St. Justin Popovich

St. Justin Popovich: . . . Our era is, above all, an era of idol-worship. . . .

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Do you not notice that, in his mania for culture, European man has transformed Europe into an idol-factory? Almost every cultural item has become an idol. Our era is, above all, an era of idol-worship. No other continent is so engulfed by idols as is contemporary Europe. Nowhere else are material things so revered, nowhere else do people live for them as much as in Europe. This is idol-worship of the worst kind, for it is the worship of clay. Tell me, does a man not worship clay when he selfishly loves his earthen flesh of clay, and persistently asserts: I am flesh, and flesh alone? Tell me, does European man not worship clay when he takes as his ideal a class, a nation or mankind as a whole?

St. Justin Popovic: The third sin, which synthesizes all the sins of the world is: “the pride of life.” . . .

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The third sin, which synthesizes all the sins of the world is: “the pride of life.” That is the first sin in all the worlds: the sin of Satan. The source of all sins, which always was and will forever stay as such. It can be said: pride is the ultimate sin. Every sin, through its life force, comes from it and holds to it: “the pride of life”–woven from countless multifarious prides, both great and small, both short-term and long term. Let us remember the primary things: the pride of glory (scientific, government, in any rank or position in general), pride of beauty, pride of wealth, pride of benevolence, pride of humility (yes! of humility), pride of charity, pride of success…There is not a virtue that pride cannot convert into a vice. The pride of prayer converts the person praying into a Pharisee, and the ascetic into a self-murderer. So, every sin, in reality is a sin through pride, because Satan in in reality Satan through pride. If it were not for pride, sin would not exist, neither in the angelic or the human world. All this “is not of the Father.” That which is of the Father is the Only Begotten Son of God. He is incarnate and personified humility before all of His divine perfections. In His Gospel, the beginning virtue, the ultimate virtue is humility (Matt. 5:3). Humility is the only medicine for pride and all other sins.

+ St. Justin Popovic from The Explanation of the Epistles of St John the Theologian (1 John 2:16)

St. Justin Popovich: The principal Tradition, the transcendent Tradition, of the Orthodox Church is the living God-man Christ . . .

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“The principal Tradition, the transcendent Tradition, of the Orthodox Church is the living God-man Christ, entire in the theanthropic Body of the Church of which He is the immortal, eternal Head. This is not merely the message, but the transcendent message of the holy apostles and the holy fathers. They know Christ crucified, Christ resurrected, Christ ascended. They all, by their integral lives and teachings, with a single soul and a single voice, confess that Christ the God-man is wholly in His Church, as in His Body. Each of the holy fathers could rightly repeat with St. Maximus the Confessor: ‘In no wise am I expounding my own opinion, but that which I have been taught by the fathers, without changing aught in their teaching.’”

+ St. Justin Popovich, The Attributes of the Church

Originally published in Orthodox Life, vol. 31, no. 1 (Jan.-Feb., 1981), pp. 28-33

St. Justin Popovich: A division within the Church has never occurred, nor indeed can one take place . . .

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“A division within the Church has never occurred, nor indeed can one take place, while apostasy from the Church has and will continue to occur after the manner of those voluntarily fruitless branches which, having withered, fall away from the eternally living theanthropic Vine—the Lord Christ (John 15:1-6). From time to time, heretics and schismatics have cut themselves off and have fallen away from the one and indivisible Church of Christ, whereby they ceased to be members of the Church and parts of her theanthropic body. The first to fall away thus were the gnostics, then the Arians, then the Macedonians, then the Monophysites, then the Iconoclasts, then the Roman Catholics, then the Protestants, then the Uniates, and so on—all the other members of the legion of heretics and schismatics.”

+ St. Justin Popovich, The Attributes of the Church

Originally published in Orthodox Life, vol. 31, no. 1 (Jan.-Feb., 1981), pp. 28-33

St. Justin Popovich: . . . Hence, a division, a splitting up of the Church is ontologically and essentially impossible.

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“Like the holy apostles, the holy fathers and the teachers of the Church confess the unity and uniqueness of the Orthodox Church with the divine wisdom of the cherubim and the zeal of the seraphim. Understandable, therefore, is the fiery zeal which animated the holy fathers of the Church in all cases of division and falling away and the stern attitude toward heresies and schisms. In that regard, the holy ecumenical and holy local councils are preeminently important. According to their spirit and attitude, wise in those things pertaining to Christ, the Church is not only one but also unique. Just as the Lord Christ cannot have several bodies, so He cannot have several Churches. According to her theanthropic nature, the Church is one and unique, just as Christ the God-man is one and unique.

