This discussion provides a rigorous ontological defense of Orthodoxy that sharply frames all external traditions as spiritual failures rather than mere theological differences. It is an intellectually dense exercise in traditionalist gatekeeping that leaves no room for modern ecumenical compromise.
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Jay Dyer with Fr. Peter Heers on Orthodoxy and HeterodoxyAdded:
But u welcome back. Uh we have Father Peter with us. Father Peter hears us. U and it's been a few months since we spoke to Father Peter. Maybe maybe six months. I forget. I think we did a video where I interviewed you and then my camera broke back when that happened. So always have uh tech problems with Father Peter. But um we just did a uh excellent lecture for our Discord server on the Holy Fathers and heterodoxy. And I will include links to that talk below. And of course, I've got links to Father Peter's uh channel and his Uncut Mountain Press and his Patreon, so you can support him.
And by the way, if you do want to support us tonight with super chats, I will be donating uh half of those to Father Peter as well. Uh so you can support that way and then that link will be intermittently put into uh the chat. So, welcome everybody.
We're going to be talking about um some of the work he's been doing lately. He's been putting out a lot of really high quality content, been covering a lot of um excellent resources like Father Surf Rose's book or excuse well it's kind of an unprinted book uh Orthodox survival course and we'll be looking at some other issues that relate to accuminism heterodoxy and uh I told him I'd like to ask him questions that relate to also upcoming books that Uncut Mountain Press is putting out the Apictic Treatise Uh so let's start I guess with the first question which is you had this idea to do a a orthodox survival course lecture series and people can still access that access that on the uh the patreon and let's start with that what is this about this work uh and how does it relate to his thesis on kind of the decline of Christian civilization western civilization and where we are in the modern Yeah, thanks Jay. So, first of all, we did a uh Orthodox survival course 2020 back in August. That's uh six lectures.
It was more about contemporary reality.
And you know, we just started off with Father Sarapim and then we jumped into what's going on right now in the church with the uh uh shutdown of the churches and the the various measures that are being employed. Now uh we're in the sixth seventh lecture tomorrow night of the actual survival course that Father Sarapim wrote. And so I'm going through that you know chapter at a time with the uh those who are participating in our in our in our lectures. We're up to about almost a thousand people now uh signed up uh for our lectures which is which is really uh wonderful and and u so we're going through that work and that work this is the second time I'm teaching this because it's such a phenomenal work and it's uh it's really hoping that the fathers there in Latina will get this out because people need this so much.
This is an antidote. This is an immunity to the spirit of the age, to the the delusion of the age that we're all facing. I mean, it's it's getting it's getting intense and crazy uh every day we get deeper into it. And so, I think people really need to read this book.
You can find this uh online uh PDF for free. So, there's no uh uh you know, no problem uh finding the text. It's it's just not edited. It's just just a transcript. So, first of all, it's it's a brilliant text. Uh it's it's it's a phenomenal text and it is um uh puts in historical context this long process of of apostasy that's going on in the western world and it helps us uh to to to see all the various movements that are going on in the world right now and put them into context. So what he does is he starts with the great schism and he goes step by step uh and he shows how one uh basically the western Christian history is a pendulum swing from one extreme to another. And so you and so once you lose the balance once you lose the royal path of the fathers then it's it's it's going to be always unbalanced.
Uh we talked about this just in the last hour with the with the guys over there that their theology is always going to be unbalanced. is never going to be petristic because it's not coming from an experience of the divine. It's not coming from epignosy. It's from knowledge of the of God, but it's a theoretical speculative theology. And so he goes through this and and one of the most, you know, important aspects of this is what he talks about in the beginning, how it all starts with the great schism. And he quotes Kongar. I got this flying here tonight uh keeping his company. uh he quotes uh heaves kongar uh in after 900 years and in this book uh f kongar who is of course the father of the second second the second vatican council the ecclesiology the second vatican council he shows us uh pretty amazingly how uh from the 9th century to 12th century he says the 9th century Christians of the west would not have recognized the worship and the life and the faith faith of the 12th century Christians. He himself as a as an apologist for for gladdens. So he quotes that and he shows that though he doesn't just quote it, he shows it. He shows it in the spirituality of Francis Bisi. He shows it in scholasticism. And then he goes on and he shows that all of the the rest of the history is just is just an working out of the the apostasy that happened in the in the 10th to the 12th century. So the enlightenment and the renaissance and now we're in the French revolution step by step and he goes through these various sects. One of the most interesting aspects is the the question of chiliasm. He says kilazmos or chileazm is the one of the over the key keys to the modern world. If you want to understand the modern world, you got to understand this heresy of kilazm which is you know literally the idea of a thousand-year reign of Christ. It's a misunderstanding of the book of revelation. But in terms of its spiritual content, it's a utopianism.
It's this idea that on earth we're going to have the kingdom of heaven come.
We're going to establish that. And of course it begins with the heterodox, but it moves on to Marxism. It goes on to the 20th century totalitarian regimes.
And all of this is ultimately traced back to the Chileism of Yokim Fiori begins.
>> Yeah. And then it goes on to the the various sectarian movements, the Anabaptist sects. uh that there's movements he commemorates like the brethren of the free spirit and tabarite movements all these coming out of the reformation and they're trying to force uh you know humanly this idea that we're going to perfect life on earth and and they're actually they're actually commemorated by Marxists I mean the Marxists actually go back and commemorate these Protestant uh uh you know utopianists and so there's that's just one example of many connections that Father Zarif makes that allows us to see the modern world in the right context Another another thing he says is that there's this there's this push for world monarchy which of course will end in the antichrist and he's and he quotes of course Pope Bonafice and Yunim Sanctum and this idea that you know uh of the of the monarchy of the pope around over the whole world and and his idea of uh both you know powers ecclesiastical and worldly uh so I don't know it's just it's a phenomenal work and it it's it it deserves uh to be published and to be circulated widely.
Yeah, there's a there's a a few works that kind of hit on that overarching view of the last thousand years and um uh there's a great book called Cult Renaissance Church of Rome um that goes back to the Renaissance and and actually begins to trace out some of the ideological separations that were beginning even after the the uh promulgation of the Filioquay. But I like that as you said to Michael Cisco in that interview that this was not as many people are trying to cast it a uh geopolitical power structure uh or reduced to a a political problem or reduced to a squabble over liturgy. It's actually a uh ideological and heretical doctrine that relates to an imbalance in the trinity. And uh that's what St. Fio and the mystigia and then St. Gregory Palomos in the Apictic Treatis really rehashes is that what we're getting here is a a ide a theological mistake that will lead to two different types of worldviews and we're really seeing the manifestation of that now.
>> Yes. Yes. I think so. And I think it's why it's important for us not to buy into this idea uh that you know the filioquay is just a failon or the filioquay is uh is really not an issue at all and we can just get past it.
Obviously our saints didn't believe that and and we should not we should follow our saints. St. Gregory Palamas of course is one of the uh uh that text which we're translating we're going to publish God willing soon uh is going to show that he how he saw it. But I'm getting ahead of myself because we're going to talk about that a little bit later. Well, let's uh let's talk about um let's talk about the the notion of accuminism. And I'd like to related to actually in my view the papacy itself is kind of a a longtime predecessor or promoter of accuminism. When we look at the attempts to for example bring back uniates at many times in the past or excuse me to to create the uniates to bring the Orthodox back uh you know Rome would often have these overtures of keep your saints keep your views just accept the papacy uh you know pray whatever creed you want you know presently in the Roman Catholic communion you can pray two different creeds you can pray the the Orthodox creed you can pray the Latin creed so that there's multiple different faiths there's multiple different creeds uh you can actually reject uh saints.
You can accept saints. Uh St. Gregory Palamos for example for many centuries was largely considered heretical and then of course in the 20th century under the overtures of accuminism. Oh now he's accepted as a saint. So we see these reversals and what what I'm seeing here is that really the succumbing to accuminism kind of was already there in a lot of the previous periods and temptations that the church has already faced. For example, if you read Ostram's uh book on um the council of Florence, there's a lot of parallels to Florence and today where there were these overtures of look, just come back to Rome, come into a new union with Rome and we can put aside all of these issues.
>> You know what's different though? I think you're right. The humanism is not new. Obviously, it's been going on and you can go you can see it way back in the day. But there's a modern humanism and modern humanism is a little bit different because you have you have this first of all you have Protestantism which is it didn't exist and Protestantism and it's mu is it makes a big difference and but but the other difference is that among the orthodox uh what I see developing is something similar to what happened in terms of the ecumenical patriarchade in particular what happened to Rome at the schism.
What happened was there was a vacuum of political power in the west and there was essentially an o overrun by the by the barbarians and the church was filled with corruption and the people wanted to reestablish order and they wanted to do it from top down and that's of course a sign of great uh weakness and so they they in Papadaki's book uh uh which is a fantastic book and I highly recommend it uh is um uh Christian the rise of papacy Yeah, there you go. And and in there, it's very clear from all the historical evidence that >> what happened was they they they propped up and they promoted and they and they exalted the papacy in order to to bring order to the western uh uh churches because you had all kinds of simony. You had you had political powers uh appointing and and and and and you know getting rid of bishops and all the rest.
Well, something similar similar happened and you know the devil doesn't do anything new. He just kind of re regurgitates all of his old uh minations. Something similar happened during the Turkish period. Uh and in the modern uh uh patriarchy you have uh a vacuum of political power. You have the patriarch becoming a political power over other orthodox. the room of the Turks uh and the and and that distorted in many ways the internal uh vision of ecclesiology in the patriarchy. So in the 20th century, what's different now, you said, you know, we've we've lived this before in in Florence. What's different is now you have a papacy that is promoting the I mean a patriarchy that's promoting its own papacy, >> its own version of the papacy. And and and just a couple days ago, the patriarch came out and said as much. He said, "Look, we've got to get we've got to get away from a Protestantization of our ecclesiology." As if that's a danger and because we need more of a papal ecclesiology. We need to have a a power in the Orthodox Church in the person of the ecumenical patriarch over over the rest of the church, which is of course a papal vision of ecclesiology. And I think that's the fruit of a lot a long process of dissolution going back to the Turkish period and then in the 20th century the the weakness politically of the patriarchy. And I think people have to study history. We've got to study history. We've got to study the minations of the enemy. We've got to got to understand how he works. The methodology is super important. We cannot only look at the theoretical, canonical, historical, you know, arguments here and there, what happened in certain council. We got to look at the way the devil works because then we're going to see we're going to see is this of God or not. We don't even have to go into the details of a the content.
