Note: To facilitate spreading the message of this letter more widely, click here to download a PDF copy.
Woke radicals are coming for our families, our children, our churches, our freedoms, and our country. And they’re backed by major corporations, big tech and big media, and every department and agency within our government.
Whether the Orthodox Church will be found complicit, complacent, or courageous depends on its shepherds doing the following:
- Affirm what is our Christian duty in defending the faith against the attacks and lies of our day.
- Teach and train the way of the saints and martyrs, and of the Church Fathers.
- Affirm what is our civic duty in protecting our neighbors, especially our children, against deadly radical ideologies.
Now, more than ever, not only are your prayers needed but your guidance, your voice, and your action.
Sadly, the silence emanating from too many of our parishes and our archdioceses has become deafening, and grievously evermore concerning. To me, the silence has reached the level of the sins of consent and omission, and a capitulation to the mob tactics of fear and intimidation.
The Rainbow Elephant in the Church
The biggest problem with the rainbow elephant inhabiting our parishes today is that both clergy and laity have yet to admit such an elephant even exists, because shepherds and laity don’t want to talk about it, much less deal with it.
Until then:
Our churches will remain filled with unaware, unprepared, and unequipped parishioners against an increasingly hostile pagan cancel culture, will continue to come under the culture’s influence (rather than the other way around) and be at ever greater risk to submitting to it. This is the way of apostasy.
Such blinders will continue to undermine your credibility as capable shepherds that parishioners can turn to for leadership, or as trustworthy role models of faith and courage under fire, capable of publicly proclaiming the truth in love.
You will be seen as preferring to sit on the sidelines of comfort and safety, as people pleasers, or simply indifferent to the destruction happening outside your parish doors.
If you are not willing to be courageous with the relatively small trials we face now, there’s no reason to think you will have what it takes to lead when serious persecution strikes in the future. Wait too long, and mustering the courage of the saints will become impossible.
When Shepherds Stay Away, Sheep Pay
Without your leadership, Wokeism is able to freely seduce your flock away from following Christ courageously. They will think they follow Jesus, but without faith in action, they will become merely His admirers.
Without shepherds, parishioners lack examples of how to counter abortion, predatory Marxist ideology, the poisonous ideology of transgenderism/transhumanism, the indoctrination of children through explicit public school sex ed.
Without a call to moral courage, parishioners will cower to protect their own comfort and survival, and willingly live with the lies of Wokeism as demoralized Christians. Totalitarianism depends and thrives on this demoralization.
Demoralization leads to self-loathing for being a hypocrite, which inevitably leads to mental health issues, and escaping into unhealthy forms of self-soothing (addiction, endless entertainment, materialism) and abandoning our principles.
Once a person becomes demoralized, they’re unable to access true information. Education becomes indoctrination. Entertainment becomes hypnotism. Criminals become leaders and lies become truth.
— Yuri Bezmenov, former KGB informant
Eventually, parishioners will learn to prefer the false peace of conformity to the tensions of liberty, thereby losing their ability to witness to the world. Conformity is a silent acquiescence to evil.
Without a unified outcry from leadership against attacks on prolife centers and churches, shepherds are sending the message that the unborn and our faith are not worth defending.
Parishioners remain woefully unprepared in defending their faith and families against intimidation, coercion, cancel culture, mandates, and the coming persecution.
Because there is no one to show them the pagan origins behind the meteoric rise of LGBTQ and transhumanist ideologies sweeping post Christian America, parishioners misinterpret these religious-based ideologies as exclusively political and social concerns, and best left to politicians and social activists to tackle.
Thus, too many Christians are woefully absent from the spiritual battlefields of school boards, legislative floors, city councils, and library boards where the powers and principalities of paganism run wild.
The Church is in danger of repeating the same mistakes Russian Orthodox made during the communist revolution. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote of how Christians “burned in the camps” in shame for not resisting when they had the chance.
And Our Neighbors Pay
Being complicit and complacent blocks us from being grieved, compassion-based Samaritans to our neighbors who are falling prey to radical woke ideologies, drag shows, corporate and media grooming of children, after school Satan clubs, and explicit public school sex ed indoctrination.
Without shepherds to warn them otherwise, our law-abiding neighbors will continue to naively assume that the woke mob will leave them alone in peaceful co-existence for their good behavior. (Tyrants don’t co-exist; they insist.)
