Holy smokes. Check out these quotes from Bishop Anba Suriel, a Coptic bishop who was invited as an observer to a meeting of the Anglican Global South to South Encounter meeting. Let's hit the highlights as reported by VirtueOnline.
On modernity:
I want to share with you a saying of Saint Anthony the Great, the father of monasticism. This great Egyptian saint said, "There will come a day when the mad people will look at the normal people and say, 'Look at these mad people because they are not like us.'" I think this prophecy has been fulfilled in our day and age. Abnormality has become the new normality. Certain factions of the Christian Church are becoming desensitized to the truth of the Gospel. I call it the frog in the kettle syndrome.
If you place a frog in a kettle at room temperature the frog will be comfortable, if you raise the temperature slightly, the frog will quickly adapt. If you continue to raise the temperature very gradually the frog will continue to adapt to its new environment until finally the water is boiling and the frog is fried inside the kettle and loses its life. This is what today's Post Modern society is doing; it is pushing the limit of immorality further and further till it tries to make some lose their spiritual life and die.
I wish more Catholic bishops spoke that like.
On Gene Robinson:
He was a married man and had two daughters. He divorced his wife and left his daughters to live this unthinkable life of abomination. Is this the holiness and perfection and the image and likeness of God? How then can such a person be ordained to the highest level of authority in a Church, the episcopate? What example does he give to young people, what long term effects will such a decision by The Episcopal Church USA (TEC) have on the North American Episcopalians in generations to come?
Holy smokes.
On John Shelby Spong:
Today's heresy often becomes tomorrow's orthodoxy. Well, let me say the orthodoxy of God will never allow for these heresies.
That is why TEC allows a heretic like Bishop Spong to promulgate his poison all over the world and publish books advocating a cocktail of heresies ranging from denying the divinity of Christ to a complete and shocking attack on the inspired Word of God. And yet at the same time they depose an orthodox Episcopal bishop for upholding the true faith of the Scriptures that marriage is between one man and one woman... I cannot even begin to get comprehend that.
Am I the only one shocked to see him refer to Spong and Robinson as actual bishops? Do the Copts actually recognize the validity of Anglican orders? If so, it would be (for me) the most shocking part of this.
On ecclesiology:
Perhaps if some studies can be made, historical studies on the conciliar nature of the church and to see it from the Orthodox perspective may be helpful to you in setting up a viable structure for the Anglican Global South.
No, no, no. Let me wag my finger at this one. Pope Benedict already beat you to the punch here.
Haven't seen words this strong in a while, though. Can you imagine if a Catholic bishop had said such things? It would have been a media day massacre.
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