An Orthodox priest on anti-Western rubbish

The Latins have been on the wrong side of so many issues, like preserving the icons and holy relics during the interminable Byzantine iconoclasms, or resisting Byzantine heresies foisted with patriarchal and imperial authority... Arianism deserving some attention. As I recall old Rome supported SS. Athanasius and John Chrysostom when the East was out to kill them. Tisk, tisk. And then the Latins dare to make devotions to “Body Parts” made in the image of God and hallowed by the God-Man Himself in His episode of Incarnation. I personally don’t worship Body Parts but I do adore them... among my favorites the Incarnate Word at Bethlehem and His Crib at Santa Maria Maggiore, His Most Precious Blood from the Cross, the Saving Victim in the Mass and outside the Mass in Benediction and in Communions of the Sick. And then there is the Sacred Heart pierced for our salvation by the lance of Saint Longinus. Come to think of it, I have even reverenced the lance itself where he is kept at San Pietro on the Vatican Hill across the Tiber. For the simple believer it would seem all those bits hallowed by the God-Man would be worthy of adoration and Liturgical commemoration... including the Virgin Herself immaculate in all her life... possibly including her Conception? Or is that out of the equation on the basis of Calvinist reasoning... or Superdox deductive logic? Sorry to say, like most of the faithful I get my ideas from the language of Liturgy and prayer rather than from systematic theology or the abundant writings of Pop-orthodoxy.

Labels: Eastern Orthodoxy, history, the Catholic faith