Eastern 'Orthodoxy' Exposed: Their Heretical Doctrine Of God

[antisocialist]

Brilliant presentation. Hopefully the Orthodox will see their error of their ways, and rejoin the Church that Christ started, the Roman Catholic Church.

[vaticancatholic-dimond]

By the way, since the publication of this video (Eastern “Orthodoxy” Exposed: Their Heretical Doctrine Of God), a few adherents of Eastern ‘Orthodoxy’ have attempted what can correctly be called pathetic and superficial responses to the arguments and the presentation. There has not been one serious response. A serious response would actually interact with the main arguments presented in the video concerning their denial of God’s immutability and their belief in a ‘god’ who, they admit, is exceeded and surpassed by the divine essence. But none of the aforementioned responses even attempt to specifically address those arguments. They won’t deal with those points. Immutability is a particularly sore spot for the Eastern schismatics. They prefer to avoid it like the plague. That’s because the teaching of Scripture and the councils they claim to accept on God’s immutability collapses their entire false theology.

As an example of the falsity such heretics put out, one Eastern ‘Orthodox’ heretic (who has changed his religion five times in the past 16 or so years, having gone from Calvinist to ‘Catholic’ to ‘Orthodox’ to ‘Catholic’ to rejecting Christianity altogether back to ‘Orthodox’) said this about our video:

"So what they are talking about in that video [meaning MHFM's video] they don't even know what our position is, the Light of Tabor is not a created light."

He's arguing that we don't even know what their position is because we supposedly hold or said that they believe the Light of Tabor to be created. Well, anyone who watched our video knows that we correctly represented their position as 'uncreated light' (e.g. 2:49 mark of the video). We never said that they believe the Light of Tabor was a created light. He thus totally misrepresented what's in our video and circulated that nonsense to his fellow schismatics. That gives you an idea of the lack of accuracy of many of his other claims. The same individual regularly misrepresents sources by giving ‘summaries’ instead of actual quotations. Beware of heretics who don’t provide specific citations when they ‘summarize’ what the fathers or a council said. In our video, we provide specific clips or citations that anyone can look up. Although it’s not necessary, if time permits we might expose some of the revealing failures, lies and errors of the aforementioned attempted responses to our video.

[eensrds]

Several decades ago I was deceived by yoga. Anyone who seriously studies this subject (I eventually went to India to study it in depth) will learn that real yoga is Hinduism through and through. Many of us at the "ashram" were Westerners and were told by the "guru" that "Christ" was one of the ascended masters and that he was a yogi (trained in India during the hidden years!). Those who wanted to follow him were told that the way to do so was through Hesychasm! Seeing this video made all the pieces fall into place.

[bradleyperry]

First, I don’t want to get into a huge fight about this. I am a Christian, raised Methodist, currently attending a non-denominational church, but I have been praying and seeking guidance about both the Roman church and the Eastern church. I have some reservations about both obviously, being from a Protestant background. And I truly believe Protestantism is lost and was from the beginning.

One of my major issues with the Roman church is the papacy. I no longer have issues with the veneration of Mary or of the Saints or any of that. I am completely unconvinced of the doctrine of the papacy however. I’ve read and heard the arguments and I am simply unconvinced.

That being said, I have never heard anything about the topics raised in this video. I don’t know anything about essences vs. energies. I am still trying to process what you talked about, but it was confusing to be honest. There was a lot of jumping around and I feel like I’m missing a lot of context to be honest. One question I have, though, is if God is Love and God is Goodness, but He also gives those to us as gifts and we are able to love and be good, why is Grace not the same? I am genuinely curious and absolutely ready to be convinced. I simply did not understand that point.

Another question I have is about the unchanging nature of God. Obviously He does not change. We know this from Scripture, the fathers, and the creeds. But does His interaction with His creation not change? I’ll grant the argument that the Pope is equivalent to Moses’ seat, but what about before Moses? What about God’s interaction with people who loved Him and worshipped Him before the Hebrew religion was formalized? Was that not significantly different than what we understand now? And when Jesus said the Father was sending the Spirit, who He called greater, did that not indicate a change in God, at least from our perspective? An analogy might be that I am the father to my three children and though I in general may be the same man, as they grow older my interaction with them changes and I appear to them to be different. I don’t know if that makes sense or not, and if I’m missing something please tell me.

