ideas about yourself you you you depart from that land that wandering that delusion right and you come back to yourself where the kingdom of God has now been placed through the baptism and the Mysteries and all that you start to see yourself live in reality with regard to who you are and that is that is the process by which that is humility humility is to see things as they are and not have any delusion pride is a state of not seeing things as they are delusional and and and being puffed up you know having ideas that don't exist in reality that's Pride the proud uh have fancies and imine things about themselves and imagine things about God the humble one is is rooted in re in in reality and he understands the nature or the reason of being of being the reason of the nature of things right why things exist why I exist what who God is that's a sign of uh of deep humility and then of course all of that brings peace and joy because the truth sets us free I read a comment in a video in Greek that said something like by God we live and by panagia we breathe I was wondering if this is a common saying in Greece never heard it never heard that saying first time on that note can can or should Protestants go to a monastery is that permitted or would that be frown upon if you go there with uh you know the the resol the the requisite uh respect um humility I I see no reason why you couldn't visit you have to call of course ahead of time just call them up and say I'm really interested in Orthodoxy I'd like to come and visit is it possible for me to come maybe to visit for a Vesper service or something like that that would be probably the most ideal way to go about that and they'll tell you they'll tell you yeah come or or or whatever and just try it out [Music] sure Grace you as always thank you Father Peter God bless you rough hands okay Dr Krispy Rothchild God bless you as well thank you Father all right Jacob God bless uh what Bible is used in Orthodoxy the Bible that's always been used in Orthodoxy I'm not sure what you mean what translation is that what you want to say what translation there only one Bible right we have it in Greek that's kind of the original at least churches always used the septu in from the Old Testament then the New Testament was essentially eventually everything was written in Greek and so we have the the original in the Orthodox church now translations in English we have several translations done by Orthodox now thank God uh for the longest time the Orthodox would have used probably the King James version uh even though it has errors you know we know the errors but um now we have the Orthodox New Testament from the monastery in Colorado we have uh the the study Bible Orthodox Study Bible which uh uses I think a fresh translation by the Orthodox for the New Testament but then is a modifi I'm not really sure what they did with the Old Testament it's like a modified they use septu but not exclusively I I I don't really understand what what they did with the Old Testament in the Orthodox Study Bible so you'll have to do some research and then there's also another one that's been produced recently I'm not really sure much about that either I I keep on thinking I need to learn more and I don't have time and I don't do it and that is from new R impr press it's called what is it called I don't remember it's got a particular title I don't know the Orthodox New Testament or something I don't know so yeah there's three versions but the one I use is the one I've talked about many times and that's from the monastery in Colorado because I like it because it has great Patrica commentary and that's the way it should be right Patrica commentary is key and and it's a very close to the Greek so two volume highly recommended for study father what is there a situation in E meno es meno is spelled wrong at the mount AOS what are the monks threatened with eviction I just read a letter of thanks from the Abbot of the monastery to the holy community in which the holy Community rejected the intention of the polit the the politicians and the police to forcefully evict them so the last I heard I don't know I'm not paying close attention to this the last I heard was that the holy community did not blessed not agree so that means it shouldn't happen now if the police come in without the blessing of the Holy community that would be a major violation of the autonomy of Mount AOS so I pray that that does not happen I pray that the that the minations of the worldly both in and outside the church do not come to fruition uh of course I you well know if you follow this channel that I'm not an old calendar I don't agree with the stance of the Abbot of the of meno with regard to several issues uh it's very um distasteful some of the things he says just to put it mildly with regard to the Saints at the church I think he's in delusion with regard to several of the saints that he rejects nonetheless any kind of physical ejection of these monks from M meno is a gross uh departure from Orthodox approach ethos everything uh and uh the aites all the aites I know would never want this uh and those that do are you know probably ACC humanists or pro- Ukrainian schismatics or something like this so they're a minority on Athos by far there's few monasteries like that but the vast majority of the monks are not like so this would be a gross disdain for the athonite way the athonite order of things and uh they'd never