At least he isn't crazy.

On some other message board somewhere, in the land of crazy people talking about Orthodoxy (why are they all crazy on the internet?), some guy started a thread complaining about how his priest wasn't hard enough on him in confession. Namely, he uses pornography and such and wanted practical advice about kicking the habit. The priest, however, according to his impressions, was basically saying, "Yeah, whatevs, stop doing it, it's bad. Okay, let's talk about the other stuff." At the time, I said, in my infinite wisdom, that it's a specific problem and the priest might not have the specific resources to help him deal with it. Big deal, go to SA or something, get professional help, whatever. He's not being a bad priest.

Recently, though, somebody brought up how utterly weird this stuff can get. In retrospect, I think the guy should be grateful his priest isn't some weird fellow who wants to get involved with this sort of stuff (perhaps helpfully, perhaps not). This stuff can get downright crazy. However, some people, it seems, want the crazy. Not sure what can be done for them. Perhaps they can all get on a boat and sail to an island that they can have for themselves.

I forgot the most important "pro" of the Greeks!

Pro: the English was "You/Your" instead of faux-archaic English.

Review of recent non-OCA parishes

I have barely been in $HOME_PARISH for the last month because of travels and other nonsense, so I will post a brief review of the non-OCA parishes I visited.

Mostly Russian ROCOR Church in Texas
Pros: pretty much all Slavonic, had an exhibit of 17th-19th century Russian icons that weekend, had a panikhida for soldiers because of Victory Day, sermon mentioned the names of myrrh-bearing women, very Russian.
Cons: slow style of serving. I probably would've been out at 1pm if I hadn't ducked out.

Mostly Convert ROCOR Church in Virginia
Pros: cute little country church.
Neutral things: did the service of preparation for communion before liturgy.
Cons: I thought the service was starting at 9:30 or something like that instead of 10.

Greek Church in Nebraska
Pros: quite Greek, priest had a decent voice, still not Pentecost so no kneeling on Sunday.
Cons: an organ and pews.

I guess I can review my own parish, too, for the month.

gzt's OCA Parish (a couple weeks ago)
Pros: had a hierarchical liturgy, it's a good bishop, service still moves quickly and starts early.
Cons: regular choir director on vacation, gzt is incompetent at hierarchical liturgies despite having a comprehensive manual, gzt no longer outranks the children.

I hope, dear readers, this will help you discern the phronema with your nous.

"The Mind of the Church"

Or, perhaps, "phronema".

I flippantly remarked recently when somebody asked how to "discern the mind of the Church" on a message board that it sounded like a "silly convert" thing to ask. I was being flippant and not entirely fair because I'm not a terribly nice person. Anyway, a conversation yesterday with a real-live seminarian made the pieces fit together, so I thought I'd discuss it here.

The seminarian discussed how they were being taught to acquire the mind of the Church in school, but this meant learning to think like the saints of the Church and apply their methods to discern the truth. The way the message board poster had stated it made it seem like it was about finding the one right answer (ie, "I have discerned the mind of the Church on this matter, it is now closed and I am done thinking about it."). The pieces fit together in my head now.

I'm still not being entirely fair to the man on the message board, because he could really be asking the same question: what method do we use to figure out what we should think?

Like science, it's far more about method than what's in the textbook. Another cheap comparison: in science, all you really ever know is what isn't true. Apophaticism, baby.

Resolved: Orthodox weddings are better than any other weddings.

Other weddings have their charms, of course. There's something to be said for a rather simple and traditional Episcopalian wedding straight out of the BCP or a nice Catholic wedding (best to be very, very Catholic). I am also by no means trying to diminish other, non-traditional weddings, as marriage is a pretty good thing no matter how it got done.

More hits in the last month than all the rest of history.

Largely from including the URL to this site in my signature on the Venuleius web-log, it seems. And then there was the link which did not actually work from Pactum Serva. Between those two, that's 1/3 of everything. I didn't know that many people read Venuleius. I got about 300 hits from there, and that's just people who followed my random link in my own signature, not a direct link from him.

EDIT: Oh, it seems I'm one of the few links on his front page. Well, whatevs.