If you see the demonic methodology work, you know already that something's going wrong. And that's what's apparent in 20th century equinism is the whole methodology is is is a red light goes off and says this is not the way God works. The way the devil works he manipulates, he perverts and through endless discussion and and and um uh you know familiarity and all the rest we we we end up losing our own identity as orthodox. I think that's the great danger today. What is it that is the main source in the orthodox world?
What's the main reason if you could boil it down to a main reason that we are succumbing to this? Is it just uh luxury? Is it the the laxity of uh aestheticism and morals? Is it a whole a whole combination of things? Why why is orthodoxy succumbing to this?
>> Well, the Lord said, you know, you lose the salt, the salt's good for nothing to be thrown out. So the salt is the aesthetic life. The salt the salt is the cross.
assault is the narrow path. Uh and so when you have a whole host of of bishops who didn't who never spent a day in a monastery who didn't go through uh the process of purification obedience to an elder uh they've they've they've lived their whole life in the world uh essentially as celibate priests and that was intentional. If you know the church history of the Greece of the 8 19th century, 20th century, you know that they intentionally they intentionally wanted to introduce the so-called ary man's rights of theology. What are those the people who never work lived a day in the monastery? I mean they shut down the monasteries in the 1820 uh 1840s and 50s the the the rulers of Greece at the time who were European monarchs non-orthodox shut down hundreds of monasteries.
Right? So they they were anti- monastic.
The church of Greece went through a huge anti-manastic period and so bishops for the most part we had a tremendous crisis in Greece in the early 20th century both in theology and life and so then you had the eruption of the so-called organizations the church organizations the Zoey Sotier and all these organizations which were reaction to a secularization and a a centralization and not a life not a not a moral or not but they were heavily infected by Protestantism and Protestant Pythism. So you had one you know had you have this this loss I'm getting away from your an your question but it's important to understand the context you have a loss of the petristic aesthetic hiscastic life among the leaders of the church and you have you have on the one hand some of the best bishops are leaning toward a pyotism which is not the orthodox ethos and you have the worst bishops just being, you know, worldly polit politicians and then you have a small group that are actually still connected to the monastery. And so I think I think you have to you have to know history. You have to know what's you have to go back if you want understand what's going on right now, the last 10, 20, 30 years. You got to go back hundred years, 200 years, and see as as a fruition. It's not something that happens overnight. Uh but in a word it's that we don't have a we're not living the aesthetic orthodox therapeutic program. We're not living the hesiccastic program. Even though it's been touted by academic theologians, it's kind of iron ironic.
You know, you have some very good theologians who are saying look our palamas the heasm is orthodoxy. It's not something came around the 14th century.
It's always been there. It's the core of the orthodox church. that we say that we teach it in the seminaries but we're not living we're not living it as we should.
>> What is you know in your book you you wrote about the uh ecclesiological renovation of uh the second Vatican council and um I would recommend everybody doesn't have a copy of that I've got the link below. You can get a copy of that at Uncut Mountain Press by Father Peter. um how I mean a lot of this relates to perennialism to a new vision of the sacraments that comes out.
I mean it's not a new vision per se but it's a development in the in the Latin west of this basically concentric circles of oh everybody's in communion with the church really even uh you know presumably Satanism is in communion with the with I mean if Hinduism can be why couldn't Satanism be right I mean Hinduism is actually included in the documents of Vatican 2 and though stratate is one of the many paths to to finding the love of God is what it says um how is today's great heresy of this false accuminism related to what could be called an ecclesiological netorianism.
>> Yeah, that's a that's a good term. It's important term and I think it comes from uh Loski.
>> Yeah.
>> Uh at least that's where I found it and it may be somewhere else. So Loski says something that is important here for our ecclesiology. He says that all that can be ascertained rather asserted or denied about Christ can equally be applied to the church in as much as it's a it's a theanthropic organism. And I would wholeheartedly agree with that. And I think that the great temptation of the latter days of the end times is going to be on the ecclesiological level. We got to remember that, right? That it's going to be on the way. It's going to be it's going to be pertaining to the way.
Christ as the way and and and the and the continuation of the incarnation in history. So it's it's the christoologgical and ecclesiological are really intertwined here. And you've got to you've got to see that and you got to understand that denying Christ on the ecclesiological level is denying Christ.
That's a denial of Christ and that's a falling away from Christ. And that's what's happening with accuminism. That's why it's so uh potent because uh you know we believe in the church. We don't con we don't just confess his existence.
We don't acknowledge it. We believe in the one holy Catholic. It's in other words, we believe in it because it's a person. It's Christ. It's it's the anthropic. It's not just a human organism. So if if it if it follows then that just as we could never assert that Christ can be divided, we can never accept that the church could be divided.
And yet the accuminists today essentially have accepted a divided church in time. They make this phony distinction between divided in time and then united in in in in eternity. And and it's just it's just it's it's comical, but it's an attempt to say uh well, yeah, there's this human weakness.
We have this dominance in the world. We have all these divisions. Uh and you know, there's all these different parts.
Nobody can really say they're exclusively the church, right? Vatican 2 was all about this that we are, but we're not really just we're not exclusively the church. And they they that's why they changed the the famous line there uh >> subsist >> help me remember subsistent. Right.
Right. The subsistent line and and so this is exactly what's happening among among the humanists. Right. Their ecclesiology and their theology is very superficial. It it a lot of it is just following after Vatican 2. It's not serious. And um and that's what you know was basically cre was a was an attempt to be you know Vatican 2 for for the Orthodox. And of course it failed miserably. Uh thank God. But um so you know they they want to have the church being one but outside of time. In time we've got this divided church which really is kind of like mystically one but not in reality. And so we're we're walking behind unat gratio and luminentium in so far as they're adopting that. But of course even the encyclical of 1848 and the encyclical of 1895 from from Constantinople to the pope would you know anybody just picks up that reads that it's on the internet you can just see that that's absolutely in congruous with what they're talking about today.
Yeah. But you go to the saints you go to St. Nick of Pendopoulos he's got two volume work on the schism. I mean none of that is consistent with what they're talking about today. So they have abandoned their own tradition. They've abandoned the Kivad's fathers. They've abandoned St. Nectarius and and St. Nicodimos and all these other saints in abandoned and they're talking now in terms of uh imperfect communion uh you know partial churches and and and and being united in baptism. All of that is foreign to the ho the Catholic the holistic the the the the perfect ecclesiology of the apostle Paul and of all the saints. So we can call it an ecclesiological historianism because the church is divided into two separate beings. You got on the one hand you got the church in heaven outside of time and then you got a church in in time. It's it's it's deficient. It's relative in time. It's lost in history. You know and the human nature of the church is divided. It's rent a sununder. Uh it's been separated from the the philanthropic head. uh and the church on earth is deprived of it of its onlogical uh nature. It's not one and holy anymore. It no longer possesses all the truth. It's kind of like searching along with the heterodox.
>> And all of this, of course, is heretical. It's it's heretical. And I think that's why it it's Yeah, I think ecclesiological historianism makes sense uh in this context.
>> Yeah. Yeah, I think a lot of people forget, I'm speaking in general, that the doctrine of the church, as you said, is just as much a kind of uh miraculous revealed dogma as all the other dogmas.
And so, you can't just say, well, look, we all believe in the the trinity and the incarnation. And so, these other things are kind of the, you know, secondary issues. No, no. In the creed, they're all considered together. And the creed says very clearly, one holy, catholic, and apostolic church. the four marks uh which have nothing to do or no mention of the papacy or the the office of the papacy there. It's one holy catholic and apostolic church that is itself uh a a mystery. It is itself as you said the continuation of the incarnation. And so to posit the the notion that we're having to rediscover something that was lost. This was uh we there was a recent discussion with Bishop Baron of the Roman Catholic Church quote unquote Bishop Baron where he says that you know Vatican 2 was trying to uh rediscover the teachings of the fathers rediscover especially the Eastern fathers and the spirit of the east and interject that into the life of the church because he speaks of it as lost. Now how is this the true church if they've lost the petristic teaching and they have to regain it? I mean, these are really, I think, problematic statements.
And what it what it really gets to the crux of is what you're saying that when we say that Orthodox Church is the one true church, that's really what we mean.
It really is the only church.
>> It's the only church because it's the only place that one I mean, there's a lot of reasons why it's the only church historically, theologically. We can all show things that point to that. But at the end of the day, the church exists to heal, restore, transfigure, and and bring to theosis the human person. And and if you're searching to go back to something you lost, if you're in search of uh you know uh what either lurggical life that you lost or the petristic wisdom that you lost, you are confessing indirectly. You don't have that methodology. You wouldn't be searching for that if you if you did. And and that's really key when people say, "Well, how why is the Orthodox Church the one true church?" Just look at our saints. Look at St. Picus the Aanite just reposed 20 years ago. Look at St. Josephus. Look at Elder Am who just reposed last year. Look at their lives.
Look at their teachings. Everything they do and say reminds you of the acts of the apostles, the miracles, the gifts of the spirits, the discernment of the spirits. uh and and and indirectly the Roman Roman Catholics confess this uh in Vatican 2 they accept that the Orthodox church is fully church. There's nothing lacking.
It has a Eucharist and everything. What are we lacking? We're lacking the pope and it it's it's in my book I talk I have a chapter on this. It's really quite tragic. I mean, I would say ironic and and and and laughable, but it's more more it's really tragic because they actually put the pope above Christ in terms of an essential mark and need to be the church. So, we're we're fully churched because we have the Eucharist, but at the same time, we're not because we lack the authority of the Pope and the and we're not under his authority.
