Scipio Africanus

“For thirty years of His life on earth,
The Word was silent before the people.
For fifty centuries the world had waited for the word
that its Maker would speak.
And finally, with the people before Him
On a sloping meadow overlooking a lake,
The Word spoke His word.
The Way revealed His way.
And He Who had taken the lowest place
Spoke to His creatures of lowliness, saying:
"Blessed are the meek.
The poor in spirit,
Blessed are you who weep now."
He Who had come not seeking praise. said:
"Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you."
These were the first words that the Word spoke to mankind,
Being meek, being Himself reviled,
And weeping with those who weep.”
― Hieromonk Damascene

“ust discrimination,” in other words, “preference based on merit” is conspicuously absent in a process which, in our society, has a deep and wide influence as a sanctified example—political elections. Whether it is a genuinely democratic election in the West or a plebiscitarian comedy in the East, the one-man-one-vote principle is now taken for granted. The knowledge, the experience, the merits, the standing in the community, the sex, the wealth, the taxes, the military record of the voter do not count, only the vegetable principle of age—he must be 18, 21, 24 years old and still “on the hoof.” The 21-year-old semiliterate prostitute and the 65-year-old professor of political science who has lost an arm in the war, has a large family, carries a considerable tax burden, and has a real understanding of the political problems on which he is expected to cast his ballot—they are politically equal as citizens. Compared with a 20-year-old student of political science our friendly little prostitute actually rates higher as a voter.”
― Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Leftism Revisited: from de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Pol Pot

“IN the Church of Christ Truth is one, as indeed it should be. Historically it is one, common to all the Church’s faithful, and unchanging; it has been such from the great day of the Apostolic Pentecost, when the New Testament Church received its beginning, and after that for the course of two thousand years until our time, and it will remain such until the end of time. This attribute of the Church is splendidly expressed in the Church hymn (the kontakion) for the commemoration of the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea, which we celebrate on the Sunday before the solemn day of Holy Pentecost. Here are the words of this Church hymn: The preaching of the Apostles and the dogmas of the Fathers have sealed the one faith of the Church. And wearing the garment of truth, woven of the theology from above, she rightly dispenses and glorifies the great mystery of piety.”
― Michael Pomazansky, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology

“The Orthodox Church of Christ is the Body of Christ, a spiritual organism whose Head is Christ. It has a single spirit, a single common faith, a single and common catholic consciousness, guided by the Holy Spirit; and its reasonings are based on the concrete, definite foundations of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Apostolic Tradition. This catholic consciousness is always with the Church, but, in a more definite fashion, this consciousness is expressed in the Ecumenical Councils of the Church. From profound Christian antiquity, local councils of separate Orthodox Churches gathered twice a year, in accordance with the 37th Canon of the Holy Apostles.18 Likewise, often in the history of the Church there were councils of regional bishops representing a wider area than individual Churches and, finally, councils of bishops of the whole Orthodox Church of both East and West. Such Ecumenical Councils the Church recognizes as seven in number. The Ecumenical Councils formulated precisely and confirmed a number of the fundamental truths of the Orthodox Christian Faith, defending the ancient teaching of the Church against the distortions of heretics. The Ecumenical Councils likewise formulated numerous laws and rules governing public and private Christian church life, which are called the Church canons, and required the universal and uniform observance of them. Finally, the Ecumenical Councils confirmed the dogmatic decrees of a number of local councils, and also the dogmatic statements composed by certain Fathers of the Church — for example, the confession of faith of St. Gregory the Wonderworker, Bishop of Neo-Caesarea,19 the canons of St. Basil the Great,20 and so forth.”
― Michael Pomazansky, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology