[Kolokotronis]

“When a priest, on Christmas, gets up and says that Jesus was not “a god” till maybe after the Resurrection, you have a problem. Such things don’t happen overnight though, and I had noticed this years ago.”

I’ve never seen anything even hinting at this sort of heresy in the Orthodox Church. You want to remember that in Orthodoxy, the People, the Laity, are the guardians of Orthodoxy. A priest or a hierarch starts preaching heresy and the People of God rise up and solve the problem. I’ve seen it myself. There is a danger with some converts, especially early in their life as Orthodox. Many of them, it seems especially the ones who go on to become priests in some jurisdictions, can be described as suffering from a sort of spiritual PTSD. They can be dangerous. Recently there was a big dust up about an OCA convert priest at base supporting the gay lifestyle, including gay marriage. When the complaints started, the OCA top metropolitan, another convert, seemed to support the priest. Both were condemned across the Orthodox world. In another instance, another convert priest, from Episcopalianism I think, announced that it was his job and purpose to “demystify” Orthodoxy. He got slapped down hard by the People across his jurisdiction.

We know, inherently, what is Orthodox and what is not by the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We know when a dogma is true when we live it out in our lives individually and collectively. We react to the World in an Orthodox way. You may have seen flashes of that here on FR. But none of it is as a result of “Magical Thinking”. It is the result of 2000 years of living Orthodoxy.

[bad company]

I’ve never seen anything even hinting at this sort of heresy in the Orthodox Church. You want to remember that in Orthodoxy, the People, the Laity, are the guardians of Orthodoxy. A priest or a hierarch starts preaching heresy and the People of God rise up and solve the problem.

Check out the dust storm Fr. Robert Arida out of Boston has kicked up.

[redgolum]

Many of them, it seems especially the ones who go on to become priests in some jurisdictions, can be described as suffering from a sort of spiritual PTSD. They can be dangerous.

I have seen that before also (convert disease). Which is why I think that a priest or pastor converting should not be given sole run of a parish for a bit. Not always possible I realize. It is often better to have him with an older pastor/priest who has been (to quote a Western phrase) to a few Rodeo's and a goat rope. Tends to calm them down.

The issue that my bride ran into (and I think it is common on Catholicism) is that the laity have very limited recourse in situations like this. The bishop doesn't care, he is trying to rebuild the Diocese after a large sex abuse scandal a few years ago. Many in the parish either say the rosary through the service or go to the diocese across the river. They have petitioned the bishop about this priest (and others like him, he is by no means alone) for years. But he teaches at a local university, always shows up for mass, and has had a clean record with the law. The formation of the faith isn't even a concern, let alone if the priest is by denying the Incarnation a rank heretic.