Paul has the personal testimony of Christ Jesus but that’s not good enough since he’s not besotted with the Greek philosophers and monkish asceticism, AND he’s a mortal! per k50.
While his pinging me provides numerous opportunities to ignore him at times I have to laugh out loud.
This is who we are, cyc. Asceticism in many ways defines us. It explains why my participation in the Divine Liturgy of +Basil the Great last evening was a delight for me. The West, especially the Protestant West, knows nothing of this. You have your ways and we have ours. This snip from a very holy monastic and "patriotis" of Kosta lays this out as well as I have ever seen it. "..among our people there exists an ascetic spirit as created by Orthodoxy through the centuries. The Orthodox soul of our people leans towards the Holy Fathers and the Orthodox ascetics. Ascetic exertion, at the personal, family, and parish level, particularly of prayer and fasting, is the characteristic of Orthodoxy. Our people is a people of Christ, an Orthodox people, because -- as Christ did -- it sums up the Gospel in these two virtues: prayer and fasting. And it is a people convinced that all defilement, all foul thoughts, can be driven out of man by these alone [Matt. 17:21]. In its heart of hearts our people know Christ and Orthodoxy, they know just what it is that makes an Orthodox person Orthodox. Orthodoxy will always generate ascetic rebirth. She recognizes no other." +Justin Popovich
Does he? Paul says he has a personal testimony of Christ. He also say that some things he wrote are his own and not the commandments of the Lord.
While his pinging me provides numerous opportunities to ignore him at times I have to laugh out loud
cyc, I am glad it pleases you to think you are ignore me (although you are not). I am pinging you only out of courtesy, according to the RF rules.