Posted on 02/15/2012 3:30:52 PM PST by Toaster tank
I am Scots-Irish and German, so I understand the challenges a convert might have in a strongly-ethnic parish. Of course, there’s the OCA and the Antiochians that have a lot of converts and use all or mostly English.
As far as Slavonic goes, I do understand most of it and I assume the priests who use it do too. I converted into the Carpatho-Russian church, which used mostly English and some Slavonic. Then I spent a few years in the Russian Church in Exile, which used only Slavonic and, since I already knew the Liturgy in English, I did kind of a backward translation. I know some Russians ans Serbs who say they do not understand parts of the Liturgy, but I think they could if they tried, given what seems to me to be strong similarities in the languages. The Gospel and the sermons will be in the modern language of the people, or in English.
Politics doesn’t come up much, unless it has something to do with the old country. The NATO war against Serbia got a lot of coverage in Serbian churches. I think most priests see their job as helping us work out our salvation, not telling us how to vote.
RPCNA (Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America) is very conservative, thru and thru.
You’re more than welcome at my church, Hopewell Baptist, in Napa, CA.
Interesting states you might be interested in, http://www.peacebyjesus.com/RC-Stats_vs._Evang.html
But the most important issue is whether you have been manifestly born again, and are walking in surrender to Christ, and searching the Scriptures in so doing. I was raised devout RC, but was not born again until age 25 (out of deep conviction and repentance), and there was an essential world of difference inside and out (even nature seemed new to this small town truck driver).
Yet i remained within the RCc attending faithfully and seeking to serve God there, and only left after 6 years, without hard feelings, but motivated response by the spiritual deadness of the people (i did go to Cath. charismatic meeting which had some early promise), with questionable doctrine being secondary.
I was walking in the fear of God and seeking to serve Him, and the first time i seriously prayed whether i should go to a different church then the next day the Lord answered my prayer in an evident manner (while i was attempting to witness to another person about Christ), and which decision the Lord abundantly confirmed in years after.
I would recommend any evangelical, conservative baptist or Calvary chapel type church, but it is first and last about your own surrender and consecration to Christ, which makes for a strong body, and which is to facilitate that.
The angel said to Daniel... But go thy way till the end be: for thou shall rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of days. Daniel 2 ch 12 v13
And I saw the dead,small and great,stand before God;and the books were opened which is the book of life and the dead were judged out of the things written in the books... Rev 20 v12-13
Sounds like Daniel and a lot of people didn’t make it to Heaven until final judgement.
When I lived in Massachusettes, I found going to church was like going to an amoral DNC political rally. I went to church after church and found no church of God within 30 miles. I could not fund their anti-God activism.
So I stopped going to church for worship and just worship Him in my life all week long wherever I am.
Did you mean Carpatho-Russian, or Carpatho-Rhytian? The CRs are the Orthodox Cossack sent into the Carpathian mountains by the Czar about 1810 to drive out all the "Swedes" (Mostly Sa'ami hard metal miners looking for gold/silver/tin/iron/zinc/etc.)
Those folks had their own language ~ closely related to Skolt ~ and the ones who left to go back to Sweden, and Finland (also the Czar's personal possession), recently disappeared as a linguistic minorty. The last speaker, an elderly woman, passed on.
A tribe of humanity is gone and I was there in spirit if not in fact ~ I had just found out about them weeks before they expire from this world.
A friend of mine was a Carpatho-Rhytian. He died some years back, but he related that the news back home in Pennsylvania was grim. The congregation was getting old and they were going to need to install pews ~ gasp! ~ to seat the elderly for services, but they did have central heat in the old church.
Your kind are not as invisible as you might imagine.
It’s really good that you escaped the clutches of the false “gospel” of catholicism.
Jesus is God. He is not any man-made designation, such as “Nazarene.” Jesus is God, period. The Bible tells you all you need to know, through the illumination of the Holy Spirit—if you seek Him.
It's no different.
I watch Worship for Shut Ins with my mother when it is my turn to spend Sunday morning with her. It is a half hour Lutheran service specifically geared for people who are unable to make it to church. I believe it is produced out of Concordia, Fort Wayne, Seminary. It is also available on some cable stations. Besides being able to view old sermons, I believe the Sunday service may be available for viewing as early as Friday of any given week.
