“...Fellow Catholics: don’t let your hearts be troubled...”
Thanks for the encouragement. All this hate for Catholics right as they are being beheaded by Muslims is truly troubling and the work of Satan to stir up discord and hatred in people’s hearts.
The attack now, right before lent seems to have a diabolical timing.
The Coptic Christians being beheaded, although not considered in union with the Pope, are Catholic and profess all of the beliefs that are being derided by the hostile and bigoted group here on FR who distort history; the Coptics hold the same belief in the sacraments, the special Love and veneration for the Blessed Mother, etc. as the beliefs being attacked.
The Coptic Church history actually adds more proof to the Catholic position (bishops, tradition, sacraments, veneration of the Blessed Mother), since the Coptics have been there since the beginning and their use of the sacraments and love of Mary has continued in an unbroken manner since St. Mark evangelized them around A.D. 50 or thereabouts.
This makes these spurious claims from catholic haters especially inappropriate and extra vicious. I am surprised the forum allows this. I think they don’t allow jack Chick and this appears to be the same type of ugly spin.
You can only wish the Coptic Christians profess all of the beliefs that are being derided here, as most of belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church, and
There are many differences between these two churches; and unfortunately, these differences are increasing. It is important to read about them and understand their details which are found in the two links posted below where you will discover and learn that our church's traditions have not been replaced by neither modern conveniences nor contemporary thoughts:
In these links, http://www.suscopts.org/resources/literature/orthodox-faith/difference-between-catholicism-and-orthodoxy/, you will find the biblical references on which the Coptic Orthodox Church has based her stance and traditions. A few more differences between the two churches as witnessed today are: The Coptic Orthodox Church... - http://www.suscopts.org/q&a/index.php?qid=1353&frommostpopular=yes
Also: Eastern Orthodox vs. Roman Catholic
The Orthodox Church opposes the Roman doctrines of universal papal jurisdiction, papal infallibility, purgatory, and the Immaculate Conception precisely because they are untraditional." - Orthodox apologist and author Clark Carlton: THE WAY: What Every Protestant Should Know About the Orthodox Church, 1997, p 135.
►Both purgatory and indulgences are inter-corrolated theories, unwitnessed in the Bible or in the Ancient Church.. — http://www.goarch.org/ourfaith/ourfaith7076
►The Orthodox Church does not believe in purgatory (a place of purging), that is, the inter-mediate state after death in which the souls of the saved (those who have not received temporal punishment for their sins) are purified of all taint preparatory to entering into Heaven, where every soul is perfect and fit to see God.
Also, the Orthodox Church does not believe in indulgences as remissions from purgatoral punishment. Both purgatory and indulgences are inter-corrolated theories, unwitnessed in the Bible or in the Ancient Church, and when they were enforced and applied they brought about evil practices at the expense of the prevailing Truths of the Church. If Almighty God in His merciful loving-kindness changes the dreadful situation of the sinner, it is unknown to the Church of Christ. The Church lived for fifteen hundred years without such a theory. — http://www.goarch.org/ourfaith/ourfaith7076
►What I found most disturbing in my reading was that the Orthodox objected to the doctrine [of the Immaculate Conception] not so much because of its proclamation of Mary as immaculate (indeed, the Orthodox liturgy repeatedly refers to Mary as "all holy ... .. immaculate," and "most blessed") but because of the erroneous understanding of original sin underlying it...
I sadly concluded that the erroneous Roman understanding of original sin had led to another erroneous teaching, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. The dogma was clearly an unwarranted innovation.
It was much the same with the dogma of papal infallibility. This doctrine asserts that when the pope speaks ex cathedra, "from the throne," or officially, on matters of faith and morals, he teaches infallibly. Thus the whole Church is bound by his teaching. Orthodoxy and Catholicism - What are the differences - "Father" Theodore Pulcini ISBN 978-1-888212-23-5 [69] http://almoutran.com/2011/03/251
►Despite the high honor and the highest admiration which the Orthodox Church bestows upon the Virgin Mary Theotokos, it does not teach either her immaculate conception or her bodily assumption into the heavens.,
The west, in altering the Creed without consulting the east, is guilty (as Khomiakov put it) of moral fratricide, of a sin against the unity of the Church. In the second place, most Orthodox believe the Filioque to be theologically untrue. They hold that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, and consider it a heresy to say that He proceeds from the Son as well. There are, however, some Orthodox who consider that the Filioque is not in itself heretical,. and is indeed admissible as a theological opinion - not a dogma - provided that it is properly explained. But even those who take this more moderate view still regard it as an unauthorized addition.
