False Teachers

When People of God Fall, They Behave Worse Than Pagans

February 13, 2020August 15, 2024 by Orthodox Editors

When People of God Fall They Behave Worse Than Pagans by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon –
How are pagans to take seriously those who profess to be better than the world, when in fact they live by norms conspicuously lower than the world?
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How are pagans to take seriously those who profess to be better than the world, when in fact they live by norms conspicuously lower than the world? How is it possible for a Christian church to hold its bishops, for instance, to lower ethical expectations in matters of business than the chairman of a secular corporation?

Why are such scandals permitted, year after year? Or again, why should a priest not be unfrocked for offenses that would promptly send a school counselor to prison? How can we expect pagans to take any Christian church seriously if it does not call its own stewards to account?

Alas, it is a demonstrable fact that the people of God, when they fall, often enough do not fall to the level of good paganism, but much lower. [Read more…]

Giacomo Sanfilippo’s Unholy Vendetta Against Faithful Orthodox Priests and Teachers

February 7, 2020October 30, 2022 by Orthodox Editors

Giacomo Sanfilippo Unholy Vendetta Against Faithful Orthodox Priests and Teachers by Fr. Ioannes Apiarius –

Via multiple posts and articles full of hysteria, wild exaggerations, distortions, and innuendos Giacomo Sanfilippo (also known as Peter J. Sanfilippo), has been relentlessly defaming and attacking several Orthodox Christian priests, bishops, and seminary professors. Why? Because these men dare to publicly and fearlessly defend the Orthodox Church teaching on homosexual sin and warn the Church about many false teachers (like Sanfilippo) and deceitful venues that question, challenge, mock, deconstruct, contradict, and distort Church teaching, practices, and theology, especially regarding morality, human sexuality, and marriage.

Since 2017 Sanfilippo has used his inappropriately named “Orthodoxy in Dialogue” website, his Facebook pages, and his Twitter accounts to maliciously condemn these good men and smear their reputations. Sanfilippo has launched an unholy personal vendetta against these priests and teachers and is fomenting rebellion inside the Holy Orthodox Church. [Read more…]

The Ten LGBTQ Commandments

January 21, 2020June 11, 2021 by Orthodox Editors

The Ten LGBTQ Commandments TransExodus 666 (The Queen James Bible) –

And the prince of this world spewed these words, saying, I am your lord, who brought you out of the land of binary sexuality and oppressive and outdated moral standards, out of the house of holiness, sanctity, normal human sexuality, love, and marriage.

You shall have no other gods but your sexuality, sexual urges, and LGBTQ identity.
You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, except the LGBTQ rainbow flag with six colors.
You shall not take the name of the LGBTQ prophets and propagandists in vain.
Keep the LGBTQ Pride Month holy, and teach your children and grandchildren to celebrate it also.[Read more…]

Satan Attacks Purity First to Lead Us Away from God

October 23, 2019October 31, 2019 by Orthodox Editors

Satan Attacks Purity First to Lead Us Away from God by Peter Howard –
That’s why Satan attacks purity first because then we can’t see God (“Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God”). Lack of purity (moral impurity) results in loss of holiness and that lack of holiness leads to division in relationships, which results in lack of communion of life, which results in not transmitting life and love.

That’s the oversimplified, but nonetheless true, breakdown how impurity leads from a culture of life and love to a culture of death and self-centered immorality.

And the world — and many in the Church — have rejected the call to purity, embraced immorality and abandoned God, calling this insanity “freedom.” [Read more…]

Heresies and Schisms Will Appear in the Churches, in the Last Days

October 7, 2019October 7, 2019 by Orthodox Editors

St. Ambrose Heresies and Schisms Will Appear in the Churches Mocking The Holy Fathers St. Ambrose of Optina (1812-1891) –
My child, know that in the last days hard times will come; and as the Apostle says, behold, due to poverty in piety, heresies and schisms will appear in the churches; and as the Holy Fathers foretold, then on the thrones of hierarchs and in monasteries there will be no men to be found that are tested and experienced in the spiritual life. Wherefore, heresies will spread everywhere and deceive many.

The enemy of mankind will act skillfully, and whenever possible he will lead the chosen ones to heresy. He will not begin by discarding the dogmas on the Holy Trinity, the divinity of Jesus Christ, or the Theotokos, but will unnoticeably start to distort the Teachings of the Holy Fathers, in other words the teachings of the Church herself.

The cunning of the enemy and his “tipics” (ways) will be noticed by very few — only those that are most experienced in spiritual life. Heretics will take over the Church, everywhere, and they will appoint their servants, and spirituality will be neglected. [Read more…]

Blasphemy and Open Rebellion by Nik Jovcic-Sas the “Orthodox Provocateur”

October 5, 2019October 30, 2022 by Orthodox Editors

Blasphemy and Open Rebellion by Nik Jovcic-Sas the Orthodox Provocateur by Jennifer Davis –
Why would anyone invite Nik Jovcic-Sas to any academic conferences or ask for his opinion on any Orthodox Church issues? Have these clergy and academics lost their minds?