Without Christian leaders to expose the pagan-based ideological lies with biblical truth, our neighbors have no spiritual compass to guide them.
Eventually, our demoralized and isolated neighbors will become too morally compromised to muster the courage to defend their values, their families, and their country.
Neighbors in a constant state of pretending will come to deny the truth they can see with their own eyes. The shame of capitulating to woke bullies will inevitably cause them to give into the chorus of lies, and even join in celebrating the lies.
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Lead With What the Church Has Given You
Thanks be to God who has richly equipped His Church with everything shepherds need to help their flocks defend the faith and publicly speak the truth with boldness and love, to each other and to their neighbors.
- The examples of the lives of the saints and martyrs in the Synaxarion, who toppled pagan temples, took on tyrants, and stormed the strongholds of powers and principalities of their day.
- The writings of the Church Fathers to equip and embolden us.
- The witness of icons to remind us that we are the Church of the saints, martyrs and confessors.
- The sacrament of confession to restore us from the sins of complacency, people pleasing and fearing man more than God.
- The sacrament of communion to empower us.
- The Holy Spirit to protect us.
- Fasting and prayer.
- The anointing of oil before traveling into strongholds of powers and principalities within our schools and woke-controlled institutions.
- Departments and organizations within each archdiocese to train and mobilize clergy and laity, such as Ancient Faith Ministries, Conference and Retreat Centers, Christian Education, Inter-faith Relations, Lay Ministries, Marriage and Parish Family Ministries, publications, and communications.
- The Holy Synod of Bishops, and the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops to rally and guide us.
And we have the Holy Scriptures:
Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely for my account – Matt. 5:11
All who desire to live a godly life in Christ will be persecuted. – 2 Tim. 3:12
Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. – Eph. 5:11
Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that … when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand … and after you have done everything, to stand. – Eph 6:10
Call Us to Courage
Help us become the saints God has called us to be. For we are not called to fit in but to stand out.
And so: We need not be the first to set out on this path, ours is but to join! The more of us set out together, the thicker our ranks, the easier and shorter will this path be for us all! If we become thousands – they will not cope, they will be unable to touch us. If we grow to tens of thousands – we will not recognize our country! But if we shrink away, then let us cease complaining that someone does not let us draw breath – we do it to ourselves!
– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1974 essay, Live Not By Lies
He reminds us of three realities: First, we must have the courage to refuse to affirm what we do not believe. Second, we must be willing to be vilified even as we speak the truth. Third, we have no idea what God will do with our witness.
Hilber Nelson
Orthodox since 2006
Iconographer
Mental health therapist
hilbernelson@gmail.com
Dearest brothers and sister,
Sorry, I have another story to tell. Please bear with me. All my life, I have been confused regarding the path He has taken me on.
In the mid 90s, Holy Spirit came to me when my kids (home schooled) took an interest in military aircraft. So I bought them models as part of their educational experience and we memorized their model numbers: f15, f14, f16, P51 etc. Mat. J—my daughter calls me when the air force base they live next to has their yearly air show.
Holy Spirit told me to study and emulate—in the spiritual realm—the features of the F15 “Strike Eagle”. I had already been experienced in gifts of the Spirit, since my mid 20’s.
Within a few weeks, Colorado Spring hosted one of the largest air shows ever. Colorado Springs is chock full of military especially Air Force; at least three Air Force bases and the USAFA.
At the air show, there was an F15 Eagle on display. Walking up the stair to the platform, I looked into the cockpit. On the other side was the pilot or some aviator. Holding up the line I asked as many questions as I could, remembering what Holy Spirit said. This is the radar, etc. Looking at the tail—the double rudder—one had a torpedo looking thing at the top. Pointing, I asked, what’s that? He said, oh, that’s the antenna that registers when an enemy has “Lock on You.” Filing that information in my mind, things changed for me.
I could tell when others were thinking about me, especially in a very negative way or in a very positive way. I could sense the moment somebody was angry with me and had a fair guess who it was.
In obedience of Holy Spirit to study the F15, I bought a glue together model for my son, who did not really care for gluing anything. So I did it for him. It came with decal of a pilot’s name to put on the side.
Further obeying Holy Spirit—my Teacher, Comforter, Guide—I sought out a man in our mega-church—directly across I25 from the USAFA— who was a bonified fighter pilot—flew f16. Retired, he flew for I think, United Airlines and went all around the world. Two things he told me, one I liked, one I did not like but it was all providence.
