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**9mm_fan** · 10-19-2007, 10:47 PM

It is indeed a bit of a sticky wicket, but even a cursory study of Church history will cause your concern to grow rather than ease in that respect.

What about the times of the Ottoman captivity, when the position of the Patriarch went to the highest bidder and was the civil as well as spiritual ruler of the Rum? How much more "sergianist" can you get?

But then again, "Sergianism" isn't what some people make it out to be. It is not and never has been officially declared by any competant Orrthodox authority "heresy" although that term has been thrown about, a bit too liberally and enthusiastically for my taste. If so, then the Church simply ceased to exist outside of Russia when the Ottomans took Constantinople. I have a problem with that.

We are not Donatists. Obedience, even to a "wrong" patriarch (and there have been several) still counts as obedience. YOUR salvation is not necessarily surfeit simply because your bishop made a bad decision, but HE will have to answer for it, HE will be called to account in a manner should make you and I shudder.

10-19-2007, 10:47 PM	#4
9mm_fan Join Date May 2007 Age 53 Posts 5,191 Senior Member	It is indeed a bit of a sticky wicket, but even a cursory study of Church history will cause your concern to grow rather than ease in that respect. What about the times of the Ottoman captivity, when the position of the Patriarch went to the highest bidder and was the civil as well as spiritual ruler of the Rum? How much more "sergianist" can you get? But then again, "Sergianism" isn't what some people make it out to be. It is not and never has been officially declared by any competant Orrthodox authority "heresy" although that term has been thrown about, a bit too liberally and enthusiastically for my taste. If so, then the Church simply ceased to exist outside of Russia when the Ottomans took Constantinople. I have a problem with that. We are not Donatists. Obedience, even to a "wrong" patriarch (and there have been several) still counts as obedience. YOUR salvation is not necessarily surfeit simply because your bishop made a bad decision, but HE will have to answer for it, HE will be called to account in a manner should make you and I shudder.
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