"But it needs to be a communion of the faithful for me to rejoin, and I am beginning to think that instead of a true Communion it is today little more than a "declared communion" (i.e. association) of those who have absolutely nothing more in common than an inherited church history."
Communion is very important. It is interesting to note how the Latin Church and the Orthodox, no better than that, the Melkites or the Maronites and the Orthodox are not in communion because they do not believe the exact same thing across the entirety of these particular Churches and yet especially with the Melkites, the theology and praxis are virtually identical to the outside observer. Both the Orthodox and the Melkites know this yet because of the differences which do exist, there is no de jure communion. The Anglican Communion, as I have remarked before, seems to have a completely different concept of ecclesial communion from that of the Church in either the East or the West, a concept of communion where a bishop of the lowest most conservative protestant sort of Anglican bishop is in communion with a mega liturgucal, censor swinging High Church bishop who ordains a non celibate, no better said, screamingly out, in your face, divorced homosexual to the episcopacy, while denying the Resurrection and the Virgin birth and hanging a "Christa" on the wall of "her" cathedral.
Sionnsar, that's not any kind of communion which The Church has ever spoken of. This is not a multitude of, or even two, dioceses together proclaiming the self same Faith of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. But even in an historical sense, there has never been any communion as Rome or the East would define it and as the Church did define it until the Reformation at least since the "compromises" of which I have of late read so much on these threads. It may be that the AC has carried within it these past few hundred years, the seeds of its own collapse.
There is great personal value for me to know that I am part of a Church which is in communion with hundreds and hundreds of dioceses across the globe, existing and vibrant today and those which are inhabited only by Mohammedans with churches which might see a litugy once in any man's lifetime, but the liturgy they see is the same liturgy, teaching the same Faith which the Church has celebrated and taught for more than 1700 years.
I reallly got lost in those words I quoted above. Would you mind expanding on what you meant by them?
I agree with TruthNtegrity, what were you trying to say in your last paragraph of #9? Remember Psalm 141:3.
BTW, I enjoy your posts and learning about the Orthodox Church. Is it true that all seven of the churches addressed in The Book of Revelation were located in what is now Turkey and are now dead or close to it?