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To: SeekAndFind; redleghunter; Springfield Reformer; kinsman redeemer; BlueDragon; metmom; boatbums; ...
One of the key issues that drove East and West apart was the primacy of the Bishop of Rome.

A particular flashpoint in the debate can be seen in what is known as the Filioque Controversy.

Other issues aggravating tensions between Eastern and Western Christians were different approaches to sacramental discipline and clerical celibacy.

Which is typical minimization, for there are some substantial issues besides these, while the rejection of the Roman papacy is so substantial that it alone prevent reconciliation

Meanwhile both (Rome more so) hold to distinctives which the NT church manifestly did not believe as seen in the only wholly inspired substantive record of what it believed and how it understood the gospels (Acts onward).

The Orthodox Church opposes the Roman doctrines of universal papal jurisdiction, papal infallibility, purgatory, and the Immaculate Conception precisely because they are untraditional." - Orthodox apologist and author Clark Carlton: THE WAY: What Every Protestant Should Know About the Orthodox Church, 1997, p 135.

Both purgatory and indulgences are inter-corrolated theories, unwitnessed in the Bible or in the Ancient Church.. — http://www.goarch.org/ourfaith/ourfaith7076

The Orthodox Church does not believe in purgatory (a place of purging), that is, the inter-mediate state after death in which the souls of the saved (those who have not received temporal punishment for their sins) are purified of all taint preparatory to entering into Heaven, where every soul is perfect and fit to see God.

Also, the Orthodox Church does not believe in indulgences as remissions from purgatoral punishment. Both purgatory and indulgences are inter-corrolated theories, unwitnessed in the Bible or in the Ancient Church, and when they were enforced and applied they brought about evil practices at the expense of the prevailing Truths of the Church. If Almighty God in His merciful loving-kindness changes the dreadful situation of the sinner, it is unknown to the Church of Christ. The Church lived for fifteen hundred years without such a theory. — http://www.goarch.org/ourfaith/ourfaith7076

►Such a “vain deceit” is the teaching of the Immaculate Conception by Anna of the Virgin Mary, which at first sight exalts, but in actual fact belittles Her. Like every lie, it is a seed of the “father of lies” (John 8:44), the devil, who has succeeded by it in blaspheme the Virgin Mary. Together with it there should also be rejected all the other teachings which have come from it or are akin to it. — "Saint" John Maximovitch; http://preachersinstitute.com/2010/06/24/the-error-of-the-immaculate-conception/

It is evident from the Scripture that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father only; this was the belief from the very beginning of the One Undivided Church. When the church in the West inserted the "filioque" phrase into the Creed, this innovation precipitated the Great Schism of the Undivided Church. The "filioque" phrase is an error. It is not found in the Scripture. It was not believed by the Undivided Church for eight centuries, including the church in the West. It introduces a strange teaching of a double procession of the Holy Spirit and refers to two origins of the Spirit's existence, thus denying the unity of the Godhead.

The Church of Christ from the beginning baptized its members by a priest immersing them thrice in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Immersion baptism was the practice of the early Church.

...the synods of the Fathers, as a whole and as individuals, have believed that their decisions are infallible. Their decisions, however, are not considered permanent until they are accepted by the "Conscience of the Church," the whole body of the faithful, clergy and laity, who must give their consent.— http://www.goarch.org/ourfaith/ourfaith7063

Within a reintegrated Christendom the bishop of Rome will be considered primus inter pares serving the unity of God's Church in love. He cannot be accepted as set up over the Church as a ruler whose diakonia is conceived through legalistic categories of power of jurisdiction. His authority must be understood, not according to standards of earthly authority and domination, but according to terms of loving ministry and humble service (Matt. 20:25 27).- http://www.goarch.org/ourfaith/ourfaith8523

In the Nicene Creed of faith our Church is described as the "One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church": "One" because there can only be one true Church with one head Who is Christ... Each of these titles is limiting in some respects, since they define Christians belonging to particular historical or regional Churches of the Orthodox communion..

“because it has all the proper attributes, the Orthodox Church is the living realization of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.” — http://www.antiochian.org/node/17076

Then there are those who attempt to join together all Christian religions into one faith. They would be horrified at the idea of a service with Hindus and Christians celebrating together, yet they do not bat an eyelash at the idea of Orthodox celebrating with Roman Catholics, who with no authority broke off from the Church close to a thousand years ago. — http://www.orthodox.net/articles/against-ecumenism.html