Hence, a division, a splitting up of the Church is ontologically and essentially impossible.”

+ St. Justin Popovich,  The Attributes of the Church

Originally published in Orthodox Life, vol. 31, no. 1 (Jan.-Feb., 1981), pp. 28-33

St. Justin Popovich: What is it that the God-man gives to man which no one else is capable of giving? . . .

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“What is it that the God-man gives to man which no one else is capable of giving? It is victory over death, over sin, and over the devil, Eternal Life, Eternal Truth, Eternal Justice, Eternal Virtue, Eternal Love, Eternal Joy: the entire fullness of the Godhead and of Divine Perfection. As the Apostle tells us: the God-man gives to men ‘those things which God has prepared for those who love Him, which no eye has seen, which no ear has heard, and which have not entered the heart of man’ (1 Cor. 2:9).

In fact only He, the wondrous God-man, is the ‘one thing that is needed’ (cf. Luke 10:42) by man in all his worlds and in his every life. Therefore, only the God-man is justified in asking of us that which no one else has ever dared to ask: that we love Him more than we love parents, siblings, children, friends, the earth, the angels, anyone and everyone in all the worlds, visible and invisible (Matth. 10:37-39; Luke 14:26, Rom. 8 31-39).”

— St. Justin Popovich, Orthodox Faith & Life in Christ“Reflections on the Infallibility of European Man”

St. Justin Popovich: Only the gospel of Christ fully knows the mystery of sin and the problem of sin . . .

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Only the gospel of Christ fully knows the mystery of sin and the problem of sin and everything which hides within it. The prodigal son of the Gospel is the perfect example of the repentant sinner. The Gospel shows us that man, through his free will, can share his life with Earth and with Heaven, with Satan and with God, with paradise and with hell. Sin gradually strips man of everything divine in him, paralyzes his every divine inclination and desire, until it finally throws him into the bosom of Satan. And then man reaches the plight of grazing the swine of his master, the Devil. The swine are passions, which are always greedy and gluttonous. In such a life, the unfortunate man is nothing more than insane. In a shocking parable of the Gospel, the Lord says about the prodigal son, ‘he came to himself,’ (Luke 15:17) How did he come to himself? He came to himself through repentance. Through sin, man becomes mad, insane. Every sin, even the most seemingly insignificant one, is always an insanity of the soul. Through repentance, man comes to his senses becomes complete again, comes to himself. Then he cries out loud to God, runs to Him, and cries towards Heaven, ‘Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and in thy sight’ (Luke 15:21). And what is the heavenly Father doing? He is always infinitely merciful upon seeing His child in a state of repentance. He has compassion for him, runs, embraces him, and kisses him. He orders His heavenly hosts, the holy angels: ‘Bring forth the best robe and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: for this is My son who was dead, and is alive again; and he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.’ (Luke 16:22-24) And this is taking place for each and every one of us, and for the sake of every sinner who repents. Namely, joy and happiness is taking place in the heaven of the All-merciful Lord and God, and together with Him, all of the holy angels.

+ St. Justin Popovich, From the preface to the book of Fr. Justin, Sinful Souls, Belgrade, 1968; quoted from Orthodox Faith & Life in Christ“Select Writings of Fr. Justin”

St. Justin Popovich: In them [the Lives of the Saints] it is clearly and obviously demonstrated . . .

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In them [the Lives of the Saints] it is clearly and obviously demonstrated: There is no spiritual death from which one cannot be resurrected by the Divine power of the risen and ascended Lord Christ; there is no torment, there is no misfortune, there is no misery, there is no suffering which the Lord will not change either gradually or all at once into quite, compunctionate joy because of faith in Him. And again there are countless soul-stirring examples of how a sinner becomes a righteous man in the lives of the Saints: how a thief, a fornicator, a drunkard, a sensualist, a murderer, and adulterer becomes a holy man─there are many, many example of this in the Lives of the Saints; how a selfish egoistical, unbelieving, atheistic, proud, avaricious, lustful, evil, wicked, depraved, angry, spiteful, quarrelsome, malicious, envious, malevolent, boastful, vainglorious, unmerciful, gluttonous man becomes a man of God─there are many, many example of this in the Lives of the Saints

