OcheNick

@BatuZerk Слава Богу! Воистину воскрес!

@OcheNick18 Indeed they did Father! Christos Voskrese!

Halupki, Kielbasa, Paska, pickled eggs, Hrudka, red beets

@Thomasdelvasto_ Lord, I believe; help my unbelief! May you continue your search and may it bring you to the truth of the Christ who is risen from the dead.

Going to church today for the proto-anastasian liturgy (Easter is tomorrow for us Orthodox Christians), I have to admit I have some doubts about the Resurrection and the whole story of Christ being the Son of God. Usually I can sort of deny these doubts within myself, but during Holy Week, the sincerity of the people around me, the Church services every night and during the day (not that I go to them all), and just the general intensity of everything really brings my cognitive dissonance to the forefront. I'm about a year and a half post my conversion to Orthodox Christianity, and when I took the vows to follow Christ, bear His cross, and keep to the strictures of the Nicene Creed, I was sincere. At least as sincere as I could be. I had doubts of course, and my priest was well aware. After all, I took the name of the premier doubter in the Christian mythos, Saint Thomas the Apostle. When I was converting, I had multiple experiences of Christ coming to me. I dealt with extreme chronic pain, debilitating suffering, and He saved me. I don't talk about this often online because it feels gauche, and I won't go into detail now. But suffice to say I had genuine experiential evidence to believe the Christian story. Unfortunately, as Christianity has ceased to be novel and exciting and a big chance in my life, that evidence feels more and more hollow, less convincing to my overly rationalized, modern mind. More and more I find myself thinking: "Is this really true? What if His body was just snatched away and lies were spread? Wouldn't it make more sense for all the women at the tomb and the apostles to just be delusional, even if they genuinely believed it? The Jews said that they stole the body, the early Christians obviously claimed they were lying, how can we ever know for sure?" When I first started to doubt, even before I converted, these thoughts would plague and torment me. Sitting there in church I would fret, "How can I feel this way and sing hymns, how can I take communion while not genuinely believing that it's the Body and Blood of Christ?" Still today these doubts and thoughts bother me, but I'm learning to be more at home with them. I can't ever know the truth of the Resurrection. In all likelihood, the intense experiences that convinced me to convert won't come back. My spiritual father and my elders in the faith have all warned me that's the case. So, if I doubt the Christian story so much, why continue going? Aren't I living a double life? Aren't I lying to myself and my community? Perhaps I am. It certainly bothers me, as I pride myself (heh) on being an honest and open person. I discuss my doubts with my priest and close confidants, but generally keep them close to the chest in my broader church community. In a way it would be easier to just leave church. To take the path I took as a teenager, be an atheist, say it's all fake. But I simply can't deny the beauty of Holy Orthodoxy, the haunting power of Christ's story, and His words. When I first saw an Orthodox Divine Liturgy, I was blown away. I came back a second time and ended up bawling the entire service, crying more in that couple of hours than I had my entire life prior. Eventually one of the parish council members had to shoo me out of the pews, because I stayed there crying so long that everyone had packed up and they were closing the church. Something about Orthodoxy, something about Christ, just compels me. Even if it doesn't make sense to my rational mind, my heart can't let go of Him. Reading the pre-communion prayers, I do honestly have difficulty firmly and strongly acclaiming that YES, I DO believe this bread is the Body of Christ, and the wine is the Blood of Christ. But I can honestly say that I love Him, that I want Him dearly, that I long for Him to be a part of me. I can say that when I participate in the Eucharist, I feel filled with a mysterious life that I can't explain, that perhaps isn't divine but certainly is closer than almost anything else I've experienced in this world. Who knows what actually happened two thousand years ago in the tomb of Christ, it's probably one of, if not the most, controversial historical topics ever. We will never truly know what happened, regardless of what evidence comes out or new techniques archaeologists discover. All I know is that for me, the beauty and power of Christ's Church and His legacy that has been kept alive for almost two thousands years by His followers is something I can't seem to do without. It has made my life better in every way, and made me more like Him. My role model, my Lord, my Savior. When the mood strikes me, my King and my God. Perhaps I'm a hypocrite, one of those people Christ condemned that mouthed the prayers without really believing deep in their hearts. I certainly know I'm a sinner. But ultimately, I just can't seem to walk away despite the dissonance and the doubts and the confusion. I'm reminded of the story in the Gospel, when Christ was about to go to His Passion, and he gave his disciples the ritual of the Eucharist. He told them that they would be eating His body, drinking His blood. Many of His followers, even those healed by Him, were freaked out, and understandably so! They went Ok dude, we can accept that you're a holy prophet healing us, but you want us to be cannibals? You want us to EAT you?! That's a little too weird for me, sorry, I'm out. Christ turned to His disciples and said, "Will ye also go away?" Simon Peter responded, in a quote that haunts me two thousand years later because I feel the exact same damn way. He looked at this beautiful Man, this incredible healer, teacher, prophet, king. He searched his heart, and responded: "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life."

