Posted on 06/30/2003 2:53:51 PM PDT by NYer
VATICAN CITY Pope John Paul II again reached out to the Orthodox Church on Sunday, saying his efforts at reconciliation weren't just "ecclesiastic courtesy" but a sign of his profound desire to unite the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches.
John Paul made the comments during his regular appearance to pilgrims and tourists in St. Peter's Square. Later Sunday, he welcomed a delegation from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople at a traditional Mass marking the feast day of St. Peter and St. Paul.
"The exchange of delegations between Rome and Constantinople, for the respective patron feasts, goes beyond just an act of ecclesiastic courtesy," the pontiff said. "It reflects the profound and rooted intention to re-establish the full communion between East and West."
John Paul has made improving relations with the Orthodox Church a hallmark of his nearly 25-year papacy, visiting several mostly Orthodox countries and expressing regret for the wrongs committed by the Catholic Church against Orthodox Christians.
Despite his efforts at healing the 1,000-year-old schism, he hasn't yet visited Russia because of objections from the Russian Orthodox Church.
During the Mass on Sunday, 42 new archbishops received the pallium, a band of white wool decorated with black crosses that symbolizes their bond with the Vatican. Two of the archbishops received the pallium in their home parishes; the rest took part in the Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.
So, by your logic, the 13 Colonies should still be part of the British Empire, and Tejas should still be part of Mexico. Just for example. Agree?
By being there at all, and still having that power. Face it - Alexander was just plain evil, and it is no accident of history that the worst Borgian excesses were followed by the Reformation within a generation.
2) How can a Liturgical discipline be infallible doctrine?
Don't ask me, ask your own schismatics. Your Popes have been so busy making decrees that they haven't considered the fact that they can and will be contradictory, and you have to come up with more and more elaborate twists and turns to get out of those conundrums.
Do you have any legitimate objections, of Popes solemnly proclaiming false doctrine as something we are all bound to believe or practice?
Immaculate Conception is my favorite.
Neither the Metropolitan of Smolensk nor the Archbishop of Nicosia nor any other Orthodox worthy is the sucessor of Blessed Peter, to whom Our Lord entrusted all His Church.
The operative term here is "successor" - and that is the source of your imperiousness.
Matthew 18:17To which Church (not churches) should we go to settle our doctrinal dispute? Greek? Alexandian? Antiochan? Russian? Serbian? Romanian? Bulgarian? Czech? Finnish? Japanese? Ukranian?If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
I agree, anyway, although it's a moot point.
Of course, if he does, why can't he solve his American Bishop problems with a few netly worded decrees? Is it that he doesn't want to?
We are all one church. I know this is hard for those outside the church to understand, but we don't require a vicar to maintain spiritual unity among us.
As for 30 year War the political lead up already occured, does not change fact, northern Europe lost to corrupt Catholic Church so it try to make up in Orthodox held lands in east.
The people of England were forced out of the Church against their will at gunpoint, with the threat of execution for anyone wishign to remain in the religion of his fathers
Shall we ask how many peoples in southern Germany kept Catholic because of will of their princes? How about 15th centuary Bohemians who forced reconverted? Actually till William the Bastard with Pope support conquer England, English were Orthodox, why Harold's daughter and wife fled to Kieven Russ.
behind us though and work together today?
You see, that is point. We Orthodox have no problem working with Catholics...but you not see it that way, to you working with is subservence to your overlord...to that we say, no thanks, rather die and be free.
Tell me, how can this be? The answer to this question is the answer to your question?
After the collapse of Nazi Germany, writers and publicists like Robert Welch, Gary Allen and Anthony Sutton continued to advance the thesis that a sinister Western group financed and directed the communist revolution in Russia. This group, it was said, used international communism to advance their own sinister agenda in the West.
George Knupffer, a Russian emigre, was an early advocate of this view. As a Russian monarchist, he worked to influence American public opinion by writing books. Long before the founding of the John Birch Society by Robert Welch, Knupffer and his compatriots advanced the theory that Russia had been a testing ground -- a preliminary experiment -- used by forces located outside of Russia.
Who was behind this conspiracy?
According to Knupffer, it was the Warburgs and Jacob Schiff of Kuhn, Loeb #Co. that financed the Bolshevik Revolution. These were the alleged culprits and villains behind it all. These were the evil geniuses of the October Revolution. Allen and Sutton followed Knupffer's line -- which had previously been advanced by Henry Ford's anti-Semitic publications of the 1920s and 1930s.
It must be said, in response to this conspiracy theory, that the allegations against the Warburgs and Schiffs are false. These allegations, which originate in anti-Semitic propaganda, have been repeated so often that many good people have come to accept them without question.
In truth, the culprits behind the communist takeover in Russia were not in New York, and they did not have Jewish names. The villains were in Berlin and they had German names. As it happens, the chief architect of the Bolshevik Revolution was none other than German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann. During the First World War the Political Section of the German Foreign Office had been devising a plan to bring revolution to Russia. It was Zimmermann's pet idea. From 1915 to 1917 the German secret service began cultivating socialists of all parties. Baron Gisbert von Romberg, the German minister in Switzerland, urged that the Kaiser put his money behind Lenin and his Bolsheviks. Count Diego von Bergen, the German official in charge of political subversion within Russia, believed that a large enough sum of money could bring Lenin to power.
How much money did the Kaiser provide to Lenin?
The German Social Democrat, Eduard Bernstein, later said that the sum supplied to Lenin by the Kaiser "was very large, an almost unbelievable amount, certainly more than 50 million gold marks."
My personal opinion? Yes to the first question, no to the second -- but that is neither here nor there. My point is that rebellion is Satan's M.O.
Our Lord is no rebel -- He is obedience and humility personified. Whom should we emulate?
The Zealots were the PLO of their day. They wanted to overthrow the corrupt Roman-imposed puppet government in Judea. Our Lord had no time for their cause. Instead of leading twelve legions of angels into Jerusalem and destroying His enemies, He stood in chains in Caiphas' kangaroo court, then humbly submitted His divine Self to Pilate's rough Roman justice.
Are we better than Him?
Caesar Nero was an inhuman monster; if any leader in all of history deserved a revolution, He did. He used crucified Christians as living human torches to light up his hillside orgies. But instead of leading an underground resistance movement and trying to kill Nero, Ss. Peter and Paul stood in chains in his pagan court and humbly submitted themselves to his laughable justice. St. Peter got the cross for his trouble; St. Paul, the sword. Yet neither saint ever wrote one word about rebellion against tyrants being obedience to God; instead, they counseled the Church to live in peace and to abide by Rome's law -- the same law that sent them each to a martyr's death.
Are we better than them?
No. The examples given us are clear: our Lord and His saints humbly submitted to unjust authority, even to the point of their deaths. Obedience is the path to Heaven: rebellion is the hallmark of Hell.
Yes, Purgetory for one. Fillipo Clause for two. Sale Indulgences for three. Righteous War for four. Dropping 3 books from old Testiment for five.
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