Joseph "Stalin" Robinette Abiden (Whose Name in Greek is Apollyon), Jr. is scoring more Mussolinis than Trump

During Trump's presidency, the Washington Post has basically kept a track list of times that Trump was allegedly "fascist". The man has personality deficiencies, this is obvious. But he's hardly a Mussolini. That said, let's examine that particular Washington Post article and compare it to the incoming Biden regime. It certainly may not seem like a lot but there is much in there to be horrified about coming into the year of 2021 and beyond. Those who opposed Trump because they thought they thought they were opposing a fascist are soon to realize that they elected a Communist.

Hyper-Nationalism

Nationalism can take on many different forms. It can be rooted in the ethnos or in the class or in the citizenship. "The methodical suppression of all dissent and criticism by modern dictators is the result of their nervousness towards public opinion" (von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Liberty or Equality, 53). We can actually see a lot of this going on. Obviously, Biden's nationalism is more rooted in citizenship to the nation than Trump's nationalism, but it is still extant. Soon after "the Media" declared Biden the winner of the election, he actually created an "office of the 'President-elect'" taking full power, called for unity with his ideology, and demanded people accept him as 'President-elect' even in the midst of suspicious circumstances regarding how votes were being counted. For a dictatorship, you aren't allowed to ask relevant questions. This is an attack on "our sacred institutions". Notice how Biden even talks. There won't be room for dissenters in his regime. Alexandria Occasio-Cortez wants to keep lists of "Trump-enablers" and there are already "Trump Accountability" organizations emerging. This is a frightening system of collectivism Biden is bringing. This is to absorb people into one mind. "Obey!"

Militarism

There is a firm distinction between fighting a defensive war and fighting a war of expansion. Trump wanted to use the Department of Defense for exactly what it was meant. Defending. The past neo-conservative administrations, from Reagan-Obama, had used the Department of Defense for creating expansionist policies throughout Europe and the Middle East. Biden intends to bring a stronger militaristic style to the table. His foreign policy team will more than likely consist of Obama admin officials. Middle Easterners know they're screwed twice over with Biden. His intention is to establish "strength". Trump was "weak" is the typical neo-conservative anathema of a man who wants to end wars. Biden is "strong" because he'll assist the Kurds and continue the neo-conservative effort of building toward a forever global democracy.

Glorification of violence and readiness to use it in politics

While we haven't seen Biden using violence yet, you can bet there will be an "any means necessary" approach to establishing his will. If he people denounce his legitimacy, they will certainly be "re-educated". One wonders what that could mean. We already know his own attachment to neo-conservatism and his past history as Vice President serving under Obama while he contentedly allowed dropping bombs on weddings and the killings of innocent civilians. We also know his blood-lust to repeal the Hyde Amendment and work toward allowing late term abortion and cementing Roe v. Wade into law. If they can kill an infant, they can kill any one.

Fetishization of Youth

Biden's Vice President wants people as young as age 16 to be able to vote. What makes us think he'll disagree?

Leader cult

Immediately following the announcement of the media and even before the certification of any results, Biden established the "Office of the 'President-elect'". It's every bit as fictional as his election victory of course, but who's watching? He demands everyone submit to him, accept the results despite the legitimate questions concerning how ballots were counted and ignoring all of the voter fraud affidavits as the ballots are being counted. This kind of talk isn't allowed as it's the "attack on our sacred institutions". You'll notice how Biden-supporters are talking like this concerning politics. That to dissent from Biden, to criticize democracy, to throw skepticism at the way the process is being handled, it's either emanating from the "Narcissist in the White House" or it's a "direct attack on our sacred institutions". They have made these institutions "sacred" because that is their religion. Their god is the State. Their established cult is the State. Biden may not have the personality of Trump, but people love Biden. They adore his demeanor, they admire his triumphs, they adore the man he is. He is innocent and pure to them. But looks are deceiving.

