CHINA - RUSSIA - VATICAN - Hilarion's act: Russian Orthodox metropolitan meets Chinese excommunicated bishop [AN]

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Unlawful bishop of Kunming, Ma Yinglin is the president of the Chinese Catholic Bishops’ Conference (which is not recognised by the Catholic Church), and vice president of the CPCA (which is incompatible with the Catholic Church). For some time, Hilarion has been trying to convince Chinese authorities to recognise the country’s small Orthodox communities and boost the influence of the Moscow Patriarchate in the Far East. Two plates with watermelon are placed in front of the picture of the pope.

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This is the second thing recently that has got me wondering what the Eastern Orthodox Church is up to. Particularly Russian Orthodox… I just don’t understand why they seem to be so political.

The other issue is that Russia is continuing to give combat helicopters to Assad in Syria. That just seems terrible, isn’t that going against the interests of Christians?

It’s just weird to me that Russia is still trying to relive its Soviet Union glory days through Vladimir Putin… and that seems to entail them being allies with Syria, Iran, and China. [And many similar countries]. Whereas the Soviet Union was an atheist state… I thought Russia had a resurgence of the Russian Orthodox Church? Surely the Russian Orthodox Church doesn’t have a very high opinion of the governments of Syria, Iran, and China after how they’ve treated Christians. And this story just seems to make all those matters worse.

I’d love to hear some Eastern Orthodox people’s view on this.
 
Semper_Zelare said:
This is the second thing recently that has got me wondering what the Eastern Orthodox Church is up to. Particularly Russian Orthodox… I just don’t understand why they seem to be so political.

The other issue is that Russia is continuing to give combat helicopters to Assad in Syria. That just seems terrible, isn’t that going against the interests of Christians?

It’s just weird to me that Russia is still trying to relive its Soviet Union glory days through Vladimir Putin… and that seems to entail them being allies with Syria, Iran, and China. [And many similar countries]. Whereas the Soviet Union was an atheist state… I thought Russia had a resurgence of the Russian Orthodox Church? Surely the Russian Orthodox Church doesn’t have a very high opinion of the governments of Syria, Iran, and China after how they’ve treated Christians. And this story just seems to make all those matters worse.

I’d love to hear some Eastern Orthodox people’s view on this.
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I’m Eastern Orthodox, and I have no idea what you mean by asking what we’re “up to”. You mean do we have a mass conspiracy to take over the world?

I have no idea why His Beatitude is meeting with the head of the Chinese Catholic Bishops Conference, but given that he isn’t in communion with Rome, I don’t see why it matters to Catholics that he is. It may well be that he’s trying to discover if their beliefs are compatible with Holy Orthodoxy.

As for Syria, which has nothing to do with this thread, a stable Assad regime is much more favorable to the Christians of the area than an Islamist Rebellion. Not only that, but the Church isn’t the one sending the helicopters.
 
Clearly the author Bernardo Cervellera is unable to write an impartial report without letting his biases show. This is not actually journalism, it is more like a forum post calculated to inflame readers.
 
Semper_Zelare said:
This is the second thing recently that has got me wondering what the Eastern Orthodox Church is up to. Particularly Russian Orthodox… I just don’t understand why they seem to be so political.

The other issue is that Russia is continuing to give combat helicopters to Assad in Syria. That just seems terrible, isn’t that going against the interests of Christians?

It’s just weird to me that Russia is still trying to relive its Soviet Union glory days through Vladimir Putin… and that seems to entail them being allies with Syria, Iran, and China. [And many similar countries]. Whereas the Soviet Union was an atheist state… I thought Russia had a resurgence of the Russian Orthodox Church? Surely the Russian Orthodox Church doesn’t have a very high opinion of the governments of Syria, Iran, and China after how they’ve treated Christians. And this story just seems to make all those matters worse.

I’d love to hear some Eastern Orthodox people’s view on this.
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The so-called Arab Spring has not been particularly kind to Christians, if you have not noticed.
 
Semper_Zelare said:
The other issue is that Russia is continuing to give combat helicopters to Assad in Syria. That just seems terrible, isn’t that going against the interests of Christians?
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This has nothing to do with the topic of the thread.
 
well the thing is though the Chinese govt sees Christians especially the Protestant types are trouble makers and symbols of the remains of white power, and they really dont like them… and they will do anything to prevent the Protestant Christians from gaining power and same goes for Catholics, but not as severe
 
Nine_Two said:
I’m Eastern Orthodox, and I have no idea what you mean by asking what we’re “up to”. You mean do we have a mass conspiracy to take over the world?

