Calling All Orthodox!

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More from Orthodoxy and Catholicism:
…Orthodoxy teaches there is no experiencing the “full joy” of heaven (which a soul supposedly would experience, according to the Roman Catholic understanding, once it has undergone sufficient purgation) until the Last Day. The “intermediate state,” in the Orthodox view, is therefore not a state between heaven and hell in which some souls must spend time before entering heaven. It is, rather a state of repose where ALL souls rest in anticipation of the Last Day (see 1 thessalonians 4:13-17). In that repose they have a foretaste of their eternal reward or punishment, which will be fixed on the Last Day.
In the meantime, the Orthodox Church teaches, these souls benefit from the prayers of the faithful. These prayers, as acts of love, comfort the souls of the departed and better prepare them to stand confident of god’s grace and mercy at the dread judgment seat of Christ on the Last Day.
The Orthodox Church gives no machanistic explanation of how these prayers benefit the departed. It simply affirms the ancient Christian teaching that such prayers are efficacious in preparing the souls of the departed for the final judgement. For example, Saint Paul interceded fo rthe departed Onesiphorus when he wrote, “The Lord grant to him that he may find mercy from the Lord in that Day” (2 Timothy 1:18). In this attitude, the Orthodox Church much more closely reflects the viewpoint of the early Church and abstains from the more speculative and legalistic justifications for such prayers which characterize the Roman Catholic doctrines of purgatory and indulgences.
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MommaduckofMany said:
More the issue may be in the views of what and how.

Orthodoxy and Catholicism:
Orthodox view of Sin and Salvation:
Sin is an unnatural state of man, brought about by the distortion of God’s original creation. After the Fall of Adam, all men became subject to an ancestral curse and were made subject to death. it is the goal of human life not to sin, and to be restored to our original “god-likeness.” But, in fact, all people do sin. it is only possible to be freed from sin by the saving work of Christ, who forgives the sins of the world through His abundant mercy. By His Resurrection, Christ defeated our ultimate enemy, death. Salvation is a lifelong process, involving active cooperation with the work of Christ. There is an intermediate state of the soul between death and the final day of judgment, during which souls benefit from the prayers of the faithful.
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What is the difference between “original sin” and “an unnatural state of man, brought about by the distortion of God’s original creation” by which “all men became subject to an ancestral curse and were made subject to death”? 🤷
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MommaduckofMany said:
Also, our view is different as we don’t hold to the view of Original Sin. We do not believe in indulgences, limiting time in, etc.
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So we are good on the particular and general judgment? Truth is after many threads on sin I fail to see a difference except for Romes clarity.

As to Indulgences we would have to understand what is being discussed.

newadvent.org/cathen/07783a.htm
 
SteveVH said:
What is the difference between “original sin” and “an unnatural state of man, brought about by the distortion of God’s original creation” by which “all men became subject to an ancestral curse and were made subject to death”? 🤷
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We don’t carry guilt from Adam’s sin…only for our own.
 
GaryTaylor said:
So we are good on the particular and general judgment? Truth is after many threads on sin I fail to see a difference except for Romes clarity.

As to Indulgences we would have to understand what is being discussed.

newadvent.org/cathen/07783a.htm
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I don’t see it as clarity. I see it as Rome speculating and adding innovation to something that is a mystery.
 
josie_L said:
Don’t forget Russia is “new new Rome”! 😃
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The Russian claim was originally built on Imperial status, not ecclesiastical (though of course it influenced that). In much the same way as the claims of Byzantium and the Holy Roman Empire were only secular.
 
Jon_S said:
I like the visual that we are the two lungs of the church EAST and WEST. We are unique and different but together the great vitality we can give the faith would be do much greater than trying to separately.
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The first problem with that visual is that it casts Rome as equal to all the East combined, rather than acknowledging that each Church in the East is unique.
 
MommaduckofMany said:
We don’t carry guilt from Adam’s sin…only for our own.
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Nor do we believe we carry “guilt” from Adam’s sin. We believe, as do you, that human nature was changed by Adam’s sin and we therefore suffer from this change in our nature by which we tend toward sin; i.e. “concupiscence”. We are born lacking something that was given to us “in the beginning”. In other words, we all come from a bottle of spoiled milk and no matter how clean the glass is into which we are poured, it is still spoiled milk. That is the consequence of the original sin and it affects all of humanity.
 
josie_L said:
If it was a symbolic gesture than the excommunication remains! :cool:
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An individual pope was recognized as having not been legitimately excommunicated. Rome remains off the dyptychs of the various Orthodox Churches. Two different issues.
 
SteveVH said:
True, but irrelevant. Do you see this as an issue on which the EO and CC should be divided? That is the mystery to me.
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No, it just means that, as with other doctrines which may not be worded the same or so clearly defined in the east as in the west, such as the doctrine we call the “Real Presence”, for example, our similarities often far outweigh the differences compared to doctrinal differences between Protestantism and either EO or RC.
 
If it’s no biggy or difference to Catholics, then why not drop the extra wording, adopt the Eastern wording, and come back to the rest of the Church that is in Communion?
 
Rawb said:
Yes, re-unification is further away from the Eastern point of view.

Thus Apostolic Succession isn’t just the ability to trace one’s lineage, but the proof that one has preserved the Apostolic faith.

This is why the Mysteries of heterodox communions are questionable.
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:confused: Can you explain more the last statement…as to what do you mean by “questionable”?
 
MommaduckofMany said:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin

Reading further, it says that the RC denies this, but I’ve heard both from various sources and Catholics.
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Understood biblically through 3-biblical understandings of “iniquity” such as in Isaiah. One of the three understandings equates iniquity to injustice to us thus we are guilty of an injustice. Personally I call it a blessing and prefer to take my purification here, now, its biblical redemptive suffering. 😛
 
I would just like to make a note that the ideas being discussed are exclusively Eastern Orthodox.
 
GaryTaylor said:
Understood biblically through 3-biblical understandings of “iniquity” such as in Isaiah. One of the three understandings equates iniquity to injustice to us thus we are guilty of an injustice. Personally I call it a blessing and prefer to take my purification here, now, its biblical redemptive suffering. 😛
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Perhaps you’ve just pointed out another difference about our views of the intermediate state. We believe that ALL souls will be there till Last Day. You believe that SOME souls will be there for various lengths of time (with various things, prayer/indulgences/etc) will shorten time in such a state and that people can transfer those from one to another. It seems that Catholics view the intermediate state as something that is purely horrid. Orthodox do not.
 
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