Lets not be unnecessary mean. Health problems and aging happen to monks also. Let's leave it at what he says, not about how wide his waist is.

All the elder monks I know aren't morbidly obese. They also don't spout postmodern heresies. The two are connected. In this video, I view a father who is in an apostatic state. The widening of the belly contributes to the widening of heresies.

@@NightShade671 it is not an argument from silence, because the consensus is very clear, and there aren't even any Saints at all who diverge from the consensus on many of these issues. The Saints are not silent about these issues at all.

@@GentleBreeze1234 I don't think you understand what an argument from silence is. The saints were not silent, but some arguments made in the video are.

@@NightShade671 which ones? The example about the monophysites you gave is not an argument from silence.

@@GentleBreeze1234 I am not sure you understand what an argument from silence is. Whenever anyone says they are not aware of anyone saying something, or believing in something, that is an argument from silence, because it argues from the silence of the person being used as an example. But just because one is not aware that someone said or believed something, that doesn't prove that the person actually didn't believe or say something. Perhaps they said it in a source unknown.

@@NightShade671 that's not the argument I am making in the video. There are no Saints, to my knowledge, that express belief in monophysites having Apostolic succession and there are many Saints as well as Ecumenical Councils who say otherwise. I don't think there is a single Saint who diverges on this, but even if there was, it wouldn't matter because we follow the consensus. I simply said I wasn't aware of one because I am leaving it open to the possibility of there perhaps being one Saint who had a strange opinion on this. It does not matter, because we follow the consensus.

@@orthodoxtraditionalists you guys make yourselves look really weird and desperate by always jumping in and leaving these snarky comments.

@@GentleBreeze1234 I have sympathy for how he reacts because once he left for the GOC the overwhelming majority of people in World Orthodoxy who knew him completely threw him under the bus and spoke horribly about him. There is some pain and resentment, but we started it by how we treated him and other GOC members.

@orthodoxtraditionalists come on brother, you're better than this.

@@NoeticInsight I'm just speaking of TO in general, they always do this.

@@GentleBreeze1234 This is true. It's ironic because they don't even obey the teachings of their own Bishops when they behave this way. The amount of times some online TO has gone on about how I'm not Orthodox, I always laugh and say well your own Metropolitan Demetrius thinks I am Orthodox lol. They will mockingly tell us to obey our pseudo-bishops, but then they don't even obey their own Bishops in this regard. Having befriended GOC clergy and laymen in person, they are quite different. The online world seems to attract the worst people.

Wishful thinking unfortunately.

Amém. I expect him repent or being excommunicated.

@@xandedejesus100 if only !

@@TruthBeTold7 Yes, an icon is still a depiction of a real thing. It doesn't depict a Saint has giving three hands, it doesn't depict something just completely not true.

@@14archiver absolutely, but we don't call them Saints either.

@@GentleBreeze1234 true

@@atanas-nikolov I don't know what Dcn Nicholas says, but I don't think this is a good analogy. An icon of a Saint depicts an image of a person with eyes, a nose, a mouth, etc. All of those things are literally true about the person. It does not LIE about the person. Metropolitan Jonah says that miracles described in the lives of Saints didn't happen at all, because he thinks they're too outlandish. This is atheism, this is calling the hagiographers lairs.

@@GentleBreeze1234 Where does he say miracles haven't happened because they are outlandish? He says that certain details are not supposed to be considered history in the same way as we would understand it today. The icon of St. John the Forerunner is often portraying him carrying his head. We don't understand that to be a lie, right? There are icons of Christ and the Theotokos with different color skin. Is one lying? It could be the case that a saint fasted from his mother's milk, or it might have happened some times, which was then accepted as a defining detail for that saint. There are saints for which people knew very little, yet lives were commissioned for them. I think of it like this: What do certain details in a life mean for us? Because lives are written for our edification. I understand your reservations though. We've been raised in a culture, where rationalism is pervasive. It can indeed be better to affirm the lives as true and leave it at that. Let the rational mind dash itself against the rocks of reality. At the same time, we also don't want to play the rationalist game and say that events are true like a video recording. If we go too far down that route, we are only evolving into a different kind of rationalist.

Deacon Nicholas is a good preacher.

​@@GentleBreeze1234​ Fr. Seraphim Rose says that it's important to understand that icons are secondary. Other than simply not being idols, I would think this implies other things theologically. St. Paisios says we should view icons as living. You might can just say, similar to what Fr. Seraphim said, that the actual texts of the lives of the saints are secondary and more nuanced to how we should apply them to our lives (not simply how we understand them). I've heard Met. Jonah express something like this, and how only the fathers we're allowed to read the writings of the fathers, but St. John of Shanghai and San Fransisco said that laity will have to take to reading the fathers themselves in the last days because of there not being good guides. I do get the sense that there is something nefarious about the way Met. Jonah is explaining these things.

@@tracetemple7492 Met Jonah is just plainly saying that the Lives of Saints are fables, and that miraculous things described in them did not happen and are fictional stories intended to teach us spiritual lessons. We see from the Saints that such a view is even regarded as a kind of apostacy.

@@TruthBeTold7 Yes there's certainly a lot more that could have been included, this video required watching hours and hours of Met Jonahs lectures which was, frankly, very unpleasant. But I felt that what I included was sufficient to demonstrate the point beyond any doubt.

Just think of the power of the testimony such a man would have if he publicly repented! Lord Jesus Christ, reveal his heart, and I pray that he receives Your mercy to not be ashamed on that day, and that it will be before it’s too late ☦️

@@frankschaeffer8153 if you’re talking about Toll Houses, multiple saints have confirmed that teaching. No investigation necessary.

@@SilouanWright ecclesiology is the doctrine of the Church

I don't know anything about that, but if he said that, then he's wrong. The inclusion of the clip of Fr Josiah is not an endorsement of everything he's ever said, I just thought he gave a very good explanation there and so that's why I included it.

@frankschaeffer8153 You need to provide proof of such a slanderous claim. I’ve watched the majority of Fr. Josiah’s online content, met him in person at a conference where I listened to his presentations, and I’ve read his books. I have not seen him once praise Junipero Serra. *note also: I am Native American and venerate St. Peter often. I would have noticed if Fr. Josiah had denigrated St. Peter’s martyrdom.

How do you know he didn’t do both? Maybe he’s even reached out to Met. Jonah as well. What have you done to counter heresy and apostasy?

so these things shouldnt be made more common knowledge?