Because I am unfamiliar with the specifics of the Catholic-Anglican rift, as I indicated. I did, however, comment on Protestants in general.
Yes, but your comment is problematic on a few levels.
the rift between us and Protestants is far more profound and covers almost the whole range of theology, including elementary points of soteriology and the sacraments.
I certainly respect that this is how you see it, and from your phrasing I would suspect that you see the division between Catholics and Orthodox as being somewhat less all-encompassing than that between Catholics and Protestants (presumably not covering “almost the whole range of theology, including elementary points of soteriology and sacraments”), but this does not mean that Orthodox would necessarily agree with you on that. I will not speak for my Byzantine Orthodox friends such as Nine_Two regarding their own communion, but for me as an Oriental Orthodox Christian, I think your description as regards the Protestant-Catholic divide is more applicable to OO-RC relationships than you might like to hear, though I wouldn’t have phrased it exactly as you have (I don’t talk to people outside of my communion about their sacraments, because I can’t partake of them without excommunicating myself, and I don’t want to do that).
On the other hand, if you think Orthodox and Catholics should regard one another as they regard Protestants, that’s clear enough - but something I would very much disagree with.
Again, I can respect that you would disagree with it, but that doesn’t make reality anything other than what it is. Our allegiance is to Orthodoxy, not to ecumenism. The reality is that anything that is not Orthodox is not acceptable, in the sense that we have no doctrinal issues on which to compromise or reform ourselves, and as such any doctrinal point on which any other church differs from Orthodoxy is a point on which the non-Orthodox church in question is wrong. Whether that means to other Christians that we are treating them like “Protestants” or being rude or whatever is not the issue (to say nothing of whether or not we are being
factual, to the extent that this can be sorted out; see, for instance, the OO-EO dialogues; they continue on without restored communion because even though we have discussed many things and come to some very substantial points of agreement, the presence of competing historical narratives concerning our central points of difference makes it difficult for people on both sides to point to a disputed event and say “Aha! We agree that this is indisputably the truth of the matter, therefore ______”).
So again, speaking for myself, I am quite fine with your disagreements with Orthodoxy. Please do continue to disagree with us and treat us accordingly. This is preferable to pretending we are closer than we actually are, with all the hurt feelings that inevitably follow being told that Orthodox and Catholics don’t see eye to eye on this matter, either.
I hope this post can be taken in the spirit in which it was intended (as a sort of realignment of the boundaries of the discussion, so that we do not have to submit ourselves to putting feelings above the truth on either side), and not as an attack on Roman Catholicism or any particular Roman Catholic poster. Honesty is to be valued above whatever feels nice, particularly if nice-feeling words are something less than the truth. The truth is that whatever we do share in common in the Orthodox and Roman Catholic communions (and here I think we’d probably see quite different views with regard to EO-RC and OO-RC histories and relationships) is not enough to substantiate resumed
communion, and anything less than that may be valuable in some fashion (e.g., certainly it is good to work together on social welfare projects or whatever), but is ultimately not enough for Orthodox to be able to say “Yes, we are so close to you” or whatever it is Catholics would like to hear in return for the respect they believe that they are showing us by permitting us to commune with them (keeping in mind that from the Orthodox point of view this is not actually a good thing; I do not want to be excommunicated from my Church…no act, even if done out of ‘respect’ or communal friendliness, is worth that).