As for Syria, which has nothing to do with this thread, a stable Assad regime is much more favorable to the Christians of the area than an Islamist Rebellion.
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I think I made it pretty clear in my post. I don’t believe in conspiracies. My point is that Russia is hurting the interests of Christians. They’re supporting Iran if you want to talk about that. They invaded one of the oldest Christian countries [Georgia] and still claim two regions from that nation. Why doesn’t the Russian Orthodox Church excommunicate Putin? His actions haven’t been favorable to Christians.
Semper Zelare:
The other issue is that Russia is continuing to give combat helicopters to Assad in Syria
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Nine_Two:
Not only that, but the Church isn’t the one sending the helicopters.
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I’ll note that my post talked about the country of Russia sending combat helicopters to Syria… I distinctly pointed out who was sending them. But my question is: I thought Russia was a Christian country now?

Then why are they fueling a conflict that is resulting in the death of Christians? They’re literally supporting a regime that is killing thousands of people. And you’re going to act like supporting Assad is helping the Christians there? The only government that is pro-Christian in the Middle East is that of Lebanon.

I’ll say that again.

The only government in the Middle East that is pro-Christian is that of Lebanon. Period.
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Cavaradossi:
The so-called Arab Spring has not been particularly kind to Christians, if you have not noticed.
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I have noticed. My point is that we propped up these dictatorships for decades. Clearly propping them up right now is only going to result in the loss of more life. Which is necessarily bad for Christians. Shouldn’t the Eastern Orthodox Church want peace? But they don’t seem to care that Russia is the biggest ally of the Assad regime right now.

The Vatican would be up in arms about a “Christian” country sending helicopters into an armed conflict like this. I mean, the Vatican condemned the Iraq war. And it wasn’t a just war after all.
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Hesychios:
This has nothing to do with the topic of the thread.
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Well, I should have an opportunity to respond to every person that quotes me. As soon as y’all stop quoting me, then I’ll happily start talking about why Metropolitan Hilarion is talking to an invalidly ordained “bishop” who has no recognized authority by anyone except the Chinese government.
 
Well, I should have an opportunity to respond to every person that quotes me. As soon as y’all stop quoting me, then I’ll happily start talking about why Metropolitan Hilarion is talking to an invalidly ordained “bishop” who has no recognized authority by anyone except the Chinese government.
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I wrote out a reply to your thread and then realized you basically just said "If anyone wants to ignore my thread hijacking I’d be willing to discuss this.

So how about you make another thread on the subject of how evil Russia is for supporting Assad, and lets talk about the actual topic of this thread. I’ll respond to you there.

As I said in my original post, and the part that you decided to ignore, who cares? What is it to you that he is meeting with him? What does it matter?
 
Semper_Zelare said:
I have noticed. My point is that we propped up these dictatorships for decades. Clearly propping them up right now is only going to result in the loss of more life. Which is necessarily bad for Christians. Shouldn’t the Eastern Orthodox Church want peace? But they don’t seem to care that Russia is the biggest ally of the Assad regime right now.

The Vatican would be up in arms about a “Christian” country sending helicopters into an armed conflict like this. I mean, the Vatican condemned the Iraq war. And it wasn’t a just war after all.
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That is highly presumptuous of you to think that you know what is best for Christians in the Middle East. All the wonderful “democracies” which have been propped up in the Middle East have resulted in more, not less persecutions of Christians. Take off your American “democracy good, other forms of governance bad” glasses. Democracy is not an inherently Christian form of governance, and between supporting democracy and Christ, I will choose the latter.
Well, I should have an opportunity to respond to every person that quotes me. As soon as y’all stop quoting me, then I’ll happily start talking about why Metropolitan Hilarion is talking to an invalidly ordained “bishop” who has no recognized authority by anyone except the Chinese government.
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So it’s ok if your Church dialogues with invalid Anglican bishops, but not if ours dialogues with an invalid Chinese bishop? Why the double standard?
 
Seems my post got deleted in the purge of this thread (understandably for containing reference to other content)…

Just what exactly is the issue with Metropolitan Hilarion having talks with the head of the non-canonical Chinese Catholic Association?