been for it the aites had never been for this this thing that's people are saying might happen I hope it doesn't happen God help us but it's a mess it's a total mess right I mean they the old the old calends there some of the monks were seen a couple years ago you know physically resisting with like a Molotov cocktail they threw Molotov to I mean that's that's unheard of and and unacceptable as well so it's just a mess the whole thing's a mess God help us how do I prevent losing convert Zeal well if it's true truly from God then it will remain if you remain in God so your prayer rule the fasting obedience to your spiritual father these are the cor these are the corners St these are the these are the U the pillars your prayer rule every day going deeper not just increasing it but increasing your your um concentration and love and prayer and compunction spiritual guidance and obedience to your spiritual father and keeping the fast of the Church of course you're going to read the lives of the Saints all of that right your spiritual regimen the the the program the spiritual program this is what's key that that's what's going to Main maintain the Zeal where the Zeal is going to go when you become LAX when you start to fall into little sins and don't care when you start to leave the prayer Rule and don't care when you start to entertain ideas like hey maybe I can uh maybe I can do this maybe I do that too and be a good Orthodox Christian and all the rest but uh it's possible that you will run into serious days of dryness and that's okay that'll be the test to see if you really love Christ or you just enjoy the grace of God or how much do you love him even though he's not giving you all those little treats right father in regards to the previous question I asked about the Eucharist I want to have a deeper understanding why is Holy Communion not cannibalism like the Heretics say okay I thought I answered it okay I don't know what to tell you cannibalism is eating flesh of human beings that usually are dead right this is God he's alive we don't eat dead flesh we eat living flesh and resurrected flesh and it's not just any flesh it's the lifegiving flesh it's the life of the universe why do you have to make an apology to Heretics you don't have to this is this is a misnomer that we have to go around and answer every heretical objection and every heretical idea right we don't actually have to do that because some of the things can't be answered because their inner life of the church you know there in the ancient Church there was the inner life and there was the preaching dma right the kma was Christ crucified and and and and the and the economy of Salvation in Christ everything else was the inner life we didn't talk about this with people outside the church we didn't go around saying here's what the Orthodox think about the mother of God here's what the Orthodox think about the Eucharist here's what the church teaches about confession we didn't talk about these things with people outside the church none of your business now everything's online everything's this everything's that in the papist and yeah but you don't you're not forced to do it if you don't have look here's the problem the problem is come to the knowledge of the truth and the knowledge is experiential knowledge and the truth is Christ himself and that happens when you encounter the church that the church is the body of Christ in history all the rest all of the many questions and problems and and you know debates and all that are secondary tertiary or unimportant and they'll never really be solved unless the person says I trust and I'm going to come and sit at the feet because I don't know like all these various hets if they say I don't know and until they say I don't know they're not going to become Disciples of Christ in the church so what we needed to give them is the good uneasiness and the good uneasiness comes about by our example first and foremost more than anything and then and only then some good answers to so intellectual problems right because they the reason why somebody's going to want to become Orthodox is they're going to feel like they're missing something right they're missing they feel drawn toward Christ and they're missing the grace of God they're missing the depth of the church and the life of the church so that's going to be something that's that's almost unstated it's going to be something that draws them in without them maybe even their heart is going to be drawn but their mind is going to be fighting even maybe so so the whole like I gotta I got to figure this out and explain it is only to a certain point only to a certain point it shouldn't be the main thing it's not the main interaction with the with the heterodox I hope I'm making myself clear I'm not trying to tell you not to ask your questions I'm happy to try to answer your question but that that's the answer I gave the answer about the Living God right but it's also um there's also a limit to what we're going to do in terms of sitting and and and debating could we say that the core issue that be that recognizing ourselves as stewards rather than owners also explains why Satan is called the father of lies because he claimed ownership of what was God's yeah servants I don't know about maybe even better is servants stewards yeah servant stewards I'm 14 oh right that's right I remember now and was received as a cuman last Sunday so hard for me