August 15 is celebrated in Eastern Orthodoxy as the feast of the death-day or Dormition (“going to sleep”) of Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Historically, she travelled with the Apostles Mary Magdalene and John to Asia Minor, who established the original churches in Ephesus and elsewhere. Both Mary the mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene were a generation older than Jesus and died of old age in Asia Minor. Although the Feast of Mary Magdalene is celebrated on June 22 in the Orthodox, Roman, and Anglican church years, it was never understood to be her death-day. It is possible that August 15 is the day Mary Magdalene died and not the mother of Jesus, since the Magdalene was both Apostle and instructress of John, thus a foundational teacher of the first churches in Asia Minor. Centuries later when the christological debates about whether Jesus was Godhead or merely Christ were focussed on whether the mother of Jesus was Christotokos (“bearer of Christ” in her womb) or Theotokos (“bearer of Godhead”), the veneration of Mary the Mother of Jesus eclipsed that of the Magdalene. The two Mary’s may have been conflated into the Virgin Mary and the death-date of the Magdalene on August 15 designated as the death-day or Dormition of Mother Mary.

Assumption of the Virgin Mary

In any case, after this era we find August 15 celebrated in the Roman Catholic church year as the Feast of the Assumption (ascension into Heaven) of the Virgin Mary.

The Holy Sophia, Mother of the World (Universe)

Modern gnostic churches like that of Bishop Rosamonde Miller celebrate August 15 as the Ascension, Redemption, or Return of the Holy Sophia (Hebrew Kabbalistic Hochmah) to the Pleroma.

In Russian Orthodoxy, the Mother of Jesus became the universal Mother of the World, like the Kore Kosmou of Hermetic doctrine or the Holy Sophia of the Byzantine age.

Here is Roerich’s image of the Mother of the World:

The Mother of the World(s)

On August 15, 2009–the traditional date of the death and ascension of Mother Mary (possibly Mary Magdalene), of Sophia, and of the Mother of the World–our dear friend, Home Temple Bishop, and Sufi Sheik Dr. Tofah Eileen died after a long struggle with brain cancer.

Dr. Tofah Eileen, Bishop

One year later, on August 15, 2010, we celebrated our own Feast of the death-day, dormition, sssumption, and liberation of Bishop Tofah Eileen, whom we recognize as an emanation of the Mother of the World. She was one of the most beloved people in Santa Cruz, California.

She was raised in a Basque family of Roman Catholics, but became an interfaith Sufi, independent Home Temple Bishop, and a practicing Vajrayana Buddhist.

She established and led the Sufi Universal Dances of Peace and hosted many different spiritual groups, meetings, and classes at The Garden Sanctuary.

She and husband Jay created and beautified the Garden Sanctuary with their own hands over many years of labor. It became one of the sacred places of Santa Cruz. In addition to being an accomplished carpenter and gardener, Tofah was also a healer, musician, massage therapist, and counseling minister.

The Garden Sanctuary is unique in Santa Cruz. It includes a sacred garden, pond, spiral labyrinth, outdoor gazebo for gatherings that also is decorated as a Booth for Sukoth, an indoor sanctuary and spiritual meeting/lecture hall, and the Garden Center for Complementary Healing. Website is http://www.thegardensanctuary.com/index.htm. Husband Jay continues to operate the Garden. Here are a few photos:

Garden Pond

The Labyrinth

Garden Gate

Garden and Gazebo

Gathering at the Gazebo

Those who gathered with Willa and me for our Eacharistic table seder and feast on August 15 included Bishop Marita, Bishop Daniel, Mother Ellie, Tofah’s husband Jay, and other friends. We used the short form of the Messianic Banquet that I plan to use for potluck communion services on my voyage around the world.

Our Eucharistic Feast in Honor of Bishop Tofah Eileen, an Emanation of the Mother of the World

Independent Bishop Excommunicates Pope

By Reverend Keith on July 20, 2010

As you may or may not know, Pope Benedict recently directed that anyone who attempts to ordain a woman to the priesthood, and any woman who is ordained, is automatically excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church. In response to that, my bishop, Bishop Lewis Keizer, presiding bishop of the Home Temple, formally excommunicated Pope Benedict last Sunday (July 18th 2010) at a ceremony in Aromas California.

Bishop Keizer

I’ve written elsewhere on this site about  Bishop Keizer, who is probably the most learned man I know on the subjects of esoteric and mystical Christianity. Bishop Keizer and the Home Temple are part of the Independent Catholic movement, has all the twenty two known lines of apostolic authority (far more than the Pope, as it happens). Bishop Keizer, who ordained me to the priesthood, has also been ordaining women for years.

Bishop Keizer explained that he took this action in honor of Mary Magdalene and the scores of other women in the early Christian period who served in positions of leadership and authority, but who were systematically written out of official church history – the Magdalene herself being falsely stigmatized as a prostitute.

The formal decree prescribing excommunication for those who ordain women comes from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a name changed in 1965 from the original (historically infamous) name of the Holy Office of the Inquisition. Pope Benedict himself, in his former name of Joseph Ratzinger, presided over this body, which enforces the doctrinal decrees of the Vatican.

Below I’ve included the youtube video of Bishop Keizer’s announcement, as well as the texts of the rationale for the excommunication and the ceremony itself. Those women (and men) who feel called to priesthood are invited to visit Bishop Keizer’s website at www.hometemple.org and look into his seminary program.

