Jewish State MK Desecration - Ripping Up the New Testament

Anti-Christ much?

A member of the Jewish state Knesset has torn up a copy of the New Testament in front of cameras in his parliament office this week. An aide says Christian missionaries mailed the Christian scripture to Michael Ben-Ari of the ultranationalist National Union Party.

Itamar Ben-Gvir said Ben-Ari, an Orthodox Jew, was enraged to receive the book, in whose name he says millions of Jews were slaughtered. Ben-Ari tore it up, he said, then posed for photographs with the destroyed Bible.

Hanna Sweid, the only Christian member of the Knesset said “This is hooliganism, bullying and an apocalyptic act of hatred that was baseless and unnecessary, This reflects the culture of a man who is dangerous to nations and religions of the world.”

In response to criticism he said “This abominable book, it galvanized the murder of millions of Jews during the Inquisition and during auto da fe instances, There is no doubt that this book and all it represents belongs in the garbage can of history.”

It is interesting that when an American pastor threatens to burn a Qur’an it makes international news and causes outrage but when an member of Israel’s Government records himself ripping up a bible and slandering it, it is not even mentioned by the BBC Webpage.

I know that the way in which we see the bible differs to Islam’s view of the Qur’an but surely it shows a double standard when a politician can do this.

From TheOrthodoxBrit

According to the Jewish state website NRG, he not only tore the Good Book apart but also threw it into the trash.

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The Life of the World

 Orthodox Serbia

Velikoretsky Procession, 2012

June 2-7, 2012 - Russia: Around 35,000 pilgrims participated in the Velikoretsky Procession, held annually in the Kirov Oblast. The procession is associated with the Icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker “Not-Made-by-Hands.” According to tradition, a local peasant named Semyon Agalakov found this icon in 1383 on the shores of the Velikaya River. After one of the villagers, who had not been able to walk, was healed by the icon, it was recognized as miraculous and became the object of pilgrimage.

Sunday of All Saints

(Commemorated on the first Sunday after the Feast of Holy Pentecost)

The first Sunday after the Feast of Holy Pentecost is observed by the Orthodox Church as the Sunday of All Saints. This day has been designated as a commemoration of all of the Saints, all the Righteous, the Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, Shepherds, Teachers, and Holy Monastics, both men and women alike, known and unknown, who have been added to the choirs of the Saints and shall be added, from the time of Adam until the end of the world, who have been perfected in piety and have glorified God by their holy lives.

Background

A Dose of Reality From a Palestinian Christian

Palestinian believers light candles in the Church of Nativity, Palestinian town of Bethlehem

A Palestinian Christian Response to Michael Oren

By Faysal Hijazeen

As the parish priest of Ramallah, an op-ed by Israel's envoy to the US gave me pause for thought. Michael Oren's article spoke volumes of Israel's unending misrepresentation of Palestinian daily life.

The presence of our 13 Latin Patriarchate Schools throughout the West Bank and Gaza, for over 150 years, is a living witness to the coexistence of Palestinian Christians and Muslims.

We have never faced in our schools or society the supposed persecution of Christians by Muslims to which Mr Oren referred in "Israel and the Plight of Mideast Christians," published Friday in the Wall Street Journal.

Contrary to Oren’s statements, the persecution of Christians here is caused mainly by the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territory. This occupation humiliates us, destroys our economy, causes demographic changes and deprives millions of the freedom of movement and their right to decent lives, in addition to the confiscation of land.

These are the main ways Christians are persecuted in Palestine.

On the Parable of the Prodigal Son

St. Cyril of Alexandria ca. 376-444

I hear one of the holy prophets trying to win unto repentance those who are far from God, and saying, “Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God: for you have become weak in your iniquity. Take with you words, and return to the Lord our God.” What sort of words then did he, under the influence of the Spirit, command them to take with them? Or were they not such as become those who wish to repent; such namely, as would appease God, Who is gentle, and loves mercy. For He even said by one of the holy prophets, “Return you returning children, and I will heal your breaches.” And yet again by the voice of Ezekiel, “Return you altogether from your wickednesses, O house of Israel. Cast away from you all your iniquities which you have committed, that they be not to you for a punishment of iniquity. For I have no pleasure in the death of the sinner, as that he should turn from his evil way and live.” And the same truth Christ here also teaches us, by this most beautifully composed parable, which I will now to the best of my ability endeavour to discuss, briefly gathering up its broad statements, and explaining and defending the ideas which it contains.