When I told him the name on the model F15, he recognized it as a true and living pilot who was a legendary “Top Gun” but in the Air Force, not Navy. When I heard that, connecting with what Holy Spirit said, my ego exploded, ME big shot Top Gun prophetic man. Then he said what I did not want to hear. He said every fighter pilot trains for weeks, months, and even years just for one combat event and he continues to train never knowing when that comes to be, if ever. That was 25 years ago maybe close to 30. I—my ego charged—wanted to see action right now. But not so. With that way back in my rearview mirror, I gave up anything of the sort. Becoming Orthodox, my priest at the time, discouraged anything related to gifts of the Holy Spirit. So, I walked in that path abandoning what I had acquired as spiritual prowess as a Charismatic.
When COVID hit, this whole thing reactivated in me. And with what I learned of the Orthodox paradigms, this thing became supercharge because that gifting of the Holy Spirit became reattached to its native root within the Orthodox cosmological paradigms. Hello, I am not sure you will understand this statement, but, I’m on fire as never before. I am fired by God’s love for His people and an extreme distain for the egg sucking clergy (not all).
When the question of the name I would take at baptism, it was only natural: St John the writer of the “Eagle” Gospel. Woohooo, I am so charge up, its often makes me giddy like a joyful little girl; sometimes intoxicated by the Holy Spirit. I had always loved St John and at 12 went about memorizing that Gospel for the Assemblies of God Bible quiz team competition. Got the first two chapters, then the season was over.
Additionally, “Lee” my birth middle name is short for Elijah which takes in the Baptist, who came in the Spirit and Power of Elijah to “lay the Axe to the root.” I’m just doing my job. Actually, I just point out the root and the faithful with wield the axe.
In my Orthodox studies, reading any “Eagle” type saint instantly gelled in me: St Dionysius (an eagle’s eagle), St Maximos the confessor, St Gregory of Nyssa to mention a few: birds of a feather (eagles).
Every Christian has a “Gospel” motive gift. You are either a Lion (Matthew), an Ox (Mark), a Man (Luke), or an Eagle (St John). These definitions will define 75% of how you are to serve the Lord peculiar to your calling. Either in kingdom (rule, management, organization), or in self-sacrifice and labor (the Ox), or in humanitarian endeavors, (Luke the physician) or in highly spiritual things like St John the eagle. None are better than any other. Each is by God’s grace. Christ is all four. But it explains how God brings diversity to His Church and explains how none of us sees everything eye to eye.
These rogue bishops we have running around like chickens with their heads cut off, hate the first and last over 2 and 3. When the lions roar, they stand fast for what they know to be the true Faith, and most of all the eagles among us who perceive everything from 30,000 feet and can see instantly anything not consistent with the whole. They are always connecting the dots.
As for me, I am equipped to do a certain job for the Church that only a handful will share in and because it is by grace and not works; it is easier than shooting fish in a barrel. A time will come when this is over and other things will be forefront.
All you lions, oxen, and man-s, think I’m crazy, but your view is on ground level. I see the big picture. My view is always top down from above. The question is not whether what I say is the truth or not, or if I can back it with the fathers or not, but whether or not God will back me up. In this statement, I would be a fool’s fool, if it were not true, which is for you to decide; which matters not to me.
BTW: the eagle has only one mortal enemy, the slithering serpent, and it is only the young eaglet or egg that is vulnerable. The snake will climb the cliff or tree to get into the nest when the mother eagle is foraging for food. Because the snake knows, when the eaglet sheds its fuzz and gets flying feathers, he’s done for. When the eagle catches the snake in the nest, she snatches it up, once it leaves the ground— its ground base to strike from— it’s incapacitated. Flying high, it drops the snake onto the rocks (truths (logoi) of the Church).
Another BTW: Before the fall, serpents were the highest creatures, like seraphim higher than cherubim.
I see a bunch of egg sucking snakes in most of our bishops! That I am here in this activated state, means, God will visit His Church with revival of the “Faith once delivered” and there WILL be a restoration of the remnant after a reckoning. Hallelujah!!!! Rejoice my brothers and sisters! God is hearing your prayers and don’t stop now. Keep praying for Orthodoxy.
The reason I’m not dead, is Michael is my wingman, and this other one sitting on my left shoulder is a blinding light, I have seen him, and he whispers secrets in my ear.
