The Reformed Ninja

Anathema Means to Curse:  A Brief Outline of the Concept “Curse”  in English, Hebrew, and Greek English (verb) -  1. To utter a wish of evil against one; to imprecate evil upon; to call for mischief or injury to fall upon; to execrate. 2. To injure; to subject to evil; to vex, harass or torment with great calamities. 3. To devote to evil. To utter imprecations; to affirm or deny with imprecations of divine vengeance. <https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/curse> English (noun) -  1. Malediction; the expression of a wish of evil to another. 2. Imprecation of evil. 3. Affliction; torment; great vexation. 4. Condemnation; sentence of divine vengeance on sinners. 5. Denunciation of evil. <https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/curse> Also, “the expression of a wish that misfortune, evil, doom, etc., befall a person, group, etc. Synonyms: malediction, fulmination, execration, imprecation” “the act of reciting such a formula; an evil that has bee...

What is the Gospel according to the Eastern Orthodox Church? What is the Good News? What is it that the Eastern Orthodox Church proclaims to people struggling under the burden of sin and the reign of death? In order to answer this question, we will look at what their factual canonical position is. This will move the discussion past the mystical, impressionistic musings of the modern Eastern Orthodox reconstructions. The contemporary, quasi-conservative reimaginations of Orthodoxy, whether as the Neo-Patristic synthesis, or as a kind of theological-liturgical aesthetics, or as an Orthobro manosphere, or as Christian-flavored universalism and Perenialism, or as hesychastic pietism (the Philokalia was first published in 1782), are really just subtle, imitative departures from Biblical Christianity that are particularly pernicious, because they play to the prejudices of the sophisticated religionist, erecting castles in the sky that each would-be theologian climbs ropes of sand up to. It b...

Following upon the previous article's  discussion of the ritual anathemas called to be pronounced annually on all non-Eastern Orthodox Christians, the question of the Sigillion of 1583's authenticity, especially with its anathemas, involves a few key details which, if glossed over, will lead to an erroneous conclusion regarding the canonicity of its contents. A helpful study of this was done in 2011, entitled, "The 'Sigillion' of 1583 Against 'the Calendar Innovation of the Latins': Myth or Reality?"  This 2011 study contains many valuable details that help to establish the question of the authenticity of the anathemas.  Regarding the occasion of the study, the bishop (Cyprian of Oreoi) who wrote this oft-cited study that purportedly showed the Sigillion was a "forgery," was part of a "non-canonical" Orthodox group called "the Holy Synod in Resistance." This group dissolved in 2014 when it joined another independent Ort...

  Many have been told that Eastern Orthodox Christianity is a welcoming, mystical version of Christianity, one that is not “hung up” on legalism or on excessive dogmatism. It may come as a surprise, then, to learn that Eastern Orthodox Christians not only formally believe that they are the only Christians on planet earth (Synod of Jerusalem of 1672, Decree 10), but that Eastern Orthodox Christians are called to ritually and formally curse, every year, all who disagree with them. The canonical document that they use to curse all non-Orthodox is called the Synodikon of Orthodoxy , and technically is supposed to be read yearly on the Feast of Orthodoxy, also called the Sunday of Orthodoxy, and the Triumph of Orthodoxy. From the titles of the Feast Day on which it is read, it is clearly being associated with the very identity of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and of what it means to be an Eastern Orthodox Christian. It is celebrated on the first Sunday of Great Lent in the Eastern Orth...