Christ is born! Glorify Him!

His hand is stretched out still

Nevertheless the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed, as when at first He lightly esteemed the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward more heavily oppressed her, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, in Galilee of the Gentiles.

The people who walked in darkness Have seen a great light; Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, Upon them a light has shined. You have multiplied the nation And increased its joy; They rejoice before You According to the joy of harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. For You have broken the yoke of his burden and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian. For every warrior's sandal from the noisy battle, And garments rolled in blood, will be used for burning and fuel of fire.

Holy Hieromartyr Philoumenos of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre

[caption id="attachment_2879" align="aligncenter" width="373" caption="New Martyr Archimandrite Philoumenos (+1979), keeper of the Greek Orthodox monastery of Jacob's Well in Samaria (Nablus, West Bank - Palestine)"][/caption]

New martyr Archimandrite Philoumenos (Hasapis)

Of Father Philoumenos' surname, his spiritual son Monk Yeghia Yenovkian writes that he was "Born to the pious Cypriot family of Hasapis". In a Greek source, published in August 2004 which deals with modern saints of the Orthodox Church, Fr. Philoumenos is referred to in a brief biographical entry as "Orountiotis" however; this latter term in the Greek refers to his place his origin (i.e. "of the village of Orounta") and not to his surname.

(Greek: Π. Φιλουμενος ο Κυπριος , also Π. Φιλουμενος Ορουντιωτης ), October 15, 1913 - November 16, 1979, was the Igumen of the Greek Orthodox monastery of Jacob's Well near the city of Samaria, now called Nablus (Neapolis), in the West Bank.

In a Synodal decision the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem classified him in its Hagiologion at its 50th Session on September 11, 2009. He was officially glorified by the the Patriarchate of Jerusalem on November 29, 2009 (Old Style), and is commemorated by the Church on November 16/29.

Father Philoumenos' was martyred at the hands of the Jews in Palestine on his Name day, November 29th (Old Style), which is also the feast of the 3rd century martyrs Paramon and Philoumen (ca. AD 270).

His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilus III presided at the Divine Liturgy, along with the bishops of the Patriarchal see of Jerusalem and a number of bishops from the Church of Cyprus, in addition to a delegation from the Russian Church.

The life of Father Philoumenos is an example that martyrdom for Christ is not of the past from the Roman Empire or Communist times, but is a reality even in our own day...

His life...

Love the Jews (Or Else!) - A Chick Tract

By Jack T Chick LLC

Would you believe that I had never heard of Jack Chick or Chick Tracts? It's true...

This one strip tells us all we need to know about Jack Chick though, I think...

The Unity of the Church & the World Conference of Christian Communities

By Saint Hilarion (Troitsky)

This is the first audio book offered by the Orthodox Christian Information Center. Please see the Introduction, below, for more on this book.

The entire book is contained in two MP3 files of almost equal length...

Forum's Back Up - New Address

Click on Image to visit

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†NI  KA†

Who Decides? Unraveling the Mystery of the Old Testament Canon

by Daniel Lieuwen

When the Church began, there were no New Testament books. Old Testament texts alone were used as Scripture. The Old Testament used in the early Church throughout the Roman world was not the Hebrew Old Testament, but a translation of the Old Testament into Greek called the Septuagint (LXX). The LXX was translated in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus in the middle of the third century B.C., and was the standard Old Testament in the synagogues throughout the Hellenistic world (including Palestine) at the time of Christ.

In addition to the books included in a Protestant Old Testament, the LXX contained a number of other books now commonly referred to as Apocrypha or Deuterocanonical. Some of these books are Tobit, Judith, Maccabees, and a longer version of Daniel.

The LXX is based on a very different text of the Old Testament from the Masoretic text, on which modern English translations are based. For instance, in many places the wording is quite different, and the content of the books also differs—generally the LXX text is longer, but there are also interesting additions to the Masoretic text that are not found in the LXX. The text on which the LXX is based is as ancient as the Masoretic text, as testified by the Dead Sea scrolls and many other ancient witnesses.

