Libera Catholick Union

04/30/2021

Religion is passed on generation to generation through living narratives. Having read & listened to innumerable gruesome Christian martyr narratives I aware of how these tales are integral to sustaining the Church. And having the minimal amount of common sense required to wager anything that many Christian saints are based on mythological figures, it amazes me Name-Glorifiers have not given names to the 4 Name-Glorifying monks allegedly killed from the Russian Navy’s attack of Mt. Athos in July 1913. From the accounts it seems likely they were from St. Panteleimon Monastery, attacked July 3rd. I’ve reached out to the current major defenders of Holy Name in the Eastern Orthodox Christian world: Archbishop Gregory (Basil Lourie) & the nun Kassia (Tatiana Senina) of their Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church jurisdiction [not the other ROACs, gotta love how ecclesiastical battles for jurisdictional names play out, confusing outsiders]. I also reached out to the only North American EO jurisdiction which holds Name-Glorification to be a doctrinally binding teaching (even though they are rude to me): The Holy Orthodox Metropolis of Boston (a True Orthodox jurisdiction like Lourie’s ROAC). I have not contacted Met. Hierotheos Vlachos, the only mainline EO Church leader who is a Name-Glorifier, because I don’t know how to contact him. So here is my idea.

We get Name-Glorification sects (of any religious affiliation) to institute July 31st as the Feast Day to commemorate the eternal memory of the First Four New Martyrs of Imiaslavie. And we should select their names (since we do not know them) based upon the initial letters in the Holy Name of God YHWH.

I prefer to collaborate. Here is my suggestion, after some reflection:

Monks drop their last name and are identified monastery, in this case Panteleimon, meaning “all-merciful”.

Panteley (also Panteleimon) is a Slavic male name. This name derives from the Ancient Greek name “Pantaléo̱n"/"Panteleímonas" (Greek: "Παντελεήμων"/“Παντελεήμονας”), composed of two elements: “pâs (πᾶς) pánta (πάντᾰ)” (always, all, every, each, whole) plus “éleos (ἔλεος) eleéō (ἐλεέω) eleí̱mo̱n (ελεήμων)” (have pity on, show mercy to, compassion). In turn the name means “compassionate, most merciful”. Historically, the use of the name Pantaleon is linked to the cult of St. Pantaleon, whose reverence also extends outside of Italy: in Greece, for example, the saint is known as “Panteleimon” (Παντελεήμων). The feast day, associated with Eastern Orthodox saints, is traditionally celebrated on July 27.

YHVH = IEVE, so...

The 4 New Martyrs of Name-Glorification could be:

Yod = St. Iakinf (Hyacinth) of Panteleimon ["the plant hyacinth;" re-Greeked from jacinth; Used in ancient Greece of a blue gem, perhaps sapphire, and of a purple or deep red flower, but exactly which one is unknown (gladiolus, iris, and larkspur have been suggested). It is fabled to have sprung from the blood of Hyakinthos, Laconian youth beloved by Apollo and accidentally slain by him. The flower is said to have the letters "AI" or "AIAI" (Greek cry of grief) on its petals.

Hey = St. Euphemios of Panteleimon [meaning “well-spoken (of)” but often translated as “all-praised”]

Vav = St. Vyacheslav of Panteleimon [derived from the Slavic words vyache, "great(er)", and slava, "glory”; Latinizes as Wenceslaus & the song Good King Wenceslas" is a Christmas carol sung on the Feast of the 1st Christian martyr, Stephen (December 26, the Second Day of Christmas).]

Hey = St. Eloi of Panteleimon [said to derive from the Latin ēligō meaning “to choose, elect, pluck”; but Jesus calls out from the cross “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani” & in that context it means “My God”]

04/02/2021

Art & Theology website

The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he w…

03/30/2021

Srila Giri Maharaja – “Why do you not wear a mask?”
Posted on January 2, 2021 by Swami B.K. Giri

Date: 12/21/20

Dandavats.

Another day of shopping, another “incident.”

Out on one of our monthly shopping expeditions, and wearing no mask (as usual), we’re shopping for bhoga in a Shoprite when a women pushes her shopping cart near to us and asks me in a clearly audible and irritating tone “Where’s your mask?” I respond “Are you the mask police?” and then, before she has answered, I ask “May I see your badge?” Seeming a little startled by my rejoinder she asks “What do you mean?” I tell her “If you’re the mask police I want to see your badge.” That lady “was silenced” (as Srila Sridhara Maharaja might say). She quickly turned her cart away from us and sulked away like a pepper sprayed dog (Yes, I know from personal experience the reaction of a pepper sprayed dog).

