Happy Immaculate Conception!

[RBerman]

I don't know whether He has. You seemed to be acting like it was logically impossible (whether because of fallible bishops or something else), though.

It's not logically impossible for God to make anything infallible, even you or me. But all I put my faith in infallibly is God as revealed in his word.

[Kelp]

Fair enough.

[Rdr. Arsenios]

It's not logically impossible for God to make anything infallible, even you or me. But all I put my faith in infallibly is God as revealed in his word.

Christ-God alone on earth is infallible...
He is the Head of His Body...
His Body is the Church...
The Church is the Body of Christ...
The members of His Church are all fallible...
Its secular heads [bishops and popes] are especially fallible...

Yet it is the Church that is the Pillar and Ground of Truth...
Against which the Gates of Hades shall not prevail...
The Bible is in the treasury of the Church...
The Church WROTE the Bible...
The Church UNDERSTANDS the Bible...

Arsenios

[maudman]

The treasury of Orthodoxy is obedience...
The treasury of the Latin Church is authority...

The Reformation is the Child of Latin Rome...
The apple does NOT fall FAR from the tree...

Arsenios



Peter is dead.

We obey our own Bishops who obey the 7 Ecumenical Councils

Which the Latin Pope also used to obey...

The Pope of the last thousand years wants to be boss...

His treasury thereby is in his own authority...

Our treasury is in obedience to Christ the Church...

As the Pope used to be...

The rest of the Christian Sees have NEVER been under ANY Latin authority...

We but gave to Latin Rome a primacy of honor...

With that, She tried to seize authority over God...

Predictably, She has of course failed,

As the Christian disintegration of the west

Bears compelling and lamentable witness...

Europe is now functionally atheist...

And America is emptying her churches...

So let us sing this Sunday Morning of Pascha:

Let God Arise!
Let His enemies be scattered!
Let them that hate Him
Flee from before His Face!

Christ is Risen from the Dead!
Trampling down death by death!
And upon those in the tombs
Bestowing Life!

Arsenios

It was Constitine who established the traditions of the counsels not the Church.. It was constantinople who was seeking to bring into its ecumenical authority many churches it brought to counsel or challenged throughout.. Even when proved Wrong.. RIGHT!... Rome was more than Constantine or Constantinople and the Bishop of Rome was often called to have a counsel.. But it didn't seek to add its beliefs to any conflict to further the problems that divided... What many fail to grasp is that the CHurch in its orthodoxy was much like Protestant faiths today until the counsels.. And counsel did solve the problems of Non belief in certain things...

Historical records are clear that for much of church history Rome didn't push its understanding of the truth but taught it without calling counsels. Mostly only to solve a problem at others request.. Romes desire for most of history and the counsel was for agreement in the expression of the simplest of truths so all could understand with little effort... When people started demanding counsel it wasn't the CHurch of Rome but others..

NOw you're right apples don't fall far from the tree.. You both reject the Leadership of Rome as having any Authority... And you both have your reasons why and they've grown more numerous as Anthema became the reason.. Niether the Orthodox or the Reformation are the children of Rome or you both are... ANd the Orthodox play on the two things you both have in common..Your distane for the RCC teachings and your distane that we actually do have Authority but rarely need for its own.. To its own it teaches as Peter was commanded.. Leadership Leads and no leadership is without Authority.. It was the Roman Empire not the Orthodox Empire...

[Rdr. Arsenios]

It was Constitine who established the traditions of the counsels not the Church.. It was constantinople who was seeking to bring into its ecumenical authority many churches it brought to counsel or challenged throughout.. Even when proved Wrong.. RIGHT!... Rome was more than Constantine or Constantinople and the Bishop of Rome was often called to have a counsel.. But it didn't seek to add its beliefs to any conflict to further the problems that divided... What many fail to grasp is that the CHurch in its orthodoxy was much like Protestant faiths today until the counsels.. And counsel did solve the problems of Non belief in certain things...

Historical records are clear that for much of church history Rome didn't push its understanding of the truth but taught it without calling counsels. Mostly only to solve a problem at others request.. Romes desire for most of history and the counsel was for agreement in the expression of the simplest of truths so all could understand with little effort... When people started demanding counsel it wasn't the CHurch of Rome but others..

