An Irish Welcome

Céad Míle Fáilte friend and rover ...
Wherever you come from and whosoever you may be.
That's an Irish greeting and it means

you are welcome
a thousand times over.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

To all the heretics: Anathema!

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and forever, and to the ages of ages! Amen!


As the Prophets saw, as the Apostles taught, as the Church has received, as the Teachers express in dogma, as the inhabited world understands together with them, as grace illumines, as the truth makes clear, as error has been banished, as wisdom makes bold to declare, as Christ has assured, so we think, so we speak, so we preach, honouring Christ our true God, and his Saints, in words, in writings, in thoughts, in sacrifices, in churches, in icons, worshipping and revering the One as God and Lord, and honouring them because of their common Lord as those who are close to him and serve him, and making to them relative veneration. This is the faith of the Apostles; this is the faith of the Fathers; this is the faith of the Orthodox; this faith makes fast the inhabited world. These preachers of true religion, we praise as brothers and as those we long to have as our fathers, to the glory and honour of the true religion for which they struggled.

The Holy Trinity has glorified them [Saints, May their memory be eternal]. By their contests and struggles and teachings for the sake of true religion to the point of death, we entreat God that we may be guided and strengthened and beg that we may be shown to be imitators of their inspired way of life until the end, by the pities and grace of the great and first high-priest Christ, our true God; at the intercessions of our most-glorious Lady, Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary, of the god-like Angels and all the Saints. Amen.

Anathema! On every innovation and action contrary to the tradition of the Church, and the teaching and pattern of the holy and celebrated Fathers, or anything that shall be done after this:

To all the heretics: Anathema!

2 comments:

  1. The Orthodox Church professes to preserve the Faith of the Apostolic Church. Wherever a right-believing Bishop with Apostolic Succession walks in the spiritual footsteps of the Fathers, there the whole Church of Christ is. Wherever there are those loyal to the rock of St. Peter’s confession of Christ as the Son of the living God, there Orthodoxy is. And wherever the traditions of the Church and the Fathers are guarded faithfully, as St. Paul enjoins us to do, there we find our Faith. Spiritual succession, the living Faith of the Saints, the unity of God-inspired liturgical and spiritual traditions, the oneness of witness in Orthodox Baptism and Communion—these express our Faith.

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