Moral issues

Corruption Must Be Revealed in Order to Overcome the Darkness

Corruption Must Be Revealed in Order to Overcome the Darknessby Fr. Johannes Jacobse –
Be courageous. Don’t fear. Stand on the Rock.

We may be in the stages of a final reveal. Corruption must be revealed to overcome the power of darkness. The darkness is sustained when fear overcomes the heart and mind of man. He loses hope and the necessary constituents that give his life meaning move beyond the horizon. He becomes blind.

Men embrace ideology because they refuse to face the corruption in their own hearts. The ideology confers a false righteousness that avoids the honest appraisal of one’s own heart that is necessary for freedom, and replaces it with a lie. This lie reiterates the lie first whispered in Eden: “You will become like God.” That is how a man becomes blind. [Read more…]

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Pride and Vanity are Most Dangerous Passions

Pride and Vanity are Most Dangerous Passions by Olga Rozhneva –
In the world, pride and self-esteem are sometimes raised almost to the status of virtues or signs of the nobility of one’s nature. This view is erroneous and happens, according to the words of St. Macarius, “out of ignorance or from darkening by the passions.” The elder wrote to a spiritual child:

“In your previous letter you mention your self-esteem more than once and, as if you hold it in high regard, you show it off like some adornment. You need to extirpate it from yourself by all means—it is the cause of all our evil and vices. Worldly people still regard it as a virtue and as nobility, and this is out of ignorance or from darkening by the passions; while we have to oppose it in everything by humility and selflessness.” [Read more…]

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Archbishop Kyrill Protests Against California Ban on Church Singing

Archbishop Kyrill Protests Against California Ban on Church Singing A brave and faithful Orthodox archbishop speaks out against California’s scandalous ban on singing in houses of worship. He provides the entire Church and all the other bishops with a great example of how a faithful shepherd protects his sheep and fights back against tyranny. AXIOS!

“For it is a commandment of the Lord not to be silent at a time when the Faith is in jeopardy. Speak, Scripture says, and hold not thy peace.” ~ St. Theodore the Studite

Open Letter to The Honourable Gavin Newsom, Governor of California from His Eminence Kyrill Archbishop of San Francisco and Western America in light of the decree issued by the Governor of California that forbids choral singing in churches. (July 8, 2020)
+KYRILL, Archbishop of San Francisco and Western America (ROCOR)

Your Excellency,

I hereby express my protest against the recent prohibition of liturgical singing in houses of worship, which is an infringement of the rights and religious freedoms of the clergy and faithful of the Western American Diocese of the Russian Diaspora, the other Local Orthodox Churches, performing their ministry in this state, as well as other religious bodies. [Read more…]

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Russia Affirms and Defends Traditional Marriage, Rejects LGBTQ Delusion

Russia Affirms and Defends Traditional Marriage, Rejects LGBTQ Delusionby Fr. Ioannes Apiarius –
Russia’s Constitution now openly honors God, affirms marriage, and supports the Christian faith. It officially recognizes the authority and role of the Orthodox Church in the life of the people.

Voters in Russia have approved constitutional amendments that enshrined traditional Christian values in the country’s supreme laws. The new Russian Constitution defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman. There was widespread support for these new amendments that uphold the traditional definition of marriage and declare “faith in God” as a core value. Russia’s Central Election Commission reported that 78% of Russian voters approved these changes to the country’s laws. Voter turnout was also an impressive 65%.

Russia’s Constitution now openly honors God, affirms marriage, and supports the Christian faith. It officially recognizes the authority and role of the Holy Orthodox Church in the life of the people and the state. This is a blessing for the Russian faithful. [Read more…]

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Destruction of Western Civilization – Nihilism, Nietzsche, and the Anti-Christian Crisis

Western culture and civilization are rooted in Christianity. Remove Christianity and the foundations crumble to dust.by Wen Wryte –
Western culture and civilization are rooted in Christianity. Remove Christianity and the foundations crumble to dust. Which is exactly what we are seeing today as nihilism pervades our culture and society.

Nihilism is now a pervasive feature of Western society. Friedrich Nietzsche gave us the formulation of nihilism that is now commonly accepted: a sentiment that nothing really matters, and that there is no point in life. In the most extreme manifestations, life itself is considered worthless.

Passive nihilism consists of simply withdrawing from life-affirming activities (this was Nietzsche’s verdict on Schopenhauer’s pessimistic philosophy). It is demonstrated in the hopelessness and despair of those seemingly condemned to a life constrained by adverse circumstances or their own lack of imagination or resourcefulness. Some go further than resignation — for example, the slow suicide of opioid addicts attests to the life-denying motivations of passive nihilism. [Read more…]

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When People of God Fall, They Behave Worse Than Pagans

When People of God Fall They Behave Worse Than Pagansby 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…]

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A Monstrous Immoral Leviathan Destroying America and Individual Liberty

A Monstrous Immoral Leviathan Destroying America and Individual Libertyby Doug Mainwaring –
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Our government Leviathan is very real and has grown to previously unimaginable proportions. Its ever-increasing reach seems to know no bounds. And what was once perceived to be Leviathan’s mostly fiscal threat to the health and well-being of our nation is now a monstrous moral threat.

Leviathan’s vast bureaucracies are now its foot soldiers, who have busied themselves with weaponizing executive edicts, errant court rulings and out-of-control regulatory powers against all who disagree with our Ruling Elites never-ending social/moral engineering experimentation.

When will a critical mass of Americans of every race, creed, and color wake up and recognize Leviathan’s hot breath on the napes of all our necks, and finally exclaim, once and for all, “Enough is enough?” [Read more…]

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Jesus Christ and the Social Problem

Jesus Christ and the Social Problem by Archimandrite Georgios Kapsanis –
The more that people are cleansed of the passions, the greater their capacity for real communion with God and other people.

Those who take a romantic and external view of the human person transfer wickedness from the person onto society, which is why they proclaim that any improvement in society will bring with it an improvement in people. But, without denying the importance of social effects on people, we Orthodox prioritize the transformation of the person through repentance and divine grace.

It’s a grave error to want to change society without first striving to change ourselves. It is, at the very least, naive to believe that a change in a few social institutions will also bring about a change in people even if they don’t repent. [Read more…]

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Leftism – Not Just Wrong, But Evil and Corrupt

Leftism - Not Just Wrong, But Evil and Corruptby Mark Tapson –
The Democrat Party is the face of Moloch. It is a cult of criminality and death. On every political issue, Democrats take the side of chaos and destruction, crime and disorder.

Conservative commentator Dennis Prager once made an insightful distinction between the political left and right. The right, he noted, generally sees the left as wrong but not evil, whereas the left sees the right not merely as wrong but as evil. This was a valid assessment once upon a time, but as the left has increasingly exposed itself in the Trump era as rabidly illiberal, irrational, and immoral, it is time for the right to acknowledge that the left is not merely wrong, but evil. [Read more…]

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Satan Attacks Purity First to Lead Us Away from God

Satan Attacks Purity First to Lead Us Away from Godby 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…]

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