www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Excommuncation of Vassula Ryden and her followers

No. .I do not feel sorry for her.

She had the audacity to push herself into the largest Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Egypt, and then start a charismatic prayer meeting there.

That's completely disrespectful.

You all know VERY well that I would die for unity, for us to be One Church again, but not like this.

The call for unity requires wisdom, not apathy towards other church's doctrines and beliefs.

Concerning this part, I was deeply angered by the priests who actually allowed this woman a chance to even talk in our cathedral, but i'm 110% sure that they had no idea of what they were thinking.

I'm sure that this must apply to other EO priests and bishops.

Thanos:

Christ is in our midst!!

I think what Father Ambrose is saying is that we should feel sorry that a soul--created in the image and likeness of God--could be so firmly in the grasp of the Enemy. The Desert Fathers tell us that we should not marvel when one of us falls, but should rather marvel when one manages to escape the jaws of the Evil One.

Excommunication means more than just refusal of communion in the Mysteries. By the power of St. Peter's Keys, it also means a cutting off from the Body of Christ--from Christ Himself--now and until it is lifted. I shudder to think of dying in that state. Steeping out into a darkness that has no Light and Hearing, "Depart from me . . ."

Bob

Theophan,

I don't necessarily think that someone excommunicated is doomed. I don't know how God will judge them. I'm glad that she has been removed because she was a headache.

Also, let's face it - she's completely charismatic/protestant in her spirituality, which isn't Orthodox, and Protestants don't have Holy Communion - do they?

Excommunication is a mighty serious canonical penalty, but my understanding of it is that it's a WARNING to desist from the behaviours that led to it - it thus has a "medicinal" quality. I have never heard it cuts one off from Christ but rather that it detaches a person from full participation in the life of the Church.

It's perhaps worth thinking about that the newly-canonized St. Mary MacKillop was excommunicated once; and that the founders of the ACROD were excommunicated by the Catholic Church and so was St. Alexis Toth.

Thanos:

I didn't say she was necessarily doomed. I tried to objectively state the implications of excommunication. It isn't just being turned away in church because what we do in church at the DL is more than just a ritual where we "remember," as we've discussed on other threads on this forum in the past. The word is "anamnesis," that we translate "remember" or "remembrance." But it's more than that. It's bringing back into lived experience of something that, in historic time" is long past, but in the eternal now is happening before God the Father's Face right now. Excommunication is a cutting off from the Body of Christ of a member. It's tragic and it makes me shudder when I remember what jesus told St. Petere and the Apostles--"Whatver you bind on earth is bound in Heaven . . ."

I don't want to roll the dice on that one and be guilty of presumption on the mercy of God against His Justice. I'm sorry this woman is in the grip of the Enemy.

Bob

Maybe she's not in the grip of the enemy - maybe she's just a kook. They're as common as dirt.

If all the kooks were excommunicated, our temples would be pretty empty and we'd REALLY have a priest shortage. I know I wouldn't be present anymore.

Of course, "kookitude" admits of degrees...

Dear Theophan,

My apologies, I was not at all paraphrasing you. I was stating that i personally was happy that she was excommunicated because she has been an absolute disaster for our Church.

Why did it take 16 years to get her excommunicated??

We should excommunicate ANYONE who even attends protestant prayer meetings or charismatic prayer meetings.

She came into the Holy Coptic Orthodox church and started singing and jumping up and down with her crazy followers.

Im glad she's gone!!!

At another site, Father Ambrose and I suffered together through several years of hearing people go on at great length about Vassula and her 'messages'.

On the surface, those were warm and fuzzy and suggested a place and a status that I think we all believe to be what the Holy Spirit untimately desires of us - the unity that we abandoned centuries ago. However, underneath, the 'messages' ignored the realities of what needed to happen for that to happen and, more regretably, were quickly discernable as being all about Vassula.

Why did clerics support her? Why did laity seize on her 'messages'? Quite simply, because people want to believe in what they perceive as 'good', 'hopeful', 'unifying'. It says less that they were not good people than they were deluded people - and we ourselves, being human, are just as subject to being deluded, having the same weaknesses as Vassula or anyone else.

That the actions taken were so long in coming is, one imagines, because a decision to excommunicate is not taken lightly.

Should all of those who express their religious fervor in what has become known as a charismatic way be excommunicated? Probably not. We ourselves, our Churches, are proof that not all forms of worship are identical and I'm much happier to see folk worshipping God in what, to me, is an odd way than to have them ignore His Existence. Regardless, if anyone wants to discuss that, it belongs in its own thread - elsewhere on the forum.

I think that, particularly in this season of Great Lent, it is most appropriate that we take Father Ambrose's comments to heart and remember Vassula and her followers in our prayers, that they turn back from this misguded path on which they've set forth and reconcile with their Churches.

As the news story appears to have run its course, the thread is closed. Thanks to all who participated.

Many years,

Neil