How do Protestants feel about Orthodox Christianity?

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Sixtus

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It has occured to me that groups such as SDA have invested a lot of money and effort demonising the CC. Our Sister Church ‘Orthodox’ seems to escaped unscathed ‘thank God’.

Are the criticisms of the CC not valid to Orthodox?

How do high and low church Protestantism feel about Orthodoxy?

Why does SDA think of Orthodox Christianity?

So too, JW’s
 
Sixtus said:
It has occured to me that groups such as SDA have invested a lot of money and effort demonising the CC. Our Sister Church ‘Orthodox’ seems to escaped unscathed ‘thank God’.

Are the criticisms of the CC not valid to Orthodox?

How do high and low church Protestantism feel about Orthodoxy?

Why does SDA think of Orthodox Christianity?

So too, JW’s
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I am very interested in this also. (being neither Protestant, nor Catholic, nor Orthodox, just confused…)
 
Hi,

You know Im not sure. I have never thought about it before. Maybe because they arent as big or as exposed as the CC. I like the fact that they dont believe in Papal authority. Maybe back in 1052 they saw the writing on the wall and that the power the CC had was starting to corrupt the church so they got out.:confused:

Does the Orthodox claim to be The True Church—The Only True Church that Jesus Established. Im not totally sure what the difference in doctrine is between the two, but maybe protestants feel the Orthodox beliefs are closer to theirs. Please enlighten me:D
 
Im not totally sure what the difference in doctrine is between the two, but maybe protestants feel the Orthodox beliefs are closer to theirs. Please enlighten me
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There are many strands to Orthodoxy just as there are in Protestantism. The differences between them depends upon which strands you are discussing.

Catholic-Orthodox accept Papal infallibility. Non-Orthodox Orthodoxy accepts neither the authority of Rome or Constantinople.

In the main though, there are more similarities than there are differences. Orthodox Christians are probably where Catholicism was at pre-Vatican 2. They do not believe in original sin. They do believe in the Real Presence. The Mass is a lot longer. Their priests are allowed to marry.

There are differences in the liturgical calendar. Catholic Christmas comprises three feasts [25th December-nativity, 6th January Epiphany and 13th January Baptism of the Lord], Orthodox tend to celebrate all three on 6th January.

Orthodox Churches tend to be stricter than Catholic in terms of the moral code[now gonna get hammered by all my CC brothers and sisters]! Orthodox have some very beautiful icons and in the main are very ‘iconic’.

Orthodox shares much history with Catholicism. It is my contention that we are two sides of the same coin.

His late holiness John Paul 2 was very much moved by Orthodox and had a vision of the revival of Christianity in Europe being led by Orthodoxy. He foresaw that the major Christian voice for Christianity in Europe would be an Orthodox one.

As a professed Catholic, there is much that I like in Orthodoxy. I do not see papal infalliblity as a bar to unity, on the contrary see it being expanded to encompass the Patriach’s speaking unified ‘ex-cathedra’ but that is my view and that of lots of other Catholic laity. I have no idea what the offical Catholic position is to such a notion.

There are as said 'many strands so is difficult to relate what the differences are between strands.

Some Orthodox are unified with Rome.

My OWN position is towards Orthodox-Catholic. Hope that helps
 
Sixtus said:
There are many strands to Orthodoxy just as there are in Protestantism. The differences between them depends upon which strands you are discussing.

Catholic-Orthodox accept Papal infallibility. Non-Orthodox Orthodoxy accepts neither the authority of Rome or Constantinople.

In the main though, there are more similarities than there are differences. Orthodox Christians are probably where Catholicism was at pre-Vatican 2. They do not believe in original sin. They do believe in the Real Presence. The Mass is a lot longer. Their priests are allowed to marry.

There are differences in the liturgical calendar. Catholic Christmas comprises three feasts [25th December-nativity, 6th January Epiphany and 13th January Baptism of the Lord], Orthodox tend to celebrate all three on 6th January.

Orthodox Churches tend to be stricter than Catholic in terms of the moral code[now gonna get hammered by all my CC brothers and sisters]! Orthodox have some very beautiful icons and in the main are very ‘iconic’.

