I assure you that it IS FRIENDLY fire! :)
“IMHO: For An Orthodox or Catholic Xtian who knew his religion to apostasize is a calamity and mortal sin. His soul is in very grave peril.”
I love it when you guys go all Latin on us with the “mortal sin” as opposed to “venial sin” stuff!
“My Orthodox Acquaintance (hereinafter MOA) is what you might call OINO - no not a wino, “Orthodox in name only.” He sees nothing wrong with worshiping at the Episcopal Church and receiving the sacraments there. He knows, but it seems only in an academic - with a slight tinge of ethnic pride - way some of his religious background.”
He's not at all unusual, at least here in America. For many decades there was a belief among the Orthodox here that the Episcopal Church was merely English Orthodoxy and that there was a de facto if not a de jure (though there very nearly was in the ist decade of the 20th century)communion between the Piskies and Orthodoxy. Orthodox believed and were even told by some priests that if there was no Orthodox Church nearby, they could go to the local Episcopal Church and intercommune etc. After about 1910, no bishop said that but priests did into the 1960s at least. Episcopals from bishops on down encouraged this. Virtually all of the Orthodox who did this, and I had some family members who did, honestly thought it was OK. It still goes on. We recently received a family back into the Church after a couple of decades in the Episcopal Church. They were received by Confession, recitation of the Creed and then Communion.
Your OINO friend's priests bear a heavy burden having failed this man but he too is guilty of a grave sin. In Orthodoxy, sin can be voluntary or involuntary. Your friend's is at least involuntary. The reason is because sin is a missing of the mark, Christ. There's no requirement that the miss be intentional. One assumes, I suppose, that an intentional miss is less worthy of divine mercy than unintentional, but who knows these things? Maybe it makes no difference to God. You are of course correct that going to your OINO friend and calling him an apostate will accomplish nothing. But that, MD, is not the issue. The issue is rejoicing over communion, knowing or unknowing, with heresy because it appears to be better than nothing. I submit that since we don't know the extent of God's mercy or whither the Spirit goes, outside The Church but we do know the result of communion with heresy, your position can never be acceptable for members of The Church. It stands to reason then that The Church should always oppose the efforts of ecclesial groups to gain adherents in lands where The Faith of The Church is The Faith of the nation, as in Poland or Ireland or Italy or Greece or Serbia or Russia. I do believe that any group has the right to serve its own people wherever they are so long as its teachings and practices are not contrary to the good order of society.
Well, I'm trying to get out of the habit of saying, "The sh*t hits the fan," and "mortal sin" just came to mind ...
It stands to reason then that The Church should always oppose the efforts of ecclesial groups to gain adherents in lands where The Faith of The Church is The Faith of the nation, as in Poland or Ireland or Italy or Greece or Serbia or Russia.
I'd say our best efforts, though, will be in evangelizing our own members, if one can use the word that way. (I guess we find in Paul the evangelizing of the Baptized, so I guess it's okay.)
I do believe that any group has the right to serve its own people wherever they are so long as its teachings and practices are not contrary to the good order of society.
And I think there is a kind of crypto-evangelism in the laudable enterprise of "outdoing one another in good works".
I am not commending, and do not want to be thought of as commending the groups that come into some place with the mission of converting Orthodox or Catholic Xtians. But hey're gonna do it. You see what they say about us. They think they're doing God's will and saving people from our clutches. But as I say, right now when I talk to this OINO, we have almost nothing to say to one another. (I'm remembering also a wool customer and nice dutiful Catholic who wrote me one day and told me she'd just found out that God loved her. I was kind of non-plussed, as you can imagine. I wondered what it was we'd been talking about ...) I think he'd at least be bracketing the mark if he one day gave Himself to Jesus. Then maybe he could sharpen his aim even more and find out what is in the Church he currently neglects.