NOw you're right apples don't fall far from the tree.. You both reject the Leadership of Rome as having any Authority... And you both have your reasons why and they've grown more numerous as Anthema became the reason.. Niether the Orthodox or the Reformation are the children of Rome or you both are... ANd the Orthodox play on the two things you both have in common..Your distane for the RCC teachings and your distane that we actually do have Authority but rarely need for its own.. To its own it teaches as Peter was commanded.. Leadership Leads and no leadership is without Authority.. It was the Roman Empire not the Orthodox Empire...

The capital of the Roman Empire was moved to Constanople, which administered that empirefor a thousand years... Roma, Italia, only lasted a few hundred years and was over-run by the barbaric hordes...

Pope Leo was Orthodox and was proclaimed so by Ecumenical decree - Affirming the orthodoxy of the Tome of Leo... You see, Pope Leo SUBMITTED HIMSELF to the Ecumenical Council, and submitted his famous "Tome" to them for their approval...

This demonstrates his submission to the Ecumenical Councils of the Church, and the Church understood as the Holy Communion of the Great and Apostolic Sees. This Church understands authority as Truth, and not as the Decree of ANY particular human being, including the Latin Pope, and the Ecumenical Patriarch as well, for that matter...

Hence we find the unanimous consent [vote] of the Ecumenical Councils as only the BEGINNING of their reception by the Church, which THEN either implements their rulings, or NOT... A few hundred years of general acceptance by the wholle of the Church then pretty much sealed rulings... There was never the scholastic legalism that proceeds from Roman authoritarianism as She sought to RULE the Body of Christ Who is Her Head on earth...

You have, of course, affirmed the treasury of Latin Rome, which is Her very own AUTHORITY over the Body of Christ... The whole of Christianity of the first thousand years has NEVER affirmed Rome as having AUTHORITY OVER Christ's Holy Body... The primacy of honor accorded Rome was never understood as the Latin Rule over Christ Who IS the Head of His Own BODY, the Church...

Arsenios

[maudman]

The capital of the Roman Empire was moved to Constanople, which administered that empirefor a thousand years... Roma, Italia, only lasted a few hundred years and was over-run by the barbaric hordes...

Pope Leo was Orthodox and was proclaimed so by Ecumenical decree - Affirming the orthodoxy of the Tome of Leo... You see, Pope Leo SUBMITTED HIMSELF to the Ecumenical Council, and submitted his famous "Tome" to them for their approval...

This demonstrates his submission to the Ecumenical Councils of the Church, and the Church understood as the Holy Communion of the Great and Apostolic Sees. This Church understands authority as Truth, and not as the Decree of ANY particular human being, including the Latin Pope, and the Ecumenical Patriarch as well, for that matter...

Hence we find the unanimous consent [vote] of the Ecumenical Councils as only the BEGINNING of their reception by the Church, which THEN either implements their rulings, or NOT... A few hundred years of general acceptance by the wholle of the Church then pretty much sealed rulings... There was never the scholastic legalism that proceeds from Roman authoritarianism as She sought to RULE the Body of Christ Who is Her Head on earth...

You have, of course, affirmed the treasury of Latin Rome, which is Her very own AUTHORITY over the Body of Christ... The whole of Christianity of the first thousand years has NEVER affirmed Rome as having AUTHORITY OVER Christ's Holy Body... The primacy of honor accorded Rome was never understood as the Latin Rule over Christ Who IS the Head of His Own BODY, the Church...

Arsenios

Who was the bishop of Rome? and Who was the Bishop of Constantinople? Most all Bishops of Rome agreed to ecumenical counsel until the Split... It was the Bishop Of Constantinople who was trying to annex under his Authority the other synods not the Bishop of Rome for most of history.. Was Rome the Senate or the Ceasor.. Or was Rome a Republic... COnstantinople wasn't the center of Rome before Constantine... Where did Constantine go to Fight his first Battle after being declared Ceaser by his troops... He marched on Italy in 312 to appose Maxtenius...

[Rdr. Arsenios]

It was Constantine who called 1st Nicea in 325...

IF, as Latin Rome insists, the Latin Pope had been entrusted by Christ with the rulership of the Church, then there would have been no need to call for an Ecumenical Council...

