Topic: Ab. Lazar Puhalo

[Shiny]

His Wikipedia article has a picture of him censing an icon of Fr. Seraphim Rose. It's a sign of the end times.

Yet he is critical of the aerial toll houses.

[Severian]

His Wikipedia article has a picture of him censing an icon of Fr. Seraphim Rose. It's a sign of the end times.

Why?

[jckstraw72]

His Wikipedia article has a picture of him censing an icon of Fr. Seraphim Rose. It's a sign of the end times.

Yet he is critical of the aerial toll houses.

he's far beyond "critical" about them -- it seems to have consumed him for the past 30 years. he's foaming-at-the-mouth nutso against them.

[Iconodule]

This interview highlights his trademark schticks and obsessions: throwing words like "heresy" and "fundamentalist" around arbitrarily, making really simplistic remarks about Western Christianity, assuming empiricism as the only correct way of studying the natural world, etc.

[Orthodox11]

I get a different impression- he seems to be promoting the crudest scientism with regard to the visible creation and seems utterly uncritical of modern materialist science. And, of course, if you disagree with him, you must be a Gnostic or a fundamentalist.

He is reacting to the anti-science stance of many fundamentalists that pushes so many, particularly youth, away from Christianity. In doing so he often lacks nuance and balance, but this does not equate a compromise of Orthodoxy.

His Wikipedia article has a picture of him censing an icon of Fr. Seraphim Rose. It's a sign of the end times.

People always make a big deal about that. He said he was serving in a church and they happened to have an icon of Fr. Seraphim. He didn't want to cause an uproar by skipping icons as he was censing (though given that Fr. Seraphim has yet to be canonised, he'd be right to do so even if he did believe he was a saint. That being said, he had nothing but good things to say about Fr. Seraphim when I talked to him, even though he disagreed with many of his positions.

haha yeah, and yet he is the one who actually says Gnostic things. he said in one of his videos that science proves that you, yourself can be one gender, while your body is another. hmmmm, last i checked Orthodoxy teaches that the body IS you --- hello dualism.

Saying that a persons genitalia may not match the gender of that individual's personhood is not a form of dualism, but refers to a biological reality. We would not consider this idea at all odd if it referred to any other kind of physical deformity.

[Shanghaiski]

His Wikipedia article has a picture of him censing an icon of Fr. Seraphim Rose. It's a sign of the end times.

Why?

"Archbishop" Puhalo was a nemesis of Fr. Seraphim and opposed him over the toll houses, introducing soul sleep and general weirdness in dogma. (Not to say that some tolling is not weird.)

 You are put on warning status for not using the correct title; "archbishop" is not a title. If you disagree with this decision, please PM me. Carl Kraeff

[Orthodox11]

introducing soul sleep

Which he continues to deny ever having taught.

[jckstraw72]

I get a different impression- he seems to be promoting the crudest scientism with regard to the visible creation and seems utterly uncritical of modern materialist science. And, of course, if you disagree with him, you must be a Gnostic or a fundamentalist.

He is reacting to the anti-science stance of many fundamentalists that pushes so many, particularly youth, away from Christianity. In doing so he often lacks nuance and balance, but this does not equate a compromise of Orthodoxy.

His Wikipedia article has a picture of him censing an icon of Fr. Seraphim Rose. It's a sign of the end times.

People always make a big deal about that. He said he was serving in a church and they happened to have an icon of Fr. Seraphim. He didn't want to cause an uproar by skipping icons as he was censing (though given that Fr. Seraphim has yet to be canonised, he'd be right to do so even if he did believe he was a saint. That being said, he had nothing but good things to say about Fr. Seraphim when I talked to him, even though he disagreed with many of his positions.

haha yeah, and yet he is the one who actually says Gnostic things. he said in one of his videos that science proves that you, yourself can be one gender, while your body is another. hmmmm, last i checked Orthodoxy teaches that the body IS you --- hello dualism.

Saying that a persons genitalia may not match the gender of that individual's personhood is not a form of dualism, but refers to a biological reality. We would not consider this idea at all odd if it referred to any other kind of physical deformity.

he opposed the person to the body ... you yourself vs. the body ... thats dualism.

and i quite frankly dont believe him when he says nice things about Fr. Seraphim. he tries to say he was a righteous struggler or whatever, and yet in print he calls him a heretic. i think he's now trying to moderate how insane he has made himself look.

[jckstraw72]

introducing soul sleep

Which he continues to deny ever having taught.

unfortunately for him he put it in print and so he can't just make it go away.

[Shanghaiski]

introducing soul sleep

Which he continues to deny ever having taught.

unfortunately for him he put it in print and so he can't just make it go away.

He can claim what he wants to, but at his trial, everything will be weighed.

[Orthodox11]

he opposed the person to the body ... you yourself vs. the body ... thats dualism.

He has written extensively on Orthodox anthropology and he quite clearly does not hold any dualist notions of the body, but strongly opposes such ideas.

unfortunately for him he put it in print and so he can't just make it go away.

Like many books, often talked about but never read. I'd like to see some actual references to Arch. Lazar's so-called soul sleep teaching.

He can claim what he wants to, but at his trial, everything will be weighed.

That goes for all of us.

[jckstraw72]

he opposed the person to the body ... you yourself vs. the body ... thats dualism.

He has written extensively on Orthodox anthropology and he quite clearly does not hold any dualist notions of the body, but strongly opposes such ideas.

unfortunately for him he put it in print and so he can't just make it go away.

Like many books, often talked about but never read. I'd like to see some actual references to Arch. Lazar's so-called soul sleep teaching.

read Fr. Seraphim's Soul After Death, he quotes him several times from the Tlingit Herald.

[Orthodox11]

read Fr. Seraphim's Soul After Death, he quotes him several times from the Tlingit Herald.

Thanks. I'll see if I can get hold of the whole article from Tlingit somehow. Interesting to note, though, that Fr. Seraphim (p.228) dismisses as irrelevant the quotes used by the 'critic' to demonstrate how man is composed of both soul and body, so even here is proof that he is not a dualist as you claim.

[jckstraw72]

read Fr. Seraphim's Soul After Death, he quotes him several times from the Tlingit Herald.

Thanks. I'll see if I can get hold of the whole article from Tlingit somehow. Interesting to note, though, that Fr. Seraphim (p.228) dismisses as irrelevant the quotes used by the 'critic' to demonstrate how man is composed of both soul and body, so even here is proof that he is not a dualist as you claim.

that was over 30 yrs ago -- things change.

[Orthodox11]

that was over 30 yrs ago -- things change.

Obviously not since even his most recent works stress the importance of the Orthodox anthropology in this respect.

[JamesRottnek]

i dont think there is anyone more dangerous in the Orthodox Church than Lazar Puhalo -- that is if anyone is actually listening to him.

That's Archbishop Lazar.

[jah777]

Years ago he came and gave a talk to our parish.  The talk itself was on prayer, and I found it edifying.  My conversation with him afterwards left me with a rather disturbed impression, though.  Regarding his writings, I'm sure there is a gem or two in the piles of manure, but I think a person risks great harm to their soul by reading them.  There is so much intellectual haughtiness there, to much crying out for attention and praise, and corresponding tendency to push right up against heresy in certain directions for the sake of attention, while carefully trying not to cross totally over the line.  In some cases, the line has been crossed and he has retracted without admitting former error (soul sleep heresy, for instance), and in some cases it seems that which side of the line he is on depends on who he is speaking to and attempting to please (whether same gender sex is a sin, or whether the issue is more about HOW the Church treats those with same sex attraction).

Nobody should do obedience to anonymous people on the Internet who they have no relationship with, but that doesn't relieve me of the responsibility to express the warning that reading his works can greatly harm your soul regardless of how "patristic" you believe your phronema to be (he believes himself to be quite patristic).  His writings and teachings need to be ignored, and his soul fervently prayed for. 

[Nigula Qian Zishi]

Years ago he came and gave a talk to our parish.  The talk itself was on prayer, and I found it edifying.  My conversation with him afterwards left me with a rather disturbed impression, though.  Regarding his writings, I'm sure there is a gem or two in the piles of manure, but I think a person risks great harm to their soul by reading them.  There is so much intellectual haughtiness there, to much crying out for attention and praise, and corresponding tendency to push right up against heresy in certain directions for the sake of attention, while carefully trying not to cross totally over the line.  In some cases, the line has been crossed and he has retracted without admitting former error (soul sleep heresy, for instance), and in some cases it seems that which side of the line he is on depends on who he is speaking to and attempting to please (whether same gender sex is a sin, or whether the issue is more about HOW the Church treats those with same sex attraction).

Nobody should do obedience to anonymous people on the Internet who they have no relationship with, but that doesn't relieve me of the responsibility to express the warning that reading his works can greatly harm your soul regardless of how "patristic" you believe your phronema to be (he believes himself to be quite patristic).  His writings and teachings need to be ignored, and his soul fervently prayed for. 

Good call!