One thing that always surprised me is how many more protestant converts I've encountered vs Roman Catholic converts to Orthodoxy so when I encounter one I always feel a special kinship.
I've been through a similar path.
Cradle Roman Catholic, Novus Ordo from around when I can remember. Left in my teens due to the general teenage rebelliousness, and being surrounded by nondenominational bapticostalists in the deep rural American South which caused an immense disdain for Christianity in general for many years.
Get politically "redpilled" early in 20s.
Started realizing there has to be a transcendent creator and more to reality than flat materialism. Go through the perennial-philosophe/neo-paganism in my early 20s realized much of that was atheism with more layers.
I study the history of music a bit in school and fall in love with early chant as the beauty is truly a productive of people who loved and believed in their God learn about Avignon and all the very inconvenient to Vatican I happenings of Roman Catholic history.
Tried going back to Rome via the trad->sede route as I get studied on the Vatican II things. Eventaully this nearly destroys my faith in God due to the insane sociopathic behavior in these fringe sects and the levels of gaslighting and Stockholm syndrome present as well as it being mostly an internet larp due to the trad movement being fractionally small in America. I remember screaming out for God one day that if His Church is real and it isn't all just a lie to please show me the way.
Less than 6 months later I meet someone through school (my now Godfather) who has just become Orthodox and he invites me to his chrismation. Start attending services at a small but beautiful OCA parish knowing nothing about Orthodoxy except what my grandma had said "they are us without the Pope."
Church is very small and they find out I have musical talent so I get asked to sing in the choir. After several months I can't quite put my finger on it but there is something very different about the theological focus in the hymns and service. Start studying to figure out if I'm imagining this or if there's a real difference here.
Read The Orthodox Church by Metropolitan Kallistos. Get to the part on St. Gregory Palamas and the Essence/Energies. Think that this actually makes more sense to reality than what I knew of Aquinan theology surprised this isn't what Rome teaches even though it's clearly based on pre schism saints. As well as the general Christus Victor focus as opposed to the penal and satisfaction views promenent in the west or as Fr. John Strickland would call it a "stavrocentric" (cross-centred) view.
This is especially apparent my first holy week.
Read the Triads and basically get one-shotted by the "Philosophy doesn't save" in the chapter title.
Study deeper many months pass into catechumenate read basically all of Blessed Seraphim of Platina and especially the "Orthodox Survival Course" it all completes the missing puzzle pieces of how modern western society ended up where it is currently. Eventually encounter the work of the absolute "boogyman destroyer of Frankish lies" Fr. John Romanides. His work on the Frankish history and on St. Augustine's speculative theology as well as how true theology is empirical and revealed really fills in the rest of the pieces.
While converting learn that my mother's side where the cradle Roman Catholic ancestry descends are from the latinized side of the Slovakian Carpathians Mountains and practiced many eastern style practices (crossing right to left, Pascha baskets, fasting before nativity, etc.) Grandma approves of my conversion and remembers visiting Orthodox churches when she was a young girl as she grew up in the Pennsylvania Coal region where nearly every town is like the Carpathian Mountains were dropped into the Eastern US. There's almost always an ethnic Roman Catholic parish, a uniate one (Ukrainian or Ruthenian) and Orthodox many which exist when St. Alexis Toth led his ministry to his people to return from the subjugated dhimmitude they suffered under the Catholic European powers.
Through very providential happenings both my father who was never Christian of any kind and mother (I never thought this would happen) both convert.
I feel similar regarding your experiences with the Tradcath community. There are a lot of mental constructions and endless cycles of unproductive discourse that are very unhelpful.
It is really a blessing that you were able to inquire into Orthodoxy with a neutral attitude and with an open mind. I struggled with this because of the anti-Orthodox polemics that have become common in our age.
Agree with "can't put my finger on it, but something different" about Orthodox hymns vs Roman Catholic ones.
Yes, focus on Christ as a "penal sacrifice" is sadly so common in the west compared to the Resurrection as trampling down death by death.
