D
Deacon_JAR
Guest
May the Peace of our Lord be with you. I praise the Lord for the wisdom and insight He has given you. Continue to propagate the Peace and Love of Christ.
- Status
J
JohnAlexander
Guest
Something to consider
Do you really think Jesus meant for there to be all the divisions in Christianity that we see today?
The divisions we see today are not new. They were there from the very beginning. To paraphrase St. Paul in 1 Corinthians.
Divisions in the Church
10 I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. 11My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. 12What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Luther”; another, “I follow Calvin”; still another, “I follow Christ.”
Do people seriously think that Lutheranism is what Jesus wanted to institute? I don’t think anyone believes that. Protestants all seem to believe that all forms of Protestantism are more or less valid, Lutheranism being one of the available choices. But this type of fractured Christendom is definitely not what Jesus had in mind.
Do you really think Jesus meant for there to be all the divisions in Christianity that we see today?
The divisions we see today are not new. They were there from the very beginning. To paraphrase St. Paul in 1 Corinthians.
Divisions in the Church
10 I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. 11My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. 12What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Luther”; another, “I follow Calvin”; still another, “I follow Christ.”
Do people seriously think that Lutheranism is what Jesus wanted to institute? I don’t think anyone believes that. Protestants all seem to believe that all forms of Protestantism are more or less valid, Lutheranism being one of the available choices. But this type of fractured Christendom is definitely not what Jesus had in mind.
V
VetA
Guest
^that
also my view on many (not all) protestant/non-denom. “churches” is that they just got mad about about what the true church was teaching and subsequently decided to go make another denomination instead of actually trying to address the problems they had.
that being said not always did the church choose to follow the holy Spirit instead they decided to follow mammon but fortunately within the last two centuries we seem to have gotten rid of most of that.
S
Saint_Dismas
Guest
Read the Church Fathers who were disciples of the Apostles, and disciples of the disciples of the Apostles and you will hear them saying Catholic! Catholic! Catholic!
God Bless
C
Contarini
Guest
Mostly I tried to ensure that students understood what he was saying, which was a challenge. I cautioned that this was a polemical view and that there were other ways of looking at the issue, but I wasn’t primarily concerned to evaluate him.
When we read Gregory Palamas later, I did point out that Palamas explicitly endorses what most Orthodox scholars criticize as the Augustinian view that the Holy Spirit is the bond of love between the Father and the Son (though Palamas goes out of his way to insist that this doesn’t imply the Filioque).
But I’d have to say that teaching this course has pushed me much closer to agreeing with Palamite theology over against the Augustinian/Thomist view. I have tended in the past to dismiss the Orthodox claims that one of these can really be determined to be right and the other wrong. But perhaps because interaction with open theists has forced me to think harder about the problems with the traditional Western view of God, I’m wondering if the essence/energies distinction (and perhaps the Filioque as well) may not be a lot more important than I have been willing to admit.
Edwin
C
Contarini
Guest
I agree with you that salvation is by grace and not by getting all your theology right. At the same time, your own Church is certainly a dogmatic Church which believes that orthodoxy is very important. You just deem this particular issue unimportant. Why? It seems to me that this is a lot more important than many of the issues that Catholics consider essential, such as the Immaculate Conception.
Edwin
L
Lypher
Guest
Onifir,
I was raised LCMS and am converting to Catholicism. I would not go Orthodox for the simple reason that I now believe that the Papacy is needed and correct. All Churches that have ignored this have continued to split. I want to attend an Eastern Rite Catholic Church as I might very well get confirmed there instead of the Latin Rite. I do not yet know.
My journey began with attending Mass with my Catholic wife about 13 years ago. I went back and forth, but about two years ago I really started to read a lot of the writings of Martin Luther and then Old Encyclicals and new ones.
I know a lot of people have issues with the Churches teaching on contraception, and I actually thought it was foolish in my youth, but I did not understand why they thought this. Once I read Humanae Vitae I had a V8 moment and realized that Pope Paul VI predicted the mess we are now in. Martin Luther also thought it was evil and yet I was never taught that he felt this way. In any event I think the Catholic Church is the right path. Orthodoxy is very close, but they do not have the Pope and Magisterium to guide them and I think it hurts them.