And indeed, in the first Church crisis recorded in the Bible, nobody asked Latin Rome w2hat to do, but instead they met under the aegis of Jerusalem, where Peter argued for his opinion, and his argument carried, and Iakovos, the brother of our Lord, who was the head of the Church there, issued the ruling from THAT council...

Had Peter been assigned as the Pope of the catholic Church, as Rome insists, then all that would have been needed would be for him to tell the Church how to decide [on the Judaizers]... But this did not happen... So even during the times of the Apostles, Peter was no Pope, as Scripture records...

The Church has had its family issues, and it is the family, and not just one Father, that sorts them out... All Fathers CAN err... So it is the councils of the Fathers that make decisions in a conciliar manner, where all agree, and then, over time, their rulings are received by the whole Church, or not...

The Church is authoritative, but not under a single autocratic authoritarian, and never has been...

Arsenios

[spauline]

I say it, Catholic doctrine is utterly pure, no stain. Little stains in Orthodox doctrine. big stains all over Protestant doctrine. The Virgin is ever pure. Therefore, the farther one gets away from true doctrine, the less beauty one finds in the New Eve. Also in human sexuality.

Orthodox can approve of artificial birth control in some cases. Protestants in general think it is ok anytime you need it. Protestants usually allow unlimited divorces and remarriage. Orthodox, i have heard, place limits, like four to five times, (just as the woman at the Well had five husbands, then a live in partner, much like, the Orthodox divorced peter and married four other husbands, the greater brothers of Peter. Later, the Protestants left all valid husbands and had only pseudo men of God. For no Protestant minister can give anything other than Baptism, and preside at a marriage. He himself is not a validly ordained man of God, and hence cannot administer any of the five sacraments that require a valid priest, since none of his fathers are valid Bishops, which cannot be said of the Orthodox priests.)

Therefore, all these things are interconnected: Absolute purity of doctrine, absolute purity and beauty of the Virgin, absolute purity of sexual teaching: for Rome has always condemned artificial birth control and always will, and has never said that any marriage that is truly valid can be broken by anyone: not the man, nor the woman, nor God!

[Rdr. Arsenios]

I say it,
Catholic doctrine is utterly pure,
no stain.

Your own self-serving words condemn you, my brother...
And your desire for power over, rather than being the servant of, ALL, condemns you again...
You are showing only arrogance and lust for power...
And you are bragging in your failed doctrines...
The historical west condemns you...
Atheist Europe condemns you...
Secularizing Protestant America condemns you...
By your fruits are you known...

You need humility and obedience...
You have arrogance and love of power...

Arsenios

[spauline]

I would like to say this, also. As far as the apple falling from the tree. what happened in the OT: Which part of the kingdom went into schism? The NORTH. And how many of the twelve tribes did they take? TEN. Which is most. And that meant the ULTIMATE king of the kingdom remained behind in the SOUTH, the two REMNANT tribes.

And, beg I ask, which part of the schism went into greater punishment under the godless kingdoms first? Was it not the NORTH, the SCHISMATIC ones, the one who took MOST of the 12 tribes, under the first godless empire of exile, the ASSYRIANS? Only more than a hundred years later did the TRUE, REMNANT kingdom go under godless exile, the SOUTH, under BABYLON.

Now pray you, what happened in the NEW Testament history, seeing as anti-types are definitely possible (Babel is an antithesis of Pentecost, Pagan Rome is to the Christians what Egypt was to the Jews, no?)? Well, we KNOW that the **12** Apostles are the FULFILLMENT of the **12** tribes. Now, I ask you, how many SEES did the Apostles leave? Was it not **5**. And when there was a SCHISM, who took MOST of them, in fact, **4 of the 5**? Was it not the EAST? And who remained as a remnant, and yet TRUE King by their own claim, who still uses the ancient name given to the true Church that the schismatic brothers still do not claim, the CATHOLIC CHURCH, already referenced by St. Ignatius of Antioch? Was it not the West?

And finally, of the latter times we now live in, who, between the East and the West, has gone under the horrible attack of a totally godless kingdom FIRST? Was it not, also APPROPRIATELY, the EAST, under ATHEISTIC COMMUNISM?

