www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Korean Bishops denounce Charismatic Excesses

Bob,

Thank you for your replies. I think the GOA generally looked down on Fr. Eusebius, but it did not ban him over his efforts. He was in some open conflict with much of the rest of the Church.

Would you happen to remember the saint(s) who performed the miracle wherein they went to people who didn't know the same language that they did at all and that they both understood each statement that they made?

Bob,

You are right that this is an old thread (6 years). Do you or others prefer that we try to avoid posting on old threads?

You wrote:
Sure, in Acts when the apostles spoke in tongues in Pentecost, the Christian view of this is that they spoke in real languages that the audience could understand.

However, when it comes to 1 Corinthians 13-14, the major 19th century Orthodox theologian Lopukhin proposed that the Corinthians were speaking languages that were not real foreign languages, since Paul wrote that "no man understandeth" the "tongues".

I found Fr. Seraphim's book on the Charismatics helpful. I used it to write an essay on the Orthodox view of the main similarities between the Early Church and the modern Charismatic movement, which I posted about here:

Orthodox view of the Early Church's similarity to Charismaticism
http://www.monachos.net/conversatio...e-early-church-and-charismatic-movement/

I had a book written by Father Eusebius entitled "Belief and Practice in the Orthodox Church" for many years. After a relatively recent conversation with a Greek Orthodox priest about Father Eusebius' status, I took his advice and destroyed it. Fr caused so much scandal that even works that were considered useful were to be disposed of because of his name attached to them.

Bob

Not at all.


Your point? Just because one theologian makes a proposal that doesn't make it the position of the Orthodox Church. I don't think the Orthodox--at least in my experience--give the opinion of one theologian the weight against Tradition that is given inthe West.

Bob

I understand. He got the Pentecostal "laying on of hands", upon which he spoke in tongues. This was already after he was baptised, so that is not supposed to happen in Orthodoxy. Then he shared the Pentecostals' semi-hostile or extra critical view of Orthodoxy in that he perceived it in need of the Pentecostals' spirit renewal, as if the Church was rather lacking in the spirit, unlike allegedly the Pentecostals. Besides that he shared some of the Pentecostals' eschatology, Christan Zionism, etc. It's kind of like the "convergence movement" that "converges" traditional practices and Charismaticism, since he never actually left the Orthodox Church.

His book could have been OK for all I know, but he just undermined it so much with his decisions that you couldn't rely on it to tell you what Orthodoxy teaches. We have so many good writers that you don't have to rely on it.

If there weren't many good writers on Orthodoxy and his ideas weren't a major violation of our thought, maybe what he wrote would be OK. In contrast, there are things Fr. Seraphim Rose writes that I don't agree with, but Fr. Rose still has some value as an Orthodox thinker.

Sure, however it isn't clear that Lopukhin, perhaps the main Russian Orthodox Bible commentator of the last 150 years, is actually against Tradition on this verse. After checking the commentaries, I am only aware of St. John Chrysostom as having considered this to be comprehensible languages spoken at Corinth. I'm not sure that St. John Chrysostom was explicit that this was the same thing, but at least it was apparent to me from his commentary that this is what he thought was happening.

Lopukhin's comment makes sense to me. In 1 Cor. 12-14, Paul never says that the Corinthians were speaking real human languages. Instead, Paul mentions the "tongues of humans and of angels" and then repeatedly says that no man can understand the Corinthians' glossolalia. Paul writes in chapter 14:

"For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries".

Real human tongues, including those implanted by the spirit miraculously, would be spoken unto humans for their understanding, while an angelic tongue is unknown and does not make sense, but would rather be spoken to God.

At least based on this reasoning, the Corinthians' tongues would be not real languages. I have always thought Corinthians was about speaking incomprehensible glossolalia. However, based St. John Chrysostom, I allow that Paul could be intending to talk about Corinthians miraculously speaking real languages. I am just inclined to think they were babbling nonsense, Theophan. I am not sure what to do about that dilemma.

rakovsky:

Christ is in our midst!!


Why are you angry? Why are you trying to make a case for the Charismatic Movement?

I've always taken the cautious approach in things related to the spiritual life and refer these things to my spiritual father and confessor on a regular basis. I've also had experience of someone who had been to one of these types of events who had a nervous breakdown over it--claiming she thought she was possessed by something or some being that made her feel extremely "dirty" in the whole of her being during and after. Personally, I believe that if what comes out a person's mouth cannot be recognized as a human language it may be diabolical. And since we cannot know if an angelic language is from the good angels or the fallen, it seems to me we ought to be very careful--not trying to delve into things too high for us since the fallen as well as the servants of God are far more intelligent than we.

Bob

Hello Bob!

Sorry, I can't see the end of the message you quoted above, so I don't know what made you think I was angry. Do you remember what it said? I just occasionally put people's names in bold when I write to them.

You ask:
Did you get a chance to at least read the Conclusion of my essay? The Charismatic movement claims it shares the early Church's elements. There are ways in which it does seem to, but only partly extent. For example, many in the Early Church expected Christ's imminent return, but unlike many Charismatics, the early church didn't set a date by which they expected it, as far as any of our records show.

I agree with what you say:When I see the "speaking in tongues", it gives me a gut reaction as if the person is mentally ill. Once when I was a child a relative, for fun, started babbling and blinking hr eyes for maybe half a minute and it scared me, mostly for her sake. It was just an instinct.

Here is a video of a random lady babbling. She may be on drugs:


Here is a Catholic Charismatic conference where people are singing in high pitched voices "yady yada yada yada". They are less coherently than the lady above, although I grant that their singing sounds somewhat pleasant, like light background choir humming:

Here they are doing it to the Pope:


If it was just them singing notes to make a nice sound it would be fine, but they think these sounds have hidden detailed meanings, and I don't think so when it comes to "Yady yada yada."

Very bizarre to say the least.