The Rejection of the Sermon of the Uniate Kuntsevich in Byelorussia
Ilya Repin
1893
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I’d advise Anglicans to attend to the history of Uniatism… they wouldn’t accept the offer of the Pope of Rome if they knew it!
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Today, the papists stepped up their poaching campaign against Anglicans. Indeed, it appears that they’re well on the way to creating a new Uniate rite… shall they call it the Anglican Rite, or, shall they be cutesy and call it the Westminster Rite or Rite of Lambeth, as they do in some of their rites that ape us? Look at their so-called “Byzantine Rite”… what a ridiculous usage! The word has a 16th-century German provenance and isn’t ours at all… they didn’t want to call it the “New Roman Rite”, for that’s what Romaios means! Let’s take a look at a small article and a comment on it. Then, we can throw the crapola on the table and sift through it to find what’s useful to us! Of course, there’s much more to it than meets the eye initially, so, the usual windbags such as Orr and “John” are going to miss the point utterly.
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Pope Announces Plans for Anglicans to Convert En Masse
The Vatican’s announced that Pope Benedict’s setting up special provision for Anglicans, including married clergy, who want to convert to Rome together, preserving aspects of Anglican liturgy. They’ll be given their own pastoral supervision, according to this press release from the Vatican:
In this Apostolic Constitution, the Holy Father has introduced a canonical structure that provides for such corporate reunion by establishing Personal Ordinariates which will allow former Anglicans to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony.
Jackie Bruchi
20 October 2009
Matt, we’ll only see how big it is over time, but as someone said above, this changes everything. I’ve read the statement from Forward in Faith, now, [I’m] waiting to hear what ACNA has to say. How will this affect the Anglican-Orthodox ecumenical relationship? What are the views of the evangelicals here on SFiF concerning this? What about the Anglo-Catholics?
Bob+ (a pseudonym, obviously)
20 October 2009
Stand Firm: Traditional Anglicanism in America
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This affects not only relations between Papists and Anglicans, it impinges upon those between Orthodox and Anglicans (as Bob+ pointed up) and influences those between Orthodox and Papists as well. The Papists haven’t changed their spots… not one jot or tittle’s been altered. The central thesis of their heresy remains inviolate:
If you wish to consider yourself truly Christian, you must be in communion with the Pope of Rome, who is the Visible Head of the Church on earth. He has immediate jurisdiction over all other bishops, and is infallible in all statements concerning faith and morals.
This present announcement merely brings the above into clearer focus. Indeed, it’s obvious why the papists engage in “ecumenical” dialogue. They think that if they speak slowly enough and loudly enough, all of us poor and benighted schismatics and heretics (in their terms, obviously) shall come to our senses and become nice little Uniates… all waiting for the next pearl of wisdom to drop from the Pope of Rome’s mouth.
WHAT UTTER AND NAUSEATINGLY UNPLEASANT RUBBISH.
This sinks a harpoon into “dialogue” with the papists, to be sure. Certainly, there are always going to be those who champion such, but they’re either quasi-papists (whom we should send off to their true home in short order) or bilious academics, who wish to waste the money of the faithful on “conferences”, “seminars”, and “workshops”… we should end all such blowsy (and costly) wind-fests immediately… there are more pressing items and emergencies that we must spend our money upon. In our case, in Orthodoxy, it also points up those who truly don’t believe that the Church is One… do mark down that JP and Hatfield signed a pact with Anglicans, so, this news from Rome shan’t affect them… they don’t hold what the Church does, in any case.
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Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556)… a hero to “traditionalist Anglicans”. Don’t forget… he rammed through radical Proddie notions on the Eucharist, clerical celibacy, and the veneration of saints. Furthermore, he was a furious iconoclast. JP and Hatfield signed an accord with those who have such as an idol. FOR SHAME!
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This news shows even the slow learners that the Pope of Rome is bent upon aggrandisement… they hope that they can poach a few thousand more souls this way. “You can keep your externals! You can still call yourself Anglicans!” Of course, it doesn’t mean a thing… much like the Uniates running about saying, “We’re Orthodox in Union with Rome!” In the end, it all comes out to the same thing… recognise the Pope of Rome as Christ’s Substitute on Earth (for that’s what Vicarius Christi means, folks), and we’ll “allow” you to keep your traditions… for the time being, at least. The history of Uniatism doesn’t augur well for the long-term… I’d advise any Anglican considering such to look at this history and make up their own mind. I doubt that many would “convert” to papism with such knowledge in hand! This is nothing but the tired and old verbiage tied up in a fancy new package with a different bow. Papistry is papistry, and Christianity is Christianity. The former’s homolatry; the latter’s true worship.
