I second the recommendation for CBT and Rescue Remedy, Calms Forte, or ignatia amara until you can get an rx for something stronger. With anxiety, learning healthy coping skills is really important. Hugs to you mama.

Good point, which leads me to ask what is the difference between mainline and evangelical?

Do Protestant churches have a liturgical calendar that marks holy days other than Easter and Christmas? I was never a protestant. I was raised in a cultish like new thought era religion that did have daily Scripture readings with daily catechism of sorts, but it did not teach the divinity of Christ or the Holy Trinity.

Seriously? Ouch!

Oh Patty we were posting at the same time! Sorry to offer redundant information!

Hi Artichoke, I hope you don't mind another Orthodox Christian answer to your questions above. In addition to our daily Scripture readings, mentioned by others, I do read the Scriptures for personal development and there are many EO Christians who also do this. This does not entail arriving at my own conclusions regarding the interpretation of the Scriptures because I do rely on the Church for that. As a devotional, I say the prayer that EO Christians recite before reading the Gospels or any part of Scripture. It reads: After this I randomly open to any page and read what is written there. No matter what, I always land on something that I truly need to read and learn from for my own personal benefit. After I am done reading the verses that seem most fitting, I meditate on how I can bring the message into my daily practice as a Christian. The Scriptures are so beautiful and one can always see something new that had not been noted previously, like the layers of an onion, cliche as that may sound. Orthodox Christians also do Bible studies in formal settings, held usually at a local parish. Fr. Evan Armitas is a great resource for such studies via Ancient Faith Radio, but he is not the only one. Recently Patty Joanna posted a link to his 100 lesson Bible Study in the social group, found here. I hope that was helpful for your understanding of our faith. :)

I don't mind the term Indian (I'm a mix of 1/2 Asian, 1/8 Choctaw, 1/8 Cherokee, and the rest European). I look mostly native. I prefer being called Indian as opposed to something truly derogatory like squaw, injun, chief, or redskin. In a perfect world I wouldn't be offended by any term that's applied to me. I think of myself as American. Still I will always be asked the most annoying question, "What are you?"

No worries, Teannika. I hope you got a good night's sleep. I am afraid I let insomnia and the inherent frustration that goes with that color the tone of my own replies to you. Please forgive me.

I have found myself getting "hooked" on the chat board lately, too. Pride. Pride. Ugly pride depart from me!

Also, Albeto, I cannot speak for others but I do believe that the encouragement for you to visit an EO parish was a suggestion for you to see for yourself what it's all about and have an opportunity to pose all of your questions about this faith to an actual priest, face to face, which would no doubt be more effective than us grasping for the best explanation. I prefer face to face conversations with an expert in any given field on the topic at hand in order to truly feel informed. Perhaps this is not the case for you. I don't think you need to worry about whether the experience of visiting a church and meeting a priest in addition to observing our worship will be positive or negative. The only point of the invitation was to improve your understanding of the faith, not to save you soul. ;)

The concept of Justification is entirely Western and foreign in its juridical application at the time of an individual's death to Eastern Orthodox Christians. We view Baptism, joining with church, as the "justification" Paul speaks of, having been found acceptable to join the Body of Christ-the Church. When we die, the All-Merciful One will impart righteousness to those who truly love him and have "run the race" to emulate Christ in our current lives, regardless of how long we have been "running" at the time of death. Some will experience deathbed conversions after a lifetime of rejecting God, and their race is no less valid than the one who toiled an entire lifetime at shedding the "old man."

Are you saying that you do not trust the very establishment through which you received the Scriptures? Do you place yourself above the Apostles or Christ, trusting only yourself to discern the meaning of the Scriptures? If this is not the case, who do you look to as Authority in deciphering the meaning of this vast accumulation of literature? I spent most of my life believing I could see all the intended meaning in Scripture all on my own. Then I found that I constantly needed a guide and would just pick and choose what a single person said here and there and go with that. It was messy, inconsistent, and foolish because of how deceptive a single person's take on a verse out of context can throw the entire work into question. It was always back to the drawing board, over and over. The blessing of Orthodoxy is that this never happens. Ever. There is wise agreement across centuries, continents and oceans regarding the interpretation of Scripture that is far more elegant than anything I could ever see and understand on my own. I apologize if I have come across as harsh or arrogant. I think your journey with Christ can only be God's will and shall bear the fruits of this in your life. Let us be at peace and recognize that all understanding will come at its appointed time. Good night.

All meaning had been retained? Is this why among the 20,000 plus denominations of non-orthodox Christians you have at least that many different interpretations of what the Scriptures mean? I'm sorry for how arrogant this will sound to you, but it is simply a fact. The only place where the Scriptures have had intact meaning consistently for 2000 years is within the bosom of the Orthodox Church.

Teannika, please read more about worship in the Jewish temple at and before the time of Jesus before you make such bizarre assertions. Orthodox Christians have preserved much of the style and form of ancient Jewish worship in our own worship because it has not changed for 2000 years. When Milovany asked what you thought they were doing she really wanted to know what YOU thought, as do I. No. They were not reading the Scriptures to see and know Jesus Christ. They had a completely different idea about the nature of the Messiah than what was revealed in Christ.

