Is Bishop Kallistos Ware a member of the "Luciferian Illuminati Manipulation"?

[Sir Sundae]

Check out the review of The Orthodox Way by one "Stratton C. Moraites" at Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0913836583/qid=1120502983/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_ur_1/104-2102691-6200714?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Thoughts?

[choirfiend]

laughable. and painfully sad.

[ozgeorge]

Check out the review of The Orthodox Way by one "Stratton C. Moraites" at Amazon.com

LOL! What review?!!
Nowhere does this lunatic review the book. He simply spews forth venomous personal insults like a puff adder on amphetamines!
How many times have I see this before!

[SonofAslan]

Ware even has the gall to call himself Kallistos so we won't notice he's not Greek

Pretty much says it all. Welcome to the world of the GREEK Orthodox Church in America. Yes, very very sad.

[Sir Sundae]

What, you guys don't think it's real?? 

[Silouan]

There are valid critiques to be made of his writtings and ecumenical activites, but the review really didn't mention those... just a few events with the wrong dates attached.

[Asteriktos]

Sir Sundae

I wouldn't be troubled by the review at all. I think the guy has read the wrong website or book, and now thinks he knows about some grand conspiracy to dupe us all. It makes for good TV (I'll admit that the cigarette-smoking-man was my favorite character on the X-Files ), but it's not very helpful in reality. This is not to say that His Grace, Bp. Kallistos is free from criticism among Orthodox Christians, as can be seen in the following reviews...

A Traditionalist Critique of The Orthodox Church by Hieromonk Patapios
Book Review: The Orthodox Way by Hieromonk Patapios

But as these reviews point out, for whatever faults or failings in His Grace's books, the works are still of high quality and very helpful. Fwiw, I'll make a few comments about some of the things said in the actual review...

Ware is an non-Greek non-Orthodox outsider who came on the scene in the 1960s, making himself the foremost expert on the Orthodox church

I don't think that His Grace would call himself "the foremost expert on the Orthodox Church," and it is only after decades of research and volumous publishing that he could even be considered that. He certainly wasn't considered that when he first published The Orthodox Church as a layman 40 years ago.

and embarrasing the church into creating a position for him: The Orthodox Archbishop Of Canterbury (How vain is that?).

I have no clue whatsoever what this guy is talking about. First, Bishop Kallistos is said to be a bishop of Diokleia, not Canterbury. Second, how exactly would someone embarrass a Patriarch into creating a whole bishopric and then awarding that bishopric to him? I'd like to hear that tale!

Ware fooled us when he produced the only English translation of the Philokalia,

Um, yeah. It really sucks when someone translates one of the most profound spiritual documents into a new language. What a devious fellow! 

wrote the only mainstream authoritative works on the Orthodox Church (The Orthodox Way and The Orthodox Church),

This is totally anachronistic. It is only "mainstream" because it has been gaining momentum and word-of-mouth for decades. And Fr. Alexander Schmemann's works are also "authoritative" and "mainstream" in many English-speaking people's eyes.

and arranged in 1969 for the mutual lifting of the excommunications between the Roman Pope and the Byzantine Patriarch

I think it was 1965, and I seriously doubt that Timothy Ware (I'm not even sure that he was a priest yet, let alone bishop) greatly influenced two of the most powerful religious leaders in the world.

[sin_vladimirov]

The person who goes under that name (Stratton) is suffering from some serious mental difficulties. Given that his mental difficulties are presented the way they are (from his writing) I dare say that his mental difficulties are closely related to being overcome by demons (or a demon - a demon of talking nonsense at that).

So, who cares what demons have to say!

[Sir Sundae]

Paradosis:

I read the critique of The Orthodox Way by Hieromonk Patapios and found it most edifying. I think I'll read his critique tonight of The Orthodox Church. But regardless of real critiques, this is just plain ole' venom that's coming from this reviewers fingers/keyboard. But hey, that's the internet! Personally I've found both books to be encouraging and enlightening, worldview-broadening you might say. So whatever His Grace's personal past, it has little relevance for what I think of Orthodoxy as a whole. (Unless of course, Orthodoxy really is that pan-world religious institution that all the Dispensationalists have been raving about for the past 30 years, but that's a different story. )

Thanks for the rebuttal though, mate!

God bless you and keep you!

In Christ,

Chuck

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