It’ll be interesting to watch the Anglican response. Based on my experience with Anglicans, it’ll NOT be Anglo-Catholics who shall be most tempted by this offer. Rather, it’ll be Evangelical Anglicans… the same set that formally-converts to Orthodoxy. It won’t affect those in the so-called Broad Church faction… they accept the status quo in the TEC and the C of E, there ARE those who believe in modernism and all of its pomps… just as there are those who bow before papistry and all of its observances. The Anglo-Catholics are really a set of Proddie Uniates (do SVS and JP share their presuppositions… an interesting question, wot?), that is, they’re papists who wish to retain papist ceremonial without papal theology or obedience (the sedevacantists are similar… you find the same inner spirit within them). Therefore, they’d be the least-likely to convert, being more concerned with points of ritual rather than arguments concerning theology or practise.
That’s to say, you would find few from either St Bart’s or Smokey Mary’s tempted by this… the ones there who were inclined to Rome have converted already, in any case. One of the places that WOULD be tempted, I believe, is Nashotah House (NH)… wasn’t that the establishment that JP and Hatfield just inked a “covenant” with? What would happen to that scrap of paper if NH fell for this latest con-job (not bloody likely… but, human-beings are never predictable in the end… stranger things HAVE happened)? What happens if they reject this sales-patter from the Pope (MUCH more probable)? If the latter occurs, it is likely that some of the faculty might bolt for Rome, strengthening the Proddie party at the school. In short, it appears that this present proposition has a very good chance of turning NH further to the “left” in theological and practical terms. What does this do to the SVS/NH accord? As it stands, NH is a classically-Anglican school… branch theory, female ordination, and Calvinistic theology, amongst other things. The present offer from the papists bids fair to turn it even more deeply Proddie than it is now… and NH is emphatically Proddie at present, make no mistake upon it.
Should we be “yoked unequally” with such? I expect that the usual blather shall issue from the usual sources… if you hear anything from Ad Orientem, bear in mind that “John” is basically ignorant of Orthodox history in general and Orthodox history in the USA in particular. This isn’t unimportant. If you don’t know your past… you don’t know the present, it’s quite that simple. If I speak of Averky Taushev or Nicholas Alexander or Basil Stroyen or Leonty Turkevich to someone of Russian-American background of my generation (I am 55), everyone knows who they were, what office they held, and what they stood for… they don’t need to be told. People like “John” don’t know… and it’s obvious in all his commentary. I don’t say this in anger… I say this in reproof, an entirely different thing.
The present offer from Rome may very well cause the departure of a few… most of them shall be theologians and the sort of laity that dabbles in theology as a hobby (I prefer to cook, go on motors to new places, read anything and everything, listen to all sorts of music, love both low and high art, and keep cats, myself… it’s much nicer, isn’t it?). The chance of NH being affected adversely by this is high… it’s another good reason for ripping up the shameless and false concordat signed with them on 10 October. However, I believe that the chances of the deal being negated are slim to nil. The portion of the path that we are on is getting somewhat darker and the footing is more treacherous. Yes… Rivendell waits for us at the end of the trail. But… the Fellowship must get through this unpleasantness first.
Barbara-Marie Drezhlo
Tuesday 20 October 2009
Albany NY
Editor’s Postscript:
I should mention that there is much talk today amongst “Traditionalist Anglicans” about the NH/SVS concordat… they are enthusing about it (I looked at some of their sites). Expect MAJOR spin from JP and Hatfield… they’re going to try to say to you that they didn’t make an agreement… but they obviously did such a thing! The Anglicans say so, and they are not liars… like some people I could (but, won’t) mention. I wonder if these good people know of the Iliff affair or the Koumentakos case or the fact that SVS is the furthest to the “left” of Orthodox seminaries? Makes you think, no? “Conservative Anglicans” aren’t very conservative at all, are they? Note well that JP and Hatfield bed down with such. SAD!
BMD
Voices from Russia 
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