Orthodox Truth

You can listen to a podcast of this blog post at https://www.spreaker.com/user/youngfaithradio/iiilentmon

And these are the generations of Noe. Noe was a just man; being perfect in his generation, Noe was well-pleasing to God. And Noe begot three sons, Sem, Cham, Japheth. But the earth was corrupted before God, and the earth was filled with iniquity. And the Lord God saw the earth, and it was corrupted; because all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth. And the Lord God said to Noe, A period of all men is come before me; because the earth has been filled with iniquity by them, and, behold, I destroy them and the earth. Make therefore for thyself an ark of square timber; thou shalt make the ark in compartments, and thou shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. And thus shalt thou make the ark; three hundred cubits the length of the ark, and fifty cubits the breadth, and thirty cubits the height of it. Thou shalt narrow the ark in making it, and in a cubit above thou shalt finish it, and the door of the ark thou shalt make on the side; with lower, second, and third stories thou shalt make it. And behold I bring a flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven, and whatsoever things are upon the earth shall die. And I will establish my covenant with thee, and thou shalt enter into the ark, and thy sons and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives with thee. And of all cattle and of all reptiles and of all wild beasts, even of all flesh, thou shalt bring by pairs of all, into the ark, that thou mayest feed them with thyself: male and female they shall be. Of all winged birds after their kind, and of all cattle after their kind, and of all reptiles creeping upon the earth after their kind, pairs of all shall come in to thee, male and female to be fed with thee. And thou shalt take to thyself of all kinds of food which ye eat, and thou shalt gather them to thyself, and it shall be for thee and them to eat. And Noe did all things whatever the Lord God commanded him, so did he. – Genesis 6:9-22

“…Noe was well pleasing to God (6:9).” Why? Because “…Noe did all things whatever the Lord God commanded him, so did he (6:22).”

Noah and his family survived the Great Flood and laid the foundation for the whole future of the human race, because one person did “…whatsoever the Lord God commanded him…” Noah, by obeying God, preserved an earthly future for the entire race of man. His obedience foreshadows the perfect obedience of the New Adam, our Lord Jesus Christ, Who bestowed an eternal future upon our race by His obedience unto death upon the Cross.

It is fashionable today to say that Orthodoxy is only about a kind of “cool” mysticism and visions and “hesychasm” and miracles and so forth, and that insisting on obedience to the Ten Commandments and the moral precepts of the Church is some kind of a “fundamentalist” hang-up. People can believe this if they want (and people do tend to believe whatever offers the path of least resistance to their passions), but this approach will certainly lead them into both delusion and immorality. Without struggling first to practice the ABC’s of a moral life based on the plainly revealed requirements of the Faith, a Christian never attains genuine higher spiritual experience. Whatever exalted experiences the deluded person does enjoy are impermanent, illusory, and elusive. He refuses the boring obedience to plain commandments, the hard-won security of building his house on the rock of Christ’s words, and prefers to wander about a spiritual Disneyland hall of mirrors until a certain monster from the labyrinth comes out and devours him.

It is fashionable today to say that Orthodoxy is just one (maybe the best, but still just one) among many “traditional religions,” and that “many ways lead to God.” To believe in the exclusive claims of the Church is just more “fundamentalism.” “I just cannot believe,” says the “tolerant” nominal Orthodox, “that Orthodoxy is the only way to salvation.”

This is your problem, my friend: you cannot believe.You refuse the obedience of Faith. Noah, by contrast, obeyed God. This one person, exercising the obedience of Faith, saved the human race. He believed that everyone except his family was going to drown, because God told him so.

Be like him.

This commentary was taken from The Eternal Sacrifice: The Genesis Readings for Great Lent by Fr. Steven Allen. You can order a copy from Lulu at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/FrStevenAllen

You can listen to a podcast of this blog post at

And Noe was five hundred years old, and he begot three sons, Sem, Cham, and Japheth. And it came to pass when men began to be numerous upon the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God having seen the daughters of men that they were beautiful, took to themselves wives of all whom they chose. And the Lord God said, My Spirit shall certainly not remain among these men for ever, because they are flesh, but their days shall be an hundred and twenty years. Now the giants were upon the earth in those days; and after that when the sons of God were wont to go in to the daughters of men, they bore children to them, those were the giants of old, the men of renown. And the Lord God, having seen that the wicked actions of men were multiplied upon the earth, and that every one in his heart was intently brooding over evil continually, then God laid it to heart that he had made man upon the earth, and he pondered it deeply. And God said, I will blot out man whom I have made from the face of the earth, even man with cattle, and reptiles with flying creatures of the sky, for I am grieved that I have made them. But Noe found grace before the Lord God. – Genesis 6:1-8

“But Noe found Grace before the Lord God.” So it is always. In every generation, despite the great wickedness of men, the Lord’s chosen dwell in the midst. The Lord Jesus Himself, in His High Priestly Prayer to the Father in John 17, says to the Father that His disciples are not of the world and yet also that He does not ask the Father to take them out of the world (John 17:14-15 [KJV]). The Apostle of Love says, “Little children, love not the world (I John 2:15 [KJV]),” and yet we know from his Life that he spent his entire apostleship dwelling among men, even the very worst men.

