199 thoughts on “3 Reasons To Join The Eastern Orthodox Church”

1. He writes: ” my growing interest in the world of blockchain technology” and then he proceeds to preach about Christianity.

   1. What is so unchristian about blockchain technology ?

   2. In my opinion, Distributed Ledger Technology is our way around the control systems set up by the enemies of our civilization. What’s wrong with that?

   3. I’m surprised the author didn’t hyperextend his genuflecting knee with that segue. Sorry, but I’m done with religion after being raised a Catholic. One too many cracks to the back of the head in church by frustrated, pear shaped nuns, not to mention the gay priest always trying to tend to the flock with their “rod and staff.” I also don’t need counseling from a dude who’s not supposed to get laid that I should solely shag missionary for impregnating only. The stuff about not eating pork and “things that creepeth” is probably a good idea, though.

      1. @Robert
         Ha, oh man….so much wrong with everything you said it’s almost not worth replying too but I figure I might as well. Most people don’t understand sex in a Catholic marriage so I’ll go ahead and explain it too you cuse clearly the ‘gay priest’ and ‘nuns’ didn’t beat you over the head enough. The form or act of sex in marriage is really irrelevant as long as the two people don’t have a problem having a kid; in other words most things are a ‘go’ as long as your always open to the idea of procreation when it is being done. The style of lovemaking isn’t what Jesus cares about, its whether you two are faithful and acknowledge the fact that the intent to for procreation. A better example is say you were infertile and couldn’t have kids. As long as you and your spouse are still open to having kids (acknowledging the procreative purpose) than your lovemaking isn’t sinful. I almost didn’t want to reply to Robert because of how superficial and ugly you put the religion, but for anyone else reading he clearly needs correcting on the topic. As far as the priest being celibate and telling you what is appropriate as far as sex goes that is maybe one of the most ignorant and misunderstood things about priests. Can you even comprehend or a moment how difficult real celibacy is? I suspect you can’t. Only a priest could tell you. I’m sure it’s easier to remain chaste for some more than others, but I would argue priests are the most well versed men to talk to about sexuality and relationships. Why, because they had to overcome that temptation at some point. Can you even imagine denying your entire existence? I doubt you can. But thats what a priest does. He says “I will not pass on my genes, I will be chaste and celibate and make a vow to God and God alone” – few people I believe can even comphrhend the difficulty of such a vow. I would fnd it excruciating to make such a life committment. I’ve tried long period of time with celibacy and it is not an easy thing. But, priests overcome these fixations and my hat is off to them for that. I don’t see you (Robert) striving for betterment? What are you doing which is worthy of respect? You would rather sit back and make disgusting remarks about men who are striving for virtue. I suggests you fast, pray hard, and get your ass back to church and go to confession. Superficial Catholics like Robert need the church more than anyone else. Born into the holiest institution and he spits on it. That my friends, is cultural marxism and relativism for you. A generation born into a stronghold of virtue where kings are born and since he was raised by boomers most likely turns away from the one thing instilling any sense of morality in him. Cultural relativism at its zenith.

         1. John, thank you for your thoughtful and enlightening testimony. Can you explain why priests tried to fuck kids in the ass? And maybe how the leadership in Catholic Church just shuffled offending priests to new, fertile grounds, ripe with potential victims. Maybe you can point me to some scripture.

      2. @ Robert
         You act as if the church is the only place pedophiles rape little kids. The people who ‘shuffled’ priests around as you put it who knew of the sexual abuse should go to prison, obviously, no ones saying they shouldn’t and those that are should go to prison too. I don’t know the entire situation so I’m not going to act as a spokesperson for the Church here, but its like I stated earlier, people like you expect the Church to be infallible and think no crimes will ever be committed and if a crime is committed in the church suddenly they throw up their arms and use those offenses as an excuse to not go to church themselves. Your kids can get raped anywhere, the reason its a big deal is because you don’t expect priests to be doing that shit obviously. Its just an abuse of power like anything else. Not to mention the actual percent of abuse isn’t as staggering as its made out to be. The issue is obviously an important one that shouldn’t be overlooked but its not the end all be all by any means. The church isn’t ‘perfect’ because humans aren’t and its run by flawed humans. Its not rocket science. I could sit here and cry rape for almost any institution in some way shape or form, the failings of a few don’t account for the majority. I would say though that even with all of the corruption and problems over the centuries for the church to still be established is a testament to its divinity.

         1. No, I didn’t “act” in any manner as you suggest in regards to the church. I expected an institution espousing the manner in which we should live our lives to have a significantly lower instance of pedofilia then the general public since all its members were handpicked by God himself. You mention that priests are “men striving for virtue” without acknowledging that individuals and the institution failed miserably to protect our children. We are not talking about Hollywood exec abusing adult women. These were children molested by men of the cloth. Most Christians defend their faith with righteous indignation seasoned with personal insults. I guess it’s true. Evil is where you least expect it.

      3. “I expected an institution espousing the manner in which we should live our lives to have a significantly lower instance of pedofilia then the general public”
         It is significantly lower than the general public…I don’t think you realize how big the church is, for how large it is the actual percent hardly phases me, I’m surprised its not double or triple what it is, and who knows, maybe the ‘real’ percent of abuse is larger, or maybe its smaller…on a whole the church is massive though, to not expect any corruption whatsoever is simply ignorance and ivory tower thinking.
         I don’t think the actual percent is what you care about. I guarantee it wouldn’t make a difference to you either way. Even if the Church literally had 0 instances of sexual abuse you would find something else to bitch and moan about.
         The church draws the spiritual and the unholy – people with defects galvanize themselves to the church, its like psychiatrists and psychology majors, the same people psychoanalyzing their patients are the same people who should probably be psychoanalyzed themselves sometimes… Its like being surprised that maybe your psychiatrist is a little crazier than you thought – not every shrink is looney obviously, (just like every priest isn’t a pedophile) maybe a handful are genuinely legit basket cases, would you really be surprised if a shrink ended up in a mental asylum? I wouldn’t. Nor am I surprised that a >1% of priests end up molesting easy prey because they can’t handle celibacy and they have a mental disorder…the Church intrinsically seeks people who need help, is it any wonder when a priest needs some kind of spiritual or ‘mental’ help? The Church needs to be more careful obviously but to think it’ll never happen is like saying murder will never happen again, or victimization should never happen, or any other type of crime – sure its a scandal, but again, the actual percent is shockingly low for how huge the Church is-its easy to point the finger, I don’t feel let down by the Church because I know its such a case by case issue of a small percent of problem individuals that it doesn’t effect the reality on a whole. Think of the reverse, wouldn’t it seem bizarre if you NEVER heard of any corruption in a church? It would seem obvious they were covering something up if you never heard of any problems whatsoever, so simply the fact that we know what is actually going on is worthy of praise in its own right…it sounds like you don’t give a shit either way and you just want something to bitch about so go right ahead, I’m pretty sure your un willing to change your mind on the issue…Do you act the same way with everything else in your life? One problem person makes you lose all hope and abandon everything you could stand for? I suspect you just cherry pick issues, and because child abuse is the easiest thing in the world to criticize you’d rather use the topic to justify your own lack of belief. If it was like 10% of priests or some insanely high percent, hell even 5% would have me worried, but its less than a percent for crying out loud. If it was over 5% of priests sexually abusing than I’d be bitching as much as you, but its not even close to that. Again, the Church is massive, you have like over 400,000 priests, 10% of that is 41,000 – I don’t know the current number but I know back in like 2014 there was like 3,400 cases with about 850 priests losing there job. Let’s just say hypothetically ALL of those accused actually did some bad shit of some kind, and hell, lets even round the number way way up for you- so put it at like 4,000 cases (allegedly) of ‘some-kind’ of abuse or whatever. That’s just cases mind you, thats not the actual number of priests, again the number of priests that lost their job was like 850 – but lets just entertain you and say it was 4,000 priests. That’s 4,000 out of 400,000 – do the math. That’s just 1 fucking percent. And the number is even being exaggerated here to offset any of your bitching. Compare that to the BS pc culture stats like “Every 98 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted. And every 8 minutes, that victim is a child. Meanwhile, only 6 out of every 1,000 perpetrators will end up in prison.” – its laughable how low the churches percent is in comparison, seriously, I have no problem saying your being hysterical on the topic. Your going to ALWAYS have deranged freaks no matter what, those priests will burn in hell for what they did and they should probably be getting the death penalties, but people exaggerate the hell out of this issue. Its less than a percent of priests and it happens way more in society outside the church. So your bitching is just that, bitching. Of course it would be better if it was lower, hell yes it would be better, but its already less than a percent, what do you want? 0? Get out of your ivory tower and stop complaining. It would be amazing if it was like 10 priest EVER, or maybe even as low as 100 ever, but there’s 7 billion people on earth and the Church is massive, yes, we all agree its tragic, but your cherry picking and so are the liberals and ‘progressives’ like you who mock the church and find any little problem with it that they can.

         1. I’ll go ahead and correct myself before someone feels obligated to use a mistype against me:
            10% of 400,000 is 40,000 – not 41,000 – obviously*

         2. Spoken like a true Christian, certainty postulated at length with unsubstantiated, rude accusations espoused with the advice that another should go to confession. For the record, the rate of molestation in the Church is well documented as same percentage found in the general public.

      4. Less than 1% isn’t good enough for you I guess. What you want it at 0 or 0.01%? What are you even bitching about? You think it should never happen? What’s your argument? You want ‘men of the cloth’ to be 100% perfect all of the time? That’d be great but your expectations are unfortunately most likely unachievable…”I expect them to have a significantly lower percent than the general public” You want like 0.01%? Would 100 cases make you happy? Sorry to break it to you but it’s an Imperfect world

         1. No long diatribe this time? I was beginning to think you were being paid by the word. You’re slightly more prolific than Stephen King. A heathen like me has a hard time wading through your lengthy comments. You must have honed your writing skills during your long periods of celibacy. By the way, it only counts when self imposed. The point is the hand selected by God, seminary educated holy men molest children at the same rate as the general public. The part I can’t figure out is how did they let in a dude looking for his dad and trying to crawl back into a vagina into the manosphere?

      5. Ad hominem’s for the win? No logic in that brain eh? Simply mindless bitchfest whining and perceived personal attacks.

         1. You are very astute at pointing out the flaws of others. The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

2. So, did you convert? Or are your a Protestant who attends the services?
   Asking because one of the significant differences is the road to Salvation. How do you reconcile that with a pro-testa mindset?

   1. I inquired for a while, and then became a catechumen.

3. without getting into theological disputes, it must be noted that both Orthodox and Protestant Christianity were the revolts against the greedy and contentious papism…
   but blood & honor should be our greatest creeds

   1. Stfu

   2. Orthodoxy was not a revolt against the Pope. The Bishop of Rome was originally first in honor, but not authority (all bishops in the Orthodox Church are equal in authority). Then the Pope tried to claim higher authority as well as honor. Papism was an attempted coup of the Orthodox Church that only partially succeeded.

      1. yep, the pope’s ”claim for power” makes it a bigger scheme than any zionist one.
         the three greatest perils to the white race are catholicism, communism and nazism

         1. Catholicism and nazis were both great you cuck

         2. SShelm
            sure, for a little homosexual freak like you they’re ideal!

         3. What’s the problem with National Socialism? The lampshade and gas fart stories are (((propaganda))). If we didn’t have National Socialism (((they))) would have used anything else to shame and browbeat us.

         4. the problem is it’s a ideology based on hate and arrogance, not unity and respect, it was full of jews and all sorts of deviants and it caused a european brother war resulting in over 50 million death white europeans

   3. Ummm…no.
      The Orthodox church predates the Roman Catholic church. In fact, what is today the Roman Catholic church was once part of the Orthodox church. It split officially from the Orthodox church in 1054.
      To be fair, at the time most of the reasons for Rome leaving and going it alone were political, not theological. But, Rome has drifted far from orthodoxy over the years.

      1. You have it backwards – Orthodox LEFT the church because they no longer wanted a Pope (bishop of Rome) – Did the early Church (prior the schism) ever have a Pope??? Yes, clearly they did. For the Orthodox to claim they are the FIRST church is to imply they never had a head Bishop, which is nonsensical. The Orthodox broke away. The Catholic Church didn’t make the Orthodox leave, they decided to do that on their own.

         1. ” For the Orthodox to claim they are the FIRST church is to imply they never had a head Bishop, which is nonsensical”
            No the orthodox claim they are the church that always was. A head Bishop of course, but not in the way Catholics understand it. The head of the orthodox faith is the bishops of the apostles, and that includes Rome. However the first particrahite was Jerusalem, then Antioch, Alexandria, Rome, Constantinople and later Moscow.
            “The Orthodox broke away. The Catholic Church didn’t make the Orthodox leave, they decided to do that on their own.”
            If that is true then way are the 4 Patriarchs still in communion with each other as Rome is not? I think its historically opposite John, because remember the ambassadors of the Roman Patriarch went to the cathedral of Agia Sophia and went to the altar and layed down the bill of excommunication. It was the church of Rome which broke away which the Pope in Rome was not happy to hear but didn’t do much because he died and his successor didn’t make a good inroad for reapporcgament.

   4. Blood and Honor above and beyond all other creeds – I agree 100% with that. Any religion or philosophy or political ideology that declares the creed of Blood and Honor to be evil is an enemy creed. I was raised Lutheran but I left that denomination decades ago. I like the Orthodox Church for aesthetic reasons and because nowadays they’re still the least-cucked Christian denomination, but in the deepest core of my being I remain an Ancestor-worshipping Heathen from the cold, dark northern fringe of Europe. But for those here who must remain Christian, I strongly recommend the Orthodox Church, and I mostly defend that church in that context.

4. One of the greatest sins contemporary Christianity commits is disguising weakness in morality. Do the eastern orthodox do the same, or do they follow the examples of the old testament?

   1. Ethan. The Orthodox Church represents God’s new covenant, yet all of the teachings of the Old Testament are followed. For the Orthodox, sin is “missing the mark” or simply turning your back on God’s ways. The problem with sin is that it injures and clouds your soul. Hence we go to church, the hospital for the soul, to heal ourselves. The modern Church elders refer to it as Orthodox Psychotherapy.

