Let’s Make Cyril Lucaris Great Again!

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:32

Well, greetings and welcome to the dividing line. My name is James White and it is the day after the debate to end all debates

00:43

Which I'm sure look if everyone if everyone's upset just just realize I'm sure

00:48

Joe doesn't even remember it He's probably he's just believing whatever he's told he did great and everything's fine and wonderful and yeah

00:58

So we'll go from there. But what you know, if you remember the series the

01:05

TV series 24 What yes at the very end of that series I can't remember the name of the actor who played the president and he's got dementia.

01:15

They've said, you know, you're gonna the whole nine yards and all these disastrous things his daughter gets killed the whole nine yards and he looks at the

01:23

Prime minister of England and he says I'm not sure what you're gonna do about any of this, but you need to understand

01:30

I'm not gonna remember any of it Well, I don't remember that I I don't remember how many seasons

01:38

I watched but after every possible known plague Atomic bombings and everything else.

01:44

It was really starting to push the credibility level there then again Everything happening in our nation is pushing the credibility level these days and I just sit here shaking my head.

01:55

So while everyone else is making memes and John Daly is commenting on having a six handicap in golf, which

02:04

I'll admit. I don't know. I Don't know nothing about that type of stuff That that's like professional level

02:11

Golfing and I've seen some videos Ah Anyway, the world is a crazy place

02:20

We have a special guest we need to get to this I've announced this for a couple of weeks now and given you all the time in the world to watch the relevant video on YouTube called

02:33

Cyril Lucaris Calvinist patriarch slash Orthodox Saint on Ancient paths

02:39

TV on YouTube. And so if you haven't watched it yet, well You can just if you're not watching live just pause this go watch it.

02:49

You'll get more out of our conversation if you have viewed it but this is a 37 and a half minute video

03:01

Which is fairly short for our guest actually I have a feeling

03:07

I preach shorter than than he does. But anyway and It is on the subject of Cyril Lucaris relevant to Eastern Orthodoxy.

03:16

Let's go ahead and bring our guest on Jason Wallace coming from the pride flag festooned headquarters of Utah Known as Salt Lake City actually just sort of outside of Salt Lake City in Magna Utah but Don't have any pride flags at Christ Presbyterian Church.

03:39

Do you? No, no. No, no one's come by and offered to hang some for you or anything like that Thankfully, no, they just leave us alone at this point, but who knows they just they just go walking by going it's that church

03:56

They are everywhere else though I mean, I guess they just haven't noticed a district attorney's office has three flagpoles on their building

04:04

All three of them are pride flags. Wow Wow, well, I personally have completely lost track of what all the different Color schemes and everything else means just like once you get past LGBTQ I'm lost.

04:20

I it's it's like three -spirit. I you know, I don't know I'm not gonna invest the brain cells and even remembering that kind of stuff.

04:30

But but you know, I Don't when when did we do our first debate up there?

04:36

Do you remember? About two thousand about two thousand. Okay, so it's been

04:42

Almost a quarter century been 99. I I'll never forget though Don Schaefer said he prayed to st.

04:49

Martin Luther Yes Yes, yes That was one of the more interesting

04:56

Actually the most interesting thing to come out of all those debates. You've got to admit

05:03

Was was the last one? That we did with a Mormon On was that on Adams sin or something along those lines?

05:14

It was Basically Calvinism versus it. Okay. Yeah, but it did have it had something to do with the original sin and Adam and stuff like that but The guy comes walking in He was from up in Idaho wasn't he wasn't a professor at a

05:31

Mormon school up in Idaho or him down down south He just it's my

05:36

Provo Utah, Utah Valley I think it was it may have been State College still but it's

05:43

Utah Valley University now. Oh, okay. All right Well, he wasn't he wasn't there the U of U he wasn't it was someplace other than that and for some reason

05:51

I was thinking it was north, but anyway comes walking in with a backpack that said no war in Iraq and an earring and I was sort of like, you know,

06:05

Jason you're starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel here, you know You're forgetting the Che Guevara sticker,

06:11

I'm what he had a Che Guevara sticker on his briefcase. Did he really?

06:17

Yeah, okay. All right. Well, I remember it but he had no war in Iraq. I remember that Yeah. Yeah, so Anyway, we we had the debate and it was what you'd expect and that was the one where a guy came up to me afterwards

06:32

And he said Please stop debating us We we don't have anyone who can beat you that doesn't make you right

06:41

But please stop debating us and evidently the word got around because pretty much they did Yes, yes

06:48

Jason do I recall did you have something to do with? The Gilbert Scharf's debate.

06:55

I think oh, yeah. Yeah, of course he did. Yes. I moderated it. That was very very early on He's the one he's the one who asked me not to kill the nice Mormon man see and I that's the exact Thought that I had last night.

07:08

Yes before that debate started. Yes Mmm, I wonder if if somebody's warned him, you know, be careful.

07:15

We don't need him keeling over on stage. Yep Yep. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, in fact, in fact

07:20

Trump posted a thing on true social That said Trump indicted for murdering old man on CNN Sorry, yeah, so yeah

07:36

But and that yeah, that's exactly where we were on That one debate because I'll never forget cross -examination.

07:46

Okay, here it is cross -examination. So Dr. Scharf's What do you think

07:51

John 639 is saying? Silence lean forward. I Don't know

07:58

I I Don't remember. I remember how long the cross -ex was but it seemed like an eternity

08:07

When his opening statement was talking about How God said I'll make you a mate for you that will cook for you clean for you make all your life happy And all it's gonna take is your right arm and your left leg and he says oh what can

08:24

I get for a rib I'm sitting there cringing thinking This is gonna be an interesting night.