How can we do this in our time, in our circumstances? For the devil tempts us either to join the world and love it or to be resentful and curse it. How do we love fallen men yet not imitate them? How can we love men so much that we are willing to be hated by them when we live according to Truth and speak this Truth when confronted? There are several things we can do:

1. Remember that only the grace of God can enable us to do this. It is a life above nature. Only by living in the Spirit can we be like Noah, patiently building the Ark while everyone around us is laughing at us or even cursing us. We must pray and insistently beg God for this grace.

2. We need to read the Lives of the Saints and be inspired by their courage joined to meekness. We need to remember that we are not alone, that there is a vast Church in the heavens cheering our every step in the right direction. We must ask them to intercede for us.

3. We must remain close to the Church. By living in the fragrant atmosphere of Her divine services, Her divine life, and staying close to our spiritual friends, we remain encouraged and in our right minds: encouraged, because the grace of the services and prayers fills our hearts with joy, and in our right minds, because within the sacred cosmos of the Church everything makes sense.

May the Holy Patriarch Noah, our common ancestor, intercede for us to stay happy and faithful in the midst of so much unhappiness and unfaithfulness all around us. He stayed the course, and God preserved him in the midst of global destruction. God will certainly do no less for us.

This commentary was taken from The Eternal Sacrifice: The Genesis Readings for Great Lent by Fr. Steven Allen. You can order a copy from Lulu at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/FrStevenAllen

You can listen to a podcast of this blog post at https://www.spreaker.com/user/youngfaithradio/iilentthurs

This is the genealogy of men in the day in which God made Adam; in the image of God he made him: male and female he made them, and blessed them; and he called his name Adam, in the day in which he made them. And Adam lived two hundred and thirty years, and begot a son after his own form, and after his own image, and he called his name Seth. And the days of Adam, which he lived after his begetting Seth, were seven hundred years; and he begot sons and daughters. And all the days of Adam which he lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died. Now Seth lived two hundred and five years, and begot Enos. And Seth lived after his begetting Enos, seven hundred and seven years, and he begot sons and daughters. And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years, and he died. And Enos lived an hundred and ninety years, and begot Cainan. And Enos lived after his begetting Cainan, seven hundred and fifteen years, and he begot sons and daughters. And all the days of Enos were nine hundred and five years, and he died. And Cainan lived an hundred and seventy years, and he begot Maleleel. And Cainan lived after his begetting Maleleel, seven hundred and forty years, and he begot sons and daughters. And all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ten years, and he died. And Maleleel lived an hundred and sixty and five years, and he begot Jared. And Maleleel lived after his begetting Jared, seven hundred and thirty years, and he begot sons and daughters. And all the days of Maleleel were eight hundred and ninety and five years, and he died. And Jared lived an hundred and sixty and two years, and begot Enoch: and Jared lived after his begetting Enoch, eight hundred years, and he begot sons and daughters. And all the days of Jared were nine hundred and sixty and two years, and he died. And Enoch lived an hundred and sixty and five years, and begat Mathusala. And Enoch was well-pleasing to God after his begetting Mathusala, two hundred years, and he begot sons and daughters. And all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty and five years. And Enoch was well-pleasing to God, and was not found, because God translated him. – Genesis 5:1-24

The holy patriarch Enoch and the holy prophet Elias have not yet died. Taken up from the earth, living a hidden life, yet still in the flesh, by the mysterious decree of God they await the days of the Antichrist, when they will return to preach repentance, Elias to the Jews and Enoch to the Gentiles. The Antichrist will slay them, their bodies will lie in the streets of Jerusalem for three days, and God will raise them from the dead, putting terror into the hearts of Antichrist and all his followers. Then the end will come.

Our concern is not to know the “day or the hour” of their coming, but to become like them: to become like Enoch, who was well-pleasing to God, and to become like Elias, who remained faithful even when he thought he was the last prophet of the true God left on earth.

Gentle Enoch walked in the pure innocence of the early followers of the true God, and he called upon the name of the Lord. Fiery Elias denounced idolatry and immorality, calling upon Israel to renounce its adulterous worship of Baal and confess with him that the Lord alone is God.

We must do both if we hope to saved in the midst of this adulterous generation: We must preserve our innocence, and we must confess our Faith. To do the first, we must cut out evil influences and spend more time in prayer. To do the second, we must tell the unvarnished truth in simplicity of heart without any desire for the approval of men. We can do neither without the divine grace helping us. Let us cry for this help without delay! Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us!