Was I being offensive? Or, should I simply have tolerated this women speaking to me as if I was one of her misbehaving children?

I spoke with several of the store personnel during checkout and while asking directions to items difficult for us to find. All of them were very friendly and, although I was almost certainly the only one they had seen in their store without a mask, made no mention of it. The same was true at Home Depot.

The “You must wear a mask.” mentality seems particularly prominent among the upper social classes, such as those shopping at Trader Joe’s where they assigned me a body guard before allowing me to shop there without a mask. Even there, most seem at ease with the sight of the unmasked Giri Maharaja and I suspect they too wish to be liberated from the mask wearing edicts. Others appear quite tense and disturbed causing me to think “I know the squealers when I see them.” And, sure enough, at the few instances when I have been approached by store personnel offering me a mask — after I had been undisturbed for a significant period of time in their store — I’m sure I can identify the squealer who, for some reason, is always a woman who, before or after, has taken the time out of her busy shopping excursion to question me about why I am not wearing a mask.

Now the question may be raised “Why do you not wear a mask?” I do it to protect the public. They are largely consumed with the notion that “science” will save them from death, even though it has been proven it cannot. They must be disabused of that dangerous and sweeping contagion which is taking the life of 99% of the population which has become almost wholly dependent upon “science” and its promoters for its view of the world which must first dismiss the Lord’s supremacy as it’s principle a-priori argument.

“Science”, as it is practiced today, has become a substitute for common sense, which is another a priori position that must be accepted before examining evidence. Even a little common sense would cause one to ask the question: If the President of the United States, his family and staff, along with Boris Johnson and other high ranking government officials cannot be saved from Corona virus infection with all the measures taken to protect them (masking, hand sanitizing, social distancing, frequent testing and so forth), what hope does the average Joe have of protecting himself from it?

Again, “If masks protect, why are people forbidden from visiting family members in the hospital, even if they agree to wear a mask and maintain “a safe distance” from their friend or relative?” How does COVID-19 enter and infect patients in hospitals where every measure to protect them has been taken and enforced?

If such a small population in a very controlled (“locked down”) environment cannot be protected from COVID infection (not to mention Legionella “legionaries disease”, etc.) how is it possible to protect the greater society except by the age old proven method of quarantining those actually showing symptoms of the disease?

“Science”, however, dictates that old and proven methods must be thrown out in favor of new speculative methods; even those which obviously do not work, such as “lockdowns”, which are meant to quarantine the healthy, rather than the sick.

“Science”, in addition to relieving one from the burden of common sense, also relieves those who accept it from all personal responsibility. Tragedies, such as pandemics, can then be categorized as events caused by forces that have nothing to do with personal or collective sins. “Science” eliminates the eternal questions of “Why him and not me?” These are the preeminent questions a human being should be asking, as stated by Sri Sanatana Goswami:

‘ke āmi’, ‘kene āmāya jāre tāpa-traya’
ihā nāhi jāni — ‘kemane hita haya’

Instead of asking: “Who am I? Why do the threefold miseries always give me trouble? If I do not know this, how can I be benefited?” “science”, and its believers, tell us “Don’t bother. Such questions are irrelevant and, anyway, cannot be answered. No one has the answers to such questions.”

Or, in its attempt to answer such questions, “science” tells us it is almost able to give us the answers we seek today but will gladly do so “tomorrow.” Until then, “Take two aspirin and get some sleep.” Then, if you should die while sleeping, “science” tells us “It doesn’t matter. We are only a combination of chemicals, atoms and other things which, according to the science of entropy are always prone to movement from order (as in the makeup of the human body) to disorder, as in returned to their disaggregated or randomly amalgamated state in the vastness of the universe.

In these ways sin is eliminated as a cause of the “jāre tāpa-traya’”, the threefold miseries (ādhyātmika, ādhibhautika and ādhidaivika — miseries arising from: one’s own body and mind, other living entities and natural disturbances caused by the demigods, respectively) and makes the question of why one is affected and not another irrelevant except so far as “science” is able to account for it, which never goes so far as determining the original cause (of the threefold miseries).

