The one Church founded by Christ: the Orthodox Church

Accepting gays, abortion, contraceptives are all steps the church will take to adapt to the times.

The Orthodox Church has always accepted contraception

"If for a certain period, you and your wife have abstained by agreement, perhaps for a time of prayer and fasting, come together again for the sake of your marriage. You do not need procreation as an excuse. It is not the chief reason for marriage. Neither is it necessary to allow for the possibility of conceiving, and thus having a large number of children, something you may not want."
-Saint John Chrysostom

We certainly won't accept abortion or homosexuality, however.

This declaration came from the Orthodox Church in America just after Francis said the Catholic Church should apologize to gays

>The statement outlines the Orthodox Christian’s "sincerely held religious belief" that marriage is "a lifelong, exclusive relationship between one man and one woman," and therefore any sexual relations outside of natural marriage "is immoral, and therefore sin."

>The encyclical continues, "We believe that God created the human race, male and female, and that all conduct with the intent to adopt a gender other than one’s birth gender is immoral and therefore sin

>Even more explicitly, the document states, "Marriage can only be between two people whose birth sex is male and female.

lifesitenews.com/news/orthodox-church-in-america-aims-to-protect-itself-from-lawsuits-with-strong

>marriage is "a lifelong, exclusive relationship between one man and one woman," and therefore any sexual relations outside of natural marriage "is immoral, and therefore sin."

So premarital sex is a sin? This is a very outdated view, another one that will change if the religion is to persist.
What is the Orthodox view on divorce? Thats yet another thing that has to be incorporated.
Practical things like that, that weren't practical before, weren't everyday before, but have become now, will have to be accepted.
Homosexuality isn't "everyday" or "normal" yet, but will become eventually, and thus has to be accepted eventually.

Funny, considering christianity's creationist views, religions has to, and always has been, evolving to get in with the times.
Sadly these days there is no roman emperor to call all the big shot priests and force change on them, so it will have to be a slow struggle with out of touch grandpas acting out of desperation as they see the number of their followers diminish.

>But the vast majority have zero claim to even being a thousand years old, let alone being founded by Christ.

So the age of a denomination is how you determine whether it is correct or not?

Then why aren't you Gnostic Christian?

>So premarital sex is a sin? This is a very outdated view, another one that will change if the religion is to persist.
Persist like the Episcopal Church is persisting (dying out rapidly)? nah

>What is the Orthodox view on divorce? Thats yet another thing that has to be incorporated.
Divorce is permissible in adultery or abandonment. Our policy on this hasn't ever changed.

>Funny, considering christianity's creationist views, religions has to, and always has been, evolving to get in with the times.
Christianity never had a dogmatic conception of Genesis apart from Adam and Eve were real individuals who did something really wrong. Saint Augustine took a lot of it literally, but he also took a lot of it non-literally (for instance, he did not think God would need six days to make the world, and said it was just a division for various reasons he wrote about). Saint Basil said we know that Genesis is not all literal, since it features God walking around in the Garden, and God did not have a physical body until he was incarnate as Christ through the Virgin Mary.

You should really read Chapter 19 ("On interpreting the mind of the sacred writer. Christians should not talk nonsense to
unbelievers") of "On the Literal Meaning of Genesis," by Saint Augustine

>Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience.
cont

> Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although “they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.”

Gnostic Christianity doesn't exist anymore, clearly not the sort founded by Christ

>but people still claim to subscribe to it!
Gnosticism's core was about special, mystical names you needed to get through different astral planes, that only the initiated could be taught. There is no record of these names anymore.

I have questions and I'd like to know that you aren't just role playing as a Christian online so you can pretend to be a knight or a crusader or something. Do you sincerely believe in the religion?

Yes.

If I wanted to LARP as a crusader, why would I be Orthodox? We didn't have a single crusade.

I haven't read any theology myself, as I don't really read much at all other than fiction. I am indeed a lazy loser who spends his free time in video games and fantasy books.

However even my simple mind can come up with contradictions to the formula, and you would have to make many more such "it wasn't literal" concessions to solve them, up to the point where you almost completely denounce the faith.