      1. Sounds similar to what has been revealed to me, but I’m more of a Matt 6:5 guy.

      2. All the teachings of the OT are followed? So you sacrifice animals and do all the other ceremonial requirements laid out in the Mosaic Law? Yeah…I didn’t think so.
         Don’t insult our intelligence by saying dumb shit like that, Nick.

         1. I understand your confusion. I was pretty confused too until I realized this important fact: the ancient peoples didn’t have sophisticated language to talk of abstract morality. So they demonstrated them through actions and stories.
            To sacrifice an animal means you don’t get to eat it: you give up what could be useful today in hopes of a better tomorrow, like giving a guest your best cut of meat or not eating your seeds before planting time. This sacrifice is what is meant by gaining the favor of the divine. In burnt offerings, the sacrifice is transformed into a substance that could reach the unknown/transcendent/divine, which to the ancient peoples was the sky (they couldn’t fly or predict the weather so they found the sky a neat thing).
            It’s pretty sophisticated and smart. But now we have the language to phrase these underlying actions and morals so we don’t have to sacrifice animals. Rather we sacrifice our time to speak of it or -in this case- type of it.
            Ancient folks were pretty bright, but they were certainly different.

   2. To answer your question the approach is different in the Orthodox Church, and I think frankly it may have to due with the heavy Russian influence on the Church.
      There is humility, but also the expectation of duty especially for men who are fathers. There is forgiveness of sin, but also a price to be paid for it as well. For example they are dead serious about marital vows and will excommunicate you for frivolous divorce.

      1. The Orthodox Church in America (OCA) has a Russian influence, because it is an offshoot of the Russian Orthodox Church (Russia once owned Alaska, the ROC created churches in Alaska, those churches then spread to the US west coast, and eventually became the OCA).
         But, there are a number of other Orthodox denominations that are operating in the United States that have no Russian influence at all. The Greek Orthodox and the Antiochian Orthodox Church being two.

   3. []…disguising weakness in morality…[] What do you mean? I take it your one of these Nietzsche lovers who think Christianity is a ‘slave religion’?

      1. Oh, sorry. I guess I didn’t make myself clear.
         “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us — for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto.” Friedrich Nietzsche, The Parable of the Madman (1882)
         Nietzsche doesn’t sound very happy about the death of god.
         Christianity is liberating rather than enslaving, because it teaches you to accept there will be suffering in your life, but to keep trying anyway. We are all capable of evil deeds, but we choose not to and instead willingly suffer today (by not giving into such primal urges) to make a better tomorrow.
         But instead many of these purported modern Christians use the language of Christianity to disguise their ideals of social justice. They are too weak to assert themselves so they justify it in the “meekness” Jesus mentioned -which may have been a bad translation of the phrase “those who have weapons but know to sheathe them”. “Turn the other cheek” can also be interpreted as “I dare you to do that again, see what happens”.

5. Orthodoxy is a series of healing practices that were divinely revealed to us by Christ, thus the Church is called the hospital for the soul. Orthodoxy is: What Christ teaches, What the Apostles preach and, What the Church Fathers kept. The goal of Orthodox practice is to reach theosis, the union with God. This is done through noetic prayer. The Saints are those considered to have reached theosis.
   In fact, Orthodoxy is not religion but instead the cure for the sickness of religion. Here is a very good explanation on YouTube https://goo.gl/dtj9yX

   1. I’m C of E – High Episcopal, meaning Catholic without the Pope, incense, candles, all that – and I’ve seen the Church go downhill in the last two decades or so. Women Priests*, pimply teenagers with guitars to make the services more “Relevant,” dumping the traditional service, all the too over-the-top SJW nonsense that goes way beyond simple compassion, you name it. You can’t help but ask yourself what ever happened to the tradition(s) and simple, dignified grandeur you used to see at services, whether at a simple country church a la Midsomner Murders or at, say, St. Paul’s. What happened to my Church?
      And then you get a glimpse of the Russian/Greek/Eastern Orthodox approach to things. Dark, brooding, Candlelit. Icons glowing from the walls. Mystery. Coming face to face with something cosmically greater than yourself.
      Mystery. In a word: Mystery.
      I once ended up chatting with somebody – this was more or less mid-90s right after the fall of communism – who turned out to be some sort of Pentecostal on his way to Russia to “Preach the Gospel” or some such nonsense. My reply to him: “Do you have any idea what you’re up against? You’re up against the Orthodox Church. You’re up against the Soul of Russia. They understand “Mystery.” It’s their stock in trade, and they’re good at it. It’s what sells in that part of the world. There’s nothing you can offer that they can’t top. And they’re going to eat you alive.”
      The C of E used to have that, the “Mystery” as well. But over the years they’ve lost it. And unless they do a hard about face and soon, I suspect the Eastern Orthodox folks will see an ever increasing number of the Faithful joining their numbers.
      Just a thought.
      VicB3
      *If the Women Priests were less Butch and more like the Priestesses you see depicted in, say, Frank Frazetta, I imagine that the pews would be filled with suddenly devout male parishioners.

      1. What happened is the leadership stopped believing in God, and started to see themselves as ‘alternative’ social workers.

         1. Protestants can reform and over reform into the news cool trend of the world of today. Religion should be like a motor on a boat to steer you where you want to go. Reform is like throwing the paddles that can row the boat and the little boats motor into the river and let the river guide the boat… where it inevitably ends in rapids, crashes and you die. Islam has strong families because we don’t reform. Even Sufi Islam is ancient and not reform.
            ***
            When the Mowhawk came out, the people then thought it was cool, 80s shoulder pads and crazy eye make. A few years later, people realize how silly that fashion trend was and laugh at it. SJWs are a fashion trend. As Obama was just elected, it was super cool until people went to the mirror and realized how ridiculous they looked. Trump got elected. Eventually like the 80s Mowhawk, people will realize how ridiculous it was and dump everything associated with it. And they’ll dump all the churches that reformed into SJW as soon SJW becomes last season like a bad 80s trend. Fashion changes all the time, but wisdom is constant. That’s why religions that base themselves in wisdom and do not reform are the ones that survive. As a Muslim, your Orthodoxy is good. Latin Mass Catholicism is a close second, but keep the church out of politics. Islam’s innovation is you pray to Allah directly rather than buy indulgences from a priest, that the mullah doesn’t answer to a bishop, and holds no political power. Almost Martin Luther like before Martin Luther. Orthodox Church (with the exception of Russia) keeps out of politics but guides people of all political stripes to act righteously. In Muslim countries, Muslim Brotherhood is the most corrupt party mixing religion and politics. For Catholics: Religion + politics = corruption, please avoid it and go back to latin mass. For Orthodox, keep doing what you are doing.

   2. sounds like esoteric… Thank god we had Thomas Aquinas.

6. As much as I respect the eastern church its misleading to say it was the church Jesus founded, I believe that honor goes to the Roman Catholic Church.
   “Charlemagne’s crowning made the Byzantine Emperor redundant, and relations between the East and the West deteriorated until a formal split occurred in 1054. The Eastern Church became the Greek Orthodox Church by severing all ties with Rome and the Roman Catholic Church — from the pope to the Holy Roman Emperor on down.”
   The eastern church is very much a ‘sister’ church to the west in that regards and the main points in the article are more or less spot on; the church is untainted by cultural marxism, it is richer and deeper than the Protestant community. These points are all valid. The Protestant and nondenominational Christians are really missing the entire dogma of Jesus if they don’t attend masses centered around the Eucharist. Regardless I don’t see east and west being split for that many more centuries. Their reconciliation is near.

   1. I pray the Schism gets healed, though I don’t see how the Roman Catholics will ever be able to give up papal supremacy. That is, in my opinion, the primary issue keeping them out of communion with all the other Patriarchates.

      1. Good to read of you again, Witcoff. Good article. Glad to see you found some information you could share (some was big news to me). I’ll have to look into Orthodoxy, see what else I can learn.

         1. Likewise, Seth. This is the first video series I went through–tons of amazing information here:
            

      2. We have the papal supremacy for 2000 years… Do you think god would not allow this to happen if this is not that what he wanted?
         Let’s talk about Constantino… ähhhh Istanbul..

      3. Oh, it’s much greater than simply a matter of the Pope. The two churches have grown so far apart on issues large and small that the schism is permanent. And that’s not a bad thing. I see EO as the great counterweight to Catholic liberation theology.
         Speaking for myself, if I were a Trinitarian, I’d probably be EO, especially one of the Russian church variants. Reading the Bible, I came to a Unitarian Christology myself (NOT Unitarian Universalism, which IMO isn’t even a real religion anymore… the best description for me would probably be “Biblical Unitarian” or even Arian). But I deeply admire the Eastern Orthodox churches, especially the Russian branches, and have a special fascination with the Old Believers in Russia.

         1. Hey Doug, thanks for the comment. It also took me a long time to accept Trinitarianism, and my own reading of Scripture likewise landed me on something akin to Arianism.
            What eventually won me over, ironically, was an essay by the Jews For Jesus. In the essay (which I have linked to below) they lay out pretty clear evidence that as early as Genesis, the One God existed in a plurality.
            Further, they detail convincing evidence throughout the Old Testament that this plurality consists of three distinct Persons. Check it out and let me know what you think: https://jewsforjesus.org/publications/issues/issues-v01-n08/jewishness-and-the-trinity/

         2. @ Douglas
            Nah, the schism is not permanent, just look at the Eastern Rite Church, which is essentially what the Orthodox would become if they returned to their roots.

7. I think its important to explain why the Orthodox Church has suffered the dilution of doctrine and has not been corrupted by Leftists.
   The Orthodox Church is “connected” in that there can be no change to interpretation of the teachings of Christ and his apostles, without agreement from all the Bishops. This ensures that each Bishop is accountable to every other Bishop, and it stops the “I am gonna turn my parish into a SJW outpost” dead in its tracks.
   Compare that to the Protestants. Because the Protestants rely on scripture alone and because they are free to come up with their own brand as they see fit, all manner of heresy can be incorporated as they see fit.
   For the record, I was born and raised a Baptist and converted to Orthodox in my mid 40’s.

   1. *hasn’t not has*

   2. You’re implying that because the Orthodox Church has a top-down authority system as opposed to the more democratic, bottom-up Protestants, that the Protestants are more likely to be heretical.
      That’s simply nonsense. How does relying on Scripture naturally lead to heresy? Furthermore, one authoritarian leader can just as easily lead his flock into heresy like a majority of a congregation can.
      And Protestants can kick heretical churches of their denominations if they choose, so I don’t even want to hear it.

      1. Protestants are more heretical because of the belief in sola scriptura. Plain and simple. Its not complicated to understand. When someone is allowed to interpret the bible anyway they want you end up with relativists and subjectivity. If there is no consensus on doctrine (i.e. dogma) than yo have everyone interpreting scripture differently and thus end up with bizarre relative interpretations of scripture. If no system of authority than you have no system.

         1. Well sad, John.

         2. “Protestants are more heretical because of the belief in Sola Scriptura.”
            100% bullshit. Where does Jesus teach this? Nowhere. Where do the apostles teach this? Nowhere.
            Jesus didn’t set up a system of authority, so if you think it’s necessary, then fine, but He didn’t advocate one. Learn to read.

         3. @ Gouv
            The claim is that Jesus set up a system of authority, you asked, “Where does Jesus teach this?”
            Jesus said to Peter, “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church.” Matthew 16:18
            How is what Jesus said not giving authority to Peter? Seems pretty self-evident if you ask me. I hate semantics, but why wouldn’t Jesus just say,” On this rock I will build my Church.”??? Why say “You are Peter…” And the interpretation is the same across the board. The only way you could suggest Jesus wasn’t building his Church with Peter would be to eliminate Peter from the passage altogether. Almost not worth my time explaining.

      2. Your missing the point.
         A “democratic, bottom-up Protestants” is how you get divorce rampant through the churches because its what democracy demands. It gives you gay female priests. It gives you churches where young women are getting nailed six ways from Sunday on “youth ministry outings”. Instead of bending your will towards G-d its bent towards cultural norms.
         The Protestants have no defense against this. They answer to nobody, and they interpret scripture as suits them.
         “And Protestants can kick heretical churches of their denominations if they choose”
         So F’ing what? You know what happens to Heretical Protestant Churches that are kicked out of their denominations? The go onto be the next big “Non-Denominational” Mega Church like your Joel Olsten’s, Mark Driscoll’s, Benny Hin’s and so forth. Why because once they go “non-denominational” they nobody is going to stop them and American’s just can’t seem to get enough of Church without Christ.
         I was born and raised Baptist and I have witnessed all of this shit with my own eyes, and it is the very reason why I converted to Orthodox.

         1. The problem with democracy is how open it is, or has become, to unhealthy influences. A democracy ran by strong, healthy men, helped by healthy women, won’t let degeneracy become “normal”. Why did political correctness win? Because people were either stupid or coward enough to follow it. Now they are afraid of going against it. They didn’t demand it, they just had their “normal” consciousness molded by it. If (((some))) didn’t abuse democracy perhaps we could still have it with no problem.

8. I’m a traditional Muslim woman, virgin until marriage, and married a religious Ukrainian Orthodox Christian guy. I strongly recommend this religion for white people, it keeps you strong without having to convert to Islam for a strong community and families that produce children. To secure a future for western children, Orthodox Church is the best solution. I am very happy with him, solid masculine guy and their church is lovely. All the young people are married, sane, red pilled. Other white people our age are all in dysfunctional non-relationships where they screw each other, occasionally live with each other, don’t know what’s going on so are always depressed and cope with copious amounts of alcohol while we have fun traditions, warm homes strong families and attend weddings and birthdays of children. Orthodox faith, be it Islam, Christianity etc. is life. Cultural marxism is death. So is over-reforming into cultural marxism. The secret of Islam is that it refused to reform, that’s why we have kids and strong communities. The only equivalent strong masculine faith in Christianity is Orthodoxy. The problem with Catholicism is church and state are too intertwined so people start to become lax, as they get disillusioned with the corruption that inevitably arises, but it’s a close second. As for Protestantism, might as well be a pagan, worshipping Odin is less cucked.
   The good thing about the mosque is it helps raise kids, you have a community, babysitters, mullah or elders kids look up to. Wallah the Orthodox church is not different and will help you raise more white children.

