Posted on 02/09/2014 2:19:36 PM PST by annalex
Atheism or Islam. Only two choices.
Very sad situation.
Yes, some of the laws have to do with blood per se. The Orthodox have a somewhat Old Testament attitude towards the impurity of blood (one of the reason women under the age of menopause were kept away from traditional Orthodox churches most of the time), but would the church have needed reconsecration if the priest had just cut his hand? I’m asking because I don’t know.
Killing is another thing. They had to immediately shut down and reconsecrate St Patrick’s Cathedral in NYC after an usher was beaten to death by a homeless person some years ago.
I know that a man who has killed someone cannot be a priest in the Orthodox Church, which was a problem for soldiers who wanted to be priests. The Catholic Church theoretically forbade this too, but there must have been some way around it, because there were many soldier-priests.
I don’t know if Protestant churches have any way of dealing with this or even consider it. I’m Catholic, but I lived some place where I spent a lot of time with (Russian) Orthodox people, so I’m slightly familiar with Orthodox practice.
In any case, this is a terrible occurrence. I have always expected something like this to happen here in the US - I pray that it doesn’t.
Thank you, Greysard. Lenta.ru indeed says that the motive likely is “hatred to Orthodoxy exacerbated by prolonged depression”. According to a source in the law enforcement, “a certain time ago the shooter was following a neo-pagan doctrine, the adherents to which are characterized by aggressive attitude toward believers holding different religious views. The source does not specify which particular doctrine that was. However, the source points out that the the followers of that faith have special intolerance toward Judaist, Christians and Muslim”.
Russia is now rife with sundry Wiccans under Slavic sauce, but this level of violence is so far rare.
See my 23. Apparently, a neo-pagan. So it is a consequence of 70 years of atheist indoctrination, but not atheism as the proximate cause.
See post 23.
“Neo-pagan” is as near atheist as makes no difference, unless they’re actually living as if they believe Odin’s going to get them.
C.S. Lewis wrote a poem on the topic, but I’d have to look for it and it’s my bedtime.
Thanks for the additional information.
Rest in peace.
Yes. Paganism today is metastasized atheism. In Russia it is also mixed with kvas-and-matryoshka patriotism, as in “we don’t need no Jewish gods, we got our own”.
Human nature wants worship and ritual, of some kind.
That’s true - there were many Catholic clergy who went into battle at various times (not to mention the Crusader military orders).
Also my parish was founded by a priest who was a US Army military champlain during WW 2. He got shot at the throat, but survived but he would do the masses quickly to protect his voice. He is decesed now.
But I thought "the fall" never actually happened? That's something only inbred trailer trash believe . . . isn't it?
In a less violent fashion, we see attacks on the veneration of our Holy Icons everyday here on FR. We need to pray unceasingly.
In a less violent fashion, we see attacks on the veracity of the Bible everyday here on FR.
You know, this attempt to inject the only topic that bothers you, in conversations between Christians on matters important to them, is quite annoying. Here, two people are dead, several wounded and a temple of God desecrated. If something similar happened in a synagogue it wouldn’t occur to me to go sneer at the yarmulkes.
Females not yet reaching menopause are not and were never kept away from the church in the Russian Orthodox tradition. And if a priest cut his hand and blood was spilled, then yes, the church would have to be reconsecrated. Often times, even when a church is vandalized or robbed, it is reconsecrated, although it is not required by canon specifically. This is done as a blessing to drive away the power of evil that led to the desecration. In the case of spilling of blood, though, it is required.
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