So, having Christ is not enough. Having the Eucharist is not enough. We need the Pope. I mean it's it's just uh it's just so tragic that people could actually say that with a straight face and people believe it. Um you know everything is every Christ is all in all in his body.
Uh and it there's nothing more necessary. So even the Roman Catholics confess that we are the one true church.
They don't they don't they don't uh uh uh accept us because we're not submitting to the papacy the the papacy of the of Vatican 1 and two you know but uh that's that's because they're so committed to that doctrine which is delusional but anyway uh I think um uh it is it is the therapeutic method that is missing the aesthetic andastic method that's the key if you want want to know why uh what the big difference is.
>> Yeah, you spoke recently on this in a video uh on the holy fathers and heresy and how today it seems that uh really heresy has disappeared. It doesn't even exist anymore. Um how does this relate to the lack of repentance and the lack of healing and why does heterodoxy lack that ability to heal?
So uh Christ is the physician. The church is a hospital and he is the one who gives and is given in every mystery. He's the one who gives. He's offered he's he's the one who offers. He's the one who is accepted. The offer the offering is accepted by him and he distributes it.
That's what we say in the anafar in the divine liturgy. So he's given and gives in every mystery in the mystery of the incarnation, the church, the body. It's his body. It's theanthropic. And so it's perfect. He he is the head and the his body is perfect. And of course, that means there's no heterodoxy. In other words, there's no delusion in terms of the person of Christ in the Holy Trinity. In other words, orthodoxy is a presupposition to experience of the incarnation. When you don't see orthodoxy, you know that there is no this is not a philanthropic organism. Uh and orthodoxy is right belief, but it's also right glory. It's theosis. It's the uh it's not anything less than salvation, which is theosis.
So if you if theosis is not even a part of your theology, if you don't even believe that you can become gods by grace, if you don't even believe in the divine energies in the mysteries, well then you certainly are not the body of Christ. I mean it's it's it's you're denying the very essence the very the the the the internal life of the church.
If you don't if you have an idea that grace is created or you don't accept the holy eukarist as the body and blood of Christ everything from that point it flows everything flows from that. So, so by their own confession, they're saying, "We're not the body of Christ. We're not the experience of theosis, and we're not uh we don't and so we're not healing the human person." And so, it's inseparable.
The way and the truth, the dogma and the ethos, they're inseparable. And if you don't see both, you're not talking about Christ. you're talking about a a man-made organis organization, not the organism, the theanthropic organism. Uh and so that's a falling away. You know, the when the presuppositions are met, even for those in the body, they have to meet the presuppositions that is repentance and faith. That's the personal part that we bring to this. But that what what Christ is offering is totally and 100% there. So, uh, you know, you could be in the body and you could be in orthodoxy and not participating in this divine mystery because you're not fulfilling the presuppositions. But if you're not even confessing, you're outside the gate.
You're outside the the the the the house of the Lord. You're not even in the realm of of participation in the divine energies. If you're not even confessing the ba the basis of our life in Christ is the confession of the faith. That's not our life in Christ.
Our life in Christ is trust and communion. But if you don't have that, you're not you're not going to be able to participate in in the communion with the head, which is the the mysteries.
>> Uh one thing you mentioned earlier in the in the Discord lecture that I didn't put in in our list was uh you were speaking on the common factor. What's the commonality between the great heresy arcs? Uh and and you had a really good I forget how you phrased it. We had a really good uh exposition of this. What would you say?
>> I think I think you're talking about St. John Clemicus that what's common among all heritage >> is the pride, the stance of pride. Is that maybe what you're referring to or is there something else?
>> Yeah. Could you go expound on that?
>> So, so humility as I was talking about is basically just being in reality. It's being in the revelation. It's being in the reality of God, right? So if you fall away from that stance, that communication, the communion with God, uh you've you it's because you you've fallen away from self-nowledge and humility. You no longer see yourself.
You no longer see God. Uh and and you fall away. And that's pride. Pride is basically delusion. Not being in reality, not seeing things as they are, right? not not accepting God as he is and not accepting yourself as you are.
So to be saved and to be on the path of salvation you have to come to self-nowledge and you have to come to God knowledge. The nosia and aosia in Greek those two things are inseparable and the the the heretics fall away from self-nowledge because they're not doing the therapeutic method of the church.
They're not seeing themselves. They're not repenting. They're not uh in reality, right? They don't see themselves as they really are. Their sinfulness, their their blindness, and they and just like Satan, I mean, Satan was the greatest of all the angels. He was Lucifer was the greatest of all angels. He was the brightest of all. And that brightness, of course, came from God. It didn't come from himself. And the minute he stopped recognizing that reality, he fell from communion with God. And that's pride. Pride is not recognizing, wait a minute, I'm not the source of this light. He is. And so, he turned in on himself. And then he lost communion and then he lost self-nowledge. So he actually he actually all of us who who do not who who not have any self-nowledge, we are imitating Lucifer. We're imitating the fall of Lucifer. We have to come and see who we really are and see who God is. And in that context, continually repenting, continually oriented toward Christ, continually uh seeking the face of God.
And it's a continual orientation. Never never stops. Repentance never stops. It doesn't just begin and then you're there. You've arrived. You know, like this idea of once saved always saved is such a such a mockery of the meaning of the preaching of repentance. Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. What does that mean? Reorient yourself entirely toward me and see yourself and see who I am. Come to self-nowledge. Come to God knowledge. and then remain in that state the rest of your life because that's salvation. That's communion. And so the the the the heretics have that in common. They fall away from that reality and then they're blind and they don't see who God is and then they teach heresy.
>> Excellent. One of the things uh that's being really pushed is originism and they're trying to revive origin and say that he actually was misrepresented.
He's really a pious man and all this stuff. Um even though uh three ecumenical councils uh ent two entire ambigua of St. Maximus are dedicated to refuting origin or and originism and really it would seem to me that the attempt to resuscitate him is because he serves a very important usage for perennialism and accuminism. Uh you if you adopt originism you can bundle all the religions under some kind of you know overarching skeletal religion of neoplatanism or something like this. Um, is that a an example of uh do we want to be discerning in this way to pick out these kinds of uh subtle uh tricks that are that are using the oh let's we got to rediscover origin let's rediscover notorious let's rediscover all these ancient heretics and see how oh really they weren't heretics. So contemporary academic theologians who buy into this and go this route have have showed in their stance toward the ecumenical councils and toward the holy fathers that they don't have self-nowledge >> right >> and they don't have knowledge of the church I mean how can you stand in the 21st century and and and p and and suppose that you can know better and doubt the decisions of ecumenical counselors and saints That alone tells me something's wrong.
And no saint of the 20th century would have had that stance. No saint Pidios, no saint picios, no nobody who's who's who were celebrating today as saints. So I would ask them I would ask whether they be laymen or bishops or whoever they are who are saying these things who are re rehabilitating heretics you you know you as an academic theologian you want to examine all that fine but you cannot pass over and speak in a way the church never spoke about these people and rehabilitate them without you know as if you can stand in judgment of their decisions. It's just the height of arrogance and it's tragic. It's a tragic statement and it definitely is a part of the spirit of the age which is yeah you know again heresy doesn't exist. uh you know we need to we need to just I mean that goes along with the very teaching that he one of the teachings he was condemned by which was universal salvation right it's it's a part and parcel of the spirit of the age that stands unfortunately >> welcome everybody we have 440 plus live viewers and a great audience tonight I want to thank father Peter hears for joining me if you would uh be sure and hit like and share and we're talking about uh the spirit of our age the tower of babel and the attempt to dilute and destroy for the Orthodox Church, which of course we know is not possible.
Nevertheless, they will try to do this.
Um, you spoke in one of your talks or excuse me, I think it was one of the videos that you featured on your site about today's Cesaro papism. Could you speak to that issue?
>> So, cesopropism is this idea of the church submitting to the state and uh allowing agents of the state, >> right?
>> Uh to dictate the internal life of the church. And unfortunately, we're witnessing that right now.
>> Yeah. with COVID and all the rest and you know I mean the the difference here is that there is this this idea that well we have to submit for the sake of the health of the people and you know some people are some are doing it without the state's pressure others are doing it like in Greece under the pressure of the state so there's a variety there's a whole spectrum of of of this and some of it can't really be called ancestral papism if they're doing it on their own and they're shutting down the churches but it is you know it is reminiscent of uh what I would what I would say it reminds me of surgeonism in the Russian church in the 1920s we had patriarch s well he wasn't patriarch he was a local tenants he was not patriarch until the end of his life in the 1944s and even that was you know uh under the pressure of the the total totalitarian state uh and with their approval but any case he was um the locom tannins which means basically the temporary administrator of the church because the Russian Bolsheviks would not allow a patriarch to be elected. And he recognized essentially uh the Bolshevik powers which the church had refused to do and and and even says you know the the joys of the Russian state and the Russian people and and and the sorrows. He kind of he he identified the church with the state in a way and and many and in his day rejected that rejected him and communion with him. Uh and many of them became uh u saints of the church because they were exiled they were martyed they were confessors. Uh and today we we celebrate their memory in the church.
