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Peter_J
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P.S. Just a general request to anyone reading this thread: please pray for me to have greater patience. I really feel like it’s starting to wear thin.
Thank you, and good night.
Thank you, and good night.
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Louie1983
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trophybearer
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I find the times where I decide to stay from internet forums on both Catholicism and Orthodoxy I feel MUCH more at peace… I know the feeling. My priest was told in seminary by an older priest that internet forums were spiritually as bad as porn- and he seemed to agree. I though this stance sounded like a bit much but sometimes I wonder…
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Hesychios
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That’s fine.
I respectfully disagree with you as well, but I have come to see you as a good spirit
I don’t expect people to agree with me, I just say my part. After all, if we all thought alike this place would be too boring for me and I would not be here typing away late at night. :compcoff:
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Louie1983
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Hehehehehe, god bless you michael! and thankyou! You to are also a good spirit!That’s fine.
I respectfully disagree with you as well, but I have come to see you as a good spirit
I don’t expect people to agree with me, I just say my part. After all, if we all thought alike this place would be too boring for me and I would not be here typing away late at night. :compcoff:
God bless you for saying your part because i greately respect your position an opinion.
I can’t say that i’m up late because i live in Sydney, Australia and it’s currently 3.40 p.m.
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eOxy
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Well, ability to understand is a good way to start digging why filioque is a heresy.
God is beyond human ability of comprahension. We don’t know him by reason apart from a vague foreknowledge that He exists.
Yet, He revealed Himself to us to the extent needed for our salvation. That is writen in Old and New Testament. That is how we know He is the Holy Trinity. We also know that Father beggets the Son and that Holy Spirit proceeds from Father. That’s writen in New Testament. That’s how it’s revealed to us. We also know that Jesus Christ (both Son and human) sent us (in time, when He was walking on Earth) Holy Spirit/Paracletos.
But, nothing is revealed about the ethernal relation between Son (when he was not Incarnate, even before time) and Holy Spirit. The base for dobule procession is in human wisdom, it is a fall to Hellenic and Judaic thought.
While I’ve heard many times filioque doesn’t mean double procession, such a claim is historically false (see council of Lyons), but more important it doesn’t pass the linguistic test.
Filioque does allow and doesn’t exclude the double procession meaning, and at least some of the Latins are blunt and fair enough to admit they do mean double procession, as they have as from 1014.
I hope the above may help you to gain better understanding of the foundation of Orthodox complaint against it and why is it the greatest (unsurmountable?) obstacle between RCs and OCs.
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Peter_J
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Hi trophybearer,I find the times where I decide to stay from internet forums on both Catholicism and Orthodoxy I feel MUCH more at peace… I know the feeling. My priest was told in seminary by an older priest that internet forums were spiritually as bad as porn- and he seemed to agree. I though this stance sounded like a bit much but sometimes I wonder…
Let me start by saying, after posting this I’m going to unsubscribe from this thread. I realize this probably seems like – in fact, probably is – “taking the easy way out”. Nevertheless, I thinks it’s for the best. Being on this thread just feels way too much like being “stalked”.
Having said that, I want to comment that the I do think the “internet-forums-as-bad-as-porn” stance is too strong. I guess it’s one of those cases where the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Not that that’s the topic of this thread. (Perhaps one of these days we should have a thread have how good or bad internet discussion forums actually are.
)
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Mickey
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Wow! You are a psychic!
LOL!
If I allow your lack of charity on this forum to adversely affect my health…then I have some seroius issues!
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JohnVIII
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I think that the most correct Ecumenical Council there ever was, was the 2nd. The Pope didn’t have anything at all to do with that one so he never had a chance to mess it up! (I’m only saying this because I do believe Pope Leo messed up the 4th Ecumenical!)
Many Orthodox do say there was an Eighth and a Ninth Ecumenical Council
geocities.com/trvalentine/orthodox/8-9synods.html
If you “exclude the double procession meaning” then it no longer helps to fight Arianism!
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dvdjs
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I think I understand one church subsuming another.
That is what happened with the Orthodox church subsuming the Greek Catholics in Western Ukraine and Czechoslovakia after WWII, and before that in other parts of the Ukraine and Belarus. While our relationship with Rome has had its challenges, subsuming wasn’t among them; we remain as particular churches.
Overcoming this mote/log problem might help reunification.
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dvdjs
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How interesting to try to make this a problem. First, both Eastern and Western Catholics accept each other’s expression of faith. We would not be in communion otherwise. Does each member of each church fully understand these expressions? Of course not. Probably not even those of their own Church. So what? I suppose it is a comfort to those who study books on religion to think that that scholarly approach is somehow a sine qua non of Christianity. But Christ gave us an explicit teaching on how, in the end, we will be judged - and scholarship was not one of His criteria.
Is it possible to co-exist with “different sets of opinions”?
I work in the field of chemistry, and in the sub-field of physical chemistry. I can assure that there are categories, concepts and models used within my sub-field that are not well understood by organic chemists, or inorganic chemists. And these latter groups use ideas that I find useless in my own work, and moreover, view with some skepticism, as being not yet well grounded in fundamentals. But we all live and work in the same community and have a common sense of the beauty of each other’s work and the significance of each other’s contributions. We all understand that we are typically providing limited, but useful (we hope) expressions of a more complex reality. Thus, no serious scientist would waste any time nit-picking over categories, concepts and models used by others.
There is a limit to this collegiality, of course. Logically contradictory ideas, mutually exclusive ideas cannot both be right, and must ultimately give way to some better understanding. But from our history we learn that this usually means revisiting hidden assumptions and interpretations, and refining our categories, concepts and models. It is not about winning the argument, but about trying, humbly, to find the truth. Consider the great irony in atomic theory: the atomic nature of matter was fully realized only when we cut atoms.
In the same way, Catholics can be inspired by the beauty of each other’s traditions and its manifest fruit. We can enrich and refine our own understanding through our interactions with each other. But those who want to reduce the discussion to facile questions like: “purgatory yes or no”, are just wasting time, and not advancing anything at all.
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oneGODoneCHURCH
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Volodymyr
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ARCHBISHOP ILARION SPEAKS OF GREAT SCHISM
July Issue Religia is article by Archbishop Ilarion, who is head of department of extra-ecclesial relations of the Russian Orthodox church. At end of article he says:
It is not valuable to nourish the hope of a quick attainment by the two Churches of doctrinal agreement. Long years of controversy have left after them too heavy an inheritance. This inheritancne will make itself knownn for long time. The work of the Mixed Comission will not be easy and obviously will continue for many years. At the same time, already now there exists clear recognition that Roman Catolic and Orthodox churches are united by much especially in the area of Social and Ethical problems. Now in these spheres cooperation between two churches attains a special significance and meaning in the area of secularization which is shaking Europe in the first line. Namely in Europe the attack of militant secularism against religion attains most aggressive form. Europe fanatically denies its particular Christian inheritance, Precisely in Europe a profound demographic crisis has overcome the Christian population placing under threat its very existence in the future. In Christian cirlcles, there is more widely held the conviction of the necessity for Orthodox and Catolics together to defend traditional Christian values in Europe, which risk completely loss of centuries old Christian identity.
