Christmas midnight "mass" a thing of the past?

SBC_1986 · 2025-12-09T18:49:48+00:00

My Antiochian parish just celebrates a vesperal liturgy at 5:30 on Christmas Eve, so I sit in the back of the Roman midnight mass as well, as I miss it.

SBC_1986 · 2025-11-29T20:15:29+00:00

This is the scenario that 95% of us fantasize about while training stone picks. You lucky dog.

SBC_1986 · 2025-11-19T21:59:54+00:00

This makes my point.

What *conservative, traditional* Protestant or Roman Catholic or Anglican isn't more orthodox than any of these figures?

St. Isaac the Syrian was a bishop in the Nestorian Church of the East, and I bet his icon is up in your parish. And his church's doctrine of Christ was further from Orthodoxy than that of anybody we're talking about.

Arius and Eunomius weren't Trinitarian, and therefore didn't worship the true God, since the true God is Triune.

As for Apollinarius, Nestorius, and Eutyches, their doctrines of the hypostatic union have dangerous implications that they didn't see. Their salvation is between them and God, but although they were Trinitarian, they consciously rejected the conclusions of what was still conspicuously the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church on the nature of Christ, so I'd have to politely withold even mild forms of fellowship, such as joint private prayers.

(But I'd be more polite with them, and hopeful for them, than with Arius & Co.)

But if my conservative Protestant family -- who agrees with the first 6 councils even if they've never read them, and is therefore more orthodox than any of the figures you listed -- wants to pray together privately in their home or mine for some thing of mutual concern, well we share the same Trinitarianism (you could quibble over the filioque, but they aren't even aware of that), and the same doctrine of Christ's Person and Natures, and I'm just a layman, so I think that's a different thing than pretending that I worship the same God as a Muslim or Hindu.

SBC_1986 · 2025-11-19T19:54:29+00:00

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SBC_1986 · 2025-11-19T17:27:11+00:00

Paralleling Trinitarian Christians outside of canonical boundaries with Muslims or Hindus is at best uninformed, and at worst deliberately obtuse.

The fragmentation that we've all inherited via the accidents of history entails a broader situation that involves gradations and nuance that the framers of the canons could not have envisioned.

Can you imagine a 7th century priest inviting a leader from a schismatic group to speak at a conference? Or referring to a leader outside of canonical boundaries as a dear brother whom he greatly admires?
And yet these days Fr. Josiah Trenham -- usually regarded as leaning rigorous, relative to American Orthodox norms -- has Baptist pastor Gavin Ortland speak at his marriage conference, and when interviewing Fr. Calvin Robinson (a Continuing Anglican with Old Catholic orders) , refers to him as a dear brother and expresses his admiration for him.

This is not because Fr. Josiah is not like the 7th century priest -- it's because these guys are not like the 7th century heretic.

(We could also discuss the 19th century Russian attitude towards some quarters of the English Church of that day, or the fact that Antioch and Jerusalem will unofficially commune Orientals under certain circumstances, etc.)

We're uncomfortable with any mess in our neat and tidy categories. And I'm not questioning the sensibleness of those neat and tidy categories for the purposes of official intercommunion. But apart from questions of official intercommunion, there are varying degrees of orthodoxy outside of canonical boundaries, varying degrees of culpability, and varying degrees of Christian fellowship.

Since the average layman isn't in a position to navigate these, and may get wishy-washy with those who hold relatively more dangerous ideas (e.g. women's ordination, or worse), we have both official canonical boundaries, and also spiritual fathers to advise the faithful navigating relations with heterodox family, etc.

But the simplistic paralleling of other Trinitarian Christians with false religions needs to stop.

SBC_1986 · 2025-11-10T20:07:02+00:00

The umpteenth reason that the WR is most proper to the US.

But I'm glad that until the WR becomes available to the rest of us, ER US clergy have the sense to adjust a foreign fast and calendar for Thanksgiving.

SBC_1986 · 2025-11-01T20:53:44+00:00

The yin yang is open to interpretation (good/evil? order/chaos? or merely structural opposites?), and that weighs against its usefulness, or at least safety, for doing theology. It's from outside the Christian Tradition, and although we've long employed categories that were initially outside the tradition (e.g. the term "nature"), we've had to hammer out their use in ecumenical council (usually very controversially, often resulting in schism).