This commentary was taken from The Eternal Sacrifice: The Genesis Readings for Great Lent by Fr. Steven Allen. You can order a copy from Lulu at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/FrStevenAllen

You can listen to a podcast of this blog post at https://www.spreaker.com/user/youngfaithradio/lentiiwed

So Cain went forth from the presence of God and dwelt in the land of Nod over against Eden. And Cain knew his wife, and having conceived she bore Enoch; and he built a city; and he named the city after the name of his son, Enoch. And to Enoch was born Gaidad; and Gaidad begot Maleleel; and Maleleel begot Mathusala; and Mathusala begot Lamech. And Lamech took to himself two wives; the name of the one was Ada, and the name of the second Sella. And Ada bore Jobel; he was the father of those that dwell in tents, feeding cattle. And the name of his brother was Jubal; he it was who invented the psaltery and harp. And Sella also bore Thobel; he was a smith, a manufacturer both of brass and iron; and the sister of Thobel was Noema. And Lamech said to his wives, Ada and Sella, Hear my voice, ye wives of Lamech, consider my words, because I have slain a man to my sorrow and a youth to my grief. Because vengeance has been exacted seven times on Cain’s behalf, on Lamech’s it shall be seventy times seven. And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore a son, and called his name Seth, saying, For God has raised up to me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew. And Seth had a son, and he called his name Enos: he hoped to call on the name of the Lord God. – Genesis 4:16-26

Contrary to the myth of evolution, man did not evolve from a grunting beast to homo sapiens. “Primitive” man did not advance from “hunter-gatherer” to civilized man. God brought man into the world fully formed and highly intelligent. There have never been more intelligent people than at the beginning of the human race, when, as today’s reading testifies, the children of Cain invented the arts of civilization.

The Flood came later to destroy all of their achievements, however, because their hearts were not right with God. Lamech witnesses to their merciless character: seventy times seven-fold vengeance! Thus greatly gifted people can accomplish truly great things and still be far from God.

Today, as then, the spirit of Cain and of Lamech ravages abroad. Man, proudly standing on a pinnacle of material cleverness, is really accelerating in free-fall to ever-greater depths of spiritual corruption: the breathtaking mercilessness of the genocidal infanticide and demonic sacrament of abortion, the unthinkable sexual filth not simply approved but hailed as virtue, the organized extinction of the natural family and therefore the possibility of human love, the intentional destruction of reason and the very concept of the stable and knowable natures of things, endless wars of the mighty preying upon the weak, and everywhere, fueling all of it, the love of money with its political outcome: world-domination by a cabal of devil worshipping usurers.

Today, as then, the sons of Cain, though they are the vast majority, are not all the people there are. The sons of Seth are still to be found in the dens and caves of the earth, those who hope to call upon the name of the Lord God. God stays His vengeance in answer to their prayers, their weeping, and their acts of penance on behalf of the human race.

Though we are baptized Orthodox Christians, the spirit of Cain still afflicts us, and day by day we struggle to reject the pride and filth that surround us and, yes, live within us. May we, this Great Lent, decisively choose to call upon the name of the Lord God by the continual Prayer of Jesus, place all of our hope in Him, and consistently seek that final purity of heart in which alone we shall find the wisdom to live in the joy of our salvation.

This commentary was taken from The Eternal Sacrifice: The Genesis Readings for Great Lent by Fr. Steven Allen. You can order a copy from Lulu at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/FrStevenAllen

You can listen to a podcast of this blog post at

And Cain said to Abel his brother, Let us go out into the plain; and it came to pass that when they were in the plain Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. And the Lord God said to Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? and he said, I know not, am I my brother’s keeper? And the Lord said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood cries to me out of the ground. And now thou art cursed from the earth which has opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand. 12 When thou tillest the earth, then it shall not continue to give its strength to thee: thou shalt be groaning and trembling on the earth. And Cain said to the Lord God, My crime is too great for me to be forgiven. If thou castest me out this day from the face of the earth, and I shall be hidden from thy presence, and I shall be groaning and trembling upon the earth, then it will be that any one that finds me shall slay me. And the Lord God said to him, Not so, any one that slays Cain shall suffer seven-fold vengeance; and the Lord God set a mark upon Cain that no one that found him might slay him. – Genesis 4:8-15

Cain murdered his brother out of envy.

The Lord accepted Abel’s sacrifice, and He did not accept Cain’s sacrifice. Therefore enraged at this affront to his ego and hating his brother for being good, while he was evil, Cain slew him in secret. Thus always with evil men: They hate the good simply for being good. The more good the good men show them, the more enraged they become, until finally nothing will satisfy them but the death of the good. Even then their bottomless egotism will never be appeased, for the nature of un-repented rebellion against God dictates that the rebels will grow ever hungrier for appeasement to their egos for all eternity, and the more lives they destroy, the more souls they consume, the hungrier they grow. Satan is the hungriest, angriest, and least satisfied person in all reality, and his hunger, anger, and dissatisfaction will know no end forever.

Men are not Satan or demons. The Lord says in Matthew 25 that hell was made not for men but for devils (Matthew 25:41 [KJV]), while the Father has prepared His Kingdom for man (Matthew 25:34 [KJV]). But men choose to be like devils, by refusing to accept God as God: God’s sovereignty, God’s holy will, God’s law. They repeat the sin of Cain, the sin of all renegades, anarchists, and murderers: they choose to be their own god. Even then, unlike the demons, they can repent before death: Adam, after refusing once to repent, later repented after he lost Paradise, and he was saved, becoming the first man the Lord Jesus took by the hand and raised from hell. Or they can stew in resentment like Cain and die in their pride. They can boastfully engrave, “I did it my way,” on their tombstones and then go to burn in hell. Congratulations to them: they got what they really wanted. In the end, so do we all.