08:31

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, and it was it was it is pH PhD from BYU He wrote the sort of semi -official response to the

08:40

Godmaker stuff back in the 80s. I know I remember it. I still have it So have it sitting on the shelf

08:46

So anyways, we've gotten into a lot of trouble up there We've dragged people like Jerry Maddox to the

08:54

University of Utah to debate How many times We had

09:01

Robertson Genesis and sing genesis, yeah Yeah on interesting topics that I'm not sure the

09:06

Mormons cared about but there are other people that were interested and Of course Martin Tanner.

09:11

That was a real fascinating evening that that's when I realized that attorneys are not necessarily trained in cross -examination

09:20

It was it was bad And we had the King James only guys sitting over on the other side

09:27

Wow, it's it's it's been It's been interesting. So anyway All of that to say that there is a video on YouTube called

09:38

Cyril Lucaris Calvinist Patriarch Orthodox Saint and You were telling me about this

09:45

So my understanding is you you put together your first East the failure.

09:52

I think it's called the failure of Eastern Orthodoxy, right? Yeah, okay, and that one's like what two hours and 15 minutes or something.

10:00

Yeah, it is by far the longest Yeah, we don't have any we don't have any others over two hours.

10:05

Okay, so and in the process of making that video

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Evidently you ran across this topic of Cyril Lucaris Um who

10:20

I was first introduced to by my church history professor in probably 1987 -88 somewhere around in there,

10:32

I think and My church history professor from Fuller. He was a great great church history guy.

10:39

He really was Nate Feldmuth was his name and He Directly said, you know, this guy was a

10:49

Calvinist he he Was introduced to reformed theology and resonated with it and wrote a reformed confession and as a result

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The Eastern Orthodox are extremely embarrassed by him and condemned him and and and all the rest of this kind of stuff afterwards and You know,

11:12

I took good notes But I I didn't you know delve into it too much more than that.

11:18

But evidently while you were producing the 2 hour and 15 minute video on the major issues with Eastern Orthodoxy, which

11:32

Again I've said this so many times Orthodoxy in the

11:38

East is different than Orthodoxy in the West and It expresses itself differently and and it's hard for us to get meaningful conversation going because the categories are so different and and the way they think is so different and and Of course, you know three hour long

11:57

Church services where you're standing most of the time pretty pretty much very different too

12:04

But you ran across in dealing with icons and The theology that comes out of the 6th 7th and 8th centuries in the

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East so that transitionary period where the

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East is impacted greatly by the rise of Islam It's that time period at the end of what are called the seven ecumenical councils the last one

12:37

I see a two and 787 and I've I've just always understood

12:42

Orthodoxy as as being the And this is a negative term, but I I'll stand by it the stagnation of Tradition that existed at that time

12:58

Coming into the modern period and it's not that there hasn't been development, but it's limited

13:04

There's there's you try to develop too much stuff and you're gonna be fundamentally changing the nature of Eastern Orthodoxy and so you're dealing with some wild stuff that Jerome said and the centrality of icons in Eastern Orthodox worship and their denial really their their their focus on Issues like anthropology and so it's very very different than what's in the

13:32

West Very different from what we were dealing with in the Reformation They pretty much look at Rome and Protestants as just simply

13:41

The reverse sides the same coin and that we all are split offs from them

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That they are the one true church and in the midst of that Did you just run into references to Cyril or what what got you interested?

13:56

Well, I'd heard about him before But in dealing with the other stuff I was just appalled at how many lies they were telling

14:03

There's a former Westminster seminary graduate that he graduated Westminster Escondido in 92 and became an

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Eastern Orthodox priest in 93 and He just gets on the internet and lies.

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He caricatures Protestantism and he knows better and So that kind of drove me crazy

14:23

But he mentioned him as well and I was seeing how he was lying about so many other things

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I I'd sort of put Lucaris off to the side because I'd heard Claims that you know, they had documentation that he was teaching something else and that if he was articulating

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Protestant ideas It was only to basically rally Protestant support against Rome because they were

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Rome was a common enemy to both and so I Didn't deal with it a whole lot

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Early on but I started digging a little more and I began to realize a lot of their supposal supposed counter evidence

15:04

Was just made up You know, they have this list of quotations that supposedly proved he was teaching contrary to his stated confession and None of them are dated

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No one claims that he came into this world as a Calvinist. It's fairly clear

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He wasn't one and of course, you know that the flip side is, you know Trenum Whatever he was preaching in 92 was very different from what he was preaching in 93

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But they don't if they have anything from Lucaris from any time That's contrary to his confession than they assume that that disproves the confession

15:43

No so I started looking into what the actual evidence was and you know modern technology has unleashed a flood of Temptations and corruption and everything else, but it's also unleashed

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All kinds of ability to do things that we couldn't do before Very easily.

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I mean I was able to get Scans of original documents from what used to be the secret

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Vatican archives from the National Library in France from Library of Geneva from the

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Bodleian Library from all over Europe I was able to get scans of original documents and and basically see what the real evidence was so Most people have no idea what we're talking about.

16:34

So we need to You know, obviously if people watched the video then they know what we're talking about because they've got the background but not everybody has so we're talking about the period immediately after the

16:50

Reformation in Europe and The key one of the one of the key and and again, this is one of the differences between East and West you have

17:02

Patriarchs in the East you have key cities That have great authority within orthodoxy but Constantinople is

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This is as close as you're gonna get to the head guy But you know and and they argue about Exactly how equality works out and collegiality and all the rest that kind of stuff

17:28

Between the various patriarchs and of course even now you've got Russia Ukraine and what's going on there and differences of opinion but anyway you you have a very well -known

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Patriarch in the Orthodox Church an ecumenical patriarch

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Who evidently Somehow do we have any idea how he encounters

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Reformed writings and theology Yeah, the he actually First heard about it when he was patriarch in Alexandria.