Orthodox shares much history with Catholicism. It is my contention that we are two sides of the same coin.

His late holiness John Paul 2 was very much moved by Orthodox and had a vision of the revival of Christianity in Europe being led by Orthodoxy. He foresaw that the major Christian voice for Christianity in Europe would be an Orthodox one.

As a professed Catholic, there is much that I like in Orthodoxy. I do not see papal infalliblity as a bar to unity, on the contrary see it being expanded to encompass the Patriach’s speaking unified ‘ex-cathedra’ but that is my view [and that of lots of other Catholic laity. I have no idea what the offical Catholic position is to such a notion.

There are as said 'many strands so is difficult to relate what the differences are between strands.

Some Orthodox are unified with Rome.

My OWN position is towards Orthodox-Catholic. Hope that helps
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Yes, thank you. I actually just started a thread in Eastern Christianity about what the differnces are.👍
[/quote]
 
My largest areas of disagreement from scripture and early christian history with Catholicism are not an issue with Orthodoxy. The Orthodox are greatly to be admired for their ability to stay unified.
 
I agree with you but a word of caution: as with Catholicism, not everyone bearing the name are unified.

Eg the Lusitanian Orthodox Church only has about a quarter century of history behind it. They were a 1980s derivitive from the Lusitanian Apostolic Evangelical Catholic Church, which is the Portuguese Anglican Church

A pastoral announcement was made - warning people off from this group who were claiming to have acquired apostolic lines and to be celebrating in an Orthodox setting (iconostasis, etc) but according to the Bragan Rite.

The Milanese Apostolic Church is of even more recent fabrication,

the result of a late 1990’s schism that began as a disagreement between Utrecht and the Italian Old Catholic Church and ended with the latter split two or three ways. One maintained ties with the Dutch, a second went its own way - becoming a stand-alone “OC-type” ecclesia, and the third became the MAC. He agrees with Padre Ambrogio that the MAC latched onto some of the Milanese Synod materials and thinks that it probably also took in some of the Synod’s clergy.

The same with 'the Old Catholic Church and the Old Apostolic Catholic Church which are actually modern derivatives who have taken the name Catholic it appears because their beliefs [though very beautiful in some respects] are more in line with CC than Protestant. But most Catholics would regard the Old Catholic Church as just another strand of Protestantism.
 
To return to my original question: the SDA in Worlds Last Chance’ sees JP2 as part of the end times coming of the anti-Christ.

JP2 was very much sympathetic to and a great admirer of Orthodox Christianity. It may be said that he was a Catholic-Orthodox Catholic.

But SDA and Worlds Last Chance have demonised JP2 & CC. They have not theorised on the implications of JP’s Orthodox position. In fact, they are conspicously quiet about Orthodoxy and JP’s relation to it. They have only postulated about JP 2 and his relationship with the CC.

Now if they are attacking the CC and JP2 bcause they are biggots, one can deal with it. But it just does not make sense their silence of Orthodoxy which presumably is not demonised

Does it follow therefore, from a SDA postion JP2 is half anti-Christ and half Christ seeings he is both CC and Orthodox.

I am totally confused SDA criticism of JP2 as the anti Christ appears about as water tight as a collendar.

Can someone please explain it to me:mad: .
 
ALLFORHIM said:
Hi, Im not totally sure what the difference in doctrine is between the two, but maybe protestants feel the Orthodox beliefs are closer to theirs. Please enlighten me:D
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Orthodoxy is even harder to understand for a Protestant than Catholicism, as the latter two use the same theological terminology.

