Fr. Roman Braga, a survivor of torture in Communist prisons, talks about Orthodoxy as a way of life and as an encounter with the inner self and with God.
St. Ignatius Antiochian Orthodox Church, Franklin, TN, 1995
Video source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4D0k8scqQF4
Fr. Roman:
Christianity is not a doctrine.
You became Orthodox, sure, and many priests, Orthodox priests, monks, they recommend you to read Bishop Kallistos’ books and… everything is ok…
but if you don’t make the experience of God, if you don’t live God…
In spirituality, Orthodoxy is not knowledge only, because God is not an acquisition of our intellect.
You cannot say: “well, I understand God, now I am theologian, I know the books, well, I am a good Orthodox…”
Orthodoxy is to descend in yourself and to explore the inner universe.
In the Western countries there is a tendency to know things outside of ourselves. You explore the Universe, you go in the outer space and all the knowledge is outside…
Orthodoxy is the reverse… To discover the inner universe which is infinite like an atom and in this depth into ourselves is God… because God is not outside of yourself…
God is not spatial or material to place Him in a corner there…
If you don’t discover God in yourself you will not see God anywhere…
But if you have God in you yourself you see God everywhere… You see God in the eyes of a child, in a flower, in the blade of grass, in animals, everywhere… if you have God in yourself…
So real Orthodoxy in spirituality is to explore ourselves, to go inside, but we are afraid to go inside because it is an awesome reality…
St. Paul said: “don’t you know that you are the Temple of the Living God and God lives within you?”
You say in a expression: “God is in our heart”, it is not in this heart, in this organism, you know, sometimes they change it with a mechanical device, temporarily…
Not here, in this heart, in the depth of our conscience that we call it “soul”, in our soul is God…
Our soul is eternal, infinite and when Saint Paul said you are the Temple of the living God we really are God bearers and we are consecrated temples of God set apart for Him…
Western countries have to learn this lesson…
Not outside of ourselves is God, He is inside, but we have to to explore the inner universe, we have to to live God, because God is life…
Beautiful thank you
Great!
The bible is written by 40 different man on three different continents over 1500 years with no internal contradictions. It makes prophecies about the future. Point me any other book that does that!?!?
It was prophesied hundreds of years before it happened that the messiah would be born of a virgin in Bethlehem. How could they know that?!?!
It was prophesied in the bible 2000 years ago that people would have to get in their right hand or on their forehead to buy or sell. Now, go on youtube or start watching the news. Keep an eye on them and you will see that with the microchip technology that would happen soon.
Also it was prophesied that the Jews would get back in their land. Can you tell me any other people that have been taken out of their land for for 2000 years and come back in 1948. Has anything like that happened with any other cultures and tribes in history? Or in any book? That’s miraculous .
The bible is not a book written by men. It is a book written by men, inspired by GOD.. Show me anything that has been proven wrong in the bible. With solid evidence.
!!! Atheists, unbelievers, you believe only in Evidence and Evolution, OK. I accept that.
But let me ask you.
According to scientists the universe came by the so called big-bang happened billions of years ago, which many or more accurately, MOST don’t know what was caused by. They even claim it happened by chance.
So let me ask you – According to this – if your brain is a complex of chemicals that have evolved through millions of years BY CHANCE, then how can you really trust your own THOUGHTS and Reasoning?
There is a big chance that you might be wrong. And how do you expect us CREATIONIST, Believers, to trust it?
I’d rather trust my BIBLE which is much younger than that. I’d rather trust JESUS.
Another questions that you can’t answer :
– First question – where all this matter, consisting the big bang came from?
– Second question – who set the laws because our universe is governed by laws
– Third question – Who made the energy to cause the big bang? Where did all this energy to cause the big bang come from? Because Your gas bottle can’t explode if you don’t fill it with gas, so who bought the gas or the energy for the big bang? … I’ll tell you who. God.
Atheists you are claiming Believing in Jesus and the bible is religious and the questions that I posted above are not. Wow, they are religious too, you can't answer them.
So why you choose to believe something obscure that has had happened 20 billion years ago rather than something that has happened 2000 years ago. You know, then, Jesus died for our sins and he created the bridge to heaven .
I'll tell you why, because you are evil and you don't want to be held accountable AT THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT for what you have done. So my point is don't bring things into this discussion like evolution and other matters that you ARE NOT ADEQUATELY acquainted WITH. As DR. Ken hovind(refer to him!) says – they say everything has had happened by a big bang 20 billion years ago, When it comes to the point BUT what exploded? nobody can answer…
!!!!! Evolution supporters you believe you came from a rock. Foolish isn’t it. According to evolution life came from the prebiotic soup. Pre-living materials mixed together in the oceans or some warm little ponds. Now where did the minerals for the soup come from? See, it came from a rock! It looks stupid because it is.
Steps of what you believe. 1. Nothing exploded, 2. Produced everything, 3.conglomerated into clumps called stars or planets, earth. 4. Then it rained on the rocks for million of years and and it turned to soup and the soup came alive…….
When you ask Where God came from, think about this. Well If we are able to understand, comprehend and put the infinite God in our finite, small around 3 pounds brain, then what God is he?
See? God is above us in every way, dimension and knowledge (past, present and future).
Let me ask you – Is your dog going to be able to understand our world and that it is necessary for you to go to work and so? No. no matter how smart it is and no matter how much it tries and what level of knowledge it has . Because it has limited brain abilities, and so ours are limited when it comes to understanding and reasoning where God comes from and what he does..
Just as your dog and our pets can't understand how our world function, so we can't understand how God is working and what is the meaning of things.
Another short way to put it – our brain is bigger than the brain of a mouse, right? and because of that it can achieve more things and has an higher IQ.
And so God's brain is bigger than our and as a result of that he is able to achieve and do things beyond our comprehension and imagination.- : Just as he has created our universe and our bodies. Our brains cannot perform such things.
Think about this – cpu and your brain. Which one of the 2 is more powerful? The CPU, which means central processing unit of course. And so God's brain compared to our is like an CPU.
The point is that as the mouse is an different specie than US, so God is an different specie compared to us. He is more advanced and ahead of us.
We live in the third dimension, right? Well, God is outside of it( maybe in the fourth or even further ). He is always above us and outside of us.
Think about it like this. Take 2 HOSES.. And put the one with the smaller diameter inside the one with the bigger. See? we, our universe exist in the smaller one and God is in the bigger.
We are limited by ours and we can't see outside of it but God can оbserve us. And also in such way our thinking and knowledge is limited. Just because we can't see outside of the present level of science DOES NOT mean that there is nothing outside of it!
Memory Eternal, Fr Roman. ☦️
Too True!
Amen papa 🤝✝️🤲🏻🛩
Amen beutiful!
Indeed Christianity is not a doctrine and should not be misused to attain some obscure realizations. God rest his soul in peace but not before his death, he committed some undesirable acts against other priests.
Amen Amen Amen.