DO UNBAPTIZED BABIES AND INFANTS GO TO HELL?
The Orthodox Church does not teach that unbaptized babies or infants will go to hell.
Any Orthodox Christian who tells you this is, sadly, misinformed.
And he or she is likely unknowingly allowing Western theology to influence his or her views.
Orthodoxy rejects the pernicious doctrine of original sin in Western Christianity that insists every human being ever bears the guilt of Adam’s sin.
Instead, the Orthodox Church teaches that we receive condemnation only because of our personal choices to sin.
The Western understanding of original sin distorts God.
It makes Him into a cruel tyrant who arbitrarily condemns His precious ones to hell by allowing them to die before they can be cleansed through baptism. How barbaric a “God”. How utterly blasphemous!
Do we really think God is so small that He is bound by the rites He Himself has given us? Do we really find Him so merciless that He would condemn the most innocent among us to hell, simply because they were not baptized?
God is sovereign. He will have mercy on whom He has mercy and judgment on whom He has judgment (Romans 9:15).
@ordersoahc@desertcynic One long time Ancient Faith contributor said that Jesus wasn't really tempted by the Devil in the desert, and that instead of angels ministering to Him at the end of the 40 days, some Bedouins found him and revived Him. That Ancient Faith?
‘In general, the tragic state of the world after the Fall is not the result of any act of God, but exclusively the result of Adam’s deed. In no way, therefore, is this state of suffering and death to be deemed a punishment imposed by God upon Adam. God as love is always acting with love, and love creates no evil whatsoever. Adam’s slavery is the natural consequence of his being vanquished; his suffering is the physiological result of the trauma he himself sustained when he turned aside from his path, and death follows upon alienation from God. To regard God as the cause of suffering and death is an essential error, a real affront offered to Him. Soteriologically, it is also genuinely heretical, for it strips the cross of Christ of its real historical and anthropological content – which is that of victory over Satan – and makes it a simple instrument of suffering and of the placating of God‘s “wrath.”’
- Saint Dumitru Staniloae the Confessor, The Experience of God, Volume 2, The World: Creation and Deification, p. 187
Holy Orthodoxy has been in "captivity" at various times due to the laxness of its hierarchy, especially when faced with pressure from the state. Today the danger is captivity to the celebrity culture; the laity have eaten it up, & the hierarchy is finally realizing the danger.
Οι παπάδες είναι κακοί, το κράτος δεν είναι καλό, όλα είναι κακά...
Θα θέλατε να έχετε πρόεδρο την Αγία Βασίλισσα Ταμάρα, και τον Άγιο Νικόλαο τον Θαυματουργό να υπηρετεί στην ενορία σας;
Και τι γίνεται όμως με σένα - πώς είσαι πραγματικά; Ποιός είσαι εσύ;
~ Άγιος Γαβριήλ Ουργκεμπάτζε,
ο δια Χριστόν σαλός της Γεωργίας.
Actually that’s incorrect translation of Rom 5:9
Do you have the NIV?? It’s a corrupted bible translation. Find a better translation like kjv or nkjv.
The original Greek text doesn’t say we are saved from the wrath of God.
It says ‘Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him’ We are saved by Christ our God
There is no wrath of God. There is God & His glorious Kingdom. Remember Christ is God. People separated from God by their sins will perceive His Kingdom as wrath.
@TheRightsWriter Truthfully, some of our Dyer guys left Orthodoxy within a couple years of being received into the church. One of the problems is that they were Alex Jones fans when they discovered Jay, and they couldn't seem to shake the unstable conspiracy mindset. Hope they come back.
@iamschuyler97 The deacon is the primary ordination, then subsequent to that are elevations to priest and bishop. The deacon is fully clergy just as the priests and bishops are. Referring to them as Father Deacon is widespread practice.