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Sunday, July 26, 2009

Anonymous Priests

[From "Orthodox Prophets"]

Okay we get it. You are afraid of retribution. We understand that to speak against a powerful, dictatorial, corrupt, Metropolitan could mean the demise of your career as a priest. You have a family. You need an income and if you make Philip Saliba and his felonious supporters angry there may be retaliation. You may get reassigned, defrocked, have your name dragged through the mud, your own sins revealed or be physically assaulted. We get it. Your decision to be anonymous in your opposition to the evil that is being perpetrated on the Church and on your fellow Christians is, in effect, self preservation.. SELF preservation. We get it, we understand it, but it is not acceptable. It is not Orthodox. This Sunday as you are in the midst of the temple, you will venerate the saints of the ages. You will pray for their intercessions. Did even one of those Saints remain Anonymous in the face of such? Do we venerate even one of those Saints for their decision to remain hidden in their faith? Come out of the shadows, priests! Be the light in the midst of this present darkness! Deny your SELF and follow the truth of Christ. Speak the truth in love but speak the truth even to your own death. IT IS YOUR CALLING. It is the calling of every Christian, but you have received HOLY ORDERS of a different kind. The Church is the Lord's and it is being usurped! The head of the Church is Christ not a Metropolitan named Philip!

"But what about my family. What about my parishioners?"

Have you forgotten that it is their glory to suffer for the right as well? Have you forgotten the Saints who willingly offered their children up to death for the sake of Christ? If you protect them from such blessing you do keep from them the salvation that Christs offers through such. There is no better love of a father...or of a priest. If you cower at this minor oppression how will you be saved in the greater oppression that is to come? Will you remain Anonymous then? Will you say,

"Lord save thy people and bless thine inheritance... and while you take care of that, Lord, I will be over here protecting my SELF."

"For I have been crucified with Christ yet nevertheless I live, yet is not I who live but Christ who lives in me and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me...for me to live is Christ and to die is gain."

"For the Lord has not given me the spirit of fear

but of power and of love and of a sound mind."

FOR GOD'S SAKE AND THE SAKE OF HIS HOLY CHURCH AND YOUR OWN SOUL, STAND IN THE LIGHT AND SPEAK THE TRUTH..."Fathers".

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous11:33 AM

    Thank you, Mr. Lewis, for this statement.

    ReplyDelete

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