David's Daily Diversions

The Proper Response to Apostate Orthodox Senators

There are two members of the US Senate who also claim membership in the Orthodox Church, one a Republican and the other a Democrat. Both vote in complete contravention of the Church and in violation its moral teachings.

Olympia Snowe of Maine and Paul Sarbanes of Maryland voted against the banning of partial birth abortion, a procedure which the esteemed surgeon and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist deemed "totally, from a medical standpoint, unnecessary". Partial birth abortion is where the hard core of pro-death support takes its stand. Of all of the ways to kill an unborn baby, it is the most gruesome. To quote Senator Frist again, it is, "egregious, outlandish, ghoulish".

Opponents of the bill stood on the sand that it did not make an exception for the health of the woman. This is a specious argument, since there is absolutely no conceivable situation where the health of the mother is a factor in choosing this butchery. This is a procedure that involves breeching the delivery of a child until the very last moment, then seconds before it legally becomes infanticide, going into the birth canal and piercing through the skull, sucking out the brain, collapsing the cranium, and then finishing the delivery of the murdered infant.

This is what Senators Snowe and Sarbanes, as leaders of their States and as leaders of these united States, and allegedly as Orthodox Christians, actively refused to oppose, voting against those who would prohibit it. I would hope that Snowe and Sarbanes are Orthodox in name only. There are certainly many who are, just as there are Catholics and Protestants of every stripe who are. However, Sen. Snowe does claim on her website to be a member of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Lewiston. On his website, Sen. Sarbanes says that he is a member of the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation in Baltimore. How sadly ironic that he is a member of a parish named after the conception of a Child.

I am a sinner. On one level sin is sin. On that level what Snowe and Sarbanes have done is no different than the manner things I have done today to offend the holiness of God. However, Holy Scripture also demonstrates to us that there are also degrees of sin -- not in some sort of fixed matrix corresponding to levels of Dante's Inferno -- but nonetheless some sins are more grievous than others.

I have certainly approached the dread Mysteries of Christ, especially the Holy Table, unworthily and in fear of judgment. Yet most of my sins are known to God, perhaps my family and friends, and my spiritual father. Whilst I hesitate to make comparisons and do not do so to make myself seem righteous in any way, I have not stood before the American nation and the world and declared that I will use my power and authority to legislate the horrific murder of children at the moment of their birth.

I know there are readers of this blog who would like to divorce the relationship between the Church and the State in which it finds itself and its members residing. With due respect to their views, I believe that when the highest ranking representatives of the government of the United States who call themselves members of the Holy Orthodox Church, publically align themselves with he who has come to steal, kill, and destroy, it is incumbent upon the hierarchs of the Holy Orthodox Church, and in this particular case of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North America, to publically excommunicate the Senators until such a time as they publically repent of their allegiance to Satan. They should also immediately excommunicate any priest in Lewiston, Baltimore, or wherever, who would administer the Most Precious Body and Blood of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ or any of the Holy Mysteries to such an individual.

I would even go so far as to suggest that it is incumbent upon the pastor of Holy Trinity, Lewiston, and the Dean of the Cathedral of the Annunciation to urge the repentance of their respective senatorial parishoners, first privately, and if unsuccessful, publically.

May God have mercy on the souls of Senators Snowe and Sarbanes, even as I pray that He has mercy upon me, a sinner.