I am so glad to hear that you benefited from Fr Seraphim's writing, and some of my friends including me think that he is a saint.
Absolutely amazing to hear the providence of your history with the Carpatho-Rusian Christians.
I don't think there was a single Church Father who taught palamism.
Also, if in your becoming eastern "orthodox", you had to completely reject the theology of (one of) the greatest Church Father(s), St Augustine, whose theology was approved by the pre-schism Popes and Councils, and was THE THEOLOGY of the pre-schism western Church, what better sign do you need that you have departed from the 1st millenium Church?
Do more reading of the Desert Fathers, the Cappadocians, St. Maximos, and St. Dionysius. It's all there St. Gregory is in continuity. St. Augustine isn't even in continuity with the Cappadocians on Trinitarian doctrine. The Frankish church innovated based on his musings and it led to the schism. It's not complicated.
I've read several writings from these Fathers, and especially St Dionysius and the Cappadocians clearly contradict palamism.
As I said, the pre-schism church approved the theology of St Augustine. If your position was correct (and it clearly isn't), then the schism would already materially exist from the time of St Augustine, and would be only formalized in 1054.
This position is untenable and completely destroys the notion of a unified 1st millenium church, and makes a mockery of the declaration of the 5th ecumenical council, which made a list of Fathers, including both the Cappadocians and St Augustine, and declared that "we follow these Fathers in all ways".
Read in proper context or consumed papal quote mines? Because there's a key difference.
St. Augustine's trinitarian theology is not what the 5th council upheld as his musings in On the Trinity contradict Constantinople I and the Monarchia of the Father as defined by the Cappadocian Fathers at that council in their combat against the Arians and Eunomians. Blessed Augustine is used at Constantinople II to uphold the practice of post mortum condemnations of those unrepentant in their lifetime as Origen or Alexandria was condemned in this way at Constantinople II.
We do see a unified church until the Carolingian Franks changed the theology starting in the 800s and this causes the conflict with St. Photios later in the century eventually leading to a rebuke of the innovations (such as altering the creed) at Constantinople IV/8th ecumenical council in 879 which the Pope via legates agrees to at the time. Eventually Rome is captured by the Franks politically and the theology is changed the filioque is added to the creed by the captured papact and later the dogmas on procession of the Holy Spirit are innovated at Lyons and Florence. Later there is a "switchero" performed by the post schism Roman church where they claim the Nicolatian robber council of 869 is the Ecumenical one no doubt because someone realize the condemnation of adding to the creed didn't bode well with the later Frankish myth believed at the time that the filioque was always in the creed and the "Greeks" took it out.
Read the Philokalia hesychasm is throughout. "Palamism" doesn't exist it's the continued Neptic spiritual practice of the church. Even some post schism Catholic groups such as the Carthusians kept a memory of the original desert teachings on stillness as passed from St. John Cassian and St. Benedict of Nursia and tried to revive this amongst the innovative ecstatic practices of later Roman Catholic orders.
Thomistic Absolute Divine Simplicity destroys the Trinity and makes mockery of the faith. You need the Essence / Energies distinction. Also if this is heresy why does Rome allow the uniates to venerate St. Gregory Palamas on the Second Sunday of Great Lent?
What exactly do the Roman Catholics commune in their Eucharist?
Created matter?
Then you aren't communing of God.
Uncreated matter?
So by later Roman Catholic theology you are consuming the divine essence?
Nothing in the Trinitarian theology of St Augustine contradicts anything defined by the First Council of Constantinople. And if by "monarchia" you mean the eastern "orthodox" teaching that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, without any mediation of the Son, then no, the Cappadocians do not teach that. On the contrary, both St Basil and St Gregory of Nyssa say, that the Son is the CAUSE of the Holy Spirit.
