Posted on 01/29/2016 7:16:13 AM PST by NRx
God Bless and Best Wishes To My Brothers And Sisters In Jesus Of The Orthodox Community With Their Synod.
Amusing. A Catholic professor trying to instruct the Orthodox world on how a pan-Orthodox Council should work, and how it should include Catholic concerns. If the Catholics want to be part of such a council, their church should recant its schismatic doctrines and rejoin Orthodoxy. Otherwise they can be spectators like the rest of the non-Orthodox world. All are invited to become Orthodox, but none may dictate what Orthodoxy is from the outside.
Who, pray tell, does this fellow think he is? What a crock! The absolute last thing we need is some Latin from America telling us what we should do in our council!
Alternatively, the Orthodox could be polite and allow Catholics to attend, as the Catholic Church has allowed Orthodox to attend councils...Or even better, the Orthodox could join the Uniate Churches in rejoining the Universal Church (however you want to cut it, either a gradual drift or an Orthodox departure, the Catholic Church was never a part of the Orthodox Church, and thus never "left Orthodoxy").
(...the Catholic Church was never a part of the Orthodox Church, and thus never “left Orthodoxy”)
That depends on which version of history one is reading. Rome claims all of the other patriarchates left the Catholic Church. Our view is that Rome left the Church through her insensate, and often self serving, doctrinal innovations.
Your view is historically unfeasible -- a reason not least of which being that doctrinal innovations were far more prevalent in the east.
That is a patently absurd statement. You are saying that Rome can’t be heretical because heresy only occurs in the East? Seriously?
“Alternatively, the Orthodox could be polite and allow Catholics to attend, as the Catholic Church has allowed Orthodox to attend councils...”
Don’t hold your breath waiting for any generosity from the Eastern Orthodox. We can give them a free church they have no claim to (https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1876&dat=20030525&id=Y4IgAAAAIBAJ&sjid=UNAEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1864,5713648&hl=en ) while they cannot muster up the guts to give our own churches back to us without public shaming: http://articles.latimes.com/1990-03-17/entertainment/ca-317_1_orthodox-church
I hope the pan-Orthodox council does some good. It would be great if they could solve some of their ridiculous problems (and we have plenty of our own), but I until I see it, I will have to assume little will be done about the HUGE issues like the schism in Ukraine. Without a pope, ain’t much gonna’ get done there about that!
I'm saying that historically, i.e., in the time leading up to the schism, there was far more doctrinal moving/shaking and (sometimes violent) in-fighting in the eastern Church than there was in the west. The Roman Church was far more stable.
“I’m saying that historically, i.e., in the time leading up to the schism, there was far more doctrinal moving/shaking and (sometimes violent) in-fighting in the eastern Church than there was in the west. The Roman Church was far more stable.”
You Latins have far, far more than made up for that since 1054! Suppose that sorry 1000 year record has anything to do with embrace of heresy?
There are things about the Orthodox that I truly treasure, and if I were to leave my denomination in which I am ordained, it would probably be for the Orthodox or for another protestant group that I deeply admire.
I’ve been reading Greek Orthodox devotionals lately, and I’m impressed with the lives of past Christians that are presented. It’s a good thing to do. In a practical sense, we in the protestant movement always operate as if our generation is the only one that is significant.
I don’t know the schism you all refer to, but I will tell you that I wish it had never happened.
Your words remind me of one of my favorite quotes from G.K. Chesteron:
"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about."
Well timed as the Orthodox Church begins its annual celebration of the Three Hierarchs:
Apolytikion of Three Hierarchs in the First Tone
The three most great luminaries of the Three-Sun Divinity have illumined all of the world with the rays of doctrines divine and true;
they are the sweetly-flowing rivers of wisdom, who with godly knowledge have watered all creation in clear and mighty streams:
The great and sacred Basil, and the Theologian, wise Gregory, together with the renowned John, the famed Chrysostom of golden speech.
Let us all who love their divinely-wise words come together, honouring them with hymns;
for ceaselessly they offer entreaty for us to the Trinity.
The doctrinal innovation of the Filiogue originated in Toledo, which was about as far to the west as one could be in the ninth century.
Let's be honest: doctrine was a tool used by power hungry monarchs (like Charlemagne) who used the Papacy for their own geopolitical purposes.
The Filioque verse didn't originate in Toledo -- it was discussed and examined by a host of saints and theologians ranging back quite early in the history of the Church, and has it's origins in Scripture.
"Let's be honest: doctrine was a tool used by power hungry monarchs (like Charlemagne) who used the Papacy for their own geopolitical purposes."
Several of the Eastern Roman/Byzantine emperors were guilty on this count -- the split arose between East and West partially as a result of imperial interference with the church in Constantinople. Charlemagne was crowned not only because Constantinople was too far away to influence European affairs, but because the pope couldn't/wouldn't recognize Empress Irene as the true leader of Christendom, in part because she sought undue influence over the Church.
Frankly (get it, tee hee), Charlemagne didn't attempt to use doctrine or the papacy for his own purposes that I can think of, and admittedly it's been a while since I studied the Carolingians. He certainly used religion in general as a tool to control his empire (fighting against pagans and such), but meddling with doctrine, not so much.
I have sometimes wondered if the fall of the East didn’t, in a small way, inoculate Orthodoxy from some of the rather interesting developments in the West.
It is hard to go to far afield when your life and faith is in danger. The West, until recently, never lived under that kind of threat.
As a biased (Lutheran) third party, I often wonder if it was both sides leaving each other. By the time of 1054, the East spoke Greek, and didn’t speak much Latin. The West spoke poor Latin, and knew no Greek. Reading the notes from the councils translated into Latin and Greek, they read totally different (full disclosure, I don’t read Greek). At some point, neither side really understood what the other was saying. Or wanted to.
The East was worried about all the barbarian Germans running around with church titles, and the West was worried that the effeminate Greeks would demand they perfume themselves and bow before them. Both had an idea that church unity meant that they had to reside under the same Empire, which was going to be impossible by then.
Here’s how we pray:
“When You descended to death, O Immortal Life, then
the light of Your divinity destroyed Hades. When You raised the
dead from the depths of darkness, all the heavenly powers cried
out, “Glory to You our Christ, the Giver of Life.”
What’s not to understand... or to change?
What is the disagreement as you understand it?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.