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He had contact there with Dutch ambassadors and Then when he got when he moved from Alexandria to being the the patriarch of Constantinople That's that's the administrative hub for the

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Ottomans. And so the Dutch who are trading with everybody they had ambassadors there the

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English had ambassadors there and they were Very happy to share with him a number of things

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What's funny is one of the first exposures he had To any kind of Protestantism was through a guy that was actually ultimately an

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Arminian And he didn't like it and he got exposed to others and ended up embracing a more

18:55

Calvinistic understanding of things So He reads

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I'm not sure if he was reading Calvin or What's the time frame here where the theoretically would be the time frame where he'd be doing the initial reading

19:15

And because like you said, he wasn't born as a Calvinist or something. This was something that Developed over time.

19:22

Yeah, he's I think he's made I don't have the numbers in front of me I think he was made patriarch of Constantinople in 1620

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He had been already patriarch in Alexandria where his uncle had been patriarch before him

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For a number of years they kill him in 1637 and I think he was 65 at the time

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So that gives you some rough ideas. Okay, so it's it's been Less than a hundred years since the start of the

19:52

Reformation When he becomes to Constantinople, but it's it's in that time frame so we're getting into You know third and fourth generation of the

20:04

Reformation so This is still prior to Westminster Assembly But you're getting closer to that that time frame and so it's also obviously well after the

20:18

Counter Reformation Council of Trent and So there's already those types of battles with the

20:25

Jesuits taking place and and Sounds like there's some political issues involved you know, you've got ambassadors and things like that and and You know, they're they're not going to be overly excited about Roman Catholicism Given what's going on in Europe and the tensions and things like that there so it's

20:48

That's the time frame we're looking at and Now obviously

20:55

I Mentioned to you a couple days ago. I would I listened to a

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Dialogue that took place in Greece very recently within the past couple of weeks,

21:07

I think Between Gavin Ortlund and a Eastern Orthodox priest speaker there in Greece and It's interesting that he mentioned

21:20

Cyril Lucaris. Oh, yeah. Did you get a chance to listen to that? Yes.

21:25

Yeah, I did listen to that. Okay, and so it seemed to me now I was writing at the time so I didn't go back and double listen to it, but It seemed to me that he accepted the idea that Lucaris That the confession that he wrote does did represent the actual teachings of Lucaris, but obviously the big issue down through the centuries has been

21:53

The rather contradictory way that Orthodoxy has tried to deal with this. So let's let's talk a little bit

22:00

What's the evidence? that Cyril Lucaris Not only believed

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Reformed theology But that he taught it. Well we have

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Signed copies of his confession that Even Eastern Orthodox who have seen this the the signed copies have admitted.

22:29

It's his signature and in the video we show something from when he was Patriarch of Alexandria Writing to I forget the name of the monastery.

22:40

I said out at Mount Athos But you know, here's an something that has been at Mount Athos since 1615 1612 something like that and The signature is exactly the same as the 1627

22:59

I hope I said that right watching the debate last night I Feel like senility set on me last night after watching that thing.

23:19

I'm pretty sure we all lost brain cells Anyway, we have

23:27

Known signatures that even the Eastern Orthodox recognized These are his signatures when we compare them to things like we have a presentation copy at the

23:35

Bodleian Library That he sent to King James the first of England and He says, you know, this this is the same one that was prepared, you know, and he signs it

23:48

It's his signature. So we have decades of correspondence between him and Men like the the

23:59

Dutch ambassador Also between The Archbishop of Canterbury in England, he was sending his students there to learn

24:12

The several Sarah Lucaris was sending his students to learn from Calvinus Yes, especially in England, but also in Geneva Okay, we have we have correspondence from Canopius his

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His secretary With some of these same people Talking about how he's going to translate the

24:38

Belgic Confession into Greek and We he besides publishing his

24:47

Confession we also have him Sending to Geneva to publish a modern

24:54

Greek version of the New Testament because By the time you get to the to the 7th early 17th century

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Most Greeks had a really hard time reading Koine Greek, right? And So, you know

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We've got all kinds of hard evidence One of the claims that's made is that Lucaris was a politician

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He's telling the Protestants what they want to hear, but he was also telling the Orthodox what they wanted to hear and What I was really surprised by was

25:27

I was able to extensively document The Eastern Orthodox enemies of Lucaris calling him a

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Calvinist over and over the significance of this is that when they when they killed him in 1637, they quickly had a council in Constantinople 1638

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In which they denounced him as a heretic denounced him as the altar of the confession but then but that got to be a sore point because Reformed evangelists were going through Orthodox lands and saying hey

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This was written by your patriarch let's be good be ready and test these things from Scripture and so in 1672

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Patriarch Decythius called the Council of Jerusalem and They declared

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Cyril was never as the Protestants claim. He was he was never a Calvinist and You know basically try to whitewash everything

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They denounce him for not having denied the Confession in writing but they said that they had strong oral tradition that he had denied it numerous times.