Lost-golden-age-syndrome

For Trump it was the era of liberty. The era of freedom to dissent from the status quo. The freedom to question the things your government did. For Biden that era is the era of neo-conservativism. The era to form mass alliances and trade agreements on a global scale to usher in world-wide democracy. The era of bipartisanship in politics when Republicans and Democrats just went along with the plan.

Self-defined opposition

The Washington Post article looks at it from the racial perspective because fascism and nationalism to them are all about race. As addressed earlier, they can cover a wide variety of things. For Biden, the national ethos revolves around citizenship. His "self-defined opposition" are those who "attack our sacred institutions". Those "anti-democrats" who demand to know how the votes were counted. Those "racists" who voted for Trump. Those "dregs of society". "White supremacists" are what they are called sometimes. "Deplorables" is what Hillary Clinton called them. He defines his opposition as those who go against his vision of the State. Those who resist "Obama's legacy".

Mass mobilization and mass party

While Biden didn't form them, he has inherited a coalition of riotous freaks in the ranks of Black Lives Matter and Anti-fa who will do anything and will use force if necessary to silence opposition. Capitalists, "racists", "white supremacists", "offensive speech", etc. These groups endorse him. They go after Republicans and "enemies of the Democratic Party".

Hierarchical party structure and tendency to purge the disloyal

We'll have to ultimately see what Biden does to Black Lives Matter and Anti-fa. These will certainly be the ones that he purges first. Richard Spencer is actually onto something here though. We hear Biden even taking a different tone with the police. He knows it is the police he is going to command, not Black Lives Matter or Anti-fa.

Theatricality

We have seen the theatrics of his hiding in the basement and then going out and wearing a mask as he gathers people around the cause to fight the "pandemic of COVID-19". The theatrics are necessary to unite people to a cause. When people are united to a cause, they can be controlled much easier. We have seen it in small portions from Democratic governors. Lock yourself indoors, social distance, wear a mask, and if you don't, you're killing someone. Never mind the lack of evidence for it. This is so they can control you. It's all mere theatrics. "Look at how good I am! I wear a mask while riding a bicycle!"

Chaotic Administration

The Vice President he has declared him a rapist. He will have a man who shut down a large percentage of abortion clinics in Ohio in his administration, more than likely even as he wants to expand abortion rights. What more can be said?

Information and media policy

Biden decries information getting to the public. We saw it when the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop were released to the public. The media is far more supportive of Biden though than it is Trump. They agree with his policies so they go out of their way to protect him. The media is effectively a state media. When Obama was in the White House, Fox News was regularly disregarded from asking questions. Not the case with Trump who routinely fielded questions from all varieties of media sources. If Biden's cronies in the media shut down an article from The New York Post, what other sources will they shut down?

Consolidation of Power

One would have to see where this is going but we may never end up with resistance to the Neo-conservatism ever again. Not from the populist left or the populist right. Already, Biden supporters are calling for Trump accountability re-education camps and other means to re-educate former Trump supporters. That's third-world style garbage there. One wonders what Biden will do especially when he hasn't spoken against his supporters.

Pecuniary and institutional corruption

Well we know that Biden demanded the Ukrainian lawyer investigating his son get off the the case or he would revoke money from the Ukraine. We know that Biden does things he has investigated his political opponents for. We also know that he was deeply involved with the FBI investigation that explored "Russia collusion" and the false pretenses it was based on. He will use that power to go after his political opponents. That's why a former CIA official is calling on people questioning election results right now to be archived in a database.

Economic policy

While fascists are more belligerent, communists tend to institutionalize and take away private property. Biden will be on board with the globalist "Great Reset". "You will have no private property, and you will be happy." This is in direct contradiction to the Catholic social doctrine contained in Rerum Novarum. Private property is a fundamental right to happiness and the worker's earning. For Biden, all belongs to none. That is why he has never condemned his ally freaks in Black Lives Matter or Anti-fa.

Foreign policy

According to the Washington Post, fascists disdained alliances except with one another. That is the neo-conservative goal. Build democracies across the world. Form alliances with democracies. Promote democracies. Scorn all other forms of government as broken. If someone attacks democracy, they are attacking "our sacred institutions".