An easy vector of attack is that God is "all good" and that we are "created in his image".
We clearly aren't all good. Where did this corruption come from? Why was it allowed? Shoddy craftmanship or was God not all good to begin with?
Further, scripture insists on God punishing people. Why punish if he is all good? Why allow situations where punishment is needed if he is all powerful and all knowing?
And the church is heavily against cloning or other genetically pursuits. Why are we, who are like the Creator, not allowed to create? And if we are indeed doing what He was doing, and we are doing thus thanks to our knowledge of science, physics, biology and other disciplines that undermine Christianity, then isn't this a self defeating proposition? Using un-Christian thinking we come closer to the Christian deity.

If we use the defense you proposed, that its not all literal, we'd end up with a god who isn't literally all good, or not literally all powerful, and from there other cracks show, as to why we would follow a flawed creator, or what his actual purpose is since it may not be a good one, or how can we be sure that this not so powerful being did a good job with creating things and so on.

I am with you in that Christianity needs to separate the fairy tales from the actual discipline of its faith, but doing that too often degrades the faith itself, leaves people wondering if the little things that are taken literally aren't also made up. Doesn't help that the rules for what is literal and what isn't change over time.

How do you reconcile going on Veeky Forums? I've been going on here since 2009 and I can't that I think this place is the best for someone religious

Technically he can reason that he is spreading and defending his faith by coming here, as he is attempting just that in this thread.

Also I do believe that Orthadox christianity isn't opposed to fun. Not all songs have to praise the Lord, not all art has to be divine oriented, and not all of your free time should be spent praying.

Le 4chains is lucky it has such an addictive format.

>We clearly aren't all good. Where did this corruption come from? Why was it allowed? Shoddy craftmanship or was God not all good to begin with?
Humans, properly speaking, are completely good. Sin impairs our humanity, which is restored through Christ.

>Further, scripture insists on God punishing people. Why punish if he is all good? Why allow situations where punishment is needed if he is all powerful and all knowing?
The Old Testament might clear things up for you here, see Proverbs 3:12 and Ezekiel 18:23

>And the church is heavily against cloning or other genetically pursuits. Why are we, who are like the Creator, not allowed to create? And if we are indeed doing what He was doing, and we are doing thus thanks to our knowledge of science, physics, biology and other disciplines that undermine Christianity, then isn't this a self defeating proposition? Using un-Christian thinking we come closer to the Christian deity.
We are allowed to create, it's called procreation. When we start engineering human beings, we must ask: what is the purpose we engineer them for? Do you just want to clone them for the novelty? If so, creating life purely for novelty is wrong. If that is not the case, what is your end here?

>If we use the defense you proposed, that its not all literal, we'd end up with a god who isn't literally all good, or not literally all powerful
It's true that univocity of being is a completely foreign concept to Orthodox Christianity. When we speak of God in terms, it's only how to explain complex things to a baby, it's not an exact description. God is ineffable.

Threads with porn are bad, otherwise I'm not sure how you see it as terribly worse than the world in general.

>We are allowed to create, it's called procreation. When we start engineering human beings, we must ask: what is the purpose we engineer them for? Do you just want to clone them for the novelty? If so, creating life purely for novelty is wrong. If that is not the case, what is your end here?

If so, what is the purpose of God creating people? He must have a purpose, else he was wrong.
Similarly for all the planets and stars, and volcanos, and bacteria and viruses, and cancer growths and poisons, and the many causes of child mortality, ending life before the person could've been capable of understanding faith and religion, thus killing them as an atheist, thus denying them access to haven.
They must all have a very good purpose to exist, else their creator is wrong by your reasoning.

Also, there are reasons to clone, and explore genetics. The reason is to fight imperfections, and sickness, and diseases, and to grow replacement organs so that owners of faulty ones can live decently.
Basically the reason for man to be a creator is to fix the mistakes of the other creator, which you would call the intelligent designer, and others would call the long game of chance that is evolution.

Do you struggle with lust? Do you ever indulge an erg edge to "rub one out?"

