Replies

Leaving aside the historical record of what has sometimes happened when Orthodox look to Rome for help against Islam

And you can raise that canard again, forgetting that the Crusaders of the First Crusade were treated as sub-human by the Easterners.

THe Orthodox have spurned the aid of the West before and their lands have fallen toIslam. We won't let history repeat itself -- if The Easterners won't lead the war against the evil of Mohaound, we will do that -- and that's what Dubya is doing

"And you can raise that canard again, forgetting that the Crusaders of the First Crusade were treated as sub-human by the Easterners."

Well...your point is? In my family, the tradition is that the first Crusade was filled with foul smelling, filthy, uneducated drooling louts who really made quite a mess. Confidentially, I hear they actually bought their own silver. Tich, tich! How would you have had us treat such creatures?

It is not just the old standby of the First Crusade, it is also the French siding with the Muslim Turks against Orthodox Russia in the Crimean War, the Austro-Hungarians siding with the Muslim Turks against Orthodox Russia and Serbia in WWI, the Teutonic Knights attacking Orthodox Russia when she was under seige from the Muslim Tartars, and the Western powers siding with the Muslim Kosovars and Bosnians against the Orthodox Serbs.

I am sure that in each and every instance there were good reasons why Roman Catholic powers sided with or cooperated with the Muslims against the Christian East, and I really don't care that they did -- what each country and what the Vatican does is its own business.

But surely you can understand why Orthodox would take with a grain of salt the idea that the Roman Catholic world has a visceral desire to side with Orthodoxy against Islamic expansionism.

The interpretation that Orthodoxy has of these overtures is that the real goal is political unification of the churches, and that "a united front against Islam" is a tool to achieve that, rather than the reverse, as you suggest.

The East, I am sure, will be more than happy to have the West (of which I am also a part, regardless of my religion) forcefully take on Islamic expansionism, after having borne the brunt of it for centuries. Just don't try to convince anyone that sending Catholic missionaries into Orthodox countries to proselytize is somehow going to help Orthodox countries in their struggle against Islam.

There are plenty of things we can work on together politically: opposing abortion, opposing gay marriage, supporting home and church education, supporting Christian charities, and yes, opposing Islam and the terror it produces. There's just no reason that we have to share a common chalice for us to do all of these things with great effectiveness and in a spirit of mutual Christian love.