Again, I’m not picking a fight here, and I’m not a hostile party. I’m just searching. I feel like I understand some of your points, but some of them I feel like you were thinking about the issues a different way. Does that make sense? I don’t know if it does or not.

Looking forward to gaining some wisdom. Thank you.

[ionjohn]

I would like to ask you this question: do you really think that our Lord Jesus Christ, after the separation of the Eastern Church from the Western Church, left one half of the Christianity without the sacraments because of the quarrels between their hierarchies and scholars?

[biblefirst]

Here after the Cassman debate ....
Well done sir

[JudeMalachi]

So in your opinion who's teaching is God protecting? If he is not protecting the teachings of the Eastern Churches--even the Eastern Catholic Churches--and not protecting the Roman Church then who? If we can't know the true teachings either by authority or through our own experience in Divine Mysteries then by what other than the arbitrary means of chance could we ever be assured that we are following the true Church?

[PapalSoldier]

It's not a surprise the schismatics developed a new theology, this is what happens when you're ignorant of Church history and reject the Catholic Church.

The following 2 quotes are also relevant to show that there is no such thing as the Eastern "Orthodox" church:

"It was at Beyrout and in the [sic] Lebanon that I began to get my first notions of what most English people glibly talk about as “The Eastern Church.” The fact is that there is no such thing as “The Eastern Church.” There is in the Near East a bewildering number of sects... [Through The East To Rome, G.J. MacGillivray, pp. 39-40]

Also

"To begin with, there is no such thing as the 'Orthodox Church.' There is a group of some 15 or 16 independent Churches, recognizing no common authority, but loosely connected as being all 'Orthodox.' And again, if you leave out Russia, the whole number of the Orthodox is exceedingly small; and the Russian Church was only held together by the power of the State..." [ibid, 91]

G.J. MacGillivray was an Anglican who went to the East himself to unite the Syrians and Greeks, he found it impossible and in the end became a Catholic.

[ghruderbs]

I've been looking for a while for concrete examples of the theological differences between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, rather than just historical differences. This was incredibly informative, thank you.

[alexchristopher]

The major heresies in the first millennium originated in the East.

[BecomeAnOrthodoxChristian]

Woohoo! I've been waiting for you to do a video on this topic!
Thank you.

[southernstoic]

This is the most informed Catholic channel I have come across. I never thought I would encounter legitimate reasons to not be Orthodox. I'm an Orthodox convert, by the way. Maybe I should give Catholicism another look. Also, you should debate Jay Dyer. Just sayin'. . .

[andreichira]

You know that Saint Gregory Palamas is a saint in the Catholic Church, right?

[Spyridon]

All very eye opening . Never realised this about the orthodox teaching here . Very concerning

[DigitalLogos]

"You shall not have any gods before Me"
>Palamites literally set up another uncreated god beneath God.

I have to say, given the understanding of essence/energies you describe, the Palamite error has similarity with the neoplatonic belief that the gods are manifestations of the One through emanation.

[drwalmgc]

This video is very important. Eastern "Orthodoxy" gains traction, people look at it as a refuge from the apostasy from the Church, or valid alternative for uprooted Protestantism in which they find same defiance of Papacy, and many beautifully true dogmas, such as Immaculate Conception, and not loose 13 reason to divorce a spouse.

[darthlinathegreat]

The Catholic Church is the only one true Church of God!

[ardentfire]

Awesome video, I'm glad to see you guys finally tackle this topic.

[DavidBarton]

I am learning about Christianity and you videos have been very helpful. Thank you

[renrichardson]

The Eastern Orthodox distinction between essence and energy is from Kabbalah. The terms vary only slightly, but the substance of the doctrine is identical. The unknowable essence of God is 'Ein Sof' in Kabbalah, and the energies are the 'sefirot', the manifestations of God. Studying the mystical theology of Kabbalah shows a near 1-to-1 correspondence on all of the major ideas Gregory of Palamas taught, which isn't surprising, given his defense of mystical practices and the supposed enlightenment arising out of them. Eastern Orthodox theology is from Jewish mysticism, and for those who understand the genealogy of the mystery traditions, it also shows why it so closely parallels Gnostic teachings on the unknowable Supreme God.