Often Orthodoxy misses being criticized because it is still very unknown in the west. This is especially true in the southern U.S. Most people just don’t know what Orthodox believe. All they know is that the big bad Catholic Church is evil and corrupt;) . Lately, Orthodoxy has been getting the hammer too. Jack Chick couldn’t miss the opportunity to break down the gates and spew out all sorts of misinformed beliefs of the Orthodox Church. In the Roman Catholicism article, there is a link to “Russian Orthodox Catholicism,” where the writer titles it “The Russian Orthodox Cult.” That broke my heart…

Prayers and petitions,
Alexius:cool:
 
Alexius said:
Often Orthodoxy misses being criticized because it is still very unknown in the west. This is especially true in the southern U.S. Most people just don’t know what Orthodox believe.
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I think that is probably true in most parts of the U.S. For instance, in Cleveland, Orthodox Churches tend to be nationality based (Russian, Greek, etc.). Usually people do not belong to an Orthodox Church unless they are of that nationality. I know that used to be true of Catholic Churches too, where you belonged to an Irish, Polish, Italian, etc. parish; even though the Church name was just “Catholic”, everybody from a particular parish was a particular nationality. There still are a few “nationality” parishes left but most now have people of all different ethnic groups. So I think Protestants have ignored the Orthodox because I don’t know too many Russian or Greek Protestants, and they probably just feel that the Orthodox Churches are a Russian or Greek phenomenon.
 
noma said:
Forgive me my exceptional ignorance… SDA? What is this?
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SDA: Seventh-Day Adventist.

By the way, Theodosius Dobzhansky is one of my favorite scientists. 😃 And Eastern Orthodox, to boot.
 
Ahimsa said:
By the way, Theodosius Dobzhansky is one of my favorite scientists. 😃 And Eastern Orthodox, to boot.
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I am glad other people appreciate his contribution to the field of biology, and also to the philosophy of science! He is a very admirable Orthodox Christian.
 
Sixtus said:
His late holiness John Paul 2 was very much moved by Orthodox and had a vision of the revival of Christianity in Europe being led by Orthodoxy. He foresaw that the major Christian voice for Christianity in Europe would be an Orthodox one.
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Yes, wouldn’t this be nice. I just want some Christian group to revive Christianity in Europe, especially an Orthodox or Catholic group. I hope that Orthodoxy will bring the Catholic Countries alive again. For all my predjudices against the Orthodox, there is nothing so better than to have them heal a broken Europe.

Although I hope Orthodoxy does not outdue the Catholicism in Europe.
 
Image_of_God said:
Yes, wouldn’t this be nice. I just want some Christian group to revive Christianity in Europe, especially an Orthodox or Catholic group. I hope that Orthodoxy will bring the Catholic Countries alive again. For all my predjudices against the Orthodox, there is nothing so better than to have them heal a broken Europe.

Although I hope Orthodoxy does not outdue the Catholicism in Europe.
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Isn’t your last sentence at odds with the former paragraph? I would think that Christians would be overjoyed with ANY Christian group healing a broken Europe.

It may be that Christianity has held on too long to traditions that have nothing to do with foundational faith or doctrine. Such traditions may no longer be speaking (or may even be relevant) to a 21st century world. By “majoring in the minors,” we may be undermining the very faith we are supposed to be spreading.
 
Sixtus said:
It has occured to me that groups such as SDA have invested a lot of money and effort demonising the CC. Our Sister Church ‘Orthodox’ seems to escaped unscathed ‘thank God’.

Are the criticisms of the CC not valid to Orthodox?

How do high and low church Protestantism feel about Orthodoxy?
Click to expand...
It is absotively positutely the pope thing. They can’t really single out an Orthodox patriarch to hate. The pope is the Catholic Church personified.

The rest of the world hates America, personified by whoever the president happens to be. So too with the pope.

The pope is the big dog on the porch. Knock him off, you have a shot of being the big dog on the porch yourself.
 
O.S.Luke said:
Isn’t your last sentence at odds with the former paragraph?
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No. The last sentence is my prayer that the goodness of Roman Catholicism will not be lost. In other words, that the Orthodox and Catholics can help each other to understand their faith better.
I have heard of many Catholics who, after seeing the Orthodox, returned to their faith. So, no, it is not at odds. Seeing the Orthodox, I hope, will help some Europeans think more about their Catholic faith.
 
seeing the Orthodox, I hope, will help some Europeans think more about their Catholic faith.
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It is my hope that Europeans will not only think about their Catholic faith but additionally our link with Orthodoxy
 
I’m Lutheran and I’m going to an Antiochian Orthodox church tomorrow. No sitting, head-coverings, the whole deal. I’m very excited.
 
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