“For the concept of the Creator is arrived at by analogy of His creatures.” -St John of Damascus, Exposition 1

By: Jay Dyer

I have been dealing with these obsessive weirdos in regard to Fr Romanides since 2007. In 2016 I wrote a lengthy reply which still holds up here. It is embarrassing to have to continue to deal with this insanity. It was initially my intention to make the video regarding the problematic statements in Fr Romanides and move on. However since that time, digging further into old articles and works from Fr Romanides, I was reminded of many more bizarre statements, some of which have been removed from the internet and are only accessible via wayback machine. To keep these embarrassing statements still available, I will reproduce them here with comments. This will also reinforce the thesis of the video that individuals promoting these ideas and setting themselves up as the judges of everyone’s Orthodoxy are embarrassingly ignorant of issues that should be 101 in Christology and Trinitarian theology.

1. It is also necessary to post these due to his defenders constant insistence I “made these quotes up” or “twisted his meaning.” Fr John Romanides promotes Marxism:

Here, as in accordance with his statements in Patristic Theology (page 126-7), he affirms his agreement with empiricism (and nominalism) which, together with Marxists he says, involve everyone in a “search for truth.” Atheist Marxists are not in a common search for truth with Orthodox. The most subversive enemies of Orthodoxy in the 20th century were Marxists, yet this Yale academic calls for more Marxism in his home country.

2. The real source of man’s religious problem is analogical predication, which Fr Romanides identifies as a fantasy that results from “spinal fluids” and a “short circuiting” of “fluid pumping.” The zealot fanatical devotees of Fr Romanides have spent years harassing me over issues such as this, which are obvious quackery. This is ironic, as Fr Romanides loved the term “quackery” for all his opponents. The devotees of Fr Romanides, including his printers at Uncut Mountain Press endlessly repeat “the holy fathers, the holy fathers” ad nauseam, yet what holy father ever taught this quackery, upon which Fr Romanides hinges his entire cure of the sickness of religion theory? Where is the denunciation from the self-appointed judges of everyone’s Orthodoxy at Orthodox Ethos and Uncut Mountain of these quack statements?

3. The glorified exist as non members of any official church (Orthodoxy is an “official” Church). This means theses and glorification occurs outside Orthodoxy: this is a direct contradiction to the message of Fr Peter Heers, which is the impossibility of such an action. Fr Peter Heers has come after our friends, such as Seraphim Hamilton for similar statements, yet has never mentioned this in Fr Romanides, whom he and his publisher promote.

4. In accordance with the previous quote, Fr Romanides had bizarre views of other religions which should be mentioned in tandem with the previous comments. A YouTube commenter Pavel noted (citing the work on Fr Romanides here):

“Prophetic Themes in the Orthodox Ecclesiology of Fr John Romanides By Deacon Geoffrey Ready:”

“In ecumenical dialogue, therefore, the responsibility of the Orthodox theologian is not to debate doctrinal expressions first of all, but to identify and verify the spiritual experience of the other to see if it agrees with the experience of the glorified saints. An excellent example of this approach was used by Fr John Romanides in his participation in the encounter between Orthodox Christians and Jews in Bucharest, Romania, in 1979. Rather than tackling the enormous number of doctrinal obstacles between Christianity and Judaism, Fr John proposed that the discussion focus on the experience of prayer. The result was startling, as he records: “the Jewish scholars revealed the fact that the purification and illumination of the heart and glorification is still the practice of the Hasidim Jews.”[116] This “pleasant theological surprise,” as he calls it, led him to make the claim that “except for the well-known differences between Judaism and Christianity, there is a closer similarity between Orthodoxy and Judaism than between Orthodoxy and those churches stemming from mediaeval Frankish, Visigoth (Spanish), Lombard, and Norman Europe.”[117] Fr John suggests that the key for dialogue with Judaism in the future is Orthodox Christianity’s insistence on the “identity of the Old and New Testaments in both their therapeutical asceticism and Christo-centrism.”[118] ”

“Also, he contradicts himself. If the hasidic Jews have the same illumination and purification of the heart (Fr. Romanides very pleasantly surprised), why convince them to become orthodox? Oh right, we need to talk about dogmas, theology, apologetics. He states: “the key for the dialogue with Judaism is to talk about the continuity between Old and New Testament”. Of course, he is right about that. But he clearly contradict the first statement that “the theologian should not debate any theology expression, just to verify if the person is in the same state of theosis, or illumination as he is”. Which is problematic, considering that Theosis or illumination is not an easy gift from God. Was Fr Romanides in Theosis/ Purification/Illumination when he approached Miaphisytes in ecumenical dialogue? He says that no one which is not in illumination should approach an heretic.”

Pavel continues:

“The Patristic understanding of empirical truth has also proved most helpful in the ecumenical dialogue with non-Chalcedonian churches. By looking at the underlying faith, rather than focusing exclusively on its outward doctrinal expressions (an approach which previously led to the use of epithets like “Monophysite”), Fr John Romanides shows that the non-Chalcedonians always maintained “essentially the same Orthodox faith.”[119] Because of the Patristic teaching that “it is impossible to express God and even more impossible to conceive Him,” the common experience of the saints should have made it impossible “for the glorified to become split over the use of differing terms so long as they led to illumination and glorification.”[120] The problem was that, while one side, the Chalcedonians, allowed “for variations in terms which express the same faith,”[121] the other side accepted only one way of speaking of it.[122] Thus, the solution to the division, according to Fr John, is for both sides to learn to be “as pliable” on terms as St Cyril himself,[123] and, by recognising their shared experience of truth, to allow reunion between the Churches to arise as the “fruit of communion with the source of truth.”[124] ” So the Church Fathers were of course wrong. If the Miaphysites have the same ” therapeutic approach to illumination, theosis as the Church Fathers”... Then how could the Church Fathers condemned them as heretics? Didnt the Fathers know that the non-Chalcedonians are in the same state of Theosis like them?”

This is a clear-as-day affirmation of thesis in heterodox communions, which Fr Peter Heers says is impossible. This is because Fr Romanides’ downplaying and denial of dogmas and analogia led him to this absurd position more akin to something from William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience.

5. John the Pilgrim, Fr Romanides devotee and “editor” at UMP and Orthodox Ethos is embarrassingly ignorant of Trinitarian and Christological fundamentals:

Note: I was previously under the impression John the Pilgrim was sending memes directed at me, which is not the case so I have removed that section.