Putting Off Royal Pretensions
(Bond Note: I've written many articles over the last thirty years carrying the same theme. Clericalism is a curse, empowering evil and paralyzing the faithful who suddenly don't feel qualified to know and experience the truth.)
Putting Off Royal Pretensions
Clergy Must Be Loving, Caring, and Merciful Pastors
Orthodoxy has traditionally avoided clericalism, yet in more recent times this very corruption of priestly service has entered the doors of the Orthodox Church. It has led some clergy to seek out, for personal gain, even the heavy burden of hierarchical service to Christ's Church. Motivated by their desire for princely honor, their sight is clouded so as to endanger not only their own souls, but the souls of the laity who are in need of humble, fatherly, pastoral care, and who will suffer under their "pastoral" guidance.
This quest for honor has led many clergy to participate in a culture of abuse, where they even turn on one another in their sad attempt at aligning themselves with "officialdom". The culture of abuse that is encouraged and fomented by refusing to live in adherence to the simplicity and humility of Christ's example, is not much different than that of the grade school pecking order where the bully builds alliances based on fear.
It is the same culture that chooses to ignore destructive behavior which undermines the message of the Church, and displaces the ministry of healing, replacing it with a worldly culture not unlike that of the fiefdoms of medieval Europe. It is a culture that must be destroyed.
As the Church founded by Christ, we Orthodox need to return to the basics. Our bishops need to put off all royal pretensions and princely ways, and give themselves over to being loving fathers to their priests and people. Our bishops need to lead their dioceses with biblical standards based on love of their people, and love of Christ, and not rule by fear and tyranny. Priests need to lead their people as loving fathers, and not as local governors appointed by Caesar.
We are living in dangerous times, and the people of God must be given the spiritual tools needed to thrive as society falters, and Christianity itself is under increased attack. The road ahead requires bishops and priests to be more than religious officials, they must be holy men who lead their people as loving, caring, and merciful pastors.
Love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
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Not putting words into Abbot Tryphon's mouth, my opinion is that these pictures represent the "officialdom" he is not naming, and of course I'm so bold and crude I name them because the need to be named. The in Capitulation to the CIA/Mossad/Judeo Luciferian forces and agenda, the Patriarch of Constantinople has taken the pretensions of a "New Pope" and over-lord commander create changes at a whim, and his next-in-line the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of America is destroying Catholicity by his campaign for the same agenda and people and the inculcation of the Cultural Marxist LGBTQ agenda into the Church. Here is the rogue's gallery.
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