The State of
From the Heart of Monk
Michael
To you, the reader of this letter, I would like to make an
explanation. As can plainly be seen this is not on the official American
Orthodox Church letterhead, it is on my personal letterhead as it is from my
heart personally, and does not reflect the teaching of the church per se.
Unless at such time the church adds it’s opinion to this letter and either
condemns or approves the words here. I am writing from my heart regarding the
church and the teachings of the church and how I see the status of Christianity
at this time, this, as I said is a personal opinion arrived at through much
soul searching, fasting and prayer. We are arriving or to be true have arrived
at and are passing through changing times as prescribed in Holy Scripture,
Israel for the most part has regained her borders, this was prophesied and has
now come to fruition. As of this writing,
We have understood the words of Jesus the Christ regarding
the infiltration of evil into the church. We were warned of the wolves in
sheeps clothing at the very beginning. So also from the very beginning these
have existed in the church. They plagued
Many false teachers have come and gone and deceived many by using the letters of St. Paul, without relying on any other knowledge of the circumstances surrounding nor caring to tell the full teaching of St. Paul to these people, have taken these same letters and have so misused and abused them as to create such an atrocity of so-called Christianity today that not only is it a laughing stock to the unsaved world because of the mass of different teachings, it is also much too confusing to those who in truth have every desire to do that which is right but have no idea as to how to go about finding and understanding the truth. Many may find this letter to be harsh because of the truths that I will speak about, others may find it inexcusable while some may choose to simply not believe what is written here, others will however, because of their honest desire to be a true Christian, investigate what is found here and upon discovering the truth they will join in with the true Christian church in their area and begin to do the work that is needed to be done.
From the beginning the church has been plagued with liars, thieves who would steal the souls of the innocent for Satan, politicians who would use the church for political gain and power without regard for the life of those in their charge. Murders have been committed in the name of the false Christianity; many there are who bear false witness to the teachings of the Christ, the apostles and the church. There are those as well who declare that Christ did not start a church that it is a man-made institution in order to have control over the people, or that the church only exists as a spiritual body and nothing as official as a real entity. In all of this the true church has survived as Jesus Christ said it would, so where is this true church? Read on and you may be surprised at what I am about to say;
From the
beginning, the church has always been one, one teaching, one belief, one worship; it was called Catholic in
plagued always with liars and politicians. A standard form of liturgy was established but without prescribing any specific words of institution within the form save those found in the Didache or the Teaching of
the Twelve where there are specific prayers listed for certain times as before and after meals, baptism and communion. The church was divided between east and west, not politically nor in liturgy nor doctrine
or theology, mainly geographical. In the west was
gaining power, the church in
The church in
It is these writings and those of the false apostles that the modern so-called Christian is now picking back up and declaring yet again more hidden ‘truths’ that the church has kept under wraps to maintain some control somehow over the souls of the people. So today we have such a variety to choose from that anyone can find a so-called Christian church that preaches exactly what they want to hear and so they can delude themselves into believing that they have somehow been saved, once and for all as well, without anything left to do except live and know they will spend eternity in some blissful state called heaven. My friends, this is a fallacy, merely parroting the name of Jesus and saying magic words will not save you. Read these words; Matthew 7:22 many will say to me in that day: Lord, Lord, have not we prophesied in thy name, and cast out devils in thy name, and done many miracles in thy name? 23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity. 24 Every one therefore that heareth these my words, and doth them, shall be likened to a wise man that built his house upon a rock, 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded on a rock.
26
And every one that heareth these my words, and doth them not, shall be like a
foolish man that built his house upon the sand, 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds
blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall
thereof. 28 And it came to pass
when Jesus had fully ended these words, the people
were in admiration at his doctrine. 29
For he was teaching them as one having power, and not as the scribes and
Pharisees.
Or these words; Luke 13: 23 and a certain man said to him: Lord, are they few that are saved? But he said to them: 24 Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able.
So who am I talking to? I am talking to everyone, Orthodox, Roman, Protestant, all who claim to be Christian yet fail to abide by the teaching of Jesus Christ and the church.
What church you say? This one; Matthew
16:18 And I say to thee:
That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
You who insist that Jesus Christ did not build a church had well better heed this statement. I will also tell you this, if Jesus Christ built it you had better believe that it is organized so that it can be of one mind and one teaching and your non-sense free thinking will do nothing but send you to Hell.
John 17:21 That they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
You liars and believers of lies, Hell is a big place and there is plenty of room for you, not fair for me to say this you say? I didn’t; 1 Timothy 1:6 From which things some going astray, are turned aside unto vain babbling: 7 Desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither the things they say, nor whereof they affirm. 8 But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully: 9 Knowing this, that the law is not made for the just man, but for the unjust and disobedient, for the ungodly, and for sinners, for the wicked and defiled, for murderers of fathers, and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, 10 For fornicators, for them who defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and whatever other thing is contrary to sound doctrine,
Apocalypse 21:8
But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and
whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, they shall have their portion in the pool burning with fire and brimstone, which
is the second death.