If the obvious question is asked “How has order come about from disorder?”, “scientists” are utterly incapable of articulating a reasoned response. They choose, instead, to insist on proceeding unencumbered by the thought process by ignoring the great philosophical questions or avoiding them by saying “It is not our field. We leave those questions to other disciplines.” If those, such as ourselves, should venture to offer the only logical response to the obvious question: “The original cause or uncaused cause has given order to what might otherwise be disorder.” they decry our argument as “philosophical” rather than “scientific”, proving they believe “science” is a field of study disassociated from philosophy: “the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence . . . “ and, ipso facto, logic and reason, for only logic and reason are reliable methods for the study of reality, existence and all other things collectively known as knowledge.

The “scientific consensus” has spoken clearly to the point of which offers greater protection; mask wearing or hand sanitizing? And, the consensus is a reasonable one (based on their mehtods); answer: hand sanitizing. A frequent washing of hands (aka good personal hygiene) will do far more to prevent the spread of disease (including COVID-19) than the haphazard wearing and handling of face coverings, even N-95 masks, when handled in ways abhorrent to those (such as surgeons) trained in their aseptic use.

I realize my small show of defiance is just that, almost insignificant. But at least a few may take the time to ponder the larger questions I propose and wonder “Everyone is wearing a mask except this sannyasi (saffron clad man). Could he know or believe something we do not? If so, what is it?”

Thus concludes another day in the life of “As the world burns.”

Praying this finds you well.

Yours,

Swami B.K. Giri

Date: 12/21/20 Dandavats. Another day of shopping, another “incident.” Out on one of our monthly shopping expeditions, and wearing no mask (as usual), we’re shopping for bhoga in a Shoprite when a women pushes her shopping cart near to us … Continue reading →

03/23/2021

The One and the Three
Nature, Person and Triadic Monarchy in the Greek and Irish Patristic Tradition
by Chrysostom Koutloumousianos

I carved the beloved name
In the shade of the aged olive tree
In the roaring of the lifelong sea.
— Odysseus Elytis

God, my God, and God, triple oneness.
— Gregory of Nazianzus

Gregory firmly argues that oneness and sameness derive from one and the same essence, while at the same time each Person himself bears the whole essence and divinity. Although the distinctiveness makes the threeness, the identity according to nature makes the oneness; and this identity of nature makes the Persons identical. Thus, the name God indicates not a person, but the essence – not in the sense that it reveals the unapproachable ‘what’ of that unnameable nature, but in the sense that it intimates it through an essential characteristic.220 His line of argument against the pagans is based on the premise that the name God is not a privative attribute. The words ‘God’, ‘Good’, ‘Holy’, ‘Saviour’, and all the divine names, are employed in the singular, in accordance with the singular nature.221 For this reason, fatherhood in the Trinity does not give us the right to call the Father ‘God of the Word’, unless we refer to the incarnate Word, namely to the economy.222 It is noticeable that the Cappadocian feels the need to compensate for his ‘essentialism’ by reaffirming the principle of causality: he counterbalances common essence and causality as the two pillars of the divine being; the former referring to the ‘what it is’, grounding absolute oneness; the latter indicating the ‘how it is’, in the differentiation of the unique hypostases.

Gregory Nazianzen preaches that the term ‘God’ encompasses unity and distinction at the same time, that is, the One and the Three; ‘Three from the point of view of properties or hypostases . . . or persons . . . One in respect of the essence or the divinity’. In the three he sees the Godhead; or, ‘more precisely, the three are the Godhead’.223 Having associated the Oneness with the divine essence or divinity, Gregory proceeds to the scriptural scheme describing the divine order in the work of creation and salvation: ἐξ οὗ (from), δι’ οὗ (through), ἐν ᾧ (in). ‘For to us there is One God, the Father, of Whom are all things, and One Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom are all things and One Holy Ghost, in Whom are all things.’224 He explains that the above prepositional phrases ‘denote the properties of a nature which is one and unconfused. And this is evident from the fact that they are again gathered into one’. Thus, it is plain that the term God cannot be ultimately attributed to the Father except only as a terminus technicus corresponding to the hypostatic names...