But Sergius we do not we do not celebrate his memory. He's not considered a saint and he his his witness is rejected. So that and then that whole stance that happened then until the until the 1990s at least uh is uh is called surgeonism but it's really just a a central papism a new form of soism which some people want to support and say well look didn't the patriarch of kinople do the same thing underneath the Turks didn't we see similar things happening during the Turkish period they were forced and and look uh Even if there is some historical precedent, we don't judge things on the basis of historical precedent. There's plenty of historical things that went wrong in the church, lots of false councils, lots of bad ideas and bad stances, lots of things that were just tragic. You know, we don't have to blame anybody. They're just tragic events. We're going to go back and say, well, let's justify our stance today on the basis of that which happened in the past. So, I think that um it is it is it's we're going to have to come to some kind of selfawareness here. What's going on in the church today is totally unjustifiable. We cannot allow the state to dictate our in internal life. And and right now in Greece right now, we have a shut a lockdown until December 14th. And the state has closed all the churches. And now the the just yesterday or the day before one of the people I think the main person in charge of whatever is public safety, whatever they call it, he came out and said, "Look, we're going to have to we're going to have to ban holy communion because we have a lot of people getting sick." And of course, he doesn't believe in in in holy communion and doesn't care. And he says we can't uh we can't allow people to have divine liturgy again. So right now we're we're having divine liturgy with five or six people in the church 10 people and he wants to shut it all down and not have anything. Now it the church is already the hierarchy not the church and the and not the entire hierarchy not not the 80 bishops but only 10 or 12 or whatever is on the on the sitting hierarchy uh holy senate has allowed all this to happen has gone along with it has blessed it and now we may be facing a decision well are we going to actually shut everything down and not do any liturgy at all but already we've departed I mean the people of God are not being fed with divine liturgy with with holy communion It's it's unconscionable for I can't imagine being in the position of a bishop and saying to my priest don't give holy communion or don't open your churches or turn the people away.
It's uh it cannot be justified. I it's better to be persecuted. It's better to suffer. It's better uh to f suffer fines or whatever it is than to do this. And there's of course people say well there's a basis. It's health. Look, if we don't believe as Christians that Christ is the health and the healing of the world and the holy communion and the grace of God in the holy temple are what is most needed, then what are we what are we doing as Christians? Uh we we've lost our way. So I think that uh I think we we need to understand this whole phenomenon of sexual opism. We need to we need to call upon those saints who fought it and uh and understand and this is why again why you need to know history. You got to know history. You got to know what the saints have said in order to understand what's going on right now in the church.
>> Shifting gears a little bit. Uh one of the key issues that comes up between both Protestants and Roman Catholics as opposed to orthodoxy is the issue of the uncreated energies and so-called palamism. Could you speak to the energy's doctrine and why quote palumism is not a school of thought or an opinion but rather just orthodoxy itself?
>> So first of all it's obvious from the tome of the athanites that who supported St. Gregory. It's obvious from the cinnids that happened three of them in the 10-year scheme uh time period. It's obvious from the stance of the saints since St. Greg St. Gregory Palamas St. and Nicodemos for instance of the Athanite who worked on worked for I think a year worked on collecting and publishing all the writings of St. Gregory which unfortunately was lost in a fire I think in in Vienna which was one of the most tragic things that he he experienced in his life he he adored St. Gregory the Athonites adored St. Gregory from the day I mean he was glorified almost immediately. He's one of the quickest glorified saints in the history of the church. So the church the church's conscience the church's experience historical from his time to our day has embraced him and and there's no doubt in the Orthodox conscience that he has he is a great father but his teaching as well of course has been embraced. And it's it's comical to think that he's an innovator. It's just comical to think anybody who knows him and then knows his writings and knows what he did cannot consciously hold that he's an innovator because that's what you're saying when you say polyism is a is a creation of St. Gregory in the 14th century. You're saying he's an innovator.
>> Yeah.
>> You're saying he's not following the holy fathers but that's exactly why he's celebrated in the Orthodox church because he is following the holy fathers. And it's unconscionable for us to have saints who don't follow the holy fathers. That's a basic identity of every Orthodox saint and every Orthodox Christian and of course every Orthodox cinnid and that's how they begin uh following the holy fathers.
>> Yes.
>> Uh I just lost the Greek uh essentially you know it's it's it's that's how they begin the decisions of the ecumenical councils. Uh so as far as the divine energies, you can't understand life in the church without the divine energies. I mean immediately it just all becomes it's it's we're we're phil we're going back to Plato and the philosophers and we've lost our way. I mean you it doesn't make any sense. Of course the divine energies and I as I said in the in the talk an hour ago, you have the distinction of divine essent energies but you also have the distinction of the energies themselves. The energies in the church, energies outside the church. And without those without that distinction, you can't make sense of why and where the boundaries of the church are. Why the why it this whole process of purification, illumination, deification begins with baptism. Uh and and outside the church, the divine energies are working, but they're not the divine energies of purification, illumination, and deification.
>> Yes.
>> Because they presuppose our willingness and our embrace and our yes. I mean, the mother of God had to say yes for the angel. You couldn't just say the angel came. That's it. We've got you. We've chosen you from all ages. You're you're the one for the incarnation. And she has to say the yes and we have to say yes.
That's the presupposition for us to begin the process of uh of salvation and of purification. And that's the orthodox teaching. So without the divine energies distinction, you can't make sense of any of that. So it's everywhere in our prayers. If you read the prayers before holy communion, if you read the prayers, it's all there. It anybody who's praying in the church is going to see uh this teaching and it's really not uh not hard to to spot.
>> There's a a really great insights too from St. Maximus where he comments on um how the fact that the cosmic scope of Christ's redemption will affect everything in terms of nature. It does not follow that every being or person will participate in Christ in the same way or the same mode. And for example, this is a big mistake that somebody like David Mentley Hart makes where he takes that first statement of Maximus of the cosmic scope and then says, well then it seems to follow that everybody will participate in theosis. And no, no, no.
This is why there's a distinction between nature and person because each individual hypostasis has to activate or recapitulate to actualize the potential for virtue that he has. The the potentia doesn't mean that they've actualized it.
That's what you're saying. that synergya that synergy is necessary to actualize the theosis. You can't just be and be and participate in theosis. It requires >> uh the the active as Paul says um it is him who works in me. He calls him he says I'm a coworker with God working the power that works in me and I also work.
So Paul consistently uses that synergy language. He doesn't say anything about oh well we're all just uh because nature is restored in the escaton we're all saved. And this is again a failure to uh actually to follow the holy fathers. I mean they all say the same thing. They say that yeah you have to actualize and participate in theosis to part to to to have theosis. It's not just a state of being.
>> Absolutely. And and it wouldn't make it doesn't make any sense if you don't have those distinctions because then everyone would be either I mean not everybody's glorified, not everybody's deified, not everybody is. So obviously it depends on our participation and our synergy.
Otherwise it would just be an automatic Yeah.
>> I mean it's like a it reminds reminds you of you know u there's no will there's no free will. There's it's this it's >> Yeah. It would be a kind of Calvinism of sorts. Yeah.
>> What's that?
>> It would be a kind of Calvinism or Protestantism where it's >> Yeah. Yeah. It of course. Yeah. Um, >> the the soon the soon-to-be published Appidictic Treatise on the Holy Spirit by St. Gregory Palmos has a very negative appraisal of the Latins early on. Why are so many people intent on ignoring this fact and desiring to create a new Gregory Palamos that is not that Gregory but some other guy?
Well, they want to reshape him in their own image and but a lot of it's just a lot of it's just >> ignorance, indifference, worldliness, ambition. You know, it doesn't pay to be uh to be an anti-humanist today. You know, it just does not pay. So, academic theologians are not going to get behind that. I remember having a discussion with a prominent academic theologian in one of the Latin Uivers in America. Uh I'm not going to say the name, but you probably figure it out.
And he um you know he was telling me well you know you know St. Gregory I'm told by my friend so and so who's written a book on Aquinas that say Gregory was very positive toward Aquinas very positive toward the uh scholastic scholastics. I said really have you read have you read his epiductic treaties on the Holy Spirit? He said no I hadn't read it. No. And I said, "Well, here's here's a here's a here's like a passage from, you know, and the passage the passage happens to be one of the first like the second paragraph of the of the treaties." And he essentially says that the Latins are organs of the organs or or or or willing uh easily manipulated organs of the devil. I you couldn't get much stronger in terms of his dismissal of their uh their status in terms of the church. I mean it's very strong. He he equates them to the Aryans. He equates them to the Aryans of of his day. I mean the the reach of the heresy. Of course that's going to be politically incorrect. People aren't going to want to say that. We've got accuminism. And so I think that that's you know there's just a denial of reality uh in terms of who St. Gregory was and what he's doing.
This was his first basic treaties, right? This was the beginning of his work. This is before he started his other work. So you if you want to be a scholar of Palamas, you need to understand the context. This is where he began. He was fighting the delusions of the west. And people come and say, well, no, Barlam and you know, they weren't really from the west or they were h No. I mean, please, it's obvious that that's the whole trajectory here. That's what's going on. Yeah. and his this treaties is where he begins and this is the context. So, uh you know, I I think that um it's going to be very good once we get this published. It's going to be very good because it's going to bring a lot of sobriety to a lot of people hopefully.
>> Yeah, I think it's help.
>> Yeah, I got a chance to read it and it was it was very powerful. It was an excellent >> restatement. Anybody who's read the mystigio of St. Fodius knows that it's really just fleshing out a lot of those same arguments. And so I would recommend if somebody wants to go to the Uncut Mountain Press link and you can pre-order uh that work. Who are some of the elders and saints particularly relevant for uh our day, Father Peter?
>> Well, there's quite a bit in 20th century. Thank God. 20th century is going to be known, I think, as the the century of the aesthetics.
And I think uh the 21st century I'm following the metropolitan uh neopos of of morphu in this in this estimation. It's not my own. Uh the 21st century is going to be the century of the martyrs and the confessors. Uh because what you see in most of the 20th century of course you have the confessors in Russia of course you have the Russia Russian church but in the Greek world for the most part you have great aesthetics. You have St. Pusus of the holy mountain. You have St. Profidio. You have St. Joseph the Hessicist. You have uh in Georgia you have St. Greg Gabriel. Uh in Romania you have great elders and aesthetics uh too numerous to really uh to to to enumerate but uh Cleopa and Picios and and others.
Uh and so I think that uh but in terms of theology, if we want to talk talk about theology in the 20th century, I I really think everybody needs to read St. Harian Trosky. St. Laurian Trosky. He's got several things in English. You can find them all online on holy scripture in the church, unity of the church, Christianity or the church. Um and I think one more I'm not for remember.
