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The fact that He, sharing our humanity can be depicted in the Holy Icons, as can His Mother, and His friends the saints? The fact that those who are in Christ, though they die, yet they are alive in Christ (and thus we can ask them to pray for us, even as you and I could ask each others prayers)? The resurrection of the dead? (Which the verse from 2 Maccabees justifying prayer for the dead cites as justification for the practice, rather than some invented notion of purgatory.) The fact that the Church uses the same Holy Scriptures it has since the canon was fixed, rather than following Luther and the Christ-denying rabbis of Jamnia in removing 10 books from the Old Testament (or even demoting them to a "deuterocanon" as St. Jerome advocated)?

I think you'll find I've addressed the issues of purgatory, mariology, saint worship, and the like. That is the precise reason I said what I did. As for why I spend time on the Papacy and Peter in Rome. They are *blatent* examples of the errors that are taught which seem to matter little. They can be understood by people without any real spiritual discernment. Maybe it would be as practical to say that two guys ran thier cars off the road on opposite ends of town. Both were paying attention to anything but the road and Whammo! One got out and claimed to be an emperor and ruler of the world by right, the other got out and said, 'hey, I'm joe six pack.' Which one is more wrong?

Well, you can cross purgatory off the list you hold against us. St. Mark of Ephesus, the Orthodox saint who (with the help of the laity and ordinary clergy back home) scuttled the False Union of Florence/Ferrar, wrote extensively against that false teaching.

As for "mariology" and "saint worship", I would note that there are subtle and not so subtle differences between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic approached to Mary. Our constant use of the title Theotokos stresses that much of the honor we show her is bound up with sound Christology, while the West seems to perfer "Blessed Virgin Mary" at the usual reference. We also insist she died. Their Dogma of the Assumption of the BVM is carefully worded to give room for their faction which asserts she never died, but was assumed alive into heaven. We also deny their Dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the BVM, which to the Orthodox vitiates the identity of nature between Christ's humanity and our own.

As to "saint worship", I would again remind you that those in Christ, though they die, yet they are alive. Thus, we can ask their prayers. We honor the saints as Christ's friends, and those through whom God has shown forth his Uncreated Glory. The veneration of saints is a natural secondary outgrowth of the worship of the source of the Uncreated Glory (God), but is not worship itself.

By the way, glad to get a response. Thank you. Too often protestant posters refuse to answer me.