   1. I agree. Orthodox faith is a bulwark against degeneracy.

      1. out of interest, do you still regard yourself as a cathar? From taking a brief look at eastern orthodoxy I can see that there are some potential points of contact,
         katharsis – purification
         theoria – illumination
         theosis – deification, union with God
         (taken from https://forums.catholic.com/t/theosis/263249/15)
         Catharism though was thoroughly gnostic, and considered the creator of this world to be a demiurge separate from the God to be united with through perfection did it not?
         There is also the issue of what is meant by deification / union with God. Further down on the page linked to above there is a discussion of what theosis / deification / union with God would mean in this context:
         “From the Summa Theologica III q1 a2
         *for Augustine says in a sermon (xiii de Temp.): “Go was made man, that man might be made God.
         *
         theosis = partaking in the divine nature.
         But divinisation does not mean that our substance changes and literally fusionates with God, but that you become like “transparent” to God”
         I cannot say whether that is a fair and accurate description of the concept but if it is then we would be talking about something very different from the say the self-deification promoted by some occultists for example

         1. Hey, good to see you again. No, I do not consider myself a Cathar any more.
            The deeper I get into Christianity, and the more the meaning of Scripture is revealed to me, the more I realize that a lot of what I used to believe was based on incomplete knowledge and understanding.
            I had a very difficult time trying to reconcile the goodness of God with the evil of the world, which is how I landed on Catharism and other dualist paradigms like the one Marcion believed in.
            But the more I learn, the more Orthodox doctrine makes sense. In fact, I also had a problem with the idea of theosis at first, specifically because of what you mentioned: it sounds a lot like the self-deification that occultists believe in.
            However, I now understand that is NOT what theosis means. I do wish its description was worded a bit differently, but I see theosis as being infused by the uncreated Energies of God in order to become more like Him.
            That is strictly opposed to the occultist view of “becoming God” in the sense of being the ultimate arbiter of morality in one’s life. Occultists try to actualize their own Will in order to “become God;” Orthodox “become LIKE God” by completely submitting their own will to God’s.

      2. thanks for your reply. It’s good to see you are still contributing
         “I also had a problem with the idea of theosis at first, specifically because of what you mentioned: it sounds a lot like the self-deification that occultists believe in.
         However, I now understand that is NOT what theosis means. I do wish its description was worded a bit differently, but I see theosis as being infused by the uncreated Energies of God in order to become more like Him. ”
         Mysticism often seems to involve the idea or ideal of union with God, but upon what basis the churches are sometimes reticent. Even if the human will submits to the divine the above and below of things can sometimes blur the distinction. Mystics and messiahs typically believe they may channel the will of God and in a sense the question as to who’s in the saddle becomes in practice somewhat academic. I believe the Eastern Orthodox believe that any such union depends on God’s grace, but then in practice it is the mystic on the ground who will pronounce upon such things
         To be honest I don’t know much about the eastern orthodox church but from a cursory look there do seem to have been some interesting historical debates that have influenced its direction, particularly around the ideas of Palamas with respect to the essence / energy distinction, which you appear to reference. Wikipedia notes that “in Palamite theology, it is the uncreated energies of God that illumine the Hesychast who has been vouchsafed an experience of the Uncreated Light”. That seems to me a little bit like an emanationist theory of sorts. The best take on it I can find with respect to distinguishing the eastern orthodox ‘energy-essence’ distinction and catholicism is a from a page in reddit which considers that “Catholics teach that the blessed will see the Divine Essence in Heaven. Orthodox believe the blessed will never see the Divine Essence, not even in Heaven, but will merely participate in the energies” https://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/6sofoz/catholic_vs_orthodox_procession_in_god/
         The question arises of course what would it mean to “participate” in such (uncreated) energies? Are we to complete God’s plan somehow?

         1. Only Jesus can forgive your sins

      3. It is not only a bullwark against degeneracy but also creates the community and resources that helps women raise strong healthy kids. You are men, but think from a woman’s perspective, you need babysitters, you need role models for kids to look up to instead of Hollyweird Weinstein pervert created celebrities. There is so much more to the church than just theology.
         ***
         From the woman’s perspective, just like in the mosque, there are pretty chandeliers, icons, frankincense beautiful chanting plus a patriarch, so women will be very inspired to go to church and do what the masculine patriarch tells them. Non autistic women are emotional and the Orthodox church engages these female emotions and channels them in a healthy way. Result: low number of rebellious THOTs. The Orthodox Church channels masculine and feminine instincts in a healthy way that builds a healthy society.

   2. Mariam
      As a ‘Muslim woman’ you aren’t allowed to marry out of your faith.
      Leading me to believe you’re a troll.

      1. It is common to confuse Muslim with a racial identity. Perhaps she’s from former Muslim/from a Muslim majority country. I’m all for healthy skepticism but she’s saying something nice.

      2. Assume I’m a troll all you like or assume Islam is complex and that I am a Muslim woman living in the West with few options of finding someone compatible both religiously and culturally, and married is better than single and divorced. There are few people from my culture where I live, and Muslims are from a very different part of the world with a very different culture. So as an Arab, I find Ukrainian Orthodox closer in culture than an Indian or Indonesian Muslim. I have an North African Sunni friend dating a Russian Orthodox man, and it works. At first the family wasn’t happy but it’s better than marrying and divorcing an Indian or Indonesian or marrying and divorcing a male order husband from their country. Friends who had male order husbands who married them for their passports all ended in divorce. When your community is small, better married than single/divorced. If we lived in my country of origin where I have plenty of options with co-religists who are compatible, for sure he’d have to convert.
         ***
         I have contributed to RoK before under another similar name when I used my real name. I exposed that it was the (((those you can’t talk about))) who were behind trying to stop the meet up. With the Trump election (((they))) have gotten more paranoid and attacked what I do for a living. I managed to stay strong, assert myself, but yeah not fun. And they have these little facebook groups where they coordinate attacks that someone accidentally added me to. I love this website because I don’t feel like the one weirdo from the patriarchal culture living in the West, introduced it to my husband, who felt the same. Of course we gradually introduce it to our friends – because it is exactly what all educated immigrants think in an articulate way. Love the Red Pill metaphor, it is so wonderful to have white people who think like us and see second wave + feminism for the disaster it is. Where I differ from RoK is that I think giving Muslim women the right to vote in provincial elections in Saudi or in Muslim countries with a strong patriarchy doesn’t hurt the country as women defer to men’s opinions on security. Without a strong patriarchal religion, giving women the right to vote due to how non autistic women are built is a disaster. You can ask around, I used to use my real name when Discqus was there before I got attacked.
         ***
         Islam is not the monolyth ISIS that the (((Lugenpresse))) says it is to divide patriarchal faiths so they can conquer and keep everyone weak. That is why Roosh V is their #1 enemy. If patriarchal people of the world unite, nobody will buy their eunuch castrating blue pill crap.

9. These are the exact reasons I left Protestantism and went Traditional Catholic. I’ve never felt more at home as a Christian. I earnestly pray, daily, for the Schism to be healed in my lifetime. A reunified Catholic/Orthodox Church will be unstoppable.

10. I was born and raised an Irish Catholic. I’m old enough to have served the Latin Mass as a boy. In 1969 the RCC simply decided to abolish itself for some reason. I suspect it’s part of the generalized Western loss of faith in itself. The RCC wants to die. It’s so sad. All the things VICB3 loved about the CofE was true about the RCC of my boyhood in spades. Great liturgical music (we have Mozart, for Pete’s sake), an intellectual tradition second to absolutely none. If the RCC is to survive it must return to its Latin roots and abandon all the kumbaya nonsense.

    1. I fully agree. You have a beautiful tradition that would be sad to lose as part of world heritage. If you don’t return to Latin Mass and keep the Kumbaya silliness – we Muslims will replace you. It would be boring to be the only ones left producing culture, especially since we have far to go to catch up to Mozart.

11. I love the Orthodox liturgy, by the way. If you ever get a chance check out the great Orthodox composer Bortnyansky. He brings the Choirs of Angels down to our earthly plane. I also love the CofE choir music. I listen to the Oxford Choir Vaughn Williams Hymnal quite a bit (although I don’t want that to get out – it may cost me my Irish ticket).

    1. I’ll check him out, thanks for the recommendation.

12. Orthodox iconography is quite beautiful.

13. Not mentioned in this article is that Orthodox priests are not only allowed to get married, but they’re expected to, and to have children. This makes them better qualified to give marital and family advice to their congregants, than would some unmarried and childless priest. There is an exception to this, however – bishops and above must remain unmarried so that they can focus their entire attention on the Church. A new priest, upon being ordained, must declare whether he intends to remain a priest or to advance up the hierarchy. Anyway, that’s how it was explained to me many years ago.

    1. @Hyperborean, Father Josiah Trenham has an excellent video on the topic of Marriage and Celibacy within the Orthodox Church: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBe8GFzW6WU
       Regarding bishops and Patriarchs, my understanding is that celibacy is more a matter of pragmatism than dogma. As far as I know, some early bishops chose to marry because they only had one Church to look after.
       However, in the modern times where a bishop must oversee an entire region rather than just one local Church, said bishops have been celibate because it would not be possible to look after both domestic and ecclesiastical affairs with equal energy and attention.
       I don’t believe it’s technically a dogma that bishops must be celibate, but is rather a case of “if it ain’t broke, why fix it?”

       1. Celibacy for bishops seems to have developed in reaction to practical disciplines: preventing corruption, e.g. bishops taking church property and leaving it to his heirs, etc. Perhaps its rise can also be tied to the rise of the development of the monoepiscopate.

       2. Thank you Michael for your kind reply. The video looks interesting but it’s just too long at an hour and 38 minutes – but I’ll take your word for it. What you wrote agrees with my understanding. I wish you a great 2018 – and that goes for all the rest of you folks also!

14. I congratulate the author if the Orthodox congregation he found provided him with some spiritual insight.
    However, I suspect he only visited a congregation in the US. He did not gain insight into the problem the Orthodox Churches have been facing in the countries the countries where they are the dominant congregation. (Mainly Easter Europe, The Balkans, Plus Armenia and Georgia) . All those societies suffer from deep poverty, moral decline and shockingly low birthrates. Feminism? You bet. First communism put women on workplace. After the collapse of communism, liberal capitalism followed. With it came modern feminism…with he well-know consequences.
    The is good new: there are two countries where the Orthodox Churches still seem to exist in a relatively conservative society with traditional values and high birthrates. These two countries are Ethiopia and Eritrea. (The oldest Christian congregations not only in Africa but pretty much anywhere outside Israel.) I suppose this won’t go well with some White Trashionalist readers but facts are facts.
    The point being: the Orthodox Church is not a cure for all problem. It does not exist in a vacuum but in relation with its host society.
    Did you conversion gave you inner peace? Fair play to you, sir.
    Did you only convert to find a traditional wife? You willprobably be disappointed.

    1. Eritrea and Ethiopia ? Lol you retarted bro.
       EE/Balkans have strong family values , balanced traditional-modern societies and a standart of living lower than the West but much higher than shitholes like Africa. You’re talking out of your ass.

    2. I was “converted” and justified by faith, and entered the state which Catholics refer to as “Sanctifying Grace,” before I discovered Orthodoxy. I am not sure if Orthodoxy has an equivalent term.
       After spending about a year and a half in that state and attending a Wesleyan Church, I spent dozens of hours researching Orthodoxy and eventually decided that it was the fullness of Christian teaching.

       1. equivalent term: perhaps “deified” or “divinized”

          1. Isn’t that the end state though, of theosis? It seems to me (and I could be wrong) that Sanctifying Grace is kind of the state between the initial justification, and the eventual deification.
             Or is Sanctifying Grace the mechanism through which deification happens? I am not very familiar with Roman Catholic terminology or processes.

          2. there is no end state of christianity. theosis?? What sect are you. That’s not buddhism.
             You can’t “merge with god”. Thats not christianity, thats stupidiy.

          3. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can pipe in, but deification begins with baptism/illumination; the Holy Mysteries are said to be deifying because they give us this divine life and increase it.
             The Latin concept of sanctifying grace is trying to explain the same thing but the problem is that in the minds of some it is a separate reality from our participation in the divine life.

          4. While “deification”/”divinization” is making a limited return to Latin theological discussion, most do tend to use the more familiar Western terms of justification and sanctification.

       2. “Sanctifying Grace” ?? what are you talking about? That’s not a “level” you can reach – this is a state for short time, then you fall into your sin again. That’s why you need to go to church, pray, and follow jesus christ..
          Orthodoxy is not the fullness of christian teaching, it lacks a lot of rationality. As you see in orthodox countries.