And see how now, like in old times, almost a hundred years later, the West is preparing to go under a similar but slightly different godless persecution, RELATIVISTIC, HEDONISTIC materialism, in order that Assyria and Babylon, each distinct and yet similar in nature relative to God and His People, might have parallels in the NEW Testament history.

[spauline]

Your own self-serving words condemn you, my brother...
And your desire for power over, rather than being the servant of, ALL, condemns you again...
You are showing only arrogance and lust for power...
And you are bragging in your failed doctrines...
The historical west condemns you...
Atheist Europe condemns you...
Secularizing Protestant America condemns you...
By your fruits are you known...

You need humility and obedience...
You have arrogance and love of power...

Arsenios

I am only stating an objective reality according to my faith, not wishing to render individual culpability in any Orthodox or Protestant person. I am saying, the consistencies stand, relative to Catholic faith. See also the post below, which also quite corroborates Catholic teaching.

of course, Peter is not to have power, but to be the servant of servants. But then, what does Peter serve, like his brothers? Is it not the TRUTH, amongst other things, which Christ came to testify to? But then, if Peter is the servant of servants on the truth, he alone, by virtue of that office, is protected when he proclaims formally to the supreme degree, not for HIS sake, nor for power, but so that the little sheep and lambs and sheep might have that truth for THEIR benefit!

[maudman]

It was Constantine who called 1st Nicea in 325...

IF, as Latin Rome insists, the Latin Pope had been entrusted by Christ with the rulership of the Church, then there would have been no need to call for an Ecumenical Council...

And indeed, in the first Church crisis recorded in the Bible, nobody asked Latin Rome w2hat to do, but instead they met under the aegis of Jerusalem, where Peter argued for his opinion, and his argument carried, and Iakovos, the brother of our Lord, who was the head of the Church there, issued the ruling from THAT council...

Had Peter been assigned as the Pope of the catholic Church, as Rome insists, then all that would have been needed would be for him to tell the Church how to decide [on the Judaizers]... But this did not happen... So even during the times of the Apostles, Peter was no Pope, as Scripture records...

The Church has had its family issues, and it is the family, and not just one Father, that sorts them out... All Fathers CAN err... So it is the councils of the Fathers that make decisions in a conciliar manner, where all agree, and then, over time, their rulings are received by the whole Church, or not...

The Church is authoritative, but not under a single autocratic authoritarian, and never has been...

Arsenios

George You didn't call ecumenical counsels when people are hiding and fleeing from persecution and meeting in houses.. The Church wasn't that well organized.. You're talking about the first generation of the Church trying to justify Orthodox CHurch position when it was barely getting off the Ground.. But since you bring up Peter and Jerusalem and the Gentile conversion..

Who was it that recieved the Vision? Only one Apostle had recieved the vision...Peter... Why Peter? Why does Peter have to stand up in the church at Jerusalem and tell of the Vision he had which settles the matter.. He wasn't Quoting scripture but was telling them what he alone had experience..
Too, much gets thrown around without mentioning prophetic Vision and it's unfolding events.. Remember Christ came to fulfil the Law of the Prophet...

Isaiah 22,
[16] What dost thou here, or as if thou wert somebody here? for thou hast hewed thee out a sepulchre here, thou hast hewed out a monument carefully in a high place, a dwelling for thyself in a rock. [17] Behold the Lord will cause thee to be carried away, as a cock is carried away, and he will lift thee up as a garment. [18] He will crown thee with a crown of tribulation, he will toss thee like a ball into a large and spacious country: there shalt thou die, and there shall the chariot of thy glory be, the shame of the house of thy Lord. [19] And I will drive thee out From thy station, and depose thee from thy ministry.

[20] And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will call my servant Eliacim the son of Helcias,

[21] And I will clothe him with thy robe, and will strengthen him with thy girdle, and will give thy power into his hand: and he shall be as a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Juda.

[22] And I will lay the key of the house of David upon his shoulder: and he shall open, and none shall shut: and he shall shut, and none shall open. [23] And I will fasten him as a peg in a sure place, and he shall be for a throne of glory to the house of his father. [24] And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his father's house, divers kinds of vessels, every little vessel, from the vessels of cups even to every instrument of music. [25] In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, shall the peg be removed, that was fastened in the sure place: and it shall be broken and shall fall: and that which hung thereon, shall perish, because the Lord hath spoken it.