Our teacher is Paul, he says elsewhere, who sometimes ‘counts up the Three Persons, and that in varied order, not keeping the same order, but reckoning one and the same Person now first, now second, now third; and for what purpose? Why, to show the equality of nature . . . and at times he separates the Persons saying, “One God, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him”; at other times he brings together the one Godhead, “For of Him and through Him and in Him are all things.”’226 In this passage Gregory offers the necessary qualifier. We can speak about God’s being in a twofold way: from the viewpoint of distinction, where the name God is used of the Father, and from the viewpoint of unity, where all the hypostases are ‘brought together’ in the common divinity and essence. To employ the terminology of the Areopagite, all names are ascribed totally to God in His entirety, except the non- interchangeable attributes that specify the Persons.227

Again, John of Damascus lucidly and creatively sums up the previous tradition. He espouses the etymological interpretation of the name ‘God’ as describing the activity either of ‘running’ (because He courses through all things), or of ‘burning up’ (as fire consuming all evils), or of ‘beholding’ (for He is all-seeing).228 Quoting or rephrasing the Cappadocians, after having referred to the one cause, he gives the image of the ‘three suns cleaving to each other without separation and giving out light mingled and conjoined into one’.229 He is also quite clear in his distinction between the natural and the personal notes of character.

The name God is applicable to each of the persons, but we cannot use the term Godhead with reference to person ... For Godhead implies nature, while Father implies subsistence just as Humanity implies nature, and Peter subsistence. But God indicates the common element of the nature, and is applicable derivatively to each of the hypostases, just as man is.

Apostolic succession (often thought of as the historical line of ordinations) is identified with the apostolic tradition, namely the ‘teaching of truth’, preserved in the life of the local churches...

there is no hierarchy whatsoever in the Trinity (either immanent or economic), where the second and the third are equal and co-original;374 and, as we have already observed, if there is a hierarchy in the Church, it is a hierarchy of virtue, enlightenment and, therefore, initiation. The gift of unity takes place in the name of Christ only, who is entirely present in His Church and does not need any representative...

Man’s personal appropriation of salvific grace is not exclusively restricted to his participation in the sacraments. Macarius points to a deeper reality when he says that ‘Christ, the good artist, for those who believe in him and gaze continually at him, portrays after his own image a heavenly man. Out of his own Spirit, out of the substance of light itself, the ineffable light, he paints a heavenly image . . . If a man does not gaze constantly at him, overlooking everything else, the Lord will not paint his image with his own light.’100 One must read the image–archetype correspondence in light of this observation. Otherwise it leads to a frozen hierarchy, which tends to generate or justify an ideology of subordination. Although Christ is given in the Eucharist, a theophany is not confined to the sacrament; indeed Christ’s revelation is not confined to any form, nor conditioned by any created law...

What is the underlying theological principle of the charismatic life within or beyond the institutional context? It is the concept of the uncreated activities, which covers the whole range of life, and which lies behind all patristic anthropology and soteriology. A human being is deified by grace, through the person of Christ, that is, by the activities of the divine essence, which are genuinely God and not simply created effects of God’s providence. The patristic distinction between essence and energies in God is not a metaphysical concept grounded on Aristotelian principles, but the verbalisation in theological terms of the reality of communion between God and the cosmos, since every particle of the world participates in God’s creative being, according to its given potential. So, the distinction remains the interpretative key to religious experience. It gives us the right to say that a human being can act by means of an energy that does belong to his nature, and that God acts in him without imparting His essence to the creature.101
In the body of Christ growth is given to each member and through each member by the divine energies. This is the light that illuminates the soul and enables the body to participate in God’s glory; ‘the one ray’ we receive ‘from the one Godhead in Christ’,102 the light ‘which is contemplated in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, whose riches is Their unity of nature, and the one outleaping of Their brightness’. For ‘God is Light . . . presenting Himself to our minds in proportion as we are cleansed; and loved in proportion to His presence to our minds; and again, conceived in proportion to our love for Him.’103 That was the fire that burned the bush without consuming it, thereby showing its nature and declaring its inherent power. That was the light of the Old Testament’s theophanies, the same light that shone round the shepherds, the star that went before the wise men to guide their way to Bethlehem. It was that Godhead that was shown upon the mountain to the disciples – ‘and a little too strong for their eyes’; the eschatological Light ‘to those who have been purified’, the same Light that illuminates us in baptism.104 According to the Celtic catechist, in this splendore trinitatis we see and participate in Christ’s divinity.105 For, as Diadochos says, unless the Spirit’s divinity ‘shines actively on the treasuries of our hearts we will not be able to taste what is good with an undivided sense’.106