By the same token in the Lives of the Saints there are very many marvelous examples of how a youth becomes a holy youth, a maiden becomes a holy maiden, an old man becomes a holy old man, how an old woman becomes a holy old woman, how a child becomes a holy child, how parents become holy parents, how a son becomes a holy son, how a daughter becomes a holy daughter, how a family becomes a holy family, how a community becomes a holy community, how a priest becomes a holy priest, how a bishop becomes a holy bishop, how a shepherd becomes a holy shepherd, how a peasant becomes a holy peasant, how an emperor becomes a holy emperor, how a cowherd becomes a holy cowherd, how a worker becomes a holy worker, how a judge becomes a holy judge, how a teacher becomes a holy teacher, how an instructor becomes a holy instructor, how a soldier becomes  holy soldier, how an officer becomes a holy officer, how a ruler becomes a holy ruler, how a scribe becomes a holy scribe, how a merchant becomes a holy merchant, how a monk becomes a holy monk, how an architect becomes a holy architect, how a doctor becomes a holy doctor, how a tax collector becomes a holy tax collector, how a pupil becomes a holy pupil, how an artisan becomes holy artisan, how a philosopher becomes a holy philosopher, how a scientist becomes a holy scientist, how a statesman becomes a holy statesman, how a minister becomes a holy minister, how a poor man becomes a holy poor man, how a rich man becomes a holy rich man, how a slave becomes a holy slave, how a master becomes a holy master, how a married couple becomes a holy married couple, how an author becomes a holy author, how an artist becomes a holy artist. . .

— St. Justin Popovich, Orthodox Faith & Life in Christ“Introduction to the Lives of the Saints”

St. Justin Popovich: . . . There is no passion, no sin for which the Lives of the Saints do not show how the passion or sin in question in conquered, mortified, and uprooted.

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“In the Lives of the Saints are shown numerous but always certain ways of salvation, enlightenment, sanctification, transfiguration, ‘christification,’ deification; all the ways are shown by which man conquers sin, every sin; conquers passion, every passion; conquers death; conquers the devil, every devil. There is a remedy there for every sin: from every passion─healing, from every death─resurrection from every devil─deliverance; from all evils─salvation. There is no passion, no sin for which the Lives of the Saints do not show how the passion or sin in question in conquered, mortified, and uprooted.”

+ St. Justin Popovich, Orthodox Faith & Life in Christ“Introduction to the Lives of the Saints”

St. Justin Popovich: If you are suffering for your faith in Christ, the Lives of the Saints will console you and encourage you and make you bold . . .

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“If you are suffering for your faith in Christ, the Lives of the Saints will console you and encourage you and make you bold and give you wings, and your torments will be changed into joy. If you are in any sort of temptation, the Lives of the Saints will help you overcome it both now and forever. If you are in danger from the invisible enemies of salvation, the Lives of the Saints will arm you with the ‘whole armor of God,’[1] and you will crush them all now and forever and throughout your whole life. If you are in the midst of visible enemies and persecutors of the Church of Christ, the Lives of the Saints will give you the courage and strength of a confessor, and you will fearlessly confess the one true God and Lord in all world─Jesus Christ─and you will boldly stand up for the holy truth of His Gospel unto Death, unto every death, and you will feel stronger than all deaths, and much more so than all visible enemies of Christ; and being tortured for Christ you will shout for joy, feeling with all your being that your life is in heaven, hidden with Christ in God, wholly above all deaths.[2]

+ St. Justin Popovich,”Introduction to the Lives of the Saints,” Orthodox Faith & Life in Christ

1 cf. Eph. 6:11,12
2 cf. Col. 3:3

St. Justin Popovich: If you wish, the Lives of the Saints are a sort of Orthodox Encyclopedia. . . .

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“If you wish, the Lives of the Saints are a sort of Orthodox Encyclopedia. In them can be found everything which is necessary for the soul which hungers and thirsts for eternal righteousness and eternal truth in this life, and which hungers and thirsts for Divine immortality and eternal life. If faith is what you need, there you will find it in abundance: and you will feed your soul with food which will never make it hungry. If you need love, truth, righteousness, hope, meekness, humility, repentance, prayer, or whatever virtue or podvig, in them, the Lives of the Saints, you will find a countless number of holy teachers for every podvig and will obtain grace-filled help for every virtue.”