“I got tone! I got lock! Launching ordinance [order of the Church]! Missals away!”
We can only handle so much controversy in our lives. We need to pick our personal battles, winnable ones, or ones that are worth dying for. (For example, stopping the education of our own children by those promoting same-sex erotic relations.)
There are lots of priests and many bishops who will say how evil society has become in one respect or another. The challenge is to find a way to dissent that is gentle but bold, never losing sight of the humanity of our opponents, even the disreputable “powers that be.”
The Russian Church inside Russia is the place to be! Consider joining the growing numbers of American Orthodix Christians who are in the process of relocating to Russia. All it takes is a miracle or several, but with prayers and the will of God it’s both possible and worthwhile, especially if you are raising children. Even if the Church in Anerica steps up in courage, it cannot and will not protect little eyes and ears from the culture. You can’t go anywhere now in America without being bombarded by perversion. What is left for children at all? And unfortunately there are wolves in sheep’s clothing lurking in many parishes as well. Predatory ideas and inappropriate actions are both difficult to defend against as a parent. And when you do see it happening and call it out, you can’t be assured of the support or the defense of the clergy or the faithful. We experienced this firsthand. But when we came to Russia we witnrssed the opposite. A couple who had begun grooming children was swiftly sent away, based in the reports of parents. Rather than suspect the parents of some sort of malfeasance, the offenders were simply banned.
All rainbow alphabet oriented propaganda is legally banned here.
Warnings about toys with evil symbology are posted in our parish narthex. People are generally pro-family and anti-perversion.
Look up Tim Kirby if you want to know more. We aren’t part of his group, but we know him and can vouch for him. Good guy, founding an American enclave village south of Moscow.
God Bless all you courageous Americans fighting the beast!
In these the last days of the last days, perspective is paramount. How you perceive will make of break you. Let’s keep a few things in mind:
1. The Kingdom of God is within you. Jesus never preached the Church, He preached the Kingdom. No matter how corrupt the Church becomes, your own spiritual welfare is still primarily your responsibility. If your parish becomes toxic due to corruption, it’s your place to take whatever action is necessary to preserve your own faith and that of your family. Take heed to porter your own situation, soul, and body and that of your family.
2. Jesus said He would build His Church and the gates of hell would not prevail. Anything succumbed to hell, is NOT the Church which rite now is a large portion of it.
3. Truth is not information, but a state of being. God has given you the Holy Spirit (Blessed Pentecost) to lead you into all Truth. The more Truth you live in, the more out of place you will be in a corrupted parish. The more Truth you live in, the easier it is to spot the faux. The more Truth you live in, the headwind you will be pushing against.
4. The best defense is always to be on the offence. There is no armor for the backside (though the angels will keep your back, along with a good prayer partner, spouse, friend). Have a good prayer partner or prayer group, to let your requests be made known to God and the Peace of God will preserve and guide you always. Do this, seek out those you can trust and pray together over the phone, chat, or video as often as possible. Pray over your family, needs, for leadership etc. St Paul said pray with ALL kinds of prayer including both scripted and non-scripted prayers.
5. Pray in/with/by the Holy Spirit. Hello Pentecost! Daily allow your spirit to soar by singing, chanting, “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph. 5:18-20). The most powerful thing you can do is “resonating” with vibrations of song from deep in the belly, singing unto God, the angels, and to all creation. This works best out loud. E.g. Gregorian chant. With this resonating from your spirit inner-man, the Joy of the Lord will be your strength. Put worship music on the stereo throughout the house, it will change the spiritual atmosphere. And all demons, depression, discouragement, heaviness, cares of this world will leave. If you want demons to leave you alone, make them uncomfortable around you by resonating with heaven, not hell; and heaven is constant worship. Sing it from the belly, “The Lord reigns in all the earth!” take the praxis where ever you go. This will set a gaurd in your home or where ever you are.
Thank You OrthoRflctns. Doxa to Theo!