I’d understand if he initiated talks with someone like the Archbishop of Baltimore - a high ranking Catholic who doesn’t speak for the Vatican - but what are the objections to him talking to someone who isn’t even a member of the Catholic Church?
I understand why it might be resented, but not the reason for an active objection.
 
I have found the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association to be very devout and faithful to the Roman Catholic magisterium. They are also very loyal to the person of the Pope at Rome.

Their doctrine has not changed one bit, as far as I can tell, and the liturgy is conservatively done. They do not consider themselves another church, they are the Catholic church (and yes, they do have a lot of pictures of the Pope and call themselves ‘Papalists’ in conversation).

Because of their beliefs, I doubt that there is any danger in them going over to the Orthodox, nor to protestantism nor anything else. I would not advise any of them to consider becoming Orthodox and no Orthodox priest would accept a person who believed those things which they have been taught all their lives. These people are Roman Catholics who are shunned by their brothers for something they have no control over.

So what have we got here? A nice courteous Apostolic visit, which basically happens between church leaders all over the world all the time at many different levels. And of course we have a so-called ‘journalist’ who is appealing to mob instincts in order to get someone to buy and pay for his poorly written article.
 
Nine_Two said:
Just what exactly is the issue with Metropolitan Hilarion having talks with the head of the non-canonical Chinese Catholic Association?

I’d understand if he initiated talks with someone like the Archbishop of Baltimore - a high ranking Catholic who doesn’t speak for the Vatican - but what are the objections to him talking to someone who isn’t even a member of the Catholic Church?
I understand why it might be resented, but not the reason for an active objection.
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I think someone else compared it to the Pope meeting with the head of, say, the UAOC.
 
Peter_J said:
I think someone else compared it to the Pope meeting with the head of, say, the UAOC.
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This might be hard to believe, but I actually think the Orthodox would like some help or advice dealing with the government bureaucracy and legal obstacles. No one else is as well placed to give that kind of assistance.
 
Hesychios said:
This might be hard to believe, but I actually think the Orthodox would like some help or advice dealing with the government bureaucracy and legal obstacles. No one else is as well placed to give that kind of assistance.
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Well, the UGCC has good relations with the Orthodox Churches in Ukraine. They could easily become Ukrainian Catholics if they wanted to. I believe the UGCC has a standing offer that they will give way to the Orthodox Patriarch in the event of a reunion. And I believe even if it is just the UAOC and UOC-KP coming into communion with Rome, since neither of them are in communion with the other Orthodox.

But the fact with those two Churches is that they are fighting for the recognition of the Orthodox of a Ukrainian Church independent from Russia. Russia should just grant authocephally to the Orthodox Churches in the former Soviet states. No use trying to get them under her wing. For everything wrong they try to point at the Papacy, this is very reminiscent of Rome expanding her territory.
 
Peter_J said:
I think someone else compared it to the Pope meeting with the head of, say, the UAOC.
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I think my issue there would be that it has the appearance of proselytizing in a mostly Orthodox country. I would have no issues with Rome entering high level negotiations, with one of the Old Calenderist groups based in North America or Western Europe.

But as Hesychios said, the group in question is still very Catholic, but just in a very difficult situation.
 
Hesychios said:
This might be hard to believe, but I actually think the Orthodox would like some help or advice dealing with the government bureaucracy and legal obstacles. No one else is as well placed to give that kind of assistance.
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I always wondered if Orthodoxy would suit China better. I know the Communist party doesn’t want a Church who is under a foreign ruler such as the Pope who is also a head of state. An autocephalous Chinese Church would probably be agreeable to the Communist Party, do you think?
 
ConstantineTG said:
I always wondered if Orthodoxy would suit China better. I know the Communist party doesn’t want a Church who is under a foreign ruler such as the Pope who is also a head of state. An autocephalous Chinese Church would probably be agreeable to the Communist Party, do you think?
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I had always thought so. Though the Orthodox Church in China is rather small (and sadly, unrecognized), I believe they are technically under the omophorion of Moscow. I doubt the Chinese would have as much qualms with that as they seem to get on with the Russians rather well politically. In the end, from what I understand, the Chinese Communists wouldn’t be too excited about any Christianity in general be it Orthodox, Roman Catholic or any Protestant sectarians.

In Christ,
Andrew
 
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