To Orthodox and to Catolics today it is necessary to have answer following question: not being Unitary Church, can we learn to act like Unitary structure in the face of the outside world? Recent examples show that we can. Papa Ioann Pavel II, speaking about Unitary of Church, loved to use th metaphore of Russian poet and philosof Vjacheslav Ivanov about necessity for Christianity to breath with two lungs - Western and Eastern. In our days, this Ivanov metaphore is often used precisely in Europe and regarding European Christianity. We can say that Europe today as never before needs the cooperative work of both lungs - Roman Catolic and Orthodox churches which are called to coordinate their efforts for the defense of traditional Christianity and the spiritual health of society. ,
July Issue Religia is article by Archbishop Ilarion, who is head of department of extra-ecclesial relations of the Russian Orthodox church. At end of article he says:
It is not valuable to nourish the hope of a quick attainment by the two Churches of doctrinal agreement. Long years of controversy have left after them too heavy an inheritance. This inheritancne will make itself knownn for long time. The work of the Mixed Comission will not be easy and obviously will continue for many years. At the same time, already now there exists clear recognition that Roman Catolic and Orthodox churches are united by much especially in the area of Social and Ethical problems. Now in these spheres cooperation between two churches attains a special significance and meaning in the area of secularization which is shaking Europe in the first line. Namely in Europe the attack of militant secularism against religion attains most aggressive form. Europe fanatically denies its particular Christian inheritance, Precisely in Europe a profound demographic crisis has overcome the Christian population placing under threat its very existence in the future. In Christian cirlcles, there is more widely held the conviction of the necessity for Orthodox and Catolics together to defend traditional Christian values in Europe, which risk completely loss of centuries old Christian identity.
To Orthodox and to Catolics today it is necessary to have answer following question: not being Unitary Church, can we learn to act like Unitary structure in the face of the outside world? Recent examples show that we can. Papa Ioann Pavel II, speaking about Unitary of Church, loved to use th metaphore of Russian poet and philosof Vjacheslav Ivanov about necessity for Christianity to breath with two lungs - Western and Eastern. In our days, this Ivanov metaphore is often used precisely in Europe and regarding European Christianity. We can say that Europe today as never before needs the cooperative work of both lungs - Roman Catolic and Orthodox churches which are called to coordinate their efforts for the defense of traditional Christianity and the spiritual health of society. ,
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dzheremi
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I agree completely with the statement by the archbishop. Thanks for posting it, Volodymyr.
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bobzills
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My reading of this is that Archbishop Ilarion speaks of the value of cooperation between the RCC and the EO Churches, but does not speak of the reunion of the the two Churches. Everyone agrees with cooperation, but the disagreement is on the way to achieve full communion. As has already been pointed out, there are big problems for the Orthodox with accepting the RCC teaching on the universal jurisdiction, authority and infalliblity of the Pope. There are of course, other problems too, such as the filioque and the Mary doctrines, Purgatory, orginal sin and indulgences, and as well the current state of the Roman Catholic liturgy. OF. These are things that might present a problem to the Orthodox. For the Catholics, they might see the acceptance of divorce and birth control by the Orthodox as a problem.
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JohnVIII
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If this is the same Bishop Ilarion I think it is, it is a proven fact that he is a member of the KGB.
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Volodymyr
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This is the most absurd statement yet on this sait. Archbishop Ilarion was only 24 years old when Soviet Union fell. This kind of falsification and slander has very anti-Orthodox sentiment and makes cooperation difficult.
Certainly all agree with cooperation. All agree with virtue, but not all are virtuous.
Not all cooperate - this is true from both sides. Many like too much just to sit back and feel so holy that they are American Catolics while all Orthodox are former KGB agents. It is more “fun” to argue than to cooperate for many.
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JohnVIII
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Is he the same bishop that was banished to Australia by Metropolitan Vitaly in the 1990’s? If so his name was listed as being with the KGB from intelligence work from the Israeli military. - Sorry!
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ronyodish
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JohnVIII,
I believe Volodymyr is referring to Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev. He was elected bishop in 2001.
God bless,
Rony
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Gabriel_of_12
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Gabriel of 12;
I dont think you are speaking from the orthodox position for unification, you are reminding us why you remain in schism with the Chair Peter. If I were to argue the Roman Catholic position in rebuttle does no justice to the topic except reveal “Pride of men”. The only one who will settle this matter in my opinion is “Our blessed Mother” between brothers.
Hail Mary full of Grace…
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