John D
Read Saint Seraphim’s response to Orthodox-worldly ideologues and their worldly ideologies…
A Letter to Thomas Merton, 1962 by Eugene [Fr. Seraphim] Rosehttp://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/merton.aspx
The purpose of these lectures so that we can be Orthodox by rising up against all false ideas …
The Orthodox Survival Course is a series of lectures by Father Seraphim Rose which you can obtain in video or text format (DOCX | MOBI). The title may be a misnomer because what it provides is a history of the world that explains our modern times. [Available @ Orthodox Wisdom Podcast] ‘Vital in understanding these difficult times is Fr Seraphim Rose’s “Orthodox Survival Course”, a rare and most valued Orthodox resource, …’ Fr. Seraphim taught this course in the 70′s at the Platina monastery…
from the course:
“…The purpose of these lectures, why we should be studying the development of modern mentality, is s that we might understand why the world is the way it is today, what has gone into forming our own minds; so that we can be Orthodox by rising up against all false ideas, all false formation in our minds, and seeing what is the true Orthodox mentality and the true Orthodox teaching…”
The Orthodox Survival Course
orthodoxaustralia.org
http://orthodoxaustralia.org ? uploads ? 2015/06
PDF248 pages [Audio @ Orthodox Wisdom Podcast]
This course is to give one a perspective on those things which are happening in the world today which we come across in our daily experience, …
Russia’s Catacomb Saints | PDF – Scribd
https://www.scribd.com/document/127042465/Russia-s-Catacomb-Saints
The Saint of the Prisons – Notes on the life of Valeriu Gafencu
The Saint Of The Prisons ROOSH MARCH 2, 2022
The Saint Of The Prisons by Monk Moise chronicles the lives of devout Orthodox Christians who were imprisoned during Romanian communism, including Valeriu Gafencu, who is commonly seen as a saint thanks to his extraordinary piety and ability to endure harsh sufferings. Many of the Christians who maintained their faith in Romanian prisons were either affiliated or sympathetic to Corneliu Zelea’s Iron Guard, which shows the fruits of his movement for helping to save the souls of men. This book is eye-opening in relating an experience that wasn’t far from our times, which we may have to face ourselves either in intensity or form. Below are my favorite excerpts.
Saint Valeru Gafencu; Glorified by the Church +2009
Thanks for sounding the alarm, Brother Nelson:
“Parishioners remain woefully unprepared in defending their faith and families against intimidation, coercion, cancel culture, mandates, and the coming persecution.”
Brace for impact.
“The Church is in danger of repeating the same mistakes Russian Orthodox made during the communist revolution. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote of how Christians “burned in the camps” in shame for not resisting when they had the chance.”
Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it, those who do, repeat it anyway.
As I said before—and it bears repeating—there are three types of clergy: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
First the “Good.” These are those who never bowed to Caesar, never took the jab, never promoted it, never forced masking (or repented). This is a short list in my mind, but, so what, historically, it has been the “minority report” that was correct.
Then we have the “Bad.” These men are evil and make no mistake, whatever you see of them, it is the tip of the iceberg. They are the “Neo-Nicolaitans[1]”, some things never go away, just reemerge in a new generation; nothing new under the sun; I have seen enough evidence to know it as fact.
While we are not to judge, God calls us all to be fruit inspectors, especially when our welfare, the welfare of the Church, and the welfare of our children is at stake. Make no mistake; what you do not know can kill you both in the now and the world to come. This group—I believe—is larger than the first, but way smaller than the third. But, they are the ones in power, yeah, go figure; and this is why their silence is deafening and will continue to be. Now that the GOA (Gomorrah Orthodox America) employs bouncers to keep their priests in line (seen it first hand), I can do nothing but pity the poor priests who are just running out the clock to retirement (the ugly). What a dilemma to be in.
The third group—the Ugly—are the majority who are just caught in the middle. Most of the time they live in the twilight zone not knowing what to think, what to do, or what their response should be. These are in hell, because, the things they are asked to do and the things they see offend the inner witness; they are inwardly conflicted big time; and they usually just play the game according to the rules handed them claiming to be “just doing their job”. But make no mistake Mr. Priest, God put you in the pilots chair and it makes no difference what the man in the (ivory) tower tells you to do, if it endangers the flock (passengers), you will be held accountable in the end. A shepherd is called to give his life—and his reputation, his retirement, his security, his job—if the situation calls for it. How do you sleep with yourself? The future of the Church will be principled men, with a backbone like a telephone pole. In extraordinary times, it calls for extraordinary courage. When you find courage, you throw caution to the wind and do the rite thing not matter the cost.
“The Just (courageous) will live by faith.”
