orthodoxmonk.blogspot.com

Website Review

http://orthodoxmonk.blogspot.com

updated 3/1/13

Anonymous blog.

Always be suspicious of Orthodox websites where the blog owner won't identify himself.  Since ancient days, when Orthodox Christians meet, it is always expected and necessary to answer the first question, "Who is your bishop?"

I asked Orthodox Monk this question, first identifying myself and my bishop.  Here is his answer:

Dear Ms Higginbotham:
     To preserve my anonymity I do not disclose any information other than to say that I am a canonically tonsured monk in an Orthodox Church in communion with the Patriarch of Constantinople.  See the post entitled Gerasinin.
     You are not obliged to read the blog.
Orthodox Monk

8/29/12

I did try to find the Gerasinin post, but I was not successful.  The blog owner is in "official" world orthodoxy.  I don't recommend permitting him to shape your thinking.   In the whole blog a Google search finds only one reference to Fr. Seraphim Rose, [and that is made by a commentator].   

He admits to being in world orthodoxy by recognizing the EP [Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew].  

Another odd thing, worth mentioning:  I've never before heard a monk refer to a woman as "Ms."   That's very much a worldly idea, and offensive to Orthodox because feminism is offensive to us.  I don't remember how I signed my note to him, but I promise it was not "Ms."  

Update: briefly checking the top posts today, 3/1/13, I see this monk is big time pro-MP.  

If you want to seriously consider monasticism in ROCA or in the other Royal Path jurisdictions, email me privately so I can be candid with you and put you in contact with a ROCA English-speaking hieromonk.

joannahigginbotham@gmail.com

stjamesthejust.com

Website Review
11/28/11 Update

Nope.   not Orthodox.  maybe charismatic or pentecostal...

orthodoxinfo.com

Orthodox Christian Information Center

Self-description:

     Articles for and about the Orthodox Church. Intended primarily for the Orthodox, but includes information for Western Christian inquirers.

     OCIC Web site, one of the largest and oldest sites on Orthodox Christianity. Think of the OCIC as a vast online article repository, with over 700 articles and 6,000 printed pages. This site has been online since 1996 and receives over 36,000 unique visitors per month, according to Google Analytics.

I have been asked why the Orthodox Christian Information Center is not included in my list of safe websites, especially since it has many wonderful articles against renovationism.  The answer is because the OCIC has a doubleness about it - like one foot on each side.  A newcomer could be confused.  Certainly don't avoid the site altogether, but I'm not going to say it is completely safe, either.  One of my concerns is that there are some good articles by renovationists [Schmemann, Hopko, St. Vladimir's Seminary,] and a newcomer could learn to trust those authors and be led astray.

This site seems, as a whole, to lean a little more to the left every year.  With such a large collection of articles, and the many links, unavoidably "rewritten" materials have crept in.  One example of a "rewrite," in the form of a censure, is in a link to the OrthodoxPhotos site.  Below I have copied back in the censured material and highlighted it in bold red:

-From the concluding chapter of Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future:

-"Little Children, It is the last Hour" [John 2:18]

Unknown to the fevered Orthodox "revivalists," the Lord has reserved in the world, even as in the days of Elijah the Prophet, seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal [Rom. 11:4] -- an unknown number of true Orthodox Christians who are neither spiritually dead, as the Orthodox "charismatics" complain that their flocks have been, nor the pompously "spirit-filled," as these same flocks become under "charismatic" suggestion. They are not carried away by the movement of apostasy nor by any false "awakening," but continue rooted in the holy and saving Faith of Holy Orthodoxy in the tradition the Holy Fathers have handed down to them, watching the signs of the times and traveling the narrow path to salvation. Many of them follow the bishops of the few Orthodox jurisdicitions that have strong stands against the apostasy of our times: the Catacomb Church of Russia, the Russian Church Outside of Russia, the True Orthodox Christians [Old Calendarists] of Greece. But there are some left in other jurisdictions also, grieving over the ever more evident apostasy of their hierarchs and striving somehow to keep their own Orthodoxy intact; and there are still others outside of the Orthodox Church who by God's grace, their hearts being open to His call, will undoubtedly yet be joined to genuine Holy Orthodoxy. These "seven thousand "are the foundation of the future and only Orthodoxy of the latter times.

-Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future

1983 edition, page 220

√ The above paragraph is the first paragraph in the last section [E. "Little Children, It is the last Hour"] of the concluding chapter. This paragraph is entirely omitted in the online version [http://www.orthodoxphotos.com/readings/sign/children.shtml].

