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.
If you're right, then America is toast. But I think you're wrong about the future of the Catholic Church in America. The 'conservatives' are out-reproducing, and out-ordaining the 'liberals'. This trend is noticable from the inside, but may not be as obvious from the outside.
Demographics, as they say, are destiny.
The problem is, the mohammedans know that, too...
Hulagu was bitterly hostile to Islam, and much influenced by his Buddhist and Nestorian Christian entourage. His wife Dokaz Khatun and his principal lieutenant Kitbogha or Kitbuka were Christians, and a portable tent-church travelled with him, in which mass was celebrated daily. Mongke is said to have promised the Christian King of Armenia, who visited Karakorum in 1255, that the Mongols would restore Jerusalem to the Crusaders when they had destroyed the power of the Muslims. The Asian Christians were filled with extravagant hopes and expected the rapid downfall of Islam: the European nations were less sanguine. They noted that the Mongol leadership was still pagan, that it had a dreadful reputation for cruelty and perfidy, and that it demanded not friendship and alliance but abject submission. The Franks in Palestine and Syria mostly waited to see what would happen.
The Mongol army, in composition more Turkish than Mongol, and including contingents from the Christian kingdoms of Armenia and Georgia, was probably the largest, best equipped and best disciplined that had ever issued from the steppes of Central Asia. Hulagu first moved against the Assassins, who though they had never succeeded in creating a territorial State. had resisted all efforts to dislodge them from their castles in northern Persia. He demanded their submission and the dismantling of their strongholds. The reigning Imam, Muhammad III, a moody melancholic, favoured defiance, but his chiefs were terrified of Mongol strength and ferocity, and had him killed in a drunken sleep. His son Rukn al-Din, the last 'grand master' of Alamut, young, inexperienced and frightened, gave in; the Mongols swarmed into the Assassin fortresses, and such local or sporadic defence as was put up was savagely crushed. Rukn al-Din asked to be sent to the Great Khan; but Mongke refused to see him, and on the road back from Mongolia he was slain by his guards.
Sunnite Islam might rejoice in the extermination of the Isma'ili terrorists, but Hulagu cared nothing for the distinctions between Muslims and turned next against Baghdad. Since the death of Nasir in 1225, the Abbasids had sunk again into lethargy under his incompetent successors, and the Caliph Musta'sim (1242-1258), the last Commander of the Faithful, was the man least likely to lead a holy and heroic fight against the hordes of paganism. Confronted by the usual Mongol demand for surrender, he temporized, desperately hoping that the Muslim princes would rally to the defence of their spiritual chief. Hulagu, growing impatient, commenced military operations; his army crossed the Tigris and besieged the city; his engineers broke the dykes and flooded the Muslim camp; the inhabitants, panic-stricken, tried to flee, many being caught and drowned in the rising floodwaters, and the unhappy Musta'sim in despair sent the Nestorian Patriarch to the enemy to offer capitulation. Hulagu ordered the Caliph to come in person to his camp, with his family and retinue, to tell his people to stop fighting, and to give up his wealth and treasure. His commands were obeyed, and the metropolis of Islam was abandoned to the merciless bloodlust of the conquerors. The palaces, colleges and mosques were plundered and burnt; the cultural accumulation of five centuries perished in the flames, and the appalling figure of 800,000 is the lowest estimate given of the number of men, women and children who were slaughtered in the streets and houses. The Christians, gathered in a church under their patriarch, alone were spared. Musta'sim and his sons were taken to a village outside Baghdad, and there killed in cold blood: according to report, in view of the Mongol superstition about shedding with the sword the blood of sovereign princes, they were rolled in carpets and trampled to death by horses. So ended miserably the Abbasid Caliphate and the glories of medieval Baghdad.