>If so, what is the purpose of God creating people?
Love

>They must all have a very good purpose to exist, else their creator is wrong by your reasoning.

All creation is meant to be harmonious with human life. Sin is what contaminates and disorders it.

>he reason is to fight imperfections, and sickness, and diseases, and to grow replacement organs so that owners of faulty ones can live decently.
How does cloning a human being do that?

I get a little frisky sometimes but I don't masturbate. I have before and it is not a good feeling.

Normally I can't really get aroused knowing there's no feeling of romance or affection, though. Serious love is the greatest turn on.

>masturbation is not a good feeling

You are a seriously disturbed individual.

Do you have a gf?

Honestly, I wish I had the moral fortitude that you do.

What kind of hobbies do you have? Do you like movies? Video games?

>the moral fortitude to deny yourself pleasure and fight your biology

why?

Jesus, love, Veeky Forums, making chairs and watching moe anime.

Because I do already and I'm miserable. I hate touch bodily fluids and I hate sexuality in general.

You are broken. Seek a specialist who can attempt to repair you. No cost is too high.

>watching anime

Whelp, right when I thought you were kind of a cool dude you had to go and fuck it all up. Good job

Been there, done that.

I have "severe" OCD. I hate the medication so I never take it. I'm not like a sociopath like Adam Lanza or anything, in fact most of obessions are guilt related. On the plus side, my hands are also always really clean

>I hate the medication so I never take it

Then get a different one.

Stop being a quitter.

No way man, I've been on so much shit. Either it works too well or not at all. Also, the side effects - don't get me started.

Beautiful church, icons and music. Now that he RCC has sold out to the devil, orthodox Christianity should rightfully claims its flock and western heritage. I've heard an orthodox priest say that before the schism, all of western Europe, from Ireland, to Spain, to France, was orthodox, and that there is an orthodox western liturgy and all. Tell me more about it.

Western orthodoxy should be more explored, instead of trying to export Russian, Greek orthodoxy.

How do you feel about war?

>Either it works too well

Sounds like you're comfortable being miserable.

I bet you go to porn treads naughty boy

Really you couldn't understand. I don't mean to make it sound like this is some kind of edgy affliction that makes me a tormented loner or something but really you wouldn't understand unless you have it f a m.

I've never found a medicine that comfortably balances suppression of my obsessions with reasonable side effects. I was actually referring to when I took Prozac; I experienced unpleasant sedation and ended up flunking out of university that semester.

Get a life, leave your house - make friends - talk with people outside, stop breaking canons and trying to convince anime degenerate faggots to practice orthodoxy.

In most of the threads you start and survive long enough they start to sexualize Mary and say lots of stupid and insult shit about Christianity.

She's losing her mind, ignore her.

I can't understand your brain.. but it's maybe because you're female and you're different.

What Constantine is female

You've got it mixed up. The original Constantine was a LARPer tranny. This new one took on the mantle of Constantine because he was obsessed with that tranny.

I don't buy into this story. Why would an orthodox person use the name of a known tranny?

We know he's a sexually repressed autist, if this thread is any evidence. I don't think it's a stretch to assume mental instability.

This irrational hatred, backed by zero evidence other than hearsay, needs to stop.
Argue his posts, not the strawman you constructed and try to use as his avatar.

Constantine is a girl though.

Well meme'd

I want to see this claim being made by someone wearing the appropriate tripcode.
Right now its just you memeing.

Constantine is a girl. She has a girlcock. I've seen it.

I want to draw animu in service of the faith but I feel I am not good enough ;___;

fap on it, you will feel better

Just saw your post and I would like to say that I know what's it's like. I have a severe OCD myself, also (though not exclusively) about the fear of bodily fluids. I missed a lot in life because of it - because instead of doing something productive when I could I was often just dragging through weeks, months or even years of unending misery. I don't know what to tell you. I can't wish you to recover from it, because you can't recover from OCD. You may think you're *almost* healthy, but then a random event throws you into yet more suffering. And it feels like even these moments when you feel like you're alright are contributing to the pain that follows them.

