Lutherans - What is it that keeps you from becoming Orthodox?

[SyroMalankara]

You would be surprised, however, by the number of people who are able to abide by such a severe rule of life. There are, of course, many who are not yet spiritually healthy enough to endure the fast, but that is a matter which should be left to pastoral accommodation by oikonomia. We shouldn’t abrogate these norms on account of the widespread spiritual sickness of our age, but rather we should seek even harder to uphold them as the standards to which all should strive to achieve. It is much like benchmarks of physical health. Just because America is becoming an increasingly unhealthy society (the rest of the developed world isn’t so far behind unfortunately), we should not therefore modify our benchmarks of physical health so as to indicate that being insulin resistant with a body fat percentage of about 30% is the new standard of health. Obviously with somebody who has a 35% body fat percentage and is nearly diabetic, the former would be a good goal, but that shouldn’t become the new standard of health, no matter how many people are in that position.

The Latin Church has traditionally set a minimum, with the expectation that many will exceed these minimums in consultation with their spiritual director or priest. The Eastern Churches have traditionally set a maximum, with the expectation that many will reduce in consultation with their elder or priest.

If you are going to denounce the Romans for abrogating, the Copts, Syrians, and especially the Ethiopians will denounce your Church for abrogating. The Ethiopians in particular, fast for over 250 days in a year.

 

[a_priori]

I don’t entirely disagree with your sentiment. But again, if I were Orthodox to begin with, then I would stay Orthodox …

I think perhaps the difference between you and I is simply one of parallax. I could never have anticipated the circuitous nature of my path. Hard to say where I would be had my starting point been different. But “God causes all things to work together for good…”

 

[Randy_Carson]

Friday should not only be a day of abstinence, but also a day of fasting, as should Wednesday.

Why?

Are these regulations found in Sacred Scripture? How about Sacred Tradition? If so, then are you claiming that these fasting rules are the Word of God?

Catholics would disagree.

From the Catechism:

80 "Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal."40 Each of them makes present and fruitful in the Church the mystery of Christ, who promised to remain with his own “always, to the close of the age”.41

. . . two distinct modes of transmission

81 "Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit."42

"And [Holy] Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching."43

82 As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, "does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence."44

Apostolic Tradition and ecclesial traditions

83 The Tradition here in question comes from the apostles and hands on what they received from Jesus’ teaching and example and what they learned from the Holy Spirit. The first generation of Christians did not yet have a written New Testament, and the New Testament itself demonstrates the process of living Tradition.

Tradition is to be distinguished from the various theological, disciplinary, liturgical or devotional traditions, born in the local churches over time. These are the particular forms, adapted to different places and times, in which the great Tradition is expressed. In the light of Tradition, these traditions can be retained, modified or even abandoned under the guidance of the Church’s Magisterium.

That said, I’m still hoping for something more concrete on how and when the Eastern churches decided that their priests could sleep with their wives after all.

 

[SyroMalankara]

That said, I’m still hoping for something more concrete on how and when the Eastern churches decided that their priests could sleep with their wives after all.

Randy,

The idea that married men could sleep with their wife, is found in the relations God granted between Adam and Eve. This is further acknowledged and repeated throughout Scripture, culminating in the words of the Apostle St. Paul.

That married men could be ordained up to the Apostle or Bishop is acknowledged by Christ and the Apostles.

That these two intersect repeatedly is fact.

The Church decided at some point to restrict the episcopate to celibates and widowers universally. Particular Churches - Latin, Syriac, Byzantine - have various further restrictions. For example, in the Malankara Syriac Church, bishops are selected not only from celibates/widowers but only professed monastics. Latins generally ordain only celibates to the priesthood, but this has varied in times and places. Byzantines have, at times, allowed married men to become bishop is the wife agrees to separate and join the convent.

 

[KjetilK]

Surely you simply mean not to exclude the West from that statement, considering that the West accepted the position of Constantinople as second and Jerusalem as fifth at least since 869.

Yes, but YOU are the one that keep saying changes due to culture is wrong. I didn’t say that it was necessarily wrong. But if you want to follow your own logic, you would have to reject the primacy of Constantinople.

That would be what is referred to as the principle of accommodation whereby the structuring of the Church in some geographical area can be arranged after the civil structure of that geographical area. It is the same principle which was followed when Milan became the primatial see in Northern Italy after the civil diocese of Italy was split into Italia Annonaria and Italia Suburbicaria, and the same principle found in canon 17 of Chalcedon.

