James,
I never heard of Isabel Hapgood or her authority in the Church. I know of many contemporary priests trying to drag the Church into Pelagian Heresy, such as Fr. Michael Azchoul. Is Isabel a friend of his?
Fr. Azchoul bluntly denies even the existance of an inherited sinful nature. No one was saying these things until the 20th Century save Pelagius and Celestine in the 5th Century. As recent as 1839 Anno Domini the view of the sinful nature of man was expessed in universal acceptance in the Larger Catechism of the Orthodox Church, (Metropolitan Philaret). "13 Q. Why are not all men capable of receiving a revelation non-mediated from God? A.Owing to their sinful nature, and weakness both in soul and body." Metropolitan Philaret pulls this thinking from a long line of theologians who have remained within the limits of St. Paul. Eph. 2:3 "Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the thoughts, and were by NATURE CHILDREN OF WRATH EVEN AS THE REST"
At the time I accepted Orthodox Chrismation, the confering priest and most of the parish was and still is aware of my firm conviction that the soteriology of the Synod of Carthage A.D. 419, the fathers of the Synod of Caerlion, chaired by St. David the Waterman of Wales, the 1st canon of the Ecumenical Synod of Ephesus, the writings of St. Augustin, St Hilary of Poitiers, etc...are all of the purest form of Holy Orthodoxy. No-one ever brought up any "special" formula for communing schismatic predestinarians, though Dositheus the Jesuit would have prefered it.
Dositheus worked with the Jesuits in the 17th Century to bring the Church under the Roman yoke and insure that the Protestant Revolters would not join the Holy Church thus undermining the power of Roman pontiffs. He produced a very long confession in Greek where he attacks most of the Ancient faith for the Roman Soteriological innovations of congruent grace and even support of the filioque as a means of reconcilliation with the west. He was a leading Jesuit intrige at the Synod of Jerusalem in 1672. (Also, Congruent grace is the idea of a synergism where you earn your money and buy the grace. It's like you father giving you 5 dollars and you use his 5 dollars to buy the 10 you need to enter heaven. This theology is ostensibly supported by the parable of the Talents) If you'd like me to share with you the Fathers approach of this parable I'll give you what I have. But needless to say, Jesus is not saying we EARN salvation, even partially.
Danny
