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I don't know why you're attracted to the Melkites. They're simply a Byzantine rite of the Catholic Church in full communion with the Vatican. They're essentially the Byzantine Catholic rite for Arabs. Some two or three hundred years ago the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch (called the "Melkite" Patriarch because he was Chalcaedonian, as opposed to the "Jacobite" or Non-Chalcaedonian Patriarch of the Syrian Orthodox Church) acknowledged Rome's claims and took his church with him. The Greeks had to pick a new Patriarch of their own who is today patriarch of what is called the Antiochian Orthodox Church.

I've thought of another interesting thing about your "bullseye." In addition to each circle resenting the one just within it for its greater antiquity, there is the curios fact that each considers its more ancient opponent to be more liberal than itself. Catholics see Judaism as to the Left of chrstianity, Fundamentalist Protestants see Catholicism as to the Left of themselves, etc. Perhaps because as the circles move outward they continue to move to the Right. I have long noted that the older the religion, the less is wrong with human nature, the more human conduct is demanded, and the less burden is put on G-d alone. But those older counterparts often choose to defend themselves from their newer critics by invoking "enlightenment" liberalism. Jews have done this for three hundred years, and American Catholics have done it ever since they ran into the "nativists." Ironic that this "freedom of religion" or "religious neutrality" championed by American Catholics flies directly in the face of the official position held so often by the Vatican, just as it is ironic that the "freedom of religion" justification for Judaism completely misses the point, which is that G-d is the Boss and Jews (and non-Jews as well) must do as He commands.

I've just sent an e-mail to a friend in which I confessed that I've had about as much of "Thomas Jefferson" as I can to take.