The Lord Jesus Christ, slain for our sake by envious men, shows us the path of humility and obedience. With His loving voice, He calls to us today, as He called to Adam and Eve in the Garden, as He called to Cain: “Where art thou? Where is thy brother?” Great Lent is an image of our whole earthly life, for each is a short span of time given to answer His call. The time is short, and it will end. What shall we do with this time? What shall we do, today, to heed His loving voice in action and not merely wishful thinking?

O loving Lord, innocent Lamb slain for our sins, glory be to Thee!

This commentary was taken from The Eternal Sacrifice: The Genesis Readings for Great Lent by Fr. Steven Allen. You can order a copy from Lulu at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/FrStevenAllen

You can listen to an audio podcast of this talk at https://www.spreaker.com/user/youngfaithradio/osc52

OSC is back at our adult class at St. Irene – After a long break, during which I recorded our talks alone, we are back to our original setting, which is our adult class at St. Irene Church in Rochester Hills, Michigan.

Thanks and Request for Donations

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Introduction

In our most recent series of classes we have made a case for leaving or remaining out of World Orthodoxy in order not to be in communion with the heresy of Ecumenism, and for belonging to one of the Orthodox bodies that call themselves the True or Genuine Orthodox. In our last class, I gave some guidelines for someone trying to discern which True Orthodox jurisdiction to join. I did not, and do not plan to, go into the particular claims of this or that True Orthodox jurisdiction. To do so would get us off track, because I would be deluged with pointless controversy and waste hours on confusing intramural Old Calendarist polemic. My goal was to make the case that the official jurisdictions are in heresy and therefore one must seek out bishops who are not in heresy. I offered some guidelines in our last talk on how to choose such bishops. Beyond that, if anyone wants my opinion on this or that group, please contact me one on one for a private conversation. Some of our listeners have already begun to do so.

In tonight’s class, which I have titled “Where to Now? Part II,” we are going to start a series of talks on a theological bridge from our current section, “Faith Comes First,” to our next section, which I shall entitle “Living in the Matrix.” By the Matrix, I mean the entire system of falsehood that we live under today, fabricated by the Antichrist global elite, not only by their employing the vast network of communications media institutions that Richard Weaver labeled “The Great Stereopticon,” but also by their infiltrating and finally taking over every essential social institution – church leadership, government leadership, finance, the entire private sector relating to essential needs (food, water, energy, etc.) the military, education, medicine, and, finally, the family. We have already covered the Great Stereopticon at some length. Now we plan go on to these other topics involving society and family, and go to work constructing our Orthodox lens in order to view our present predicament accurately, in order to know what to pray for, how to act, how to speak, and, in general, how to live.

It is essential to grasp that we already live under a total Luciferian system that is ever more rapidly approaching final completion, in both the public and private sectors, controlled by an elite network who, at the top levels, receive instructions directly from demons, and all of whose policies are directed to the goal of Satan to destroy the human race physically and spiritually. Only the mercy of God, only the fact that He is sovereign, and that He is upholding us at every moment, prevents our complete destruction. And, ultimately, the Church will triumph, as the Lord has promised. But will we be in the Church? Will we be among the saved? That is the question. To be and to remain among the saved, we must be orthodox in faith, as the first condition for belonging to the Church.

Ecumenism, which we have covered at length, and which is indeed the heresy of heresies, is not, however, the only heresy ravaging souls in the Orthodox world. It is the heresy formally embraced by the leadership of World Orthodoxy, who are officially, as a matter of openly stated policy, members of the global New World Order elite, though very low down on the pecking order, among the useful idiots. (The chief difference between the official Orthodox hierarchies and the True Orthodox hierarchies is precisely this, that the former are no longer simply infiltrated by the agents of Antichrist: they themselves are now agents, they themselves are, willingly or unwillingly, formally, openly, and institutionally committed to the program of Antichrist. The True Orthodox hierarchies and clergy are indeed infiltrated by conscious and unconscious agents of Antichrist, but they are not institutionally and formally committed to the Antichrist program, or at least not yet. If they were not infiltrated, that would mean they were not doing their job, because only effective enemies merit the System’s attention. But infiltrated is not the same as fallen. The World Orthodox hierarchies are no longer simply infiltrated but fallen).

The True Orthodox are those who have cleanly rejected Ecumenism institutionally and thereby have effectively and not only theoretically confessed that the Orthodox Faith is the only true and saving Faith. Very good. But there remains a problem of other trendy theological errors that are popular throughout the Orthodox world today, and that cross over the “True” vs “World” divide, which, though not formally defined as the position of this or that jurisdiction, do operate in sermons, classes, videos, podcasts, articles, and policies – policies of action or, more critically, lack of action – of various True Orthodox as well as World Orthodox clergy, teachers, writers, speakers, and, most critically, spiritual fathers. These trendy errors do not constitute stated formal positions, but they do create a haze of vaguely comforting confusion that paralyzes fighting members of the Church Militant and makes them into milquetoast members of a “Church Supine.”

