First of all, most of the countries where Protestants thrived wanted the Mass, and the scriptures in their own language...The RC's not only refused, but burned at the stake anyone who dared tried to publish the scripture in the vernacular, and even went so far as to chain the Bible to the pulpits......
Actually, many Catholic Saints translated Bibles into the vernacular well prior to the Reformation. The problem with Wycliffe and Tyndale's translations was that they falsified the scriptures - they were forgers of things spiritual. Somehow, I doubt Russia or Byzantium would have by particularly tolerant about that.
And...as I have debated and proven before, your church DIDN'T scrupulously observe the traditions of the Church Fathers, or the Reformation wouldn't have been needed...There was NO need for a Luther to publish and post 95 Theses on the door of one of our churches, because we didn't have the abuses.....
I don't think many Orthodox would agree with ALL that Luther wrote. Here's the first 4 of the Theses, plus number 19:
1. When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said "Repent", He called for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.2. The word cannot be properly understood as referring to the sacrament of penance, i.e. confession and satisfaction, as administered by the clergy.
3. Yet its meaning is not restricted to repentance in one's heart; for such repentance is null unless it produces outward signs in various mortifications of the flesh.
4. As long as hatred of self abides (i.e. true inward repentance) the penalty of sin abides, viz., until we enter the kingdom of heaven.
19. Nor does it seem proved to be always the case that [the Holy Souls in Purgatory] are certain and assured of salvation, even if we are very certain ourselves.
As for the Immaculate Conception...that is a Papal Dogma, which wasn't decreed by a valid Church council...and before you start with your Vatican I diatribe...If it wasn't one of the original 7 it isn't valid.
You know, in the West, under the influence of St. Augustine's acceptance of Aristotelean science, Blessed Mary's sinlessness was understood by many as having been from the time of the infusion of her human soul 80 days after conception. It was the East that had things aright, and from which the true belief spread through the West, first to England, then to all of the West. How ironic then, that the East, so effusive in their praise for "our Immaculate Lady" as the Liturgy sings, now denies her this title and privilege.
"Mary, a Virgin not only undefiled but a Virgin whom grace has made inviolate, free of every stain of sin." (St. Ambrose, Sermon 22,30, AD 388)"Thou alone and thy Mother are in all things fair, there is no flaw in thee and no stain in thy Mother." (St. Ephraem, Nisibene Hymns, 27,8, AD 370)
"As he formed her without my stain of her own, so He proceeded from her contracting no stain." (Proclus of Constantinople, Homily 1, ante AD 446)
"A virgin, innocent, spotless, free of all defect, untouched, unsullied, holy in soul and body, like a lily sprouting among thorns." (Theodotus of Ancrya, Homily VI,11, ante AD 446)
"The angel took not the Virgin from Joseph, but gave her to Christ, to whom she was pledged from Joseph, but gave her to Christ, to whom she was pledged in the womb, when she was made." (St. Peter Chrysologus, Sermon 140, AD 449)
"The very fact that God has elected her proves that none was ever holier than Mary, if any stain had disfigured her soul, if any other virgin had been purer and holier, God would have selected her and rejected Mary." (Jacob of Sarug, ante AD 521)
"She is born like the cherubim, she who is of a pure, immaculate clay" (Theotoknos of Livias, Panegyric for the Feast of the Assumption, 5,6, ante AD 650)
"O most blessed loins of Joachim from which came forth a spotless seed! O glorious womb of Anne in which a most holy offspring grew." (St. John Damascene, Homily I in Nativ., ante AD 749)
You see where pigheaded anti-Catholicism gets you? You end up denying the veracity of your own past and contradicting your own sainted doctors just because the Pope dogmatized something for Catholics. This is ridiculous!
BTW, the Orthodox believe in the 7 Sacraments as a dogma, yet none of the first 7 councils decreed that number. Its a "mere Papal Dogma". Why accept that, and not others?
as for marriage, the Orthodox Church is almost as strict as your Church, at least concerning divorce...I know this from PERSONAL experience...