       3. Mr. Witcoff, Good article. It’s good to hear of your journey into the church of Peter and Paul. I sensed from your previous articles (which were refreshing from the usual T&A PUA genre of ROK) that you were heading to crossing the Bosporus at some point. I’m 60, and I was born into evangelical Protestantism. 20 years ago, I walked away from 40 years of evangelical Protestantism (Southern Baptist, Independent Baptist). I’m now in an Antiochian Orthodox communion, and I serve at altar as an Alcolyte in Minor Orders. I hope to become a Subdeacon. I wrote an article for ROK about my journey from evangelical Protestantism into the Eastern Orthodox Church, but the readers were far less tolerant to me than you. Such articles bring out the Jack Chic tract, Pulpit & the Pen fundies, and the raving atheitist miscreatants. To my surprise, there were several agnostics who were more knowledgeable about things like patristics, the Great Schism, and the Septuagint LXX than were the fundamentalist and evangelicals. Some solid Latin Church posters too. To sum it up, evangelical Protestantism, for me, was “an inch deep and a mile wide”. It’s good too that you can point out how liberalism has decimated mainline Protestantism. Megachurches, have become more and more feminized too, plus the irreverent happy clappy worship leaves the attendees with little more than a multi-level marketing “rah-rah fire it up ready to go” theology. This fall, I took an evening class at a local Southern Baptist Seminary. It was the only conservative school that offered a class in early church history. The United Methodist seminary was very liberal, and the American Baptist Seminary was even more liberal. They had a woman president, ordained women clergy, and openly avowed practicing homosexuals were being ordained upon graduation! Two things I found interesting about the Southern Baptists since my 20 year departure. 1. A very sharp influence of 5 point Calvinism infusing their seminaries. 2. A hunger from several of my young classmates (minus the frozen chosen) for patristics, pre-Nicene and Ante-Nicene church polity, and liturgy. The professor, and the Calvinists, sadly, mocked the other seminarians who craved things like liturgy and patristics. I had several classmates talk to me about the Orthodox Church, practices, and worship. One young man asked me for a book on the Schism, while another asked me for a book on the early church fathers. I made some friends after taking this class, and maybe some future Orthodox priests will come out of it! Right now, 50% of converts to Antiochian Orthodox communions are former Protestants and evangelical Protestants. 67% of priests in Antiochian Orthodox communions are former Protestant and evangelical Protestant pastors too. The truth of ancient and unchanging faith. One regret I have is that I didn’t convert sooner in life. I hope to see more good articles from you.

    3. Too bad the only competent comment – by Mr Kersey – was flooded this way.

15. WHAT ABOUT JESUSNEVEREXISTED IN THE COM DOMAIN?
    Have you been to the website called jesusneverexisted in the com domain.
    Over 100 scholarly texts proving Jesus is myth.
    According to Joseph Atwill’s book Caesar’s Messiah, the Jesus story was fabricated by the Romans.

    1. Faith = SMASHED

    2. What if I told you the historical accuracy of the bible is irrelevant?

    3. There are more evidence for Jesus then for Caesar, Aristoteles, Platon, Cicero and others.
       So if “jesusneverexistedbecausehistoricalevidencedontcount” – throw away the whole christian western culture, and the chinese, and the japanese….

    4. What about he fact that it doesn’t matter if he existed or not?
       Only proles and children believe that any of this has any other purpose than cultural, economic, and political posturing.
       Sure, there is spirituality. Its necessary to continuing human evolution and survival of what makes us human. However, the truth of the parables does not matter.
       The Jews were never imprisoned in Egypt. Indra never fought Varuna. Odin never hung from a tree. The Chinese are not literally sons of the dragon.
       Except all of these beliefs are real and necessary to their cultural and political forms. They explain their beliefs about themselves. Therefore, the parables and metaphors may as well be real. It is likely that it is recent that the parables have been taken literally. I submit that in earlier ages, the parables were accepted as metaphor for truth.
       That doesn’t make religion less valid than the methods that the atheists use for political and cultural positioning. Its all about survival, and that’s what it takes to survive.
       Heck, even the atheists, after they killed god, had to regroup and then make a religion out of the worst of us, the unwashed “people”, which can’t be questioned lest there be penalties for blaspheming the utterly corrupt throne of the people: “democracy”.
       Now we worship the animal nature of the lowest of us, by definition “the masses”, instead of the god or the noble higher nature that exists within the best of us. The King or God form.
       Because that’s what it takes to make normal people break down and accept the presence of utter animals in their midst in he name of border eradication; so that international merchants can maximize profits and power at the expense of our traditional government and social forms that were hierarchical and thus naturally exclusionary.

       1. I agree.
          There are some things more real than reality: concepts that transcend time, cultures etc because they were developed within humans in the evolutionary framework (fun fact: it was living with snakes that made humans develop such large brains so we interpret their camouflage, Garden of Eden anyone?) . I mentioned somewhere above how the ancient folks didn’t have the language to discuss metaphysics/ psychological mechanisms behind appealing narrative, and how certain actions (such as the sacrifice of animals as burnt offerings) cover quite a sophisticated psychological phenomenon.
          Instead of discussing things, ancient folks acted them out. Like in Sumer the king was divine, so every year he’d act out the story of Marduk then be taken outside the city, stripped and confessed all his failures for the year. In the story w/ Marduk, the gods act pretty dumb & kill the chaos dragon’s hubby and Marduk pulls their butts out of the fire. So the king’s act is a combination of the heroism of Marduk and admission of fault among the other gods.

16. guys…… for supposed “red pill” dudes, how can anyone believe that that catholics and their offshoots are true christians? Jesus was a Jew. Kept the saturday sabbath. Christians left judaism behind to follow his teachings…. but continued to observe the 10 commandments (including the Saturday sabbath). The Romans had a Sunday worship to their gods. The Catholics and Eastern “Orthodox” merely merged paganism with some of the Christian ideas…. and killed everyone that spoke up about it. Christmas is merely Saturnalia with a name change. Easter is pagan fertility rites (rabbits and eggs anyone?). Are there any real theologians left? This B.S. about catha+prosteholics is silly. You can disprove it in minutes…. open the Bible and read.

    1. Christmas isn’t merely Saturnalia.
       Ancient Christians believed in “Integral Age”, where a prophet was thought to be born either on his day of conception or date of birth. Many agreed in the 2nd century Christ died on his date of conception, His date of death was the day after Passover falling on a Friday, which was either 7 April 30 or 3 April 33. With the 9 month gestation period, that supports the Dec 25 birth of Christ. It wasn’t until Emperor Aurelian who declared in the 274 the “Birth of the Unconquered Sun”, to coincide with the Winter Solstice and the Birth of Jesus as Aurelian wasn’t too fond of Christians and wanted to de-legitimize ’em.
       Sauce:
       http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=16-10-012-v#continue

    2. “how can anyone believe that that catholics and their offshoots are true christians?”
       Who are the ‘true’ Christians then? I suspect your a nondenominational Christian who only believes in sola scriptura and the ‘bible alone’ – Jesus made a Church:
       The New Testament contains five different metaphors for the foundation of the Church (Matt. 16:18, 1 Cor. 3:11, Eph. 2:20, 1 Pet. 2:5–6, Rev. 21:14). One metaphor that has been disputed is Jesus Christ’s calling the apostle Peter “rock”: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18).
       If you ‘open the Bible and read’ like your suggesting you’de see He made a Church and to ONLY read the Bible is to only read the Bible and to not even follow what the Master was asking.

17. “Protestants have the appetizer; the Orthodox serve the meal.” I hardly think Wesleyan church is representative of the depth of Protestantism. When a denomination lacks regular experience with miracles and healings, then like the church of Sardis, it has “a name that it lives, but is dead”.
    The dividing line to be “like Christ” is to emulate what Christ started: radical healing, signs and wonders in a hurting world deceived by dead powerless religions, such supernatural attestation of the Gospel continued beyond the original 12 apostles and most alive in the best Protestant churches, especially Eastern Protestants. Masculinity is part of all Eastern culture and not unique to Eastern Orthodoxy.
    Do email me about crypto. I can offer several ground floor opportunities.

18. Religion is for gullible losers that need some hope that their shit lives will sometime be better. It’s no coincidence that Trump supporters and religious fundamentalists are the same fucking people.
    

    1. Thanks for your concern, but my life’s never been better than since I started following Christ.

    2. Apparently, you were a gullible looser who was hoping religion would magically make his life better.
       But religion isn’t a magical band-aid that cures all. It is a mechanism to enlightenment.

       1. What you’re missing, Ethan, is that most men and women need something like religion to get through life. Men like us may not need it, but we shouldn’t project our qualities onto them. Let them do their thing and don’t worry about it.

          1. Woah, I’m not dissing religion. I think its vital and it certainly has helped me. I just like to peek behind the curtain of the mystery; you can get real deep and scientific about the truths, parables etc a religion brings. I couldn’t figure the allure of Christianity except as a cultural artifact until I was presented with the reasons behind their teachings: why Cain kills able, why Babylon falls, Jacob is a jackass etc. Then it made a lot of sense. Could say I went so Atheist I looped back ’round to Theism again XD

       2. And the solution is Trad THOTs? Without religion, all non autistic women will become THOTs like it or not.

19. Michael,
    I am a new convert to the Orthodox faith. I converted six months ago from Catholic to the Orthodox faith, and I also converted because of the three reasons you give within this article. I spent over 9 years studying and searching for the true faith, and after finding out that the Orthodox Faith is traceable all the way back to Jesus Christ and to Abraham, Issac, Jacob, and Moses and the twelve Apostles…I said I have found where I need to be and converted to the Orthodox Faith. We all take different paths on our Journey, and I hope that more folks can find their way to the Orthodox Faith. Thanks for a well written article.

    1. You are welcome and thanks for sharing!

    2. Theres different ways that its ‘charted’ in timelines based on the perspective of the people in question, but both the catholic church and the orthodox claim to be the continuation of Jesus’s church, both being united prior to the 11th century-so the question is commonly who did the branching off in the 11th century-as a Catholic I would say the catholic view is correct, a reason for this is the papacy, which is the ecumenical center of Christs church. In order to be in full communion with Christs Church you need to be in full communion with Peter, and unfortunately our friends in the Orthodox Church are not. So I would say that the Catholic claim to be the continuation of Christs Church is the superior claim. That being said, the relationship has developed over time. There have been a warming of relations, not a complete reunion, but it is getting better.

       1. If papal supremacy were the ancient tradition, why did Ignatius ask Polycarp of Smyrna to appoint a new bishop (his replacement in Antioch) instead of Rome?

          1. I think there’s a confusion in terms, pope simply means bishop of Rome; i.e. he’s just a bishop, the location is partially irrelevant. In no way are we going to ‘solve’ the historical development of papal supremacy over a message board thread.
             Ignatius of Antioch does say though:
             “Ignatius . . . to the church also which holds the presidency, in the location of the country of the Romans, worthy of God, worthy of honor, worthy of blessing, worthy of praise, worthy of success, worthy of sanctification, and, because you hold the presidency in love, named after Christ and named after the Father” (Letter to the Romans 1:1 [A.D. 110]).
             I feel its pretty clear what Jesus’s intent was and so did the early Church Fathers. The Church Fathers recognized that Jesus made Peter the rock on which he would build his Church, that this gave Peter a special primacy, that Peter went to Rome, and that he left successors there. Why after having a Pope would we suddenly feel we don’t need one?
             The real question which gets thrown under the bus when this discussion begins is what’s wrong with the pope? Whats wrong with having one person lead others? You begin to drift in sea when you don’t have a captain at the helm don’t you?
             -In a wide variety of ways, the Fathers attest to the fact that the church of Rome was the central and most authoritative church. They attest to the Church’s reliance on Rome for advice, for mediation of disputes, and for guidance on doctrinal issues. They note, as Ignatius of Antioch does, that Rome “holds the presidency” among the other churches, and that, as Irenaeus explains, “because of its superior origin, all the churches must agree” with Rome. They are also clear on the fact that it is communion with Rome and the bishop of Rome that causes one to be in communion with the Catholic Church. This displays a recognition that, as Cyprian of Carthage puts it, Rome is “the principal church, in which sacerdotal unity has its source.”

          2. John asked: what’s wrong with having a pope?
             In the early days of the church, doctrine was decided in council meetings (such as the council of Nicea). The bishops of the various churches would meet and had to come to a consensus for something to become doctrine.
             When you have a pope, one person can change doctrine on a whim. Get the wrong guy as pope, and doctrine can go off the rails pretty quickly.
             BTW, this is why Orthodox doctrine is stuck in time. Orthodox doctrine requires the bishops of ALL churches (including the bishop of Rome) attend a council. But, since the split between Rome and the other Orthodox churches they have been unable to hold a council meeting to even consider doctrinal changes.

       2. Check out the Chieti document and what Pope Benedict XVI has written about the papacy in the first millenium.

       3. The Papal supremacy politics are / were a front for much deeper issues of political control, rooted in classes of people who gained their wealth from different economic models. The investiture controversy, and later the thirty years war was the result. Look deeper.

20. Orthodoxy is a meme. Orthodoxy feels wrong and unappealing. If you look at orthodox countries they are all poor and not very pleasant to live in. In top 27 best countries to live in 0 are orthodox https://i.imgur.com/g0hn17P.png

    View post on imgur.com

    1. ”Orthodoxy feels wrong and unappealing. If you look at orthodox countries they are all poor ”
       that’s because Orthodox didn’t sell their souls to the devil pope

21. Do something productive with your time instead of joining a church. Men have women, society, and governments already trying to tell us what to do, no need for more forms of social control. That is all religion has ever been, another means of control the elites use to keep the proles in check.

    1. Apparently when you were younger you felt controlled by religion.
       If you bothered to read the bible, you’d find folks usurping authority left, right and center.

       1. Actually reading the bible is probably the best way to turn someone off of religion. Look at the last 2,000 years of Christendom in Europe and tell me that it is not a form of social control.

          1. We’ve come a long way in 2000 years. It hasn’t been perfect, but compared to how things used to be before Christianity things are pretty good.

    2. Then women will do something productive and become THOTs. Without religion non autistic women are either SJW THOTs, regular THOTs or Trad THOTs like Lauren Southern who make a living off beta orbiters masturbating to them

22. May God bless you on your spiritual journey.
    With regards to SJW convergence, there are differences among jurisdictions — the Greeks tend to be more liberal and more converged, the Slavs and those jurisdictions that are more likely to have Protestant converts are less so.