Is this by you? It looks great.

It isn't

I cannot. It's fasting season now

Constantine, i must say i enjoy and appreciate your posts on Veeky Forums, even though im not religious i like all the references to church fathers etc that you bring up. Interesting reading.

>The one Church founded by Christ: the Orthodox Church.

The orthodox church is not a Jewish messianic cult, therefore you are wrong.

Then why are you shilling for Eastern Orthodoxy and not Ebionism? It's Christianity, not Paulianity.

Mainstream maybe. Evangelical churches are growing

constantine is a female, and im p sure she's married

It kind of is, though tbqh distant relative

>it doesn't exist anymore therefore it isn't legitimate

This is a fallacious point. What the user implies is that there existed HUNDREDS of different small Christian sects in the early years after Jesus' death. The canon wasn't unified, theology and dogma were nebulous, and thus teachings were different from place to place. Eventually a hierarchy and orthodox set of beliefs formed around the 5 patriarchs, but in that time numerous "heresies" formed amidst the orthodoxy. What were heresies were simply different theological opinions which, like the Gnostics, existed since the very early years of Christianity itself.

Some of these "heresies" begat separate churches with their own followings. A great example would be the Monophysite heresy, which led to the modern Oriental Orthodox churches (not in communion with Eastern Orthodoxy). The original followers of this sexy existed for hundreds of years amidst other Christians with differing beliefs, and a separate sect only formed when their beliefs were declared heretical. What does this mean? It means there never was a single church, there never was a single doctrine, there never was a single leader. Orthodoxy arose out of popular opinion, from orthodoxy arose a mainstream church, and small sects arose from differing but coexisting opinions.

Lol

If the American orthodox church wasn't an offshoot of the Russian church I'd be more interested

That wasn't Constantine

Gnostic Christianity is alive and well. There are thousands of more or less legit groups and grouplets. This one is one of the legit ones:

johannite.org/

I bet Constantine is done with this thread but still, I'm curious.

How do you justify tripfagging? Seems like a pretty vain thing to do.

Reading, playing with dogs, riding horses, hiking, bicycling, singing.

That's not me, I don't watch anime

There were a ton of Western Liturgies before the schism. So far there are three Western Liturgies approved in the Orthodox Church since the research on them in the 20th Century, and several artistic styles for icons including Romanesque (pic related, a contemporary Western Rite Orthodox icon in Romanesque style).

Western Orthodox Liturgy, like Eastern Orthodox Liturgy, does not generally use instruments or polyphony.

Here is some more from the Liturgy of Saint Germanus: youtube.com/watch?v=GI92g8JWwn8

The other two Liturgies besides Saint Germanus are Saint Gregory (Basically an Orthodox version of the pre Trintidine Mass, here is what it sounds like: youtube.com/watch?v=31TqJsTObBc) This Liturgy utilizes the "Orthodox Missal"

And the Liturgy of Saint Tikhon (a Liturgy for converted Anglican parishes, this Liturgy uses "Orthodox Book of Common Prayer", which is a modified Anglican Book of Common Prayer to accord with Orthodoxy, and the Liturgy itself is modified to accord more with the standards of Medieval Catholic Liturgy

We are still working on reviving Western Liturgies and art, and if you want to be part of this movement, the major Church involved in it right now is the Antiochian Church (although Romanian and Russian are also fairly involved), which has gone so far as to set up Western Rite missions for evangelism.

Thank you, I appreciate that.

Ebionism is a heresy, Christ instituted the new covenant foretold by the old testament.

>This is a fallacious point. What the user implies is that there existed HUNDREDS of different small Christian sects in the early years after Jesus' death.
Source? I knew there were heresies within the first Century, but hundreds?

>The canon wasn't unified, theology and dogma were nebulous, and thus teachings were different from place to place.
Hence the importance of Apostolic teaching.