And can you please make up your mind about who supposedly "invented" the filioque? Because one time you say it was St Augustine. At another time the Franks. Then again the Council of Lyon. And then the Council of Florence. The truth is of course that the filioque was invented neither at Florence or Lyon, nor by the Franks or St Augustine, but is the doctrine taught in Scripture and by the close to unanimous consent of the Fathers.
If you think that any Church Father taught palamism, then PROVE it. Give me the exact quote, where any Church Father teaches what Gregory Palamas taught, that is that there is a real distinction in God between his essence and his uncreated attributes or energies, and that these energies can be perceived by our bodily senses.
You answered none of the questions to your system posed or why your uniates venerate a supposed heretic according to you.
I said the Franks forced the Pope to change the creed once they got one of their henchmen in the bishops chair not that they invented it. Supposedly Arians in Spain originally invented it and those that were not Arian tried to reappropriate it at the Council in Toledo
The change to the creed goes against the definitions at ecumenical councils such as Chalcedon that no one had the right to change it.
St. Augustine wasn't describing what Lyons and Florence dogmatized. He was describing temporal sending of the Spirit by the Son not the eternal dogmatic procession. Each person of the Trinity has their role Filioquism destroys this and inverts the Trinity.
For the quotes you can search essence energies in the Church fathers there are a plethora too long to post here.
It is evident you have not thought through the implications of the deficient theology you espouse. It is also evident you are fighting a fictional strawman of St. Gregory
Thank you for admitting you believe we cannot know God which is the case if one denies the Essence/Energies distinction. You repeat the heresies Akindynos and Barlaam.
How do you suppose we become divinized by God in the process of theosis or deification as it's known by the latins if God is pure transcendent essence beyond man?
What are you communing in your Eucharist? Created effect or divine energy?
Creatures don't save.
We are done here go in peace enjoy your deist papal religion where you cannot know God.
Even though my journey is very different from yours, many elements ring true and relatable to me as well. Glory to the Lord! May the Lord lead Asia to Orthodoxy!
God bless your journey! Since the last time you posted, I have made the jump from orthodox inquiring to catechumenate. Glory be to God!
Can you elaborate more on the bit about how the Philokalia goes against the medieval western practice of "proactively imagining visual images in one’s mind during prayers in order to ecstatically embody the pains and joys of the saints"? I am formerly a Protestant Christian, and this is a practice that I have inadvertently been doing for years
When doing your task [of prayer], you see light or fire outside [yourself] or in, or a face—of Christ, for example, or an Angel, or someone else’s—do not accept it, in order not to suffer damage. And yourself do not make images; and those that come on their own—do not accept them, and do not allow your mind to keep them. (Philokalia 5:233)
[N]ever accept if you see anything physical or spiritual, inside yourself or out, even if it is an image of Christ, or an Angel, or some Saint, or a light appears to you and shows in your mind. The mind itself has a natural power of imagination and can easily create a phantom image of a thing, which it desires… In the same way, a recollection of good or bad things usually shows their images in the mind and leads the mind to imagination… (Philokalia 5:224)
In my own words:
I was taught that in prayer, we try to concentrate on the words of the prayers and unite our minds with it. I read that we should not allow our minds to be distracted, wandering on other things including random thoughts and imaginings.
Thanks for sharing; a few questions if you have time. How did you know that your preference for Orthodoxy wasn’t merely a personal or aesthetic preference and that it was a recognition of a greater truth? Did the ROCOR priest who baptized you explain the baptism as a conditional baptism? How did you get comfortable picking the Russian side over the Greek side in the current schism?
(1) I am not the type of person who would stake my life and soul on core ideologies due to what I'd consider at the time arbitrary preferences. Since "Byzantine Catholicism" already exists, you can already kind of get Greco-Russian style religion in Roman Catholicism already. For me it was more about learning about the history of the Papacy, comparing it with the modern Roman Catholic Papal dogmas, and checking out whether that really held up to scrutiny.