    1. Greeks are liberal? That explains why they’re the only orthodoxy in Vermont…

23. Asking People To Have Sex With My Girlfriend
    

    1. Did you find this on the cringe channel?

24. @ Witcoff
    Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox are more grounded because dogma does not change, it stays the same. Whereas nondenominational Christians, Lutherans, and mostly Christians who follow sola scriptura end up as subjective relativists because they only end up believing Sola scirptura (the bible alone), which is essentially just anyone’s own subjective interpretation of the bible, you can see how the rationalization hamster wheels can start to turn when someone believes they can interpret the bible however they want (which is what sola scriptura is).
    Regardless as long as your at least somewhat trying to be a better person, or be the best you can be that s what is most important. Even though I might think a lot of Luthereans and nondenominational christians are off their rockers from time to time no one is perfect. If youre at least trying to follow the bible thats better than not. The bible is the bedrock and backbone of virtue and morality, to think otherwise is to disregard the most influential text in history.
    As far as the minor differances go between Eastern and Roman Catholic as long as the person is Christian (and trying to actually follow what Christ’s message is) than I can’t give them too much grief in the long term. Jesus did say:
    ‘Whoever Is Not Against Us Is for Us’
    Mark:
    38“Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.”
    39 “Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, 40 for whoever is not against us is for us. 41 Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward.
    Now, I don’t know the exact context or meaning being implied here, but it seems to suggest as long as you call on Jesus and performing good works than your ok in His book, which is ok in my book. So at the end of day as long as your Christian (and actually doing what Jesus said) generally speaking I don’t have a problem with the person. The problems arise when people say they Christian and don’t act it, again, no one is perfect, but I don’t think Christians generally speaking have any real ill-will towards other Christians.
    I’m Catholic myself, at one point I considered the Orthodox Church. After years of my feminized social conditioning (aka college) I never really went to church or mass and when I was getting back into religion I considered going to Orthodox Churches instead. But I realized they are more or less the same in many ways so it didn’t make sense to abandon what I was born into. After years away from the church, going back makes me have all the more respect for the establishment and what Jesus made. It is truly mindblowing to me how much personal peace and satisfcaiton going to mass consistently can have on the mind and bodya nd soul. I gotta agree with you, I’m more at peace now than I have ever been.
    Another major thing the Catholic church has which is incredibly looked over or not even well understood by people outside of the church is the sacrament of reconciliation; aka confessing your sins to a priest. Other Christian denominations dont have the sacrement of confession. It’s something which really needs to be experienced to be understood. It is the ultimate tool for self-growth and healing in a person. There are people who live their whole lives without confessing their sins, that to me would be a nightmare of a life to live. Confession is maybe one of the greatest gifts the Catholic church has. Even if your not a believer, the psychological weight of surrendering your sins and confessing them to someone who won’t judge you is the absolute atonement, and it can really only be understood via experience. If you want a real true rebirth, its not just about being baptiszed as a Christian, but to also confess your sins to a priest, that my friend, is to truly burn away the old and start a new.
    Anyways good article, I can tell your happy with your decision. I can respect anyone who finds the old ways more appealing than the new. Might I ask though, why Orthodox and not Roman Catholic?

    1. Thanks for the comment and question. As to why I chose Orthodoxy and not Roman Catholicism, it mainly comes down to two things:
       1. I don’t believe in papal supremacy (though I acknowledge the bishop of Rome was granted primacy in terms of honor), and
       2. Roman Catholicism seems to be more focused on how inherently evil people are, than on their potential to grow spiritually.
       Original Sin is a doctrine of the West (Roman Catholicism and Protestantism), whereas Ancestral Sin is the doctrine of the East (Orthodoxy).
       One says we are just inherently evil as a result of Adam and Eve’s sin, the other says we inherit the consequences but sin is the result of choices we freely make.
       I would rather spend my time and energy focused on unfolding my potential in God’s eyes, than on beating myself up endlessly. Repentance is a major part of that process anyway, so I just don’t see the benefit of fixating on the sin rather than the healing and restoration.

       1. Thanks for the reply. I understand your perspective, a lot of people feel the same way , which is what keeps them away from Church in general, this idea of guilt shaming people into Church. I like Orthodox because of the inherhent contemplation involved and how one is seeking unity with the divine. I don’t think the Catholic Church is obsessed with guilt tripping people, I think when your in a ‘state of grace’ you don’t feel guilt at all, you feel completely liberated. Unfortunately this is a difficult thing for most to see because they sort of want their cake and to eat too, so to speak. Basically being guilty of something and consicous of sin is the fallen human nature, you can’t get away from it except through the Church (Jesus), prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and confession to a priest. It’s difficult to describe, but if you talk to any Catholic who goes to confession I believe 99% would say they literally felt liberated afterwards and all guilt was removed and they felt in a ‘state of grace’. The Church doesn’t specifically focus on evil, we simply see it more because it makes us realize our fallen natures more is all.
          As far as the papacy goes you mentioned (like many others who follow this sort of thing have) how the two groups could ever reconcile. An interesting warming of relations was the notable event recently when the Patriarch of Constantinople came and honored Pope Francis when he was installed. And since the Patriarch of Constantinople is seen in some ways as a successor to the apostle Andrew (Peters brother), Pope Francis has publicly referred to the Patriarch of Constantinople as My Brother Andrew. Just as he is the successor of Peter. So it’s definitly a warming, not a complete reunion unfortunatly. What I see happening would have to be the East’s acceptance of the Pope, there really is no other way honestly for it to happen. This acknowledgment shouldn’t make anyone cringe. It’s not as if the Pope is Jesus or God himself reincarnated, he’s simply the head of the pack and what Jesus wanted as his successor. Regardless our friends in the East are and will always be our brothers in arms. I respect the prayer style the east implements and wish Roman Catholics would adopt similar and more contemplative practices. Regardless sometimes I feel maybe its ‘fated’ the churches are ‘split’-and so this way it’s easier for Jesus to get His message to the most possible.
          Certain groups have rejoined the the Roman Catholic Church (the Eastern Rite) etc, who are in communion with the Catholic Church, but some of their ancestors in some cases were separated. I do not think it is impossible for such a reconciliation to occur.
          Is interesting you said you don’t want to fixate on sin, ironically the early orthodox desert fathers were maybe the most ‘hardcore’ in terms of ‘beating themselves’ up over sin. In fact I could make a case that the early Eastern Orthodox Desert Fathers were the most guilt ridden men who ever lived. And to me I show them the greatest respect for this. Guilt is a natural part of the fallen nature, were not perfect creatures, but to restore personal grace a person can’t ‘run’ from that guilt. Not to suggest your running from it, but I think many are. Many Churches venerate the early desert fathers, but the Eastern and Coptic do all the more.
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Fathers
          Maybe the most insightful read you could ever have as a Christian are some of the desert fathers early ways of living.
          Take a read of the Apophthegmata Patrum, epic in every sense of the word.
          Anyways I’m out, Merry Christmas*

25. I’ve studied some theology courses and been to various congregations. In my early 30’s I’ve reconsidered the role of religion in my life, which has felt devoid of deeper meaning.
    Unfortunately I have not been able to take the leap of faith just yet. I accept that there are some things out there that science still seems to be struggling with but it does not necessarily say anything about the veracity of christianity.
    The internet age, even the last ten years have seen new thinkers emerge questioning the historicality of Jesus and they seem pretty convincing. Even some high status priests have come out saying that a lot of biblical material was made up for convenience and then violently forced on people to hook people into christianity, which in itself heavily borrows from secular greek philosophy that was abundant during christianity’s founding. There’s so much to hamsterize and so many churches out there that cannot agree on what the bible tells them to do. A more cynical explanation suggests that the men who founded these churches wanted to feel more alpha by splitting and then they would consequently have more access to power and everything that comes with it by creating their own off-shoot cults whether it be orthodoxism, lutheranism, calvinism, catholicism, pentecostalism etc.
    The reason why laypeople can feel drawn to any particular religion (nearly always christianity in the west or the white east) is because it makes them feel more powerful and influential even in the absence of any education or desirable physical or mental characteristics; they can be borderline illiterate and stop people on the street and have them listen for a while acting as modern shaman; messenger of the higher powers and the long history of forced conversion weighs so heavily on the western man that he does not just tell them to scram because on some level he’s been brought up to respect a certain religion. For those who have some desirable characteristics it’s sort of like an extra touch or an icing on the top if you like.

    1. I’m drawn to Christianity because at the end of 2015, Jesus revealed Himself to me (might have been an angel, I suppose I will never know) and filled my heart in a way I had never realized was possible. It was a transformative experience and a turning point in my life, which has nothing to do with studying philosophy or anything else.
       All my studies and interest in Christianity came after that experience, not before it.

26. It’s shocking how willing the author is to jump in the deep end with so little research. Nothing he says in the article is wrong, but it all applies equally to the Catholic church, at least in its proper form.
    Moreover, there are a lot of religious and political complexities with the orthodox that I’m not willing to get involved with. For one, they believe in a Russian God, and salvation through Russia. Those are direct quotes from Dostoyevsky. Maybe I’m weird, but there seems to be something wrong with a religion that seeks to convert the whole world to the worship of a single country, and Russia at that.
    Ianto watt woes a lot about the dangers of the orthodox church. And it is indeed dangerous. But the thing that is most relevant is probably That the orthodox originated a schism at the behest of a Jew. (Hence photius ‘the khazar-faced.’) Hell, my Greek orthodox friend preferred attending Jewish temple to a catholic mass. If that doesn’t give you pause, you really need to look at what happens when you let Jews run your religion.(Jesuits)

    1. “There seems to be something wrong with a religion that seeks to convert the whole world to the worship of a single country, and Russia at that.”
       Not sure where you’re getting this from, but this is absolutely not part of Orthodox theology.

       1. Yeah this is a new one to me too. Weird. I realize ROK talks a lot about culutral marxism and bizarre behaviors in society etc, but I wish the commentors and people who posted stuff weren’t so eccentric. It seems like ROK ends up drawing people with eccentric viewpoints. In some ways that’s ‘fine’ – but in other ways its slightly disheartening to see. Would like to see ROK have more intellectual conversations. I think it has to deal with all of the ads and clickbait on the site, the site doesn’t ‘look’ like it takes itself ‘seriously’ and so the weirdos always come out of the closet. Maybe ROK’s new years resolution should be to ‘clean up’ its site a bit and maybe do a bit of re-branding in the process. I don’t know, I like the site and some info is helpful, but it’s gotta get a bit more ‘serious’ and mature around here I think.

27. @ DepressedGuy1985
    you said:
    [theres]…so many churches out there that cannot agree on what the bible tells them to do.”
    This is somewhat false, the only churchs which can’t agree on what the bible says are those which preach sola scriptura (aka relativism) – those being your Lutheran and nondenominational Christians and Protestant Christians. None of those ‘churches’ are really even churches, they are groups who simply believe in the whats written in the bible and thats it, they don’t believe in the oral tradition of the church which Jesus laid out.
    Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Churches follow what Jesus laid out, we don’t re-imagine the bible and gospels and interpret them however we see fit-the bible has a meaning and we follow THAT meaning, NOT the meaning we personally think it is.
    People are drawn to religion because religion = life. It has nothing to do with power. Real Christians are made ‘strong’ while being weak. No one is ‘all-powerful’-to accept Christianity is to accept the reality of life and nature and your inherent weaknesses and to be transformed by your mind. Theres really not as much to ‘rationalize’ about Christianity as you think there is.

    1. Idols and icons are NOT what Jesus approves of; on the contrary, the New Testament makes it clear these are marks of false religion:
       “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God? Be not deceived: Neither fornicators, nor IDOLATERS… etc. shall shall inherit the Kingdom of God”. – 1 Corinthians 6:9-10.
       The oral tradition you invoke is at odds with the Word of God; the Bible claims absolute authority, utterly exclusivity; all else is a rival and challenge to God’s authority.
       If you want to place your trust in the ramblings of paedophile priests and Sodomite monks, bishops and cardinals, you will have no excuse on the Last Day.

       1. Jay, there are no “idols” in Orthodoxy. An idol is something worshiped as God (or “a god”), and only God is worshiped in Orthodoxy.
          Regarding icons, I am assuming you mean that any image of any part of God’s Kingdom is unholy. However, if you have read the Old Testament, you will remember that God actually commanded the Israelites to create images of the cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant.
          Logically, then, it is not merely an image of something that God is upset with–but only when an image or statue is worshiped as if the thing itself is God. That is not the case with Orthodox icons, which are “the visual Gospel” and tell the story of Scripture in images.
          Nothing but God is ever worshiped in Orthodoxy. This worship takes place through hymns, songs, praise, Scripture, and contemplating visual imagery of God’s majesty and its workings through His chosen people throughout time.
          You say, “The oral tradition you invoke is at odds with the Word of God; the Bible claims absolute authority, utterly exclusivity; all else is a rival and challenge to God’s authority.”
          The oral tradition, in fact, is mentioned in 2 Thessalonians 2:15 as one of the ways Paul transmitted the Christian teachings to the Churches he planted and edified. He congratulated the Church as Thessaloniki for adhering to everything they had learned, both by letter and by his verbal teachings.
          Further, John writes in John 21:25 that Jesus did many things which were never written down. Therefore, Scripture itself disproves your theory.
          Not only does it never claim to have “utter exclusivity,” but it explicitly states that is not the case. In Orthodoxy, Scripture is considered a major part of the overall Tradition of Christian teachings.
          Blessings and be well.

       2. I almost think Jay is a troll, I don’t know how much more ignorant you can be on the topic of idolatry. Catholics and Orthodox VENERATE images, statues, etc. Its no different than if you saw a picture of your mom or dad and got a good feeling from it and it made you happy. We aren’t worshiping the person in the picture, we are praying for them, with them, etc.
          –Reverence shown to a material object is not foreign to the Bible. God instructed Moses to erect a bronze serpent so that whoever looked upon it would be healed from their snake bites (Num. 21:8-9). Such reverence was appropriate. But when the Israelites started showing the bronze serpent a reverence that belonged to God alone—namely, worship—King Hezekiah destroyed it with divine sanction (2 Kgs. 18:4).
          Jay said, “If you want to place your trust in the ramblings of paedophile priests and Sodomite monks, bishops and cardinals, you will have no excuse on the Last Day.” – Way to ad hominem for no reason there Jay. Humans are imperfect, you’ll ALWAYS have crazies in the church and around the church, that fact is inescapable. We all sin. But the VAST majority are not like this, so that 1% your referring to isn’t much of a reason for your rage-out.
          Sola scriptura has let you down Jay.