The Christians of the East hailed the ruin of Baghdad in the spirit of the 'Babylon is fallen, is fallen ! ' of the Book of Revelation, and looked forward to the end of half a millennium of Muslim domination. Hulagu's armies were soon in Syria: Aleppo resisted, was stormed and the non-Christian population massacred; Damascus gave in without a fight, three Christian leaders (the Mongol commander Kitbogha, the King of Armenia and the Frankish Count Bohemund of Antioch) riding through its streets and forcing Muslims to bow to the cross; it was expected that the Mongols would soon be in Jerusalem and Cairo, and the usual peremptory summons was addressed to the Mamluks in Egypt to surrender or perish. If Egypt, the last important centre of Muslim power, fell, the position of Islam would be grave indeed. The Mamluks were under no illusions: they must fight or go under. They resolved to resist, and were favoured by good luck. Early in 1260 Hulagu received at Aleppo the news that his brother the Great Khan Mongke had died in China the previous December. He favoured the candidature of his other brother Kublai for the succession, but another claimant started up, who received the backing of Hulagu's cousin Berke, the Mongol commander in Russia. Berke had embraced Islam, and was shocked at Hulagu's destruction of the Caliphate: he also feared his own power was in danger from his cousin's supposed ambition to create an independent Western Mongol Empire. In this situation Hulagu felt obliged to shift the bulk of his army to the Caucasus to watch the movements of Berke, leaving only a light screen of troops in Syria. The Mamluks, themselves Kipchak Turks from the Russian steppes. were aware of all this, and acted accordingly. Appealing for a levee en masse of faithful Muslims against the heathen enemies of Islam and the murderers of the Caliph, they advanced into Palestine, led by their Sultan Kutuz and his general Baybars, apd came up with the Mongols under Kitbogha at Ain Jalut ('Goliath's Spring') near Nazareth. After a furious battle (September 1260), the depleted Mongol army was routed and scattered; Kitbogha was slain, and the spell which the great Chingiz had cast upon the world was broken forever.
Ain Jalut was one of the world's decisive battles. It put a stop for good to the Mongol advance westwards; it saved Cairo from the fate of Baghdad, and Islam itself from possible destruction; it ruined the last hope of a Christian restoration in the Near East; it doomed the remaining Crusading positions in Syria, and it raised Mamluk Egypt to the status of leading Muslim Power and the home of what was left of Arabic culture. It did not, however, recall the Caliphate to life. The Mongols remained in possession of Baghdad and Iraq; a Mamluk attempt to restore the Abbasids by sending an expedition under an uncle of the murdered Caliph was an utter failure, and Baybars, who seized the throne of Egypt on the morrow of Ain Jalut by deposing and killing Kutuz, contented himself with setting up a shadow-Caliphate at Cairo. The Abbasid line was prolonged in Egypt until the Ottoman conquest in 1517, but these puppet Caliphs were mere names and existed solely for the purpose of providing a symbol of the unity of Islam and confirming the legal sovereignty of Muslim princes, who long felt it necessary to secure diplomas of investiture from the Vicars of the Prophet.
When I compare legalised abortion to the great genocides of the 20th Century, I'm not kidding. The constant post 9/11 barrage of "God Bless America" sometimes annoys me. Why should He do such a thing? See the quote from Francis Cardinal Arinze on my profile. America stands indicted on all counts.
But decades will pass before we will see much improvement
Perhaps. But above all things, God demands of us Fidelity. We must hold fast to the Faith handed down to us from the Apostles, preach the Gospel, and leave the rest in God's Hands. A priest friend of mine is fond of reminding, when things look bleak and I start getting pessimistic and cynical: "God is in control".
"God is in control."
There are no sweeter words of comfort.
We believe the Holy Spirit proceeds ineffably from the Father and consubstantially from the Son. There are not "two primary causes" of the Holy Spirit, because all that the Son has is from the Father, who is the sole cause in the Trinity. So the Son's participation in the procession of the Holy Spirit stems from His consubstantiality with the Father. I would hope that explanation makes the meaning of the phrase clearer.