The vast majority of Christians did not have a Bible until only a few hundred years ago. We are talking post printing press and post reform. Millions and Millions of Christians walked the earth with the Word tucked securely in their hearts before printed transcriptions of the Scriptures became commonplace. Are you truly saying that these followers of Christ did not know the truth? Are you really saying that you yourself could not know the Word of God (who is Jesus Christ!) if you didn't have the KJV?

Patty Joanna did a great job of reiterating how the Orthodox church views these things, so I don't want to be redundant. I did want to add that I also understand how the underlined can be confusing! Orthodoxy is just like this. We may "reject" a doctrine as *dogma*, but that doesn't mean that we reject the doctrine as a *possibility.* This is why you will find many Orthodox authorities will still work with and defend a doctrine despite the fact that it has not been completely accepted as our dogma. In this particular case, everything PrincessMommy said was true and everything Patty Joanna and I said is also true with regard to Apocatastasis. And for the record, I also believe as PJ does with regard to the expectation of a physical reality after "death." :)

I think you missed the point that the KJV is not a direct translation. It is a version of an existing translation that was based on Erasmus's flawed Greek. Why do you feel it is the inerrant inspired word? It is merely a version of a translation of the inspired word.

I would like to know what makes the King James Version of the Bible so special to you. It is not a translation that was made directly from the Greek and Hebrew. It is mostly a revision of Tyndale's earlier translation which was unfortunately translated from Erasmus's Greek version which had many errors that remained with each new revision including the Geneva version and the KJV. The original KJV included all 80 books of the OT and NT and the revision in the 1880s dropped several books of the OT for a total of only 66 Books. Are you saying that the original KJV is completely ordered and intact or the subsequent revisions that omit all the apocryphal texts?

In truth, the concept of Universalism or Apocatastasis has been around and a topic of debate since the early Church. There is even scriptural support for the concept in Acts of the Apostles and 1Timothy. The difficulty is that the EO Church as a whole has not been in full agreement on the veracity of the belief that all souls (including Satan) will be restored. As I stated earlier, this is a gray area for the Church. There are Church fathers who upheld the belief and others who claimed it was heretical. There are still prominent Orthodox Christian writers, theologians, and even hierarchs (most notably in modern times, Metropolitan Kallistos Ware who has written much on the topic) who uphold Apocatastasis. In Orthodoxy, there are very few dogmas and the ones that do exist are emphatically accepted as truth in all places and all times of the Church by unanimous acceptance of their "correctness." There are many, many areas that are not dogmas because we lack the unanimity, so for these instances, they are acceptable as Orthodox truth within certain limits. The limit placed on Apocatastasis is that we can only say it is true that all souls may be saved. This is Orthodox. To say that all souls will definitely be saved is beyond our scope as mere humans, and is not Orthodox. We simply don't have an answer for this question. As I stated earlier, we cannot know the mind of God and we do not know the bounds of his Mercy though we perceive them to be infinitely great. We know what to avoid, by following the commandments presented to us in the Hebrew Scriptures and by Christ Himself in the Gospels. We know that we are to avoid and root out Pride in all it's treacherous and even innocuous forms from our thoughts, hearts, and actions. This is all we need to know. :)

I have been following this thread and have found it to be truly informative on many levels. Thank you Albeto for your tenacity, as it has kept this discussion alive and interesting! It looks to me like you are asking about whether Orthodox Christians accept the doctrine of Universalism. This is certainly one of those very gray areas in Orthodoxy and you will find that the Church as a whole does accept that all souls may eventually be saved. We do not unequivocally accept that all souls will definitely be saved, but it is a possibility that we sincerely hope and pray for. We live our lives here and now *as though* the door locks, as you put it, at the time of death because this lifestyle is most beneficial to our souls today and why put off holiness and goodness for after death when we can live it (and bless others with it) here and now? KWIM? We are careful when it comes to these discussions because we cannot know the mind of God. We believe that in His love and mercy for mankind, it is possible that all will be saved, but this is NOT *our* realm for judgement. I hope you find this satisfactory. We don't mean to sound like we are dismissing your questions. We really do shrug our shoulders when it comes to the how and why of God's great works, as they are beyond our ken. We stand in awe as this for us is the only appropriate response. :)

My family on my father's side is from Jakarta. There is a lot of deep pain for ethnic Chinese in that part of the world. My family was forced to flee during the purges that took place in '65 and '66. My family was brutalized at the hands of "Muslim youth." I would call it a sign of progress that we can peacefully have this discussion a generation later. Thank you for your kind and thoughtful replies. :)

Given that I did read the items listed by Umsami in the context that they came as renewals of original tradition after Islam met with modernization, I would say that you are correct. :)

The examples of discourse listed above in the links relate to a post-colonial time period in the middle east. So yes the last 200 years or so. I used quotations to show a word different than reform and to imply interpretations. The items on the list are widely referred to in the literature (admittedly on line) I have read that describes renewal and reformation within Islam.

http://ocw.nd.edu/arabic-and-middle-east-studies/islamic-societies-of-the-middle-east-and-north-africa-religion-history-and-culture/lectures/lecture-9/skinless_view http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_movements_within_Islam http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Modernism Please show me how none of what is contained in any of the linked sources above is valid in your view?