28. It’s none of the 3 things the deluded author mentions.
    It’s, in fact, the eastern branch of the Babylonian Mystery religion, the western branch being Roman Catholicism.
    Icons (idols), baptismal regeneration, works-centric salvation, ritualistic merit accumulation… All at odds with the Bible.
    Counterfeit forms of Christianity are many and varied, but these are their common traits:
    they deny the sufficiency of Christ alone as saviour and sole mediator between God and man;
    they deny the doctrine of Christ’s human righteous imputed to the sinner as being necessary for entrance to Heaven;
    and they deny the sovereignty of God in choosing and then granting a heart of selfless love to the believer.
    Orthodoxy will land you in hell. It’s an abomination to God, and utter abomination. Russia might be seen as “cool” and “traditional”, but its religion is false and at irreconcilable odds with the Word of God. Stay the hell away from it!!!

    1. Your claims have already been answered and disproved. What do you think the early Church Fathers dealt with? The gnostics were no different than every other nondenominational christian of their time. They didn’t want the literal church, they wanted their own personal view of it. Your disagreements have 2,000+ years of writing you have to answer for. The burden of proof is on you. Catholicism and Orthodoxy have written extensively on the very things you complain about. In fact the Catholic Church has arguably the greatest source of philosophical inquiry known to man. Open a book and do some research instead of complaining because you don’t understand. Good luck and have fun reading.

       1. “In fact the Catholic Church has arguably the greatest source of philosophical inquiry known to man”.
          I understand the will to latch onto something, but that isn’t true. What we had was likely mostly lost in the burning of the Library at Alexandria.
          Catholic philosophy is an extension of, and a history of reasoning through, older Greek philosophy. However, volume of philosophical debate, or proposition, doesn’t mean anything coming from an age when house kept autistes had nothing better to do for their entire lives. In other words, a volume of philosophical acrobatics from medieval Europe does not make them spiritually nor politically valid (religion and politics being co-equal in civilizational necessity and effect).
          To read about where the the remnants of the true philosophical repository of civilization might lie, read the following.
          http://www.4pt.su/en/content/metaphysical-roots-political-ideologies
          Agree with Dugin’s political aims or not, he’s one of, if not the only, serious writer on these theological topics today. The other recent writers, such as Henry Corbin, being mostly dead; though few dealt with the political crossover as Dugin does. Corbin, for instance, offers a lot but it is completely within the boundary of theology.
          Anyway, I’m getting way ahead. Just read the article.

          1. The article is tl;dr
             I’m not gunna read the whole thing, whats your point about it and maybe I’ll read it. It seems interesting but you need to summarize what your suggesting.
             I said the Catholic Church “has ARGUABLY the greatest source of philosophical inquiry known to man.”
             In face I’ll stand by my assertion and claim it is the pinnicle of philosophical inquiry, why, because it encompasses the multitude of human interests and human inquiries and acknowledges all there inquirers as stemming from the universal logos (aka God; aka Jesus). Point being that Catholic Church acknowledges other human inquiries as par of God’s design and doesn’t shun them away and that other philosophical or scientific inquiries only STRENGTHEN the Church. I.e. essentially the Church assimilates concepts which are in line with itself, this allows the Church the opportunity to not be finite, it is willing to acknowledge new scientific discoveries, new philosophical inquires, new anything so long as the insights are not contradictory to Church Dogma.
             Point being, any new ideas which arise which enlighten humanity and do not go against dogma are in effect support of the reality of the Church. Thus making it the universal church and in the deepest sense the culmination of al of human reason and logic and logos.

    2. Put down the Jack Chic tracts and stay off the Pulpit & the Pen website!

29. This site is quickly declining with these bullshit religious posts recently.

    1. Best solution.. avoid religion completely because it will fuck you up.

    2. Insert “This site is in decline” post whenever an article is not promoting goyim banging sloots and living frivolously to the grave.
       Educating men on the more important things in life are threatening to some.

30. Thanks Michael for your article.
    Its great to see someone strong in faith and sharing opinions and insights on such a site. Im sure people can learn a lot about christianity from you and you may win some new souls to christ. Respect for that!
    However Im sceptical about some of the practices in the orthodox church and believe they are unbiblical…
    Here is a Video from an american baptist preacher adressing those practices. Especially idolatry, danger of traditions vs. gods word and the practice of (repititive) prayers.
    
    Maybe you can check it out and share your opinion on it. I hope you will not get offended, this guy uses strong language and might come across as disrespectful. But he definetly knows a lot about christ and has some of the best sermons Ive ever heard.
    Maybe you can learn something from it, too.
    Thanks man

    1. Hey Flame, thank you for the encouragement. The possibility of winning new souls to Christ is why I write articles like this, and I am glad that some people in the Return of Kings audience resonate with the message.
       I am very aware of Steven Anderson. In fact, I used to watch his sermons quite regularly back when I was a Protestant who–disillusioned by the weakness and Zionism of what I saw all around me–found the strength and masculinity in his channel that I was yearning for in Christianity.
       Anderson rants against the traditions of the Orthodox Church, despite Paul’s talking about traditions existing alongside Scripture in 2 Thessalonians 2:15–and despite John’s mention that not everything that happened got written down in John 21:25.
       However, the more I studied both Christianity and Anderson himself, the less I could believe in what he preaches. Personally, I find it very difficult to call any man “Christian” who–as far as I can tell–has never said a kind word about anyone or anything.
       He seems to be the living embodiment of Paul’s warning in 1 Corinthians 13:2, “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”
       However, I do not believe that Anderson “can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge,” since he does not seem to have a grasp of certain key tenets of what it means to be Christlike. He openly encourages and wishes violence against people he does not like, ignoring the New Testament in favor of Old Testament paradigms that are no longer in effect since the Incarnation, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
       Christ clearly commands us to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” in Matthew 5:44, and I don’t see Anderson even making an attempt to live by that command.
       I have also heard him preach the “Once Saved, Always Saved” message of Calvinism by which he believes that so long as he says he believes in Jesus, he can continue to live in sin with no consequences.
       This is not what Scripture says. In 2 Peter 2:21, Peter writes that “It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.”
       Anderson rants against the traditions of the Orthodox Church on the basis that Scripture alone is all that matters in Christianity. However, Paul mentions the traditions that exist alongside Scripture in 2 Thessalonians 2:25–and John mentions that not everything got written down in John 21:25.
       Therefore, Scripture itself actually disproves the idea that nothing matters outside of Scripture. It never claims to be the sole and final authority of Christian teaching, and as you can tell from the verses above, explicitly says that is NOT the case.
       The YouTube channel “VaticanCatholic.com” recently made a phenomenal documentary exposing Steven Anderson’s many odd heresies and false teachings, which I found very eye-opening.
       If you want to watch it, which I recommend doing, you can watch it here:
       

       1. Oops, double-posted one of the paragraphs above. Just ignore the first time I said “Anderson rants against the traditions of the Orthodox Church, despite Paul’s talking about traditions existing alongside Scripture in 2 Thessalonians 2:15–and despite John’s mention that not everything that happened got written down in John 21:25” and it will make sense 🙂

          1. Thanks again, for your constructive feedback and your opinion on this subject. I will think about these points.
             I am aware that Anderson has a lot of hate inside and is very hung up on old testament laws. For example his ‘solution’ on how to deal with homosexuals is in no way acceptable for me… we have the new testament and the gospel, and those sinners should be saved instead of threated violently. I would be glad to see him grow and focus more on love… His hate towards sin is often right, but the love should be stronger. In no way I would trust him blindly, and I see its necessery to question his teachings properly.
             However I think he still has a lot to offer, his sermons often cut like a two edged sword through the wickedness of these times and days. Compared to many luke warm preachers that Ive saw, who ‘go in season’ and compromise.
             Yes he preaches “once saved always saved”, but he is also straight against calvanism. And that sinning, after believing have consequences in this life and in lesser rewards in the new life, but dont have effect on being saved.
             I will watch the video you send carefully to judge further how reliable he is.
             Thanks

       2. Why argue over an insane chimera of Jewish and Roman theology, politics, and propaganda that was purposely molded for the good of the Empire?

          1. @ Tom
             It’s not a ‘chimera’ (myth) – there’s more historical evidence for Jesus than there is for most of the stuff you read in history books. If you don’t like the ‘argument’ don’t interject yourself troll. If you think its a myth give some evidence for your thoughts, but to even claim its a myth is like saying the Earth is flat; give some evidence, your just trolling and provoking utter nonsense.

    2. You will never hear a priest give a homily and bash another Christian denomination like this Baptist preacher did. Catholics will write books why Baptists are heretics (and we have many of them), and we’ll give you logical reasons for it, but a priest would never waste a homily (aka sermon for those not catholic) to “explain why [Baptists] are wicked and a false religion which is a perversion of Christianity” – like wow, give me a break. If a Catholic priest filled his homily with such provocation and denouncement of another Christian sect as this Baptist preacher did he could possibly make him lose his job and or be excommunicated. Catholic homily’s are always from the point of view of mercy and redemption, this guy is laying out battle plans for the execution of Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. Talk about wolf in sheep’s clothing. This really goes to show how drastically different these two groups are.

       1. Steven Anderson, as far as I can tell from his videos, has never said a kind word about another human being.

31. This article is all fine and good, but when it comes down to it, i don’t need another man to give me guidance on my life.
    There is simply nothing that a priest or pastor can teach me that i don’t already know. And no, its not arrogant if its true.

32. Hi Michael, that’s pretty awesome! I totally agree, although I’ve been Orthodox since an infant. I’ve read obsessively on the subject of Christian divisions, and I’ve satisfied myself that Orthodoxy holds to the most ancient and traditional beliefs, and Orthodoxy understands Scripture in the same way the Church fathers did.

33. And this is right next to the article about picking up multiple females and dumping them the next day.
    Talk about hypocrisy.

    1. It would only be “hypocrisy” if I had written those articles–which I did not. I use to write stuff like that, but gave such things up when I decided to follow God instead.

       1. What god is that? The Jewish god? Because, as admitted by them, that’s the Jewish race. Each one of them comprises one small piece of their god and together, like Voltron, they make up the entirety of god. God is the Jewish people, in their mind. Of course, they aren’t wrong. Their god is their people. Your god is your people. They are the DNA well of your quality as a human. That DNA is responsible for your ability to think and feel to the quality that you do, as well as the rest of your unique form.
          The Christian god? Because that’s a very new concept of god that replaced tribal-racial gods in order to better eradicate political and cultural resistance for the expanding Roman Empire.
          The concept of heaven is inherently eschatological. It refers to a Heaven on Earth, or a return of a perfect world. Different tribes shared the concept, but of course all were to have their ruler in heaven. Though, the only people that I see who are achieving their version of it certainly are not Orthodox Christian. Nor will they be.

34. Although I have become disillusioned with much of modern-day Protestantism, I remain unconvinced that it is a less pure form of Christianity than is Eastern Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism.
    Modern Protestantism is typically perceived as starting with the Reformation of the sixteenth century. However, it would be incorrect to think of Protestantism as jumping out of thin air without precedent. Protestants sought to return the church to its original teachings, as expressed in the Holy Scriptures. The Catholic Church over the course of the Middle Ages had departed from Christ’s teachings and the early church, and Protestantism sought to restore this. Thus Protestantism is based on the original Christian church, instead of manmade traditions that evolved after God provided us with his Holy Scriptures.
    Further, a main reason the Catholic Church can claim to be the sole church in the West throughout the Middle Ages was because the Catholic Church used force, violence, and persecution to suppress the beliefs of those we would today call Protestants. The Waldenses, the Donatists, and others who were predecessors of Protestantism were persecuted. John Huss, among others, was burned at the stake for preaching proto-Protestant doctrines. The Catholic Church also burned people at the stake for having a Bible in the vernacular. No wonder they can lay claim to centuries of tradition; they used force to maintain a monopoly on religion.
    Protestantism consists of practicing Christianity outside of the Catholic Church. There are liberal Protestants, conservative Protestants, Protestants who want to listen to the electric guitar, Protestants who want to listen to the organ, and many other types. I am obligated to interpret the Scriptures myself, and be accountable to God, and cannot simply let someone else do it for me. While some people may misinterpret the Scriptures and support fads such as homosexuality, women pastors, evolution, and the like, I am not obligated to align myself with such people. One of the beauties of Protestantism is that I am not bound by the teachings of any one man or group of men. I am only bound by the word of God. Protestantism is not some type of rival Catholic or Orthodox Church that yokes together everyone who has chosen to worship outside of these two major traditions. Protestantism does not provide the institutional comfort that Catholicism and Orthodoxy do. However, the Christian is called to stand apart from the world. We are to store up treasures for ourselves in heaven, not on this Earth. Jesus told us that the road to heaven is a difficult one. He said he has come to set father against son, brother against sister, and so forth. I would rather be right than have large earthly institutional support. The truth is much more important.
    Protestantism does not reject authority. The Scriptures command us to respect and submit to authority. But authority is not absolute. If any authority tells us to do something contrary to the word of God, we are to reject it.
    As for Eastern Orthodoxy, I find a number of its practices objectionable. It has many similarities to Catholicism. It does not follow Sola Scriptura, but has incorporated various manmade traditions that developed throughout the Middle Ages. I have trouble adopting the various practices that are contrary to the word of God, such as addressing priests as ”Father”, veneration of icons, prayers to saints, veneration of the Virgin Mary, other various unscriptural doctrines pertaining to the Virgin Mary. They do not follow the practice of the original Christians. The Orthodox Church in Russia cowered to the hideously evil Bolshevik regime after the Russian Revolution. Although some remained true to their faith, the institution by and large went along with communism. The Orthodox Church has cooperated with the government in persecuting Protestants, during and after the Soviet era. The Eastern Orthodox also tell you that you should kiss the priest’s hand, even if you are a man. I see no reason for a man to ever kiss another man, except for maybe an infant. The Eastern Orthodox liturgy strikes me as foreign and strange. I am also not convinced that there is great personal morality among the Orthodox, as there is a lot of antinomianism and abandonment of the Christian faith among Easterners. There are many who are only nominally Christian. Atheism is more prominent in the Eastern countries. To be fair, the Eastern Orthodox do not seem to go as far as Catholics with Mariolatry, and they are less interested in discouraging bible study. They do not seem to have as much a history of authoritarianism and violence against non-Christians or other types of Christians as does Roman Catholicism, to my knowledge, although they have used violence against so-called “heretics.”
    I am open to debate, as I want to practice Christianity in its purest form, but I remain unconvinced that Eastern Orthodoxy or Catholicism is a purer form of Christianity than is Protestantism.

