Eastern Orthodox fundamentalism/hyperdoxy

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As we have seen dealers often hide behind the icons to secure their activities, but what if to suppose that these kind of cases are possible only with full and unfounded obedience?
Therefore there is a question, -were they ordered to carry the cargo and keep quiet, do they?
I want to still believe that this is not true and that the people involved in spirituality have nothing to do with dirty business.

 
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Do you live in the US? If not, there are Protestants becoming Orthodox in massive amounts, myself included. It’s definitely something that’s happening.
 
There is a book, I want to say “The Other Catholics; Faithful and True”, by a Russian-Catholic priest (I own it, but can’t find it on the internet).

He describes Christian life in the gulag. Among the more memorable is the loss of distinction between Orthodox and Catholic, with all attending any furtive service without distinction.

Divine Liturgy in four hurried minutes, using the priest’s hand for the Holy Table, with wine made from a couple of grapes hidden away, and a saved scrap of bread.

Noone reading this knows persecution the way the they did . . .

hawk
The Other Catholics: Obedient and Faithful

I have a copy and I believe my parish giftshop still has a dozen or so, if anyone is interested.
 
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No chance I could get one gratis, is there? 😀

I’ll check at the Library.
 
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Do you live in the US? If not, there are Protestants becoming Orthodox in massive amounts, myself included. It’s definitely something that’s happening.
I definitely live in the United States,in Pittsburgh PA USA for 61 years, and I knew Hank Hanegraaf moved from Protestantism to Orthodoxy.

But I did not know that there was a massive movement- even though I lived for many years 466 feet from one Orthodox Church and 469 feet from another. It must have been happening right under my nose.
 
Hank’s taken a LOT of heat for it. It was a real gutsy move on his part and I applaud his courage. I’ve always liked Hank, though, even back when he was a committed Evangelical.
 
Many protestants have converted to Orthodoxy, some are now priests, and they brought over their anti-Catholic baggage.

Just a thought.

ZP
I would not say that “many protestants have converted to Orthodoxy,” but I would say that many of the loud, vocal anti-Catholics on the internet are ex-Protestants.
 
What is going on???

Don’t they realize they are being overcome by the pharisaical spirit?
First, I think it’s important to remember that all non-Catholic clergy have one thing in common. For their authority to be legit, the Catholic Church must be wrong in her claim to be the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church.

Every non-Catholic sect broke away from the Bishop of Rome (or broke away from a group that broke away from Rome). If the Catholic Church is correct, then they are wrong. So for a non-Catholic clergy person; anti-Catholism is built into their job description, even if it’s not obvious.

Second, do the Eastern Orthodox have a “Pharisaical spirit,” yes they do. Let me explain:

(A) The Eastern Rite Christianity inherited something from Judaism much more so than the West. In Judaism, there is a concept of the “Righteous Deed.” Practicing Jews (rabbis included) focus on living their lives in a way where they are focused on performing the “Righteous Deed.” This is why Jews don’t evangelize. They believe if they are living and doing righteous deeds, then that’s enough. And if everyone is righteous enough, then others will want to join them.

Eastern Orthodoxy (and Byzantine Christianity in general) has inherited a similar outlook. When the See of Constantinople was raised to a patriarchy, the Patriarchy was tasked and granted all the evangelized lands beyond Christendom. However, after the split with Rome, Eastern Orthodoxy effectively stopped attempting to evangelize the world (the evangelization of Russia happened while still in communion with Rome). Eastern Orthodoxy began to look inward, similarly like the Jews, focusing on the “Righteous Deed.”

Evangelization was left to the Patriarchy of the West (Rome) and Rome continued to send missionaries, eventually to all the corners of the world. But Eastern Orthodoxy has not done this. The EO Churches outside of the traditional Eastern Orthodox countries are there to take care of the Diaspora, not to be missionaries to the world.

The irony is that Protestants say we Catholic don’t evangelize, but they got their evangelizing spirit from the the Catholic missionaries that have been evangelizing for 2000 years.

(continued)
 
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(continued)

(B) When debating with Catholics about theological differences, Catholics tend to use scripture first for back up, while Eastern Orthodox tend to use Councils and ancient Cannon Law as their backup. In other words, Eastern Orthodox tend to be more legalistic than Catholics. Which is rich, because Catholics are said to be very legalistic by Protestants.