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I Oral tradition that can be used to prove everything exactly and What's significant about this is the

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Senate of Jerusalem 1672 Was in 2016 at the pan -orthodox council in Crete declared to be a council of universal authority

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Just like the ecumenical councils and just as inspired by the Holy Spirit and So when you've you know, we've got

27:18

I forget it. I think he's archpriest or archbishop Papa Giorgio admitting the same thing that was in the

27:27

Gavin Orland, sorry, I confused him with his daddy The Gavin Orland dialogue

27:34

The guy admits yes, he wrote it, but we don't believe it Here's their problem They don't have a

27:41

Pope so what what standard do they have against the scriptures they have councils and They say that the council speak for the

27:49

Holy Spirit Well, we demonstrated in the first video those councils contradict one another but when they admit that that Lucaris was a

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Calvinist and he was publicly teaching Calvinism They're denying what an

28:07

Ecumenical council supposedly inspired by the Holy Spirit declared They They said very clearly he did not write this confession he denied it repeatedly

28:20

Okay, so let's make sure everybody understands this so the initial response and just briefly

28:26

How did they kill him? they worked with the the

28:32

Catholics there's a Catholics actually excommunicated Lucaris in absentia during his lifetime

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They they tried him and convicted him as a Calvinist. So it's you know, it's not just some you know some of the

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Correspondence from the men who succeeded him and from some of the others around and from his friends, but even the

28:54

Pope excommunicates him and so Um what they would you need to understand one of the huge things in the

29:04

East is you don't have This line between church and state in the same way as you have in the

29:10

West As long as there was a an emperor He was the highest spiritual authority in the

29:20

East He is he is the ruler of all Christians that the patriarch of Constantinople said

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Not I forget the year but it was within a couple of decades of Constantinople being

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Taken over by the Turks so what you've got going on is you've got a church that for century after century has been under the thumb of the

29:48

Emperor he would appoint and Remove patriarchs at his whim and when he when they took when they took over I mean it had happened even before then but when the

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Byzantines recaptured Rome under Justinian for 200 years

30:09

You had to have the Emperor's approval to open to elect the Pope you know, you would have the

30:15

College of Cardinals, but the Emperor had to approve it and with like Pope Martin, he just removed it, you know, he would

30:26

Send people arrest him take him back to Constantinople trying convict him of heresy and exile it but back to Lucaris what you had was the the

30:39

Turks were in charge and they were doing much of the same thing in terms of Controlling the church.

30:45

So one of the things that they would try to do is extort extort bribes from the people who would be elected as patriarch

30:56

Lucaris was actually elected patriarch much earlier of Constantinople, but he refused to pay the bribe

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Rome was paying the bribes for these guys to put their guys in Through The Turks partially doing it on their own but also with heavy influence from the

31:16

Jesuits All the Orthodox schools were basically shut down and Jesuit schools were established.

31:23

Mm -hmm So one of one of the men who succeeded Lucaris twice was a graduate of a

31:30

Jesuit school in Constantinople, he was very very much a Sympathetic to the

31:37

Pope so what they would do is Lucaris got elected

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They would bribe the Turks Lucaris would be exiled. They would put in another guy and There's this battle back and forth.

31:53

Lucaris would through popular pressure through support from his bishops Through various means he would get restored to office and so he was patriarch five different times.

32:07

Mm -hmm the the last time Um they told him they were gonna send him into exile like they had before but this time they put him on a ship and Once they got out of the harbor, they strangled him and threw his body in the

32:22

Bosporus hmm, and This was this was a combination of his

32:29

Orthodox enemies Who were working together with the Jesuits? and which

32:36

Is interesting hurts and the Turks yeah, what a what a what a a group of people to be

32:43

Opposing you so so he's pretty much martyred And they put their own people in place and the immediate within one year reaction is to condemn him for having been a

32:59

Calvinist yes, and the attempt to rehabilitate him

33:05

And say no He was Orthodox he just didn't

33:13

In writing condemn Calvinism the way that he should have that's 30 years down the road in 1672 right and the

33:26

Scythias who called that council wasn't even born, right? Before Lucaris died, so I mean this is you know, it's like oh, we know all these things.

33:36

It's like he wasn't even alive, right? so you have then

33:43

What now? Can I show off that you sent me? Well, well, yeah, I was

33:48

I was gonna say let's go hold it off to later on Yeah, so so here we have our and for the people who can't see it.

33:57

It says make Lucaris great again I'm not sure where I got that idea from Neither one of them are red

34:05

So so is that but yeah, there's there's Cyril Lucaris if you want to want to see what?

34:11

What he what he looks like there. Well what he did look like or something along those lines. So there's uh, yeah, there's

34:18

Yeah, we I'm not sure when I had these hats made but it was it was a little while ago now temporary a lot of water under the bridge since then so To help people understand

34:32

What happened in 2016 About the 1672 council, what did they say about it?

34:40

So people understand why this is important Okay, often you'll hear Eastern Orthodox say well, we just hold the seven ecumenical councils.

34:47

Well, that's a joke They agree with Rome on seven ecumenical councils

34:54

The I've got all four patriarchs In this upcoming video on the filio quay pointing to the eighth ecumenical council council

35:02

Constantinople There were two councils. I forget the dates.

35:07

Well, one was I think eight six or Was it eight sixteen or anyway,

35:13

I think eight sixty nine eight seventy nine there ten years apart but um the

35:21

I'm having with Joe Biden moment here I There were thousands of trillions of councils

35:31

But The East recognizes more than the seven ecumenical council, right?

35:38

the pan Orthodox Council in 2016 Formally stated that it's not just the seven ecumenical councils.