(2) Unfortunately, I do not think that it is obvious that the Roman Catholics have a sacramentally valid baptism. I was taught in the past that some leniency was given to heterodox groups that possessed the proper form (manner of doing things) of baptism, but the modern Roman Catholics have mostly lost that too and do not baptize physically in the apostolic manner. (And I know this personally to be true about my own Roman Catholic initiation, which was not done in the way the Early Church would have done it.)
Relatedly, the Council of Florence clearly dogmatized a version of the Filioque that is unambiguously in contradiction with the teachings of Church Fathers like St. John of Damascus. To me (this is my own opinion) when Roman Catholics baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, they do not do so with the same understanding as was held by the Ancient Church.
There are very talented people who have discussed this topic in great detail who are better than I, like Fr. Peter Heers, who has written about this question extensively for those who are interested in learning more.
(3) As an Orthodox Christian in ROCOR, I was taught that the relationship with the Greeks is a fracture of brotherly relations, not a full blown schism like the East-West Schism. I was also taught that these types of controversies were not uncommon in the First Millennium Church, such as with the Meletian schism. In the Russian tradition we have quite a few people, including myself, who visit and attend services at Greek churches from time to time.
Regarding the issue itself, when I think about contemporary problems, I don't pick a side immediately but, if I am interested in knowing, I look at the material facts closely and see what is happening in history. For example, rather than looking at legal documents and abstract theories, I prefer to read about issues like churches being confiscated, or the number of bishops who approved versus disapproved, and what people say with their boots on the ground. To me, that kind of investigation is more productive.
I asked this already on X and I will ask it again - why does St John of Damascus, who ERRONEOUSLY claims that we do not say that the Holy Spirit is from the Son, trump numerous other Saints and councils, who DO SAY that the Holy Spirit is from the Son??
Is St John of Damascus somehow more authoritative than Sts Hilary, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Leo the Great, Gregory the Great, Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Epiphanius, and several others who DID SAY that the Holy Spirit is from the Son?
And while St John of Damascus was in material error regarding this question, he was not in a formal error, because in other places he plainly says that the Son has a role in the production of the Holy Spirit, which if not in words, at least in substance means the same as the filioque, and which teaching is contradicted by the eastern "orthodox" council of Blachernae, which contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers dogmatized for the "orthodox" church that the Spirit is produced by the Father ALONE, without any mediation of the Son.
You do know that I can see your previous posts, right? In the previous comment you said that "the Carolingian Franks CHANGED THE THEOLOGY starting in the 800s". Now you are claiming that they only forced the Pope to add the filioque into the creed, "not that they invented it".
In the previous post you wrote that "St. Augustine isn't even in continuity with the Cappadocians on Trinitarian doctrine". Now you are claiming that he didn't teach the filioque at all, but merely "temporal sending of the Spirit from the Son".
You have such a problem with lying, that you constantly contradict yourself. So, if you could tell me without contradicting what you position is - did St Augustine teach the filioque OR taught merely a temporal procession (both can'tbe true), then I will maybe bother responding to you. But until then I am losing my time with you.
I loved your synopsis of several years' journey. Thanks for sharing, and may our Church increasingly be able to offer its healing to Asians worldwide.
One thing I wondered was how you dealt with learning of Caesaropapism and the sordid affairs of the Byzantine empire as someone entering a Church whose bishops were products of the same machinations that polluted Rome's lineage. Is it less scandalizing for you because we don't put as much stock in any particular bishop as infallible?
I like how you've moved the dial away from condemning Roman Catholicism here. I think this is a really important point—loving our faith doesn't mean we have to pour scorn on others. Does it mean we have to change our faith to move closer to other ones? Imo, no. But we should be respectful, too. It's something I've tried to do in the articles covering my own conversion.
As a former Roman Catholic now Orthodox, I really appreciated this reflection. Definitely could sympathize with a lot of what you felt. Thank you.
Excellent Article!
One thing that always surprised me is how many more protestant converts I've encountered vs Roman Catholic converts to Orthodoxy so when I encounter one I always feel a special kinship.
I've been through a similar path.