So: Before leaving the “Faith Comes First” section of our course and examining the Matrix, we need to deal not only with Ecumenism but also with these very real errors that paralyze not only various World Orthodox but also various True Orthodox clergy and faithful, and render them powerless to undertake militant, intransigent opposition to the Luciferian world system. We True Orthodox need to realize also that there are World Orthodox clergy, writers, and speakers, who do openly point out and oppose these errors and that there are True Orthodox clergy, writers, and speakers that embrace these errors. In other words, this is my position: I am a True Orthodox in order to avoid having to commemorate a bishop who is publicly and formally committed to bringing on the reign of Antichrist. But I don’t have the illusion that the spirit of Antichrist is not at work in True Orthodox circles, and simultaneously I must be honest and recognize that there are individuals who find themselves under the Ecumenist leadership who nonetheless are – both in their words and in their actions – witnessing to vital truths, to essential Orthodox doctrines that are under attack, and I not only applaud them, but I use their work, when needed, to help my own flock.

So we won’t leave “Faith Comes First” quite yet. First we must further solidify our doctrinal foundation, so that we shall be standing on the truly firm ground of Faith and can take the shining weapons of truth into our battle with the Matrix. What are these errors, these trendy ideas that are circulating among “True” as well as “World” Orthodox pastors and teachers, these paralyzing false perceptions which hinder our fight? Let’s take a look.

A Catalogue of Related Errors and a New Friend

Below you will find a list of trendy errors that to a greater or lesser extent have become popular in Orthodox circles. As we go along, we shall see that they are all interrelated, and, most importantly, that they all partake of the spirit of the present age, in that they debilitate the struggle against the worship of the ego and the fallen will, which is the essence of the Luciferian mind: non serviam. I am simply going to list them and briefly summarize them. We plan to deal with them at length as we go along:

1. Pelagianism – the Denial of Original Sin. This error says that we are born not spiritually dead but simply spiritually damaged, that we are born not sinful but simply inclined to sin. At birth, people are spiritually alive and pure until, as they grow older, they commit actual sins, and they need Baptism only as a help not as radical rebirth to being spiritually alive. This becomes a basis for the error of…

2. Universalism – All “good” people go to heaven. Some (or many?) people, without the help of Baptism, are nevertheless pleasing to God by their works and, despite the damage of the Ancestral Sin, somehow keep their childhood innocence and purity sufficiently enough to find salvation apart from Faith and Baptism. (This is Pelagian-based Universalism. There is also Origenist Universalism, but that seems popular only in far left World Orthodox circles; it’s not a problem in True Orthodox circles, at least not yet. The latter, Origenist version, is actually a more complete and ancient intellectual system. The former is based on a shallow sentimentalism, a recent phenomenon related to contemporary man’s incapacity for grasping the actual nature of the human condition, his tendency to an absurd optimism, and his incomprehension of the tragic worldview inherent in all the great philosophical systems, art, literature, etc.). Of course, no, or least very few Orthodox clergy – whether “World” or “True,” formally embrace Universalism. Remember, I am talking about tendencies and confusions, generally due (I hope!) to ignorance not malice; I am not talking about stated positions. But this paralyzing vapor, this deadly nerve gas of intellectual confusion, this miasma of sloppy thought on these subjects, seeps into the minds and wills of Orthodox people everywhere and vitiates the power of our witness.

3. The Denial of Penal Substitutionary Atonement – It is trendy to say that the Orthodox don’t believe that Christ paid the price for our sins, that He died vicariously for us on the Cross to fulfill the Justice of God, and that we are under God’s wrath and curse apart from the Redemption. “Oh, that’s all a bunch of Latin influence; it’s just a bunch of legalism,” they say. The Orthodox position, however is clearly stated in the Catechism of Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, the last catechism synodically approved by the Russian Orthodox Church before the Bolshevik revolution:

Q: “How does the death of Jesus Christ upon the cross deliver us from sin, the curse, and death?

“A: That we may the more readily believe this mystery, the Word of God teaches us of it, so much as we may be able to receive, by the comparison of Jesus Christ with Adam. Adam is by nature the head of all mankind, which is one with him by natural descent from him. Jesus Christ, in whom the Godhead is united with manhood, graciously made himself the new almighty Head of men, whom he unites to himself through faith. Therefore as in Adam we had fallen under sin, the curse, and death, so we are delivered from sin, the curse, and death in Jesus Christ. His voluntary suffering and death on the cross for us, being of infinite value and merit, as the death of one sinless, God and man in one person, is both a perfect satisfaction to the justice of God, which had condemned us for sin to death, and a fund of infinite merit, which has obtained him the right, without prejudice to justice, to give us sinners pardon of our sins, and grace to have victory over sin and death.

