You also said something about the holy liturgy, icons which is not appropriate.
Are we in dogma class or what? I am opposed to a liturgy that people cannot understand. If you can understand Old Church Slavonic, then OK, but when I sat in on that liturgy I did not understand a good amount of what was said. That, in fact, defeats the original spirit of Orthodoxy. Cyril and Methodius were sent to the Slavs to give them Christianity in their own language. The fact that Greece retains Byzantine Greek in their liturgy, we retain Old Church Slavonic in ours, etc. defeats that purpose. Language is not holy. The liturgy can be in Kazakh for all I care, just so long as people understand it.
As for icons, I oppose them as objects of veneration. If they are just artistic objects that point people to spiritual truths, then I am OK with that, but not with kissing, bowing, etc. Btw, I am not the first to think that. The Orthodox themselves had a vicious controversy over icons (i.e. Iconoclasm), so the jury was for many times out within Orthodoxy itself as to whether it is OK to venerate icons.
Look you do not have to teach me about Christianity in that way. Suggesting to me that icons, the holy liturgy and the patriarch are not that important, please we do not need that kind teachings. Right now the Serbian Orthodox Church is under attack. The Church is facing problems. So, many people are confused and easy to manipulate. If you want to help the Serbs, you should not preach against icon, holy liturgy and the patriarch. I agree that the Serbs in general do not go to the church. I also do not go often to the church. I admit. That is a consequence of the communist system which ruled over Serbia. The problem can be restored, if the Serbs return to the ways of their ancestors. The Serbian ancestors were Orthodox Christians, who belonged to the Serbian Orthodox Church, and not protestants.
Do the icons, liturgy, "going to church" or patriarch show up ANYWHERE in the New Testament? I see it no where. Not in Jesus' words, not in Paul's writings. It is an addition, a tradition that developed in the centuries after Christ.
The Church is facing problems for many reasons. One is the effect of Communism. Another is the fact that the people rarely find out what Christianity really is from the Church. So it's just rituals but they don't get the deeper meaning the rituals were meant to symbolize.
My great grandmother was an Orthodox Christian who attended church once a week, but she read large portions of the Bible every day. This was back in the 1800s, when not that many women who lived in rural Serbia were literate, much less read the Bible daily. She knew what Christianity was about. Do you?
I appreciate your concern and maybe you have good intentions. But if you want to help the Serbs, you should say to them that they must return to the way of their ancestors. Suggesting to them that icons, the holy liturgy and the patriarch are not that important, is not doing them any good.
Why? Ancestors of the Serbs were polytheistic pagans too. Should we return to that? We should turn to the truth, wherever that might lie and whatever it might be. I'm not saying that the Protestant movement has a monopoly on the truth. But I am saying that Orthodoxy has gone way off and needs a lot of reform.
If you would read the new testament, you would know that you can not have a relationship with Christ without the Church. Christ says in the new Testament that they who do not drink my blood and eat my flesh will not enter my Father's kingdom. If you do not fast and do not confess, you will can not have a personal relationship with Christ. Christ left instructions how to serve G-d.
The protestants do not have any of that, so you can not tell me that I can maintain a personal relationship with G-d (Christ) outside His Church. That is according to our Orthodox Christian perspective heresy, sectarian teaching. Serbs should read more the bible, but they should use the interpretation of the Orthodox Church and the Church fathers, not interpretation which are used outside the Church.
Yes, you must confess known sins to Jesus, the only intercessor. Not to a priest or anyone else.
You do not have to fast to have a personal relationship with Christ.
And eating his flesh and drinking his blood can take place anywhere where there are more than one Christian individual present. Your own family can prepare bread and wine and pray and remember Christ and that is fulfilling the ordinance. You don't need any sort of singing, ceremonies, priests, etc. for that sort of thing.
Topic: Bishop Irinej is new Serbian patriarch (Read 56323 times)