Their legalistic tendencies and their lack of focus on evangelizing the nations causes them to reject Catholic Scholasticism, which developed so we could use reason and theology to explain the faith to non-believers. Our Catholic Scholasticism flies in the face of the idea of the Righteous Deed because to a person who holds onto the idea of the Righteous Deed, it’s better to have fewer believers than to have heretics or have to explain the faith to such granular levels in order to make someone believe.

In other words, subconsciously the Eastern Orthodox are Pharisaical because (like the Jews) they take the position that if people are true believers in the Kingdom of God, they will join them. And that their only responsibility is to do the Righteous Deed to save themselves, their families, and inspire any one watching them.

God Bless
 
Most of them even condemn “Western Rite Orthodoxy” in their own Church.
Well, most Orthodox rightfully reject “Western Rite Orthodoxy” because it did not develop organically. The problem with “Western Rite Orthodoxy” is that it’s a Byzantine-izing the Roman rite. Eastern Christians have for centuries argued against the Latinization of Eastern Rites, for historic and theological reasons.

Therefore, if they were to cast a blanket acceptation of “Western Rite Orthodoxy” then they would be guilty of the same thing they were arguing against.

Furthermore, the Byzantine Rite Catholic Churches celebrate the same Rite as their Orthodox brothers. But the “Western Rite” is not the same as the Roman Rite and was created by ex-Protestants who wanted to join with Orthodoxy. They took parts of the Roman Rite and other Latin Rite and created a brand new rite. Again, it was not something organic. It was something totally new - which is also something that Eastern Orthodox complain about the post Vatican II Mass.

So accepting the “Western Rite” on a grand scale causes problems for Eastern Orthodox in regards to their charges against Rome.

God bless
 
Evangelization was left to the Patriarchy of the West (Rome) and Rome continued to send missionaries, eventually to all the corners of the world. But Eastern Orthodoxy has not done this. The EO Churches outside of the traditional Eastern Orthodox countries are there to take care of the Diaspora, not to be missionaries to the world.
To be fair, however, Greece, Russia and Serbia didn’t establish empires abroad like France, England and Spain. Russia did establish a land based empire and the Orthodox Church did Christianize Siberia and Alaska during their rule there.

There were no Greek colonies in India, China, Africa
 
Interesting, and which of these countries- (France, England and Spain) is considered by historians the most successful in missionary work?
 
Russian Orthodox Church did not manage to evangelize the peoples of Siberia and Central Asia, there were attempts not through direct evangelization but due to its presence there, but these attempts have not been successful among the local population.
Only the missionaries of communism were successful there, but the local population hated them, because they instilled their ideology with terror and force.
 
Oddly enough but Siberia, and Kazakhstan was in some degree Evangelized by other peoples, such as Germans, Ukrainians.
These people were deported by Stalin to Siberia and Kazakhstan.
Protestants played a significant role in evangelization.
Also the contribution of these peoples was in economic life of those lands.
I remembered the phrases of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, “The Gulag Archipelago”

-“German is like a willow, wherever you put him he’s adopted there”
  • “In the mines, in sovhozes , every where the workers chiefs were delighted with the Germans”
    -"Germans had the biggest pigs, the most dairy cows, the most spacious and clean homes , and their daughters grew up enviable brides, with high morals((he contrasted the German families of local debauchery)
 
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Interesting, and which of these countries- (France, England and Spain) is considered by historians the most successful in missionary work?
I don’t know what “historians” think, but I think the results show Spanish missionaries have had the greatest success. If you look at the current demographics in former colonies of Spain- like Mexico and the Philippine Republic, and compare to former English colonies like Pakistan and Kenya- the Spanish would seem to have been a lot more successful
 
Well, Yes, in fact, all of Latin America and the Caribbean, even part of North America is all Catholicism.
 