Anything you can get by St. Harian I highly recommend uh to begin there. If you want to say what's orthodox theology, what's this all what's all about? He's the first major Orthodox theologian to respond to the to the ecumenical movement in 1912 or 13. He he writes a response to a Anglican >> who he's corresponding with at the very outset of this and he gives essentially the Orthodox response right off the bat.
I mean if we would just listen to St. Harian we would have no problem in the 20th century. It would we would be free from a lot of of these temptations. And then then you have of course the great Serbian St. Nikolai Vovovich and St. Eustine Popovich central reading uh especially St. Eustine in terms of dogmatic theology and uh and then in America you have father sim rose who uh is uh remarkable uh I don't know if he'll ever be declared a saint doesn't really matter he's revered by many people in the church as a saint but that's the irony is that you know a prophet is not honored in his in his own homeland and that's the case with father sarapin but whereas when you go to Romania Serbia Greece uh anybody who knows him and reads his writings thinks he's is a saint. Everybody I've talked to and I've been involved in the publications of his works in Greek where I I wrote the preface to several of his works and helped translation. And so I I know firsthand that he's revered in this part of the world as a saint and they love his writings. They love his prophetic voice uh which is you know desperately needed today. So I would say those are some of the you know some of the ones I would point out right away.
Um, Elder F of course in America who just reposed is going to I I predict it's not hard to predict he's going to end up being one of the greatest saints of the 20th century and be going to be revered uh by the Orthodox around the world and he'll probably be glorified very quickly in my and I don't know if that's the best actually believe it or not because that might have behind it some ulterior motives uh and not not an organic thing, but but I'll take it. If he is glorified, I won't argue. But this there's this thing going on that we're glorifying and there's an agenda behind and um so it it kind of kind of uh complicates things, but as God allows, let it be. Can't do anything about it.
So he's our saint to the church even if they're glorified by people who aren't uh rightly uh dividing the word of truth.
>> Yeah. Uh and uh so I yeah I think I think it's a it's one of the ironies again in America Elder Aph did a work I mean God did a work through him which is unprecedented in the history of the church unprecedented in the history of the church and yet you have people who are you know violently opposed to him and his monasteries which all that does is confirm the great greatness of his work because if you had people like that in his jurisdiction fighting him and yet he still was able to start 19 18 monasteries and I mean that's just you know and what he has like 13 or 10 or something in in Greece and just tens of thousands of people who who consider him a scripture father I mean it's just unprecedented in history of the church and yet people are so so blind to uh to this reality you know and they refuse to they don't even want to hear about the monasteries they want to go there because of whatever. You know, we need to humble ourselves. We we need saints in in America. We we we don't have the luxury of saying, "I'm not interested in in this great elder of mine out there." So, anyway, there's a few few names for you just >> Okay.
>> off the top of my head.
>> Um any last uh things you want to leave us with before we go to the Q&A uh section? And by the way, I'll remind everybody that I'll be splitting these uh super chats with Father Peter. So if you want to support his work and my work uh you can uh use the super chat function through streamlabs. Anything you want to leave us with before we go to those?
Yeah, I think the big challenge coming up is going to be uh what is the church and the elders of the church, the fathers of the church going to do with a very uh difficult and imminent challenge to the freedom and the identity of the Christians in terms of the great reset that's coming uh and the uh and the vaccine. I think that's going to be a major div dividing point among the Orthodox. uh you're going to see people who are going to see no problem whatsoever to embrace all that and then you're going to see people of course who are going to be violently opposed to that and we need to have orthodox voices and clarity and uh so I'm praying for that and I'm I'm looking for that because uh it's not far off uh there's a tremendous amount of questions and problems of certainly the orthodox should be opposed to any mandatory vac vaccination anything that's mandatory and takes away the will and the freedom of of the Christian believer both his religious freedom and his personal uh freedom. I can't imagine any Orthodox Christian saying we should be poor mandatory vaccination. But even if it's not mandatory, of course they're going to make it mandatory in the way that they're going to they're going to take away your ability to circulate and and have a job and you know that that's essentially mandatory. Uh anybody who says yeah yeah you you need to go along with that and just submit and take the vaccine. I I can't imagine that that doesn't come from an orthodox consciousness. Uh it's not expressive orthodox understanding of the human person, the freedom of the human person.
And then of course the whole apocalyptic aspect of this that that if it's true, I mean what we're hearing if it's going to prove true and that's that's a big if. I don't know. We're going to see. Um you know there's there's a there's a lot of the methodology again. Look at the methodology. The methodology again is very problematic. It's not the way of God. And uh you know, you can say I'm I'm all for health and and and and I don't see why Orthodox should be opposed to vaccines. We have many vaccines. I've heard all that. Wait a minute. What how is it going about? How it goes about is very important. not just what uh and and you can see from afar already that the methodology is very problematic and should should so I think that's what's that's what's going to come up and God help us that we have some clarity on this going forward >> Tim for $1 and Tim for $1, God bless you all. Uh pray and what's up to the Orthodox Christian Discord. That's the Discord that we have. Of course, people have been putting that link if you want to join us there. We approaching 5,000 members there in the Discord. So, uh, be sure and join us if you're interested in Orthodox, uh, approach to living in life. Atris, for $5 is great interview.
Thank you. Thank you. Atris Luan for $10. Uh, Father Peter, do you have any recommendations on a prayer rule or what do you do?
>> Yeah. So, prayer rule. People ask me that all the time in our in our lecture series over at Patreon. And so, depends where you are. I mean, you need to have a spiritual father. Everybody should have a prayer rule. Uh a part of that prayer rule should be the Jesus prayer.
I know there are priests who say no but I I disagree with that. I mean St. Gregory Palamas came off of Mount Aos went to Varia came back to Thessalani and he met with the patriarch at the time Isidor and they taught the people the Jesus prayer. This is 1400s 1300s in Thessalani and they're teaching actively. They're sitting and teaching the people the Jesus prayer and the hesic way. If St. Gregory can teach it, we can teach it too. anybody who's opposed to the lay people doing the Jesus prayer, they're not following this example of the saints. Uh and uh so I think you got to have that's a part of your rule. So you're going to have the morning prayers. Of course, you're going to wake up and do the morning prayers.
Then you're going to stand in front of the icon corner with a with a oil lamp lint and you're going to take your prayer rope and you're going to say you're going to say I don't know start with 300. That's that sounds man it sounds like a lot 300 but it's really about five minutes and 10 minutes most if it depends how you pray how quickly you pray uh to Christ Lord Jesus Christ have mercy and then you then you do onethird of that to the mother of God most holy do save us that's a real minimum like start there build on that if you are if you were a uh and then of course in the evening you're going to do compline you're going to do compline or evening prayers that's a bare minimum uh and you're going to be reading the lives of the saints right and and scripture on a daily basis. If you were a just to give you a context here, if you were a a novice on that athos, uh what would you be doing? What would be your prayer role? And I can't say you know all the noviceses, but my experience, right? And I think this is general generally the case. You could be doing um the 900 to 1,200 with uh Jesus prayers with the cross. In other words, you're making the sign of the cross with every prayer. And then you do maybe 600 to 900 more without the cross. And then you would do one-third of that to the mother of God.
Then you'd have probably 100 to 150 to 200 frustrations. That's a novice amount that aos that's not a monastic that that would increase depending on the monk and his ability and all the rest. And you know numbers is not important. The numbers aren't what make the monk right.
It's it's it's the prayer the the quality of the prayer. But with zeal and with time numbers do increase.
So to give you just give you a sense of where where where am I you know how much would I be praying. If you're a beginner on an athlete you're going to be doing that kind of rule. So we who are little babes in the faith and we're converts and we don't know much. We're going to start the very very bottom of the rung there. 300 to Christ 100 to the mother of God every morning before you start the day alone with God.
Okay, doorman 360 for $5 says, and he put this twice, so thank you for that.
But he says, "Would uh Father Peter, would you say that the American jurisdictions focus only on receiving converts and heterodox throughmation uh as a result of ecummenism? or do some jurisdictions why do some jurisdictions steadfastly refuse to baptize?
>> So that that's a good question. I appreciate that. So there's a there's a spectrum. There's a spectrum of people.
There's there's people who are who are doing economy bishops not many but a few who doing economy and they believing and and and holding that they're doing it in the spirit and following the holy fathers. They're not in they're not interested in innovating and they believe that by doing crisismation by accepting by crisismation uh you know Protestants who are who are uh maybe baptized like Baptist once or Roman Catholics who are just sprinkled whatever is a there's a spectrum of of heterodox practices 95% of those practices are not going to be by immersion and they're not going to be by immersion three times. So you have you don't have the eccia there. You don't have the the churches that understand the baptism. So but they believe that by received by crisismation they're in the they're in the mindset of of the holy fathers. I disagree with that. I don't think that it's justifiable today. I don't I don't think people should be received by crisismation. I don't think the kivadi fathers who are the only church fathers who systematically dealt with this question they would not they did not agree in their time in the 17th century to receive Roman Catholics by psmation.
They said that the the form is not kept and therefore the presuppositions don't exist. So that's but that's a group of them. And then you have a large group that is uh kind of confused and they have Protestant ideas about ecclesiology and they think that crisismation is done and this is not not an orthodox understanding. crisismation is done because they have the grace of God in the mysteries that they they participated in uh the the rights they participated in as Protestants and therefore they're received by crisismation and they're fulfilling that which is incomplete. That's a big swath of people in America. They think that that's that's the case. Uh but that's not a petristic teaching in my understanding that can't be justified.
They don't talk about mysteries outside the church in that way. It's validity does not mean grace. It means form, >> right?