C
Contarini
Guest
How have the Orthodox “continued to split”?
I also question whether the Orthodox reduction of the Papacy to a purely human institution (at least this is a common position) is correct, but I don’t see how you can deny that they have maintained their unity and their faith for close to a thousand years without the Pope!
Edwin
N
Non_Serviam
Guest
It seems you paraphrased a bit too much-in Paul’s original there was an individual that one exclusive faction had gathered around, and of all the people Paul mentioned he is the only one that still has a faction gathered around him.
Any reason why Cephas/Peter didn’t make it into your paraphrase?
S
Saint_Castulus
Guest
good point…thank you!Explain to me how the fathers denounce Orthodoxy when we were in communion with the Latin Church at the time. You’re mistaken, brother. No worries, do some reading about the history of the Church. Yes, it’s a long, interesting history and way more complicated than you ever imagined. Take courage!
S
Saint_Castulus
Guest
please forgive us? so many Catholics of different opinions, I defer to the Catholic catechism as to filter out personal opinionsCan you all please stop?! You’re kind of upsetting me. If I knew the thread would end up like this, I’d just never post at all. My God, and you call yourselves followers of Jesus. Where is your love?! Come on! Do doctrinal differences really give you the right to act mean? Please, for God’s sake, Stop! You are all making fools of yourself.
A
Alveus_Lacuna
Guest
I just wanted to jump back in and say that it’s often hard for people to see the unity when there are various Patriarchates and national churches. They also confuse us with the “Oriental” Orthodox, or think we are somehow related to them, when in fact they split from the united Church long before the East-West schism. Additionally, Orthodoxy tends to have occasional “breaking of communion” over various issues, for example the communist regimes dividing the churches in the last century and forcing underground churches to start up. This might seem unusual to those with the Vatican who are used to having it “nice and tidy”, of course this is not always the case in the West either, for example points in history when rival popes have been elected or popes have fallen into heresy. Those who separate always come back around, with a few stragglers perhaps perpetually existing. Rome has these as well; they are called Protestants!
Also, don’t forget that the title “Pope” first appeared in Alexandria and was taken by the Western Patriarch. This title is still denied to the head of the Coptic sui juris church in the Vatican’s communion, and in fact Rome only recognized a Patriarchate in Alexandria at all in 1895 since the schism.
The point is that the unity is at the chalice, and that we Orthodox all share the same faith and liturgy. We are one, we are holy, we are Catholic, and we are apostolic.
A
Aramis
Guest
In the late 20th C: The Ukrainian Orthodox have split into at least 4 jurisdictions. The Romanian Orthodox are in questionable status with the rest of Orthodoxy.
The previous Muscovite Patriarch made strong implied threats to excommunicate the Ecumenical Patriarch over dialog with Pope Benedict. Mount Athos had several monasteries publicly refuse to commemorate the EP, as well, for a period of several months.
The Antiochean Orthodox had a major shakeup over changes in ecclesiology in the US… and still holds on to an interesting ecclesiological structure. It very nearly came to schism. The reaction on Catholic and Orthodox chat sites was impressive… and several bishops spoke out against the uncanonical approach of the Antiochean Orthodox Church… where diocesan bishops are auxiliary bishops to their metropolitan, and thus have no vote in synod, and are merely vicars for the metropolitan… essentially deaneries with auxiliary bishops as deans.
At least one canonical jurisdiction is not in communion with all of the Autocephalous churches, but is with some.
The Russian Orthodox had, by tradition, the right to be the Orthodox church of the United States… as the first Orthodox Church in the country. And yet, there are currently at least 5 canonical jurisdictions (OCA/RO, ROCOR, GOA, AOC, ACROD) just counting the EO. They certainly didn’t start acting in any unified manner in North America until the mid-to-late 20th Century… and even then, very quietly and minimally.