How
did He have it organized? Acts Of Apostles 20:28 Take heed to
yourselves, and to the whole flock, wherein the Holy Ghost hath placed you bishops, to rule the
Philippians 1:1 Paul and Timothy, the
servants of Jesus Christ; to all the saints in Christ Jesus, who are at
Acts Of Apostles 9:17 And Ananias went his way,
and entered into the house. And laying
his hands upon him, he
said: Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus hath sent me, he that appeared to thee in
the way as thou camest; that thou mayest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost.
Acts Of Apostles 19: 6
And when Paul had imposed his hands
on them, the Holy
Ghost came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied.
You who
would deny the true church and the laying on of hands will have much to answer
for. You cannot please God simply because you tithe your money and time and do
not believe that the true church exists, you have seen for yourself that it
does, founded by Jesus Christ, instituted by the laying on of hands from
generation to generation and passing on the grace of the Holy spirit one to the next.
You who
are full of pride shall suffer an eternity for this denial of the truth that
Jesus Christ instituted, He will say to you; go away, I never knew you. Do you
feel that I am being harsh to you? I tell you the truth; it is because I love
your soul more than you can imagine that I am writing this. See what the Lord
has to say;
Matthew 10:14 And
whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words: going forth out of that
house or city shake off the
dust from your feet.
Luke 10:16 He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me; and he that despiseth me, despiseth him that sent me.
Again what church is the true church you might ask, you know that I am Orthodox, what does this mean? The word means ‘right belief’, or ‘right praise’ or ‘right teaching’. The Eastern Orthodox would have you to believe that they are the only ones who hold to the truth, the Roman church would have you to believe that they in fact only hold the truth, of course all Protestants would have you believe that they alone hold the truth. So what do we do?
First we eliminate any and all Protestant churches, this is necessary, why? Look at the word Protestant, they are protesting the church, if you protest the church what are you in fact doing? You are Protesting Jesus Christ. How? Because He instituted the church as we have already seen, how can you protest something instituted by Jesus Christ and actually believe that you are not protesting Jesus? I, nor the church will ever say that a protestant will not be in heaven, that is between them and God, I am only telling you what is the truth based on the teachings of Jesus Christ, it is a logic that you cannot deny and if you do then you are denying the Christ.
That leaves us with non-Protestants or Roman Catholic/Orthodox Catholic. Both of these have the apostolic succession and both claim the truth. Here are my issues with both, politics; the great schism that occurred was in part based on politics regardless of who balks at this statement. The filioque statement was used as a point of contention, so what is it? The word means ‘and from the Son’. The Nicene Creed states this; I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life who proceeds from the Father, together with the Father and the Son He is worshipped and glorified. The roman church added this; ‘who proceeds from the Father and the Son’, the argument is this; that the Romans changed the ancient creed without consulting the rest of the Bishops and by adding this statement, changed the Holy Spirit into a subordinate of the Father and the Son. This was political non-sense on the part of the east as far as I am concerned.
This is why I say it, The Eastern church did not accept the addition on two
distinct grounds:
The filioque clause was probably devised in response to
Arianism, which denied the full divinity of the Son. To the Byzantines,
however, the clause also appeared to compromise the primacy
("monarchy") of the Father, which according to the Eastern church is
the source of deity. An unsuccessful attempt to reconcile the two points of
view was made at the Council of Ferrara-Florence in 1439. The Eastern and
Western churches have remained separate, and the doctrine represented by the
term filioque stands as one of the primary points of difference between them.
On the Eastern side two points may be made. First, the
relevant verse in John 15:26 speaks only of a proceeding from the Father. Second, the addition never had ecumenical
approval.
Two points may also be made for the filioque or the Western side. First, it safeguards the
vital Nicene truth that the Son is consubstantial with the Father. Second, the Son as well as the Father sends the Spirit
in John 15:26,
and by analogy with this relationship to us we are justified in inferring that
the Spirit proceeds from both Father and Son in the intratrinitarian
relationship. Not to say this is to
divorce the Spirit from the Son in contradiction of the passages that speak of
him as the Spirit of Christ (cf. Rom. 8:9; Gal. 4:6).
Dr. Pusey says:
"Since, however, the clause, which
found its way into the Creed, was, in the first instance, admitted, as being
supposed to be part of the Constantinopolitan Creed, and, since after it had
been rooted for 200 years, it was not uprooted, for fear of uprooting also or
perplexing the faith of the people, there was no fault either in its first
reception or in its subsequent retention."
"The Greeks would condemn forefathers
of their own, if they were to pronounce the clause to be heretical. For it
would be against the principles of the Church to be in communion with an heretical body. But from the deposition of Photius, a.d. 886 to at least a.d. 1009, East and West retained their own expression of
faith without schism. [224] "
"a.d. 1077,
Theophylact did not object to the West, retaining for
itself the confession of faith contained in the words, but only excepted against the insertion of the words in the Creed.