Cradle Roman Catholic, Novus Ordo from around when I can remember. Left in my teens due to the general teenage rebelliousness, and being surrounded by nondenominational bapticostalists in the deep rural American South which caused an immense disdain for Christianity in general for many years.
Get politically "redpilled" early in 20s.
Started realizing there has to be a transcendent creator and more to reality than flat materialism. Go through the perennial-philosophe/neo-paganism in my early 20s realized much of that was atheism with more layers.
I study the history of music a bit in school and fall in love with early chant as the beauty is truly a productive of people who loved and believed in their God learn about Avignon and all the very inconvenient to Vatican I happenings of Roman Catholic history.
Tried going back to Rome via the trad->sede route as I get studied on the Vatican II things. Eventaully this nearly destroys my faith in God due to the insane sociopathic behavior in these fringe sects and the levels of gaslighting and Stockholm syndrome present as well as it being mostly an internet larp due to the trad movement being fractionally small in America. I remember screaming out for God one day that if His Church is real and it isn't all just a lie to please show me the way.
Less than 6 months later I meet someone through school (my now Godfather) who has just become Orthodox and he invites me to his chrismation. Start attending services at a small but beautiful OCA parish knowing nothing about Orthodoxy except what my grandma had said "they are us without the Pope."
Church is very small and they find out I have musical talent so I get asked to sing in the choir. After several months I can't quite put my finger on it but there is something very different about the theological focus in the hymns and service. Start studying to figure out if I'm imagining this or if there's a real difference here.
Read The Orthodox Church by Metropolitan Kallistos. Get to the part on St. Gregory Palamas and the Essence/Energies. Think that this actually makes more sense to reality than what I knew of Aquinan theology surprised this isn't what Rome teaches even though it's clearly based on pre schism saints. As well as the general Christus Victor focus as opposed to the penal and satisfaction views promenent in the west or as Fr. John Strickland would call it a "stavrocentric" (cross-centred) view.
This is especially apparent my first holy week.
Read the Triads and basically get one-shotted by the "Philosophy doesn't save" in the chapter title.
Study deeper many months pass into catechumenate read basically all of Blessed Seraphim of Platina and especially the "Orthodox Survival Course" it all completes the missing puzzle pieces of how modern western society ended up where it is currently. Eventually encounter the work of the absolute "boogyman destroyer of Frankish lies" Fr. John Romanides. His work on the Frankish history and on St. Augustine's speculative theology as well as how true theology is empirical and revealed really fills in the rest of the pieces.
While converting learn that my mother's side where the cradle Roman Catholic ancestry descends are from the latinized side of the Slovakian Carpathians Mountains and practiced many eastern style practices (crossing right to left, Pascha baskets, fasting before nativity, etc.) Grandma approves of my conversion and remembers visiting Orthodox churches when she was a young girl as she grew up in the Pennsylvania Coal region where nearly every town is like the Carpathian Mountains were dropped into the Eastern US. There's almost always an ethnic Roman Catholic parish, a uniate one (Ukrainian or Ruthenian) and Orthodox many which exist when St. Alexis Toth led his ministry to his people to return from the subjugated dhimmitude they suffered under the Catholic European powers.
Through very providential happenings both my father who was never Christian of any kind and mother (I never thought this would happen) both convert.
Glory to God!
I feel similar regarding your experiences with the Tradcath community. There are a lot of mental constructions and endless cycles of unproductive discourse that are very unhelpful.
It is really a blessing that you were able to inquire into Orthodoxy with a neutral attitude and with an open mind. I struggled with this because of the anti-Orthodox polemics that have become common in our age.
Agree with "can't put my finger on it, but something different" about Orthodox hymns vs Roman Catholic ones.
Yes, focus on Christ as a "penal sacrifice" is sadly so common in the west compared to the Resurrection as trampling down death by death.
I am so glad to hear that you benefited from Fr Seraphim's writing, and some of my friends including me think that he is a saint.
Absolutely amazing to hear the providence of your history with the Carpatho-Rusian Christians.