Cultural policy

Biden's cultural policy is antithetical to fascism but has similarities. I have heard it put recently, "the left wing and the right wing belong to the same bird". Biden's cultural policy is left-wing socialism. It is communism. It is the destruction of cultural monuments deemed "offensive". The erasure of history. He attempts to sway toward the Catholic Church as he professes to be one in spite of being an archheretick. He uses dupes in the Catholic Church to convince the religious-minded of the "good-nature" of his agenda. They've been erasing the liturgy so it seems fitting they'd coincide with his agenda.

Racial policy

The Washington Post looks at this because their understanding of communism and fascism are deficient. One can be a fascist and yet not a racist. One can be a communist and a racist. The goal is to move people toward a specific uniting front that makes them easier to control. Easier to herd together. Before you lock a fence around them and never let them escape. This is communism.

Biden and Camradala are already off to the most vicious start in terms of forming the most communist geo-political structure in world history. It might be even worse than Stalin. It might be worse than Stalin because Stalin had usurped power from the Tsar. This totalitarianism has been in the making from a "soft totalitarianism" for ages.

Catholic, orthodox, and the meaning of words

I was going to write a response to Mrs. Hoff's post about ecclesiology but instead, I think the better thing to do is write a response based on the meaning of words. It's rather confusing to understand her thought-process because for starters, so if I have misrepresented her at all, I would hope she would clarify. But what exactly does it mean to be Catholic and what exactly does it mean to be catholic? I certainly have no qualms about the ecclesiology laid out by Hooker. I mentioned in the comments how Hooker, had he been writing as a Catholic and making those statements about Anglicanism, would have actually been quite orthodox actually! To which, of course, it is protested by this Anglican blogger that she is Catholic.

"Hooker is writing as a Catholic because the Church of England is a Catholic Church. You are stuck in the narrow minded view that Rome alone has the power to do this. This is a view not accepted by anyone who is not a member of the Roman Church."

And herein comes to the question of definitions. I am not saying that Hooker is not a catholic or that the Church of England is not catholic. Indeed, as adherents to Nicaea, all Christians must affirm themselves as catholics or the creed makes no sense! What I am saying is that the Church of England is not Catholic. I touch on this as well in my post on the concept that comes up a lot in the East of being Orthodox in communion with Rome. The way that terms developed in the history of the Church, the Latins typically ended up using the term "Catholicos" to describe the Church and the Greeks used the term "Orthodox" to describe the Church. Until the schism, this implied no separation. Both referred to the same Church. When the schism occurred, so did confusion in terminology.

Even before the Great Schism of 1054 A.D., there was another schism between the monophysites and the Orthodox. Those Christians, ironically, also refer to themselves as Orthodox and are commonly known today as Oriental Orthodox. Of course both the Byzantine Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox have different conceptions of what Orthodoxy is and it is perhaps every bit as confusing and puzzling to them to see these terms used like this. I pointed out, when asked by two of the deacon's daughters as to whether I was "Orthodox Catholic or Roman Catholic", how meaningless the term "Orthodox Catholic" is. Because all Catholics are certainly orthodox! Or one would hope. A Roman Catholic is every much as "Orthodox in communion with Rome" as I am!

Another analogy I can draw is when my friend heard me refer to my godmother as the "Crazy Church Lady". He protested that there were quite a number of such crazy church ladies to which my godmother insisted, "I am THE Crazy Church Lady!" Certainly the presbytera is a crazy church lady, and so is my friend's wife, maybe one of our deaconesses, etc. But overall, THE Crazy Church Lady is only one person. She is The True Crazy Church Lady. Maybe there is an essence of craziness belonging in other crazy church ladies but there is only One Crazy Church Lady.

