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Whatever. Read the post AGAIN. I spoke of the secularized culture that inevitably derives from a heretical Christian one.

Orthodoxy *is* growing mostly from within, at least in the ethnic sense. Most of the converts in Russia and other former Soviet satellites are from ethnic Orthodox stock. Their families merely bypassed Orthodox observance for a few generations, so they are genuine converts. That's a good thing. And it is true that there are more than a few conversions of evangelicals and disaffected Catholics in places like the US. But they are still the minority. And even there, the converts seek out the Orthodox, not vice versa. Of course it's on every continent, but in most cases it merely followed its own adherents in their migrations. Very little evangelical proselytization has ever occured with a view to actually Christianizing the pagans wherever they may be found. That was my point.

Your calendar is 13 days off relative to the vernal equinox that determines Easter. Period. The Gregorian calendar sought to realign March 21 with the equinox, since that was the date of the equinox at the time of the Council of Nicaea in 325. The equinox is the equinox. It happens when it happens, no matter what date either one of us wants to call it. But March 21 is supposed to be important to assign to the equinox. The Gregorian has it fall on March 21 (or occasionally in the late hours of March 20). It will take something like 3500 years to drift one full day if uncorrected. The Julian has March 21 fall on Gregorian April 3, thirteen days after the astronomical reality of the vernal equinox has already taken place. If March 21 is such an important date to both of us, and we have already made the adjustment, there's only one way to go here. The division over this is just silly. Even the Anglicans decided that enough was enough, and got in line with the improved Gregorian calendar around 1750.

The "heresy" of one head? The *heresy* of primacy? You have been separated from us for so long that you have built up primacy as an issue involving *heresy*??? I dunno about that! It seems to me that the Orthodox, generally, are willing to assign primacy to the bishop of Rome with certain restrictions, but we differ as to the boundaries of papal authority. The principle of primacy is not denied and watered down to the point where to even refer to it is a "heresy," is it? Perhaps I have misread the statements of the last few Ecumenical Patriarchs and others on this topic. It's not my business to tell you what your own Church teaches, but I think you will find that the basic principle of some element of primacy is considered worth exploring from your point of view, and therefore is not a "heresy," for the mere mention of which anathemas flow.

As for the Ukrainians, I fail to see the connection. The Catholics and Ukrainian Orthodox have always coexisted. The Soviets did their darnedest to undermine both Churches. They were particularly zealous in this regard with the Catholics, as they were "under a foreign head." Many Catholic churches were ripped away. The Church lost huge amounts of its own patrimony. Now that religious freedom has, relatively speaking, made a comeback in Russia, the Catholics want at least some of their former property back. The Orthodox, xenophobic as usual, have moved heaven and earth to get the secular government to not officially recognize anything but Orthodoxy. Where's the freedom? Catholics, a sizable minority, but a minority just the same, want their rights. That some of them seek these rights at the expense of the Orthodox in some of the property disputes is perfectly understandable. I suppose your opposition to that is also perfectly understandable. But neither of us should whine about it. The situation is complex, and a massive scandal against the letter and spirit of John 17:20-21. We both need to move more toward each other, instead of demanding that the "other side" makes all of the movements forward.

I spoke of the secularized culture that inevitably derives from a heretical Christian one. Russian orthodoxy, and the rest of Orthodoxy in the homelands, doesn't deal with religious modernism or the post-Christian secularism derived from Protestantism. All of that stuff is ovr here, and stems from the multiplicity of sects coming out of the so-called Reformation. It just isn't an issue for the Orthodox. It may become one as time goes on, particularly in Orthodox outposts in places like the US, but it's not a big thing yet. Therefor, Orthodoxy is relatively untainted at its lower levels by clashes with post-Christian religious modernism and post-Christian secularism derived from a non-apostolic understanding of Christianity. That's ALL I meant. I was NOT talking about battling secularism in the atheistic Communist mode. You guys were simply battling *that* brand of secularism for survival, and I already said (in two posts!) that I have great admiration for that. If you want to argue with me about the fact that I value the Orthodox for this, fine. But read carefully enough to know what I mean by "secularism" before you go off.