Best wishes!
I don't think there was a single Church Father who taught palamism.
Also, if in your becoming eastern "orthodox", you had to completely reject the theology of (one of) the greatest Church Father(s), St Augustine, whose theology was approved by the pre-schism Popes and Councils, and was THE THEOLOGY of the pre-schism western Church, what better sign do you need that you have departed from the 1st millenium Church?
Do more reading of the Desert Fathers, the Cappadocians, St. Maximos, and St. Dionysius. It's all there St. Gregory is in continuity. St. Augustine isn't even in continuity with the Cappadocians on Trinitarian doctrine. The Frankish church innovated based on his musings and it led to the schism. It's not complicated.
I've read several writings from these Fathers, and especially St Dionysius and the Cappadocians clearly contradict palamism.
As I said, the pre-schism church approved the theology of St Augustine. If your position was correct (and it clearly isn't), then the schism would already materially exist from the time of St Augustine, and would be only formalized in 1054.
This position is untenable and completely destroys the notion of a unified 1st millenium church, and makes a mockery of the declaration of the 5th ecumenical council, which made a list of Fathers, including both the Cappadocians and St Augustine, and declared that "we follow these Fathers in all ways".
Read in proper context or consumed papal quote mines? Because there's a key difference.
St. Augustine's trinitarian theology is not what the 5th council upheld as his musings in On the Trinity contradict Constantinople I and the Monarchia of the Father as defined by the Cappadocian Fathers at that council in their combat against the Arians and Eunomians. Blessed Augustine is used at Constantinople II to uphold the practice of post mortum condemnations of those unrepentant in their lifetime as Origen or Alexandria was condemned in this way at Constantinople II.
We do see a unified church until the Carolingian Franks changed the theology starting in the 800s and this causes the conflict with St. Photios later in the century eventually leading to a rebuke of the innovations (such as altering the creed) at Constantinople IV/8th ecumenical council in 879 which the Pope via legates agrees to at the time. Eventually Rome is captured by the Franks politically and the theology is changed the filioque is added to the creed by the captured papact and later the dogmas on procession of the Holy Spirit are innovated at Lyons and Florence. Later there is a "switchero" performed by the post schism Roman church where they claim the Nicolatian robber council of 869 is the Ecumenical one no doubt because someone realize the condemnation of adding to the creed didn't bode well with the later Frankish myth believed at the time that the filioque was always in the creed and the "Greeks" took it out.
Read the Philokalia hesychasm is throughout. "Palamism" doesn't exist it's the continued Neptic spiritual practice of the church. Even some post schism Catholic groups such as the Carthusians kept a memory of the original desert teachings on stillness as passed from St. John Cassian and St. Benedict of Nursia and tried to revive this amongst the innovative ecstatic practices of later Roman Catholic orders.
Thomistic Absolute Divine Simplicity destroys the Trinity and makes mockery of the faith. You need the Essence / Energies distinction. Also if this is heresy why does Rome allow the uniates to venerate St. Gregory Palamas on the Second Sunday of Great Lent?
What exactly do the Roman Catholics commune in their Eucharist?
Created matter?
Then you aren't communing of God.
Uncreated matter?
So by later Roman Catholic theology you are consuming the divine essence?
Nothing in the Trinitarian theology of St Augustine contradicts anything defined by the First Council of Constantinople. And if by "monarchia" you mean the eastern "orthodox" teaching that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, without any mediation of the Son, then no, the Cappadocians do not teach that. On the contrary, both St Basil and St Gregory of Nyssa say, that the Son is the CAUSE of the Holy Spirit.
And can you please make up your mind about who supposedly "invented" the filioque? Because one time you say it was St Augustine. At another time the Franks. Then again the Council of Lyon. And then the Council of Florence. The truth is of course that the filioque was invented neither at Florence or Lyon, nor by the Franks or St Augustine, but is the doctrine taught in Scripture and by the close to unanimous consent of the Fathers.