— St. Justin Popovich, Orthodox Faith & Life in Christ“Introduction to the Lives of the Saints”

St. Justin Popovich: Life according to the Gospel . . . is the natural and normal life for Christians. . . .

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“Life according to the Gospel, holy life, Divine life, that is the natural and normal life for Christians. For Christians, according to their vocation, are holy: That good tidings and commandment resounds throughout the whole Gospel of the New Testament1. To become completely holy, both in soul and in body, that is our vocation2. This is not a miracle, but rather the norm, the rule of faith. The commandment of the Holy Gospel is clear and most clear: as the Holy One who has called you is Holy, so be ye holy in all manner of life (1 Peter 1:15).”

— St. Justin Popovich, Orthodox Faith & Life in Christ“Introduction to the Lives of the Saints”

1cf. 1 Thes. 4:3,7; Rm. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:2; Eph. 1:1-18, 2:19, 5:3, 6:18; Phillip. 1:1, 4:21-22; Col. 1:2-4, 12, 22, 26; 1 Thes. 3:13, 5:27; 2 Tim. 1:9; Phlm. 5:7; Heb 3:1, 6:10, 13:24; Jude 3.

2cf. 1 Thes 6:22-23.

St. Justin Popovich: Protestantism? Is is the loyal child of Papism. . . .

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“Protestantism? It is the loyal child of Papism. It went from one heresy to another over the centuries because of its rationalistic scholasticism, and it is continually drowning in the various poisons of its heretical errors. In addition, Papal haughtiness and ‘infallible’ foolishness reign absolutely within it, ruining the souls of its faithful. First of all each Protestant is an independent pope when it comes to matters of faith. This always leads from one spiritual death to another; and there is no end to  this ‘dying’ since a person can suffer countless spiritual deaths (in a lifetime).

Since this is the way things are, there is no way out of this impasse for the Papist-Protestantic Ecumenism with its pseudo-Church and its pseudo-Christianity without wholehearted repentance before the God-man Christ and His Orthodox Catholic Church. Repentance is the remedy for every sin, the medicine given to man by the only Friend of man (Christ).”

– St. Justin Popovich, Orthodox Faith & Life in Christ“Humanistic Ecumenism”

St. Justin Popovich: All European humanisms in their essence are nothing other than an unending revolution against the God-man Christ. . . .

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“All European humanisms in their essence are nothing other than an unending revolution against the God-man Christ. Using all possible methods they achieve Umwertung aller Wert (the overthrow of all values). The God-man is everywhere replaced by man. On all European thrones European humanists are seated. As a result there is not a single Vicarius Christi but innumerable ones in various costumes. In the final analysis, the dogma concerning infallibility of the pope has lead to the proclamation of the general infallibility of man. And from this followed the innumerable popes of all European cultures, of the Vatican, and of Protestantism. Among them, however, there are no essential differences because, in the thinking of Khomiakov the visionary of Truth, the papacy is the first Protestantism.”

— St. Justin Popovich, Orthodox Faith & Life in Christ“Reflections on the Infallibility of European Man”

St. Justin Popovich: Is there a way out of these innumerable humanistic hells? . . .

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“Is there a way out of these innumerable humanistic hells? Is there resurrection from these innumerable European graves? Is there a remedy for those innumerable deadly sicknesses? There is, there certainly is: repentance. That is the eternal message of the Gospel of the God-Man: “Repentance so that you may know the truth” (2 Tim. 2:25). Otherwise, it is not possible for anyone to believe in the all-saving Gospel of the God-man. “Repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15). Repentance before the God-Man is the only medicine for the sin, the unique medicine for all sins, even for the greatest of sins. There is no doubt. Repentance is the medicine even for this, the greatest sin of the papacy, centered in the arrogant dogma of papal infallibility, as it is also for every one of its sins, every humanism individually, and all humanisms together. Yes, yes, yes. From his beloved great sin of infallibility, European “infallible” man, European humanistic man, can only be saved through whole-hearted and all-transforming repentance before the wondrous, all-merciful, all-virtuous Lord Jesus Christ the God-man, the only Savior of the human race from all sins, from each evil, from each hell, from each devil, from each humanistic rationalism, from any of the sins which the human imagination is able to conceive.”

+ St. Justin Popovich, “Reflections on the Infallibility of European Man,” Orthodox Faith & Life in Christ

St. Justin Popovich: . . . the dogma of papal infallibility is not only a heresy but the greatest heresy against the True Church of Christ . . .

