Russian Orthodox statement on The Church of England's decision to allow female bishops

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Perhaps it is the difference between Western society and a mindset that clings to primitive notions. I certainly would not compare Russia to England in terms of intellectual and progressive acceptance and understanding.
Please forgive my nastiness 😦

Its like I was writing one thing and thinking something else. My personal dislike of Putin and what the Russians have been doing lately created an anger with everything Russian.

A bit emotional.

Maybe a thread on how the Church reflects on the government would be worth asking. There are Orthodox countries as well as Catholic, Lutheran and Anglican countries. Is there a connection to Church and State regarding polity?
 
Please forgive my nastiness 😦

Its like I was writing one thing and thinking something else. My personal dislike of Putin and what the Russians have been doing lately created an anger with everything Russian.

A bit emotional.

Maybe a thread on how the Church reflects on the government would be worth asking. There are Orthodox countries as well as Catholic, Lutheran and Anglican countries. Is there a connection to Church and State regarding polity?
In true charity, you should be patient with Russians, they have gone from an absolute monarch, to a brutal dictatorship, to a “democratically” elected autocrat and open markets. They don’t understand how to operate a Republic.
 
In true charity, you should be patient with Russians, they have gone from an absolute monarch, to a brutal dictatorship, to a “democratically” elected autocrat and open markets. They don’t understand how to operate a Republic.
Well, the Americans have had 238 years of experience and neither do they, so, I guess, getting it right is not so easy, after all.
 
Well, the Americans have had 238 years of experience and neither do they, so, I guess, getting it right is not so easy, after all.
I think Americans have understood at some points and but it is being exploited right now which is very concerning to a lot of Americans, myself included. Russians operate with a far more Darwinian mentality, then Americans do. The strong and aggressive survive and succeed and one of the more unfortunate things is that women especially during the Soviet era exploited themselves whether is with their bodies or by their revealing clothing and mentality to survive or to help their families survive. The physically beautiful always had an advantage, which every society can say to some extent but more Christian countries accept the interior of a person equally important (although I will say a lot of men will deal with a physical beauty that is a 10 that has about a 5 or 6 personality). This is starting to go away as Russian women become more educated and have their own wealth and freedom but the physical appearance and let’s say using that as an advantage is still very prevalent much more so than their American counterparts. I went to a wedding and the families of the bride and groom were asked to wear light blue along with the bridal party. The groom was American the bride was Russian, doesn’t the bride’s mother show up in an ill fitted fire engine red low cut dress.
 
In true charity, you should be patient with Russians, they have gone from an absolute monarch, to a brutal dictatorship, to a “democratically” elected autocrat and open markets. They don’t understand how to operate a Republic.
Perhaps they do not want a Republic. But then I don’t hold to the Enlightenment era idea that people will always act rationally (it assumes a Pelagian anthropology), so that wouldn’t bother me if it were the case.
 
I think Americans have understood at some points and but it is being exploited right now which is very concerning to a lot of Americans, myself included. Russians operate with a far more Darwinian mentality, then Americans do. The strong and aggressive survive and succeed and one of the more unfortunate things is that women especially during the Soviet era exploited themselves whether is with their bodies or by their revealing clothing and mentality to survive or to help their families survive. The physically beautiful always had an advantage, which every society can say to some extent but more Christian countries accept the interior of a person equally important (although I will say a lot of men will deal with a physical beauty that is a 10 that has about a 5 or 6 personality). This is starting to go away as Russian women become more educated and have their own wealth and freedom but the physical appearance and let’s say using that as an advantage is still very prevalent much more so than their American counterparts. I went to a wedding and the families of the bride and groom were asked to wear light blue along with the bridal party. The groom was American the bride was Russian, doesn’t the bride’s mother show up in an ill fitted fire engine red low cut dress.
There are enough American women who flaunt their physical appearance. At least it looks very much that way when I glance at the tabloids at the local American supermarket.
 
How did we get from “This is what the ROC said about the CoE decision to ordain women as bishops” to “The West/the Americans are somehow mentally (?) better or more civilized people than the Russians”? After all, look at how my one example of how they dress must say everything about their mentality, culture, and values!

This thread is bananas. It would behoove every American spouting off this ерунда to spend some time, maybe even a lot of time, to get to know Russians and gain an appreciation of their culture rather than engaging in stereotyping based on their amateur sociology reports on the Soviet mentality and what life must’ve been like in those times. That is not modern Russia, and even if it were, the cultural roots of the Russian mentality that is being pontificated about in this thread by know-nothings are much, much older than Soviet blip on the thousand-year-plus timeline of what has historically constituted Russia and the other East Slavic states.