Maththew 16,

[16] Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God. [17] And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. [18] And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

******* [19] And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven. *******


Who is given the Keys? Peter is Given the Keys.. And the sepulchre Jerusalem Of the High Priest was to be given Who. And where does the Sepulchre reside? ***Where the sacrifice is made***.. Christ sepecture was Jerusalem and Peters is where his sacrifice will be made... ROME... The One who hands the Keys to the kingdom of Heaven is Lord... The Prophecy states and is Given to The Apostle of the Gentiles and The Jews... ALONE... The Prophecy doesn't say the Keys are handed to a bunch of men who share the Keys in the Church but to ONE man and that one man is Peter, The Eliacim.. The Gate Keeper..

Romes claims have nothing to do with Roman or Greek Politics which became church politics because Political figures became involved in the Church.. Romes Claims comes from the Law of the Prophets and the Law of sacrifice.....

Peace and God Bless

[Rdr. Arsenios]

George You didn't call ecumenical counsels when people are hiding and fleeing from persecution and meeting in houses.. The Church wasn't that well organized.. You're talking about the first generation of the Church trying to justify Orthodox CHurch position when it was barely getting off the Ground.. But since you bring up Peter and Jerusalem and the Gentile conversion..

The Latin argument is that when Christ gave Peter the Keys, He made him the first Pope...
This is false... As the events of the first Council make clear...
The authority there belonged to James:

Act 15:19 Wherefore my [James'] sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God:

Who was it that recieved the Vision? Only one Apostle had recieved the vision...Peter... Why Peter?

You are forgetting the visitation of the angel to the Centurion non-Christian who was told to go to Peter...

Peter was given the vision because he was suffering that Pharisitical disease of hypocricy... God had to correct him again, because of his hardness of heart... It took the vision, Paul, and the Centurion to turn Peter around... Why Peter? Because he most needed it. And through him, the Pharisees now Christian could allow gentiles to be Christians without first making them Jews under the Law... Yet even knowing God's will, Peter submitted to James... That's how it works...

Why does Peter have to stand up in the church at Jerusalem and tell of the Vision he had which settles the matter.. He wasn't Quoting scripture but was telling them what he alone had experience..

Because it was he, due to his hypocricy, who was primarily responsible for the problem, and therefore was in a singular position to fix it, for the Jews looked up to him...

Too, much gets thrown around without mentioning prophetic Vision and it's unfolding events.. Remember Christ came to fulfil the Law of the Prophet...

It's the Law AND the Prophets... Different issues call forth from God different solutions... Peter, at the first Council, was a very hard case...

Maththew 16,

[16] Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God. [17] And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. [18] And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

It is the confession by revelation of the Father that is the rock upon which the Church has always been built...

Paul certainly did not build upon Peter... To Paul, Peter was just another Apostle, a sinner with a good reputation...

Paul was working directly by revelation from Christ...

******* [19] And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven:
and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven. *******

Who is given the Keys? Peter is Given the Keys..

In your quote, Peter is promised the keys... He is not there given them, but Christ says "I SHALL give..."

Here is where Peter ACTUALLY receives the Keys:

Mat 18:18 Verily I say unto you [all],
Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven:
and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

You see, they all received the Apostolic powers together... Even Peter, who had abandoned his Apostleship until restored by Christ. The "you's" are ALL plural... The Keys, you see, are Apostolic gifts, not mere Petrine ones...

And the sepulchre Jerusalem Of the High Priest was to be given Who. And where does the Sepulchre reside? ***Where the sacrifice is made***.. Christ sepecture was Jerusalem and Peters is where his sacrifice will be made... ROME... The One who hands the Keys to the kingdom of Heaven is Lord... The Prophecy states and is Given to The Apostle of the Gentiles and The Jews... ALONE... The Prophecy doesn't say the Keys are handed to a bunch of men who share the Keys in the Church but to ONE man and that one man is Peter, The Eliacim.. The Gate Keeper..

Your argument then is with Scripture and with the first undivided thousand years of Christian history where the Ecumenical Councils determined the Canons of the Church FOR Rome and for ALL...