God hath willed to make known to his saints what is the riches of the glory of this mystery of the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Col. 1: 26,27

For if by one man’s offense death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.  Romans 5:17

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and, death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.  Romans 8:1-4 “

4. The Denial of Divine Retribution and, in General, of the Divine Justice – Related to the above error is a general tendency, related to the Marcionite heresy, to relegate the concepts of the Divine wrath and the Divine justice to the category of an “incomplete Old Testament understanding of God.” This is related to

5. Hyper-Therapeuticism in Pastoral Practice – All of Orthodox pastoral activity is reduced to the therapeutic model, which becomes not one of several but the exclusive model for the Church’s ministry. This vitiates Her ruling authority and prophetic vocation, and She becomes one among many competing vendors of feel-good-ism. “We’re the true faith because we offer a better product.” This is related to

6. Missing in Action-ism in the Culture War – “We don’t take sides in the Culture War,” says the effeminate, hyper-therapeutic pastor. “We are above all that.” “We are spiritual.” “We don’t want to judge and crush people with nasty-wasty condemnations like those mean fundamentalist Protestants and traditionalist Catholics.” In other words, the Church’s job, like Peter Pan’s, is to help people think happy thoughts, and Her pastors are not to be courageous shepherds fighting the wolves that are devouring people’s souls. Such pastors are likely to eschew a prophetic stand against the real enemies of the Orthodox people and instead toss out trendy terms like “racism” and “anti-semitism” to virtue signal to the Powers that Be and to lay a guilt trip for non-existent political “sins” on traditional believers who need their help to avoid real sins and to fight real enemies. The consistent theme here is comfort over struggle.

7. Libertarian Approach to Free Will and the Church’s Role in Society – Now we’ve come full circle, back to Pelagianism. The Neo-Pelagianism that is rife today includes a confused idea about the meaning of free will. “The Church has no business influencing civil legislation, because She wants people to obey God’s law ‘freely’.” But in fact our will is only free in its natural form, that is, prior to the Fall. After the Fall, our will, as well as our intellect and our feelings, is in bondage to Satan, a teaching denied by Pelagius. We may, as St. Paul says, want to do the good, but we are powerless to do it. This is true of the unbaptized, and it is also true of the vast majority of the baptized, who have committed various sins after Baptism and are still struggling with enslavement to their passions. For this reason, God has given the power of the sword to the state, to restrain the spread of evil, and the Church has the obligation to influence the state as much as possible to be as close as possible to revealed truth in its legislation and executive action.

Thus the Catalogue of Errors. But who is our new friend? As I note above, “I also see that there are individuals who find themselves under the Ecumenist leadership who nonetheless are – both in their words and in their actions – witnessing to vital truths, essential Orthodox doctrines that are under attack.” One of these men, whom I call our new friend, is an OCA priest who is, moreover (gasp) a graduate of St. Vladimir Seminary. His name is Fr. Joshua Schooping, and, though he doesn’t know it, he is about to become the new superstar of our Orthodox Survival Course. He has written masterful and compelling articles that take on all of the errors above, and he has them posted on his blog, at https://godlightangels.blogspot.com/. I have been aware of all these errors for a long time now, but I have never made time to deal with them. Now Fr. Joshua has done nearly all my work for me, and since I hate re-inventing the wheel, I plan to use his work extensively in explaining and dealing with the errors I’ve listed above.

You can go to his blog now, of course, search the archive, and find the articles relating to most of the problems I’ve listed above. You will notice that he quotes extensively and exclusively from the Greek Fathers. No one can accuse him of “Latinism,” and no one can accuse him of taking quotes out of context. It’s all there, the consensus patrum on Pelagianism, free will, and Penal Substitutionary Atonement. He has done us a great favor, and I pray the Lord will preserve and save him. In our next class, we plan to tackle Error 1, Pelagianism.

You can listen to an audio podcast of this blog post at https://www.spreaker.com/user/youngfaithradio/iilentmon

And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skin, and clothed them. And God said, Behold, Adam is become as one of us, to know good and evil, and now lest at any time he stretch forth his hand, and take of the tree of life and eat, and so he shall live forever— So the Lord God sent him forth out of the garden of Delight to cultivate the ground out of which he was taken. And he cast out Adam and caused him to dwell over against the garden of Delight, and stationed the cherubs and the fiery sword that turns about to keep the way of the tree of life. And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and brought forth Cain and said, I have gained a man through God. And she again bore his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And it was so after some time that Cain brought of the fruits of the earth a sacrifice to the Lord. And Abel also brought of the first born of his sheep and of his fatlings, and God looked upon Abel and his gifts, but Cain and his sacrifices he regarded not, and Cain was exceedingly sorrowful and his countenance fell. And the Lord God said to Cain, Why art thou become very sorrowful and why is thy countenance fallen? Hast thou not sinned if thou hast brought it rightly, but not rightly divided it? be still, to thee shall be his submission, and thou shalt rule over him. – Genesis 3:21-4:7

“And he cast out Adam and caused him to dwell over against the garden of Delight, and stationed the cherubs and the fiery sword that turns about to keep the way of the tree of life.” The Lord placed Adam “over against” (i.e., nearby and directly across from) the gate to Paradise, so that the sight of Paradise, the rustling of its leaves, and its ineffable life-giving fragrance, ever near to him yet ever closed to him by the fiery cherubic sword, would provoke him to weep fiery tears constantly in profound grief over the perfect happiness he threw away for one moment of “freedom” from God. Adam and Eve lived the rest of their long lives in constant repentance, and we rank them with the saints of the Church.

Man, even in his most depraved representatives, still seeks Paradise. He desires an ultimate happiness that he cannot lose, and he spends his life seeking it. He seeks it on this fallen earth and cannot find it. He seeks to build Paradise on earth and creates hell for himself. He ignores God’s command and tries to circumvent the fiery sword of God’s judgment, to take Paradise by stealth. He always fails.