A great many of the Orthodox apologists on line reject that the excommunication and anathemas by the EP over the Filioque have been lifted by the current EP. And reject the participants in the Ravenna Conference (sent by their synods) agreement to the released agreements represent Orthodoxy in any way. And while the signed agreements have been signed by the majority, they have never been universally accepted.
Orthodoxy isn’t united as as much as it hasn’t split far enough apart for the casual observer to notice… but the cracks are centuries old, and deep, tho not yet wide.
T
tdgesq
Guest
Everybody has made fools of themselves? I think we chalk that up to hyperbole. Yes, we are all followers of Jesus, and you were warned early on that this was likely going to become a heated debate. I make no apologies for my Catholic or Orthodox brethren here for expressing their views. Your post was a good one. It is okay for folks to disagree.Can you all please stop?! You’re kind of upsetting me. If I knew the thread would end up like this, I’d just never post at all. My God, and you call yourselves followers of Jesus. Where is your love?! Come on! Do doctrinal differences really give you the right to act mean? Please, for God’s sake, Stop! You are all making fools of yourself.
D
dvdjs
Guest
When did sharing the same liturgy become a significant aspect of unity?
S
steve_b
Guest
just a question. Do you know if the ROCOR ever reconciled with the ROC?
H
Hesychios
Guest
Yes, it did.
The decision was made in 2005 and finalized in 2006.
There were also two Serbian Orthodox jurisdictions in the USA as a result of Communist control of Yugoslavia and the Patriarchate reorganizing the diocesan structure. The diocese of New Gračanica reintegrated with the other dioceses a few years ago, certainly before the ROCOR reconciliation (probably before 2000) but I don’t know exactly when.
S
steve_b
Guest
J
jbm0117
Guest
Study and read the early church fathers…only you can make this choice.
C
Contarini
Guest
The evidence you presented actually points in exactly the opposite direction. The splits you describe are not “deep” at all, and the fact that they are centuries old undercuts, perhaps even demolishes your position.
Compare Protestantism. In Protestantism splits routinely lead to other splits in an almost exponential fashion. And once splits happen, they are very hard to heal. The Orthodox have been excommunicating and quarreling with each other ever since–well, ever since the early Church. The kind of behavior you describe happened in the centuries of the “undivided” Church quite frequently. The Meletian schism is one famous example, in which Rome turned out to be on the “wrong” side (if you don’t believe me, check the Catholic Encyclopedia).
If a time traveler could hop through the history of the Church centuries at a time, he/she would find in the fourth century quarreling Christians who more or less acknowledged each other as part of one Catholic Church but had a rather creaky system for enforcing this unity. The traveler could then hop to the seventh century–same thing. Then to the eleventh–same thing, and one of the big quarrels (not for the first time) would be between East and West. Then to the fifteenth, in which it looked as if that quarrel was being made up. Then to the nineteenth, by which time it would be clear that the Western Catholic Church had not only divided from the East but had itself divided into a monolithic, ultra-centralized structure and an abundance of quarreling sects. The Orthodox, on the other hand, would be functioning much as their forebears had done back in the fourth century.
I’m putting the Orthodox case. I recognize that there’s a case on the other side. For instance, one can question whether this “creaky” jurisdictional structure is a good thing in itself, and one can certainly question whether it is more important than union with the See of Rome.
Furthermore, it is certainly conceivable that some of the current quarrels in Orthodoxy will turn out to be genuinely “deep cracks” of the kind that opened in the early second millennium between East and West, even though initially it looked like just another temporary quarrel. But a case could be made that that particular crack was so deep because of the intransigent, legalistic absolutism of the Western Church.
My point in all of this is that the unity of the Orthodox, in spite or because of their habitual quarrelsomeness, is impressive. They have maintained recognizably the same Faith, and with the exception of the Old Believers’ schism and possibly the Old Calendar schism (I think the jury is out on how deep that one goes) recognizably a united faith, for nearly a thousand years without Rome. The fact that they have been excommunicating each other right left and center for much of that time is distressing, but only underlines their immense difference from Protestantism and the fact that something keeps them together in spite of all the tiffs.
Edwin
- Status