to go to another Monastery since there's only one in the country my priest lives there yeah you're 14 I don't think you should be received for a while though I mean I hate to tell that to you but I would not run to be received at 14 uh immediately um yeah if you have no other choice like there there's no other way to be received and you're a cumin for two three years then I guess we'll look at look at it when we get there but you just you just made a catac last Sunday just take it easy take time pray first of all pray fervently to be baptized and wait on God maybe things will change in six months or a year and in any case you should not be received quickly right take your time especially if you have parents that are opposed I think you said something about parents maybe being opposed earlier take your time and do not rush um and pray fervently that God might change things and don't think about it right now unless they're ring you to be received and I would say don't allow them to do that you want to be ready to receive the grace of God it's really important that you lay the foundation you go through the process of purification and when you're ready and you're able to receive the grace of God that that you've been through the process right then you're received into the church that can't happen overnight or quickly it takes time so don't rush how does one even approach beginning a life confession just sit down and start writing go go back the earliest memories of myself to what do I remember I remember that I did this I remember I did that and just pray God Enlighten my darkness what is it what is it just go through the whole just go through and start writing down start with the big stuff then Circle back and try again maybe you remember would be jogged and just go through the whole thing get anything anything that's garbage out get all the garbage out all the passions all the angers all the lust all the fornications whatever it is that you've been you've been a part of before a cumin it throw it all out there like and in when in doubt throw it out there throw it out there it's not hard you just got to take it time might take it might take weeks work on it one hour here one hour there pray to God go back again and whatever comes out of it right your conscience your cons God will help you he revealed to you and and but you got to pray you got to pray and ask God to to to reveal to you your inner world and what you did and there are people who've done stuff um you know from childhood and they've supressed it they've been abused they've been sexually abused they've suppressed it uh so there's a lot of people today who've been through a lot and so that's a really important process of getting all the garbage out starting over with new baptism welcome Tony God bless you here in Arizona and Julian Zapata do I have to speak Greek to be an Orthodox Christian of course not you do not have to speak Greek to be an orthodo Christian where do you get that idea no is it good to speak Greek sure you want to read the scriptures in the original language the father's in original language you want to go to man AOS or Greece or whatever it's great to know Greek but do you have to be of course not you know what you have to be humble a repentant a struggler a Confessor right that's what you need to be let's see thank you Father Peter and Justice may God forgive me if my question was abrupt uh all right no worries Costa that's all right you should ask your question I appreciate it unconditional love the coner Theos root formally very good okay any any do we have any more questions let's go to crowdcast do we have any more questions to crowdcast no no questions growcast we're done okay I don't see any more questions maybe they're coming in I don't see them let me know it's been good uh let me see if we got any more announcements how many of you have not seen the trailer let's do the trailer until you got any more questions ask the questions now you got you can get another 10 minutes here and then we're gonna close it up until we go there though I want to share with you a little trailer from a new documentary that we're working on and this is I'm not a part of it directly in terms of like it's not Orthodox ethos it's uh something called holy wisdom fil and it is intentionally uh made as a as a journey to look at this whole situation of Christianity Today christianities the whole idea here is we're gonna have a journey and we're going to go and interview people lots of bigname people that uh can talk to us about what they understand to be Christianity and why are there so many christianities it's a journey to the heart of the faith and it's it's going to be just like it says a journey and we'll see how it goes and we're going to we're gonna explore it and the idea is to get get behind and and find some answers to why are there so many versions and so many ideas and we're going to go back not only uh let's say in time maybe a little bit but also geographically we're going to travel uh and U and it's exciting so here it is it's only a minute and then maybe in that time if other people have questions they can submit them we'll come back and uh maybe you have questions about this I bet most of you have seen this but if you haven't here it is what is a Christian gag maros I kind of do this for a living my name is John Hees and this is our restaurant and in this restaurant we throw this Georgian Supra it's a