    1. @ BigFellow
       Speaking as a Catholic I would simply like to say that Jesus made a Church, not a book. Yes, we get our information and early practices from the bible, but Jesus’s intention was to make a Church and get people to Heaven, not to just have them read about good works and to just believe and have faith. The Catholic Church is a living breathing thing, it encompasses the culmination of 2,000 years of history and tradition and the every changing nature of life and reality. Christs message isn’t just some philosophical doctrine from 2,000 years ago, its something you can actively participate in moment to moment and day to day in your life.
       If you have a problem with how the Church went about things in the middle ages than I would suggest you read Augustine’s epic The City of God. If you make it through that and still have a problem with the Catholic Church than God help you.
       If the Catholic Church is so evil why does it even still exist? Is it not a testament to the Holy Spirit and truth that its the longest running man-made institution in human history? People act surprised when they hear of corruption in the Church, as if people aren’t human and sin would or could NEVER happen in the Church. By no means do I want the Church to have a blind eye towards Church corruption (not at all!), but its unrealistic to believe you’ll never have a problem in the Church, you’de have to be a complete idiot and totally unaware of sin and the fallen human nature to believe the ‘right’ Church could ‘never have corruption’. We are flawed creatures, you’ll always have forms of corruption and problems as long as humans retain sin. But for the Catholic Church to still be around after 2,000 years of corruption and problems is in my opinion a testament to its divinity and holiness. Not to mention people only notice the bad that the Church has done, why not recognize the good the Church does? The Catholic Church doesn’t ‘make money’, it actually loses it in order to keep itself up and running, but the Church still does more good than any other institution in the world that I can think of.
       There’s nothing in the bible where Jesus makes the claim “oh, just read what my disciples are going to write about me and follow only my word and all will be well” – everything else He did would be meaningless if THAT was the actual message. He clearly sets up a structure and hierarchy.
       The various practices your referring to are not contrary to the word of God, not at al, not in the slightest actually. For whatever reason the Protestant and nondenominational Christians got it in their heads that statues are idol worship and not to the worship of God, but to Catholics they are no different than a photograph of a holy person. Veneration is not the same as worship. Catholics venerate Saints and pray with them. Nondenominational Christians, Protestants, etc believe you can only go ‘directly to God’ in prayer, but just because Christ is the mediator of our redemption doesn’t mean there aren’t other mediators. Do you ask other people to pray for you? If I ask my friend to pray for me, thats them mediating for me, they are going to Jesus directly for me, we can ask other people to pray for us. Catholics do not believe in necromancy, but its not a sin to talk to the dead. When Jesus was on Earth and was on the Mount of Transfiguration he spoke to Moses (whose earthly body was dead), Jesus can’t do anything evil, so if what he did was unacceptable than Jesus is evil? Clearly He is not evil, he was not committing a sin when He spoke to someone who was dead (Moses), so it is not intrinsically evil to speak to the dead. The logic here is we are ‘one body’ – there is no division in the body of Christ (nothing can seperate us from the love of God) – so those in Heaven (who are still apart of the body) are connected to us through Christ. Hebrews Chapter 11 tells of all of the heros of the Old Testament, Hebrews 12:1 summarizes everything,” Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,” – We have no reason to think that our ancestors can’t ‘see’ us now and cheer us on as we run the race.
       This relates very closely with Mary ‘worship’ (veneration) – Mary is the Mother of God (Jesus being both full God and full man) – so to pray to Mary (the greatest Saint of all) is to be closer to God. Sure, you can pray to Jesus and God directly all day long, but there are also others who you can pray to as well. The real misunderstand is that many people see any ‘tradition’ ‘outside’ of scripture as a kind of heresy, when the real heresy is not believe and follow the Church Christ made OUTSIDE of the words on a page. Use a bit of inductive reasoning, the Catholic Church is filled wih inductive logic, not ‘everything’ is spelled out for you black and white because it contains the entire message of life and creation, use some inductive logic and read between the lines. To ONLY believe the words on the page is to think thats all there is, what a shame to go through life thinking that way. The Church exists outside the words on the page but we also do follow very closly those words, we (Catholics) simply extrapolate the meaning and fulfill what Jesus asked.
       Jesus talked with Moses (who was dead) so praying to Saints is not heresy, we can extrapolate from what Jesus did to be good, and so we know we can follow in His example. This is one example of many which the rich history of the Church has. If only you look, youll find it.

    2. @ BigFellow
       You said:
       “I am obligated to interpret the Scriptures myself, and be accountable to God, and cannot simply let someone else do it for me.”
       Your wasting your time – they’ve already been interpreted, they already have a meaning – Jesus doesn’t expect EVERY Christian to re imagine the gospels and try to come to some hidden secret meaning only they can understand. Jesus already gives us the gift of Himself and the meaning was already established long ago by the Church Fathers.
       Whats the greatest commandment? Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. – Where does Jesus say,”You must understand everything that my disciples write? Sola scriptura is a fraud, its relatavism, and its a waste of good mental energy and time. I doubt Jesus has a problem with you trying to better understand the bible and the meaning behind the bible and what is being said and done etc etc, but ALL of the bible has alredy been interpreted, the BURDEN of PROOF to understand the ENTIRE bible IS NOT UPON YOU. You DON’T have to figure out EVERY little thing in the bible. Unfortunately very nondenominational christian and protestant wants to be their own personal authority on the topic of the bible when its sad to say, but they are sort of wasting their time. Jesus would much rather you spend you r time helping others and doing good works. Like I said, if you want to understand the sacred texts I’m positive Jesus would approve, but to try to find your own subjective personal revelation is inherently heresy and a waste of time. Jesus made a church, not a book. Jesus di all kind of stuff NOT written in the bible, the bible is structured to show the form of Christs message, why he did it (to full fill prophecy), and to show the foundation of His Church (The Catholic Church) – its not meant to be read cover to cover like some best selling novel. It has a strict meaning and stricter implications. For every nondenominational christian and protestant and follower of sola scriptura to try to make claim of personal revelation to the bible misses the entire message of the gospels complexly.
       “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”

35. Michael, this is such a coincidence. Just as I myself ( a Catholic-turned-Protestant) was deeply investigating the Orthodox Church (and considering joining) here you, the most dedicated Christian I know, *actually* joined it. Reading the first few paragraphs turned my world upside down, no joke. Michael Witcoff? No longer a Cathar? What?
    This article pretty much made my afternoon. I will now dispose of all my Protestant literature. It’s my turn to join the fold-the true Church that I have been eagerly searching for: the Eastern Orthodox Church.
    It’s time to reclaim Christianity from this century’s filthy heresies.

    1. Excellent. Welcome!

    2. @Thomas Jake
       Sounds like sarcasm

36. Marxism is a common problem in several christian churches.Protestants are corrupted by LGBT priestess,gay pastores and Al Sharpton.Catholic church is corrupted by Theology of Liberation and commie Francis.Some think that Orthodox Church was never tainted by any form of Marxism,but in fact they were the first to be infected with the Renovationist Movement and the changes that they introduced during Lenin’s and Stalin’s governments.

    1. Ha, oh man. @ Ezequiel Garcés – I sort of agree with you, but Francis aint commie, ha, that’s sort of a superficial view of his ‘politics’. Catholic Church helped bring an end to communism, just because Francis has some slightly similar points of view doesn’t mean he’s a commie sympathizer, his intentions are in the right place. Besides, no one is perfect, you’ll always have some form of ‘corruption’ in one way or another, the real question is on a whole ho decent are they? I would say on a whole Orthodox is decent and so is Roman Catholic-I grow more and more skeptical of Evangelicals and Lutherans and Baptists and non denominational the more I see of them. If youre at least trying to do what Jesus said than that’s a start, but its pretty clear most people don’t even understand Jesus’s intent or how to go about living the way he wants. Deep down most everyone knows what is right and wrong, the Church is a place for spiritual healing, which I believe the East and West still provide. Not so sure anymore what spiritual healing these other Christians think they are getting.

       1. I agree with you.Yeah I know that Francis is not communist in the literal sense,but some of his social ideas are having a negative impact in the catholic church.I think that the basics are in the Nicene Creed.As long as you believe in that,you’re true christian.As St.Augustine said “unity in necessary things; liberty in doubtful things; charity in all things” .I believe that the church,the Body of Christ is universal,not exclusive of just one denomination (1 Corinthians 10-17).However,not everyone wether catholic,protestant or orthodox is a true christian.The sheeps are mixed with the goats and some never were true christians.Of the portion of christians who adhere to some form of marxism,some are well intentioned but misguided neophites,but I think that the great mayority of those never were christians,they justo thought that christianity was a another social movement or they justo went to church to make proselitysm.This is evident when you see that they are basically leftist,who put they leftist dogmas before their “christian” belief,that they believe in “a god”, but the God of the Bible is ” too sexist/racist,etc”, .And even some go too far abd claim that they don’t believe that Jesus will literally come back to earth that is “just a metaphore” for some kind of New Age “christ consciousness” bullshit. They’re basically anti-christs.

37. Here is a beautiful traditional Russian “koliadka” (Christmas carol):
    

38. What is the Orthodox stance on divorce? Can one convert if they have been married and now divorced. If it is allowed/tolerated would it be something looked down upon by its members passive-aggressively.

    1. Yes, they can convert. There is a principle of forgiveness if you accept Christ.
       I think conversion and the following righteous living are likely(at least, they should, as per scripture) to be encouraged.

    2. Divorced catechumens, or converts, are required to go through a time of penance prior to baptism an chrismation into the Holy Orthodox Church.

39. As Orthodox Christian, I can tell the article is great.
    You are likely to be interested in bio of some Russian Saints, like Seraphim of Sarov, for example.
    Cheers!

    1. St. Seraphim’s “On The Acquisition Of The Holy Spirit” was one of the first Orthodox books I read. Cheers indeed!

40. Orthodoxy– or Catholicism.
    John in the comments illuminated much of the beauty of marriage and sex in the Catholic tradition, as well as the importance and impressiveness of priestly celibacy.
    If anyone leaves Catholicism– or Orthodoxy– because of a bad experience with an individual or group of individuals, that’s symptomatic of laziness and weakness. For example, would you stop staying fit because of a jerk at the gym?
    When you leave a Church that inherited Christ’s apostolic succession (again, Catholicism or Orthodoxy), you’re not leaving a book club or a social club– you are setting yourself adrift in a sea of meaninglessness, wounding the body of Christ by dividing it further, and rejecting Salvation. God gave us free will, so go ahead, but know that you’re condemning yourself to misery.
    Catholicism is as valuable as Orthodoxy– I’d suggest either the Latin Mass, which formed all of the greatest saints and martyrs in history, or the Neocatechumenal Way, which is the most intensely Christian group active today. (If you don’t believe me, when’s the last time you lived off of God’s providence for 2 weeks announcing the Gospel in a random town? Neocats, as they’re called, go 2 by 2 to a random city, taking either a bus or airplane, and are not allowed to accept money, only food and prayers– and they can’t carry anything except a Bible and Breviary.)
    Orthodoxy and Catholicism would be the same if it weren’t for the 4th Crusade…

41. There is a great deal wrong with modern protestantism, and a great deal of beauty, depth, wisdom, and spiritual power in the Eastern Orthodox Church. But at the end of the day, the Gospel -that man is made right by God by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone- is ultimately the only thing that matters, and any church that lacks this teaching lacks true spiritual life and salvation.

42. I’m not religious at all or see much value in following a mythical system but kudos to you for trying to learn the history and going back to its original sources.

43. “Mnogaya Leta” (“Many Years”) comes from the Russian Orthodox liturgy and is often sung at celebratory occasions such as weddings to wish someone many happy years of life. Here it’s sung by a choir of (mostly) beautiful, young fertile women who really need to pass on their beauty to future generations soon:
    

    1. Except that its tough to stomach Russian Orthodox churches because most celebrate the Red Army under the guise of “patriotism”. Imagine that: celebrating the army of international communism out of a sense of patriotism. The irony is so strong that its more extremely strange than quirky.

       1. That’s a valid criticism of the Russian Orthodox Church within Russia itself, Tom, and I have a problem with that too. Outside of Russia, however, as far as I know, they don’t honor the Red Army or the Soviet regime – on the contrary, here in the U.S. the Russian Orthodox Church congregations after 1917 were full of exiled White Army and Cossack veterans, and after 1945 they received a sprinkling of Russians who had escaped to the West during the turmoil of World War II and had managed to avoid forced repatriation to the Soviet Union. So, it depends on which country you’re in.

44. Wow, this website is so politically incorrect, I’m starting to fall in love with it! It is astonishing that it has articles, like this, about converting to Christianity, while other websites, tell people how to be immoral and unethical!
    I am a Christian orthodox, and the article is right! Plus, what the author mentioned above ”100% of the clergy are men, and they follow an ancient tradition of hierarchy and rank” is something I didn’t thought of. Meaning, that is the case why orthodox countries haven’t drowned to feminazism – yet. Very nice article, Mr. Witcoff!!

    1. In my 20 years as an Orthodox Christian, and now serving at altar in Minor Orders, I can confirm what you say. I read a statistic that over 60 % of megachurch attendees are women. In my 29 years in the Orthodox Church, I’ve only seen one woman convert. Coincidental? All the converts I’ve seen are 1. Men. Lots of ex military and active military men. My priest once told me that in his 20 years as an Orthodox priest (former Southern Baptist pastor), that ex military and active military men are drawn to Eastern Orthodoxy. The next group are married couples, usually with children. Most have read patristics, and most are disillusioned with Protestantism. I know when I go Orthos, Vespers, and Divine Liturgy that I’m not going to hear seeker sensitive sermons, politics, or SJW sermons. I know that there had never been, nor will there ever be, women clergy, and that homosexuality and abortion are sinful and wrong. I won’t get some feminized heterodox baloney in an Eastern Orthodox Church.