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“With respect to the dogma concerning papal infallibility, as a particular matter the pope has been proclaimed to be the Church, and the pope─a man─has usurped the place of the God-man. That is the ultimate triumph of humanism and simultaneously “the second death” (Rev. 20: 14, 21:8) of the papacy, and through it and after it the death of every humanism. However, the dogma of papal infallibility is not only a heresy but the greatest heresy against the True Church of Christ, which has existed in our terrestrial world as a theanthropic body ever since the appearance of the God-man. No other heresy has revolted so violently and so completely against the God-man Christ and His Church as has the papacy with the dogma of the pope-man’s infallibility. There is no doubt about it. This dogma is the heresy of heresies, a revolt without precedent against the God-man Christ on this earth, a new betrayal of Christ, a new crucifixion of the Lord, this time not on wood but on the golden cross of papal humanism. And these things are hell, damnation for the wretched earthly being called man.”

— St. Justin Popovich, Orthodox Faith & Life in Christ“Reflections on the Infallibility of European Man”

St. Justin Popovich: The Second Vatican Council resulted in the rebirth of all European humanisms, the rebirth of cadavers. . . .

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“The Second Vatican Council resulted in the rebirth of all European humanisms, the rebirth of cadavers. Since Christ the God-man is present in this terrestrial world, each and every humanism is a cadaver. Matters reached this stage because the Council persisted in maintaining the dogma concerning the infallibility of the pope (= the man). Examined from the vantage point of the eternally living God-man, the historic Lord Jesus, all humanisms resemble criminal utopias to a greater or lesser extent. In the name of man they find various ways to murder man, to exterminate him as a spiritual and physical entity. All the humanisms arrive at one tragic, irrational result; they strain at a gnat and they swallow a camel. In the matter of papal infallibility, the notion has been elevated to dogma. And it is a horror, a horror in the extreme. Why? It is because the very dogma regarding the infallibility of man is nothing other than the shuddering funeral of every humanism, from the ideas that the Vatican has established as dogma to the satanic humanism of Sartre. In the humanistic pantheon of Europe, all the gods are dead, with European Zeus at the forefront. Dead, until such time as there arises in their withered hearts a complete, self-denying repentance, accompanied by the lightening and thunder of Golgotha, with its resurrectional earthquakes and transformations, and with its richly yielding storms and ascensions. And then? Then, their doxologies to the living, eternal, wondrous God-man, the only lover of mankind in all the worlds, will be unending.”

— St. Justin Popovich, Orthodox Faith & Life in Christ“Reflections on the Infallibility of European Man”

St. Justin Popovich: All the European humanisms . . .

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“All the European humanisms, from the most primitive to the most sophisticated, from the fetishistic to the papal, are based on a belief in man as he finds himself in the midst of his given spiritual and physical empirical situation and his historical context. In this view the entire essence of every humanism is man (homo), and encapsulated in the ontology of every humanism is nothing other than humanism (homo hominis). Man is the highest value, the supreme value. Man is the principal criterion, the ultimate criterion. “Man is the measure of everything.” That, at its core (in nuce) is every humanism, every homanism. Therefore, all humanisms, all hominisms are, in the final analysis, idolatrous and polytheistic in origin. Pre-Renaissance, Renaissance, and post-Renaissance ─ Protestant, philosophical, religious, social, scientific, cultural, or political ─ all the European humanisms strive consciously or subconsciously, but they strive unceasingly, for one result: to replace faith in the God-man with a belief in man, to replace the Gospel of the God-man with a gospel according to man, to replace the philosophy of the God-man with a philosophy according to man, to replace the culture of the God-man with a culture according to man. In brief, they seek to replace life according to the God-man with life according to man.

This has been developing for centuries until in the last century, in 1870 at the First Vatican Council, all these efforts achieved their pinnacle in the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope. This dogma subsequently became the central dogma of the papacy. In our own times, during the Second Vatican Council, this doctrine was discussed so persistently and so skillfully that the notion of its inviolability and inalterability was strongly reinforced. This doctrine has an overwhelming significance for the fate of European civilization, and for the apocalyptic times into which it has brought itself. Through this dogma all European humanisms have built their ideals and their idol: man has been declared the supreme godhead, the ultimate godhead. The European humanistic pantheon has established its Zeus.”

— St. Justin Popovich, Orthodox Faith & Life in Christ“Reflections on the Infallibility of European Man”

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