For self-defeating actions, the GOA’s Abp. Elpidophoros is the undisputed champion. His 2024 encyclical for the 4th of July is the latest in a long line of such actions. There are notable points where he is at odds with both history and with the judgment of holy saints of the Orthodox Church.
‘The Fourth of July is our National Birthday . . .’
False. As we have previously pointed out, separation from the British Empire produced thirteen new nations, not one. Now there are 50 nations, instead of 13.
‘ . . . celebrating the Declaration of Independence, a truly remarkable document that every American should read every year on this date.’
We actually agree with his Eminence on this point. The Declaration is ‘truly remarkable’, but not in a positive way. The Holy Father St. Athanasios Parios (+1813) demolishes the concepts lionized in that Enlightenment-tainted political treatise, such as individual freedom and equality.
Of freedom, he says,
. . . I do not accept that people are born free (independent) in the world. On the contrary, I support and will prove that there is no such freedom in the world: people are born and live in the world as "slaves" (dependent) in many ways.
- People are "slaves" of God, just like the rest of creation. That people are "slaves" is so true, that when they are ignorant of their Creator and do not carry out His commandments, they are punished even for eternity. In fact, this punishment does not apply to any other tangible creature, because only people are distinguished from all the rest, since they have reason and have been adorned with the gift of autonomy, so they voluntarily become wicked and worthless servants and disobedient to the orders of their Master.
- Therefore, those who proclaim with words and decide in accordance with the law that people are born free are ignorant and foolish. Those who think this way are among the herd of Epicurus' followers. They are atheists and believe that the soul is mortal. They are apostates of the Divine revelations, rebels against the greatness of God Himself, deserving of hatred and despising by all creation, as enemies of God, the Creator and Lord of all. So here we have a way of "slavery" (dependence) that is necessary and inevitable, as long as it is impossible for the creature to deny its Creator, the formed its Fashioner, the caused its Cause. After all, who is so ignorant that they do not know that the constituent parts of man are two, that is, the body and the soul? And that the rational soul is the one that governs the body, that is, the irrational part, and causes it to move wherever and however it wants? So is there anyone who doesn't know and doesn't accept this truth, which is known even to the Gentiles? A slight observation is enough for everyone to locate it in their consciousness.
. . . - When we encounter another kind of "slavery", dependence on the body, which is completely natural and necessary, how can various vain people say and write that people are born free? After all, isn't each of us born under parental authority? Don't parents naturally have the absolute power over us to treat us the way they want us to live when we don't live right or obey their promptings? Don't they punish us? Do they not renounce us and deprive us of our paternal inheritance?
- But isn't every head of household a kind of monarch at home? Doesn't he have different people at his workplace and he tells one "come" and they come, and to the other "do this" and they do it? And what happens to every apprentice and students of every specialty? Aren't they subject to the authority of their teachers, as if they were masters? Who can deny that they obey with respect and definitely carry out the orders and are severely punished when they do not obey the rules of apprenticeship accurately?
- When we see people subjected in so many ways and maybe even more, where is their natural freedom? Even if we consider that they can be freed from parental and doctrinal dependencies, how can we ignore the dominance of the innate soul and that of the First and Supreme Cause, that is, the Creator and God of all?
- To the extent that it is impossible for the Creator and Maker not to be the Lord and Master of men, and to the extent that it is impossible for the soul, as a rational and intangible nature, not to be the hegemonic part of human composition, it is to the same degree that it is impossible for people to be free, independent.
. . . And, if that wise opinion is true (and must be true) that says "it is more burdensome to be enslaved to one's passions than to external tyrants," they are absolutely slaves to the passions, and this slavery is much more burdensome, worse and poorer than enslavement to tyrannical people. Because the body is by nature subject to the commands of the dominant soul, and for this reason it is not paradoxical to submit to some external power and perform bodily services and works. However, it is completely unheard of and paradoxical for the dominant soul to fall from its high order, the utterly free one, and to submit with its own will to the irrational and filthy passions of the body.
Of equality, the following:
- But with their declarations of freedom, they also link the declaration of Equality. And high on their flags they write "Freedom-Equality". And the reckless and relentless mob, what else more attractive, appealing and motivating for uprisings against superiors would they expect to hear beyond these declarations? With the proclamation of Freedom, he imagines himself free from all external human power, which he indiscriminately calls tyranny, even if it is not. With Equality statements, the water carrier and the one who cleans the feces, imagines himself as the most noble and prominent.
Stupid and vain people! If, as Gregory the Theologian says, the monkey imagines he is a lion, what good will such an imagination do him? Equal! Tell me, where is this equality? He lives in fancy palaces and towering towers, and you, unfortunate one, have a poor hut, enough to house your sick and tired body. He is resting in a golden and ivory bed and on soft mattresses, and by force you have a wooden mat, to lay down your tormented body. There is not much space left on his table due to the abundance of food and wine, and you just have some bread and some poor quality cheese to fool your hunger!
But why expand on the matter? How can two people be called equal when one is very rich and the other is starving and forced to steal because of his poverty? These declarations are an invention of cunning and insidious people, who, wanting to satisfy their passions and fulfill their evil desires, instilled in the minds of the common people this unbridled wind of equality, to help them achieve their purpose. Can there ever be equality in societies dominated by greed, dominated by passions, where no other expression is heard more often than "mine" and "yours"?
St. Athanasios points out where real equality can be found, and it ain’t in ‘Murcan ‘democracy’ or capitalism, but in the life of the Orthodox Church:
Equality, yes, did exist once! But where? In the newly formed Church of those good Christians, the simple and pious! There, as Saint Luke describes it (Acts 4:32), no one had anything of their own, but it was all common - money, clothes and food. But why was everything common? Because, he says, the hearts and souls of the faithful were one! Everyone had an opinion and a will about God and they were all connected with brotherly love, so close that, although they were a lot of people and of different ages, men and women, old and young, they were all so unified that they looked like one body that was moved by one soul.
The same equality and solidarity has existed for many centuries in the coenobiums of the Venerable ones of old, Pachomios, Savvas, Euthymios, Theodosios and many others, because in them brotherly love and solidarity were preserved. That, indeed, was true Equality!
If the Archbishop’s views of freedom and equality sound more Freemasonic than Christian, it is because they are. St. Athanasios explains:
. . .
The rest is at https://orthodoxreflections.com/archbishop-elpidophoros-vs-the-holy-fathers-on-americanism/.
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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!
Anathema to the Union!
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