armenianchurchwd.com/news/roman-catholic-archbishop-of-los-angeles-the-most-rev-jose-h-gomez-will-be-the-guest-of-honor-at-the-4th-annual-ecumenical-prayer-service/
Quite right, they’re Oriental Orthodox. (Otherwise known as “miaphysites”.)
Although good, the Catholic-OO dialogue is not a new thing. We’re much more docile than our Greek peers.
Get what? From the Catechism:
If ecumenical prayer was good enough for John Paul the Great, that is all the “getting” I need. Common prayer is essential to Christian unity. Christian unity is something we desire, if we unite our hearts with Jesus who greatly desired this unity and prayed specifically for unity before he died. In prayer, we gain a spiritual unity that transcends theological discussion, allowing for love to prevail over all, an important lesson from 1 Corinthians 13.
Yes, something pretty much unique to the COC, and something, IIRC, that has its roots with certain COC bishops being madly in love with MP. I suppose that MP connection dates to the Nasser era in Egypt, when anything Russian was in vogue.
That said, though, isn’t there a movement within the COC to restore the traditional practice?If the affair were strictly OO/EO/RC, personally, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. I have far bigger concerns, however, with the “ecumenical” concept which, these days especially, includes a certain false religion, along with the usual Jewish and Protestant contingents. Those I spurn and will not attend on principle. You know what I mean, so I needn’t say more.
Get that Orthodoxy is not Roman Catholicism or Protestantism, and we should not come together with people of those persuasions while there are still important theological and other points that divide us to the degree that we do not recognize your faiths are being the same as ours. If we wouldn’t commune with you openly under normal circumstances (and we wouldn’t), then we ought not hold prayer services with you, either.
Fair enough for you, and I respect the fact that the CCC is the final word in your world, but John Paul II is not Orthodox, and your communion is not Orthodox, and we in the Orthodox Church needn’t treat anything in the Roman Catholic communion as in way informative of how we should act or what we should or shouldn’t do with others. We shouldn’t have these sorts of prayer meetings. The CCC’s viewpoint has no bearing on the issue.
Indeed, and we can have it after we have unity (cf. the pan-OO services I mentioned earlier), but not before. You don’t drive a car before you can crawl, and you don’t hold concelebrated services of any kind (prayer, liturgy, etc.) before you have sufficient grounds to actually concelebrate. In the Orthodox communion, with the exception of any aberrations you may find, that is understood to be a common faith. Neither of the communions which call themselves Orthodox believe that they share the Orthodox faith with the Roman Catholic communion, much less with Protestants or whoever else is at this abomination.
No. We have our hearts with the Lord, but are not (or should not be) dedicated to false unity of the type promoted here. I won’t speak for any other communion’s view of things, but I am in actual/literal/material unity with the Orthodox Church because I am in spiritual unity with them. You and every other person of another communion are in neither. You want to go from point A to point Z bypassing everything in between that would have you leave your own church for precisely the reasons why those who are committed to Orthodoxy would tell you that you have to if you want to commune with us. Well I’m sorry, but that’s how it works, which is precisely why I’m against this sort of thing in the first place, and have labeled it “jumping the gun”. Did you watch the video of HH Pope Shenouda III I linked in my post? He says “Orthodoxy is Orthodoxy”, and even though we don’t always live up to it as individuals (hence things like this prayer meeting), it’s still true. If you won’t be Orthodox, you shouldn’t be surprised that those who are don’t like things that seem to lend legitimacy to non-Orthodox things that they don’t actually have.
I agree with Malphono. I am all for joint RC / EO / OO prayer services (obviously of a non-Eucharistic form), but I struggle with public services that involve Protestants and others. As a Catholic from a Protestant family I have no problem praying privately with my Protestant loved ones - in fact, they will sometimes let me lead them in Vespers…but I cannot see the value of bishops praying with Protestant ministers whose ordinations we do not even accept. I was quite scandalized by a joint Catholic - Anglican vespers service that was held by about a half dozen bishops of each church in Vancouver a couple years ago- but hey, at least it wasn’t a mass and the service was held in an Anglican Church not a consecrated Catholic temple.Yes, something pretty much unique to the COC, and something, IIRC, that has its roots with certain COC bishops being madly in love with MP. I suppose that MP connection dates to the Nasser era in Egypt, when anything Russian was in vogue.
If the affair were strictly OO/EO/RC, personally, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. I have far bigger concerns, however, with the “ecumenical” concept which, these days especially, includes a certain false religion, along with the usual Jewish and Protestant contingents. Those I spurn and will not attend on principle. You know what I mean, so I needn’t say more.
From what I have read (just on forums from other Copts; I don’t know where to find this kind of information in print), it predates the Nasser era, but anyway, yes, there is a movement to return to the traditional practice. It is being spearheaded most vocally by the British Orthodox Church within the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate. I can see the logic in both approaches, and am personally glad that I was received with the full rite of baptism, but would like to see us return to the earlier way, as the Fathers are to always be our standard.Yes, something pretty much unique to the COC, and something, IIRC, that has its roots with certain COC bishops being madly in love with MP. I suppose that MP connection dates to the Nasser era in Egypt, when anything Russian was in vogue.
I would still have a problem with it on essentially the same grounds, but I guess I’m a curmudgeon. Meh. It would be better (?) to remove those who are even farther from the Orthodox faith in terms of their doctrinal stances, but not in communion is still not in communion.