That was how an Orthodox felt in the twelfth century, when the whole question had come out into the open. In earlier centuries the Greek attitude to the Papacy was basically the same, although not yet sharpened by controversy. Up to 850, Rome and the east avoided an open conflict over the Papal claims, but the divergence of views was not the less serious for being partially concealed. — http://www.stpaulsirvine.org/html/TheGreatSchism.htm
►It is evident from the Scripture that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father only; this was the belief from the very beginning of the One Undivided Church. When the church in the West inserted the "filioque" phrase into the Creed, this innovation precipitated the Great Schism of the Undivided Church. The "filioque" phrase is an error. It is not found in the Scripture. It was not believed by the Undivided Church for eight centuries, including the church in the West. It introduces a strange teaching of a double procession of the Holy Spirit and refers to two origins of the Spirit's existence, thus denying the unity of the Godhead.
The Church of Christ from the beginning baptized its members by a priest immersing them thrice in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Immersion baptism was the practice of the early Church.
...the synods of the Fathers, as a whole and as individuals, have believed that their decisions are infallible. Their decisions, however, are not considered permanent until they are accepted by the "Conscience of the Church," the whole body of the faithful, clergy and laity, who must give their consent.— http://www.goarch.org/ourfaith/ourfaith7063
►Within a reintegrated Christendom the bishop of Rome will be considered primus inter pares serving the unity of God's Church in love. He cannot be accepted as set up over the Church as a ruler whose diakonia is conceived through legalistic categories of power of jurisdiction. His authority must be understood, not according to standards of earthly authority and domination, but according to terms of loving ministry and humble service (Matt. 20:25 27).- http://www.goarch.org/ourfaith/ourfaith8523
►In the Nicene Creed of faith our Church is described as the "One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church": "One" because there can only be one true Church with one head Who is Christ... Each of these titles is limiting in some respects, since they define Christians belonging to particular historical or regional Churches of the Orthodox communion..
“because it has all the proper attributes, the Orthodox Church is the living realization of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.” — http://www.antiochian.org/node/17076
Then there are those who attempt to join together all Christian religions into one faith. They would be horrified at the idea of a service with Hindus and Christians celebrating together, yet they do not bat an eyelash at the idea of Orthodox celebrating with Roman Catholics, who with no authority broke off from the Church close to a thousand years ago. — http://www.orthodox.net/articles/against-ecumenism.html
►The Church preserves unity in diversity. In the Orthodox Church there is no hierarch with universal jurisdiction since its One True Shepherd, our Lord Jesus, has never left His Church (Matthew 28:20). The Apostle Peter does not replace or substitute for Him. The Scriptures do indeed indicate that Peter exercises an important role as leader among the Apostles but his primacy is exercised in equality or collegiality ("primus inter pares") as the Book of Acts clearly shows. The Rock upon which the Church is built is our Lord Himself as we proclaim during Matins: "The Stone which the builders rejected has become the Cornerstone; this is the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes" (from Psalm 118:2 - also the most often repeated phrase from the Old in the New Testament: Matthew 21:42, Mark 12:10, Luke 20:17, Acts 4:11 and 1 Peter 2:7). Peter, a leader among the Apostles, was first to proclaim the Church's faith in our Lord upon Whom it is built: "You are the the Christ (i.e. the Messiah, God's Chosen and Annointed One - igk), the Son of the Living God" (Matthew 16:15). He did not see himself as that Rock. Such, at any rate, is the conviction of the Orthodox Church. — http://www.ukrainian-orthodoxy.org/questions/2007/appostolic.html
►Roman Catholic historian, Francis Dvornick, states:...the question of the apostolic character of a see was viewed in quite different fashion in the East. There had been many important sees in the East which had been founded by an Apostle: this was the case for Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria and Ephesus. - (Francis Dvornik, Byzantium and the Roman Primacy (New York: Fordham University, 1966), p. 43)
The East never accepted the regular jurisdiction of Rome, nor did it submit to the judgment of Western bishops. Its appeals to Rome for help were not connected with a recognition of the principle of Roman jurisdiction but were based on the view that Rome had the same truth, the same good. - Yves Congar, Diversity and Communion (Mystic: Twenty-Third, 1982), p. 26). More .