>> And so it that does not seem to be a Petristic teaching. Then you have a growing number of people who have a clearly accuministic mindset and they are saying that it's one baptism. All mysteries were were essentially a divided church and that unfortunately is a growing number of people either because they're committed accumulist or they're ignorant. So I think there's a spectrum from people who are committed to orthodoxy but are I think they're mistaken but they're doing it in goodwill. You have people in the in the middle who are just confused and they're doing it because that's the mindset they have coming from whatever they're coming. Then you have people who are intentionally trying to change the orthodox teaching and trying to use this practice and and reinterpret it in a humanistic context and ecclesiology.
That's the worst part. That's the most dangerous. They actually say we charismate because we're one church or there's one mystery or there's unity and that of course is not, you know, not a petristic thing. So, so it depends. It depends and and it would be oversimplification and an injustice to the question to say everybody's in one group or another. uh and you know I don't and I don't slight people and I'm not I don't judge people because they um they think that you know uh they should continue in the practice of economia uh in this case I I just don't see it I don't see it in the kivis fathers I don't see it in the practice of the mount aos and so you know I'm committed to that uh personally >> one uh thing I noticed recently that father deacon Dr. Ananas and I encountered a little bit different topic but does relate to this is the question of uh the Roman Catholic Eucharist and a lot of people like to cite the confession of dyio because of the phrasiology of words like transubstantiation although what's ironic is that I think it's about uh section 17 it actually says that the Roman Catholic Church does not have the Eucharist so the very thing that a lot of people want to uh run to the confession of dosytheus literally says says that no one has the eukarist except the orthodox bishop. So this is actually not a very good argument. Uh and just ironic given the fact that people mistakenly think that because of a word like transstantiation is there that it's going to be an accuministic doc document.
>> The docu the document actually says they don't have the eucharist which is a a pretty >> I think it's a good point. It's a good point and you can actually apply that to a lot of theologians in the Turkish period including St. Nicodemus people judge sodos the Hagarite in a similar way. He uses terminology borrowed from the west, >> right?
>> But he's doing it and he's thinking in an orthodox way. He's using terminology which is not uh from an orthodox source because that's the the theology of the day was heavily latinized and the books they were using all the rest. But if you understand in the context and you understand the saint like doios and stimos and others they're they're not thinking in a western way about these things. They use transciation, but they don't mean it the way that the papers meant it.
>> And it's uh so it could be really easily misinterpreted.
>> And that document literally says they don't have the Eucharist.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And that's that has to be the case. People don't understand this.
If you don't hold that, the ecclesiology, the Orthodox Church is immediately jettisoned. I mean, it doesn't make it doesn't hold together.
That's the core. That's the center.
That's the heart. You can't the minute you say that the Eucharist exists outside the community, the Orthodox church in the in the Latin or the then the church exists there and then you have a divided church. You have a church that teaches heresy. It doesn't it doesn't work. It cannot work. It's impossible. So people need to think in terms here's here's the big problem, Jay. People don't start where they should start. He needs to start with christologology, trin trinitarian theology, christologology, ecclesiology and then work our practices into that context. Look at our practices in the in the context of our ecclesiology. Not form ecclesiology on the basis of our practices which sometimes are not even our practices. They're abuses. Other times they're they're questions of economy and they're not they're not a basis for dogma. Right. dogma is in the context of a creia economy is the is the temporary departure from our so so that's the big problem is people are coming from either from their personal experiences or they're coming from the exception or they're coming from historical examples and then they're they're projecting onto our ecclesiology that which was which doesn't fit doesn't work.
>> Duke of Earl sends $10. Thank you Duke of Earl. Much appreciated. Maria for $10 says, "What does it mean to say that Jesus is the truth and that he is a person?" We live in a world full of lies, and it seems hard to sort through these lies.
Well, he says, "I am the truth." Right?
And he is the he is the person. He's God. Uh he's the he's our we're we're his we're created in his image. So he's he's the person and we're we're all uh his image. So um that's truth is in is is if it's not incarnate, if it's not the person of Christ, it's it's doesn't exist. I mean it it doesn't it's got to be grounded and rooted in the person of of Christ. I mean, but I don't know. I I I haven't really thought much about that beyond that. Maybe Jay, you can have a shot at that if you want. See what >> I think you're right. John 14:6, I'm the way, I'm the truth, I'm the life. All of those uh components are summed up in the divine hypoasis of the person of the sun who assumed human nature and thereby uh raises our nature when we participate in the mysteries of the church and theosis etc. So um Kyle Grant, go ahead.
>> Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah.
>> No, that's all I that's all I had.
Kyle Grant sends $5 and he says, "I'm a cateuman in Roore and I'm hoping to be baptized at Pusca. Uh Jay and Father Peter Harris have been a tremendous influence on that." Thank you. Glad to hear that.
>> Hey, go ahead.
>> Lucian sends $10 and he says, "Father Peter, uh do you think there is an understanding about IQ?"
I'm not sure what this question means.
He says, "Do you is there an I an understanding of IQ amongst the church fathers where pe where in people of ignorance and people of clearer knowledge there is a distinction in the role of salvation?" I'm not sure what that question means. I I think he means uh is there a degree of knowledge that we need to have to be saved as opposed to uh I mean I I I don't know how to answer this. Maybe it's >> the IQ is not measuring experiential knowledge of God, right? The IQ is is talking about rational >> the rational intellect and the rational intellect is not what we use to commune with God. It's not the organ of the soul that communes with God. So I I don't think any I don't think our salvation is dependent on on our rational uh you know understanding of the gospel. It's it's dependent on our communion with the person of Christ.
>> And so yeah >> I think the question is getting at um so while we know the faith is not reducible to knowledge there is a a degree of you know a catechizus is instilling the faith. you know, a person who grows up in a pagan land and doesn't hear about Christ, >> you know, that's distinct from a person who is a a catechuman in the church and they're being they're being taught the mysteries. Uh so I guess I think the question is about in what sense is there a knowledge that is necessary uh that's not limited to discursive knowledge per se.
>> Uh you know know the truth and you you'll be set free. I mean the of course there's going to be a knowledge of well let me put it this way the the degree it sounds like you talk about IQ and all that I if you are if God gives you you know a very powerful brain and you use it for his glory and you have much to be uh uh you have much to uh to apologize for to to to account for and then you and then others who are not who do not have that gift from God are not given that they're not going to expected to to to to respond in such a way. So I guess it depends. Each one is given different gifts and he's talking about that. I don't know if that's what he's getting at, but you know uh everyone will be depending on what they've been given they they'll be expected to produce. So what I took it to be what is saving knowledge? I think IQ was like the wrong idea to what is saving knowledge so to speak according to the New Testament.
Well, I uh uh I don't remember that phrase in is there is there a phrase noi saving knowledge in that way or is it um you know Paul talks about coming to the knowledge >> coming to the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Yeah.
>> Yeah. And that is a pignosis.
>> Okay.
>> And that's a hand-on knowledge. It's not a theoretical knowledge.
>> Right.
>> So it's all experiential. I mean St. John the theologian St. Paul, they're all talking about experience of God, personal encounter with God. And that's, you know, so that's not it's not focused on discursive, rational, theoretical.
>> Is there a is there uh is there a different Greek term that's used for like ciia uh in the lat like the the like scientific knowledge of uh you know like sense data, empirical sense data.
Epistemi would be science and then you have uh nosis uh you know we get the gnostic wordnosticnosticism gnostic knowledge in the theoros nosi would be knowledge uh and it and it's it's a kind of overarching term it kind of g it kind of it could be >> right >> a different different kinds of knowledge but more theoretically oriented >> I see can >> and that's not used by Paul when he talks about knowledge >> okay >> he doesn't say no >> okay As far as I know, I don't remember any passages like that, but I could be I'm probably wrong, but it's mainly a pigment.
>> Okay. Ken the dreamer sends $3. Uh, being a beautiful slow boy sounds so cool. Uh, keep making great content.
Jay, well, we're all beautiful slow boys in that regard, aren't we? Uh, that was a joke that I'd made a few shows back.
Highlands for $10 says, "I just wanted to send some support. Thank you for this great interview." Thank you, Highlands.
Much appreciated. Batman sends $5 and he says, "Does a ba a baptism have to be performed properly by an ordained priest to be considered a baptism?" Uh, I'm thinking about Roman Catholicism here.
You're thinking about Roman Catholicism.
What What does that mean? He's thinking about Roman Catholicism. Is there a teaching, you mean? Or what does he What do you think he means? He's thinking about Catholicism. Well, uh, let me what about, uh, let's say somebody's baptized in a Roman Catholic church and then they come over to orthodoxy. I think that's what the question means.
>> Okay. So, he's talking about the exception by economy, I think. So, >> well, first of all, let's talk about in the church. In the church, if there's an emergency, a nurse is in a hospital and she does a emergency baptism, uh, and the person and the baby dies, we believe that they, the Lord has received them, and been baptized. if they live, the church baptizes them, at least in the Greek church. Uh so that that emergency baptism by a non- priest is not con is is not considered uh like I don't know how to describe it.
It's not considered canonical. It would be they would be baptized if they lived.
So in the church, the church has always really not in in in contradiction to the papist has really said priests need to baptize. I mean that's the norm. That's the previa. And we don't we don't when Trent said, "Oh, a lat a a Muslim, an atheist baptized." We we would never say that. That would be that's it's just crazy, insane for us to say that because I mean, you if you follow somebody like um I think St. Jerome said it or was it I think it was St. Jerome who said you can't give what you did not receive. and and and in the Orthodox church it's certainly the case that you know it's a mystery of the church in the church by the church you know so so in that sense we don't have that that whole idea in the Latins we don't have anything like that and when we're talking about economy and receiving somebody's been baptized in uh you know among the Latins or among the Protestants and they're and they're coming to the church economy exists and we have many examples of it through history the question is What are the presuppositions for that? So now we're not talking about theoretically can you be received by crisismation and that whatever that was that form that was done uh can we can the church uh accept that in the sense of not repeating it right um there is precedent for that but there is there is a clear petristic from what I can tell uh teaching that says yes but there are presuppositions so for instance we have the canon in the 95th cannon in uh Trulo we we see that in the canon uh they commemorate different heretics and one of the heretics they commemorate are the eomians and the yunomians uh obviously they were aryens so they didn't they didn't embrace the holy trinity as we do they don't accept the divinity of Christ but they also says baptized into his death and that is understood by sodos and the others as meaning they didn't immerse three times they only immersed once And now now contemporary academic humanists want to say no that's referring actually to their theology.