Why was this paragraph censured? 

...Many of them follow the bishops of the few Orthodox jurisdicitions that have strong stands against the apostasy of our times: the Catacomb Church of Russia, the Russian Church Outside of Russia*, the True Orthodox Christians [Old Calendarists] of Greece. But there are some left in other jurisdictions also, grieving over the ever more evident apostasy of their hierarchs and striving somehow to keep their own Orthodoxy intact...

Because this paragraph shows how Fr. Seraphim really felt about world Orthodoxy, and the world Orthodox want to believe differently, and they want us to believe differently, too. Don't believe it!

*[The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia that Fr. Seraphim refers to is the royal path ROCOR of Met. Philaret which today is continued by Met. Agafangel. The part of ROCOR that is under Met. Hilarion went with world Orthodoxy.]

Fr. Seraphim Rose In World Orthodoxy?

No. 

Fr. Seraphim Rose was not headed towards World Orthodoxy 

before he died, as World Orthodoxy would like us to believe.

trueorthodoxy.info

WEBSITE REVIEW
updated: 11/14/09

This site is in the super-correct category.

Search
0rthodox Calendar -avoid
Daily Devotional -avoid
Printer Friendly
Recommended Links -avoid

Welcome
Catechetical Materials - good
Apologetic Materials- excellent
Lives of Saints - excellent
Patristic Homilies - excellent
Spiritual Discourses - excellent
Church History -avoid
Contemporary Issues - good
Book Reviews - good
Miscellaneous - good
Polemical Website -avoid

orthodoxengland.org.uk

Website Review

Very Unsafe.  ROCOR-MP.  Super pro-union.  Suspected of being with the KGB by some.

Fr. Andrew Phillips, a.k.a. the "Colchester Cuckoo," is what is called a "singer."  He sings the praises of the ROCOR-MP union.  And he does this with a passion - like an obsession - as if under some kind of hypnosis.  He's intelligent, yes, but does he know right from wrong?  He is a propaganda spewer and echos the party-line of the neo-Soviet MP.

theirheartsshallliveforever.yolasite.com

http://raphael.doxos.com

This blog is neither world Orthodox nor super-correct.  The blog owner says he is a priest of ROCIA.  That jurisdiction is considered uncanonical by all.  It is kinda "off the map."   And, as you can see by this blog, it's members can be very "off the wall."

We don't have to look very far into this blog to see Satan's handiwork.  On the first page, the homepage, at the top left there is a peace symbol mixed with a cross. And on the top right there is a quote from the twisted philosophy of the heretic Nicholas Berdyaev.

Evil could not exist if Good did not exist first.  For there to be a lie, first there has to be a truth that can be twisted into a lie.  Sometimes Satan is sneaky about it.  Other times, not so sneaky.  But Satan's way is to mix good and evil, knowing that humans, who are basically good, can be enticed into evil more easily if it is mixed with good.   The resulting confusion is an indication of Satan's presence.

Here the peace symbol is mixed with the symbol of the Cross.   The peace symbol is an inverted broken cross which was put in a circle and has multi-level meanings as do many symbols.  One meaning is that there will be peace on earth after Christianity is abolished. 

The next mixture of evil with good is in the quote:

«There is absolute truth in anarchism 

and it is to be seen in its attitude

 to the sovereignty of the state 

and to every form of state absolutism.... 

The religious truth of anarchism consists in this,

 that power over man is bound up with sin and evil,

 that a state of perfection is a state 

where there is no power of man over man, 

that is to say, anarchy. 

The Kingdom of God is freedom 

and the absence of such power... 

the Kingdom of God is anarchy.»

It is true that we obtain true freedom when sin has no power over us.  But it is twisted to say that we have freedom when man has no power over us.  This is a lawlessness that is only equated with freedom in Satan's mind.  Clearly God's Church is hierarchial and so is God's creation hierarchial.  In the Church we have bishops, priests, deacons.  In the world God anointed His earthly kings and set them as rulers of nations.  Christ told Herod that his authority over men was given by God.  In heaven the angels also have a rank - there are nine orders of angels.  And we are told in the Bible to obey the laws of the land.

Orthodox Christians will find this blog repulsive.  If someone finds that they have a certain "attraction" to it, the remedy is to abstain, deny the impulse, deny the curiosity, and turn to focusing on the Holy Fathers writings and Lives of Saints, and pray for help to be delivered from evil.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Orthodox_Church_in_America

http://www.onlygooddreams.com/articles/peace.php