►The Orthodox Church believes that the Church exists where: 1) there is Apostolic Succession; 2) where the traditions and canons of the Church are preserved; 3) and where a right-believing Bishop in Apostolic Succession shepherds his people in good order according to these traditions and canons.
In the Roman Catholic Church, Apostolic Succession itself resides in the person of the Pope, who is Christ’s Vicar on earth. While modern Latin theologians have tried to restate or even reject it, and while the ecumenical pronouncements of the Latin Church have tried to downplay the significance of Papocentrism, it is the fundamental dogma of Roman Catholicism and a principle repeatedly defended by the present Pope. Even collegiality and shared primacy with the Eastern Patriarchates are subject to the magisterium of the Papacy.
And herein lies one of the most important differences between the Latin and Orthodox Churches in general: the Latin Church’s appeal to the authority of the Roman See and the Orthodox Church’s dependence on the authority of the wholeness of ecclesiastical tradition, the very Body of the Church. - http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/rome_orth.aspx
►Roman Catholicism, unable to show a continuity of faith and in order to justify new doctrine, erected in the last century, a theory of "doctrinal development." Following the philosophical spirit of the time (and the lead of Cardinal Henry Newman), Roman Catholic theologians began to define and teach the idea that Christ only gave us an "original deposit" of faith, a "seed," which grew and matured through the centuries. The Holy Spirit, they said, amplified the Christian Faith as the Church moved into new circumstances and acquired other needs.
Consequently, Roman Catholicism, pictures its theology as growing in stages, to higher and more clearly defined levels of knowledge. The teachings of the Fathers, as important as they are, belong to a stage or level below the theology of the Latin Middle Ages (Scholasticism), and that theology lower than the new ideas which have come after it, such as Vatican II.
All the stages are useful, all are resources; and the theologian may appeal to the Fathers, for example, but they may also be contradicted by something else, something higher or newer. On this basis, theories such as the dogmas of "papal infallibility" and "the immaculate conception" of the Virgin Mary (about which we will say more) are justifiably presented to the Faithful as necessary to their salvation. - http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/reading/ortho_cath.html
►There is nothing Orthodox about the charismatic movement. It is incompatible with Orthodoxy, in that it justifies itself only by perverting the message of the Fathers, suggesting that the Church of Christ needs renewal, and indulging in the theological imagery of, Pentecostal cultism. With such things, one cannot be too bold in his language of condemnation and reprobation. - http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/charmov.aspx
►Vladimir Lossky, a noted modern Eastern Orthodox theologian, argues the difference in East and West is due to the Roman Catholic Church's use of pagan metaphysical philosophy (and its outgrowth, scholasticism) rather than the mystical, actual experience of God called theoria, to validate the theological dogmas of Roman Catholic Christianity. For this reason, Lossky argues that the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics have become "different men".[18] Other Eastern Orthodox theologians such as John Romanides[19] and Metropolitan Hierotheos[20][21] say the same
Roman Catholicism teaches, also, that, in the Age to Come, man will, with his intellect and with the assistance of grace, behold the Essence of God. The Orthodox declare that it is impossible to behold God in Himself. Not even divine grace, will give us such power. The saved will see, however, God as the glorified flesh of Christ.
According to Metropolitan Hierotheos that because the Roman Catholic Church uses philosophical speculation rather that an actual experience of God to derive their theology they are lead into the many errors that Orthodox call into question about their theology including the filioque[66]. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Orthodox__Roman_Catholic_theological_differences
► Orthodoxy is not simply an alternative ecclesiastical structure to the Roman Catholic Church. The Orthodox Church presents a fundamentally different approach to theology, because She possesses a fundamentally different experience of Christ and life in Him. To put it bluntly, she knows a different Christ from that of the Roman Catholic Church.” — Clark Carlton, THE WAY: What Every Protestant Should Know About the Orthodox Church, 1997; http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=13-07-033-b.
More: http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/reading/ortho_cath.html http://vivificat1.blogspot.com/2009/08/twelve-differences-between-orthodox-and.html
These are personal attacks, not an addressing of the issues brought up by the article. This site isn’t a Catholic-run site, nor run by any other particular denomination. It doesn’t adopt the viewpoint of any particular Christian group or belief, and posting articles critical of any of them is not only allowable but part of what this site is actually for, discussion and sharing information.
There are also many other people being killed by Isis and other Muslims, including many Christians besides Catholics.