It's not referring to their practice.
The saints don't see that. The saints that have examined it they don't see it that way. They see it as a question of form. And after examining everything they say look the form here is actually really important for the holy fathers.
And why is that is the case? Here's another big departure between contemporary academic theologians and the petristic understanding is that you can find contemporary academic theology saying look it's dep our practice depends on the distance from the church of the heterodox. So if we have a group that's really close like let's say the monophysites or something or or you know and then we have a group that's really far away well we receive depending on their distance we receive them differently. That's not the case. You cannot make that conclusion when you look at the cannons of the church because you have aryens who who are crisismated and you have other groups that are not anywhere as grievous in their heresy who are baptized. So the fathers came to the father the kivalist fathers come to the conclusion that actually the b the question of how we receive in other words do we economize do we have the whole question of the konomia is based on the form the the validity in other words have they kept the form of the baptism or not and that will determine whether we can economize you might say well why do they care about the form because form in essence we care about a lot in the orthodox We we would never do a divine liturgy for instance with with you know crackers or something. Nobody would ever say yeah that doesn't matter just do the crackers. So the im immersion matters but beyond that the uh the question of economia has to be that it leads to aia in all in our practice. So we can't undermine our own teaching. If we systematically receive heterodox who never immerse and essentially make a mockery of the immers of the whole question of form because they like the Roman Catholics pour a little water over your head or something. It's almost a mockery of the of the mystery. If we receive them systematically by crismation eventually we're going to get to the point where a lot of people are going to say it doesn't matter if you baptize. In other words, immerse because that's what baptism means. It means to immerse. And we actually see that in today's church.
We see the Ser in the Serbian church and the Russian church a major crisis in terms of how do we baptize? We have a lot of baptisms who are done in the papist Latin way. They're doing it pouring head over the water with people standing at their clo with their clothes on and you have a departure from the equivia and that has to do with centuries of Latin theology and centuries of Latin practice. So the fathers are saying we can't we can't ignore that. It's going to undermine our colleia. It's going to undermine our understanding of the mystery. We have to maintain a basic minimum before we economize. We can't undermine our eia through our practice of economy. Does that make any sense? I mean, >> right.
>> Yeah. And and I think that's the that's the reason why the kibbadi's fathers come down and say no, we cannot receive by crisismation any longer. Uh and this is the 1700s, right? Not not 2021.
uh and uh so I guess I don't know if I've answered your question. The question is theoretically yes in practice it's not uh in prristic the petristic consciousness and teaching in my knowledge for that to be doing going on today when they've departed so systematically you know they said in a canon I don't know what cannon 1917 cannon canon law I can't remember now they said the norm in Catholicism is uh uh pouring over the head they they they codified So they didn't depart just in practice.
They they they they conified their departure from immersion. And I think that's that's significant. I mean I there's too many Orthodox who are blowing it off and saying it doesn't matter. I I find that really problematic. It does matter. It has to matter. I mean we we don't do that with any other mystery.
>> Why would we do that with baptism? Uh it matters because the Latins have departed departed. And you know if you go back to Aquinus I got a in my book I got a chapter on this his rationale for for ignoring baptism as the norm is is never is not adopted by the fathers and he says he says actually baptism doesn't mean immersion it means washing and so therefore you can wash this way you can wash that way it doesn't matter that's not true that's not the petristic uh teaching and it's not the Greek understanding of the word baptism >> so you know the fathers didn't embrace that and uh the fact that we have today, I think, is that we we've been under influence of of Latin theology in in a big way. So, >> just to play devil's advocate, couldn't one uh have all of the views that you have? And I'm not saying you're wrong at all, but couldn't one have all those views and still be an accuminist in the sense of the right form?
an accuminist would have to be an ecuminist, you'd have to doubt the the exclusivity of the church in terms of the mysteries.
>> But I'm saying, couldn't I adopt the position on the necessity of rebaptizing converts uh and still be an accuminist?
Well, if accuminism means uh undermining the oneness of the church, uh accumulist that would be they want they want to establish that we already have a communion or a unity of some sort.
>> Well, I guess you're saying they need to be baptized.
>> You could correct the form and have the correct view of the form and the necessity of doing it and still conceivably be an accuminist.
Well, do they believe would that person believe that the papists have mysteries if they're baptizing?
Uh, >> I'm just saying that it it has to be more than just the form. I know you're not restricting it to having the right form. It also has to be the faith, but I'm saying that the theology that accompanies it is also part of the issue. Right.
>> Well, it it goes without saying there's no mysteries outside the church. So we're not even entering into the question of them being baptized. I mean the there's the unity of the church and the unity of mysteries means that that whatever is happening in economy, it's not a recognition of mysteries.
>> Well, what I'm saying is that conceivably you could have a whole bunch of bishops that adopted the position on the correct form of receiving converts and they could still believe in ecumenism. They could still believe that all these people possess grace in uh in any other way, many other ways.
I'm just making the point that that the form itself can't alone solve the issue.
It also has to be >> the correct understanding of the theology. Right.
>> Of course. Yeah. It's presupposed. I mean, I think it is the presupposition here is that we have the orthodox ecclesiology and understanding of unity and unity of mysteries and then we approach the question of reception in that context.
>> Okay.
>> So, I'm not stressing that right now because I think it's it's assumed. It's a given. Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Mama blue bear blue for $20. How would you approach being asked to wear masks at the liturgy? It seems incorrect, but is this a situation where we should submit to obedience? I'm currently not refusing to do it. My church uh closed when mandated, and this was heartbreaking for me.
>> Well, I mean, I just tell you what St. Pisios would have done and he would not have worn a mask. Um I was uh I was on Monathos a couple weeks ago and with Elder of Themos who is the disciple of Elder Picios who wrote the essentially wrote the life with Elder Isach and people were walking into you know on Manathos they were trying at that point uh they had just done a lockdown again the Greek government and they were trying to impose that and so there were some some pilgrims there who who walked into his ski and and Uh I was sitting there talking to the elder and and I saw him stand up and behind me were the people and uh they were wear some young people wearing masks and he he he he you know with a lot of uh energy said you know take the masks off. So he he didn't even want them wearing masks in the yard of the ski let alone in the church. So I guess my answer is that the saints I that I know of and the disciples of the saints that I know in my life are very much opposed to the mass uh for a variety of reasons.
U I suppose it I mean I can't speak for Elder Athenos but my my gut feeling here is that they're opposed because it's unnecessary because they don't believe that it's necessary. They don't believe it actually works. I'm sure that's part of it. But they also believe that in the church of God uh where the grace of God dwells in the mysteries and in the in the consecration of the temple and in the icons and in the priests blessing and and and the experience of the saints like St. Gabriel of Georgia who says, you know, if you knew the grace of God in the temple of God, you would you would bend down and and and lick up the dust off the face of the of the ground of the church. That's what St. G Gabriel said so the experience of the saints is that in the temple uh we are in the embrace of God in the grace of God in the in the house of God and you know obviously we're people of faith and we trust God and I mean you might say well I know it's not about me it's about protecting my brother well so you are going to do more to protect your brother than God is in the house of God >> the whole it's just it's just a rationalism it's a it's a It's an over overt rationalism that just is going to undermine our whole stance. What people don't get is that we have a stance that we keep in church. It's a stance. It's a spiritual stance. It's a stance of humility and trust and love. It's like a, you know, be like little children and you approach God with trust. This is going to undermine and it already is undermining our whole ethos as Orthodox.
uh it creates an environment that is hard for people to pray and concentrate. I I I just can't imagine I can't imagine any any of the saints in the 20th century saying, "Yeah, yeah, you need to wear a mask in church." In fact, I know a lot of a lot of the elders that I know, they're violently against it, >> Lu.
>> So, I guess that's that's the best answer I can give you.
>> Luian qualifies his question. And he says, "To clarify my earlier question, does God take into consideration a lack of knowledge of the aspects of theology that that the church teaches in order to obtain salvation? Are those that lack knowledge of the theology also still able to obtain salvation?" I would say, "Well, yeah. I mean, infants are baptized." So, in one sense, >> of course. Of course, God, of course. I mean, there are many illiterate saints that work miracles. I mean it it is it is not at all necessary to be in communion with God. You can be illiterate. It doesn't matter. There are a lot of them who are who are more saintly than the literate.
>> Arcomandra Ameilos $10. Um and this this question was kind of already uh responded to earlier, but um what's the uh proper response to these regulations in the church?
the mask, etc. >> Well, I mean, it's kind of a general question. I would I think everything needs discernment. I'm not going to answer part point and blank, you know, for everybody and everything. Uh, but there's no question that the inner life of the church should be determined by the by the priests and the bishops of the church and not by the state. That's the first thing. Secondly, we should base it we should make our decisions based on the saints of the church and their witness and their and their writings and not on anybody else including if it's a bishop or priest that we follow them and including the patriarch all the way down to the to the uh the old lady all of us follow the saints. So don't ask me don't ask so and so what do the saints say? And we have witnesses from the saints. I just mentioned a few. If you go back to the writings of St. Simeon of Thessaloni, he talks about the holy temple. St. Gerbanos of the patriarch of al of uh uh of Constantinople in in in several important writings on the temple and the mysteries. We have very clear witness about the holiness and the and the grace of God in the temple. Now, if you can go from there to all of these measures and show me why it follows, I'm happy to listen. I can't see it. I don't see how you can go from the writings of the fathers and end up with essentially I mean, I' I was people were writing me and saying, "Look, there's there's this is what's going on my in my church." And they were saying, I it's insane. It's just insane. I I can't imagine going to church like this. I you you have to write to get in because there's only so many each each week. And you have to email and then you when you get there you have to sign your name because they you might get reported or you know if you're sick then they might have to >> they're saying that you'll be reported to the government uh if in some in certain cases for not um doing everything.