If we are asking precisely from an Anglican perspective of what catholicity implies, there does bear fundamental differences between itself and the Catholic Church. As a High Anglican, I never referred myself as a Protestant unless it was in the context of communicating with Catholics for the sake of clarity. Being that as the Anglican Church broke away from the Catholic Church in the protest movement against the Papacy, the term "Protestant" is definitionally sound and meaningful. But in the sense that a high view of the sacraments is held, that the Eucharist is central to the Church, sacrament over word, our conceptions of tradition and scripture, the Anglican Church is quite catholic. It is via media between Rome and Protestantism, in a sense. Another one I had heard as an Anglican was "Catholic but Reformed". In the same sense, Lutheranism is also quite catholic. But from a Catholic perspective, while these hold an essence of the Church in them by their baptism, they are not The Catholic Church.

So there we have the divergency of terminology. Of course the Church is "narrow-minded" on this issue. She has declared herself Holy Mother Church, the Church of all the Faithful. If she does not hold an exclusive view, then why bother with even claiming to be Holy Mother Church? But I wonder if Mrs. Hoff would hold herself to be Orthodox if she entered into conversation with an Orthodox Christian about this topic? Certainly, she is entitled to. But again, the terminology is what needs to be defined. An Anglican is not in communion with Constantinople, nor do they share unite with a monophysite church. Thus, it is understandable that an Orthodox Christian would also seek to clarify that what an Anglican is, is orthodox.

And in the sense in which Anglicanism deviates from Tradition, the Catholic and Orthodox alike would deem those deviations heresy and thus, both orthodox and catholic claims end up flattening. From a Protestant perspective, an Anglican is quite catholic, maybe even Catholic. But from the Catholic and Orthodox perspective, it depends on the sacraments, namely that of baptism. Anglican baptism is valid so Anglicans would be catholics by virtue of baptism but they are unconfirmed, so they cannot be Catholic. This is really just a semantic war that Mrs. Hoff is engaging in here.

My Spiritual Birthday

Earlier this month, I celebrated my carnal birthday. But man must be born again (John 3:3) in order to enter the Kingdom of God. I grew up non-denominational and then later attended an Evangelical Covenant Church so this verse was frequently wrested from its context as I grew up. We skipped right over to John 3:16 where Jesus explains those who believe in him shall not perish but have life everlasting. While this is true, believing him also means believing in the Church which is his body (Rom. 12:5) and the pillar and ground of truth (1 Tim. 3:15).

Baptism is the first pouring over of the Spiritual life. Jesus explains clearly to Nicodemos, unless one is born of water and Spirit, they cannot enter the Kingdom of God (John 3:5). I grew up believing that baptism was merely a "symbolic" act of obedience. Something you do to show God you love him because Jesus was baptized. But if Jesus didn't intend for baptism to save us, then why did he end up being baptized in the Jordan? Why was he incarnated? Why did he approach St. John the Baptist and have him baptize him? For many Evangelical Protestants, the baptism that is salvific is a "spiritual" baptism. The other baptism mentioned is just an additional work. Baptism has no salvific effect. This is not how Martin Luther or Thomas Cranmer taught. This is not how the ancient Church taught.

I began to realize how divorced the Evangelical Protestant movement was from the historic tradition of the Church midway through university. It was watered down to such an extent that it was almost deistic. Indeed, even my senior year in high school, I became so obsessed with Christian apologetics that I only thought of God as moving in creation but wondered where he went to after the Bible. I kept wondering where he was in history even as I embraced every single heresy imaginable and even explored the Occult when I was attending an Evangelical Covenant Church. After Arianism ultimately comes liberalism and then Satanism as I discussed once quite well with my Ruthenian deacon friend.

There is only one baptism for the remission of sins as The Nicene Creed teaches. St. Paul teaches that there is only one baptism (Eph. 4:4-6) so any reference to baptism in the New Testament can only be referring to this. If baptism is a mere spiritual act, and not an actual act of being poured or immersed in water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Spirit, then why did the Apostles call so many converts to be baptized following such a redundant format? Baptism ties one to the Passion of Christ by burying the Old Adam and it ties you to the Resurrection by raising you once more and washing you of the stain of original sin (Rom. 6:3-4). It is with this that St. Peter confidently testifies that "Baptism now saves you" (1 Pet. 3:21).