Indeed, and I agree entirely.I have far bigger concerns, however, with the “ecumenical” concept which, these days especially, includes a certain false religion, along with the usual Jewish and Protestant contingents. Those I spurn and will not attend on principle. You know what I mean, so I needn’t say more.
I would say that “Jesus is Jesus” would be more important. I know what Jesus want. It’s there in John as big as life. He prayed for it. This Armenian Diocese is taking steps toward that. You call it “false” ecumenism, but that is but a word and an opinion. If God hears the unified prayer of His children, there is nothing false about it. Unity will never come about unless we decide we love God more than we want to be by ourselves. How can you wish to never pray with fellow brothers in Christ, coming together with them in the presence of God through prayer, yet you have no compunction about coming here on this Catholic site to argue? I guess those people that belong to Jesus, that want to heal the wounds of disunity to His body, who want to join with Him in His High Priestly Prayer that we all be one, will come together as they are at this Armenian Diocese. Those that don’t will stand to the sidelines.
Yes, and Jesus Christ established the Orthodox Church, and only the Orthodox Church. (You had to have seen this coming…are you sure this is a good direction to take this thread? I’m fine with this being my only such statement, just for the record.)
Hmm. Ordinary life must be very boring for you, then.
Indeed, as do both of our churches. That’s not in doubt.
As opposed to what, exactly? What are you posting? Ohhhh, right…you know what Jesus wants. Well then…I don’t know what to say. Aqabil el-aiyady, ya qods abuna? I guess I’d better become Roman Catholic (again) now. :
In the words of Hank Hill, I’m sure He’s many places He doesn’t want to be. What’s your point? Unless you believe that God hearing something automatically makes it true, I don’t see how you can think this makes any point at all. God, you should know (since you know what He wants), is not unaware of anything, good or bad, so that’s a pretty low standard by which to judge something as true or false (indeed I don’t even see how you can say that there are such things as truth or falsehood, if God hearing them means there’s nothing false. What happens outside of His purview?).
See, I had worried that this is what you would get out of my post (hence why I put in that bit about good ecclesiology for RCCs and Orthodox). I wish I had another way to put it, but there really isn’t one as far as I can see. Believe me, the OO do not want to be by ourselves. I think we’ve had enough of that for about 1600 years and counting. But neither should we compromise anything for the sake of unity with those who do not share our faith. As for coming here to argue, please take note of the fact that this concerns my communion, so this is exactly where you should expect me to say something (which you are free to not read or respond to, if what I write upsets you; I’m not here to upset anyone). There are precious few threads even on this subforum that directly concern me, since most of it is ECs arguing with Latins or Constantinopolitans arguing with ECs, or all three arguing amongst themselves. It is very rare that any OO church comes up in a discussion that doesn’t revolve around their Catholic counterparts. So you’ll have to excuse me if I take exception to your characterization as “arguing”. If I don’t come here and say that this is not a wise move, who will? The rest of you think it is great, but you are not OO so that means that you don’t have the perspective of someone who is actually in communion with the Armenians.
Oh, so now we’re going to comment on someone’s personal commitment to Jesus Christ? That’s a little low, don’t you think? I’ll have you know that I was baptized in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit (with triple immersion, no less), not in the name of being right on the internet. I don’t care about that, ultimately. It’s just that there are no other OO voices here now that Anastasia (who is actually Armenian Orthodox; I wonder what she thinks about this event) doesn’t post here anymore, and I think a critical appraisal is not wrong. I would not go to such an event, but I will not personally condemn those who do.
And? There are evangelicals (in the truest sense of the term) at every Coptic Orthodox liturgy. We are nothing if not evangelical. Probably annoyingly so, if you were to ask the retired couple who showed up to liturgy on Friday in Las Cruces.
No. He established His Church.
In regards to this, yes. I credit this to my ability to read.
Of course not. I did not. I never have. I never will. SO to answer your question, I will not and only you can answer the other part of “we”.
I was using the term “Evangelical” as a proper noun, hence the capitalization.
Yes…His Church, which is the Orthodox Church.
I also can read, but I don’t take it as a defense or sanction of what you apparently do.
And I was using it as an adjective, as is proper.
Language is fun.An evangelical Orthodox. I understand if this is how you view yourself. I do not understand evangelizing here. This should be in the non-Catholic section, or apologetics so this error can be explained.
Where are you seeing evangelism in anything I have written? I presume you know the Gospel and are quite happy with the explanations of it you have been given in the RCC. This thread is not about that.
Tfeh. Or as the Egyptians put it, efffffff. I see more Christian brotherhood (and of a better type) in my inbox here on CAF, or sometimes in the prayer intentions here. I suppose if I could only see unity being strived towards via events like this, I could be more sympathetic to your viewpoint, but honestly I think these kinds of things make a mockery of the concept of unity by presuming that we are further along in that quest than we really are. It’s really a step backwards, so it’s because I want unity (of the type where we share of one cup, in common recognition of one Lord, one faith, and one baptism) that I am against these things that appear to manifest it but do not.
Ecumenical relations in Los Angeles have been really good over the years, especially with Rt. Rev. Alexei Smith. When the St. Thomas the Apostle parish burned down in the late 90s, the St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral next door welcomed their Catholic brethren to use the cathedral space for Mass while they were in the process of rebuilding. Also, back in June 2005 when H.H. Karekin II visited Los Angeles, Cardinal Mahony allowed the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels to be used for their Divine Liturgy.