The Church preserves unity in diversity. In the Orthodox Church there is no hierarch with universal jurisdiction since its One True Shepherd, our Lord Jesus, has never left His Church (Matthew 28:20). The Apostle Peter does not replace or substitute for Him. The Scriptures do indeed indicate that Peter exercises an important role as leader among the Apostles but his primacy is exercised in equality or collegiality ("primus inter pares") as the Book of Acts clearly shows. The Rock upon which the Church is built is our Lord Himself as we proclaim during Matins: "The Stone which the builders rejected has become the Cornerstone; this is the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes" (from Psalm 118:2 - also the most often repeated phrase from the Old in the New Testament: Matthew 21:42, Mark 12:10, Luke 20:17, Acts 4:11 and 1 Peter 2:7). Peter, a leader among the Apostles, was first to proclaim the Church's faith in our Lord upon Whom it is built: "You are the the Christ (i.e. the Messiah, God's Chosen and Annointed One - igk), the Son of the Living God" (Matthew 16:15). He did not see himself as that Rock. Such, at any rate, is the conviction of the Orthodox Church. — http://www.ukrainian-orthodoxy.org/questions/2007/appostolic.html

► In the Roman Catholic Church, Apostolic Succession itself resides in the person of the Pope, who is Christ’s Vicar on earth. While modern Latin theologians have tried to restate or even reject it, and while the ecumenical pronouncements of the Latin Church have tried to downplay the significance of Papocentrism, it is the fundamental dogma of Roman Catholicism and a principle repeatedly defended by the present Pope. Even collegiality and shared primacy with the Eastern Patriarchates are subject to the magisterium of the Papacy.

And herein lies one of the most important differences between the Latin and Orthodox Churches in general: the Latin Church’s appeal to the authority of the Roman See and the Orthodox Church’s dependence on the authority of the wholeness of ecclesiastical tradition, the very Body of the Church. - http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/rome_orth.aspx

Roman Catholicism, unable to show a continuity of faith and in order to justify new doctrine, erected in the last century, a theory of "doctrinal development." Following the philosophical spirit of the time (and the lead of Cardinal Henry Newman), Roman Catholic theologians began to define and teach the idea that Christ only gave us an "original deposit" of faith, a "seed," which grew and matured through the centuries. The Holy Spirit, they said, amplified the Christian Faith as the Church moved into new circumstances and acquired other needs.

Consequently, Roman Catholicism, pictures its theology as growing in stages, to higher and more clearly defined levels of knowledge. The teachings of the Fathers, as important as they are, belong to a stage or level below the theology of the Latin Middle Ages (Scholasticism), and that theology lower than the new ideas which have come after it, such as Vatican II.

All the stages are useful, all are resources; and the theologian may appeal to the Fathers, for example, but they may also be contradicted by something else, something higher or newer. On this basis, theories such as the dogmas of "papal infallibility" and "the immaculate conception" of the Virgin Mary (about which we will say more) are justifiably presented to the Faithful as necessary to their salvation. - http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/reading/ortho_cath.html

There is nothing Orthodox about the charismatic movement. It is incompatible with Orthodoxy, in that it justifies itself only by perverting the message of the Fathers, suggesting that the Church of Christ needs renewal, and indulging in the theological imagery of, Pentecostal cultism. With such things, one cannot be too bold in his language of condemnation and reprobation. - http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/charmov.aspx

Vladimir Lossky, a noted modern Eastern Orthodox theologian, argues the difference in East and West is due to the Roman Catholic Church's use of pagan metaphysical philosophy (and its outgrowth, scholasticism) rather than the mystical, actual experience of God called theoria, to validate the theological dogmas of Roman Catholic Christianity. For this reason, Lossky argues that the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics have become "different men".[18] Other Eastern Orthodox theologians such as John Romanides[19] and Metropolitan Hierotheos[20][21] say the same

Roman Catholicism teaches, also, that, in the Age to Come, man will, with his intellect and with the assistance of grace, behold the Essence of God. The Orthodox declare that it is impossible to behold God in Himself. Not even divine grace, will give us such power. The saved will see, however, God as the glorified flesh of Christ.

According to Metropolitan Hierotheos that because the Roman Catholic Church uses philosophical speculation rather that an actual experience of God to derive their theology they are lead into the many errors that Orthodox call into question about their theology including the filioque[66]. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Orthodox__Roman_Catholic_theological_differences

► Orthodoxy is not simply an alternative ecclesiastical structure to the Roman Catholic Church. The Orthodox Church presents a fundamentally different approach to theology, because She possesses a fundamentally different experience of Christ and life in Him. To put it bluntly, she knows a different Christ from that of the Roman Catholic Church.” — Clark Carlton, THE WAY: What Every Protestant Should Know About the Orthodox Church, 1997; http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=13-07-033-b.

More, by God's grace.

14 posted on 09/28/2017 5:49:19 AM PDT by daniel1212 (rust the risen Lord Jesus to save you as a damned and destitute sinner + be baptized + folllow Him)
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To: daniel1212

>>Orthodoxy is not simply an alternative ecclesiastical structure to the Roman Catholic Church. The Orthodox Church presents a fundamentally different approach to theology, because She possesses a fundamentally different experience of Christ and life in Him. To put it bluntly, she knows a different Christ from that of the Roman Catholic Church.” — Clark Carlton, THE WAY: What Every Protestant Should Know About the Orthodox Church, 1997; http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=13-07-033-b.<<

Well researched. Thanks.


38 posted on 09/28/2017 8:40:01 PM PDT by redleghunter (Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him cometh my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation)
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