Papism as the Oldest Protestantism - St. Justin Popović

“In writing this, we are not writing either the history of Europe, of its virtues and faults, or the history of the European pseudo-Churches. We are simply setting forth the entirety of their ontology, penetrating to the heart of European conceit, its demonic underground, where its dark sources lie and with whose waters it threatens to poison the world. This is no passing of judgment on Europe, but a wholehearted and prayerful call to the only way to salvation: through repentance.”   

St. Justin Popović (+1979), the great twentieth century theologian of Serbia, masterfully expounds upon the nature of protestantism, both its papal and reformed varieties, refining and preserving the dogmatic conscience of his disciples and students. Some of what St. Justin says may be shocking, but as disciples of Christ we must run to the saints, those saints the Church has glorified and recognized as authentic teachers of the Faith. St. Justin is a theologian par excellence.  

The meaning of Theanthropic: divine (in Greek theos = God) and human (in Greek anthropos = man); the Theanthropos = the God-Man, i.e. Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God.

“The supreme rule of the Orthodox philosophy of society is: We must not adapt Christ the Theanthropos to the spirit of the times, but adapt the spirit of the times to Christ's eternity, Christ's theanthropy.” 

“Various pseudo-Christian humanisms fill the world with books, but Orthodoxy fills it with saints.” 

“However, the tragedy of western Christendom consists precisely in its having attempted, whether by revising the image of the Theanthropos or denying Him, to reintroduce the demonised humanism that is characteristic of sinful human nature into the heart of the very theanthropic organism, the Church, the purpose of which is to liberate from it; and through the Church into all spheres of life, by pronouncing it to be a dogma, a universal dogma. Man's demonised pride, under the auspices of the Church, in that way becomes a dogma of faith without which there is no salvation. It is terrible even to contemplate, let alone say, that in this way the only 'workshop of salvation' and theanthropisation in this world is gradually being transformed into a demonised 'workshop' of violence against the conscience and of dehumanisation, a workshop of the disfigurement of God and man through the disfigurement of the Theanthropos.” 

The text is from “The Orthodox Church and Ecumenism,” pages 119-126, 142-154. The first half of this text: http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/pap... The second half is found in “The Orthodox Church and Ecumenism”: https://lazarica.co.uk/bookshop/

For extra information about the divisions between sections in this episode, please go to the YouTube upload at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xXm1PfcQUw&ab_channel=OrthodoxWisdom.

Glory to Jesus Christ!