>> Yeah. And then and then you go and then you go and you don't kiss the icons. You don't light the candle. You don't greet your friend. You don't uh uh uh what else? You don't take holy water. You don't kiss the priest's hand. You don't kiss the uh whatever. You you commune with spoons. I mean what is what where does this come from? It doesn't come from the writings of the saints. I you cannot tell me any of this is inspired by the saints and the writ of the saints. So they it's an incumbent upon these these people who are who are who are uh in introducing all these practices on the basis of I think shoddy information. But let's say it's real all the stuff that they're they're selling us in the in the news media and all the rest. Uh there's a lot of differences of opinion on that. Okay.
But let's stay through in is there examples of saints not bishops in Russia who did xyz saints of the church who are telling us that we need to change our ways in the temple of God because if they're not I I don't think I can be supportive of it. I don't see how any orthodox could be supportive of all these changes. uh you know, and it's gonna end up where we're gonna fear death more than God. Is that isn't that where we're going?
>> You had a good comment uh where you said that, you know, used to be people feared a lot of things worse than just dying. And >> people would even die for their country, right? And now we're supposed to think that like just death is like the worst possible. It's not the worst possible.
There's things way worse than that. fear him who is able to, you know, kill both body and soul, destroy both body and soul and absolutely rather than him who's able to just destroy the body.
>> So, there's a loss of hierarchy. We've got a loss of the hierarchy of things.
We've we've lost our our prioritization here.
>> Father uh Father Deacon John $5.34.
Could you comment, Father Peter, on the agreements and the representatives of Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy in regard to the non-calcedonians that suggest the disagreements were merely terminological and not always doctrinal? In like manner, the Vatican issued an indultt allowing a lurggical I can't see the rest of that comment, but I'm assuming some sort of lurggical allowance for the Orthodox.
>> Yeah. So, okay. So, the the the dialogue with the non-Chidedonians or anti-Jedonians or monophysicites, however you want to call them, the cops and the Armenians and the, you know, Syrian Jacobites. So they that ended essentially officially I don't know how many years ago now was it 10 years ago 20 I can't remember now but it's got it's over and they came to a conclusion and everybody that is supportive of this conclusion say well it's done it's a done deal the problem is that the orthodox doesn't work that way we don't work with committees we don't have uh you know uh theology and and and dogmatic decisions and communion between churches through committees but through local churches and cinnids and and an Orthodox council which would be have to be called for this and every local sinner would have to agree with it and then the church consciousness would have to agree with it and and it would be tested by the church consciousness even if the because we've had many false counselors >> so I mean first of all let's look at the methodology is this how we work where does this happen in the history of the church when did this happen that a small group I mean really small group of academic theologians have now told us that ecumenical council five six seven >> uh got it wrong essentially or we didn't understand or we were confused and the saints are confused and they're going to overturn all that. I mean it the whole methodology is really problematic for me and then and then to get into the actual substance of it I is beyond is beyond this question but if you want to really get into the substance of it the unfortunately there's not a ton of English uh but God willing I know it's being translated right now there's a huge tome from the monastery of Guru on Monathos um archandic George writings but also father Luke's writings and they address all of the sub all of the the topics and the issues that came up in this dialogue and they show how they're not been they've not been concluded in an orthodox manner. they've not been come the conclusion is not >> consistent with the orthodox teaching and so I tend to uh default to ma to monos because hey everywhere else we default to Mountos why not und dogmatic teachers I don't get why they you know we we we these same academic theologians who celebrate the tome of of aos with gregory palamas and they celebrate the flowering of of hessiccastic theology and st paisolski and Ina and all this stuff you write about all these, you know, we write about this, we celebrate this. But no, no, no. When we're talking about dogmatic issues, ecclesicical issues, we don't want to hear from the athites. They're a bunch of ignorant monks. That's kind of what you hear sometimes from people. I think this is extremely uh problematic and hypocritical. I want to hear from the experiential theologians. I want to hear from the theologians who who live every day, night and day, the Jesus prayer, the lurggical life, the ones who are dying daily. Those are the ones that are going to speak for orthodoxy. And so you've got to give them their due and they don't get their due because it's not in the best interest supposedly of our politicized hierarchy sometimes. So I guess that's my answer.
>> Somebody in the chat said, "What is church consciousness? What does that mean?"
>> So church consciousness is is is the culmination of the of the experience of the church over time and in the witness of the saints. So, you know, it's it's the it's the it's the uh the witness, the marteria of the saints throughout the ages. And we come to a point where we we we we arrive at a point where we have a I don't know an experience and and an expression on a particular topic and that becomes the church conscience on that thing.
>> Luan, >> we don't have a magisterium in Rome, right? We have the saints. We have the saints who teach us that. Lutherian says uh what is your thought on the doctrine of the toll houses? Um how can we go ahead?
>> Yeah, >> go ahead. What does it say?
>> How can we prepare for this spiritual experience I think is what he's he's saying.
>> Yeah. So the question of the so-called toll houses is I don't I don't know if we can we call it doctrine. I mean it's in a tradition. It's an experience. It's a culmination of many many experiences throughout his throughout church history. And it's very very obvious that it was accepted by the conscience of the church in iconography >> and in uh you know church writings and in and in and many things and certainly on Mount Aos uh I remember when we 20 years ago now 12 15 years ago I remember was uh I was kind of a somewhat a part of the translation of the uh soul after death of father serro and I remember on Mountos uh many monks you know telling me what a fantastic book that was. I don't I don't remember anybody in Greece ever saying I mean brothers vloss in my knowledge except some few academic accuminist theologians the the tradition of the church and the witness of the church as to the spiritual reality that happens to the soul when it departs the body. We're not talking about literal toll houses. We're not talking about this is all just this is describing an experience spiritual experience and it's something that you know arises from the aesthetic uh tradition and I don't see any reason why we should doubt it. How do we prepare for it? You you know how do you prepare for it? You prepare by loving God with all your heart, soul and mind and doing his will and everything.
You know this it's the whole life of in Christ. You prepare you prepare by living it.
>> JC Rub for $10. Thank you, Father Peter and Jay. God bless you both for being here tonight. Um, all right, that's the last of the super chats. We've gone almost for two hours, and I would remind everybody that Father Peter's links are in the description uh of the video. You can follow him over on his channel as well. Uh, you can buy his materials and books over at the Uncut Mountain Press.
And I want to thank him for spending so much time with us today in the Discord and on this interview. Thank you, Father Peter, very much. Thank you, Jay.
>> We would ask for ask for your intercessions and your prayers and your >> the Lord the Lord bless your work. Uh may many many others who are seeking the truth come to holy orthodoxy and their salvation through everything that you and others with you are doing. And you know one last parting thing I hope everybody remembers this you know why why to become orthodox why to why to be orthodox why to defend orthodoxy. What what is it all about? It's for it's for our salvation which means we go deeper and deeper into the ethos of the church the life of the church and we acquire that right that's why all of this discussion exists why do we talk about accuminism and dogma it's all of it to protect that to protect the experience and for us to go into the experience right if we are doing it in in order to have some kind of right teaching or ideology or to be correct we've lost our Hey, Orthodoxy is not a an ideology.
Orthodoxy is not just a uh you know philosophy or a theology which speaks the truth. All of that exists so that you and I become gods by grace become purified, become illumined. That's the end endgame. Yeah. You wanted to show something.
>> Well, somebody was asked, we had another couple questions. moral monkey for $5. I ask you, Father Peter, do you recall any good parishes that you uh visited in Wisconsin that are Orthodox? I live in Lacrosse. I'm a catechuman. Both you you and Jay have helped me. Thank you.
It's been it's been uh 30 years since I was in Wisconsin. Um and it was in Madison, Wisconsin.
And I don't I don't recall. Oh, I mean there's there's an antioin parish there.
There's a Greek parish there. I used to go there. But lacrosse, no, I I can't help you on that. I maybe look for I don't know, Rocore Parish up there. Maybe check that out. I don't know. I don't know what to tell you.
>> Um yeah, I would recommend if somebody is interested, this is a good a good book. Soul After Death uh is a good intro. And then uh Archamando Emiliano's $10. A good reference is yes this massive if you've read the father serves book and you're ready for this big beast you can get into departure of the soul that's a gigantic tome there but it's put out by St. Anony's Greek Orthodox Monastery.
All right. Uh, excellent. Thank you guys so much for the super chats and I'll be splitting those with uh, Father Peter and um, be sure and follow his work and and support him and uh, if you want to sign up for his uh, course over there on Patreon. And uh, thank you, Father Peter.
>> Jay, we're we should also say we're looking forward to a book you're writing.
>> Oh, yes. I forgot about that. Yeah. So, I've got a gigantic table in there stacked high of sources. Every day it seems like I'm I'm adding more and more sources. So, it's getting to be kind of I'm swimming in books here. But, >> I think um hopefully uh we've got uh I did do the introduction the other day and then we've got many chapters kind of loosely already probably 60% of it ready. But uh we'll be doing a book on uh the Latin uh mistakes basically uh the Roman Catholic uh dogmatic views, the toistic views and kind of showing that the orthodox perspective on um the divine nature, the energies etc. is really the only uh way to go. It's really the only correct position.
There's not a spectrum of different positions. St. Gregory Palamos is not a opinion or a school within orthodoxy. It really just is the Orthodox position consistent with St. Thosius, consistent with St. Basil, consistent with St. Maximus all the way back to Athanasius.
So, >> I mean, good uh enlightenment to you, a good strength. You can see the completion and be blessed.
>> Andrew sends another $5 and Andrew says, "Thank you both. This has been very insightful." Well, thank you, Andrew.
And but we're going to have to cut it off there. We've had Father Peter for so long today. I've got I've got in 45 minutes I got my class and it's three in the morning here. So we we probably should cut it off.
>> All right. Thank you everybody.
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