Artificial Christianity
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.ย. 2024
- As an Orthodox Christian layman, I don't present myself as any sort of teacher, leader, or theologian. Rather I humbly hope to share the ancient wisdom of our Saints and Church Fathers where like-minded youths may find it, as I simultaneously strive to apply that wisdom to my own daily life.
This video is my reading of an article by Abbot Tryphon, recorded and shared with his blessing.
SOURCE:
abbottryphon.com
I'm 29 year old born again Christian, I live in Yorkshire. I just thought I'd leave a comment to say that I am encouraged to find one of my countrymen who is devoted to the Son of God. I respect the orthodox faith. I used to believe that only protestants were saved and went to heaven but the Lord has softened my heart to see that Jesus knows those who belong to Him. Praise God
Very good video.
A Great Message ❤
Good message
Amen
Slavite gospoda jer je dobar❤ name of song
Amen! Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy upon us sinners.
The amount of downright psycopaths, narcisists and bullies Ive met that go to church and take communion.... and pray the rosary... its absurd. But perhaps ortho is different.. perhaps... some hope. Who knows.
Pray for them, as our Lord commands. At best they are aware of their sins and seeking repentance, at worst they are acting it out to feign holiness and need their hearts softened toward repentance all the more, as of course do we.
Our Lord Jesus Christ had Judas, we will always have people who challenge us. We pray and focus on our own cross.
Inside. Outside. They are everywhere. Pray for them and try not to be angry at them. They deserve our sympathies. They are in the grip of The Enemy and need Christ, too.
Legal vocês usam a Cruz que os portugueses da Ordem de Cristo chegaram ao Brasil em 1500, na época o Brasil foi chamado de Sancta Terra de Vera Cruz.
I like your video editing style how do you do it what kind of software do you use?
What is that cross all about? I’ve been seeing it so much lately
@@PilgrimShred It’s an Orthodox Christian Cross! The bar at the top is the plaque the Romans attached to Christ’s Cross, and the bar at the bottom is the footrest. This style of Orthodox cross is mostly seen in Slavic and other (Orthodox) Eastern European countries, though it is universally recognised within the Church.
@@AsceticAesthetic thank you!
❤❤❤❤❤
Jesus replied (to Nicodemus, a Pharisee): “I truthfully tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born-again.”
“How can someone be born-again when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb!”
Jesus answered, “I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water (tears) and (of) the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit (a painful process). You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born-again." NT John 3:3-7; Jesus went on to say, “This is why I told you, that no one can come to me, unless the Father has enabled him.” John 6:65; There is NO easy Salvation!
Perhaps Eusebius' letter to Constantia (the sister of Constantine the Great) may be helpful. Constantia requested that Eusebius (the church historian who authored The Church History) send her an image of Christ, and Eusebius wrote her the following response. I quote a translation of it here, at least the full of what survives to this day:
Translation by Cyril Mango, from The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312-1453 (1972, rep. 1986), p. 16-18.
Letter from Eusebius of Caesaria (circa 260-399 AD) to Constantia.
[I marked notable portions in bold.]
"To depict purely the human form of Christ before its transformation is to break the commandment of God and to fall into pagan error."
You also wrote me concerning some supposed image of Christ, which image you wished me to send you. Now what kind of thing is this that you call the image of Christ? I do not know what impelled you to request that an image of Our Saviour should be delineated. What sort of image of Christ are you seeking? Is it the true and unalterable one which bears His essential characteristics, or the one which He took up for our sake when He assumed the form of a servant? … Granted, He has two forms, even I do not think that your request has to do with His divine form. … Surely then, you are seeking His image as a servant, that of the flesh which He put on for our sake. But that, too, we have been taught, was mingled with the glory of His divinity so that the mortal part was swallowed up by Life. Indeed, it is not surprising that after His ascent to heaven He should have appeared as such, when, while He-the God, Logos-was yet living among men, He changed the form of the servant, and indicating in advance to a chosen band of His disciples the aspect of His Kingdom, He showed on the mount that nature which surpasses the human one-when His face shone like the sun and His garments like light. Who, then, would be able to represent by means of dead colors and inanimate delineations (skiagraphiai) the glistening, flashing radiance of such dignity and glory, when even His superhuman disciples could not bear to behold Him in this guise and fell on their faces, thus admitting that they could not withstand the sight? If, therefore, His incarnate form possessed such power at the time, altered as it was by the divinity dwelling within Him, what need I say of the time when He put off mortality and washed off corruption, when He changed the form of the servant into the glory of the Lord God… ? … How can one paint an image of so wondrous and unattainable a form-if the term ‘form’ is at all applicable to the divine and spiritual essence-unless, like the unbelieving pagans, one is to represent things that bear no possible resemblance to anything… ? For they, too, make such idols when they wish to mould the likeness of what they consider to be a god or, as they might say, one of the heroes or anything else of the kind, yet are unable even to approach a resemblance, and so delineate and represent some strange human shapes. Surely, even you will agree that such practices are not lawful for us.