I realized that I needed to be baptized upon leaving Evangelicalism because I was not bound to the Church. I had not been bound to the Church as an Evangelical, and indeed, had I been baptized as an Evangelical, I still would not have been bound to the Church. A sacrament requires appropriate form, matter, and intent. It is true that the Catholic Church accepts Protestant baptisms as valid but only if they fulfill those things! Intent is lacking in Evangelicalism since the baptism's purpose is not to bring you into the Church but show that you've already been a member and are performing an additional work. I was baptized at mortuary, by a marine, in the Anglican Church in America. It was a High Anglican church with liturgically orthodox doctrines concerning the sacraments. My baptism brought me into the Church where I wasn't before. Today marks my sixth spiritual birthday.

East Meets West in Spiritual Warfare

St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite is well-known and rightly reverenced in the Byzantine rite for several things. Sadly, he is largely become known as more legalist as he writes upon the holy canons of the ancient faith. But he was also a compiler and an editor of sacred documents. St. Nicodemos also maintained many relations with Catholic theologians who approached him for counsel on Mt. Athos. Somehow, he would end up in possession of a spiritual work from one of these Catholic theologians. That spiritual work was The Spiritual Combat by Dom Lorenzo Scupoli.

Much thinking began to emerge in the 20th century specifically on the Orthodox Church which gave this illusion that there was somehow a super-mystical nature about Orthodoxy that hadn't existed in any religion before. Many westerners began thinking about Orthodoxy in thought that made it seem almost exotic. There are indeed certain characteristics that set Orthodoxy apart from Protestantism and Catholicism but it is not a sort of super-mystical entity that is far out. It's Christianity. It's not too much drastically different from Roman Catholicism either, especially as Catholicism exists in the Tridentine Mass. But theologians go crazy over these differences. There's a lot more differences with Protestantism. But the major difference is in spirituality.

It is in The Spiritual Combat where we see the differences between East and West in their given spiritualities sharply differentiated. This is not to say the differences are major. St. Nicodemos surely would have never given an adaptation to The Spiritual Combat if he thought that! However, there are peculiarities. The peculiarities are small, perhaps trivial, and definitely nuanced, but they exist nevertheless. One can see this in the liturgy and one can see this in the prayer. For the Church, the teaching is all in the lived tradition of the saints. It is better to focus on the prayers of the Church if one wants to assess doctrine. Thus it was that St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite began to revise and construct an adaptation of The Spiritual Combat which became known to Eastern readers as The Unseen Warfare. He included notes that emphasized and corrected the teaching of the Latin and brought it to a more Orthodox understanding of spirituality.

It is indisputable among both East and West that the goal of Christianity is union with God. Abbot Moses explained to St. John Cassian as such, "The goal of our profession is the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of heaven; but our immediate aim or target is purity of heart, without which it is impossible for any one to reach that goal" (Unseen Warfare, 17). Prayer was traditionally taught in the format of simplistic expressions that were summary expositions of the entire Gospel. St. John Cassian taught the prayer, "O God, make speed to save me; O Lord, make haste to help me." The prayer that became most widespread in the East was that known as the "Jesus prayer", "Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, have mercy on me the sinner". Such was meant to bring the Christian into a state of repose with God (22-23).

Repetitive prayers are also used in the West. The West though does not make the formulae automatic and perpetual. Though the characteristic element was to bring the soul to God, the West simply did not expound on unceasing prayer. That said, "even a in the 'work' of prayer itself a 'naked intent' of the will, a 'loving and stirring beholding' of God can suffice, without the aid of a repetitive monosyllable" (27-28). In the West, there became an increased understanding of the spiritual life as participation with Christ-crucified. We become entry into the life of God by being crucified with God. The East focuses more on the resurrection. In the Byzantine liturgy, we stand, Latins kneel. (30-31). The West has the "dark knight of the soul" whereas the East has a "bright sadness". The Eastern discipline is a purgatorial experience which leads to illumination. The Western discipline is an illumination that the spiritual eyes adjust to. (31-33). The Cross, even in the West, is ultimately "a way and not a goal" (33) but is necessary to die with Christ in order to be raised. The East certainly does not neglect this and though the Byzantine rite typically stands, we even fall all the way to the ground during the Lenten presanctified liturgies.