45. Congratulations on your journey from Protestantism to Orthodoxy. Now you only have the final step to Catholicism.
    Your article is in correct in many points, I’ll hit a few.
    1. Orthodoxy is NOT the Church Christ planted. It is the outcome of Eastern heresies, and refusal to accede to Church authority set up by Christ Himself – in fact one may call the Orthodox the first Protestants. See Matt. 16:18 – the Church was founded on Peter not anyone else, or on a community of bishops.
    2. Untainted by Cultural Marxism? Your eyes have been wide shut. All Orthodox Churches are State Churches, ruled by the State, just as were the original Protestant Churches. The Crown, or State now, rules what they can believe or not.
    Russian Orthodoxy and all the Orthodoxies under Soviet rule were cultural marxists par excellence supporting the Soviet State and most bishops and many priests were KGB.
    3. It Offers Deeper Theology And A Richer Experience? Hardly. Most Orthodox priests and bishops are poorly trained in theology and even in Church history – having only an anti-Catholicism as their binding force; just as Protestants.
    Their theology is stuck pre-1453, actually more like pre-900s, in their opposition to the Pope as Head of the Church, not primus inter pares. (Again see Matt. 16:18).
    Even their saints are either Saints (up until 1453), and after 1453 Neo-Saints. Everything is stuck pre-Fall of Constantinople.
    Why is this? Because they cut themselves off from the center and governance of the Church. Read Vladimir Soloviev’s “Russia and the Universal Church” to understand this critical point.
    These are the high points. I do hope you will continue your studies in Church history, look at the many references Soloviev shows of the Eastern bishops such as St. John Chrysostom recognizing the headship of the the Pope as Vicar of Christ.
    Usually at about this point an Orthodox will defensively bring up homosexuals in the Catholic clergy. The Orthodox bishops and monks are rife with it, including Mt. Athos. So that is simply the sins of man.
    There are three point here to consider.
    1. The breakaway group changes its name. The name in the Church has always been the Catholic, ie., “Universal”, Church. The Orthodox changed their name to Orthodox, and Orthodox Catholic in some cases.
    2. The breakaway is always the smallest part of the group. Witness the size of Christendom and how small the Orthodox have always been.
    3. The breakaway always claims that they broke away from the original group to preserve purity, etc.; and that only they have the truth, not the original large group. The Orthodox try to palm this argument off on unsuspecting men who don’t look deeply.
    Having said all this, Merry Christmas to all men of good will.

    1. 4/5 Patriarchs recommend Orthodoxy 🙂
       Merry Christmas and happy New Year!

       1. You realize, of course, that the Patriarch of Russia is not a real Patriarch. Nor is Constantinople for that matter. Both are political Patriarchs not established by the Church. Russia by the KGB and Party, Constantinople by the Emperors who initiated and defended numerous heresies.
          Rome is not only a Patriarchy, it is the Center of the Church, ruled by divine fiat as the vicar of Christ, as stated in Matt. 16:18.
          I doubt you have bothered to read Soloviev’s “Russia and the Universal Church” but what he says as a Russian Orthodox is just as true today as it was then.
          Orthodoxy is a non-starter. If you want the Eastern liturgy, that’s fine. Become a Byzantine Catholic – there are over 30 different rites in the Catholic Church.
          I have already covered the problems with Orthodoxy, and that it is the first protestant movement. At some point they will rejoin the Catholic Church – they must if they are to survive.
          In the meantime they will continue to be the catspaws of the States whose national churches they are. Caesaropapism, as Soloviev noted, why they can never fill the Catholic Church’s shoes.

46. I’m unsure as to why red pilled men would join an inherently international religion whose theology they will not completely know the meaning of (because few do to include myself, and I know a good deal about it).
    C’mon, Christianity is inherently very vague, and that’s on top of the peril of the Jewish theology underneath… to start, what the heck does original sin mean? What was the fruit of the tree of knowledge? Why does death forgive sins? Why did Christ say that he brings the sword and will set relatives against one another? Why is Christianity superior to the religions that came before it? Remember, the North Germans resisted Christianity with everything that they had. There must have been a reason for that… and in the coming millenia they get invaded and slaughtered, again, and told either to be “more christian” and accept either their death or complete domination.
    The West is Christian. The West then became ever more international. That’s convincing correlation.

    1. Christianity isn’t vague, you just haven’t read enough on ancient philosophical history. I suggest you start with Plato, Socrates, then make your way to the Stoics and then Christianity…why is ‘sin’ ‘bad’ or whatever is a typical laymen’s question. Again, look into Plato and go read his Republic where he attempts to narrow down the meanings of justice, virtue, and good…after looking at the Stoics and understanding their metaphysical concept of ‘logos’ then maybe if you want a clearer understanding of Christianity I would read Augustine’s City of God and other writings by his where he breaks down what is good and evil. A person doesn’t have to read tons of philosophy to understand Christianity, not in the slightest, a child can understand philosophy better than any adult versed in all of philosophical inquiry. Thats because a child bases their reactions of off what they instinctively know to be truth in their hearts and minds. They don’t need to read City of God to now the meaning of good and evil, they recognize good and they instinctively recognize evil. But if you want a historical breakdown for why Christianity even matters starting with Socrates, Plato, the Stoics, and then reading Augustine and Aquinas you will come to understand your questions more clearly and what your asking will make more sense. No one is going to sit here and explain every philosophical question to you, there’s too much to talk about and not enough time and you’ll learn better if you mediate on your own life study the ancient writers. Your not asking anything new here, this discussion is the same one’s humans have been always asking, were just using different language to understand it is all.
       To give a superficial reply I’ll simply say Christianity (i.e. Catholicism) is the superior religion because it is the religion of the logos (the word / reason / logic) – it is a religion based on the logic of nature. That ‘logic’ won’t seem to make sense to most people, but to nature it does. Nature does whatever it wants to do, we can only observe and follow along. I suggest anyone attempting to truly understand Christianity to begin their investigations with Socrates, Plato and mostly Stoicism as well. Stocism is the bread and butter of Chrstianity. How Christians behave the way they do, how they live their lives aside from worshiping Jesus. If Jesus did not exist Christians would all be Stoics. But Christians are also essentially stoics in nature. Jesus is essentially a stoic sage. If you want to investigate and understand why Christianity is the religion of life and reality begin your investigation with Stoic philosophy.

       1. A point of difference. The Catholic Faith is not the superior religion, as religion is man made, it is the only divine Faith, once delivered for all time.
          You are correct, Catholicism is the faith of beauty and happiness. Only the Catholic Church could have built Western Civilization (Christendom) with its emphasis on Science and intellect rather than mere blind faith.
          I would strongly recommend the work of Rodney Stark to everyone. He is not a Catholic, but writes from truth.

47. Nice article. As a practicing Orthodox Christian, it was great to hear of your journey home. However, 30 Minutes? I wish. We drive an hour on Sundays.

48. Also to those who are Roman Catholic fed up with the state of the local parish run by cuck feminized priest who may closet homosexual. I highly encourage you to seek out and attend Tridentine Mass – latin mass.

    1. I would add that if you can’t find the tridentine mass, also simply call the “latin mass” generally, you should be able to find a Byzantine rite Catholic parish, or an Ordinariate one (Anglican/Episcopal parishes who have become Catholic).
       The Catholic Church is not monolithic, as some think. There are a variety of rites, as well as religious Orders with different thrusts and perceptions.
       Catholic means Universal. She is the Universal Church of Jesus Christ and all that is good, right, and worthy is found within.

49. Honestly, I look at the Bible and the early church fathers and I don’t see anything at all like the Orthodox Church.
    Sorry.
    I see people who believed in salvation by grace through faith, were premillennial in their eschatology, understood local church polity, and viewed holiness and sanctification not as a sacramental external, but as an internalised daily reality.

    1. @ Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus
       Interesting observation, I would simply add that maybe the cultural disconnect isn’t totally apparent. The Roman Catholic Church for example has mystics similar (if not the same people in fact) as the Eastern Orthodox. I see the confusion you might have on the outside, Orthodox Christians have hesychia for example, but these are simply different forms of prayer. I think the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox are incredibly similar but on the outside they appear different because of the cultural contrast and Orthodox’s heavy reliance more on contemplative expressions. I would simply say I think Orthodox may not ‘look Christian’ in some ways at first glance because it is so steeped in the Eastern culture which western ‘Romans’ may find shocking in some regards.

50. Here’s an article that acknowledges that Stalin and the KGB set up the Russian Orthodox hierarchy, after destroying the Tsarist one.
    Moscow Patriarchate has No Problem with Documents Showing Stalin Set Up Church
    Because It has No Problem with Stalin, Critics Say. Critics of the Moscow Patriarchate say that the Russian Orthodox Church has reacted calmly to new documents showing the Stalin and his security services controlled the restoration of the church hierarchy during World War II because the church leaders have no problems with the Soviet dictator (portal-credo.ru/site/?act=monitor&id=26356). Several analysts have pointed out that the notion that the Imperial Family was killed in an act of ritual murder as Bishop Tikhon Shevkunov suggests was examined and rejected in the 1990s (interfax-.ru/?act=news&div=68857 and interfax-.ru/?act=news&div=68844).

51. Christianity is for pussies.
    Tells you to submit to authority, turn the other cheek and let your enemies walk all over you, give away all your stuff, and stop thinking for yourself. Jesus even says to give up your belongings and let him take care of you. What bullshit.

52. The most unorthodox doctrine is to reject the Magisterium of the Church as the Prime Bishop of the Universal Church. Orthodoxy is another term for just be a local church, not Catholic.

53. The church developed Western Civilization not atheism (communism), you are misled by the satanical media

54. “People of Israel are the chosen people” is the heresy of dispensation. It was coined by a snake in the grass false pastor paid by Zionists and further propagated by neocons. Every m4 carbine, humanitarian aid, un speech in favor of Israel done by the U.S. govt is directly in result of that. Chiefly from the crooked and fake cuckservative republican party preying upon idiot bootlicker Blue lives matter asshats.
    Also – I think the claiming of lineage of “Christ’s true church” is a mental handjob. Similar to fake Brazilian Jiu jitsu martial artist claiming their lineage to the grand master.
    As long as doctrinally speaking it is In accord to the WORD of God, why does it matter? If the Holy Spirit can discern the good fruit of the belief, then it is of YAHUAH. Most importantly – one proclaims YESHUA HAMASIACH – Christ as LORD and savior – that is the priority. I admirably respect orthodoxy especially in these maddening degenerate liberal society. I still see no need for “religion” as I am of the Protestant school of thought that – Christianity is not a religion but a relationship.
    *you can roll your eyes at that, but you know it’s true lol*
    Thanks for the article.

55. Great article Michael. I want to add something more as an Orthodox Greek.
    I have noticed that in most western countries, people have no contact or actual knowledge of the difference between the original church of Christ as it was created by the Apostles and Saints and the secondary more ‘modernly made’ churches that were created especially after Catholicism came to power. I must also note that the more the Gospels were getting translated from their original ancient Greek scripts, the more mistranslations and misconceptions came up. I have read the Bible in the English language in 2 different versions and both of them had parts that were not very well translated from the original scripts which was making the meaning of the paragraph/text confusing and as we are taught in Orthodoxy, no one and nothing should ever change even a single word of the Gospel. Not a single one. As it has been proved, even a tiny mistranslation can cause the rise of an heresy and a sub-religion or cult, given how easily lots of men of power are taking advantage of such mistranslations, misconceptions and general lack of studying desire by Christians of our days.
    One very characteristic example of the western false doctrines is the so called ‘rapture’ theory which is probably the most mythical and ridiculous modern doctrine I’ve ever heard. Western people actually believe that God will suddenly one day ‘grab’ the ‘chosen’ people from the earth in a mystery-horror movie style. This new doctrine is based on the false explaining of a passage from Apostle Paul’s letters which, in the original Greek script, has a metaphorical and symbolical meaning. Some guy around 2 centuries ago translated it in a literal way which as a result, created this ridiculous doctrine as well as many others in the same way. The passage’s symbolic meaning refers to the sudden way with which Jesus Christ will arrive a second time to end the ruling of the antichrist when the later will be at the peak of its power and how God will ‘reap’ the fruits of the world (aka the people), based on who chose Him and who chose to follow the antichrist and judge them accordingly..not ‘grab’ them like puppies from the surface of the earth.
    Another mistranslation of symbolisms in the original script is the doctrine that western Christians have that ‘Israel’ the ‘Chosen people’ and the ‘Jerusalem’ of the New Testament are the same ones as those of the Old Testament. HUGE error. In the Old Testament Israel was the name God gave to His people and during that time Israel was the general name for ancient time ‘Jews’, which meant the people who believed in the Lord. In the New Testament, after Jesus Christ’s sacrifice, ‘Israel’ becomes a symbolic name for the general people of God..aka the modern day CHRISTIANS. Jerusalem of the New Testament is the symbolic name for the new Kingdom of the Lord, aka the modern day CHRISTIANS and the ‘city’ of Jerusalem has a metaphorical meaning not an actual meaning..it’s not ‘actually’ the city of Jerusalem which right now is in the hands of a nation who openly denies and insults Jesus Christ. The New Testament’s ‘chosen people’ are the CHRISTIANS. Not the modern day Israeli Jews. Anyone who truly believes in God and follows His original church, is deemed part of His church, His ‘chosen people’. Not just the ‘Jews’ or a certain ethnicity. This is a huge misconception that has led to a bunch of cults that gravitate around the physical and literal modern Israel whose people for centuries have been following an anti-christ religion called Kaballah, centered around the ideologies and secret teachings of Babylonian priests.
    You cannot take an original script, try to translate it however you want and change its meanings and then expect the result to be even remotely correct. You cannot take a mistranslated text and really believe that you have the right explanations of its meanings. The true and right explanation of the Gospel is in the hands of those who know and speak the ancient Greek language, hence why the Orthodox Saints, the Martyrs and the Orthodox church’s founding fathers have made the most proper translations and explanations of the Word. The west should start reading their documents and books instead of trusting tv pastors, overly advertised ‘celebrity’ famous yoga-style magazines and books of sub-religions and cults.

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