Nik Jovcic-Sas (Nik Jovčić-Sas), describes himself as “Violinist, LGBTQ+ Activist, Drag Queen, Eastern Orthodox Theologian & Vampire.” Nik also calls himself the “Orthodox Provocateur” and runs a Facebook page by the same name where he regularly posts blasphemous, offensive, and scandalous material.

None of that bothered the “consortium of scholars from the University of Exeter and the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University” who organized an Oxford Conference (Aug. 16-17) with the help of Deacon Brandon Gallaher and Gregory Tucker (man “married” to another man) where “contemporary issues of sex, gender, and sexuality were discussed in relation to the Orthodox Church.” Nik Jovcic-Sas was one of the invited speakers (I assume in the “LGBTQ+ activists” category) who presented at the conference. [Read more…]

Trust Faithful Orthodox Elders, Avoid Modernist Liberal Academics

July 18, 2019March 28, 2020 by Orthodox Editors

Trust Faithful Orthodox Elders, Avoid Modernist Liberal Academics by Fr. Michael Wood (Hieromonk) –
For the academic, nothing is a given, nothing is sacred, all must be questioned and challenged.

While I have spent a fair amount of my life in and around academic institutions, and would count myself an historian and liturgist, I am above all an eremitic monastic priest. While I certainly cannot lay claim to the extremes of monastic asceticism that many of our great Orthodox Elders have held to, nevertheless in all matters theological, I will always come down on the side of Scripture, Tradition and the Fathers, for that is where Orthodox truth is to be found.

We are, as Orthodox Believers in The Church, dependent entirely upon revelation and as such our real theologians are not academics at all, but rather the great experiencers of God.

Hence when we have academic clergy presuming to pronounce on the faith, from their height of academe, I would counsel the faithful to run away from them. [Read more…]

How to Know When God is Calling – Tuning in to the Call of God

July 15, 2019July 20, 2019 by Orthodox Editors

How to Know When God is Calling - Tuning in to the Call of God by Regis Nicoll –
“When God calls you to do something,” the speaker cautioned, “your only response is, yes.” I saw a number of heads nodding in agreement, but I sensed a question stirring in the heads of others: “But how do I know when God is calling?”

It’s an important question. In fact, there is no question more important for Christians. For how can we follow Christ, if we can’t tell his call from that of the culture or of those darker angels that would lead us into temptation or prod us to another have-to, got-to, need-to duty that seems good and feels good—and maybe, is good—but is not God sent? [Read more…]

Warning to Orthodox Church: False Teachers and Deceitful Venues That Contradict and Distort Church Teaching

July 9, 2019October 19, 2024 by Orthodox Editors

Warning to Orthodox Church: False Teachers and Deceitful Venues That Contradict and Distort Church Teaching by Fr. Ioannes Apiarius –
The Orthodox Church is being attacked by false teachers and deceitful venues that question, challenge, mock, deconstruct, contradict, and distort Church teaching, practices, and theology.

With help from the Orthodox editors, I have compiled a list of articles, essays, and petitions written by Orthodox Christian priests, deacons, professors, and writers warning the Church about false teachers and deceitful venues (especially Public Orthodoxy, The Wheel Journal, Orthodoxy in Dialogue, Fordham University’s Orthodox Center, Lazar Puhalo, Sister Vassa) that question, challenge, mock, deconstruct, contradict, and distort Church teaching, practices, and theology.

These links summarize the extensive true and public witness of approximately ninety six (96) Orthodox Christians (many priests and bishops) all of whom are in good standing with the Orthodox Church (spanning multiple jurisdictions). They represent Orthodox metropolitans, archbishops, bishops, priests, archpriests, hieromonks, seminary professors, and two deans of Orthodox Christian Seminaries. [Read more…]

Parable of the Wheat and the Tares – Why Priests Must Vigilantly Keep Watch

July 5, 2019July 15, 2022 by Orthodox Editors

Parable of the Wheat and the Tares - Why Priests Must Vigilantly Keep Watch by Archpriest Victor Potapov –
The devil sows tares, says the Lord, while men sleep. In other words, the devil sows his tares secretly, unnoticeably, when the guards appointed to look after the field, that is, the pastors of the Church, keep watch inadequately, and when the faithful themselves live carelessly as well and listen too credulously to impostors and false teachers.

In the parable of the sower and the seed, the discourse was about how men accept the word of God in different ways, and how this word affects men in different ways. In the next parable that of the wheat and the tares Christ speaks of the fourth portion of seed, which had fallen on good ground, and how the enemy of man’s salvation does everything possible in order to ruin that which grows in this good ground.

The parable of the wheat and the tares is extremely topical for our days, when people raise the question of the origin of evil in the world and are perplexed over the temptations, schisms and fallings away which they encounter in the Church Herself. [Read more…]