Personally I find much to admire in many aspects of Russian culture, though I will admit that much of it does not sit well with the American mentality of hyper-individualism, selfishness, materialism, the modern cult of the protected class/dizzingly specific and weird identity politics, egotism, etc. (And before you all jump on me for not loving 'Murica enough, I am an American and by and large I think America is a pretty good place. I mean…it’s where I keep all my stuff, so it can’t be that bad. ;))
 
There was hope that one day maybe even the Anglicans could be recognized as being Orthodox.
To be really blunt, any such hope was misplaced. We are a democratic confederation of autonomous provinces, within many of which the individual dioceses are also effectively autonomous. Therefore, there exists within Anglicanism no centralised body which can mandate belief, and so there is no one who could bring Anglican belief into line with Orthodox belief. The only way that Anglicans could have become Orthodox is by a spontaneous movement of the Holy Spirit to change how individual Anglicans believe.
That time has gone and now it’s just going to waste away into a post-Christian new age religion of some kind. Tragic.
I would not bet on that one. As numerous studies in the sociology of religion have pointed out, systems like Anglicanism are changing - and particularly becoming extra-ecclesiastical - but they are not disappearing.
 
What do you mean by “extra-ecclesiastical”? The Anglican Church is changing into something that is not a church? It is a transformer?


The newest Anglican bishop? :confused:
 
What do you mean by “extra-ecclesiastical”? The Anglican Church is changing into something that is not a church? It is a transformer?
In a way, yes.

One of the things which we have managed to chart in relation to various Christian groups is that people are departing from church but not necessarily from faith. For example, a couple of recent UK surveys have found that 50% of self-identifying Anglicans do not go to church, but still believe in the Gospel.

We cannot yet determine what this implies for the future, but it demonstrates that decentralisation and even de-churching do not necessarily correlate with loss of belief.
 
In a way, yes.

One of the things which we have managed to chart in relation to various Christian groups is that people are departing from church but not necessarily from faith. For example, a couple of recent UK surveys have found that 50% of self-identifying Anglicans do not go to church, but still believe in the Gospel.

We cannot yet determine what this implies for the future, but it demonstrates that decentralisation and even de-churching do not necessarily correlate with loss of belief.
I respect your stance that as a church you cannot determine what these changes mean, but what do you as an individual Anglican think of them?

Not to impugn the belief of anyone in any particular church, but I can’t help but think of the passage in James that says that even the demons believe and tremble…based on that, I would think that belief itself is a rather low standard by which to claim affiliation with anything.
 
I think the Western Church is actively involved in the world. The holy Father prays and pleads for peace in the many conflicts all over the world. Does the Pope also speak for the Orthodox Church?
 
Why would the Pope of Rome, who is not a part of the Orthodox Church, speak for the Orthodox Church?
 
My personal belief in the Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue on the papacy is that Lutherans yeild to Francis. Our religious communities daily pray for the Pope and in some parishes.

There are wonderful accords between Rome and the Eastern Church:
For Catholics, the convocation of the Second Vatican Council at which Orthodox observers were present marked a new beginning. A positive evaluation of the eastern tradition is found in the Council documents, especially Unitatis Redintegratio. Most importantly, it clearly states that the Orthodox are “churches” in the full sense of the word, and that they have valid sacraments. This laid the foundation for the development of an ecclesiology of communion and the notion that Catholics and Orthodox are “sister churches.”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_International_Commission_for_Theological_Dialogue_Between_the_Catholic_Church_and_the_Orthodox_Church
 
This notes disagreement between Orthodox and the Holy See
Catholic, Orthodox Churches to try to overcome millennium-long disagreement
Moscow, September 22, Interfax – A joint international commission on dialogue between the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, which began in Vienna on Tuesday, will discuss the Pope’s primacy in the first millennium.
“This is the most complicated subject in the dialogue between the Orthodox and the Catholics, because the attitude toward the bishop of Rome’s ministering is key for the modern Catholic Church,” Hegumen Philipp (Ryabykh) representing the Russian Orthodox Church at the session told Interfax.
The presumption that the Pope has ecumenical jurisdiction goes against Orthodox ecclesiology, which teaches that, while the Orthodox Church preserves unity of faith and church governance, it still consists of several local churches, Father Philipp said, who is a deputy head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations.
The Vienna session continues the discussion that was started in Cyprus in 2009.
“A draft document was drawn up for the commission’s session last year, and the commission started to consider it but did not finish this process, as the Orthodox had a lot of objections to this text. We expect that the discussion in Vienna on the text of this document will also be quite intensive,” he said.
“Our delegation’s goal is to make sure that this document reflects the Orthodox position and rules out any ambiguities, compromises and wrong interpretations of the patristic views on the bishop of Rome’s ministering,” the priest said.
While it is difficult to reach a consensus on this issue, “this theme should be discussed,” because “this is what separates the Catholics and the Orthodox above all,” he said.
“It needs to be said that the Catholics did not agree to discuss this issue with the Orthodox [Church] for a long time, knowing how radical differences in its interpretation are. The fact that the late Pope John Paul II and then Pope Benedict XVI agreed that this issue be discussed by the commission is quite a benevolent step on the part of the Catholics toward the Orthodox [Church],” he said.
 
