Quote:
Originally Posted by HERn
I gotta add this: I wonder if our EO brothers and sisters have their own version of prelest if they refuse teaching from "God's Bastard Children" those "black Protestants"?
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In the EOC, I have never heard these terms "God's Bastard Children" and "black Protestants". Protestants were not offspring of the EOC, so we have no ground to condemn them. (We refuse Protestant teaching because there is little consensus between them and the Church Fathers). On the other hand, we don't condemn the Roman Catholic Church either. The direct confrontation is in the past. We don't agree with many of their dogmas and doctrines, but the only right Christian way to behave towards the RCC, is not to condemn the church but to pray for her.
From the Orthodox point of view, we (Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant, atheists, etc) are all in delusion. Adam was contaminated by it when he accepted a lie for the truth. St. Ignatius Brianchaninov writes, "Spiritual deception is the wounding of human nature by falsehood. Spiritual deception is the state of all men without exception, and it has been made possible by the fall of our original parents. All of us are subject to spiritual deception. Awareness of this fact is the greatest protection against it. Likewise, the greatest spiritual deception of all is to consider oneself free from it. We are all deceived, all deluded; we all find ourselves in a condition of falsehood; we all need to be liberated by the Truth. The Truth is our Lord Jesus Christ."
I like a piece of good advice that Fr John Alexeev gives in his book "Christ Is in Our Midst: Letters from a Russian Monk". Fr John was a Valaam elder and a Schema-abbot at the Valaam monastery. Once, he was sent to a small monastery, where he became amazed by the number of monks who suffered from severe conceit (Prelest). The monks thought themselves men of prayer and miracle workers. They believed they could walk on thin ice without falling under it, and many died at that. So, Fr. John gives such an advice: "Do not trust yourself until you go to last home."
Thus, everyone can suffer from Prelest: Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant, and those who are from non-denominational churches. (Remember the "snake handling" pastor of a Pentecostal church who died after being bitten by a rattlesnake?)