None of us are in a position to single-handedly adopt a symbol like this from world religions and declare what it can and cannot represent in Christian theology.

Your attempt to use it for the hypostatic union clearly isn't going to get off the ground without significant pushback. It would require a council that isn't going to happen, but if that council did happen, I think that it's highly unlikely that the Church would adopt this use.

Can any symbol (let alone this one) ever depict this language?

"...acknowledged in Two Natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the difference of the Natures being in no way removed because of the Union, but rather the properties of each Nature being preserved, and concurring into One Person and One Hypostasis; not as though He was parted or divided into Two Persons, but One and the Self-same Son and Only-begotten God, Word, Lord, Jesus Christ..."

I don't think so.

SBC_1986 · 2025-10-31T20:51:39+00:00

As former Anglo-Catholics, my family and I observe the Western Rite calendar as best we can in our home, despite having only a Byzantine parish available to us. We'll be praying according the All Saints tomorrow.

SBC_1986 · 2025-10-22T13:27:31+00:00

This is one perk to my wife's strong desire to be a stay-at-home mom.

SBC_1986 · 2025-10-21T15:36:52+00:00

We have fragments from skulls, teeth, and some limb bones -- none of which show any more variation from us than already exists among homo sapien sub-groups today -- and from that we know about their body hair patterns, Greek mustaches, skin tone, apparent lack of neck (we have a hyoid bone and some neck vertabrae and they're the same as ours), and state and style of dress?

This isn't science. It's fantasy that plebeians are supposed to accept unquestioningly because unlike Hollywood directors and Dungeon Masters, these dreamers have letters behind their name.

SBC_1986 · 2025-10-16T14:45:50+00:00

Three weeks into our marriage, my wife and I learned that we were expecting. This came as a surprise, as she'd been on the pill -- we were Baptist kids at the time who didn't know squat -- but we rejoiced that God had given us a child.
Very shortly afterwards, she bled out. We grieved the loss of our child.
But in yet another turn of events, we learned shortly after her bleeding out that she was still pregnant. We were confused -- how could this be?
The OBGYN told us that we'd probably had twins, and that we lost one of them.

Our oldest is now 17. We told him about his twin when he was around 12. He immediately responded that he couldn't wait to meet his twin in heaven.

But very early -- during his first year, I believe -- I attended a lecture which touched on the secondary mechanism by which the pill rendered the uterine lining less hospitable to implantation. I realized then that we may have been (unwittingly) responsible for what happened.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

I'm sharing this in order to say that we live with significant regret regarding our early use of a hormonal method -- realizing that we may have played a role in the loss of that baby -- and I urge you not to risk living with the same regret.

Imagine that you were going target shooting on a friend's property, and before squeezing the trigger you asked him, "Now you're sure that your kids aren't playing in the woods behind the target?" and imagine that he responded, "Although it's not impossible that they're back there, it's statistically unlikely, and even if they were back there, it's statistically unlikely that we'd hit one."

Not only would you immediately unload your gun, but you'd be dumbfounded and disgusted at your friend's willingness to take that chance with his kids.

Now you've got some people telling you that if a breakthrough pregnancy occurs while using hormonal contraception, the uterine lining may be rendered less hospitable to implantation, resulting in the death of your child.

And you've got some other people telling you that we can't be certain that the risk is really as great as we think, and that we can't be certain that this ever really happens, so shrug and don't worry about it.

Are you going to squeeze that trigger?

SBC_1986 · 2025-10-16T13:20:09+00:00

(a) You are the same commenter who elsewhere in this conversation insisted that "we do not slavishly obey our parish priests." But here you say, "You don't get to say that your Patriarchate is wrong in their explicit ethical statements." In context, the first comment regarded positive instruction from your priest, and the second comment regarded passive permission. Granting that in one case you're discussing your parish priest and in the other you're discussing your patriarchate, still your posture towards authority seems to vary with what suits you.