A 'Standardized' Judaic Text

Judaism was quite fluid (fragmented; lost) at the time of Christ. There were seven distinct sects of the Jews in the early first century, according to Eusebius. The different sects accepted the authority of different collections of books (e.g., the Sadducees and Samaritans accepted only the five books of the Prophet Moses, the Torah), and there were often significant differences in the composition of the books they accepted in common. Sometimes the same sect might even make use of multiple text bases, or as scholars call them, text traditions. For example, the Dead Sea scrolls, (likely) containing the sacred texts of the Essene sect of Judaism, show evidence of the Masoretic, Samaritan, and LXX text bases.

However, with the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, an intense standardization process began. Only the Pharisaic and the Samaritan sects of Judaism survived this process. The collection of Old Testament books into what eventually became the Masoretic text was begun by the Pharisees at the Council of Jamnia, somewhere between AD 80 and 100

A New Forum... A Non-Judaized Orthodox Christianity.net

Click Image To Visit

I don’t know if this’ll catch on or not… or if there are enough of us – or what but I was banned from http://orthodoxchristianity.net for talking about Jews specifically and 9/11 peripherally, so I decided to just start my own forum... Why not?

I don’t know what’s going on over there as far as administration goes or why I was really banned (the excuses they gave were arbitrary) and I don’t even really care that much anymore – though I was there long enough to know that many of the posters there are actually Jews or have Jewish ancestry, so that has to be a contributing factor along with otherwise (seemingly) predominantly Zionist, Protestant Judeophilic backgrounds.

They’re over there… framing every debate, turning every mention of Jews or Judaism into slanderous accusations of hate and antisemitism, same old, same old, blah blah blah. I’m sick of it.

Is Christianity From the Jews? Are the Jews God's Chosen?

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves."

- Matthew 23:15

Many people today calling themselves Christian will tell you that, "Our faith comes from the Jews, our Lord was a Jew, the Jews are God's chosen," etc, etc, ad nauseum... but is this really the case?

"They are the enemies of the cross of Christ."

- Phillipians 3:18

The current head of the Papcy (Benedict) has stated similar fallacies in his book-length interview with Peter Seewald entitled 'Light of The World':

He explains why he no longer calls Jews "our elder brothers" but rather “fathers in the faith,”

An Orthodox Perspective on Christian Zionism

By Father Daniel Swires

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In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

There is an ancient belief among some people known as “millenarianism” or “chiliasm.” This is the belief that Christ will set up an earthly kingdom and will rule it for a thousand years, usually referred to as the “Millenium.”

This belief actually has its origin in post-exilic Judaism. An anticipation that survived the Babylonian exile was that one day God would restore the kingdom of David under a model anointed king, the Messiah. Even though idealized, this would be an earthly, historical kingdom, and most often its relation to the end-time was not specified.

Another expectation that developed, especially in apocalyptic writings, was that God would directly intervene in the end-time, without any mention of a restoration of the Davidic kingdom.

One way of combining the two expectations was to see two divine interventions: (1) a restoration of an earthly kingdom or period of blissful prosperity to be followed by (2) God’s end-time victory and judgment. Many writers speculated about these two events. They are found in 1^st Enoch, in 4^th Ezra, in 2^nd Baruch, in the Ascension of Isaiah. It is interesting, though, that each of these writers sees a different time frame for these events. It is quite probable, in fact, that most of them never intended to convey exact times. Rather, they were symbolic ways of predicting divine victory over evil forces that are an obstacle to God’s Kingdom or rule.

St. John, then, in writing the Apocalypse, also used the idea of a thousand-year reign of Christ, not to describe a historical, earthly kingdom, but as a way of saying that ultimately, in His own time, God will have the victory. (It is worth reminding ourselves that only one passage in the Apocalypse, consisting of two verses, mentions a thousand-year reign: from this one small passage has come a lot of exaggerated speculation.)

Benjamin Freedman Speaks on Zionism and the So-called 'Jews'

Introductory Note  -- Benjamin H. Freedman was one of the most intriguing and amazing individuals of the 20th century.