[225] "
And Bp. Pearson,
explaining Article VIII.
of the Creed says: "Now although the addition of words to the formal Creed
without the consent, and against the protestations of the Oriental Church be
not justifiable; yet that which was added is nevertheless a certain truth, and
may be so used in that Creed by them who believe the same to be a truth; so
long as they pretend it not to be a definition of that Council, but an addition
or explication inserted, and condemn not those who, out of a greater respect to
such synodical determinations, will admit of no such
insertions, nor speak any other language than the Scriptures and their Fathers
spoke."
Footnotes
[210] In fact the contention of the Latins
was that the words were inserted by II. Nice! To this the Easterns
answered most pertinently "Why did you not tell us this long ago?"
They were not so fortunate when they insisted that
As to the Sacred Scripture, the inspired writers call the
Holy Ghost the Spirit of the Son (Galatians 4:6), the Spirit of Christ (Romans
8:9), the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:19), just as they call Him the
Spirit of the Father (Matthew 10:20) and the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians
2:11). Hence they attribute to the Holy Ghost the same relation to the Son as
to the Father.
Again, according to Sacred Scripture, the Son sends the
Holy Ghost (Luke 24:49; John 15:26; 16:7; 20:22; Acts 2:33; Titus 3:6), just as
the Father sends the Son (Romans 3:3; etc.), and as the Father sends the Holy
Ghost (John 14:26).
Now the "mission" or "sending" of one
Divine Person by another does not mean merely that the Person said to be sent
assumes a particular character, at the suggestion of Himself in the character
of Sender, as the Sabellians maintained; nor does it imply any inferiority in
the Person sent, as the Arians taught; but it denotes, according to the
teaching of the weightier theologians and Fathers, the Procession of the Person
sent from the Person Who sends. Sacred Scripture never presents the Father as
being sent by the Son, nor the Son as being sent by the Holy Ghost. The very
idea of the term "mission" implies that the person sent goes forth
for a certain purpose by the power of the sender, a power exerted on the person
sent by way of a physical impulse, or of a command, or of prayer, or finally of
production; now, Procession, the analogy of production, is the only manner
admissible in God. It follows that the inspired writers present the Holy Ghost
as proceeding from the Son, since they present Him as
sent by the Son. Finally,
The teaching of Sacred Scripture on the double Procession
of the Holy Ghost was faithfully preserved in Christian tradition. Even the Greek Orthodox grant that the Latin Fathers maintain the
Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son. The great work on the Trinity
by Petavius (Lib. VII, cc. iii sqq.) develops the
proof of this contention at length. Here we mention only some of the later
documents in which the patristic doctrine has been clearly expressed:
the
dogmatic letter of St. Leo I to Turribius, Bishop of Astorga, Ep. XV, c. i (447);
the
so-called Athanasian Creed;
So even though I have used the clause myself as a retort
against
So with the statements above alone, I cannot allow the
Roman church to be called the truth at the moment. It truly saddens me to say
this because I was a Roman at one point myself. That leaves us with the
Orthodox; the true teaching exists, however, there are many who claim Orthodoxy
who ordain women, homosexuals, those who hold non-Christian doctrine, and they
perform same sex unions, these people are not only not Orthodox, they in no way
resemble Christ anymore than a slug does. Now there are those Orthodox who are
Orthodox because they are in the line of succession but yet they discriminate
against their own brothers based on the use of a different yet sanctioned
liturgy.
They are of the mindset and have decided that if you are
not Eastern than you are not Orthodox, this is not true, as a matter of fact, one of their very own revered saints, St John
Maximovitch was a great champion of the western rite. The Western rite was the
first actual rite written down in form. So by their denial of this Western rite
they are denying the history of the church that they claim to support and they
are denying one of their very own saints and his teachings. So, while the
Orthodox Church may hold the truth, there are those within the church that
would deny anyone group that does not succumb to their personal favorite way of
worship. This is not to say that because an orthodox church claims to be
eastern that this automatically applies to them, some eastern churches use a
western rite as well in a separate western rite group of the church and some
eastern while not having a western rite still do not attack the western rite
churches, however, there are those that do. When I say Western Rite and Eastern
Rite, I am not speaking of two completely foreign ways of worshipping God. The
formula of worship was established in the very beginning of the church by the
Apostles. There is a particular order to follow in the worship, both follow the
order prescribed, this is Orthodoxy, for that matter, the Roman Mass followed
the same order and is the same basic liturgy from the first. It is the new Mass
since Vatican II that changed things and caused uproar. Pre-Vatican II was a
sound liturgy or
So what is the true church? It is one that follows the
teachings of Christ through the Apostles, through the church teachings by way
of the early church fathers and the seven ecumenical councils, and in so doing
they do not discriminate based on ethnicity, nor do they employ political games
in their pursuit of power and authority nor discriminate between east and west
in the liturgies.
This is the true church, the upcoming one world church
organization will find the groups joining forces regardless of doctrinal
differences, regardless of whether or not Jesus Christ is recognized as God and
regardless of who or what is worshipped. Do not be fooled or mislead.
Contact us if you have any questions or issues with the
statements found herein.
Your humble servant in Christ,
Monk Michael
monkmichael@newwarriorministries.com
http://newwarriorministries.com