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To: sionnsar; Kolokotronis; Agrarian; MarMema; FormerLib; Destro
I am not familiar with the Anglican church, nor do I understand what "low" and "high" church mean. I was just reacting to your statement as I perceived it, void of any in-depth knowledge of your church.

When you start citing years of different worship (1928, 1979), etc. someone like me, coming from a Church that has used the same Liturgy for 1,600 years sees a different picture. Perceptions my friend, and awareness of them, is often the key.

From what I gather, this is not just about the manner. The number of candles and the final prayers, etc. are unchanging. I am talking about American Orthodox churches having pews, being somewhat "Protestant" in their views, make-up, and using electric candles vice real, or paraffin vice beeswax, etc., or the whole church emptying the pews and receiving Communion (without confession), waving hands in the air a-la some Baptists, uniformed choir, electric organ music (St. Augustine, Florida) etc. (I have seen this in Greek churches in America and Orthodox Church of America). One unbelievable deviation in the service I have seen was in St. Augustine, Fl Greek Orthodox church, where the Liturgy was interrupted for a fund-raising, including the talk about barbecue!!!

So, don't think that the Orthodox churches are immune from various human innovations that become "tradition". The Orthodox church in some places is unrecognizable. Not that you will ever hear that from other members. We keep those secrets to ourselves. But I am a black sheep.

15 posted on 01/19/2005 1:59:10 PM PST by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
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To: kosta50
I see. I'm not an historian, less a church historian, but the changes in the liturgy have apparently always been contentious affairs (except perhaps removing prayers for the king and adding the president after the Anmerican revolution, or changing the monarch's name as the monarch changed) for this very reason.

It was telling to me that, in comparing the consecration services of the 1979 and the 1928, ECUSA Bishop Robinson could not have been consecrated in the latter.

What you describe... electric candles... yikes! (The only place I've seen that is in the aumbry lamp; because it burns all the time it can be considered a fire hazard.)

16 posted on 01/19/2005 2:17:20 PM PST by sionnsar († trad-anglican.faithweb.com † || Iran Azadi || Kiev County: http://www.soundpolitics.com)
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To: kosta50; sionnsar
I've been in Orthodox Churches in Greece with pews, though they are rare. Usually one sees folding chairs. In our parish, the choirs have had robes for at least 75 years and have used organs that long too, though only on a very infrequent basis and not at all the past few years. I know that choirs in the big churches in Greece wear robes. The "Protestant" attitude perception usually depends on whose ox is getting gored and where the person with the perception is coming from. The development of the Greek Orthodox Church in America lead to a protestant model of parish asset governance. On a diocesan and national level, there were moves to a greater involvement of the laity at the expense of the hierarchy, but that has pretty much gone by the boards and in any event, it was never as "democratic" as the Church of Cyprus, for example. Electric candles I have seen and as I understand it, it is because of a belief that either fire codes or insurance companies ban the use of open flames. For all I know, that is or was true in some places. We have limitations on their use here. I must say I never seen hand waving in an Orthodox Church, unless its a child waving at his papou or yiayia.

"The Orthodox church in some places is unrecognizable. Not that you will ever hear that from other members. We keep those secrets to ourselves. But I am a black sheep."

Black sheep!!! More like Balkan Mountain Bandit...like me, of course. Besides, you're a Serb; Serbs are like Greeks, only less notorious and more polite, usually.
19 posted on 01/19/2005 3:52:13 PM PST by Kolokotronis (Nuke the Cube!)
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To: kosta50

"High" and "Low" (and the less often heard "Broad") church in Anglican usage refer to the different tendancies within Anglicanism which resulted from the Elizabethan compromise: uniform liturgy, no uniformity of doctrine beyond a few points on which protestants, Latins and Orthodox would all readily agree (and this came undone since the 1970's).

"High church" Anglican tend to maintain an 'Anglo-catholic' position, and will argue (reasonably) that Anglicanism isn't a protestant church. They favor the maintenance of ritual, have some clear understanding of the reality of the Eucharist, often are familiar with the Greek Fathers, and in exceptional cases will agrue that the Ecumenical Councils are the only standard for the exposition of the Faith beyond the Scriptures. Some 'High churchmen' (the Caroline divines, the non-Jurors, who were actually in union talks briefly, Bishop Grafton of Fond du Lac, who was
close to St. Tikhon when he was Arcbishop of Alaska and All North America) are as close to Orthodox as you will find among post-schism
Western Christians. An Orthodox monk of whom I am very fond has argued that the only Western group worth the Orthodox bothering to have 'ecumenical dialogs' with is a splinter group of high church Anglicans (the name of which I forget) who have dropped the filioque and declare themselves to adhere to the faith of the Seven Councils.

"Low church" Anglicans are basically C of E or Episcopalian evangelical protestants, though they are usually not Zwinglians in their Eucharistic theology, and "Broad church" Anglicans are liberal protestants, and are the group that extended 'Anglican inclusiveness' to apostates even from the minimal Christianity of the Elizabethan compromise.

Any or all of the persuasions may be very fond of the 1928 BCP. Ironically just as the Anglican apostacy really heated up in the 1970's the Prayer Book revisers decided to provide as an option among the Eucharistic prayers (all defective thanks to the lack of an eclepsis), the Anaphora of St. Basil the Great. I have the impression that most of the high churchmen who liked the option are now using the anaphora in its proper setting on the Sundays of Great Lent, the morning of Great and Holy Saturday, the Feast of the Circumcision, . . .

(My bishop once scandalized the Anglicans by thanking the main Anglo-catholic seminary in the U.S., Nashotah House, for sending him so many good priests.)


23 posted on 01/19/2005 7:00:23 PM PST by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know what this was)
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