Posted on 08/08/2013 3:56:12 PM PDT by NYer
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — When Pope Francis spoke to journalists about the need for a stronger Catholic pastoral approach to marriage and to divorced people, he made a parenthetical reference to how the Orthodox churches handle the breakup of marriages differently.
“The Orthodox have a different practice,” he told reporters July 28 during his flight back to Rome from Rio de Janeiro. The Orthodox “follow the theology of ‘oikonomia’ (economy or stewardship), as they call it, and give a second possibility; they permit” a second marriage.
While the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain both use the English term “ecclesiastical divorce” when referring to the use of “oikonomia” to permit a second marriage, Orthodox scholars and the websites of both archdiocese make clear that the Orthodox practice differs from both a Catholic annulment and a civil divorce.
Unlike an annulment, which declares that a union was invalid from the beginning, the Orthodox decree does not question the initial validity of a sacramental marriage and unlike a civil divorce it does not dissolve a marriage. Rather, the Orthodox describe it as a recognition that a marriage has ended because of the failure or sin of one or both spouses.
As quoted on the British church’s website, Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia, an Orthodox scholar and retired professor at Britain’s Oxford University, wrote in his book, “The Orthodox Church,” that the Orthodox permit divorce and remarriage under certain circumstances because Jesus himself, in upholding the indissolubility of marriage in Matthew 19:9, makes room for an exception. In the translation he quoted, Jesus says: “If a man divorces his wife, for any cause other than unchastity, and marries another, he commits adultery.”
The revised New American Bible, used at Mass by U.S. Catholics, translates the sentence as: “Whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery.” However, most translations use “unfaithfulness,” “fornication” or something similar to “unchastity” for the exception.
Still, Metropolitan Kallistos wrote, “Orthodoxy regards the marriage bond as, in principle, lifelong and indissoluble, and it condemns the breakdown of marriage as a sin and an evil. But while condemning the sin, the church still desires to help the sinners and to allow them a second chance. When, therefore, a marriage has entirely ceased to be a reality, the Orthodox Church does not insist on the preservation of a legal fiction.”
“Divorce is seen as an exceptional but necessary concession to human sin,” he wrote. “It is an act of ‘oikonomia’ (‘economy’ or dispensation) and of ‘philanthropia’ (loving kindness). Yet although assisting men and women to rise again after a fall, the Orthodox Church knows that a second alliance can never be the same as the first; and so in the service for a second marriage several of the joyful ceremonies are omitted, and replaced by penitential prayers.”
“Catholics didn’t put any important scripture together.”
I see. So when did the first ‘bible’ come out with all the scriptures bound together in the list that you use?
“The gospels were in the northern limits of the british isles 250 years before Constantine created the Roman catholic church.”
So you don’t consider Origen to be Roman Catholic?
“They were brought there by followers of “the way,” who were true worshipers of Yeshua”
I see. So what you’re saying is that this whole structure of Bishops and priests and archbishops and Popes was created by Constantine.
“What is it with Catholics and radical leftist slurs like Bible thumper and snake-handler?”
I have a better question. Do you believe that Catholics are saved?
The word was spread by believers carrying individual copies of manuscripts long before printing presses or halls full of scribes came along.
The closest thing to a book at that time was the scrolled codex of the Jews. That was what was carried as “scripture” by the believers for several centuries.
Remember about the Bereans? They were noted for searching the scrolls to verify the truth of the apostles words.
>> “Do you believe that Catholics are saved?” <<
.
Nobody is ‘saved’ until messiah gathers his own to the “sea of fire and glass.”
By Yeshua’s words, he is wherever two or three are gathered in his name, not in some monstrous pagan nicolaitan ‘cathedral.’
“The closest thing to a book at that time was the scrolled codex of the Jews. That was what was carried as “scripture” by the believers for several centuries.”
Codexes aren’t scrolls.
“Nobody is ‘saved’ until messiah gathers his own to the “sea of fire and glass.” “
You don’t believe you are, at present, saved? Really? That’s a bit of a surprise.
>> “So what you’re saying is that this whole structure of Bishops and priests and archbishops and Popes was created by Constantine” <<
.
What you describe is what Yeshua denounced as “the nicolaitanes.”
That began in the first century, but had no connection to Yeshua whatsoever. It is what Constantine took and formed his pagan abomination.
Yeshua’s way had no “great ones” (Rabbis, Priests that he forbade) All were brothers and sisters and shared the work and the joy.
>> “You don’t believe you are, at present, saved?” <<
.
I believe that I am one of his election, and it is up to me to remain in his fellowship until his return to gather us at the last trump of Yom Teruah.
The Allepo Codex isn’t a codex?
The Lenningrad Codex isn’t a codex?
Wow.
“What you describe is what Yeshua denounced as “the nicolaitanes.”
Really? Jesus came to abolish the priesthood? I don’t see that in scripture anywhere.
I do see this:
Hebrews 3:1
“Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest.”
“Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything.” “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,” bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house.” And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.”
So it’s right there, Jesus did not come to tear down the House of God, rather he built it.
“That began in the first century”
That’s not what the Fathers of the Church like St. Clement say. They claim that the line of bishops is unbroken from Apostles.
“Yeshua’s way had no “great ones” “
Read Hebrews 11.
Hebrews 12:1
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles”
They are not scrolls.
Both date over 1000 years after the birth of Christ.
Is that really the best evidence you have for your position? We have Codices that are 700 years older than those that are still in existence today.
Codices, Vaticanus, Sinaticus and Alexandrinus are all mostly complete and far, far older. They existed in the middle 4th century.
“I believe that I am one of his election”
Do you enumerate Catholics among the elect?
I do know some catholics that appear to be.
Most appear to hate him.
All codex means is that it has an ordered index system.
Vaticanus, and Sinaticus are collections of manuscripts that by the vatican’s own scholarship are admitted to have been deleberately corrupted.
A codex refers to the specific type of binding. Scrolls are not bound in the same fashion as a codex.
“a quire of manuscript pages held together by stitching: the earliest form of book, replacing the scrolls and wax tablets of earlier times.”
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/codices
Calling something a ‘codex of scrolls’ is a misnomer. Codexes are an upgrade from scrolls.
“Vaticanus, and Sinaticus are collections of manuscripts that by the vatican’s own scholarship are admitted to have been deleberately corrupted.”
Ooh. [[citation needed]] for that one.
“Most appear to hate him.”
How so?
And away we go . . .
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