>> No, you don’t get it, do you? We are either his sons or his sheep. Take your pick. <<
1.) That’s a false dichotomy that directly contradicts scripture.
2.) 98% of the people in 1436 couldn’t read or write. On what basis could they possibly discern heresy in the writings of another people from another culture expressing themselves in another language? Or as sons, are your presupposing they had some supernatural discernment?
On the same basis as all along—the liturgy. Lex orandi, lex credendi. Eastern liturgy is not a spectator sport. Liturgy is participation in God'spresence. Whatever they had in the litireguy is what they believed as orhtodox. That's why liturgy cannot change.
We also use icons which are Gospels in pictures. People knew the New Testament through the icons. Each picture is a liturgcial story. And every homily is based on the Biblical reading which they heard in the Church, at funerals, and feasts. Every sacrament is litrugical.
The early Church did not have catechisms. They just had the liturgy. By your formula, one would have to wait until the 20th century, when literacy peaked, to become fully catechized.
People in the East in 1436 had the same liturgy for over 1,000 years. That's the only way one can tell if it is still orthodox. If you change your service every so often, or your catechism, or you introduce different rites and "ordinary" and "extraodinary" Masses, how are you to know what is orthodox and what is not? How can Catechism be in harmony wiht something like a Clown Mass?
Exactly, I made that point already. We are supposed to believe that simple farmers, based on their readings of the "Aquinas Daily", in Latin, knew exactly what the Latins believed and rejected it out of hand, because the Bishops were so daft that they were TRICKED - I think that was the word used - into accepting an "un-Orthodox" position. Naturally, these farmers got together in a number of local synods and overruled their bishops.
Hey, if they want to believe that fantasy, that's fine. The truth of the matter is that the East hated the West and REFUSED to accept ANY explanation the bishops had. Moscow was not about to be "ruled by those Papists". Nor were the Byzantines, who earned their bread and butter by lambasting Latins. The people had heard how terrible and heretical the West was that there really was NO chance of reconciliation at Florence, no matter what the Emperor and some of the Bishops tried to explain.
If that situation has not changed, there will be no reconciliation, because the Easterns have told us THEY are in charge of determining heresy or Orthodoxy. As we see, animosity is still within their blood towards us. We will never get a fair hearing - nor do will they even offer to sit down and listen. Kosta has already said that. With such attitudes permeating throughout the East, union is not going to happen, unless we start speaking Greek and paint icons and have our priests get married and take up the Byzantium rites.
Why am I writing this way? I am hoping that our Eastern brothers will begin to sense the truth of their position. Because if we leave things as they are, union is not happening. We need to start a grass-roots opening of the minds in the East - an acceptance to listen to supposed brothers in Christ. We need to stir the pot and let them see the vanity and pride of being close-minded.
I am now going to back off from the sarcasm (it was a planned exercise), hoping that my Eastern brothers will examine themselves and their demands and give us a fair hearing.
Brother in Christ