One concept brought up in the Byzantine rite a lot about the nature of spiritual perfection is theosis. Deification or divinization. As St. Athanasius famously states, "God became man so that men might become god." This goes strongly against such Reformed views on the nature of the atonement being a mere penal substitutionary act. "Christ died, I don't have to, I affirm him as the sacrificial Lamb." I was raised to believe this teaching growing up. I didn't even realize how theologically absurd the concept of a God demanding sacrifice to cover up sins actually was. It was just a commentary that complemented the teaching I understood at my non-denominational mega-church which held that the "Sinner's Prayer" was the start of the Christian life and the essence of justification. It was about "willing" one's way to Heaven. Which is why, understandably, I never was able to have the question answered sufficiently as to whether I was saved or not.

The Church teaching on theosis gave a whole new perspective to the meaning of the incarnation, the meaning of sacraments, the meaning of prayer, it all knit fully well together. Generally, this is neglected in the West but there is a strong presence of it. Ven. Thomas à Kempis, in his Imitation speaks of grace as "the proper mark of the elect, and pledge of eternal salvation, which elevates man from the things of the earth to the love of heavenly things, and from carnal makes him spiritual" (Bk. III, ch. 54). Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange states that "Sanctifying grace deifies our souls" (Christian Perfection and Contemplation, 240). The distinction between the mere nominalism I grew up understanding was that grace was taught as a moral concept. But rather, "grace is really and formally in the divine nature precisely in so far as it is divine, a participation n the Deity, in that which makes God God, in His intimate life" (55). St. Maria Maddalena de Pazzi describes that

"After narrating your entire charity, you narrated the eternal reward you wanted to give to every single creature, according to the fruit she received from the passion [silence] I believe that you failed to narrate to him and communicate to him the deification you wanted to give to our souls by means of your passion, because, once we respond to them, all your gifts, all your graces, make us gods by participation and, moreover, with the vestment of your Blood your passion is so powerful that we, as Jacob did, are able to deceive your eternal Father." (The Probation)

Due to the course taken in the West, much of the rich spiritual tradition had been lost even as Dom Lorenzo Scupoli writes The Spiritual Combat. Thus, there was great need to edit the text to bring it into harmony with Orthodox teaching. However, with the editing of the text by St. Nicodemos and then even further by St. Theophan the Recluse, we see that there is a great unity between Byzantine spirituality and Latin spirituality. When the ancient teachings are brought back into the Church and emphasized again, we see the fervent emphasis on supernatural grace. That the Christian life is ultimately one of supernatural essence which is carried out in both Western and Eastern expressions. 

 

 

How Beautiful is Our Lady?

The Ever-Virgin Mary, the Blessed Theotokos and Immaculate Queen of Heaven is the most beautiful created being in all of human history. It is no accident that St. Nectarios declares in his hymn,

More precious than the cherubim/ more glorious than the seraphim

Surpassing principalities/ dominions, thrones and powers

Rejoice, song of the cherubim/ Rejoice, hymn of the angels

Rejoice, ode of the seraphim/ and joy of the archangels

Rejoice, O peace; Rejoice, O joy/ and haven of salvation

O bridal chamber of the Word/ unfading, fragrant blossom

Rejoice, delight of paradise/ Rejoice, life everlasting

Rejoice, O holy tree of life/ and fount of immortality

St. Maximus the Confessor, in his hagiography of Our Lady describes the state of Our Lord's Nativity and her state afterward.

"[T]he sight and speech of the unwed and completely incorruptible mother was the height of grace and glory, and the character of her form was beyond all human understanding. Nothing of the customary pain and weakness of childbirth appeared in her, but she was brilliant and exceedingly beautiful after the birth, for she too was filled with the grace and light of the birth, and it was a wondrous thing for all who saw it." (The Life of the Virgin)

Theologians are in near unanimous agreement that the Nativity Our Lord was a return to the Edenic perfection of childbirth and not the state of the post-fall corruption. It would have had to have been for Our Lady remained spotless, preserved by the grace of God, being prepared for the merit and honor of becoming the glorious Theotokos. The incarnation awaited her consent. She fully submitted to the will of God. It is typical to refer to her as an "unwed bride" for while she was betrothed to St. Joseph, it was clear in seeing her as the Ark of Covenant, that he could not so much as even touch her for her holiness far exceeded that of his own. His role was strictly limited to that of a mere guardian of Our Lady until his reposal.

