We Want It All.
[The following apologia/meditation comes from our friend, Diane, and could have the title “Why I am not leaving the Catholic Church.” It echoes my mind precisely and I couldn't have put it better myself. Thanks, Diane.]
Jesus, I
Want It All!
by Diane
Years
and years ago, I worked at an ad agency in downtown Winston-Salem. Every
Advent, one of my colleagues there used to don a sparkly red graphic sweatshirt
with the message: “Santa, I want it all!”
I
hereby claim a variation on this message to sum up my allegiance to Catholic
Church: “Jesus, I want it all!”
I
want the fullness. Both-and, not either-or. Both East and West. Icons and
statues. Iconostases and stained-glass windows. The Eastern Fathers and the
Western ones, too. All the saints – every single one. Seraphim of Sarov and Francis of Assisi. Pre-Schism. Post-Schism. The whole
enchilada. Byzantine chant and Gregorian chant. Russian choral music and
Renaissance polyphony. And, yes, even the operatic Masses of Mozart, Verdi, Gounod, and Saint-Saëns. Not to mention the immortal Western religious
art: the Annunciation frescoes of Fra Angelico, the bas reliefs of Andrea della Robbia, the Madonnas of Raphael. How impoverished life
would be without them!
And
there's the rub. That's why I could never, ever be Orthodox. Especially not Convertodox – a member of the vocal,
polemical online convert community.
I
cannot believe that Jesus was incarnate, crucified, and resurrected for a small
part of the planet composed of Greece, Russia, and a few areas in the Middle
East. I cannot believe that East Is Right and West Is Wrong. I cannot believe
that the “phronema” is limited to one
spirituality, one cultural expression or one theological perspective. Or even
to just a few.
It
has been said that the West can accommodate the East better than the East can
accommodate the West. In my experience, this is abundantly true. Personally, I
know no Catholic who doesn't love icons or who feels weirdly out of place
during the sanctuary tour at the local Greek Festival. We are open to all that
stuff, the icons and iconostases and Pantocrators, the Jesus Prayer, the mysticism. We love
it all. We just don't happen to believe that it's all there is – or that everything else is wrong.
Moreover,
we want the “everything else”. The rich
diversity of Catholic spiritualities. The countless ways to pray, from Rosaries
and Novenas to wordless contemplation to charismatic praise and worship. The
endless variety of religious vocations – from the austere ascesis of the Carthusians to the baroque mysticism of the Carmelites to the charity-in-action of the Franciscans. Not to mention the varied
charisms of the many Catholic women's groups, lay and religious.
Jesus,
I want it all. I don't even want to exclude the best of Protestant culture and
spirituality. I've lived here in the Bible Belt for 25 years, and I've come to
appreciate the gifts our separated brethren possess, which we would do well to
emulate: evangelical fervor, zeal for souls, ardent love of Jesus, intimate
knowledge of Scripture, fearless willingness to preach Christ Crucified. I love
much of Protestant hymnody, from the 1940
Episcopal Hymnal (still the gold standard in my opinion) to Southern Gospel
(black and white) to the Sacred
Harp “shape-note” tradition.
Moreover,
as a Catholic, I am free to appreciate these authentically good elements of
Protestantism. I don’t have to reject them all out of hand as hopelessly
heterodox or as rife with “prelest”. As a Catholic, I
believe that our separated brethren are incompletely—yet genuinely—joined with
us Catholics, and that what is true and beautiful in their traditions is true
and beautiful for us as well. This does not mean that I accept everything
indiscriminately or that I blindly adhere to anything that contradicts Catholic
Church Teaching. No way. But, as the Decree on Ecumenism states, many elements
of Catholic grace and truth exist outside of the Catholic Church's visible
bounds. I rejoice in this.
Jesus,
I want it all. I reject what von Balthasar called the “anti mentality”: us
against them; East versus West. The great sin of schism is the lack of fraternal charity, and the anti mentality
epitomizes this. In my experience, the typical polemic employed by Online Convert
Orthodox is indistinguishable from the old saw about olfactory fatigue. Thanks, but no thanks.
Jesus,
I want it all. Sun-bleached Greek monasteries and French Gothic cathedrals.
Ancient chants and baroque Masses and even shape-note fuguing hymns. I want
everything that is true and good, everything that comes from You, in this whole
big wide world (East and West) in which You were incarnate and for which You
died.