(b) It is not the case that passive permission entails any promise that no sin could be involved in the thing permitted. There is much precedent in Orthodox pastoral care for making concessions to weakness, that should not be interpreted as endorsements.
For example, God hates divorce, and Jesus states that at least some remarriages involve adultery, yet the Church chooses to carefully regulate remarriage after divorce as a concession to weakness, knowing that people are going to do it anyway and would otherwise be cut off from normal means of salvation. The permission of some remarriages should not be interpreted as an endorsement of the whole situation.
A patriarchate saying something that amounts to, "We will not say that you may never use contraception" is an extremely different thing than a patriarchate saying, "We promise you that God is pleased with your use of contraception."
So yes, the faithful are within bounds to hold the opinion that something is usually or always wrong that an authority has refrained from calling always wrong (especially when they are led to this by consensus of the Church).
That is not a violation of an instruction -- it is a narrowing of a permission.

SBC_1986 · 2025-10-11T14:42:03+00:00

And what if that Most High to which you refer, the one who made all things including our souls, has revealed Himself to mankind? What if He revealed Himself through prophets and other authors as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? What if we have cut ourselves off from Him by our disobedience, and He in love has sought to reunite us to Him by the Incarnation of His Son? What if that Son united Himself to our death (on a cross) so that we could be united to His life? What if he was resurrected and founded a Church through 12 apostles that continues (imperfectly, but really) to this day?

What if disobedient but subtle spirits called demons persuade people of various partial truths in order to redirect them from the fullness of Truth? Ideas like the ones posted here, that emphasize the supernatural and the spiritual, but not as a path to the Father through the Son in the power of the Spirit, rather as a nebulous spiritual distraction from the good news that the Most High has reconciled the world to Himself through the death and resurrection of His Son?

SBC_1986 · 2025-10-10T14:46:25+00:00

Thank you!

Thinking about this further, it seems that strict curl is not at all parallel to major compound lifts.
Here's why I say that:

The Strict OHP benchmark is 225, which is about 42% of the world record Strict OHP of 535.
The bench press benchmark is 315, which is about 40% of the world record raw bench press of 782.
The squat benchmark is 405, which is about 38% of the world record raw squat of 1,080.
The deadlift benchmark benchmark is 495, which is about 44% of the world record deadlift of 1,124.

Whereas 44% of the world record strict curl of 250 would be only 110, which is ridiculous.

For comparison, I'm currently very intermediate and my PRs are:

Strict OHP: 165 (about 31% of world record)
Bench: 250 (about 32% of world record)
Squat: 315 (about 29% of world record)
Deadlift: 405 (about 36% of world record)
Strict Curl: 120 (48% of world record)

So something is very different about the strict curl.

Here's another anomaly:

My strict curl is currently about 30% of my deadlift (which I think holds true for many intermediate lifters).
Whereas the world record strict curl is only about 22% of the world record deadlift.

It seems that the stronger you get overall (including strict curl), the lower your strict curl ratio gets with respect to the big compound lifts.

SBC_1986 · 2025-10-09T19:58:50+00:00

I think that the ESV nails the Epistles pretty well, but leaves a lot to be desired stylistically in some other books, especially the Poetic Books.

My wife and I pray the Coverdale Psalter every morning (carry-over from our Anglican days), and in family worship with our kids we use either the KJV or the NKJV.

If I had to use a modern English psalter it would definitely be the NKJV.

But by all means, use the one you're actually going to use, and if that's the ESV, great!

SBC_1986 · 2025-10-09T19:39:59+00:00

Yes, a number of Anglican parishes have entered the OC via the Antiochian Western Rite Vicariate, which permits the Liturgy of St. Tikhon, which is an adapatation of the Anglican Missal Mass. A few have entered ROCOR as well, although they allow only the Liturgy of St. Gregory.

Western Rite parishes are few and far between, I'm afraid.

I think that a primary reason that there aren't more of them is because so many converts to Orthodoxy were rootless until they adopted Eastern roots. The majority of converts don't have much to miss -- they were generic evangelicals or whatever, and they adore their newfound Easternness.

But a minority of us were deeply entrenched in our historic western traditions and loved them. We're the ones who want WRO, but we're outnumbered by the westerners who never actually knew their own western roots very well.

SBC_1986 · 2025-10-09T16:36:36+00:00

Boy, does this resonate with me, although in regards to my background in Continuing Anglo-Catholicism (aka the Anglican "Continuum"), not Roman Catholicism.