Being crowned the Queen of Heaven in her glorious assumption into Heaven, she was elevated beyond the glory of all the Angelic beings, Dominions, Cherubim, Seraphim. Lucifer was the rank of a Seraphim when he rebelled against God and is described as the most beautiful of all the angels before he rejected the salvation he had previously possessed. Our Lady was elevated even beyond his own prior ranking, to give perspective on the height of her beauty. Our Lady did not experience the deterioration of age. Being purified, she was not subjected to death. Neither was her Son. Indeed, they voluntarily gave themselves to death for the purpose of witnessing to the world the glorious power of God in resurrection and redemption.

I have described this wonderful look that the Crazy Church Lady gave to me a week before my reception into the Church. A radiant smile, brighter than the sun, face golden with the sunlight, pure love. I described it to a friend of mine in Arizona and he told me that I literally saw God. I know I did. But Our Lady's beauty nevertheless dwarfs even the beauty of the Crazy Church Lady. I'm certain that the Crazy Church Lady will receive a splendid award in Heaven one day, but Our Lady will always outrank even her.

I conclude with what St. Louis de Montfort said, "He who has not Mary as his Mother, cannot have God as his Father."

(2) Greek Byzantine orthodox chant: Agni Parthene/ Αγνή Παρθένε (Lyric Video) - YouTube

The Theology of Church Architecture

We didn't know whether this was a church
 or a Satanic temple but presbytera was hoping we
 mistakenly set foot in a Satanic temple, nevertheless.

With Bruvver Eccles's ongoing World Cup of Ugly Churches, I felt it would be appropriate to comment and expound on the theology of Church architecture a bit more. There's plenty of brutalist styles to select from and that can be easily condemned in today's world but for most people, architecture seems to be a superfluous stylistic influence, not something worth splitting the Church on, is it? But it is indeed highly important! Ever since Vatican II, the emphasis on prayer has been mitigated in the Church. The nouvelle théologie did much more to tear us up from our roots than it did to drive us back all in the dubiously ironic claim that it was "bringing us back to our roots". And Church architecture plays a significant role in the prayers of the Church.

Better at architecture than
any Scandinavian today.

Met. Hilarion Alfeyev gives a brief history and theological explanation of Church architecture in Orthodox Christianity, Volume III: The Architecture, Icons, and Music of the Orthodox Church. In it, he cites St. Maximus the Confessor,

God's holy Church is a symbol of man; its soul is the sanctuary; the sacred altar, the mind; and its body is the nave. A church is thus the image and likeness of God. The nave is used as the body should be used, for exemplifying practical moral philosophy; from the sanctuary the Church leads the way to natural contemplation spiritually as man does with his soul; and she embarks on mystical theology through the sacred altar. (The Mystagogia 4, in Architecture, Icons, and Music of the Orthodox Church, 34)

The measurements used derive from the human body which at the foundation, "lies the principle of harmonious correlation between parts and the whole as well as the interrelation of parts between themselves" (35). This principle was even used in pagan temples though it has its roots in Christianity from the Solomonic Temple of the era before the Babylonian Captivity.

The golden ratio is applied thoroughly in ancient Byzantine and Old Russian Church architecture. This is  when "the ratio of the larger portion to the smaller is equal to the sum of both parts of the segment to its larger section" (36-37). Such proportions "were a guarantee not only of [the church's] beauty and longevity but also of good acoustics....Primarily, the force of sound was amplified by arched openings and overhead coverings." (38)

Example of Naryshkin baroque.