[1] See: https://renner.org/article/who-were-the-nicolaitans-and-what-was-their-doctrine-and-deeds/
Operative paragraph: “According to the writings of the Early Church leaders, Nicolas taught a doctrine of compromise, implying that total separation between Christianity and the practice of occult paganism was not essential. From Early Church records, it seems apparent that this Nicolas of Antioch was so immersed in occultism, Judaism, and Christianity that he had a stomach for all of it”
Greetings John Lee,
Great feedback. I hope my letter will be received by clergy in the manner that it was written: a plea to call us to courage. One of the sources that inspired me was Rod Dreher’s Live Not By Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents. In it, he sates separated the complicit from the courageous in the face of communist tyranny was a prepared laity by an awake clergy. We are neither, and that makes us Orthodox ripe for slipping into the apostasy of complicity. I hope you’ll share the letter and your input with everyone you know, and send it to your hierarchs too. Please forward me the responses you receive. You never know how God may use you to rouse His Church out of its slumber.
We need all hands on deck. They have already gotten to the youth here, and next is a generation of young adults all getting these crazy surgeries and it will be extremely harmful to them. Please church, the sarcasm isn’t the way to fix it. It just hurts even more.
Greetings A Christopher,
Yes, it is possible to get this letter into more hands at the top. I have sent out several hardcopies in handwritten addressed envelopes, as you suggested.
Join me and others by…1) first forwarding the letter to priests, deacons and parishioners you know, and those in your area, 2) sending a hard copy to the hierarchs running your archdiocese, 3) or a one page respectfully worded letter stating why you are sending them a link to this letter, 4) send this letter to Orthodox organizations that collaborate, such as Ancient Faith Ministries, Patristic Faith, OrthoNews, etc.
In your one page letter, you could mention (very briefly) your own concerns about the mRNA elephant aspect. Feel free to email me, address is at bottom of letter.
We added the PDF version of the letter in case anyone wants to download it and email it, as opposed to sharing the article. Whatever works to get the word out!
Of course, you are correct. But your cri de coeur will go unheeded and ignored.
The psychologist Rollo May reportedly said, “The opposite of courage is not cowardice; it is conformity.” As a longtime practicing Orthodox Christian, an observer of the clergy over the past three years, and an occasional contributor to this site, I can say that most clergy are ALL IN on conformity, along with the rest of society. “Covid” was the stress test; the clergy showed their true colors through that.
My family and I have sought out and supported the two Orthodox priests in our state who rejected Covidism and who also have remained patristic on these other insane issues. And that is about all anyone can do.
CSJ, You nailed it. Wish you hadn’t because I remember a clear time when clerics, laity, too, had spines of steel. We got comfortable and soft and seduced to trust the “experts” way more than they deserved. There wasn’t one cleric in my area that rejected covidcon, and now woke is in full motion. Another con. We didn’t fight back against the gvt telling us we couldn’t have services, we were limited to the amount of people who could worship at any one time, we had to sign up to get a spot, and we were told to mask up to worship. No kissing icons. We didn’t fight back, and how long until a gvt tells us we have accept trans as clerics, amongst other things. I know already of three Orthodox who have transitioned. Covidcon was the testing ground. Lord have mercy.
You might want to move to Russia.
Yeah right — because there are no such things as compliance or cowardice in Russia. No thanks. I have two tiny but great patristic parishes in my state, which I attend and support and which is more than most Orthodox on the planet currently have.
I think it’s great, but (too?) late. I know plenty of parishes who aren’t ignorant, nor even non-participants. They are promoters of the ‘love’ agenda. I was part of a parish with active BLM supporters. I have Orthodox family members who support transgendering. It’s going to take some Davidian courage and know-how to wake up our own churches, let alone America. We face some difficult choices real soon.
Hear you loud and clear, Just Kate. When we have sown to the wind for so long, there will be no denying reaping the whirlwind that’s coming and is already here. It’s way to late to pray for crop failure now. All the chickens are coming home to roost.
When it all burns down some of us will be here to put it back together. Every forest needs a good burn sometimes to get the dead-trees-standing out of the way so another generation will come back from the roots. And the new generation is already there, but in the grass roots.
Just Kate,
That there are Orthodox parishes actively participating in the rainbow religion was one the primary reasons I penned this letter. Thanks for telling the truth. Yep, it’s simply shocking at just how poorly so many of our hierarchs are policing their parishes, but it also points to the seductive ease with which the rainbow elephant has taken up residence within our ranks by turning the blind eye of convenience and people pleasing. Such is the silent but deadly nature of apostasy. I urge you to send this open letter to your hierarchs, nevertheless. You never know how God may use the Just Kate’s to call His Church to repentance and renewal.