@OrthodoxReflec1 @byzantinetx I don’t want it

@byzantinetx Can you see a future in which we have a common practice? Might be a far future. No issues with different practices, just maybe not within a few miles of each other in the same country?

Greeks & Slavs don't have identical Holy Week/Pascha traditions. So when someone comes from X parish and is now at a Y church, they can feel Y is "deficient" by not doing something. Example: the King of Glory dialogue. It isn't a deficiency. It's a difference. (1/3)

@Alypius_Loft Ugh, *is

@Alypius_Loft I have a print of your St Maximus in son #4’s room. Will you have this available as a print? He of Maximus Elijah!

The Holy Prophet Elijah

@Chi_Rho_Goomba @Lemelson Most notably forced celibacy.

@Lemelson We hear of whole Orthodox Dioceses and Churches return to union with the successor of Peter Ruthenian Church returned in 1595 Carpathia in 1646 Romania in 1697 Antioch in 1724 Not to mention all the individual diocese that return, such as in Ukraine recently

Notably, you never hear of an Orthodox converting to Catholicism.

@Chi_Rho_Goomba @Lemelson Many of the Carpatho-Rusyns (Ruthenians/Carpathians) returned to Orthodoxy after the Latin Rite bishops forced celibacy breaking the terms of the unions when they immigrated to the US.

@Alypius_Loft I sense a pattern

"Thank you, God, for not making me like the Greeks."

@since33 Why AI?

Today is Little Pascha. Death receives a foretaste of its defeat.

@Stephen_Angliss Did Christ harrow hell?

Your annual reminder that, no, Jesus was not in Hell between Friday and Sunday—despite what the Apostle’s Creed says. This is a great example of the danger of over emphasizing creeds and confessionals. It results in a theology that is shaped by tradition instead of Scripture.

@banterwithb youtube.com/live/gEtJFYPaq… Here you go! It’s amazing!

Dammit, I REALLY wanted to hear him say the Archbishop's name 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

@TheEyesopened @BasedDavePA @tallblondetexan Your claim is that the Bible predates churches which is patently false. I didn’t take anything out of context.

@TheEyesopened @BasedDavePA @tallblondetexan First of all, if you’re going to engage in a debate about Christianity, you shouldn’t be rude and go to ad hominem attacks. Secondly, where does the Bible come from?

The reason why I'm at a crossroad with choosing between Catholicism and Orthodoxy comes down to this: Which side has the better historical connection to the Church Jesus founded in 33 AD? Which side is objectively closer to the early followers of Christ and what they believed.

@Gedeon_Optinius @BatuZerk Yeeeees?

@OcheNick18 @BatuZerk Fr?

@oblatenate @Alypius_Loft They’re so good!

@OcheNick18 @Alypius_Loft It was one of his YT shorts that got me thinking about this 😂

What would an American Anglican clerical hat look like? I know these things take time to develop but I feel like we’ve had plenty of time and nothing has developed. Not a saturno or zucchetto, not a kalpaki or kalimavkion, not a top hat…but what? A ball cap variation?

@Alypius_Loft @oblatenate wildhatsofficial.com I think this guy could do it

@Alypius_Loft @oblatenate I’d be totally down to wear a clerical cowboy hat.

@Gedeon_Optinius @BatuZerk Orrrrr, he already is!

@BatuZerk Future saint