When Tsar Peter the Great reigned, he oversaw a period that would westernize much of Russia. In doing this, Russian architects, influenced by Italian counterparts, adopted the Naryshkin baroque style. "Peter changed the meaning of traditional Russian measurements by coordinating them with English ones." (63) The sazhen became an English foot, which was shorter than the traditional sazhen in measurement by 1 percent. Only a house-builder who has to follow strict code nowadays can understand the mathematical consequences. Such would lead to an "absence of a correlation between the form of the structure and its liturgical purpose. Often a huge church would have a disproportionately small sanctuary, resulting in discomfort during divine services." (65)

Classical baroque. Note the assymetry.

Met. Hilarion Alfeyev only intends to focus on Church architecture from an Orthodox Christian perspective but his insight on this issue is valuable in considering the theology of Church architecture for the Church in its entirety. When such considerations are given to proportions, acoustics, comfort, and beauty, the question really becomes a matter of whether the architecture of the Church building points toward the splendor of Heaven or is it a purgatorial suffering that must be "put up with" on this Earth in order to attain eternal life. The comments from the envoys of St. Vladimir of Kiev regarding Hagia Sophia was that they didn't know whether they were in Heaven or still on Earth. The liturgy is certainly not a purgatorial suffering and how we frame our architecture is crucial to the experience of divine worship. Baroque architecture has its weaknesses but the architects have sought to preserve the beauty of the liturgy whereas the modernist brutalist architects are callous and have hearts hardened even more so than the lumps of concrete exposed in their designs. Let brutalism be anathema!

Kill the Term "Orthodox in Union with Rome"!

"Orthodox in Union with Rome" is a typical term that I hear at my Melkite parish a lot. It comes from an ecclesiastically elitist wing in the Church that asserts that the theology they embrace is not "Catholic" but diverts significantly from "Catholic" teachings. I typically don't go into East-West theological debates because they are both unfruitful and they aren't really based on meaningful discrepancies. I will be going over a translation of The Spiritual Combat by Dom Lorenzo Scupoli though in which I wanted to compare with St. Nicodemos and St. Theophan the Recluse's translation titled The Unseen Warfare. It's important to acknowledge how similar we are, not just how different.

I recently shared a lunch with a Roman Catholic parishioner at my parish where we discussed briefly East-West spirituality. The spirituality in the East concentrates significantly more on the doctrine of deification than the West. This is not because it's not Western dogma, but rather because the modernist movement in the Church, while feigning that they "were going back to the ancient teachings", stamped it out. It's all over in Western mysticism. The spirituality in the East also is more resurrectional while the West is concentrated on the crucifixion. It's why you see the Stations of the Cross in a Western rite parish. Whether it's Anglo-Catholic, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, or Western Rite Orthodox, the Stations of the Cross take a central role in the West.

But other than our minor differences spiritually - and they aren't much - the theology of Eastern Catholics isn't a theology distinct from Catholicism but a theology that exists within Catholicism alongside the West. Our theology focuses and concentrates more on the Patristics, ancient traditions, and first millenium of Christianity than the West. We concentrate far less on scholasticism. We aren't nearly as steeped in Greek philosophy as the West but there are certainly areas where Greek philosophy has been an influence such as in the writings of St. Dionysios the Aeropogite. But we share this theology with the West. The scholastic tradition is indebted to the East. St. Thomas Aquinas is greatly influenced by St. John of Damascus. Without St. John Chrysostom, the West lacks an exegetical school (well, I guess they had St. Jerome as well but St. John Chrysostom is far more influential).

From the East comes the West's legal theology and Church law. As difficult as that may be for many Easterners to admit, remember that it was actually the Justinian Code that played a significant role in developing the legal theories of the West concerning the Papacy and concerning monarchial theories of government. Eastern Catholics aren't "Orthodox in Union with Rome". Our theology is not "Orthodox". Our theology is the birth of Catholicism. It is the birth of the West. Our theology is Catholic in the fullest and most real sense of the term. I'm not "Orthodox in Union with Rome". I'm Greek Catholic. The theology I affirm is catholic. The theology the West affirms is orthodox.