Well, to be fair, I suspect that some of the podcasts on Ancient Faith Radio may seem insulting to Protestants and Roman Catholics. However...
So far I've only subjected myself to listen to the first one. I'll try to go through others if I have the strength... Gospodi pomeloi!
I have to admit that many details in this first podcast are presented completely wrong! What history book did this guy read? This is bizarre!
There is the, unfortunately, typical Protestant myopia concerning the early church fathers - where they see everything through the lense of their own, rather late, practices. For instance, there seems to be some confusion concerning the difference between a parish and diocese - which is not much of a surprise considering that the Reformed tradition doesn't make that distinction.
Also, his opinion that the filioque isn't really an important issue, really betrays his lack of understanding of the issue.
A lot of his perspective, is solely western. He's taken his history, hook, line and sinker, from the Roman Catholic perspective, without any consideration that there's any \"spin\" to it.
Nor does he seem to know how to pronounce \"Antiochian\" right. :)
So, in short, he's rather light in his grasp of Orthodox theology, and has bought a \"spun\" version of history apparently without any serious consideration of what he's critiquing. We often find rather bizarre versions of Orthodox history presented by non-Orthodox.
It seems he's studied Orthodoxy a (very!) little bit, but with the sole goal of finding fault with it. So, as is quite often the case when people do this, he finds theology that doesn't fit with his current beliefs, and automatically condemns it as an error, or dismisses it as \"unimportant\".
My first instinct would be to advise your friend that this persons grasp of Orthodoxy is not the best - basically, he's condemned something that he didn't fully grasp. I would then recommend that they read \"The Orthodox Church\" by Timothy Ware.
But if you check with a priest, they might give you a better answer, as they've gone through proper theological training (which I have not!).
Fr Cyprian
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