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  1. James the Persian

    What kind of Christian are you?

    Oh my goodness, I think that must have been the worst quiz yet posted on this forum, and it's up against stiff competition. I couldn't answer at least 60% of the questions truthfully (and two of the ones I could answer were age and gender) so had to plump for the closest I could and the...
  2. James the Persian

    Patriarch Teoctist has passed on

    I received word yesterday that His Holiness Patriarch Teoctist, Patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Romania and, hence, my Patriarch died yesterday evening at a hospital in Bucharest where he was undergoing surgery. He was 92 years old. He was a great man of God and we will sorely miss him...
  3. James the Persian

    Why Was Paul's Teaching More Acceptable?

    Quite. It always makes me laugh when westerners anachronistically apply the Protestant idea of sola fide to the early Church. St. Paul didn't teach any such thing, nor did the Fathers and for 1500 years after Christ, nobody believed that idea, or its bedfellow sola scriptura. Just look to those...
  4. James the Persian

    Question?

    No. The Council of Jerusalem, in Acts, is where the issue of the old Jewish law was settled. Not sure what Messianic Jews make of that, though. James
  5. James the Persian

    Bible Versions - Literal and Paraphrased

    I agree wholeheartedly (though my local dialect makes me have a soft spot for the English of the KJV which means I prefer it for worship to more modern translations). I particularly agree with you about the NIV - it's absolutely awful. Personally, I would avoid that one like the plague and, to...
  6. James the Persian

    What would be required for reconcilliation?

    Yes, indeed. Thank you. No. This is often how it's portrayed by RCs and so I know what you mean but it is not something I recognise at all. I would say that the issue is not one of development v. no development (any Orthodox Christian who tells you there's been no development is either ignorant...
  7. James the Persian

    Pope:"Creation vs. evolution an absurdity

    Where's the surprise? Those of us whose churches pre-date the Reformation have always had this sort of an attitude to science. And when I say always, I mean it, many Church Fathers used the science of their day and didn't take Genesis absolutely literally, St. Basil the Great being a good...
  8. James the Persian

    Need Help Finding The Right Church

    The first part of this point does not necessarily conflict with the second. What I mean is that we do say that there is only one God. We go further than that and say that there is only one true Church, but we most definitely do not conclude from that that everyone outside the Orthodox Church is...
  9. James the Persian

    need to know?

    Muhammad isn't mentioned (except obliquely in the way that all 'prophets' to follow Christ are mentioned, and that isn't positive) for the same reason that people like Montanus, Arius, Nestorius, Eutyches and the like aren't mentioned. Just because you make a 'change in religion' doesn't...
  10. James the Persian

    What would be required for reconcilliation?

    I agree. I am by no means ecumenist. I'm not about to go into Schism over it but I was practically grinning from ear to ear when reading recent comments from His Holiness Patriarch Teoctist, because my church up to now has been rather more eci=umenically minded than some. Did you read Fr...
  11. James the Persian

    What would be required for reconcilliation?

    I thought that to be the case This is not actually something we could agree with because, in effect, that would make the Pope the bishop of bishops in that his Synod would be the entire Church rather than just the Holy Synod of Rome. The point for us is that the Pope must not be over the other...
  12. James the Persian

    What would be required for reconcilliation?

    Florence is a very poor example. There were several occasions between 1054 and the 4th Crusade where things looked like we might possibly reconcile, but Florence, no matter how it was perceived by Rome was never anything more than an attempt by certain politicians, both inside and outside the...
  13. James the Persian

    Recommend me some good, recent adult fantasy/sci-fi... and manga

    I'd recommend Olympos and Ilium by Dan Simmons (the guy who wrote Hyperion) if you're interested in a kind of fusion of Greek mythology and SF. I'd recommend anything at all by Peter F. Hamilton, but particularly the Night's Dawn trilogy - The Neutronium Alchemist, The Reality Dysfunction and...
  14. James the Persian

    What would be required for reconcilliation?

    I've often been asked what would need to happen before Rome and Orthodoxy could be reconciled, what were the stumbling blocks to ending the Schism. I've always struggled to give a decent answer becaues the question of the differences between Rome and Orthodoxy, not to mention all of the unhappy...
  15. James the Persian

    Elric of Melniboné

    Though so, but wasn't sure. Erekose's great. He embodies the depressing pointlessness of endless rounds of reincarnation being, as he is, the only one that can remember all hisincarnations. Particularly so for a self-loathing teenager. I'm not so sure how I'd react if I encountered Elric for...
  16. James the Persian

    Are All Welcome to Church???????

    And I agree with both of you wholeheartedly. Church is, or should be, a hospital for the sick not a place where those who are 'already saved' can pat each other on the back in smug satisfaction that they aren't suffering from the sins of 'those people'. All must be welcomed and all must be...
  17. James the Persian

    When Was The Last Time...

    The year I got married, so 2001, my mother got married in a Methodist church and, of course I went to that. Out of choice I wouldn't go back but I would go for some family reason, of course. I didn't like it at all, am far too used to the Divine Liturgy to be in any way interested in a sparse...
  18. James the Persian

    Elric of Melniboné

    Well, as I identified myself as an Eternal Champion fan (though, did I mention that I preferred Corum?) I suppose that I need to answer. I'm not sure when I first read Elric of Melnibone (that was the first one I read) but I was probably about 14. I started the Corum books at about 12 and had...
  19. James the Persian

    Question on Religious Background

    No, there are no 'manmade trinity doctrines'. The Trinity was believed from the beginning contrary to the claims made by the likes of the JWs. I wasn't actually indirectly referrint to texts at all, although some of Holy Tradition is indeed found in extra-canonical documents. The sorts of things...
  20. James the Persian

    Do you like Saint Augustine

    It's all Orthodox, not just the Greeks. We do not see him as a Church Father, so his writings cannot serve to reunite us. In fact we'd say that it's his writings that did much to divide us in the first place. He is a saint, though. Blessed for us is another title for a saint not a differenet...
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