I have come across some Catholics who put out statements like “the orthodox don’t venerate St Mary as much as we do”. Considering in the Coptic Orthodox Church we have an entire month dedicated to hymns and praises to the Mother of God, that shoots that comment out of the sky.
Also a couple of people have used the words valid and licit sacraments. Whilst I respect Rome explaining of these things, the orthodox (and hopefully eastern Catholics) don’t use such terminology. Some orthodox will use he term valid however, such as the Coptic orthodox patriarchate of Alexandria. For us oriental orthodox, we officially recognise Roman Catholic sacraments as valid, and we have for a very long time. Where the orthodox disagree is we don’t have a concept of valid but illicit.
I would’ve added this but it appears posts have a 6,000 words restriction.
Further to my previous message:
Postscript: an extract from the Nat Geo report about the Most Holy Virgin Mother relating to Zeitoun/ Zaytoun (I think there truly is so much ignorance by those in Western Catholic Church about the East):
AS THE ONLY WOMAN to have her own sura, or chapter, in the Koran, Mary was chosen by God “above all other women of the world,” for her chastity and obedience. As in the Bible, an angel announces her pregnancy to her in the Muslim holy book. But unlike in the Bible, Mary—Maryam—gives birth alone. There’s no Joseph.
“Mary is the purest and most virtuous of all women in the universe,” says Bakr Zaki Awad, dean of the theology faculty at Al Azhar University, Cairo’s leading theological university.
In Egypt I talked with devout Muslims who, because of their reverence for the Virgin Mary, had no qualms about visiting Christian churches and praying to her in church as well as mosque. One day in Cairo I encountered two young Muslim women in head scarves standing in front of the old Coptic Abu Serga church, built over a cave that is said to have been used by the Holy Family. It was the eve of Coptic Easter, and inside, the congregants chanted and prayed for hours. Outside, the women said they loved Mary from studying her in the Koran.
“Her story tells us a lot of things,” Youra, 21, said. “She is able to face lots of hardships in her life because of her faith, her belief in God.” Youra’s friend, Aya, added, “There’s a sura in her name in the Koran, so we were curious what was going on inside the church.”
I met Nabila Badr, 53, at a Coptic church along the Nile in a part of Cairo called Al Adaweya—one of the many places in Egypt where the Holy Family is said to have stopped. Badr is a married mother of three and an events organizer for the governor of a state near Cairo. Along with her Koran, she carries Christian medals of the Virgin Mary in her purse. In a small room in the back of the church Badr mingled with Coptic Christians praying there, lit candle after candle, bowed, and prayed to an icon of Mary on the wall that was claimed to have once wept tears of oil. Badr said she talks to Mary about her life and that Mary has answered her several times by showing her visions in dreams that later came true.
Like many Egyptians, Badr also believes in jinn, or spirits, who influence life for good or bad, although she claims only to have her own angel. “He too believes in the Virgin Mary,” she said. Badr often asks Mary to intercede for her, and she composed a poem to Mary. “When I feel down,” Badr said, “I pray to God very much, but I also consult Mary, and after a while things calm down.”
At St. Mary’s church in Zaytun, a neighborhood in Old Cairo, apparitions of a silent Madonna bathed in white light are said to have appeared at night above the domes of the church for three years, from 1968 to 1971. Glowing white doves sometimes accompanied the apparitions. Yohanna Yassa, a Coptic priest who has ministered at St. Mary’s since 1964, told me that often Muslim women who want to get pregnant come to his church to pray. “Today we had a lady who came for a blessing,” he said. “Mary is calling us spiritually, and because of that, both Muslims and Christians love her and respect her.”
Perhaps they’re willing to overlook things like that as long as someone is sufficiently anti-ecumenism.