If you think that any Church Father taught palamism, then PROVE it. Give me the exact quote, where any Church Father teaches what Gregory Palamas taught, that is that there is a real distinction in God between his essence and his uncreated attributes or energies, and that these energies can be perceived by our bodily senses.
You answered none of the questions to your system posed or why your uniates venerate a supposed heretic according to you.
I said the Franks forced the Pope to change the creed once they got one of their henchmen in the bishops chair not that they invented it. Supposedly Arians in Spain originally invented it and those that were not Arian tried to reappropriate it at the Council in Toledo
The change to the creed goes against the definitions at ecumenical councils such as Chalcedon that no one had the right to change it.
St. Augustine wasn't describing what Lyons and Florence dogmatized. He was describing temporal sending of the Spirit by the Son not the eternal dogmatic procession. Each person of the Trinity has their role Filioquism destroys this and inverts the Trinity.
For the quotes you can search essence energies in the Church fathers there are a plethora too long to post here.
It is evident you have not thought through the implications of the deficient theology you espouse. It is also evident you are fighting a fictional strawman of St. Gregory
Thank you for admitting you believe we cannot know God which is the case if one denies the Essence/Energies distinction. You repeat the heresies Akindynos and Barlaam.
How do you suppose we become divinized by God in the process of theosis or deification as it's known by the latins if God is pure transcendent essence beyond man?
What are you communing in your Eucharist? Created effect or divine energy?
Creatures don't save.
We are done here go in peace enjoy your deist papal religion where you cannot know God.
Even though my journey is very different from yours, many elements ring true and relatable to me as well. Glory to the Lord! May the Lord lead Asia to Orthodoxy!
God bless your journey! Since the last time you posted, I have made the jump from orthodox inquiring to catechumenate. Glory be to God!
Can you elaborate more on the bit about how the Philokalia goes against the medieval western practice of "proactively imagining visual images in one’s mind during prayers in order to ecstatically embody the pains and joys of the saints"? I am formerly a Protestant Christian, and this is a practice that I have inadvertently been doing for years
Glory to God! Thank you and God bless, I hope that your catechumenate will be fruitful indeed!
Here is a very good article that summarizes everything about mental visualization in prayer. https://www.pravmir.com/article_545.html
Some short quotes:
When doing your task [of prayer], you see light or fire outside [yourself] or in, or a face—of Christ, for example, or an Angel, or someone else’s—do not accept it, in order not to suffer damage. And yourself do not make images; and those that come on their own—do not accept them, and do not allow your mind to keep them. (Philokalia 5:233)
[N]ever accept if you see anything physical or spiritual, inside yourself or out, even if it is an image of Christ, or an Angel, or some Saint, or a light appears to you and shows in your mind. The mind itself has a natural power of imagination and can easily create a phantom image of a thing, which it desires… In the same way, a recollection of good or bad things usually shows their images in the mind and leads the mind to imagination… (Philokalia 5:224)
In my own words:
I was taught that in prayer, we try to concentrate on the words of the prayers and unite our minds with it. I read that we should not allow our minds to be distracted, wandering on other things including random thoughts and imaginings.
I see i see; this is pretty radical news to me; Lord have mercy
Thanks!
Make sure to ask your priest, he can give you deeper advice for your personal situation!
You've very different experiences with Orthodox Catholics, cradle and western convert alike, than I.
Thanks for sharing; a few questions if you have time. How did you know that your preference for Orthodoxy wasn’t merely a personal or aesthetic preference and that it was a recognition of a greater truth? Did the ROCOR priest who baptized you explain the baptism as a conditional baptism? How did you get comfortable picking the Russian side over the Greek side in the current schism?
Thank you for reading.
(1) I am not the type of person who would stake my life and soul on core ideologies due to what I'd consider at the time arbitrary preferences. Since "Byzantine Catholicism" already exists, you can already kind of get Greco-Russian style religion in Roman Catholicism already. For me it was more about learning about the history of the Papacy, comparing it with the modern Roman Catholic Papal dogmas, and checking out whether that really held up to scrutiny.