I think the Western Church is actively involved in the world. The holy Father prays and pleads for peace in the many conflicts all over the world. Does the Pope also speak for the Orthodox Church?
The Great Litany at the very beginning of every single Divine Liturgy

Great Litany

Deacon
: In peace let us pray to the Lord.

People: Lord, have mercy.

Deacon: For the peace from above and for the salvation of our souls, let us pray to the Lord.

People: Lord, have mercy.

Deacon: For the peace of the whole world, for the welfare of the holy churches of God, and for the union of all, let us pray to the Lord.

People: Lord, have mercy.

Deacon: For this holy house and for those who enter it with faith, reverence, and the fear of God, let us pray to the Lord.

People: Lord, have mercy.

Deacon: For [his Beatitude] Metropolitan ______; for [his Grace] our Bishop ______; for the honorable priesthood, the diaconate in Christ, for all the clergy and the people, let us pray to the Lord.

People: Lord, have mercy.

Deacon: For the President and all civil authorities of this country, and for those serving in its Armed Forces, let us pray to the Lord.

People: Lord, have mercy.

Deacon: For this city, for every city and country, and for the faithful dwelling in them, let us pray to the Lord.

People: Lord, have mercy.

Deacon: For favorable weather, for an abundance of the fruits of the earth, and for peaceful times, let us pray to the Lord.

People: Lord, have mercy.

Deacon: For travelers by land, by sea, and by air; the sick; the suffering; the captives; and for their salvation, let us pray to the Lord.

People: Lord, have mercy.

Deacon: For our deliverance from all affliction, wrath, danger, and distress, let us pray to the Lord.

People: Lord, have mercy.

Deacon: Help us, save us, have mercy on us, and keep us, O God, by Your grace.

People: Lord, have mercy.

Deacon: Commemorating our most holy, pure, most blessed and glorious Lady, the Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary with all the saints, let us commend ourselves and each other, and all our life unto Christ our God.
 
The Great Litany at the very beginning of every single Divine Liturgy

Great Litany

Deacon
: In peace let us pray to the Lord.

People: Lord, have mercy.

Deacon: For the peace from above and for the salvation of our souls, let us pray to the Lord.

People: Lord, have mercy.

Deacon: For the peace of the whole world, for the welfare of the holy churches of God, and for the union of all, let us pray to the Lord.

People: Lord, have mercy.

Deacon: For this holy house and for those who enter it with faith, reverence, and the fear of God, let us pray to the Lord.

People: Lord, have mercy.

Deacon: For [his Beatitude] Metropolitan ______; for [his Grace] our Bishop ______; for the honorable priesthood, the diaconate in Christ, for all the clergy and the people, let us pray to the Lord.

People: Lord, have mercy.

Deacon: For the President and all civil authorities of this country, and for those serving in its Armed Forces, let us pray to the Lord.

People: Lord, have mercy.

Deacon: For this city, for every city and country, and for the faithful dwelling in them, let us pray to the Lord.

People: Lord, have mercy.

Deacon: For favorable weather, for an abundance of the fruits of the earth, and for peaceful times, let us pray to the Lord.

People: Lord, have mercy.

Deacon: For travelers by land, by sea, and by air; the sick; the suffering; the captives; and for their salvation, let us pray to the Lord.

People: Lord, have mercy.

Deacon: For our deliverance from all affliction, wrath, danger, and distress, let us pray to the Lord.

People: Lord, have mercy.

Deacon: Help us, save us, have mercy on us, and keep us, O God, by Your grace.

People: Lord, have mercy.

Deacon: Commemorating our most holy, pure, most blessed and glorious Lady, the Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary with all the saints, let us commend ourselves and each other, and all our life unto Christ our God.
Thank you; that is beautiful download prayer 👍

Forgive my clumsy ignorance :o

I am so focused on the Western Church. Have no experience with Orthodox Christians even though there are many in my area. I base everything on the Vatican website as a reference.
 
I respect your stance that as a church you cannot determine what these changes mean, but what do you as an individual Anglican think of them?

Not to impugn the belief of anyone in any particular church, but I can’t help but think of the passage in James that says that even the demons believe and tremble…based on that, I would think that belief itself is a rather low standard by which to claim affiliation with anything.
Well, what we have is a demonstration that belief persists even where church does not, but the question is whether coherence of belief will persist (i.e. orthodoxy versus heterodoxy, heresy, etc). If the internet, for example, can provide the sort of community and culture which has traditionally been supplied by church, then coherence can be maintained. If not, then it will be interesting to see how church numbers and styles adapt.

As an individual Anglican, I am not worried by any of this. We shall just have to see how things develop.
 
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