“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.
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.