Jesus,
I want it all. I could never join a communion that would force me to reject my
statues and Holy Cards and Rosaries and stained glass and Benediction hymns and Renaissance Madonnas. You would have to pry
that Rosary out of my cold, dead hands. Or drag me away from that statue of Our Lady of Lourdes. In the immortal words of the old Gershwin
song, “No, no, you can't take that away from me.”
Jesus,
I want it all.
And
that is why I am Catholic.
You make it seem like only Roman Catholics can "have it all," but that's just not true. Everything in the great tradition of the Christian church belongs to the Eastern Orthodox, to Anglicans, and to members of the various Protestant denominations just as much as it does to Roman Catholics. If you *really* want to have it all, if you *really* want to partake of the fullness of the great tradition, you should be a traditional, broad church Anglican - i.e. neither Reformed nor Counter-Reformed.
ReplyDeleteNever heard of them.
DeleteTom, what Anonymous is trying to say is that if you really want it all, just do whatever you want.
Delete"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." Yeah. No.
No thanks.
Doing what thou wilt is the whole of YOUR law, not mine. You'd be better off centering your life on Jesus Christ than on Rod Dreher. If you did, you would get over Dreher spurning your advances or whatever he did to make you this way. You would also stop bearing false witness against fellow Christians. You'd know that if you read your Bible as much as Dreher's blog.
DeleteDoing what thou wilt is the whole of YOUR law, not mine. You'd be better off centering your life on Jesus Christ than on Rod Dreher. If you did, you would get over Dreher spurning your advances or whatever he did to make you this way. You would also stop bearing false witness against fellow Christians. You'd know that if you read your Bible as much as Dreher's blog.
DeleteAs the bad-cradle-Methodist-non-Catholic around these parts you're probably right that I would be better off centering my life more on Jesus Christ. However, "bearing false witness against fellow Christians" is a claim of fact you're making agaist others without any evidence to substantiate it, asshole, although the phrase's Scriptural wrapper might cow some so that you never have to. For myself, though, I say put up or shut the fuck up, you mealy-mouthed mofo.
Now, here's what Rod Dreher did to make me this way: he is to innocent, naive, and troubled psyches and spirits what molesters of his same age are to 6-year-old vaginas and penises, a predatory molestor interested solely in his own self-gratification and satisfaction, one who uses passive-aggression and pity for himself as a perennial victim to lure and gull his victims "I've lost my puppy/bullies took my puppy/my puppy will be sad and die if we don't find him/I will be sad and die if we don't find him/won't you please help me find my puppy/here sit on my lap, yes, right on top of that knob, I'll drive us to where I need us to go."
Dreher uses a gift of melodious language - superficial rhetoric only - to manipulate the psychological and spiritual yearnings of others and with them form a narcissistic cult of personality around himself in exactly the same way Jim Jones did with the victims he lured to Guyana. To protect that nursery, he can't allow anyone into his site to regularly reduce the sophistry of his arguments to shambles the way we regularly do here, and so he relentlessly culls all but the most token, Potemkin dissent. But by being able to produce an illusion of popularity out of those who accept his terms, he creates the illusion of having something sound, logical and other-serving to say in the world at large, and so, in the disputational world at large, I then contest what he has to say, just as I did here and elsewhere. It simply happens here rather than there, where he fears such things.
If Dreher weren't the sniveling, passive-aggressive, predatory molesting coward his family and home town who have always known him best know him to be, as well as those of us who have followed him over an evidentiary trail stretching back years now, he would allow aggressive criticism of his specious claims about any number of things on his own blog and I would make them there. Because he is such a thing instead, I make them here.
If you want to let Dreher continue to pervert Christianity as a tool to prey on others for his own narcissistic ends in order to protect your soul from possible road hazards, you go right ahead. Me, in the face of what I consider his clear, deformed predation on others, I'll take my chances. But I really doubt God is quite as stupid as Dreher and his minions portray him to be in their self-serving circle jerks. He'll sort it all out the way He deems best.
Here's what Dreher does that should make you this way, too: he converts Christianity into that lurid pseudo-Christian infotainment program we see as The Rod Dreher Show, with its carefully "curated" (read: producer cultivated and shaped) commentary; its market-branding tag lines ("Benedict Option", "Law of Merited Impossibility") which, because they consistently defy rational resolution, then reveal themselves to be what they are, internet memes only, meant only to garner internet recognition, like something Glozell would cook up); and its perverted weaponization of Christianity as an implement with which to passive-aggressively strike back at those (his sister, his family, the Catholic Church, conservatives who didn't buy into his first infotainment program, Crunchy Cons) who victimized him by not acceding to his sloppy, adolescent mental ejaculations.
DeleteYou'd know that if you read your Bible as much as Dreher's blog.
DeleteOoooh, let me guess. A convert from fundamentalism who has not yet jettisoned the Preachy Fundy Baggage.
Back in the day, Owen would have pegged you as a Pixel Staretz. ;)
although the phrase's Scriptural wrapper might cow some....
DeleteTypical Fundy Manipulation: using Bible verses as a weapon. The verses are always wrenched violently out of context, of course.
You can take the convert out of fundamentalism, but you can't take the fundamentalism out of the convert.
I've never been either fundamentalist or a convert, Diane, so - as usual - you're wrong. One would have thought that, after making the mistake of taking your own unborn child's life, you would have learned some humility - but clearly not. Like Pauli, you should focus on Jesus Christ, not Rod Dreher, and ask His forgiveness for your sins, instead of waiting for Owen White to offer some apology to you.
DeleteYou know, you can maybe get away with crap like this at certain other venues. But I guarantee that you can't get away with it here.
DeleteWhether or not you've ever been a fundy, you certainly do act like one. It's all there: the faux piety, the judgmentalism, the nastiness, the utter lack or empathy or charity.
Yikes.
I've never been either fundamentalist or a convert, Diane, so - as usual - you're wrong. One would have thought that, after making the mistake of taking your own unborn child's life, you would have learned some humility - but clearly not. Like Pauli, you should focus on Jesus Christ, not Rod Dreher, and ask His forgiveness for your sins, instead of waiting for Owen White to offer some apology to you.
DeleteAnonymous, let me take you apart and put you back together again so you and everyone else will know why you are here. You are here only because of Rod Dreher. Rod Dreher is the only reason for your existence. You are the condom sheathing and sheltering the thrust of the Rod Dreher dick into Owen White's apology.
Because Rod Dreher is not a Christian, only a parasite fluke living in Christan culture and feeding off of it like the trematode that causes schistosomiasis, he naturally took the opportunity Owen provided him with his apology to make a passive-aggressive thrust against his perceived enemies, as I pointed out here. Diane assumed he was talking about her and rather courageously in my view volunteered the personal information you are now triumphantly trying to throw back in her face with your third-order derivative, sanctimonious moralizing.
So understand your place in the scheme of things, anonymous. You're not even the phony, cowardly, passive-aggressive pseudo-Christian parasite Rod Dreher. You're merely a derivitaive piece of shit clinging to it which it passive-aggressively set in motion with its original comment, as a disposable tool, a condom to shield it from direct contact, to be discarded with its spendings when your usefulness had expired.
The reason I, at least, prioritize Dreher over the Bible is that I've already studied the Bible, the Bible isn't going anywhere, but most importantly the Bible isn't parasitizing itself and its message only as a Ghillie suit within which to smite its enemies while milking itself solely to earn money to fund its real religion, filling its belly with rich and delicate food and drink like a pig.
So, by all means, moralize some more here, Rod Dreher's cast off piece of shit. Other peoples' shit is just a normal part of life, something I doubt anyone here has any problem at all dealing with.
Thank you, Keith. And, as they say, mega-dittoes.
DeleteApparently Divine Mercy does not exist in the universe inhabited by these pharisaical Jerks for Jesus. In fact, I seem to recall that Dreher himself once crowed about the superiority of his "God of Wrath" over that wussy Jesus adored by both Methodists and Catholics -- that is, the Jesus of the Bible. :p
I have much more to say about this. I am crazy-busy right now, but, in the coming week, I hope to be able to construct a post about this phenomenon of Safely Anonymous Georgie-Porgie Pharisaism.
In the meantime, Keith, thank you again!
oops, this is Diane. For some reason, Blogger keeps defaulting to my son's account.
DeleteI've never been either fundamentalist or a convert, Diane, so - as usual - you're wrong.