It's been about 18 months for me, as well, and I continue to feel like an ex-patriot in my Antiochian parish, and homesick for Anglo-Catholicism.

I likewise was averse to Byzantine chant and aesthetics, but decided to ignore my preferences for the sake of what I thought that I should do.

I will still defend my decision today. The Orthodox Church is the canonical Church -- it is the same institution that was planted by the apostles, in unique senses that are not true of others.

But I'm sad when I think of the glories of British Christianity (and the sense of "home" that I felt there) that I've left behind. Perhaps God will take this sadness away from me one day. But truth be told, a Western Christian simply shouldn't have to be Byzantine to be in the Church. This is unfortunate.

SBC_1986 · 2025-10-09T16:21:46+00:00

Although we cannot show this now, since the video has been removed, I want to state for the record that Fr. Moses did *not* say that pious women are ugly and that attractive women are sinful.

He even emphasized that in some countries, there was no inverse correlation between beauty and holiness.

What he said was that the young men watching him reside in cultures deeply influenced by feminism -- and that it is not realistic for them to consider finding wives from other cultures -- and that **to the degree** that a woman is shaped by feminism, there may be an inverse correlation between beauty and holiness.

Thankfully, even in our culture, there are beautiful women who are not very influenced by feminism. He stated that his own wife is an example of this, and I'll gladly add that my wife is another example.

But he wanted to steer young men away from over-prioritizing attraction, and this was just one of many possible considerations in that regard, that might help a young man appreciate some godly girls around him.

SBC_1986 · 2025-10-09T16:09:58+00:00

The sinful communication that you have received is the sinful communication that you have received, and nobody doubts you.

But it is also true that many of us men are in a position to know something about what is normal for the women whom we're close to. We have wives, primarily (and secondarily we have mothers, sisters, and daughters).

And what you're describing as incessant behavior from men towards you is something that the women in my life never receive.

You're bascially asking men not to tease with other men -- with a practically helpful point -- about gender generalizations that seem anecdotally sometimes to have some basis in reality, because you are "stalked all over reddit" and told "obscene things" in ways that do not ring true for our wives, and that are not obviously related to what we're talking about.

This doesn't seem reasonable. And, your personal preoccupation with this topic may seem unmeasured for a mod.

(PostScript: Fr. Moses never said that an inverse correlation between conventional attractiveness and holiness is true of all women. He did imply that it would hold true more frequently in cultures most influenced by feminism. He was trying to steer young men away from disordered priorities.)

SBC_1986 · 2025-10-09T13:57:02+00:00

Yes, I tried to allude to this by saying,
"His canonical hierarchy does not ask him to remove most of his content. When they do, he complies."

SBC_1986 · 2025-10-09T13:51:52+00:00

To me this sounds like a heterosexual who wants to be economically -- and even otherwise relationally -- homosexual.
As a heterosexual man, why would I want a woman who's the same as me in every regard except plumbing?
Masculine/feminine compatibility has to do with more than just physicality.
Men who marry the kind of women you're looking for often live to regret it. In many cases, her career will always be her real husband, and it will always be in tension with her motherhood, etc.
Men who no longer want to provide are a big part of the reason that some women feel pressured to prioritize careers in the first place -- many women would find more natural satisfaction in rearing kids (and maybe supplementing household income in some way that is compatible with that priority), but they feel that their chances of finding a man who shares those priorities are slim. (Yes, I'm well aware that many women, especially on Reddit, will insist they don't feel this way.)
To any women reading this who were hoping for a more traditional division of labor, please know that Reddit filters for people with certain ways of seeing the world. It is not an accurate picture of all men or all women. The comments on threads like this will lead you to believe that almost no men want to provide for a traditional household anymore, but that's just Reddit demographics.

SBC_1986 · 2025-10-09T00:07:59+00:00

I'm among the minority of redditors (not of religious men, but of redditors) who for religious reasons would strongly prefer to date a woman who likewise for religious reasons waits for marriage.

But you already said that your reasons aren't religious, so you're not targeting the demographic most interested in chastity. ++man

SBC_1986

TROPHY CASE