But if you mean to ask of me the image, not of His form transformed into that of God, but that of the mortal flesh before its transformation, can it be that you have forgotten that passage in which God lays down the law that no likeness should be made either of what is in heaven or what is in the earth beneath? Have you ever heard anything of the kind either yourself in church or from another person? Are not such things banished and excluded from churches all over the world, and is it not common knowledge that such practices are not permitted to us alone?
Once- I do not know how-a woman brought me in her hands a picture of two men in the guise of philosophers and let fall the statement that they were Paul and the Saviour-I have no means of saying where she had had this from or learned such a thing. With the view that neither she nor others might be given offence, I took it away from her and kept it in my house, as I thought it improper that such things ever be exhibited to others, lest we appear, like idol worshippers, to carry our God around in an image. I note that Paul instructs all of us not to cling any more to things of the flesh; for, he says, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more.
It is said that Simon the sorcerer is worshipped by godless heretics painted in lifeless material. I have also seen myself the man who bears the name of madness57 [painted] on an image and escorted by Manichees. To us, however, such things are forbidden. For in confessing the Lord God, Our Saviour, we make ready to see Him as God, and we ourselves cleanse our hearts that we may see Him after we have been cleansed…
[Footnote]
57 “the man who bears the name of madness” is Mani the founder of Manichaeism.
[Mani is the heretic after whom Manichaeism, a form of gnosticism, is named. Eusebius talks about and condemns his heresy in "The Church History", book 7, chapter 31.]
It is very notable to me that this was written in the fourth century, where it was observed by Eusebius that the use of images was "banished and excluded from churches all over the world, and is it not common knowledge that such practices are not permitted to us alone?"
I bring this up because it seems to me that Christians who are lured to the Orthodox or Catholic church have this notion that they are somehow getting in touch with the ancient and original Christianity, but from the looks of this letter from Eusebius, it looks like the original Christianity actually took the Bible's commandments about not making images and not venerating them very seriously. It looks like what is being passed off as a historic Christianity is actually Christianity that has strayed from its roots.
Consider this passage from History of Eastern Christianity about the Church of the East:
Then suddenly came the age of re-discovery1 of their little community as a revelation to a bewildered world. The story started with a certain Claude James Rich, then Resident of the British East lndia Company in Baghdad, who was not a man of religion but happened to he highly cultured and possessed of a very keen interest in archaeology. He visited the ancient site of the Biblical city of Nineveh in 1820, and his report2 on the area excited all manner of circles, both scholarly and missionary, in England and America. At long last he revealed to the English-speaking races the astounding facts about the Assyrians, who still conversed in a language similar to that spoken by Jesus and the Apostles and whose peculiar form of Christianity called for study and sympathy. A systematic archaeological exploration was commenced by A. H. Layard.3 On the religious side, however, the Nestorians were evidently and traditionally anti-popish and had neither icons nor crucifixes in their churches, only a simple and symbolic Cross. Their attitude towards the Virgin Mary was much akin to Protestant conceptions. Could they be the ancient ‘Protestants of the East’? Hence ensued a deluge of missions and Protestant missionaries to those forlorn sons of a historic church in their Godforsaken abodes.
The Church of the East split from the Great Church (a.k.a. the "one holy catholic and apostolic church" prior to any major schism) at the council of Ephesus in 431 AD, over Nestorius (patriarch of Constantinople) being falsely condemned and excommunicated for a heresy he didn't teach, with Cyril of Alexandria (patriarch of Alexandria) prosecuting him with a misrepresentation of his teaching, accusing him of teaching that there were two Christs, one human and one divine, because Nestorius taught that Mary ought to be called the Christotokos (the "mother of Christ") rather than Theotokos ("mother of God"). (See Know the Creeds and Councils, Chapter 3, Council of Ephesus.) From that time on, Nestorius was known as a heretic in the west, but as a saint in the east: Mar Nestor.
My point in quoting Eusebius and this portion about the Church of the East is that it shows that the image venerating sects of Christianity are not representing some sort of continuity with early historic Christianity, the very thing that Protestant converts to Eastern Orthodoxy find appealing. Rather, image veneration appear to represent a deviation from what the church originally practiced for at least its first four centuries, as confirmed by these two witnesses-Eusebius, and the Church of the East-I can't say it better than Eusebius said it, so I'll quote him again:
can it be that you have forgotten that passage in which God lays down the law that no likeness should be made either of what is in heaven or what is in the earth beneath? Have you ever heard anything of the kind either yourself in church or from another person? Are not such things banished and excluded from churches all over the world, and is it not common knowledge that such practices are not permitted to us alone?
So a letter from one guy. St. Luke painted icons. Was he earlier than Eusebius? The earliest Churches had icons. They used icons also to teach the gospel for those who couldn’t read. This one guy you went to great length to quote was simply just mistaken in his views. Such things happen.
@@czuw2967 There is no letter from St Luke stating that he used icons. There are no examples in scripture of Jesus and His Apostles, making, venerating or using icons. There is no proof that Luke created icons.
@@dustindustindontworry-jz8dh the authenticity of this letter is not real, its a reknown forgery
Amen
Amen