The uncreated energies – God’s holy fire – make us partakers of the divine nature, transforming us into Gods by and in grace. The divine grace becomes, as it were, ‘the one energy of God and His saints’, proceeding from the divine essence and becoming an attribute of the saints, permeating them ‘by grace’.107 Indeed, the number is mutually interchangeable from singular to plural, for the energies are both one and innumerable, and in each one the whole and undivided God is hidden and revealed in His procession to and activity in each and every particle of creation. It is the divine energy that safeguards the integrity of the whole, being the common creative foundation, and it is the same energy that dignifies the particular, since it calls for a personal response and provides the ground for a deep relationship between God and man.
God’s presence is manifested on the one hand through the general grace which consists of His very life, namely eternity, glory, love and simplicity dispensed to all, the ‘goodness’ which ‘comes into being . . . although by nature it is uncreated’,108 and on the other hand it is manifested through particular gifts which form specific functions. The latter include what we might now call institutional expressions (pastors and teachers) or charismatic expressions (apostles, prophets, evangelists). What substantiates and permeates all these is the energies of the Spirit, which transfigures each member according to one’s measure, in other words, by conferring the essential glory and sempiternal life of God.109 Therefore, God’s life-giving presence, no matter whether manifested in or beyond institutions or structures, is always charismatic. The outcome is sanctity, by virtue of which God is active through the saints.
This is a mystery worked out in God incarnate on account of what we call communicatio idiomatum. For in Christ human nature, remaining totally human, received the one ray from the one Godhead... The uncreated energy is from the essence and within the essence. The perfect work of love and the fulfilment of its energy is the interchange of the attributes and names of those natures that are united in love.112

How can the theology of the energies contribute to the desideratum of the unity of humankind? The tradition of the desert emphasises the unity of the Spirit not in the obedience to a person, but in the inner unity and the diversity of personal gifts, which are offered through partaking in the divine nature – the common energies: ‘The souls of the Christians are made of the one Divinity’s heavenly light, the diverse gifts of the one Spirit.’113 God becomes light within the human being through the act of imitation; light manifested as virtue and knowledge. Because the energies of the Spirit are not autonomous operations but manifestations of the undivided procession of Divinity to creation, or the ‘processions and manifestations of the thearchy’,114 each of them carries the undivided whole or, in scriptural terms, the one fruit of the Spirit, granted to all persons according to the measure of each one’s faith and culminating in love. In this sense we have a mutual inherence of all gifts in each particular gift and, thus, a mutual inherence of all persons, a reciprocity of essential love.

03/13/2021

In his Notes Towards a Definition of Culture, the great English conservative T.S.Eliot remarked that there are moments when the only choice is the one between heresy and non-belief, when the only way to keep a religion alive is to perform a sectarian split from its main co**se. Something like this is needed to break out of the debilitating crisis of Western societies...
— Slavoj Žižek

02/16/2021

It's an universal law-- intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.
— Alexander Sholzhenytzin

02/04/2021

“... the bishop has not received the full teaching authority from his flock but from Christ through the Apostolic Succession. But this teaching authority given to him is his power to bear witness to the catholic experience of the Church. It is limited by this experience. Consequently, in questions concerning faith, the people must judge his teaching. The duty of obedience ceases to exert power when the bishop departs from the catholic standard and in such cases the people have the right to condemn and even depose him.”
Fr. George Florovsky, Themes in Orthodoxy Theology, publ. Artos Zoes, Athens 1989, p. 207 (Greek)

01/28/2021

Writings about the Ethiopian Orthodox Debtera

University of Edinburgh - Cited by 41 - Ethiopian Orthodoxy - Spirit possession - Exorcism - Ethics - The body

01/26/2021

http://www.oodegr.com/english/koinwnia/politika/kapitalismos1.htm

The theological differentiation of the West from the East created enormous problems in the Western sphere and more specifically to the people who live there. This theological aberration, this heretical position, was not confined to a theoretical and dogmatic level only; it became a way of life. It w...

01/26/2021

Met. Hierothoes Vlachos on bankers:

We must stigmatize and cauterize usurers who exploit the anguish of their fellow-man and who remain unemotional in the presence of their misfortune.

http://www.oodegr.com/english/koinwnia/politika/tokoglyfia_kapitalismos1.htm?fbclid=IwAR3QET9B-dHsMfITuhc11wX7rsBjJJoXStZVropJyvMLjmajsxNMFdisZTk

The utilization and exploitation of money came to be developed within Protestant circles, within a morality that presumed money to be God’s blessing and the rich as those blessed by God. This topic has been expounded in detail by Max Weber in his widely-known classic, “Protestant Morality and th...