First, I think it’s important to remember that all non-Catholic clergy have one thing in common. For their authority to be legit, the Catholic Church must be wrong in her claim to be the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church.
This simply contradicts current Roman Catholic teaching on the Orthodox Churches.
Every non-Catholic sect broke away from the Bishop of Rome (or broke away from a group that broke away from Rome).
No; the Orthodox didn’t “break away from.” In fact, while in Communion, the Papal delegate wrongfully and invalidly (per Rome today) excommunicated the Archbishop of Constantinople by, of all things, dropping a Bull on the altar during the Divine Liturgy!

The RC and Orthodox wer never (not in 33, 300, or 1001) a single Church; the various churches were in communion until the schism (which took a couple of centuries), and at no time during the first millennium did the papacy have a role comparable in authority to the role it has today in the RC church.
Eastern Orthodoxy (and Byzantine Christianity in general) has inherited a similar outlook. When the See of Constantinople was raised to a patriarchy, the Patriarchy was tasked and granted all the evangelized lands beyond Christendom. However, after the split with Rome, Eastern Orthodoxy effectively stopped attempting to evangelize the world (the evangelization of Russia happened while still in communion with Rome). Eastern Orthodoxy began to look inward, similarly like the Jews, focusing on the “Righteous Deed.”
Good Heavens.
True. But the Catholic Church sent missionaries even to places where there were not colonies (for example Japan).

The Eastern Orthodox did not really do that.
You mean, like, China.

Your history needs a lot of help.

I’m Catholic, not Orthodox, and can’t conceive of breaking communion with Rome, but the is the same type of bigotry, but from the Catholic side, that was the subject of the thread at the beginning.

hawk
 
Yes, but today the Russian Orthodox Church in the ideological sense took away from Communism the right on the human mind.
Russian Orthodoxy in fact monopolizes the spiritual shell of Russia, and it is already felt by other denominations.
Orthodox Militants (or as I call them - the Orthodox Taliban) strive to build something in the likeness of Orthodox Iran.
That is not just Evangelism but the aggressive evangelism by one ecclesiologically structure towards the entire Russian Federation.
Today’s Russia will present itself to the world as the future stronghold of Orthodoxy and the future stronghold of Christianity against the godless Antichrist.
Among the Russian military volunteers of DNR and LNR, many deeply believing in the" Russkiy Mir " people.
Even in Ukraine, among the parishioners of the Moscow Patriarchate there are many adherents of the Russian world.
If Putin’s army invades Ukraine, which is quite possible in time, these people will be the first to meet them with bread and salt.
 
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Well, I see as much outspoken extremism here on CAF against the orthodox church as some here see in the orthodox world against catholics.
I´ll try to organise some thoughts I have regarding this issue.
  1. “The orthodox church is a political oriented movement” (often heard from catholics and protestants). Yes, where humans act, there is political instrumentalisation, everywhere in the world, or at least the danger of this. BUT this is also a catholic and protestant problem. And no reason to skip church - I think in this point we should have the same opinion. I know this will sound maybe not very friendly to some here, but from my point of view, as a european, the catholic world CAF promotes online often SCREAMS politics, just like the evangelical movement in america. I doubt many here can understand the high grade of irritation the close connection of american politics and religion causes in me sometimes. So, not a russian/greek/whatever orthodox problem, just a human problem.
  2. hyperdoxy…it´s something orthodox churches are aware of, I remember our priest telling us that this one big danger in becoming orthodox - he adressed the converts especially here, which is in my eyes very suitable as converting leads often to extremism. It´s maybe more openly viewable in the orthodox faith as there are strong liturgical traditions, but I doubt a converted protestant with less ritualized faith won´t face the same problem of becoming 150% extreme in his faith. How do we deal with this In our case, we were told as converts to try to focus on the meaning of faith. Checking our intentions during lent for example, and, in case of doubt, rather eating something than thinking of food all the time. We were often told that many rules are from the monastic area and we are were given reason and faith to check and skip maybe some of them when we can´t bear them in our daily life.
  3. The argument that orthodox churches are closed ethnical parishes: No, at least not in germany. I attend a russian orthodox parish together with many greek people and german people, our priest was baptised in the japanese orthodox church, the tolerance against other denominations in marriages for example is high. The sowjet diaspora has made some things more human and tolerant for the purpose of the surviving of the faith. There are many orthodox parishes in germany who offer service in multiple languages and are quiet open.
 
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