Rome's claims have nothing to do with Roman or Greek Politics which became church politics because Political figures became involved in the Church.. Romes Claims comes from the Law of the Prophets and the Law of sacrifice.....

They came from German Bishop war lords in the 10th century who took over the Latin Church and turned it in to the bloody and authoritarian regime it then became...

Arsenios

[maudman]

The Latin argument is that when Christ gave Peter the Keys, He made him the first Pope...
This is false... As the events of the first Council make clear...
The authority there belonged to James:

Act 15:19 Wherefore my [James'] sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God:



You are forgetting the visitation of the angel to the Centurion non-Christian who was told to go to Peter...

Peter was given the vision because he was suffering that Pharisitical disease of hypocricy... God had to correct him again, because of his hardness of heart... It took the vision, Paul, and the Centurion to turn Peter around... Why Peter? Because he most needed it. And through him, the Pharisees now Christian could allow gentiles to be Christians without first making them Jews under the Law... Yet even knowing God's will, Peter submitted to James... That's how it works...



Because it was he, due to his hypocricy, who was primarily responsible for the problem, and therefore was in a singular position to fix it, for the Jews looked up to him...



It's the Law AND the Prophets... Different issues call forth from God different solutions... Peter, at the first Council, was a very hard case...

Maththew 16,

[16] Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God. [17] And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. [18] And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

It is the confession by revelation of the Father that is the rock upon which the Church has always been built...

Paul certainly did not build upon Peter... To Paul, Peter was just another Apostle, a sinner with a good reputation...

Paul was working directly by revelation from Christ...

******* [19] And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven:
and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven. *******




In your quote, Peter is promised the keys... He is not there given them, but Christ says "I SHALL give..."

Here is where Peter ACTUALLY receives the Keys:

Mat 18:18 Verily I say unto you [all],
Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven:
and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

You see, they all received the Apostolic powers together... Even Peter, who had abandoned his Apostleship until restored by Christ. The "you's" are ALL plural... The Keys, you see, are Apostolic gifts, not mere Petrine ones...



Your argument then is with Scripture and with the first undivided thousand years of Christian history where the Ecumenical Councils determined the Canons of the Church FOR Rome and for ALL...



They came from German Bishop war lords in the 10th century who took over the Latin Church and turned it in to the bloody and authoritarian regime it then became...

Arsenios

Your making things to easy George..

First the centurian and his possesions are the first gentiles to enter the CHurch.. The Jews neither CHrist had eluded to the fact that this would happen.. The Apostles were first going to the Jews because it was their Prophecy being fulfilled not gentiles... Paul hasn't even been yet converted when Peter has the vision.. In the vision the Lord is making a new revelation to Peter and Peter alone is visited while fasting on the rooftop.. They are going to the house of Israel first because the Lord hadn't revealed that his plan of salvation included the Gentile.. There is no hipocracy on Peters's Part because it is about the israel's Messiah up until that point.. Which took powerful visions and signs to reveal..

Christ came to do the will of his Father... He was fulfilling the Prophecy of Eliacim by handing the Keys to Peter.. One man is what the Prophecy reveals.. Just as John the Baptist is later revealed by Christ as the Elijiah.. Not a bunch of baptizers... He was the one to whom heaven revealed what nobody else could see.. He was the one that heaven revealed George.. Christ saw the sign of the Father and who the Father had chosen..

What you claim is a hipocracy is something that happens later and it isn't a hipocracy, but a situation that even Paul understood.. Paul understands this and Later testifies this about the Jews and his feelings... Paul became the Apostle to the Gentiles but wasn't so originally.. Gentiles had entered before Paul was even converted through Peter not Paul... You do error George in your testimony because you have scewed the events to your reasonings.. Peter and Paul were both sacrificed in Rome not Constantinople because it didn't even exist.. And there the Sepulchre was made..