dinner and it elicits all these toasts and ideas and emotions and inevitably the question comes up what is a Christian an evangelist a missionary a martyr A Healer a saint what is the church Church a denomination of building an invisible body what's Christianity a religion a way of life a revolutionary political movement there's a cultural moment happening right now where the old Christianity has died in many people's hearts and yet if you drive around town you see that it exists why is it so different from one place to the next sh you what you see is not a single Christianity but christianities you see a divided Faith divided by politics by belief by whatever are you driving by a museum or a social club or something else what's inside all those buildings is there something for you there where is God and if you knew where he was would you want to go is there a Christianity that's growing or Dare I ask more true than others we're going to interview people from all over the world and as we do I want to go on a journey with you guys and figure it out our goal is to investigate how people through the Millennia and right now how they see Christianity let's figure out what's going on with all of these [Music] christianities all right there it is Christianity that's my brother John John Hees is the main host the documentarian as they say and we've got amazing uh director his name is uh scooter or Steven Downey he was the director for Tucker Carlson's uh Originals if you watched Dr Carlson back in the day when he was on Fox they had these little doc mini documentaries they producing that was uh that was Stephen's work and now he's the director of this new documentary and uh we need your support to make it happen go over to uh the web page um over at Indiegogo uh this is this is a one of the brochures of the posters we have Christianity's who do they say that I am in other words the denominations who do they say that I am and then different images of Christ representing different parts of these christianities of course the cops on the far left and the Mormons in the far right and and over here second and row from the left is the Protestant in the middle is ancient image of Christ of Sin from the fifth century and the the papal um U what is it Immaculate Heart of Jesus image anyway go over to the uh Indiegogo page and check it out Indiegogo christianities put the put the link there in the chat if you don't mind Justin and if you want to support it make it happen help make help make it happen we really be appreciative but also spread the word we're working hard uh to support this we think it's going to be really important for a lot of people I'm a kind humanum but I notice somebody nobody greets priests by kissing their hand this occurred at both the Orthodox pars of attended is this an American thing oh Lord have mercy yeah well it's certainly not a good thing why wouldn't you get a blessing from a priest you're missing an opportunity he's missing opportunity I don't know I lived in Greece for 20 years I don't know what to tell you what is this yeah it's probably just am Merado doxy I think we're gonna have to do a we're gonna have to do a podcast on a Merado doxy which basically means this there's aspects of like a distortion of Orthodoxy to fit it into the American cultural experience but in a way that's not respectful and and following Orthodoxy right it's a distortion which is not a good thing do any icons of our beloved theotokos feature the son as older like 10 years old or so um there are icons of Christ teaching in the temple studing in the temple that's he's at an older age but in scripture that's really all we have from that age uh span of of Our Lord right and then he goes to his public Ministry so that's it and I don't think he's pictured with the mother of God during that in that icon so the answer I guess is not really no hi Father I was raised in a Baptist then down denominational style church I'm a guy after God's heart and I'm drawn to Orthodoxy it seems in Orthodox the Bible didn't seem to be read thoughts the Bible didn't seem to be read where do you get that idea like the Bible if you if you've looked into Orthodox you may have seen that the Divine Services orthod Vespers Divine Liturgy is literally scriptural passage and quote after scriptural passage and quote like 90% of it is from the scriptures or the Psalms or or or or the prophecies or something right then if you go to the hymnography it's even more there's all kinds of references of the scriptures so the Orthodox Christians have the scriptures at the center of the church they read them at every Divine Liturgy uh they read them many times in Vesper services on feast days they read them uh every and many orthos during the Matten Services we read the gospel as well um I don't know what you mean they didn't seem to read them do you mean after the Bible was mass-produced with the printing press uh the Orthodox peoples didn't like get a Bible in every home or something and do Bible studies is that what you mean by they didn't read them because you got to remember the Orthodox world didn't even have I mean it was way behind at least in the Middle East because of the Ottoman Turks they didn't have even a printing press until long after the printing press was going going strong in Western Europe so I think the patriarchate I mean at least the patriarchate of kople I think it was mid 1700s they got the um they got the