Isa Almisry has made a response to my post, and I will be responding to him soon after I address this post by chrisb.
chrisb,
No, it’s not that there is no objective expression of the faith, it is that there are multiple objective expressions (not just one, the Byzantine expression) of the faith. Oriental Orthodoxy, a non-Western communion, bears witness to this, having inherited three major objective expressions of the faith. No one says in Oriental Orthodoxy, that the expression of the Armenians is subjective, and that of the Alexandrians or Antiochenes is more objective, rather, all three are honored and allowed to exist in the same communion.
I can’t expect you to fully understand this because you live in a uniformed communion. I don’t mean this as an insult at all, I’m simply saying that Eastern Orthodoxy only has one major expression: Byzantine (or Constantinopolitan or Greek), and you don’t have within your communion another parallel equal expression (in its fullness), which you can see being lived out by your members.
The Protestant and individualistic/agnostic phenomenon in the West has erroded the ancient Latin expression (as well as the Faith itself) that was received from the Latins, thereby subjectivizing what was the objective expression of the Latins. This is different from the concept of multiple expressions that were planted among the Apostolic Churches.
No, it is not a question of tinkering with Christian terms/understandings by replacing them with the terms/understandings of other religions, or changing the names of the Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). It is about respecting the expressions that were planted among the Apostolic Churches, namely the 6 major traditions: Latin, Constantinopolitan, Alexandrian, Antiochene, Armenian, and Assyro-Chaldean. These expressions flourished over time due to the culture and people in which the One Apostolic Faith was planted.
No need to fear, just understand where I’m coming from. In the East/Orient, there is not just one real relationship between orthodoxy and orthopraxy. There are multiple real relationships between orthodoxy and orthopraxy. The real relationship of orthodoxy and orthopraxy of the Chaldeans (for example) is unlike the real relationship of orthodoxy and orthopraxy of the Byzantines. We just don’t theologize in the same way, or celebrate our liturgy, or pray, or canonically discipline our people in the same way. Having said this, I don’t mean that our Chaldean expressions contradict your Byzantine expressions, they are merely different, but not contradictory.
Ah, but you see, there is more than one traditional form. The traditional Byzantine form is not the traditional Chaldean form, and so forth. So, you guys can conduct your temporary exercise of economia whenever it is necessary for you to do so, we on the other hand have our own traditional form that we received from our Church of the East fathers, with which we can conduct our own “temporary exercise of economia” whenever we need to.
With regards the West, the Latins have also received their own traditional form, and do likewise have the authority to conduct a “temporary excercise of ecomonia” whenever they feel the need to do so. It is their perogative on how and when such an “excercise” can be done.
So, with regards the forms, the expressions, there are multiple traditional ones, none more exalted or greater than the others, different but complementary. On the essence, though, there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph. 4:5), which was “once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3). Catholic unity demands oneness on the essence.
No need to be sorry, I too am not willing to water-down the expressions and traditions of the Faith that were planted long ago among our Assyro-Chaldean people, that is why, I can never be Eastern Orthodox, becuase that is exactly what the EO, by their very uniformed structure, can and will do to us. In the Catholic Communion, we are allowed to maitain our own traditional Assyro-Chaldean expressions, and that’s where we prefer to be.
God bless,
Rony