DeleteAnd yet... "walks like a duck"... so what is Diane supposed to assume?
after making the mistake of taking your own unborn child's life, you would have learned some humility - but clearly not
The only advice I'll give to anonymous is one which I heard a wise priest tell a woman who came to him, angry about her wayward and dissolute husband: "If you are going to confess his sins, you have to do his penance."
Diane is an intelligent woman, and I've learned that that simply drives a certain type of over-zealous male crazy.
I'll echo Keith's invitation to continue to post comments here. It will be Exhibit X, or whatever we're up to now, of the alternate theology universe which we witness on the internets.
Lol, thank you, Pauli! I reckon our pious Pharisee for Jesus doesn't know what hit him.
DeleteAs I said before, you can get away with crap like this at certain other venues (although, even there, you can get called out by your betters). But you can't get away with it here. However, it would be amusing to see the playground bullies keep trying.
I think our Anonymous friend has entirely missed my point.
ReplyDeleteIs the entire Christian patrimony open to all? Of course it is.
But do all Christians choose it all? Do all Christians even want it all?
Obviously not. Many Protestants I know personally have never even heard of the Early Church Fathers, either Eastern or Western, let alone embraced their writings. Most evangelicals and fundamentalists reject both icons and statues, rosaries and chotkis, stained glass and iconostases. In pulpits across America, fundy preachers rail against everything from religious images to hierarchical governance.
And all too many Orthodox -- at least in the Online Convert Community -- reject anything Western or "Latin," accuse Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Teresa of Avila of "prelest," consider the pope the anti-Christ, and so on. (I have found that Cradle Orthodox, like our local Greek Orthodox, are far less prone to such vehement "anti" stuff. And some converts are pretty cool, too. But, by and large, the Online Convert Crowd defines itself more by what it's against than by what it's for.)
Sure, anyone can have it all. But not everyone wants it all. By the Grace of God, we Catholics WANT it all. Including the great gift of the papacy. That's why we are Catholic.
Of course, some Orthodox are of the "We're the best and most elite church, composed of the most intelligent and talented priests, using the *most* ancient and superior styles of chant, and having the highest and most sophisticated forms of theology, and using the original church language of Greek" school of thought.
DeleteI have noticed such an attitude especially in the recent, unfortunate repose of Fr. Matthew Baker. The hagiographical tendencies of Orthodox eulogizing make me somewhat uncomfortable, to be completely frank.
The hagiographical tendencies of Orthodox eulogizing make me somewhat uncomfortable, to be completely frank.
DeleteI attend a more than average amount of funerals because my boys serve at our parish. I can assure you that localized premature hagiography is widespread. I would love to be able to be "completely frank" during some funeral masses I've been to. You know, like standing up in the middle of the rambling eulogy and blurting out "Wait... are you talking about this dead guy here or someone else?" But I lack the nerve, and don't want to embarrass my kids or deny them the funeral-serving experience.
I can imagine these premature canonizations to which you are referring are just a sort of a super-sizing of these eulogies I've heard. I have no idea whether these orthodox converts are worse or better than catholics in degree. But from a Catholic perspective this tendency is bad because it could diminish the amount of prayers for the departed that are required to get them into Heaven.
I hope when I die the priest says something like "He was a nasty-assed bastard, may God have mercy on his sould and everybody say 500 rosaries for him."
Reminds me of the old joke about a funeral for a complete rotter, that ends with the punchline, "But compared to his brother, the man was a saint!"
Delete(And for those who may not know, Pauli isn't suggesting that souls in purgatory flat can't get into Heaven without some fixed amount of prayers from the living. But prayers from the living do help, and some souls need more purifying than others.)
@ Diane: It's hardly true that ALL Roman Catholics want it all. In my experience, Roman Catholic converts and Romantic Catholic intellectuals are at least as closed-off to the fullness of the Christian tradition outside their own communions as their Orthodox counterparts are. Things are milder among cradle RCs and among RCs without intellectual pretensions, but that's the pattern I've observed.
Delete"It's hardly true that ALL Roman Catholics want it all."
DeleteIt's not even true that all Roman Catholics want all of the Catholic tradition (which may be what was meant by "their own communionS").
On the other hand, the all of Catholicism includes the phrase "that smacks of heresy" and the iron sharpening the iron. People, amiright? Still, the principle of unity may be *expressed* doctrinally, but the Principle Itself is the Spirit of Christ.
@ Anonymous: Ah, the old tu quoque. I'm sorry, but, in this case, that dog don't hunt.
