I just don’t see it. I can see how individual lines on their own can be convincing about Peter being leader over the others, but even if one accepts that, you have the problem that there is no reference in scripture to his successor.
I do understand the issue many Catholics have with the Orthodox Church, that there is no final source for a definitive teaching on a given topic, yet I think this is a side effect of the Orthodox insistence on the spirit of the law over the letter of the law. This leads to many rules requiring council with a spiritual father to figure out how it should be applied, rather than a one size fits all text giving you the answer.
I am a Protestant I don’t think Protestant Christianity is true ?
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=604653&page=2
From my vantage, everything comes down to the credibility of the Church and that can be directly measured by the credibility of the founder.
Both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches were founded by Christ. This lends great credibility to both and of course, almost all doctrines are the same.
So what about the split. When the Eastern Churches left Rome, about 30% of the Church went into schism. Subsequently, 30% of those Eastern Churches returned to Rome as the Eastern Rite Churches
Its hard to say that Rome is in schism with the East, given those numbers.
here is a look at the numbers today:
adherents.com/adh_branches.html#Christianity.
As for the point that we need to reunite. Making this more difficult of course, is that their is not one orthodox church to work with, there are many.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=559107&highlight=gurneyhalleck1&page=5
See post #69 and post #70
Should I check out a Russian or a Greek church first?
Quote:
Originally Posted by gurneyhalleck1
The Orthodox could’ve lived side by side with Catholics and the filioque and leavened bread and all the other things,
I’m not so sure of this… to put it mildly.
Since the original thread is about Russian or Greek, here’s my own experience with the Russian EOC. I met a Russian woman back in 2004, and I went with her to the ROCOR (Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia) service. One of the first things I learned that all New Calendar Churches are “not really Orthodox”. There are three other Orthodox churches in the city (New Orleans, Louisiana) I was living in, namely a Greek EO, an Antiochian EO, and the Basilian Fathers’ church which serves both the EO and WO Divine Liturgy, but those were “apostate”, “not really Orthodox”, as far as ROCOR was concerned. Thus, the community made up of Russians and others (including a guy of Greek heritage - but he subscribed to the Mount Athos version of Greek Orthodoxy, which is Old Calendar) rather drove more than 100 miles and 3 hours to the nearest ROCOR church two states away in Alabama, because that was “truly Orthodox”.
The number one problem was that these other churches (the local “apostate” churches) accepted the New Calendar. But also, the fact that they had pews, and that the Greek one (also the Antiochian one, I seem to remember) had musical instruments, were critical offenses to Orthodoxy. The Russians insist on no pews, no musical instruments (only human voice). And the ROCOR priest told his parishioners not to attend those other EOC except in special cases when there was no access to a “truly Orthodox” Old Calendar church, and not to present themselves for Holy Communion in the New Calendar (Greek, Antiochian) churches.
Since the benign-looking differences like pews and musical instruments are so major to the Russians (not to mention the Calendar!) that they will break communion with fellow EO over those issues, I came to understand that they will only naturally reject communion with the Catholic Churches, over other issues such as the filioque, unleavened bread, and beardless clergy in the Catholic Churches.
See here:
orthodoxchristianity.net/…c=21910.0;wap2
If you see it in the few verses of scripture that talk about it, I fail to see how you can fail to see it in St. Chrysostom’s multitude of explicit sayings, for example. Like I said, just read through the sayings often given by both sides and the true state of affairs that prevailed becomes clear. You appear to have made up your mind and are unwilling to even consider a fresh look- that fits more what you rolled your eyes about when you gave your criticism to me than anything else. 
I’ve frequented too many OF masses at Opus Dei centers to believe the rumor about the lack of greatness, mystery and wonderfulness in the OF. What happened in the years following V2 was this vicious attempt at stripping the Church of her orthodoxy, and part of this attitude has infected the celebration of the mass (Looks like Our Beloved B16 and his brother Bishops are finally putting a stop to this nasty attempt at a coup d’etat/revolution by “progressives”). The OF is actually more faithful to the earliest celebrations where the faithful gathered participated greatly and it was not so passive as many traditional liturgies tend to be. I love it! Right from the “The Lord be with you” to “The mass is ended”. 