(2) Unfortunately, I do not think that it is obvious that the Roman Catholics have a sacramentally valid baptism. I was taught in the past that some leniency was given to heterodox groups that possessed the proper form (manner of doing things) of baptism, but the modern Roman Catholics have mostly lost that too and do not baptize physically in the apostolic manner. (And I know this personally to be true about my own Roman Catholic initiation, which was not done in the way the Early Church would have done it.)
Relatedly, the Council of Florence clearly dogmatized a version of the Filioque that is unambiguously in contradiction with the teachings of Church Fathers like St. John of Damascus. To me (this is my own opinion) when Roman Catholics baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, they do not do so with the same understanding as was held by the Ancient Church.
There are very talented people who have discussed this topic in great detail who are better than I, like Fr. Peter Heers, who has written about this question extensively for those who are interested in learning more.
(3) As an Orthodox Christian in ROCOR, I was taught that the relationship with the Greeks is a fracture of brotherly relations, not a full blown schism like the East-West Schism. I was also taught that these types of controversies were not uncommon in the First Millennium Church, such as with the Meletian schism. In the Russian tradition we have quite a few people, including myself, who visit and attend services at Greek churches from time to time.
Regarding the issue itself, when I think about contemporary problems, I don't pick a side immediately but, if I am interested in knowing, I look at the material facts closely and see what is happening in history. For example, rather than looking at legal documents and abstract theories, I prefer to read about issues like churches being confiscated, or the number of bishops who approved versus disapproved, and what people say with their boots on the ground. To me, that kind of investigation is more productive.
Best wishes to you.
Thanks again for this thoughtful reply!
I asked this already on X and I will ask it again - why does St John of Damascus, who ERRONEOUSLY claims that we do not say that the Holy Spirit is from the Son, trump numerous other Saints and councils, who DO SAY that the Holy Spirit is from the Son??
Is St John of Damascus somehow more authoritative than Sts Hilary, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Leo the Great, Gregory the Great, Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Epiphanius, and several others who DID SAY that the Holy Spirit is from the Son?
And while St John of Damascus was in material error regarding this question, he was not in a formal error, because in other places he plainly says that the Son has a role in the production of the Holy Spirit, which if not in words, at least in substance means the same as the filioque, and which teaching is contradicted by the eastern "orthodox" council of Blachernae, which contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers dogmatized for the "orthodox" church that the Spirit is produced by the Father ALONE, without any mediation of the Son.
You do know that I can see your previous posts, right? In the previous comment you said that "the Carolingian Franks CHANGED THE THEOLOGY starting in the 800s". Now you are claiming that they only forced the Pope to add the filioque into the creed, "not that they invented it".
In the previous post you wrote that "St. Augustine isn't even in continuity with the Cappadocians on Trinitarian doctrine". Now you are claiming that he didn't teach the filioque at all, but merely "temporal sending of the Spirit from the Son".
You have such a problem with lying, that you constantly contradict yourself. So, if you could tell me without contradicting what you position is - did St Augustine teach the filioque OR taught merely a temporal procession (both can'tbe true), then I will maybe bother responding to you. But until then I am losing my time with you.
I loved your synopsis of several years' journey. Thanks for sharing, and may our Church increasingly be able to offer its healing to Asians worldwide.
One thing I wondered was how you dealt with learning of Caesaropapism and the sordid affairs of the Byzantine empire as someone entering a Church whose bishops were products of the same machinations that polluted Rome's lineage. Is it less scandalizing for you because we don't put as much stock in any particular bishop as infallible?
I like how you've moved the dial away from condemning Roman Catholicism here. I think this is a really important point—loving our faith doesn't mean we have to pour scorn on others. Does it mean we have to change our faith to move closer to other ones? Imo, no. But we should be respectful, too. It's something I've tried to do in the articles covering my own conversion.