     Mr. Freedman, born in 1890, was a successful Jewish businessman of New York City who was at one time the principal owner of the Woodbury Soap Company. He broke with organized Jewry after the Judeo-Communist victory of 1945, and spent the remainder of his life and the great preponderance of his considerable fortune, at least 2.5 million dollars, exposing the Jewish tyranny which has enveloped the United States.

     Mr. Freedman knew what he was talking about because he had been an insider at the highest levels of Jewish organizations and Jewish machinations to gain power over our nation. Mr. Freedman was personally acquainted with Bernard Baruch, Samuel Untermyer, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Joseph Kennedy, and John F. Kennedy, and many more movers and shakers of our times.

This speech was given before a patriotic audience in 1961 at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., on behalf of Conde McGinley's patriotic newspaper of that time, Common Sense.  Though in some minor ways this wide-ranging and extemporaneous speech has become dated, Mr. Freedman's essential message to us -- his warning to the West -- is more urgent than ever before.

The Orthodox Christian Church Is...

The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Orthodox Christian Church is:




(a) The Body of Christ

(b) The community of believers and followers of Jesus Christ since Pentecost — that point in time at which that community has been guided by The Holy Spirit, as had been promised by Our Lord prior to His Crucifixion and Resurrection:

[John 16:13: “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.” Matthew 16:18: "And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”]

(c) The same yesterday, today and forever, just as Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever [Hebrews 13:8]

(d) One, as Jesus Christ Himself is One and Indivisible

(e) Holy; sacramental; liturgical - as opposed to being merely some sort of club for social networking, or activism, or community organizing, or debating, or …. whatever is the trend of the week

(f) Catholic; universal; The Church for all of humanity in all places at all times, and also with each “Church” — each place of Orthodox worship, and each Autocephalous Church — complete in itself as the nexus between time and eternity, between Heaven and Earth.

(g) Apostolic; in continuity — both temporally and in terms of teachings and tradition — with the Apostles, who themselves were guided by Our Lord and Saviour, and who were in continuity with the teachings and traditions of the Israelite people prior to the temporal ministry of Jesus, the Messiah

(h) Orthodox; of correct teachings, correct worship, correct glorification.  Lex orandi, lex credendi.

The Orthodox Christian Church Is...

The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Orthodox Christian Church is:

(a) The Body of Christ

(b) The community of believers and followers of Jesus Christ since Pentecost — that point in time at which that community has been guided by The Holy Spirit, as had been promised by Our Lord prior to His Crucifixion and Resurrection:

[John 16:13: “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.” Matthew 16:18: "And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”]

(c) The same yesterday, today and forever, just as Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever [Hebrews 13:8]

(d) One, as Jesus Christ Himself is One and Indivisible

(e) Holy; sacramental; liturgical - as opposed to being merely some sort of club for social networking, or activism, or community organizing, or debating, or …. whatever is the trend of the week

(f) Catholic; universal; The Church for all of humanity in all places at all times, and also with each “Church” — each place of Orthodox worship, and each Autocephalous Church — complete in itself as the nexus between time and eternity, between Heaven and Earth.

(g) Apostolic; in continuity — both temporally and in terms of teachings and tradition — with the Apostles, who themselves were guided by Our Lord and Saviour, and who were in continuity with the teachings and traditions of the Israelite people prior to the temporal ministry of Jesus, the Messiah

(h) Orthodox; of correct teachings, correct worship, correct glorification.  Lex orandi, lex credendi.

Attempting To Answer "Irrefutable" Questions...

[caption id="attachment_448" align="aligncenter" width="460" caption="(A Capture of) The Main Page of the Site in Question"][/caption]

 

I was referred to this website a while ago: Bible.ca...

Apparently, it’s operated by the so-called ‘Churches of Christ’ (19th century Restorationist movement of Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone). They are basically just another sect of ‘Sola Scriptura’ Protestants who claim to follow the Bible only... Any other extra-Biblical traditions (aside from their own of course) are derided, and the authority of the Church from whence the Bible came is expressly denied.
Anyhow, there’s a page on that site: ... Irrefutable Questions That Roman Catholics and Orthodox Can’t Answer... On that page there are 29 questions.­­
Some of them are (to me at least) virtually unintelligible... but here for your perusal are the questions followed by  my answers (to most of them anyway)...