This is common among the Orthodox to play on the Bishop of Rome is evil for certain reasons to appeal and nuture Protestant's who have such feelings as you.. History Records that is was the Bishop of Constantinople who was doing what most ignorant Protestants think the Bishop of Rome was doing.. The Bishop of Rome thought the Counsels were good for Christian to work out the truth among themselves.. It was the way Rome Worked..
The Bishop of Rome never attended the counsels, but sent his representatives because it was a Conflict between constantinople and others. Rome often took the side of Constantinople because of the Politics and not ecumenical truth.. Don't add to the things that seperate and divide and weaken the Kingdom..
In some cases the bishop of Constantinople ignored the Bishop of Rome and the Magistiums teachings about its deposit of truth.. Eventullay this came to a head.. When the Bishop of Rome exhaulted CHrist in the Creed.. You see there are some things that the Protestant Torches is redeeming with Rome.. They are her children in many positive ways.. Just as they are your children in ways that aren't so wonderful.. Usually when I see those.. They Join you in your distaine for Rome and their Prophetic justification of such things are the worse tripe you will ever read...

Peace and God Bless George..

[maudman]

I would like to say this, also. As far as the apple falling from the tree. what happened in the OT: Which part of the kingdom went into schism? The NORTH. And how many of the twelve tribes did they take? TEN. Which is most. And that meant the ULTIMATE king of the kingdom remained behind in the SOUTH, the two REMNANT tribes.

And, beg I ask, which part of the schism went into greater punishment under the godless kingdoms first? Was it not the NORTH, the SCHISMATIC ones, the one who took MOST of the 12 tribes, under the first godless empire of exile, the ASSYRIANS? Only more than a hundred years later did the TRUE, REMNANT kingdom go under godless exile, the SOUTH, under BABYLON.

Now pray you, what happened in the NEW Testament history, seeing as anti-types are definitely possible (Babel is an antithesis of Pentecost, Pagan Rome is to the Christians what Egypt was to the Jews, no?)? Well, we KNOW that the **12** Apostles are the FULFILLMENT of the **12** tribes. Now, I ask you, how many SEES did the Apostles leave? Was it not **5**. And when there was a SCHISM, who took MOST of them, in fact, **4 of the 5**? Was it not the EAST? And who remained as a remnant, and yet TRUE King by their own claim, who still uses the ancient name given to the true Church that the schismatic brothers still do not claim, the CATHOLIC CHURCH, already referenced by St. Ignatius of Antioch? Was it not the West?

And finally, of the latter times we now live in, who, between the East and the West, has gone under the horrible attack of a totally godless kingdom FIRST? Was it not, also APPROPRIATELY, the EAST, under ATHEISTIC COMMUNISM?

And see how now, like in old times, almost a hundred years later, the West is preparing to go under a similar but slightly different godless persecution, RELATIVISTIC, HEDONISTIC materialism, in order that Assyria and Babylon, each distinct and yet similar in nature relative to God and His People, might have parallels in the NEW Testament history.

Hey Spauline...

Yeah you are seeing things... Israel was the Prophecy of the Church.. That ole saying.. History repeats itself is surely Prophetic... The New Israels Prophecy is fulfilled in the Old Israel History... You don't have to invent anything... The bible flat out tells us who is who and what is what.. The Church in the end is to Christ as in His First coming...

[20] Then came to him the mother of the sons of Zebedee with her sons, adoring and asking something of him.

[21] Who said to her: What wilt thou? She saith to him: Say that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left, in thy kingdom.

[22] And Jesus answering, said: You know not what you ask. Can you drink the chalice that I shall drink? They say to him: We can. [23] He saith to them: My chalice indeed you shall drink; but to sit on my right or left hand, is not mine to give to you, but to them for whom it is prepared by my Father. [24] And the ten hearing it, were moved with indignation against the two brethren. [25] But Jesus called them to him, and said: You know that the princes of the Gentiles lord it over them; and they that are the greater, exercise power upon them.

[26] It shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be the greater among you, let him be your minister: [27] And he that will be first among you, shall be your servant. [28] Even as the Son of man is not come to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a redemption for many. [29] And when they went out from Jericho, a great multitude followed him. [30] And behold two blind men sitting by the way side, heard that Jesus passed by, and they cried out, saying: O Lord, thou son of David, have mercy on us.


We indead shall and have drank from his cup and the ten are moved with indignation toward them for it... He that is the greater among us is he that is our minister.. The Pope..Why? ""Because we let him""" We who are first are we who serve he that ministers...