> A great example would be the Monophysite heresy, which led to the modern Oriental Orthodox churches (not in communion with Eastern Orthodoxy)
Monophysites believe Christ only had divine nature (monopysitism means solitary nature); Oriental Orthodox are miaphysites (uni-nature). For the record, we both fully acknowledge each other as the One Church and allow communion with each other under numerous circumstances. The issue is just that the anathemas haven't been lifted, but if they were, we would formally One Church; as it stands, we are de facto One Church. The miaphysite formula was authorized in the Fifth Ecumenical Council.

Neither of us have changed; even though the Latins have, we still remain the same after 1,500 years of formal separation, attesting to our validity.

Consider the Antiochian Church, which the real center for converts in America.

Unless they're actually still teaching the special passwords needed on the astral realm, they have not claim to be teaching Gnosticism.

Ebionism is a "heresy" because Paul, not Jesus, is the source for modern " orthodox" belief, and because the Ebionites taught what Jesus was saying, Paulians claimed they were heretics and stamped them out.

>Ebionites taught what Jesus was saying
Source?

The Epistles, how they predate the Gospels, and how all modern Christianity views them as valid, inspired-by-god-and-perfect never mind their obvious errors, especially any time Paul opens his mouth about contemporary religious structure or his own impossible past.

Now look at which "heresy" was deemed such because they rejected Paul again, and there you have it.

We don't know what Jesus said because we don't have a single Christian document dating to when he was alive. We have the misattributed gospels. We have the translations of translations. We have fragments of papyri. We have the codex sinaiticus. We have the political struggles of Jews against Romans as documented by Josephus and Tacitus. We have the ratified dogma of the early church a few centuries after Christ. We have information about the early schisms, and how heated even the early Christians were with each other.

The fact that Jesus preached and was crucified is the only thing universally adhered to in Christendom. Even some sects think resurrection and salvation are up for debate.

This is something we will likely never know enough about.

Why evidence do you have to suggest that the Epistles of Paul predate Matthew and Mark?

>We have the misattributed gospels.
On what are you basing Matthew and Mark and Luke to be misattributed?

Most scholars agree all four gospels were written anonymously some time after Christ died.

The titles were attributed to the disciples later.

...

.

Here's John, for good measure, since you asked.

*even though you didn't ask

So your evidence is that because Christ predicts persecution, it must have been written after the persecution started?

>the most probably date for its composition was 80-100 AD
What is the evidence for this, considering Acts uses first-person plural at a certain point?

That's not evidence.

I'm also going to challenge here, the notion that Matthew used Mark as a source. In fact, I will say that I believe Matthew to be the earliest Gospel, and here is my argument

when Christ says it is not when goes in which defiles, but that which comes out, Mark 7:19 has the gloss explaining in saying this, Christ made all foods clean, something that was only universally accepted after the Council of Jerusalem; Matthew has no such gloss, indicating that it is the earliest Gospel, and predates the Council of Jerusalem. If Matthew were written after the Council of Jerusalem, and was using Mark as a source for this saying, surely it would have included this gloss. There is also another gloss, in Matthew 19:29 says those who leave mothers and brothers and wives and fathers and sisters and houses and fields for Christ's sake will receive a hundred times in the age to come; Mark 10: 29-30 says the same thing, but then adds a parenthetical gloss right after Christ says a hundredfold, saying "now" repeating what Christ just said, explaining "with persecutions", (as in you will lose these things in persecutions, maybe these things might even be doing the persecuting); then the parenthetical gloss ends, and Christ finishes "in age to come". Mark was clearly written after the persecution of Christians became intense, whereas Matthew was written before then. Rather than Matthew and Luke using Mark as a source, is make more sense to say Mark used Matthew and Luke as sources.
cont