I understand that the Orthodox Church will allow up to two remarriages, and has liturgies drawn up for specifically that purpose. It may be strict, but it is allowed. Its much simpler to just follow the accepted Canons of the Church:
"Canon 8 Likewise, women who have left their husbands for no prior cause and have joined themselves with others, may not even at death receive communion.
"Canon 9 Likewise, a woman of the faith who has left an adulterous husband of the faith and marries another, her marrying in this manner is prohibited. If she has so married, she may not at any more receive communion--unless he that she has left has since departed from this world.
"Canon 10 If she whom a catechumen has left shall have married a husband, she is able to be admitted to the fountain of baptism. This shall also be observed in the instance where it is the woman who is the catechumen. But if a woman of the faithful is taken in marriage by a man who left an innocent wife, and if she knew that he had a wife whom he had left without cause, it is determined that communion is not to be given to her even at death." (Council of Elvira, circa AD 300)
Abortion is not tolerated and forbidden, just as your church.
I don't dispute that, but keep a watch on this one.
The Orthodox view of contraception is somewhat different, but then again, that goes back to Papal decrees again....
Oh no it doesn't. Condmenations of contraception can be found from the first works of the Church Fathers.
"Marriage in itself merits esteem and the highest approval, for the Lord wished men to 'be fruitful and multiply.' He did not tell them, however, to act like libertines, nor did He intend them to surrender themselves to pleasure as though born only to indulge in sexual relations ... Why, even unreasoning beasts know enough not to mate at certain times. To indulge in intercourse without intending children is to outrage nature, whom we should take as our instructor." (St. Clement of Alexandria. Paedagogos 2,10, before AD 202)They [certain Egyptian heretics] exercise genital acts, yet prevent the conceiving of children. Not in order to produce offspring, but to satisfy lust, are they eager for corruption." (Medicine Chest Against Heresies 26,5,2, AD 375)
"Why do you sow where the field is eager to destroy the fruit, where there are medicines of sterility [oral contraceptives], where there is murder before birth? You do not even let a harlot remain only a harlot, but you make her a murderess as well ... Indeed, it is something worse than murder, and I do not know what to call it; for she does not kill what is formed but prevents its formation. What then? Do you condemn the gift of God and fight with his [natural] laws? ... Yet such turpitude ... the matter still seems indifferent to many men—even to many men having wives. In this indifference of the married men there is greater evil filth; for then poisons are prepared, not against the womb of a prostitute, but against your injured wife. Against her are these innumerable tricks" (St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans 24, AD 391)
"I am supposing, then, although you are not lying [with your wife] for the sake of procreating offspring, you are not for the sake of lust obstructing their procreation by an evil prayer or an evil deed. Those who do this, although they are called husband and wife, are not; nor do they retain any reality of marriage, but with a respectable name cover a shame. Sometimes this lustful cruelty, or cruel lust, comes to this, that they even procure poisons of sterility ... Assuredly if both husband and wife are like this, they are not married, and if they were like this from the beginning they come together not joined in matrimony but in seduction. If both are not like this, I dare to say that either the wife is in a fashion the harlot of her husband or he is an adulterer with his own wife." (St. Augustine of Hippo, Marriage and Concupiscence 1,15,17, AD 419)
"Who is he who cannot warn that no woman may take a potion so that she is unable to conceive or condemns in herself the nature which God willed to be fecund? As often as she could have conceived or given birth, of that many homicides she will be held guilty, and, unless she undergoes suitable penance, she will be damned by eternal death in hell. If a woman does not wish to have children, let her enter into a religious agreement with her husband; for chastity is the sole sterility of a Christian woman." (St. Cesarius of Arles, Sermons 1,12, AD 522)
"We assure you that we remain close to you, above all in these recent days when you have taken the good step of publishing the encyclical Humanae Vitae. We are in total agreement with you, and wish you all God's help to continue your mission in the world." (Telegram from Patriarch Athenagoras to Pope Paul VI, 9 August 1968)
Certainly not much evidence of this being a Papal invention, although the Popes have always preached against it.