Posted on 06/20/2006 5:43:46 PM PDT by sionnsar
"Both would be in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury, although not with each other."
This would make sense if the dispute is only over procedural/territorial type issues.
If it is over issues of faith and morals, then it does not make sense.
You are right it doesn't make sense (though these are the Anglicans we're talking about, so why should it make sense?).
OTOH, on matters of faith, there was a brief period when Antioch and Alexandria were out of communion with each other, though both in communion with both Rome and Constantinople, during the Partiarchate of St. Cyril of Alexandria.
And, the current schism of Rome from the Orthodox--over matters of both order (azymes) and faith (the filioque) began as a local schism between Rome and Constantinople, with both still in communion with Antioch, Alexandria and Jersualem, until the Crusaders imposed Latin bishops on sees with sitting Orthodox bishops.
I mean this in utmost Christian charity: Would you just give up and become Catholic already?! I can't tell you how painful it is to watch the Anglican Communion rot away.
Feminists in every profession are going to wear the britches, and everyone had just better get used to it. Zaftig women crashing ceilings of every kind.
The modern day Episcopal Church, USA, offers all of the liturgy and none of the morality of Catholicism.
Best decision we ever made. Now my interest in this controversy is mostly academic (though laced with a tiny bit of nostalgia of an ugly kind . . . :-( )
Let the folks who like the ceremony and the vestments and the beautiful old buildings and the stained glass . . . but nothing else . . . have the ECUSA.
The Anglican Communion is not rotting away. Liberals have slowly but surely taken over the leadership positions in the Episcopal Church, in much the same way they have taken over most of the administrative and teaching positions in the univerities and colleges in America. The two phenomena are related.
The Episcopal Church is not the entire Anglican Communion, but only a small part of it. The Anglican Communion will survive. The Episcopal Church will simply splinter off. Those in the Episcopal Church who wish to continue being Anglicans will find some other way to remain a part of the Anglican Communion.
As for pain, you don't have to go looking for it. Life brings it in many forms. But pain doesn't define what is most important about living. And it won't define what is most important about the Anglican Communion.
"Ye shall know them by their fruits." (Mat 7:16) Thank you for the quite honest, explicit and object lesson in Orthodox charity, Reader David -- now I will proceed to re-think everything that I thought I had learned about Orthodoxy.
(s) an Anglican, who apparently makes no sense
Schism is a part of Christian history. The way the Church of the Holy Sepulchar is divded up is a reflection of the many divisions among Christians. The Episcopal Church is now just another small, liberal denomination.
Actually pain may define what is most important about living...
Yes, exactly, although it will take a few more years before the formal break with the larger Anglican Communion takes place. Traditional prelates in the Anglican Communion are very patient people, more patient than myself. They will give their respected opposition all the rope they want to hang themselves, and then the formalities will be completed.
I hope you don't wash your hair shirt. The smell will increase the discomfort. And it will give you much prestige as a victim.
Come now. I'm an ex-Anglican. I've seen it from inside. Henry's 'reformation' is a glorious might-have-been, but the Elizabethan Settlement of Religion, with its emphasis on unformity of form without uniformity of doctrine laid the ground work for the current disaster. Sure there was a series of bright moments, when the light of the Holy Spirit shone on Anglicanism--the Caroline Divines are closer to the phrenoma of the Orthodox Church as anything in the West post-schism, the non-Jurors almost 'got it', the Oxford Movement, Bishop Grafton's negotiations with St. Tikhon, even the inclusion of the anaphora of St. Basil the Great as a option in the '79 BCP--but all came to naught because Elizabeth, to establish her state on a rock, built her national church on sand.
Once the House of Bishops decided in the case of the anti-trinitarian Bishop Pike that 'heresy is no longer a relevant category' is was really over. If heresy isn't a relevant category, neither is truth.
I was jibing at the nonsense that passes for sense in the official Anglican Communion. I used to agree with Father Andrew of St. Michael's Skete that the Continuing Anglican groups which have dropped the filioque and declared fealty to the Faith of the Seven Councils are the only Western confessions worth having an ecumenical dialog with--used to until the Latins elected Pope Benedict, now they're worth talking to, too, though it will be a much harder road.
I agree to a point, but would have said it about ECUSA, rather than Anglicans as a whole vis a vis the current troubles.
The problem is that there aren't many Anglicans (in the sense that I thought of myself as an Anglican, and that I suspect you did, at one point, as well) in ECUSA anymore, and there haven't been for several decades.
Bishop Schori told CNN yesterday that she did not believe homosexuality was a sin, adding: "I believe that God creates us with different gifts."
My goodness! An abomination is a gift?
I have a kindred spirit in "Mother" - seems we're leading parallel lives. One small exception, however...on my way to the Catholic Church, I had a short layover in a Continuing Anglican denomination (which shall remain nameless out of Christian charity). Best I can say is that it was better than remaining in that morass that is ECUSA, but the fundamental flaw in ECUSA is also a fundamental flaw in the Continuing churches. IMHO that flaw is the autonomous Bishop - answerable to no one - out of communion with everyone except his own flock - & equally prone to error (albeit of a different kind than ECUSA Bishops). If I had it to do again, I would skip the side trip into the Continuum & go straight to Rome (or one of the Orthodox Churches) & authentic catholicism.
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