LINK TO YOUTUBE PRESENTATION: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7Pof4xiFTM or click on picture below.

YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7Pof4xiFTM

TEXT OF RATIONALE

“I don’t excommunicate people. But I am excommunicating the Pope in order to empower a subtle and invisible spiritual process that will result in his removal from leadership of the Roman Catholic Church, and replacement by a Pope grounded in the true historical teachings of Yeshua, the Master Jesus, which are embedded in every human heart through the Image of Godhead and the Yetzer Ha-Tov or Good Motive, and opposed by the Yetzer Ha-Ra or Evil or Egoistic Motive. The current Pope represents the wrong-headed ideals of the medieval Council for the Inquisition, which resulted in massive injustice and genocide against my spiritual predecessors, the so-called heretics. The name of the Inquisition council was recently changed for public relation purposes to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith or CDF, and before he was Pope, Joseph Ratzinger served as Prefect or head of that order, which deals out punishment for grave offenses against Catholic Canon Law. This week, in his role as Pope Benedict XVI, Ratzinger has ordered the CDF to deal out retribution against Catholic Bishops who ordain women Priests-another major wrongheaded step backwards in a series of Ratinger’s zealous revival of Inquisition-era mentality that will probably result in the future bankruptcy and demise of Catholic Christianity. I am an independent Bishop with all twenty-two extant lines of valid Apostolic Succession, even more Apostolic lineages than the Pope has, since mine also include the so-called heretical lineages. I have been training, ordaining, and consecrating women Priests and Bishops for over thirty years in the Home Temple, and I have great faith in the spiritual and institutional leadership insights of women in partnership with men.
Being a scholar/Bishop grounded in the authentic teachings of Yeshua, I have the right, the authority, the responsibility, and the power to excommunicate this Pope for the benefit of all beings, and for the sake of a future Catholic Church and the New Humanity that is now coming into manifestation as proclaimed by the Master Jesus, and that is need of spiritual leadership that represents the humanistic wisdom and compassion that emanate from the authentic Heart and Mind of Christ within.”

TEXT OF RITUAL DONE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE MESSIANIC SEDER MASS

“In the Name of Mar Yeshua, the Master Jesus, and for the Honor of the scores of women leaders of the original home congregations of Christians saluted in the authentic Epistles of Paul, but later denounced in the Pseudo-Pauline Epistles composed by a later generation who used Paul’s authority as a tool in their campaign to systematically ban women from church leadership, and for the great woman Apostle Miriam Magdalene, who was finally declared in the third century to be identical with the anonymous repentant prostitute of the Synoptic Gospels in a final attempt defame female leadership in the churches:
I, Dr. Lewis Keizer, Presiding Bishop of the Home Temple, validly holding and transmitting all twenty-two extant lines of Apostolic Succession from the Master Yeshua, training and ordaining both men and women Deacons, Priests, and Bishops for home ministry and volunteer interfaith chaplaincies for over thirty years, joined by Bishops Willa and Daniel, this day, Sunday, July 18, 2010,  do hereby Excommunicate from the community of the truly faithful the man called Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph A. Ratzinger, former Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith or CDF, which was known in earlier centuries as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition. Pope Benedict XVI this week made the ordination of women into a crime against Canon Law equivalent in gravity to the crime of child molestation by Catholic priests, and making Bishops who ordain women to Priesthood referable to the CDF for punishment. Catholic Bishops cannot be excommunicated or stripped of their Apostolic Consecration, but they can be deposed from their sees and salaries. The Home Temple has no such rules regarding excommunication of Bishops, and thus we formally Excommunicate Pope Benedict XVI from the Body of Christ, which is the body of Bar-Enash, the so-called Son-of-man Messiah, the Second Adam, the New Humanity.”
[All Bishops put hands on candle and Lewis extinguishes it. Lewis declares: "So be it!" Willa and Daniel answer: "And so it is!"]
LEWIS: And now may the Spirit of the Eternal One and the Mind of Christ arise from within the heart of humanity to provide true spiritual leadership, not only in the Roman Catholic Church, but in all the Christian churches, based on the Halakah of spiritual life and the coming Sovereignty of God’s Way within the New Humanity taught and proclaimed by the Master Jesus. May the atavistic doctrines and dogmas of men opposing science, birth control, human love in all its expressions, and the leadership of women, be overcome and replaced by the love and wisdom of Christ that dwells in the heart of the New Humanity SO BE IT, AND SO IT IS! . Amen Amen Amen.”

Bishop Lewis Keizer,M.Div., Ph.D.  Presiding Bishop of the Home Temple www.hometemple.org See also www.wisdomseminars.org and the Home Temple Seminary distance learning program for ordination training at www.hometemple.org/PROGRAM.htm. Subscribe to Dr. Keizer’s YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/lewiskeizer and view the series entitled THE PRE-CHRISTIAN TEACHINGS OF YESHUA. For information about THE BISHOP’S WORLD BLESSING CIRCUMNAVIGATION go to www.hometemple.org/blog/ and watch the presentation at http://hometemple.org/BISHOP%20KEIZER’S%20WORLD%20BLESSING%20VOYAGE.WMV