DeleteMy main point here is that most Catholics do not reject the East the way many Orthodox (esp. converts) reject the West. And IMHO this holds true for Catholic converts as well as or Cradle Catholics.
Sure, you can always find the occasional exception. So what? As the saying goes, the exception proves the rule. Because the exception is rare, not common.
C'mon, now, Anonymous. How many Catholic converts do you know who reject icons? Or the Jesus Prayer? Or Byzantine chant? Or Russian liturgical music? And, by "reject," I mean consider these things unspiritual or worse?
Over the years, I've been exposed to countless Orthodox converts online (and yes, even a few in Real Life). I've been told that:
*** Western religious art has "no theology"; it's just "an Italian woman and a fat baby." (Quoting John Taverner -- So, conversion to Orthodoxy entails aesthetic bigotry? Who knew?)
*** Eucharistic Adoration is "demonic." (So, when was the last time you heard even the most rabid Traddie Catholic convert claim that the Jesus Prayer is demonic?)
*** Stigmatists like Francis of Assisi and Padre Pio were not saints but, rather, demon-possessed victims of "prelest."
*** Only Orthodox mysticism is genuine. Western mystics like Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross were demon-possessed victims of "prelest."
*** Byzantine chant is the only religious music that "expresses theology"; all Western religious music, including plainchant and polyphony, is spiritually and theologically worthless.
*** Catholic Orders and Sacraments are not valid. (Would even the traddiest Catholic convert say the same about Orthodox Orders and Sacraments? Of course not -- because our Church clearly and explicitly teaches that Orthodox churches are true particular churches with valid Orders and Mysteries.)
This is just a tiny snapshot of the utter nonsense I've encountered among the Online Orthodox. Don't even get me started on the followers of the Romanides Cult, with their mantra re the Evil Franks! And how about some of the folks y'all canonize -- e.g., Justin "Papism Is the First Protestantism" Popovich. When was the last time we Catholic canonized an anti-Orthodox bigot? Hmmmm?
I do believe that most Cradle Orthodox (especially the Greeks, who appear to be pretty salt of the earth) would find some of the Online Convertodox's nutty claims as appalling as I do. But Online Convertodoxy is all about the Anti. I don't see how this can be gainsaid.
And no, it's not tu quoque. No way, Jose. Maybe you can find the very occasional Catholic Convert who won't venerate an icon because it's too Eastern or something. I've never encountered anyone like that, personally, but I'm sure that, if you look hard enough, you can find some lone example somewhere.
But how many Orthodox Converts do you know who venerate statues? Or who would admit that a Raphael Madonna or a van der Goes triptych has something to offer theologically?
There simply is NO equivalent on the Catholic side to the rabid Anti-Westernism so pervasive on the Orthodox Convert side. To claim otherwise is to cut one's moorings with reality.
If anything, Catholics (including converts) seem to idealize and romanticize the East. And we are usually surprised and distressed to learn that the favor is not returned.
More later; gotta get to work.
But, in the meantime, please -- enough with the tu quoque. That dog hasn't hunted in a dog's age.
t's not even true that all Roman Catholics want all of the Catholic tradition
DeleteTrue, Tom, bit those clueless uncatechized Catholics are not very likely to reject other people's traditions. They are the "Coexist" crowd -- when they bother thinking about it at all. They probably have many counterparts among the Cradle Orthodox.
But our Anonymous friend was talking specifically about converts. That's a whole 'nuther kettle of fish.
Not meaning to muddy your larger point, Diane, but the anti-Vatican II cohort (to pick one example) aren't the "Coexist" crowd.
DeleteTrue. But, in my experience at least, they aren't anti-Eastern either. The ones I know admire Eastern liturgy, icons, and so forth. They may condemn "obdurate persistence in schism," but they do not reject the beauties of Eastern spirituality, liturgy, art, and music. Not the folks I know, anyway. YMMV.
DeleteLOL! I hear ya, Pauli.
ReplyDeleteBut I have a feeling Judge was talking about more than just the "instant canonization" phenomenon.
thanks Diane for your posting---as always full of cool insights engagingly expressed . hopefully both Catholic and Orthodox (and for that matter our Protestant brothers and sisters) will be able to at least appreciate some of the truths and beauties in each other and know that even if separated for many reasons that there is a basic fellowship in Christ that (God willing) will lead to a loving unity that will take and use all that is best from all that come together. that said, you go girl!!!