Blessed are they who bow to God’s judgment and weep over their sins. Blessed are they who take compassion on their fellow penitents and weep with them, feeling the sorrows of the other as their own. Blessed are they who gratefully acquiesce to the limited earthly happiness God has decreed for them in this life, whether great or small. Blessed are they who do not seek Paradise on earth but in the age to come.

May we, this Great Lent, stand before the fiery sword at the gate of Paradise, scenting its fragrance and hearing the rustle of its leaves from afar: that is, may we stand in the Church of God, judging ourselves before the Judgment and receiving within our hearts the assurance of the forgiveness of our sins, the bright sorrow which gives hope, and the pledge of eternal life.

This commentary was taken from The Eternal Sacrifice: The Genesis Readings for Great Lent by Fr. Steven Allen. You can order a copy from Lulu at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/FrStevenAllen

You can listen to an audio podcast of this blog entry at

And Adam gave names to all the cattle and to all the birds of the sky, and to all the wild beasts of the field, but for Adam there was not found a help like to himself. And God brought a trance upon Adam, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs, and filled up the flesh instead thereof. And God formed the rib which he took from Adam into a woman, and brought her to Adam. And Adam said, This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of her husband. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. And the two were naked, both Adam and his wife, and were not ashamed. Now the serpent was the most crafty of all the brutes on the earth, which the Lord God made, and the serpent said to the woman, Wherefore has God said, Eat not of every tree of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said to the woman, Ye shall not surely die. For God knew that in whatever day ye should eat of it your eyes would be opened, and ye would be as gods, knowing good and evil. And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes to look upon and beautiful to contemplate, and having taken of its fruit she ate, and she gave to her husband also with her, and they ate. And the eyes of both were opened, and they perceived that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons to go round them. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the afternoon; and both Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God in the midst of the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called Adam and said to him, Adam, where art thou? And he said to him, I heard thy voice as thou walkedst in the garden, and I feared because I was naked and I hid myself. And God said to him, Who told thee that thou wast naked, unless thou hast eaten of the tree concerning which I charged thee of it alone not to eat? And Adam said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me—she gave me of the tree and I ate. And the Lord God said to the woman, Why hast thou done this? And the woman said, The serpent deceived me and I ate. And the Lord God said to the serpent, Because thou hast done this thou art cursed above all cattle and all the brutes of the earth, on thy breast and belly thou shalt go, and thou shalt eat earth all the days of thy life. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed, he shalt watch against thy head, and thou shalt watch against his heel. And to the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy pains and thy groanings; in pain thou shalt bring forth children, and thy submission shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And to Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and eaten of the tree concerning which I charged thee of it only not to eat—of that thou hast eaten, cursed is the ground in thy labours, in pain shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread until thou return to the earth out of which thou wast taken, for earth thou art and to earth thou shalt return. And Adam called the name of his wife Life, because she was the mother of all living. – Genesis 2:20-3:30

Man’s fall began when his mind accepted a lie, the lie of the devil. Up to that point, his mind had been pure and whole, a brilliant and perfect mirror perfectly reflecting reality. When he accepted the lie of the devil, he broke his mind into countless fragments, and these fragments have broken – and keep breaking – into more and more fragments more and more rapidly, as fallen, unconverted men apart from grace, apart from the Church, grow ever more sinful as the ages pass.

In the Church founded by Truth Himself, Our Lord Jesus Christ, God restores the mind of man and enables him to be whole again, in spirit, soul, and body. The saints are they who by grace “…have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him (Colossians 3:10 [KJV]).” What does it mean to be “renewed in knowledge”? Simply put, it means that the saints are the only people who see things as they really are. Even the great pagan philosophers recognized that the passions distort the intellect. Who, then, has a properly functioning intellect, except the man in whom God has cured the passions?

Let us resolve that during this Great Lent, which may be our last, we will immerse our minds in Holy Scripture and some good spiritual reading from ancient or recent Holy Fathers and reliable spiritual writers. Let us cleanse the mind as we also cleanse our will and our desires through cleanly confessing our sins. Let us cleanse our bodies through fasting. Let us cleanse egotism from our souls by acts of active love. Let us partake of the Bread of Life, our Lord Jesus Christ, in Holy Communion, so that Truth Himself will unite Himself organically to our very being.

Then we may begin to see things, at least a little bit, as they really are.

This commentary was taken from The Eternal Sacrifice: The Genesis Readings for Great Lent by Fr. Steven Allen. You can order a copy from Lulu at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/FrStevenAllen

You can listen to an audio podcast of this blog post at https://www.spreaker.com/user/youngfaithradio/ilentth