printing press and then they lost it again because the Ottomans destroyed it and then they got it again like a hundred years later at the patriarch of conop I'm talking about so of course the Orthodox in other places of the world they have they were pretty in books but I'm just saying it it's got a look at history in in context second thing I would say is uh we don't we don't do Bible studies as much although that's something that's certainly happening in the 20th 20th century in America there's certainly a lot of people you Orthodoxy who are doing Bible studies but we don't sit down and do Bible studies as such because we sit and read the scriptures with the Fathers as I've said a couple times even tonight this is the scriptures right here but it is about this book right here is about that much is CH is a scriptural commentary by the church fathers because we don't read it as if we know what we're talking about like I'm going to sit down and figure this out like right we sit at the feet of the Saints the elders the great the great holy ones who've lived analogous lives and experiences as as the apostles in every age and they open up the scriptures to us and we sit with them and we read with them and we follow the the TR the 2,000 year Patrica consensus and teaching and so uh you know Bible studies me and you going around and saying our opinion is like non-existent and should be like what's the point of that what do I what do you care what I say about the Bible what what matters is people who actually lived it and have been glorified and and and transfigured and become Wonder workers and Saints and Clairvoyant and have all the gifts of God and and the church has embraced and and their voes run run out and their their writings have been have been uh embraced by you know generation after generation and the the consciousness of the church has said these these men have experiences of God they they can I mean St John cusum have you ever read St John Casta read the WR the the commentary of St John costum that's how we read orth in the Bible in Orthodoxy like we read it at the feet of the of the Saints all right I think we're GNA wrap it up it is a solid two hours and 57 minutes and we lose one of our platforms at three hours I don't see oh got one more question and we're done Maria s when you go to receive a blessing from some of the priests at my Parish instead of letting you kiss their hand they make you kiss the epimonia I don't know where they get this stuff is this a jurisdictional thing or most likely something that came out of Co I have no idea never heard of that now I've seen priests say for instance I'll give you this I'll tell you this Maria this seems fairly in legitimate I've heard seen priests go like this and have you kiss the the cross um that seems okay to me but I mean I don't see why you can't just give the blessing it's not my blessing I don't have a blessing to give it's Christ's blessing he's the one that blesses I'm just the hand he's the spiritual you know force behind it all if I'm following Christ teaching Christ and I'm not an obstacle to Christ then you come to me and I give you Christ blessing and then that humility that's how Christ set it up look at the scriptures that's how Christ did it he got the apostles and he said those you know bind and loose if they hear you they hear me he wanted it this way he wanted us to go through the apostles and every and all the successors of the Apostles to him that that there be a a a lineage and a connection and a and a hierarchy that's how Christ established the church not how we make it up and think it and I like it or something so the bless blessing is from Christ all right all right last question I mean I gota I keep saying this but then I keep doing it I'm having a hard time with the loss of my husband I'm trying my best any words please pray for your OS we've done this we've been here I've tried this you've asked me many times and we've given you good answers I don't know what else to say God has to console you fervently pray go to a monastery get connected with a a spiritual Community don't have don't sit around and dwell on it it's God loves him more than you pray to God he is with God you're going to meet him with in heaven I if if you struggle and he struggled and you're in Christ and he's in Christ you're already there it's just a couple years more and then we're going to be together I don't know what else to say we've talked about it God help you good struggles pray fervently and uh and I think you you you're you're dwelling on it way too much you're dwelling on it in a in a way that's not fruitful right so so you got to change change your your perspective your approach uh and focus on living if he was here he would say live live the gospel live in Christ be in Christ struggle that's what he would say right if if he he would say it maybe not then I don't know if George was a very Pious man or not I don't know but he would certainly say it now if he could come back knowing what he knows now all right God bless everybody we'll see you soon it's good good to see you all I hope you can go over and support the the work over at the holy wisdom films Orthodox ethos.com uncom Mountain press.com keep the keep uh keep going keep struggling and we will see you not next Tuesday or Thursday we're taking a week off we're traveling the following week we'll be back good night [Music] [Music] for my [Music] the the [Music]