35:47

There's also these other councils That are and the term they use us they are of universal authority

35:54

Just like the ecumenical councils and they are just like the other the ecumenical councils in being inspired by the

36:01

Holy Spirit So there's the seven they agree with Rome on but they believe that they have infallible councils far beyond the seven

36:12

So and so this pan Orthodox in 2016 this represents all of orthodoxy today or Yes, I mean

36:24

You you had you had Alexandria Antioch Jerusalem Constantinople and Moscow okay, and I think

36:36

I Forget the exact standings, but I think they also had the Bulgarian patriarch and there's some others that Some of the things they've done in more recent in in more recent history is kind of boring to me

36:50

But yeah, so they had basically everyone represented that still Eastern Orthodox so this is 2016 and they list the 1672

37:01

Council as you know spoken by the Holy Spirit inspired by the Holy Spirit having great authority and it's the 1672

37:10

Council that Specifically said that Lucaris did not

37:16

Teach the things that are a part of his own confession, which we have handwritten

37:24

Signatures on where he says this is this is what I believe Exactly, and this is why you'll hear

37:34

Father John Whiteford is a former. I think Nazarene Who's gone Eastern Orthodox and I've got a clip of him in the video calling it, you know that it was

37:45

Calvinist intrigue that had either created this confession in Lucaris his name or Had edited it to make it

37:56

Calvinistic And that's just a joke. I think I might have I Think I might have that queued up here.

38:05

Let's I just want to get this up so that we can see now you rich.

38:11

You'll be able to do this Okay Because you did include a graphic of Calvin wearing

38:19

Sunglasses, so I I sort of felt like that had to had to get in there somehow

38:25

Let's let's let's play a portion of the of the video here. Here we go

38:34

The Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies dismisses Cyril's confession as a forgery

38:40

Because it originally appeared in Latin a language with which is said Lucaris wasn't proficient the idea is often promoted that Calvinist ambassadors to Constantinople forged a confession in Cyril's name and Circulated it in Protestant countries without Cyril's knowledge

38:56

But we have the Greek manuscript on which the Latin was based and a Greek version of the confession was produced four years after the

39:04

Latin One it circulated throughout Constantinople during Cyril's lifetime The fact that it was published in Geneva is often said to lend weight to it being the fruit of Calvinist intrigue

39:16

But Geneva was also where Lucaris printed his translation of the New Testament into modern Greek This was because the

39:22

Jesuits had convinced the Turks to destroy his own printing press in Constantinople The Jerusalem Council insisted that no work

39:29

Undisputably his or in his own hand is found giving expression to such notions as the heretics of her

39:36

But along with the original Greek manuscript of the confession we have a copy with this attestation

39:43

This copy agrees with the original written in my own hand. Let no one have any doubts

39:49

Cyril Patriarch of Constantinople Over a century ago

39:56

Metropolitan Philaretus Botatus compared a facsimile of the original manuscript in the attestation to known letters of Lucaris He admitted in his ecclesiastical history that the handwriting was the same

40:08

We also have dozens of letters testifying to Lucaris's beliefs such as this one to his friend

40:15

Antoine Leger If I die, I wish you to be able to testify that I die an

40:22

Orthodox Catholic in the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ in the teaching of the gospel as contained in the

40:29

Belgic Confession in my own confession and in all the confessions of the

40:35

Evangelical churches, which are all alike. I Hold in abomination the errors of the papist and the superstitions of the

40:44

Greeks. I Approve and embrace the doctrine of the most excellent teacher

40:50

John Calvin and of all who agree with him Two years later.

40:56

We have this letter to Leger from Lucaris's personal chaplain Nathanael Canopius I will translate the

41:03

Belgic Confession into Greek as well as the one written by the late Scholarly and wise master

41:08

Kelvin and I shall send them to you for printing In order that our people shall also be able to learn

41:15

God's truth and how they should believe Because you know how darkened their minds have become

41:21

So on the one hand we have the Jerusalem Council telling us There's oral tradition that Cyril affirmed with an oath that he was not the author of the chapters

41:32

While on the other hand, we have autographed copies and numerous letters telling us otherwise Just as with the attestation on the manuscript of the

41:40

Confession the signatures on the letters match signatures on undisputed letters from Lucaris The suggestions been raised that he was telling the

41:48

Protestants one thing while telling the Orthodox another The confession was published under his name, okay, however

41:57

It there there is historical record that he orally disowned it on more than one occasion

42:02

The shock is that apparently he never disowned the confession in writing however, if it does come from his pen as some think then we have we're left with the

42:15

Problem of his other theological writings which are not Calvinistic and which directly contradict the confession of faith that supposedly he wrote interesting

42:25

Okay. So, um, I think that's the quote you were talking about there, right? Actually is a different guy, but that was that was

42:32

Trenum. He's the Westminster Escondido grant. Okay. All right Okay, so he's he was he was a lice.

42:38

I don't know if he was I think he was a licentiate in the PCA The other the other interview is actually a former

42:47

PCA member interviewing a former Nazarene from I think Virginia that He said that, you know, it was

42:55

Calvinist intrigue. That's when we write the count with the the glasses Okay, so there I actually

43:00

I actually made that so I was very proud. I don't have many graphical skills, but I was very happy with that So So What we have here is is we have an ecumenical patriarch who writes a confession he?

43:19

Says that the Belgic confession represents what he believes he even made a statement concerning How darkened our people's minds have become and that this is a light that is needed

43:37

So on the one hand this is important to claims of Eastern Orthodox Apostolicity apostolic succession authority in the patriarchs

43:56

Maintaining this this unbroken line of lineage that you know

44:01

Rome and them have been fighting about With various levels of ferocity for a long long time at least up until the modern period

44:10

I mean You you read What went on from save?