This is the book of the generation of heaven and earth, when they were made, in the day in which the Lord God made the heaven and the earth, and every herb of the field before it was on the earth, and all the grass of the field before it sprang up, for God had not rained on the earth, and there was not a man to cultivate it. But there rose a fountain out of the earth, and watered the whole face of the earth. And God formed the man of dust of the earth, and breathed upon his face the breath of life, and the man became a living soul. And God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and placed there the man whom he had formed. And God made to spring up also out of the earth every tree beautiful to the eye and good for food, and the tree of life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of learning the knowledge of good and evil. And a river proceeds out of Eden to water the garden, thence it divides itself into four heads. The name of the one, Phisom, this it is which encircles the whole land of Evilat, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good, there also is carbuncle and emerald. And the name of the second river is Geon, this it is which encircles the whole land of Ethiopia. And the third river is Tigris, this is that which flows forth over against the Assyrians. And the fourth river is Euphrates. And the Lord God took the man whom he had formed, and placed him in the garden of Delight, to cultivate and keep it. And the Lord God gave a charge to Adam, saying, Of every tree which is in the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—of it ye shall not eat, but in whatsoever day ye eat of it, ye shall surely die. And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone, let us make for him a help suitable to him. And God formed yet farther out of the earth all the wild beasts of the field, and all the birds of the sky, and he brought them to Adam, to see what he would call them, and whatever Adam called any living creature, that was the name of it. – Genesis 2:4-19

God made the animals to be a companion for man “…and he brought them to Adam, to see what he would call them, and whatever Adam called any living creature, that was the name of it.” Adam’s mind was a pure and unbroken mirror, perfectly reflecting all around him. His speech, the speech of Paradise, was perfect expression, and each name he gave perfectly expressed the essence of each thing he named. Between the mind, the word coming forth from the mind, and the thing named by the word, there was no conflict, no gap, no misunderstanding. Adam was at one with God, with himself, and with creation, in understanding, in activity, and in love.

Sin broke man’s mind into countless pieces, and each piece reflects only a tiny and disconnected fragment of what is real. Sin broke man’s activity, and his efforts always end in defeat. Sin broke man’s love, and he devotes his heart to that which is unworthy, and the object of his love devours him.

Grace heals man’s mind, his activity, and his love. Grace unites the fragmented thoughts, gives power to man’s activity, and directs his love to that which is truly lovable. Grace restores man to Paradise.

Christ, the New Adam, came to give us this grace. Let us worship Him.

This commentary was taken from The Eternal Sacrifice: The Genesis Readings for Great Lent by Fr. Steven Allen. You can order a copy from Lulu at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/FrStevenAllen

You can listen to an audio podcast of this blog entry at https://www.spreaker.com/user/youngfaithradio/ilentwed

And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind, quadrupeds and reptiles and wild beasts of the earth according to their kind, and it was so. And God made the wild beasts of the earth according to their kind, and cattle according to their kind, and all the reptiles of the earth according to their kind, and God saw that they were good. And God said, Let us make man according to our image and likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the flying creatures of heaven, and over the cattle and all the earth, and over all the reptiles that creep on the earth. And God made man, according to the image of God he made him, male and female he made them. And God blessed them, saying, Increase and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the seas and flying creatures of heaven, and all the cattle and all the earth, and all the reptiles that creep on the earth. And God said, Behold I have given to you every seed-bearing herb sowing seed which is upon all the earth, and every tree which has in itself the fruit of seed that is sown, to you it shall be for food. And to all the wild beasts of the earth, and to all the flying creatures of heaven, and to every reptile creeping on the earth, which has in itself the breath of life, even every green plant for food; and it was so. And God saw all the things that he had made, and, behold, they were very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. And the heavens and the earth were finished, and the whole world of them. And God finished on the sixth day his works which he made, and he ceased on the seventh day from all his works which he made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he ceased from all his works which God began to do. – Genesis 1:24-2:3

Since God made the human heart to hold Him, man’s first occupation was to contemplate God. He made Adam and Eve to be His friends. He commanded them to till and to keep Paradise, but this was not work as we understand it. They did the physical work of tending the plants of Paradise and governing the animals, but this gave them pure joy and delight, for it was labor without pain. They also worked at a higher tilling and keeping, and this was their primary activity: tilling and keeping the mind, contemplating God in His infinite perfections. God designed this work to continue for all eternity, intending for their minds to rise ever higher, never ceasing, to greater and greater understanding, unto greater and greater delight in knowing and loving God.

In today’s reading, the Lord Himself teaches by example what is the end of all man’s labors: the Seventh Day rest. “And God finished on the sixth day his works which he made, and he ceased on the seventh day from all his works which he made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he ceased from all his works which God began to do.” Knowing man’s fallen state, He gives him six days of the week to work for the food that perishes, but on the day sanctified by His own rest, God commands man to cease from labor and spend the day in his original activity, which is spending time with God.

When God became a man to save us, He completed all His labors once again on the Sixth Day and rested once again from all His labors on the Seventh Day, sleeping in the tomb according to the body but going down with His human soul into Hades, to free all those held captive from ages past. Then on the First Day, which is also the Eighth Day, He broke the bonds of death by His Resurrection and sanctified this day as the icon of eternity. Thus Christians now rest on the Lord’s Day to honor the image of that Day that shall know no evening, and not only to honor but actually to partake by anticipation of the endless delight of that Day, even in this life.

How do we keep the Lord’s Day? How do we actually spend the 24 hours from sunset Saturday to sunset Sunday? Let us, this Lent, resolve to be honest about this, make straight that which we have made crooked, and fill up that which we lack.

This commentary was taken from The Eternal Sacrifice: The Genesis Readings for Great Lent by Fr. Steven Allen. You can order a copy from Lulu at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/FrStevenAllen