Yes, and it is a change due NOT to theology, but to cultural accommodation.

You would be surprised, however, by the number of people who are able to abide by such a severe rule of life.

And I would bet that number is lower than you think it is. Does the average consumption of alcohol in Russia go down during Lent? Could you perhaps show me the numbers?

Shellfish were not considered by the fathers to be so conducive to the inflaming of the passions. There is, after all, a reason why everybody associates lobster with butter sauce (because it can be terribly bland otherwise). But from an economic perspective, yes, it would better if Christians in this society should abstain from such expensive foodstuffs while fasting in order to have alms to give to the poor.

Yes, and therefore you should CHANGE the rule. Lobster is a luxury now.

 

[Efnouti_Nai_Nan]

The Latin Church has traditionally set a minimum, with the expectation that many will exceed these minimums in consultation with their spiritual director or priest. The Eastern Churches have traditionally set a maximum, with the expectation that many will reduce in consultation with their elder or priest.

If you are going to denounce the Romans for abrogating, the Copts, Syrians, and especially the Ethiopians will denounce your Church for abrogating. The Ethiopians in particular, fast for over 250 days in a year.

Well, I will not. The Copts and the Ethiopians are brothers in this, but I still hope someone can answer the question I asked earlier: What is the spiritual benefit of having almost no fasting? Because I know that we Copts and our brother Ethiopians do not fast just to tell others we fast a lot, but because our fathers (who are also recognized in the West) tell us that this is beneficial in he struggle against the passions and the devil who sends them. I understand that the Latins set a minimum and expect more, and I think this is a good thing, but it does not really explain the thinking behind making the minimum so small. Someone else wrote that Wednesday is not fasting day for Latins since a long time ago. Why did that change? I do not think it would be so bad to return it, since that is probably the first and most basic fast in all Christianity.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Randy,

The idea that married men could sleep with their wife, is found in the relations God granted between Adam and Eve. This is further acknowledged and repeated throughout Scripture, culminating in the words of the Apostle St. Paul.

That married men could be ordained up to the Apostle or Bishop is acknowledged by Christ and the Apostles.

That these two intersect repeatedly is fact.

The Church decided at some point to restrict the episcopate to celibates and widowers universally. Particular Churches - Latin, Syriac, Byzantine - have various further restrictions. For example, in the Malankara Syriac Church, bishops are selected not only from celibates/widowers but only professed monastics. Latins generally ordain only celibates to the priesthood, but this has varied in times and places. Byzantines have, at times, allowed married men to become bishop is the wife agrees to separate and join the convent.

This part I understand. What I’m not clear on is how the EO interpreted the Council of Nicaea’s apparent prohibition on conjugal relations for priests.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Well, I will not. The Copts and the Ethiopians are brothers in this, but I still hope someone can answer the question I asked earlier: What is the spiritual benefit of having almost no fasting? Because I know that we Copts and our brother Ethiopians do not fast just to tell others we fast a lot, but because our fathers (who are also recognized in the West) tell us that this is beneficial in he struggle against the passions and the devil who sends them. I understand that the Latins set a minimum and expect more, and I think this is a good thing, but it does not really explain the thinking behind making the minimum so small. Someone else wrote that Wednesday is not fasting day for Latins since a long time ago. Why did that change? I do not think it would be so bad to return it, since that is probably the first and most basic fast in all Christianity.

And what I keep asking is: who established Wednesday fasts in the first place?

Is it in Sacred Scripture or Sacred Tradition? If so, then you are saying this is divine revelation and not just a discipline.

 

[Efnouti_Nai_Nan]

As far as I know it is established by the apostles as recorded in the Didache, at the end of the first or beginning of the second centuries. Is this a problem?

 

[Randy_Carson]

As far as I know it is established by the apostles as recorded in the Didache, at the end of the first or beginning of the second centuries. Is this a problem?

It’s not a problem, but I’m trying to understand exactly what the authority is behind Wednesday fasting and whether it is a dogma, a doctrine, a discipline or a devotion.

Somethings can change, and some cannot.

 

[KjetilK]

What is the spiritual benefit of having almost no fasting?

And how do you know that there is almost no fasting? And why must one fast specifically from food? What about other things that take up much more of our time - TV, Facebook, etc?