Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

To: eleni121

Eleni mou, the spiritually dead materialism of the West, its "highest" form being communism, has achieved its purpose with so many people in both the East and the West, that even the Pope has forcefully called out for a Latin/Orthodox challenge to these ideas. In the West however the bacillus of secularism, however successful, never approached, tactically, the publicly expressed purpose of communism in the East, which was in great measure to destroy Orthodoxy. It should come as no surprise that it succeeded with some.

It might well have triumphed in the Patrida but for the faith of our people and their love for our Church. In my maternal village, the communists came and desecrated the churches, killed babies, raped women and left a body hanging from every tree limb in the plateia. The Church did nothing...except call all the people to prayer, secretly at first and publically after the communists left. That was all the village church could do and it was more than enough. A secularist, no matter where he or she might be from, can never understand this unless he or she is willing to undertake a sort of self abnegation before God which few of them are willing to do and an acceptance of the fact that evil is very real in this world. It has to do with pride, Eleni mou.


23 posted on 11/18/2006 3:17:08 PM PST by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies ]


To: Kolokotronis; eleni121
A secularist, no matter where he or she might be from, can never understand this unless he or she is willing to undertake a sort of self abnegation before God which few of them are willing to do and an acceptance of the fact that evil is very real in this world. It has to do with pride, Eleni mou

Kolokotronis mou, you said so well. This brings memories of recent murder of Amish girls in their school and the Amish community quietly burying them without pomp or calls for revenge, in forgiveness and acceptance that no secularist could ever be capable of, precisely because of pride. Their "honor" would have to be avenged. For men tend to return evil for evil and that is what the Christ tells us we must not do.

So, the Church is seen as being passive and even permissive of tyrannical regimes. The Church cannot change its teachings to suit our passions. Being Orthodox doesn't mean you are passive, but when evil is done no amount of evil done in revenge will make it a blessing.

27 posted on 11/19/2006 5:25:20 AM PST by kosta50 (Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson