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Joined August 2026
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Димитриос retweeted
«Faith in the Trinity and the redeeming sacrifice of Jesus Christ the God-Man is the sole means of our justification. A person who believes that one can be justified by any means other than the redeeming sacrifice of Christ is excommunicated from the Church.»
+ St. Daniel Sysoev
Димитриос retweeted
Says Jesus wants you to sin, and cites a verse that does not say that at all. 🤦🏻♂️
Димитриос retweeted
These guys don’t seem to grasp what the democratisation of discourse through social media entails, for better or for worse: that some random “furry”, of all the people in the world, can play his part in the exposé of their “Alpha & Omega” as little more than a deranged charlatan who spits on Orthodoxy, and tear down the idols they’ve erected around him.
The sneering, the kicking, all of the crying, all of the screaming, all of your sin: it will never stop that. It’s time to face the music, & face it in a very humiliating way at that... At the paws of some random furry. Har har!
Димитриос retweeted
Fr John Romanides requested that St Augustine not be called "Blessed" or "Saint" in the English translation of his book 'The Ancestral Sin'
St Gennadios Scholarios says: "And if any does not think and say Augstine is a Saint and Blessed, let him be anathema."
Димитриос retweeted
I could never be a modernist. “Blessed Ilia’s patriarchate was under the thumb of the MP!”
‘The voluntary death of Jesus Christ, as one without sin and holy, not only fully satisfies God’s justice but gives Him occasion to bestow grace upon us to overcome sin and death. The Apostle Paul says: “For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.” (Rom. 5:17).’
‘As the ancestors of all humanity, Adam and Eve passed on to humanity the same nature that they had after their transgression, that is, corrupted and fallen. Their sin passes to everyone. The Apostle Paul commands: “Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin—death: thus death came upon all men, in whom all sinned.”(Rom. 5:12).’
‘Baptism is necessary for everyone, as the Saviour commands: “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5). The Church teaches us that baptism is necessary also for children, for they too are subject to the sin of the first man [Adam], and without baptism they cannot receive the remission of this sin. The Lord also explained this to us when He said plainly: “Except a man be born [again],” that is, after the coming of Christ the Saviour, all who wish to enter the kingdom of heaven must be born a second time.
And if children are in need of salvation, then, consequently, they are in need of baptism as well. Those, however, who have not been born a second time and have not received forgiveness of the sin of the first man [Adam], are liable for eternal punishment for this sin & will not be saved. Therefore baptism is necessary also for children (Decree 16, Confession of Dositheus).’
–Catechism or Handbook for Studying the Faith of the Orthodox Church (Tbilisi, 2017 ed.)
Димитриос retweeted
"Thus Archpriest J. Romanides seeks to present ‘Protestant Neo-Orthodoxy’ as Orthodoxy. This is a long-tried device: accuse others of being held ‘captive’ by ‘Catholicism’, ‘philosophy’ and ‘scholasticism’, while developing a Protestant thesis as though ‘Neo-Orthodoxy’ were Orthodoxy."
Archpriest Constantine Jincharadze, A Handbook for Understanding the Nature and Currents of Modernism: Anatomy of Modernism (Tbilisi, 2023), 198.
Димитриос retweeted
‘“No man hath seen God at any time: the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.”(Jhn. 1:18) The God-head, then, is ineffable and incomprehensible. For “no one knoweth the Father, but the Son: neither doth any one know the Son, but the Father.”(Mt. 11:27) Furthermore, the Holy Spirit knows the things of God, just as the spirit of man knows what is in man (cf. 1 Cor. 2:11).
After the first blessed state of nature, no one has ever known God unless God Himself revealed it to him not only no man, but not even any of the supramundane powers: the very Cherubim and Seraphim, I mean.
Nevertheless, God has not gone so far as to leave us in complete ignorance, for through nature the knowledge of the existence of God has been revealed by Him to all men. The very creation of its harmony and ordering proclaims the majesty of the divine nature.’
–St. John (Damascene), De Fide Orthodoxa, I.1
Димитриос retweeted
🧵On Fr. John Romanides misinterpreting St. Dionysios
“St. Dionysius the Areopagite who is accused of Platonizing and Neoplatonizing, even though he clearly tells us that God is not solely an unmoved mover. He is also moved. In other words, God not only moves all things, but He Himself is also moved. There is in God an aspect that is capable of suffering or undergoing change.”
—Patristic Theology p. 63-64
Димитриос retweeted
Fantastic.
‘Here is how Augustine’s theory is interpreted by A. Gaudel: “Whatever Augustine’s hesitations on how to explain the infection of the soul in the act of birth, the great doctor always held firmly to this principle: what connects us to the personal sin of Adam is the nature propagated by birth; the unity of this nature founds the solidarity of all in solidarity with one.
The person of Adam made nature sinful, then nature is what makes us soft; we are only guilty through the guilt of the nature within us, which, in turn, is only guilty through the will of the first man, in whom nature is found in its entirety. We bear our own sin because we bear our own nature; on the other hand, however, we bear the sin of another, because we did not commit it through our personal will. Ancestral sin is therefore a true sin of nature, the vitium naturae”(Dict. Theol. Catholique, XII, 1, col. 396).
This, though, is precisely the doctrine of the Eastern Fathers. We are liable, not because we personally sinned in Adam. The ancient Christians did not lack this legal basis for accepting liability for Original Sin. We are liable for the sinful human nature, which we receive from Adam. Receiving existence as we receive it, we also receive the blame for its sinful character. It is not just because we have sinned that we bear blame, for if we are without a sinful nature, as the three theories maintain, we do not bear blame. In truth, we bear blame for a truly sinful nature, although we did not make it sinful, yet we received it as such.’
‘God, in His goodness, took care that by making us all guilty for the sin of the first man—from whom we all descend—He might thereby establish the very possibility of freeing us all from this guilt, again through one man, namely the second Adam. For just as God, in His foreknowledge, included us all in Adam, who was to fall, so also He included in Christ all those who would believe—Christ who was to come as a second Adam without sin. If we had each been brought into existence individually, without bearing the guilt of another's sin, we would not have had the possibility to all partake together in the grace that comes from the obedience of one.’
–St. Demetrius (Stăniloae), On How the Guilt of Ancestral Sin is Transmitted.
Димитриос retweeted
Fr. Oleg Davydenkov’s refutation of contemporary accounts of original sin, like that found in the OSB:
‘Probably as an over-reaction to the Catholic doctrine of sin, in contemporary Orthodox theology the opinion has become widespread that original sin should be understood only as a corruption of human nature transmitted from ancestors to descendants, which is expressed in its corruptibility and mortality. For example, Archpriest John Meyendorff writes that “original sin is, above all, hereditary mortality, leading people to the commission of sins.” In the same vein the doctrine of hereditary sin is set forth in the manuals of dogmatic theology by Archimandrite Alypius and Archimandrite Isaiah, where it is asserted that in the Orthodox East “original sin was considered, above all, as corruption of nature, and not as sin,” and by Archpriest Liberius Voronov, who defines “original sin as the disorder that occurred in the pure and perfect God-created nature of man.”
Such an understanding of original sin creates obvious difficulties for theology. First, this point of view comes into conflict with the Church’s universal faith, expressed in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, that the baptism of all people, including infants who have no personal sins, is nevertheless performed “for the remission of sins” (εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν).
Second, with such an approach it remains incomprehensible why Holy Scripture and the Fathers of the Church invariably speak of hereditary corruption in spiritual and moral categories, use for its designation the term “sin” (ἁμαρτία, peccatum), and thus see in it a spiritually negative meaning. For corruption of nature in and of itself, understood as the introduction into it of destructive alterations, is not a reality subject to moral evaluation. For example, a person who is bodily or even mentally ill, by virtue of this circumstance cannot in any way be called a sinner. Holy Scripture, however, clearly testifies that as a result of Adam’s sin all people are not only bearers of a corrupted nature, but have become sinful (Rom. 5:19) and, consequently, have by nature become children of the wrath of God (Eph. 2:3).
The holy Fathers likewise spoke not only of the corruption of human nature after the fall, but also of its improper spiritual condition. Thus St. Gregory the Theologian speaks of the “uncleanness” and “defilement” introduced by the fall, and St. Macarius the Great of the “hidden defilement” which defiles soul and body. Thus hereditary sinfulness should be understood not only as a disorder of human nature, but also as a particular spiritual state subject to moral evaluation.
[...]
Notwithstanding the fact that original sin is not a personal sin, it cannot be recognized as some kind of morally neutral reality. As a union with the devil, this state is deeply contrary to the Divine plan for man and therefore cannot be an object of Divine favour, for it is utterly impossible for God, without denying Himself, to acknowledge evil’s right to exist in the world. Thereby all the descendants of Adam, as bearers of a fallen nature, are by nature children of wrath (Eph. 2:3) and are subject to condemnation. Therefore, together with Original Sin (ἁμαρτία), condemnation (κατάκριμα) also passes to all the descendants of Adam (see Rom. 5:18).
Condemnation finds its expression in the fact that all people, as descendants of Adam and Eve are:
a) subject to the law of corruption and death; b) cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven (see John 3:5), as bearers of a sinful condition, that is, one contrary to Divine ordinances.
Thereby, in its consequences, original sin is in fact equated to a transgression of the law of God. The subjection of each of Adam’s descendants to this punishment is called the imputation of original sin.’
–Archpriest Oleg (Davydenkov), ODT, Pt. 3, §3, Ch. 1.3.3
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Димитриос retweeted
When examining the teachings of, say, Archpr. John Romanides and Metr. Hierotheos Vlachos on original sin, we encounter a conception which denies that man inherits a sinful condition affecting both body and soul from the moment of conception.
In Empirical Dogmatics, Vol. II, they both go so far as to maintain that the soul is initially pure and the nous illuminated, while the actual darkening of the nous occurs subsequently, through bodily corruption and the influence of one's environment.
‘...the soul is pure, the nous is illuminated, but the body inherits corruption and mortality from the parents, that is, old age and death. Of course, the creation and union of soul and body exist simultaneously with the conception of the human being.
Thus, the inheritance of ancestral sin is, in reality, the inheritance of the consequences of the Fall, namely corruption and mortality, the so-called “garments of skin”. As a result of bodily death, which is present within the cells, the passible part of the soul is affected during the development of the human being, and thus the bodily passions develop, and the nous of the human being also becomes diseased and darkened.’
–Empirical Dogmatics, Vol. II, p. 196.
And, even more explicitly:
‘The Panagia had attained theosis at the age of three. The infant child is receptive. It has not yet suffered hardness of heart; it has not become wicked. The fall of the child comes about through its environment, through its parents, its uncles and aunts, its friends, and so forth. If the child is in a good environment, that child can grow up without difficulty, with noetic prayer. The child has fewer difficulties than adults. It learns more quickly. It is the environment that ruins the child.’
Romanides’ position is then summarised as thus:
‘For this reason, the Fathers also emphasise that each person is born as Adam and Eve were. And each person undergoes the same fall, that is. The darkening of the nous takes place in each individual. In the embryo, in which the human nous exists, the nous is not yet darkened. Each person undergoes the fall of Adam and Eve on account of the environment.’
–ibid., p. 197.
On this account, differing from the canons of the Council of Carthage affirmed by the Patriarch & his stance on original sin being in us a state of sinfulness (rather than simply its consequences), man does not inherit a nous already darkened by original sin, but undergoes his own fall subsequently, with the corruption of the soul developing through the inherited mortality of the body and the external influence of his surroundings.
From this understanding, aligning with the understanding of Archpr. John Meyendorff in Byzantine Theology, one can only naturally conclude with the affirmation that infants are in fact saved ipso facto, rather than granted a certain preservation from sufferings (Gregory the Theologian, Synaxarion on Saturday of Souls, Mogila’s Treibnik), which you are aware is a rather common view today.
Димитриос retweeted
Since our friend @Zalmoxis7534 is at it yet again, let us refer back to the lɛpá Κοινότις of Mt. Athos & Patr. Bartholomew’s statement on original sin addressed to the Patriarchate of Georgia to clarify that His Holiness is not a proponent of modernist teaching on Adam’s sin.
The Holy Community (Ιερά Κοινότις) of Mt. Athos—consisting of 20 representatives, one from each of the ruling monasteries there—and its 2000 response to an inquiry the year prior of the Missionary Dept. of the Georgian Church, approved also by Pat. Bartholomew, concerning the issue of the unbaptised, namely infants, & their fate:
‘Man, who is composed of body and soul, is a complete hypostasis from the very beginning of conception. The body proceeds from the bodily union of the parents, while the soul is given by God at the moment of conception in a hidden manner known only to Him.
Accordingly, even the unborn infant, whether it died naturally or was killed by abortion, constitutes a complete being (hypostasis), called to eternal life (κεκλημενην διά τὴν αἰώνιον ζωήν).
Since the question concerns the salvation of the human being, we inform you, on the basis of the Holy Scriptures and the God-bearing Fathers, that Man is saved only in the one holy catholic and apostolic Church, that is, in the Orthodox Church, our own.
Through the holy Mysteries of Baptism, Chrismation, and Communion, the baptised person is introduced into life in Christ, receives the grace and illumination of the Holy Spirit, is established as a member of the Body of Christ, and becomes a partaker of eternal life and the Kingdom.
Every newborn infant, whether of Christian or non-Christian parents, shares by nature in the sin of the first father, Adam, and has inherited corruption and death, even though it has no voluntary sin.
This necessity follows from the unity of human nature, according to the Apostle: “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men...”(Rom. 5:12).
But since we partook of sin and death by nature and not by will, because of the unity of human nature [with Adam], in the same way, through the incarnate Dispensation of Christ, salvation from sin and death is freely granted to us (χαρίζεται δωρεάν εἰς ἡμᾶς), as the Apostle also says: “For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.”(Rom. 5:15).
The remission of original sin and the abolition of death are given to us through holy Baptism, as the 121st Canon of Carthage [419] clearly decrees. The essential renewal of the baptised consists in co-resurrection with Christ, for which reason neither sin nor death has dominion over him (cf. Rom. 6:3–14), but rather he lives in “newness of spirit”(Rom. 7:6).
Infants who die prematurely and, for this reason, remain unbaptised, are not glorified in the Kingdom of Heaven (δὲν δοξάζονται εἰς τὴν Βασιλείαν τῶν Οὐρανῶν), because they have not received holy Baptism and therefore have not been freed from original sin, nor have they shared in and received the renewal of the Holy Spirit.
At the same time, they are not punished (δὲν κολάζονται), because they did not reject Baptism (δὲν ἠρνήθησαν τὸ Βάπτισμα), but were involuntarily deprived of it (ἀλλὰ ἀκουσίως τὸ ἐστερήθησαν), and because God does not punish children with eternal destruction (δὲν τιμωρεῖ ὁ Θεός μὲ αἰωνίαν ἀπώλειαν) for the sins of their fathers; nor, again, do they receive crowns as do those who throughout their whole life kept the divine commandments.
With regard to this whole matter, the holy Fathers offer their judgment (γνωμοδοτοῦν) in submission to the Justice of God, but do not conjecture anything beyond (δὲν εἰκάζουν περισσότερα) what the dogmatic teaching concerning holy Baptism and the salvation given through it sets before us.
For this reason, St. Nectarios of Aegina pronounces his judgment, invoking the opinion of his predecessors, Sts. Gregory the Theologian and Gregory of Nyssa. At the same time, it is evident from the discernment of the holy Fathers that it is good not to indulge curiosity concerning such judgments of God.’
–The Reply of the Holy Community of Mt. Athos Concerning the Eternal Lot of Infants Who Die Unbaptised, ratified by HH Bartholomew (13/6/2000)