If I were the devil with all the world laid at my feet from the fall in the garden, the first thing I do is establish and control all religion... especially the early “chirstian church”. It’s all about your “heart” in the end.
The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. Very conservative Biblically based church
And some of us also have rocking contemporary services if that is to your liking. Our church has both
The church is referred to as the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church. I’ve also heard of this particular group of people referred to as Ruthenians. Ethnically, they were from southern Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine. When I asked about their language, they just called it “slavic.” They have their own style of plain chant that is used in the services
We have many consistent visitors, regular attenders and members from the ranks of former Catholics.
I have a number of friends who left the Catholic church to attend the Episcopal Church but wound up going to the African Anglican Church and quite happy there.
I do dearly love bible studies learning for my self what the bible really says about such things as are found in the New Testament but also love learning about the history of man in the Old Testament.
If you're unable to part with the liturgical tradition, you might be comfortable at a Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod (the conservative Lutheran church as opposed to the very liberal ELCA - Evangelical Lutheran Church, which is anything but "Evangelical.")
I have found that most all of my childhood religious traditions can be found in a Southern Baptist Church, as so many other denominations have left Christian teachings and beliefs far, far behind.
I’m not Catholic, but from reading all this, it sounds like to me that you don’t want to abandon 55 years of worship in the Catholic church, but find a different Catholic church that goes along better with your Conservative beliefs.
From the OPC website:
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What is the OPC stance on double predestination?
The Orthodox Presbyterian Church states, in its official Confession and Catechisms, that God has chosen some out of the human race to be saved through the finished work of Christ, thus inheriting eternal life. It also acknowledges that others of the same human race are not chosen to eternal life and therefore foreordained to everlasting punishment. This teaching is clearly stated, for example, in the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter III, section 3 which says this:
By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestined unto eternal life, and others foreordained to everlasting death.
In other words, God sovereignly ordains the eternal destiny of every human being—the lost as well as the saved. This has sometimes been called "double predestination."
However, a careful study of the Westminster Standards will show that this is never to be understood to say—or even imply—that these are parallel to each other in some symmetrical way (as if every aspect in the one case has a corresponding aspect in the other). In the case of the elect there is a divine intervention called regeneration. This is a sovereign work of God the Holy Spirit whereby a sinner who is spiritually dead is made alive. It is this that enables a sinner to see and enter the Kingdom of God (as Jesus teaches in John 3). In other words, God works in those whom he has chosen to enable them to repent and believe. It follows that all the praise, credit and glory belongs to him alone. It does not belong to the elect sinner who repents and believes. In the case of those who are not elect, however, there is no internal work of God. It is not God who makes them evil. They already are evil. In their case the Word of God only hardens them in their sin. And it is to them alone—and not to God—that the blame therefore must belong for their final reprobation.
There is a God-decreed finality in both the predestination of the elect to eternal life and the foreordination of reprobate to condemnation. But there is no symmetry between them. It was for this very reason that the Westminster Assembly never used the Scriptural term predestination in speaking of the lost, but instead the term foreordination.
Thanks for giving me this opportunity to say something again about this awesome subject.
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For the record, I do not belong to the OPC.
Your are interpreting Hebrews in the light of Protestant theology, which rejected the cult of Mary and the saints. The Transfiguration story, however, which involved the shades of Moses and Elijah, does not support your view that these worthies were “dead to the world,” Nor does the visionry language of Revelations. Any study of early Christianity tells us about the cult of the martyrs, and how as early as 1240 we have pilgrims visiting the supposed tomb of Peter in Rome. This is what Semites do. They visit holy sites. Jews, Christians, Muslims. The dead are indeed, waiting for the Resurrection, when their souls shall be joined to their bodies.But “soul sleep”is a construct of Protestant theology, an inference from their rejection of invocation of the saints.
P
Pilgrims were already visiting Rome to sites associated with the martyrdom’s of Peter and Paul by the middle of the 2nd Century. The tombs of other martyrs were likewise being visited. But no place was claimed for the burial place of Mary, even though she was greatly revered.
Thank you for posting. May I ask are you in the PCA or another conservative Calvinist church?
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