44:17

900 well from from after the schism in 1054 Up through let's say, you know the 1700s and it's it's a major catfight with anathemas flying every which direction

44:30

And now of course with Francis and and all the stuff's been going on since like Vatican to you know, it's just this major love fest that Makes you go.

44:42

Well, wait a minute You know what's going on? Yes, you know There's inconsistencies gross inconsistencies in what

44:52

Popes and Patriarchs have said in the past and What's being said now even in that dialogue that we mentioned a moment ago with Gavin Ortland the

45:03

Eastern Orthodox representative Accepted Gavin Ortland as a Christian, but even

45:09

Gavin Ortland had to say that's not really the historical Position and he was going well, we have our fundamentalists except the fundamentalists were the patriarchs

45:18

Would you would you agree with that that yeah Yeah, what one of the one of the concluding things in the failure of Eastern Orthodoxy is that it can be whatever you want it to be if If you want to be an ortho bro and talk about a new

45:33

Christendom and you know rail against Rome and the Protestants You can do that or you can be

45:39

David Bentley Hart and be a universalist and sneer it all these people as hillbillies

45:46

You can you can make it whatever you want it to be You the the dialogue was with a

45:53

Greek Was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church the

46:00

Archbishop of that church Up it'll for us. Thank you probably mispronouncing his name, but he

46:09

Recently baptized the child of a homosexual couple and when he was condemned about it.

46:16

He said, you know This this idea that we should judge people on their love life is not orthodoxy

46:22

He said it's Western Puritanism and that's going to be in the the upcoming philio play video

46:29

But it's whatever you want it to be the the things

46:35

The importance of Lucaris. Here's a guy who is preaching sola scriptura sola fide

46:44

Predestined a Calvinistic predestination. He's teaching the Reformed faith

46:50

Why is this significant because there's three basic things that Eastern Orthodoxy hangs on they don't have a

46:58

Pope They they don't claim that they have the successor Peter. They claim they have successor of Andrew and others, but basically

47:07

You have councils Their hymns are there for supposed to be infallible as well and You have a charisma of office and these all tied together

47:20

The their hymns are not things that are written by random individuals. These are approved by councils and because they are officially

47:29

Adopted they're seen as inspired by the Holy Spirit and so earlier in the video straight how they him

47:39

Something that is just complete fabrication about Constantine being baptized by Sylvester. All right

47:45

We're trying to dismantle their their authority claims We show how their councils lie, you know, we in the other video we show how they contradict one another in the upcoming one we show how they

47:58

Anatomize not just those who refuse to venerate an icon and we've got New evidence

48:04

I mentioned to your father Richard Price. He says the iconoclasts were right No one was reverencing images in the early church except the

48:12

Gnostics but Charisma of office is a huge deal how how do you have a

48:23

True church you have apostolic succession. You have charisma of office that the Holy Spirit keeps the you know similar to Rome The the

48:32

Holy Spirit supposedly keeps these men from error This is why they had to whitewash his history and claim

48:39

He wasn't a Calvinist because if you admit he's a Calvinist then all of a sudden, what do you have left?

48:44

You've you got to go back to the Bible to see what's true so That's why this is vitally important to someone from that mindset

48:55

Because To recognize the truth means they don't get to sneer at Protestants and say well

49:01

You just don't understand Eastern Orthodoxy. And if you really understood Eastern Orthodoxy, you would believe like we do

49:08

When you understand that the man who Metropolitan Callistus were called possibly the most brilliant Ecumenical patriarch since Photius back in the 9th century when you recognize that he

49:25

Rejected what they hold to in favor of the reformed faith All these evasions fall apart.

49:33

You actually have to deal with what does God say in his word? so the obviously within Orthodoxy today there are

49:45

You know, there are people that are less conservative Less consistent with historical stuff just as Francis is on another planet in comparison to Popes before him and so you you have

50:00

Differences of opinion viewpoint. There's all sorts of division amongst the Orthodox over calendars and now with Kiev and Moscow and you know all this kind of stuff and Here in the in the

50:13

West they like to present it as if it's just this monolithic You know apostolic tradition nothing's changing and people who are being

50:23

Attracted to it. That's very much a part of what is attractive to them is The you know, the ancient church standing in the midst of mists of time and all that stuff so obviously having an ecumenical patriarch that Believes in the

50:39

Belgian Confession is a big deal as far as the consistency of The authority claims for those people who actually believe that those authority claims can be made but for me one of the things that's really fascinating is

51:01

It seems to me that One of the key key issues between us and the

51:09

Eastern Orthodox Has to do with anthropology. It has to do with the doctrine of man

51:16

It has to do with sin. It has to do with depravity. It has to do with all the things that make justification necessary and most of the

51:25

Orthodox Just don't have What I would consider to be a

51:30

Pauline a consistent Pauline understanding of man you talk to most

51:37

Orthodox, especially on the street or something like that and you just paraphrase

51:43

Romans 3 and that catena of passages that that Paul puts together there and they'll just look at you like what on earth is that all about and It's interesting because when you look back at church history, there are certain topics that have been the focus of people's attention and in those early centuries

52:10

The doctrine of God, Trinity, the relationship father -son spirit, things like this took up the vast majority of time it wasn't until the fourth century that you have the first work on the subject of the atonement written

52:27

And then with the West collapsing a lot of that sort of comes to a halt

52:34

There and there seems to me to be a stagnation within Eastern Orthodoxy As it fights for its survival under Islamic rule in most situations outside of Constantinople until 1453 anyways, so things happen and The East just does not is not forced to deal with the key anthropological issues that the

53:01

Reformation forces people to deal with and It just strikes me that here you have and Both of us have had some contact with a

53:14

Fellow over in Scotland who has sent me some quotes from some other

53:20

Orthodox leaders who likewise have shown a interest in and and and resonating with reformed

53:32

Statements of faith and reformed theology and it just seems and when

53:38

I see quotations from him and from others From Eastern Orthodox leaders that Have wisdom in them.