Finally, Matthew was clearly written in Hebrew and translated (as Papias says), unlike the other Gospels, because it uses Hebrew syntax and tense; for instance, see the very Greek syntax of Mark 15:21: "And they compel passing a Simon [a passing Simon] of Cyrene, coming from country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, that [he might] carry the cross of his [Christ's]." This sort of syntax sounds natural in Greek (where inflection and declension almost completely determine grammatical relations), but in English or Aramaic, languages that rely heavily on syntax to express grammatical relations, it's chore to parse (and remember there was no punctuation, lowercase and uppercase, or even word spaces, in ancient times); Matthew 27:32, by contrast, reflects a Aramaic or Hebrew syntax: "Going forth and they found a man of Cyrene, named Simon: him they compelled to carry the cross of his [Christ's]." Here is another example, Mark 1:12: "And immediately the spirit him drives into the wilderness." Compare the Aramaic Matthew 4:1: "Then he, Jesus, was led into wilderness by the spirit." In Mark, the indirect object is adjacent to the object, which is quite normal in Greek, but generally not feasible in Aramaic or Hebrew.

All this and more is in the pastebin of the OP, if you care to look

For starters, the earliest manuscripts predate the earliest gospel manuscripts.

Secondly, you have Clement's letters in 95, which refer to the OT, they refer to Hebrews, they refer to Paul's stuff, but for over 100 citations to the above, he never quotes the gospels once or refers to them. Ignatius of Antioch never quotes the Gospels either, which would be damn odd if they've been floating around for near 50 years at that point.

>, is make more sense to say Mark used Matthew and Luke as sources.
Although I will add that I hold to Papias's account, and believe Mark to predate Luke, and Matthew were used as a source, it was secondary to Peter's testimony)

Jesus: 32 AD
Orthodox Church: 1066 AD

Try again bitch.

There are no "contradictions" in the bible, only idiots pretending there are.

Everyone knows Luke wrote Acts, because he wrote it to the very same Theophilus he wrote his ordered account of the gospels to.

Incorrect. I was arguing that the gospels were anonymous, and later attributed to the disciples. You asked for evidence that they were misattributed, and I posted the scholarly consensus, as documented by wikipedia. Further reading is naturally warranted by someone as serious about this as you, but I gave you a direction to go. Start with the citations on those images. Go to the gospel articles on wikipedia ctrl+F anonymous. Read the scholarly works wikipedia cites on the matter.

Knowledge is difficult to attain. Certain Knowledge is even more difficult.

Moreover, It was easy for Christ to predict persecution. He lived in the middle of it. I wouldn't be surprised if an American black man c. 1900 predicted persecution. It made sense given the political climate. Jesus was a political meteorologist, the way I see it. He saw how the tug of war of incentives and urges would further increase the hostility between the Jews and Romans.

But the fact is, is that these things weren't written down by a person sitting next to Jesus. Jesus didn't dictate like Muhammad did.

He preached. He went among a largely illiterate population, too poor to afford writing materials, too overworked to want to sit down and write what Jesus said, and it was from oral accounts among this population, decades or even a century later, that the gospels were written down.

Even as an agnostic I believe in a historical Jesus, or at the very least a handful of crucified Jews he was based off of. But we have to be realistic with the NT, and treat it as a historical document from well after Jesus died, that passed through the hands of biased parties who had something to gain in his name. We have to look at the political, economic, cultural, and social incentives driving the rise of Christianity, and not just embrace the NT based off of the simplistic and troublesome notion of divine inspiration.

Is that good with you?

>For starters, the earliest manuscripts predate the earliest gospel manuscripts.

So you are dating them according to their oldest extant copies?

>Secondly, you have Clement's letters in 95, which refer to the OT, they refer to Hebrews, they refer to Paul's stuff, but for over 100 citations to the above, he never quotes the gospels once or refers to them
I'm going to have to review them closely to verify that.

>Ignatius of Antioch never quotes the Gospels either
pic related

Your contention is biased in favor of Christianity, and based on much less evidence than the scholarly work done by historians and archeologists.

That is not to say that their motivations aren't potentially biased, too, but that they come from a place that isn't trying to prove the claims of the Gospels right from the get-go.

For instance the Gospel of Mark that comes down to us has additional material to the earliest manuscripts and papyri we've been able to find. People added things. People edited things. People mistranslated things, both on accident, and on purpose.

Most Christians for most of history were illiterate, and received their understanding and interpretation from a priesthood.

From the standpoint of preventing confirmation bias, this is troubling.