Great article. I wish I could say that what needs to be addressed will be, but the Church of Nice is creeping in. The kids in the majority of public schools spend more time with the perverts with the agenda than they do with their parents. They spend more time in the enemy’s camp than they do in church. Fact. Hard to compete. Then once they go to college? All bets are off. Is this an impossible battle to win? No. Nothing new under Heaven. Get your kids out of public school. Ditch the apps. Parents, be the influence in your kids’ lives. Remind the clergy that the agenda isn’t going away, and the Church of Nice cannot be entertained. Jesus is coming.
PS Ancient Faith, although lovely with many nice programs, was a promoter of the Covid vaccines early on. I deleted that app in January 2021 after an interview with an Orthodox physician assuring the Orthodox it was ok to get injected. Go listen. Kurt had some poignant comments. Two years later, we see the destruction of these vaccines, and now everyone knows someone who has either died or is facing serious health issues.
That Ancient Faith program was so troubling, we published two responses to it – one from a doctor and one from an RN / medical researcher.
https://orthodoxreflections.com/answering-afr-on-covid-and-the-vaccines-with-fr-john-parker-and-dr-ryan-sampson-nash/
https://orthodoxreflections.com/the-aborted-bioethics-of-ancient-faith-radios-fr-john-parker-dr-ryan-sampson-nash/
We even uncovered what we believe to be a conflict of interest for AFR in regards to Pfizer:
https://orthodoxreflections.com/does-ancient-faith-radio-have-a-vaccine-conflict-of-interest/
AF is nothing more than shills for the vaccine agenda. Shame on them for leading people to a potentially lethal cliff and calling it Orthodoxy and our Christian duty. Way to go. At the very least, we are seeing who stands for what. I’ll never get over the clerics that bent the knee to the alter of science. Our churches were closed, but we could go to a big box store, get an abortion, and buy weed, all in the same day too, but we couldn’t go to church. Is it any wonder that the WOKE agenda blossomed and flourished amongst all this insanity? People better wake up fast because harder choices are coming our way. Rant over.
Maria,
I sent this article to Ancient Faith Ministries CEO because their platform could play a pivotal role in educating and mobilizing the faithful nationwide. I sincerely hope she will contact me, maybe invite me on one of their podcasts to start a conversation that is long overdue.
Excellent article! I sincerely pray that this article makes it to every Chancellor, Bishop, and Metropolitan with authority in this country and that they read the words it contains! May God grant them true strength and courage through the Holy Spirit to address these issues publicly. The flocks need to hear their shepards.
Digital Warrior,
I sent hard copies to several Bishops, Metropolitans with the same intent you express here. Their prayers, instruction and ACTION are so very much needed. May the Church of the saints, martyrs and confessors be found faithful at such a time as this.
Yes, PLEASE “Call Us to Courage.”
Greetings Gail,
I mailed hard copies of this letter to several American shepherds. If you have suggestions, please email me as I may have missed some.
This article is an accurate, concise and excellent description of the times in which we live and the tepid, almost clueless response of American Orthodoxy to it thus far.
I strongly disagree with the message of the accompanying illustration, to wit: depicting the Statue of Liberty (symbol of the Novus Ordo Seclorum) awakening the sleeping Church is just plain wrong. The Novus Ordo Seclorum created the conditions allowing the current demonic, neo paganism to both arise and thrive. An accurate Orthodox illustration would have depicted an American Saint instead of ‘lady Liberty’. I propose Blessed Seraphim Rose, whose icon conveys his admonition that “…It’s later than you think”.
Christ is Ascended! From Earth to Heaven!
Monk Luke,
Thank you for your feedback on the political cartoon I made. It was originally made for a non-Orthodox audience and more political purpose, but I chose to include because it quickly conveys the urgency of the political and pagan attacks on our freedoms, including the Church. But I value your point, an American saint would be more fitting for Orthodox Reflections. Thank you,
Monk Luke
We adore his Ascension❗
As far as I can tell this paper is the only siren call to action in the American Orthodox world.
The Orthodox of America seem to have no idea of what’s about to hit them. Though I believe many in the hierarchy really do know.
A minor political cartoon added to a very serious paper is such a non-issue. Does it really need to be addressed?
Thomas a sinner