As to Christ and His Disciples - they spoke both Latin and Greek as well as Hebrew and Aramaic, as near as I can tell. I think they would have been able to manage, thank you. For us:
The [Latins] start with the insight into the unity of the Three, that each Person is all of the Divine Nature, so that there is no real distinction in fact between Person and Nature in God, but only between Person and Person in God. But distinction of Person to Person can only be by the opposition of their relations, when you consider the unity of Nature, and that means the Holy Spirit must be from both the Father and the Son or He wouldn't be distinct from either.The Greeks start from the absolute distinction of Persons first and must account for Their unity in terms of origin ... Thus for the Greeks the Holy Spirit must proceed from the Father or the Father wouldn't be the absolute source, and if the Holy Spirit proceeded also from the Son, that would mean the Father ceased being the absolute source. Thus they use two different Greek words for "proceed from the Father": one word for the Son, and another for the Holy Spirit.
Latin has only one verb for "to proceed from," but gets the second idea of procession in Greek of the Holy Spirit (in order to safeguard the Father being absolute source) by adding the words: "as from one principle", and "principally from the Father". Thus there is no contradiction between the Latin and Greek Fathers' teaching ... There is no doubt that the Greeks saw themselves more individualistically and so started with the individual Person with his own absolute personal characteristics as the starting point, while the Latins saw themselves more socially (rationally) and so start from relational concept of person. Thus the Person in the Trinity for the latter is a subsistent relation, while for the East it is an absolute with personal characteristics.
When the Orthodox take the time to listen to the Western understanding, they usually see that it is valid, though it is not their preference.
The Filioque Controversy
WE ARE NOT MAKING THE SON A PRIMARY SOURCE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, even if it looks that way to you. IT DOESN'T TO US. You need to read our works from our mindset, not yours. This is no different than the trouble I could stir up by reading Greek works from the Latin mindset. It doesn't work.
Evidence that Christ spoke Latin - he spoke in private with Pilate without an interpreter. It would have been highly unusual for Pilate to speak Hebrew or Aramaic. He also spoke directly to the Centurion with the sick boy, who would probably have known only Latin, since the Legions were then raised among the Italians only. He also spoke directly to the Greeks who came to see him near the end of his ministry, and preached in the Decapolis.
For St. Peter and St. Paul, we again see them speaking directly to members of the governing authority, such as Cornelius the Centurion, or Paul's missionary trip to Spain, as evidence they would have known Latin. Whether or not they had known it prior to Pentecost, when they received the gift of tongues, is an open question. Similarly, St. Thomas must have either learned or been gifted with the knowledge of Sanskrit, so that he could preach in India.
Yes so much religious freedom under Papil theocracy...why...why...Inquisition was just walk in park...family fun day.
And what is Nevsky doing in 1242? Fighting western forces on lake Peipus.
Hahaha, you have Muslim logic. Just like Jews evil expansionists when dare defend selves, so Russians evil for defending selves from 3: Lithuanian, Polish, Teutonic PAPIST invasions....you sure you not kneel to Allah?
Yes definitly, you muslim at heart, arab muslim to be sure...you like double speak: council of church leaders with no one supreme overlord = slavery; one priest-king = liberty....hooo, you even worse then Palies.
Nah. if I was, you'd be smacking your forehead to the ground before me and offering me tribute extracted from your own people by the knout.
The Golden Horde's islamicization started early. Berke Khan, chief of the Golden Horde from 1256-1267, was a muslim. By the end of the 1200's, Turkish became the Horde's language of administration. In 1313, Ozbeg Khan made Islam the official religion of the Horde. Russian princes fought over the "honor" of swinging the knout in the Khan's name - to be his yarlyk, or tribute-extractor.
Do you believe that God wants the church to burn heretics? Or would this be against His will?
Have you ever read the Old Testament, where Elijah slew the false prophets of Baal?
Does this answer your question?
Its not against the will of God to burn heretics who insist on disturbing the faithful and robbing them of truth.
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