53:47

It's because they are accepting a biblical understanding of the necessity of grace the fallenness of man that really doesn't find its origin in the

54:00

Systematic theology if you can call that of Eastern Orthodoxy, so it just strikes me it makes me wonder if for Cyril Lucaris What turned the lights on?

54:15

was the clarity of reformed theology and Its understanding of man in his fallen condition because you're never going to have a clear doctrine of grace as Long as you continue to hold a doctrine of man that has him

54:38

Able Outside of grace to do all these things and you know

54:43

You've got the whole Eastern Orthodox concept of inner Gaia and and things like that Once you recognize the biblical teaching of man's deadness and sin and the absolute supremacy of grace everything else sort of comes together as far as satirologically speaking

55:00

So have you put any thought into what might have been? Attractive to to him and when he first encounters this stuff.

55:07

Is that is that what he's talking about when he talks about how darkened the minds of our people have become

55:13

I Think part of it. Yeah, you're actually touching on something I'm I've handed everything off to our video editor on the filial quay video.

55:22

I'm doing one more I think this will finish me with Eastern Orthodoxy for the rest of my life Yeah, but I'm doing something own

55:33

It's called the impotence of Eastern Orthodoxy and it Ties into this whole concept of the the

55:41

Christian Emperor. Yeah, there's there's The the the head of the

55:48

Roman Empire was The one who was leading the kingdom of God on earth and You know

55:56

Eastern Orthodox called Constantine The God -crowned King and equal to the

56:02

Apostles. Hmm, and This is in the Luke cars video that one part of the reason, you know, they're to show how they whitewash

56:10

Constantine's past right because Constantine dies as an area. He's a hair. He dies as a heretic

56:18

Baptized by Eusebius of Nicomedia but One of the things in the

56:27

West is you have more of a distance between the crown and the church, right and You don't have that in the

56:36

East and I think part of What is what happens is there's a quashing of whenever people start

56:47

Seeing a biblical anthropology then it raises the question. Why would we want a totalitarian government?

56:53

King right and I can't remember if it was

56:59

Teacon or filler at that that Nick Needham pointed us both towards in terms of the the the they did a catechism

57:13

That catechism was edited to make it more conformable to the

57:19

Russian Orthodox Church But he was patriarch of Moscow, but the

57:27

What you have in the late 19th century is a is a hardening of Russian Orthodoxy against Those tendencies that you see in Teak on and filler at you have attempts to Russify the

57:43

Volga and Black Sea Germans who were Primarily Lutheran and reformed

57:50

You they had to start speaking Russian and they all had to They tried to force them into the into the

57:56

Orthodox Church. They were trying to crush the Lutherans in the

58:02

Baltic Republics The man that was the chief advisor to two of the last three czars

58:08

The not the very last one, but the two prior to him Was a bit enough a bit enough stuff.

58:18

I Stink it Trying to pronounce after after last night. No one needs to pronounce anything with any type of accuracy whatsoever.

58:27

Maybe I could run for president It's good enough

58:35

You can be president. So why not go for it? But anyway, but better nest of basically or could he was the head of The Russian Orthodox Church, they had not reinstitute reinstituted the patriarchy at the time

58:49

But what he basically did was he hardened the Eastern Church? In its errors drove out the reformed essentially ended up with Restorationist revolutionaries which helped pave the way for the for the

59:06

Bolsheviks. Hmm after he died and All you end up with in the east the the best they have is basically a tyrant and Pietism, that's it.

59:24

Hmm in the West You don't have the unity you don't have

59:32

Some of the things that they pride themselves on which by the way, they don't really have but that's another story, right we have to deal with the reality of Who man is and You know, one of the things

59:48

I'm going to try to touch on in the in the upcoming video is on the one hand soldier needs and Recognize the horror of what man is capable of in terms of what what the communists did

01:00:05

But what does he do when he comes to the West? He denounces some legitimate

01:00:13

Departures from the historic faith, you know we stand with Icarus and saying we are

01:00:20

Orthodox Catholics Ours is not a 16th century novelty We stand with the early church against icons

01:00:29

That since second, I see a Roman the East have both anathematized. They're anathematizing

01:00:35

Athanasius. They're anathematizing Everybody basically in the first centuries of the church

01:00:41

It's not that these men were without error But They didn't they did not

01:00:48

They didn't venerate icons That that comes along much later but but no, they

01:00:59

Would you end up with him pointing people to? Yes, there are errors in the

01:01:04

West. But what's he pointing him to he's pointing them to pietism Because they that's all they've got

01:01:12

They've got this they've got a messianic state and Then they've got pietism it isn't with a lot of Mysticism as well

01:01:31

Yeah, I mean especially especially in folk Orthodoxy or nominal

01:01:36

Orthodoxy, you know, I used to visit Ukraine a lot and of course Orthodox all over the place and There was a whole lot of mysticism

01:01:47

Oh, it goes hand -in -hand. I'm to me to me mysticism is just throwing some meth at pietism, but What in our in the thousands of comments that we've gotten on the first Eastern Orthodox video one of the things that's come up several times is

01:02:07

We have icons that cry Murr or you know They produce

01:02:13

Murr It's it's it's very mystical, you know You have people saying that that, you know

01:02:20

They know someone who witnessed st. John of San Francisco levitating John of what?

