Superstition Unfriendly to Genuine Obedience

[Joshua]

Samuel Miller (Manual of Presbytery, p. 133)

The observance of the uncommanded holy-days is ever found to interfere with the due sanctification of the Lord’s-day. Adding to the appointments of God is superstition; and superstition has ever been found unfriendly to genuine obedience. Its [adherents], like the Jews of old, have ever been found more tenacious of their own inventions, of traditionary dreams, than of God’s revealed code of duty. Accordingly, there is perhaps no fact more universal and unquestionable, than that the zealous observers of stated fasts and festivals are characteristically lax in the observance of that one day which God has eminently set apart for himself, and on the sanctification of which all the vital interests of practical religion are suspended.

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[Brian T]

I like what Miller is saying here, especially since I am still in the process of deprogramming from all the garbage I experienced in the few years I was in the eastern orthodox (sic) church. More than once, in retrospect, have I used "superstition" to describe a LOT of what I saw! In fact, I would say that the eastern orthodox take what Miller's describing here to an extreme - a whole new level of extreme.

Imagine this:

Every Sunday is devoted to the saint du-jour and his icon is placed in the center of the nave and the congregants line up and fawn all over it before the liturgy begins: folding like cheap suits before it, some even doing full prostrations on the floor, then getting up, crossing themselves, and then kissing it (and the crowd of late-comers repeat this during the liturgy). Then the icon gets "blessed" by the priest with incense (an incense offering???) as the liturgy is about to start. During the priest's prayers in the liturgy, that saint would be asked to bless us and protect us. And if there is a "sermon" during the liturgy....you guessed it: the majority of the time, it would be about that saint.

Speaking of feast/festival days, another thing the eastern orthodox do is to take the Mariolatry to a new level. I would argue they are far worse than the Roman Church on this score. For example:

Fixed Great Feasts

January 7​	– The Nativity of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ
January 19​	– The Baptism of Our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ
February 15​	– Meeting of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ in the Temple
April 7​	– The Annunciation of Our Most Holy Lady, the Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary
August 19​	– The Holy Transfiguration of Our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ
August 28​	– The Dormition of our Most Holy Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary
September 21​	– Nativity of Our Most Holy Lady the Mother of God and Ever Virgin Mary
September 27​	– The Universal Elevation of the Precious and Life-Creating Cross of the Lord
December 4​	– Entry into the Temple of our Most Holy Lady Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary

There is a deliberate balancing out of Mary and Jesus in all this as there are feast days for:

• Birth of each
• Entrance into the Temple for each
• God Declaring Something about Jesus (Baptism of Jesus) and Mary (Annunciation)

And to top this off, the eastern orthodox even have their own eucharist-equivalent for Mary in their "Rite of the Elevation of the Panagia Bread" feast where Mary becomes a loaf of bread in which they state:

"Those who instituted the sacraments were pleased to confirm that, because of this bread which is elevated in honor of the holy name of the Mother of God, we should be delivered from every evil and should partake of her holy body. And, thanks to her protection, that we should be delivered from eternal torments and be counted worthy of the eternal blessings, through her prayers and those of all the saints throughout the ages. Amen." (St. Maximos the Greek)

You should have seen all those superstitious Russians ripping off fistfuls of that loaf of bread to take home with them and put them in their freezers so that they could eat Mary's body throughout the year for "good luck.!"

Bottom line is that all of this led exactly to what Miller's describing: the due-sanctification of the Lord's Day is destroyed, as all sorts of pagan idolatrous, superstitious nonsense replaces the worship due to our Lord and Savior.

That's "eastern orthodoxy" in a nutshell, really....