St. Basil the Great's Approach To Classical Education & Literature

[@mariavlahochristos7756]

Christ is Risen ! Indeed He is Risen !

[@عمادالدينالحوش]

❤❤❤❤Amen

[@MariaMorrell-icxc]

Amen

[@tclearytcleary]

It is incredibly distracting to have the audio coming through one side only. Can this be fixed?

[@freddylosangeles1378]

..Nate's honey!.

[@markpatterson2517]

Yet the average Orthodox Christian isn't being discipled in gnoetic wisdom, contemplation, or spiritual knowledge. How are they any better than the average Western Christian? Didactic reason under Christ brings the soul so far on the straight path up to the narrow gate. It helps the soul gain virtue needed for katharsis. It is a part of discipleship under Christ. It can give insight into Scripture and thus into the soul in preparation for inner illumination. It then needs to rest with Christ in the tomb or heart of the soul in order for the awareness of the soul to become heightened and experientially know itself, its heart, and most importantly the Spirit waiting there willing to tabernacle there to commune with the soul. The problem with academic theologians in the West and the East is that they are not contemplatives. The problem with contemplatives in the East and the West is that they are not acedemics as well.

[@ICONFESSONEBAPTISM]

The average Orthodox Christian today isnt catechized or instructed from youth, and those who do embrace instruction are mostly converts who are then entered into the church the wrong way messing up their union with God and also are told to be obedient to people who dont even obey holy tradition and understand the orthodox spiritual life properly and some of them are even confessors. So whether theyre orthodox from birth or converts most people are not met half way by the clergy. And if you highlight this widespread issue they will just tell you youre being distracted from repentance, go repent, all those matters are beyond your scope of concerns as a layman, etc. Then we are left to the confusing situation of having to direct our own spiritual life per the examples and teachings of the saints, but entering into all of that requires regeneration and illumination and repentance to come to the proper "wisdom" or epiginosko / experience, so ultimately it is fair to say the clergy by and large have become agents of spiritual death rather than spiritual life. But out of a false sense of piety many will dare not look at things this way, but every other way of looking at the situation leads to an impious position. Of course one can go too far and say I am gonna leave the Church, it's heretical, maybe Ill become an old calendarist or something extreme - nobody is advocating such things, obviously that is as damaging as the position of blind obedience and going along with what is essentially Apostasy. So look at the education of the clergy, they come out of the academic spectrum and dont understand the spiritual life, or they are appointed without proper catechesis as layman aspiring to become clergy and dont understand spiritual life, or even worse they go to academies and learn nothing and also dont have experience of the way/truth/life of Christ on a personal level. This is the situation today. But the outlook is simple, the laity get the kind of leadership they deserve based on their efforts to unite with Christ, otherwise things would be better. So those trying to do the right suffer thanks to all the others who are like the Israelites of the old temple and have fallen away into blasphemy and indifference. And those who do the right thing as clergy also suffer in the same way, being ostracized, pushed out of their positions, defrocked or sent to some remote part of the world where nobody attends the parish, etc. All the patriarchs are directly involved with ecumenism and other state operations, they have autocracy over the rest of the Church and that will never change until all the Church underneath their level remove them and appoint better leaders. This is why there are people today who unfortunately claim "all bishops have forsaken the Church and Christ" and quote st john chrysostom who says the path to hell is paved with the skulls of bishops. Its largely true. But Christ just like He allowed Himself to be assaulted, arrested, etc, is now allowing us to go through such things. That is the way forward to true holiness when the standard methods have been essentially banned or destroyed by the temple leaders. Its a mystery of Christ that the Church leaders are forerunners of antichrist when they are meant to be SAINTLIKE, but indeed thats what is going on. We have to restablish on the local level without their provision and moderation sadly, or the whole thing dissolves quickly into apocalyptic mass apostasy like the days of Sodom and Gomorrah.

[@markpatterson2517]

@@ICONFESSONEBAPTISM I think the soul's healing and relationship with God fall into place when one gains spiritual understanding of the Scriptures, particularly the Gospels, and when one gains insight into one's own soul. Things become clear. Instead, people go through the motions of their religion without the spirit. Confused without clarity, they argue over things they don't fully understand. They strain gnats and swallow camels.

[@ICONFESSONEBAPTISM]

@@markpatterson2517 Yes well there's also the liturgical life and sacramental life which can only be valid or real within the one true Church, without that the spiritual life is very vague.