Greeks Veto Vatican Visit

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Archbishop Christodoulos to postpone Vatican visit
***The Holy Synod of the Greek Orthodox Church on Friday voted for the postponement of the scheduled visit by Archbishop Christodoulos to the Vatican. Christodoulos, Archbishop of Athens and all Greece, was due to to to meet with the Pontiff on the occassion of a planned visit to Rome where he was to be honoured by the University of Laterano.

62 metropolitan bishops took part in the secret vote, only 15 of whom were in favour of the archbishop’s meeting with Pope John Paul II. 42 out of the 62 officials supported that the conditions for such a meeting were not favourable.

*** Christodoulos did not hide his annoyance regarding the outcome of the vote and when asked by journalists as to whether he continued to beleive that the Greek Church should be more open to progressive ideas, he replied: “What I believed then, I still believe now”.

*** The church High Clergy also re-examined the matter of the ordination of deaconesses, a practice common in the Church during the 4th and 5th centuries which was later faded away. The synod decided that bishops could decide at their own discretion to ordain certain high-ranking nuns if no priest was available, for example in isolated monasteries. It was stressed that the role of deaconesses should be social, for example the granting of last rites to the sick. According to the Archbishop of Peristeri, deaconesses should “play a role in society and not in the monastery”…

ana.gr/anaweb/user/showplain?maindoc=2182957&service=10
 
Ha ha, Sophia! I knew that you would link this story, so I beat you to the punch this morning. Eat my chat-board dust…

😛
 
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GrzeszDeL:
Ha ha, Sophia! I knew that you would link this story, so I beat you to the punch this morning. Eat my chat-board dust…

😛
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Well I looked and looked before I posted because dup posts (coming from the Politics forum where its SOP) drive me wild and so I try to avoid them - that’s okay - my mouth hung open when I read the whole story and I just said to myself - there are moments, if I hadn’t been baptized and catechized, I don’t think I’d join any church instutution anymore. The leadership has problems everywhere it seems.😦
 
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HagiaSophia:
The leadership has problems everywhere it seems.😦
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It’s not a leadership problem. The leadership has to listen to the faithful. You will recall linking to a very useful article once which explained the quite different relationship which operates between the Pope and his Church and the Patriarchs and their Churches. 👍
 
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HagiaSophia:
my mouth hung open when I read the whole story and I just said to myself - there are moments, if I hadn’t been baptized and catechized, I don’t think I’d join any church instutution anymore. (
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Cheer up! The decision not to go to Rome is transient and totally insignificant and overshadowed by the much more important message in that news story—

THE RESTORATION OF DEACONESSES IN THE GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH

This is of much greater impact than a one-off trip to Rome by the Archbishop of Athens. This will impact on the whole Orthodox Church. While we have never entirely lost the office of deaconess, they have been very spare on the ground. Now they will emerge as a regular part of church life.
 
You know, Father, I had wondered why the bit about deaconesses was relegated to a minor side-note at the end. That seemed the much more interesting part of the story to me as well.
 
Fr Ambrose:
It’s not a leadership problem. The leadership has to listen to the faithful. You will recall linking to a very useful article once which explained the quite different relationship which operates between the Pope and his Church and the Patriarchs and their Churches. 👍
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Thanks to you I understood what I read and why he couldnt go - obviously this is how the Orthodox work and so whether I like or not, or whether he was happy about it or not, as a bishop he had to do what he has to do.

My point was that everytime it looks as if the “people of God” look like they are making headway, some wrench falls into the works and sometimes I get the feeling that we are all so captured by rules and regs that it can never happen. I am beginning to despair and so I say, fahgedaboutit.

On the downside of this I see why many people are beginning to turn away from their respective churches for the appeal of some watered down group which says “everyone is welcome - just join up” - the constant inability of all faiths today to weed out the undesirables, the lackluster or the entrenched , not to mention those that took the office but simply offer nothing in leadership is really beginning to affect more and more people that I meet, regardless of affiliation.
 
Hey Fr. Ambrose,

Would the role of deaconess be similar to the role of the extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion in Latin Rite churches?
 
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HagiaSophia:
My point was that everytime it looks as if the “people of God” look like they are making headway, some wrench falls into the works and sometimes I get the feeling that we are all so captured by rules and regs that it can never happen. I am beginning to despair and so I say, fahgedaboutit.

On the downside of this I see why many people are beginning to turn away from their respective churches for the appeal of some watered down group which says “everyone is welcome - just join up” - the constant inability of all faiths today to weed out the undesirables, the lackluster or the entrenched , not to mention those that took the office but simply offer nothing in leadership is really beginning to affect more and more people that I meet, regardless of affiliation.
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I understand and feel the same way. It is like I said in an earlier post that we see these guys arguing like the apostles did when they were arguing as to which one of them was the greatest. However, it is at times that I feel most despair for the fighting in our “family” that God reminds me that I am to love and adore Him for no other reason than that He is good, and leave settling the disputes up to Him. 🙂
 
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WBB:
Would the role of deaconess be similar to the role of the extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion in Latin Rite churches?
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I have to confess that I don’t know very much about extraordinary ministers and I couldn’t make the attempt to compare the two. Well, I *could * make the attempt but I’d probably say a lot of foolish things 😃
 
Fr Ambrose:
It’s not a leadership problem. The leadership has to listen to the faithful. You will recall linking to a very useful article once which explained the quite different relationship which operates between the Pope and his Church and the Patriarchs and their Churches. 👍
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Father,

Thats kind of an odd statement. I thought the faithful were supposed to follow the bishops.

What is the job of a deaconess’s job? What do they do?
 
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jimmy:
Thats kind of an odd statement. I thought the faithful were supposed to follow the bishops.
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Here is a spot on Catholic article on the role and status of Patriarchs, Greek or Russian or wherever in the Orthodox world. An extract from a longer article. Worth a read. Helps to understand many differences between the papal model of authority and the Orthodox one

213.92.16.98/ESW_articolo/0,2393,42030,00.html
What is the job of a deaconess’s job? What do they do?
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Take a look at some of the appropriate articles on this website

"The Historical Orthodox Deaconess"

angelfire.com/pa/deaconess/

 
Fr Ambrose:
Here is a spot on Catholic article on the role and status of Patriarchs, Greek or Russian or wherever in the Orthodox world. An extract from a longer article. Worth a read. Helps to understand many differences between the papal model of authority and the Orthodox one

213.92.16.98/ESW_articolo/0,2393,42030,00.html

Take a look at some of the appropriate articles on this website

"The Historical Orthodox Deaconess"

angelfire.com/pa/deaconess/

http://www.angelfire.com/pa/deaconess/CANDLE.jpg
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My main question about the deaconesses is do they participate in the liturgy?
 
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