ReplyDeleteThank YOU for the kind words!!!
DeleteWanting it all, yet possessing nothing.
DeleteThis blog post is little more than an apologia for modern Roman Catholic ecumenism, which violates not only the seriousness with which the Holy Fathers treated heterodoxy, but contradicts Roman Catholic attitudes toward non-Catholics as recently as half a century ago.
In addition to the non-traditional ecumenism present in this blog post, the author fails to realize that the Orthodox Church does not reject the West for being the West, but rather for it being a massive contraction and alteration of the ancient Faith. Orthodoxy’s rejection of the Western Church is due to its contraction of the ancient Faith (not its geography), which reduces the teachings of the “Holy Fathers” to that of the “Holy Father,” makes optional the incense, singing, and general form of the ancient Western liturgy, and is a testament to a creeping secularism and doctrinal innovation, which perverts Christianity.
Furthermore, and more to the heart of the issue, the author of this blog post appears to be a type of religious aficionado who understands neither Church history nor the importance of the traditions of ancient Christianity. To place iconography on par with medieval art is to mix the sacred with the profane. For what union has iconography, which is a form of sacred art created by devout Christian believers and separate from secular concerns, with artwork often commissioned by the rich and powerful of this world to be created by those with human talent and optional piety? (Actually, given the fact that the medieval artist often painted the visages of his patrons in his depictions of biblical and saintly figures, it would be semi-blasphemous to venerate such “sacred art.”)
Likewise, what union is there between statutes that are optional decoration that is rarely venerated in Roman Catholic churches and icons, which are fundamental to the life of the Orthodox Church, and are regularly venerated by the faithful in application of the theology of the 7th Ecumenical Council? In the same vein, what similarity has the ancient chant of the Eastern and Western Church with music, which was once shared in common with the secular world (i.e. operatic Masses were the guitar Masses of the 17th century)?
Finally, and ultimately, what connection is there between a Church (Roman Catholic), which scrubs the lives of the saints of their miracles in the name of “historical accuracy,” and a Church (Orthodox), which inculcates faith in God and his miracles through maintaining the lives of her saints in their traditional integrity?
Clearly, the author, while “wanting it all,” fails to understand that by not discerning that which is ancient and holy from what is secular and profane, he or she is left with possessing nothing.
Oh right. Because Fra Angelico's frescoes, Josquin's Ave Maria, and Saint Teresa's Interior Castle are so "secular and profane." And because only the ancient East (that hotbed of Christological heresy) is holy.
DeleteThank you for illustrating my point so beautifully, Blogger. BTW have you finished trolling over at Serge's blog? Is that why you've decided to show up here? ;)
Heresies always arise in the places where the majority of Christians reside. During the first millennium, the majority of the Church lived in the East. For this reason, heresies arose there more often than in the West. Focus less on where heresies originate and rather focus on how they were defeated. And they were defeated through the combined efforts of faithful monastics, laity, priests and bishops and not through ex cathedra statements of the Roman Pontiff, or even the apparent consciousness that bishops could make an appeal for such definitive statements from the Pope of Rome.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the charge of “trolling,” – defending your Faith is not “trolling.” If it is, you would be a marketable entity by now.
(Sung to the tune of "Sailing, Sailing." "Don't pinch it; it's copyright." -- Psmith in Leave It to Psmith)
DeleteTrolling, trolling,
Over the Catholic boards!
Though "free" from Rome,
We froth and foam
At clueless papist hordes!
Ohhhhh.....
Trolling, trolling,
Never let up a smidgen!
We'd rather bait
The Church we hate
Than practice our own religion.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe sad thing is that there isn't much a cradle can do other than go to Liturgy and then make sure one avoids certain people at coffee hour. The Greeks are pretty sane , ROCOR is going batshit and once the Arabs realize that Met. Phillip much to his surprise did die and isn't coming back will take back Antioch and make all of the white bread converts leave or actually state that Antioch existed 2000 years ago and didn't start when they fled TEC.
ReplyDeleteI am thoroughly convinced that the West lost its heart during the Great Schism but the East almost certainly lost its mind.
ROCOR has been crazy for a long time now.
DeleteAnthony
Stephen, I loved both of your comments, including the deleted one. Thank you!!!!
ReplyDelete