01:02:30

st. John of San Francisco There aren't any Saints in San Francisco. I'm sorry.

01:02:36

There are no Saints in San Francisco. I and San Francisco 20th century

01:02:44

Saint in Eastern Orthodoxy, okay There they claim like the

01:02:50

Pentecostals they have their merit they have continuing miracles. They said that he levitated when he prayed Yay.

01:02:58

Yeah, and then we have all the Marian stuff too. It's it's everywhere. Um, so real quickly.

01:03:03

We're at it. We've gone over time You've mentioned a couple of times you've actually you know,

01:03:09

I've heard people, you know, if you're going on a Television or radio program to promote a book you're doing

01:03:17

You have to mention it like six or seven times Even if there's no reason to you still have to do it because that's that's your job

01:03:24

And so you have mentioned about four or five times now a video that it has not yet come out.

01:03:30

So very good You're a very good Marketer there for especially for a Scotsman, which are generally not good marketers at all but but anyway

01:03:41

So you have a video coming out so that the first video people can go if they want they've got two hours and 15 minutes they can listen to the the failure of Eastern Orthodoxy and then the middle one that we've been talking about on Cyril Akaris and Then the new one you've called it the

01:04:01

Phileo quay video But it's it you did mention a name, right?

01:04:07

Well, it's it's Phileo quay how how Eastern Orthodoxy anathema ties is the

01:04:13

Church Fathers because basically No one other than the historians prior to John of Damascus in the 8th century

01:04:23

Ever denied that Jesus or excuse me that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the

01:04:28

Father and the Son You know when they when they spin it they say well, you know The Pope added this in the 11th century and you know, it wasn't in the original.

01:04:36

We shouldn't be saying it well, the reality is It was there was nothing about the procession of the

01:04:42

Father or the procession of spirit from the Father In the original 325 Nicene Creed that gets added at Constantinople possibly

01:04:52

And there's a whole thing. We spoke about that, right? I mean the Phileo quay a lot of people don't know what that is.

01:04:58

I'm sure you'll be going into that But it's not gonna be two hours and 15 minutes long, right? No, it'll it it's gonna be under an hour and then we've got a fourth video that I'm actually working on right now that deals with the

01:05:15

Essentially the the messianic nature of The government in Eastern Orthodoxy Okay, when when the when the

01:05:25

Byzantine Empire which they never would call themselves that they always call themselves the Romans This is part of the whole understanding of East and West When Rome fell in 476 it hadn't been the capital of the

01:05:39

Empire tree Constantine moved it century and a half earlier nearly a thousand miles to the east right and so You know in their view the

01:05:49

Roman Empire didn't fall until what 1450 1458 But when when their

01:05:58

Empire was reduced to Constantinople and a few holdings in Greece the patriarch of Constantinople took issue with The the

01:06:10

Russian Prince saying we have a church, but we have no Emperor He's like no we still have an Emperor and he is the head of all

01:06:17

Christians everywhere and So So there's gonna be two videos, but they're really related to one another

01:06:28

I guess. Yeah, and then From what you're saying is you're going to Retire into the mountains of Utah never to be seen again grow a big long beard

01:06:40

No, I'm also making one on charismaticism right now I'm doing one on Sola Fide that Chris Arntzen is helping out with it's a short one

01:06:49

It's it's like three minute three about maybe five minutes long. Okay. Um, it's gonna be animated.

01:06:56

Oh no, we I'm kind of working on one about the cult of alcoholics anonymous

01:07:05

So much heresy so little time we've if you go to our channel, we've got ones dealing with Mormonism atheism

01:07:15

Roman Catholicism Eastern Orthodoxy 17 Adventism Our mutual buddy

01:07:21

Sean McCraney and a host of other things. Yes. Yes We won't mention the host of other things right now

01:07:29

Hoping I was just hoping there wasn't gonna be a connection made to certain

01:07:35

Topics and Eastern Orthodoxy actually, you know that they're all related or something like that. So we'll we'll leave it at that for now.

01:07:42

So Baptist brothers, uh, I said, I love my Baptist brothers. Yes. Well, yeah anyway, so hopefully we've made

01:07:52

Lucaris great again and Everyone can go watch the watch the video.

01:07:58

There we go. See you look like a trucker, dude You look like a trucker in in Greece or something mark.

01:08:04

I mean, oh Goodness and I'm sure you could be getting lots of requests for this hat.

01:08:12

I'm the one that actually made it so But yeah, we just thought we'd make

01:08:18

Lucaris great again, and it's sort of it's fitting after last evening Making things great again, like the

01:08:25

English timing was providential. Thank you very much Anyways, all right everybody go to ancient paths

01:08:33

TV on YouTube watch the Simon Lucaris video and Thank you very much

01:08:38

Jason for joining us and for doing all that work for all your wonderful work through the years Greatly in your debt.

01:08:45

All right, brother. Thanks for being with us. God bless God bless. All right. We'll see you. All right, folks.

01:08:52

That's three dividing lines in one week So so there you go, and I know that that was a rather specialized topic, but those of you into that subject obviously recognize how important it is and Hopefully that's very very useful to you

01:09:09

Especially with all this, you know, there's all these high profile conversions to Eastern Orthodoxy right now and things like that So it's good to have that information out there and looking forward to the other videos as they're going to be coming out as well

01:09:23

So thanks for watching the program today. We will see you next week here on the dividing line Lord willing.