The Catholic-Orthodox Dialogue: Where does it truly stand at present?

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Yeah, I would never use the term “infidel”. I am not a Muslim, nor is this board medieval Christendom. 🙂
 
Peter_J said:
But leaving terminology aside, it’s quite clear from Mardukm’s posts that he started out as Oriental Orthodox, then came into communion with the Pope, and believes that the rest of the Oriental Orthodox should come into communion with the Pope.
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That’s a frist. I’ve never been accused of proselytizing here before. All I do here is DEFEND the Catholic Faith and what I believe. I guess there’s a fine line if one is zealous about it.😃

Blessings,
Marduk
 
mardukm said:
Like I said, there is not a single authoritative view in the Coptic Orthodox Church on this. Some may think this is confusing, but a lot of it has a lot to do with oikonomia. For example, the Coptic Orthodox Church allows divorce for apostasy, but its (at least current, AFAIK) canon law would not permit divorce if one of the partners becomes Protestant or Catholic. So there are different circumstances.

Blessings,
Marduk
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This is my understanding as well. It is kind of odd, when you think about it: You can’t marry a Catholic, but if you are married and they become Catholic, you remain married. (This happened to a friend of mine who was later granted a divorce for other reasons.)

Also, let’s remember (or, I guess for most people here, learn for the first time) a few years ago when HE Met. Bishoy stated categorically that Catholics and Protestants will not be saved, it created a huge controversy and many people in Coptic Church openly disagreed with HE, and as far as I know were not disciplined for it. The faith is not the opinion of any one man, and I think most are smart enough not to make big, dumb declarative statements about things that ultimately don’t even affect us as Orthodox people (and we can’t know definitively anyway).
 
dzheremi said:
Yeah, I would never use the term “infidel”. I am not a Muslim, nor is this board medieval Christendom. 🙂
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Well, whether or not you would use infidel, non believer etc I sure hope you don’t believe it!
 
dzheremi said:
It would be true. What is a better term for someone who leaves one communion for another? So long as we are not united, it is not a simple matter or to be undertaken lightly (and I’m sure Mardukm didn’t take it lightly). You’re right that it is NOT the same as leaving for another religion entirely, but particularly within Orthodox ecclesiology, once you’re out, you’re out. We do not condemn anyone for being where they are, but we can’t say “Well, it’s fine so long as they join another church”. I thought this was the Catholic Church’s view, too, at least insofar as it believes that it is the true church and others are not (though, unlike the Orthodox Church, it also makes various pronouncements on the status of other churches and other religions relative to it, for some reason; maybe that’s why it seems inappropriate to you to use the term apostate/apostasy? Because it violates your understanding of how churches relate to one another? But we don’t have the same understanding of this matter, it seems.)
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Just to make an observation here, it seems that you are as insistent on your definition of “apostasy” as MaryBeloved is on hers (or should I say ours, since it’s pretty typical/standard among Catholics to understand “apostasy” to mean leaving Christianity completely). Given that set of circumstances, it seems unlikely that the discussion will make much progress.
dzheremi said:
It’s better to be a faithful and committed Catholic than an unfaithful and uncommitted Orthodox (and vice-versa; there was a thread here recently on how Pope Benedict XIV has stated that those who cannot believe should be honest with themselves and leave, and that’s just what I did when I apostasized from the Roman Catholic Church, eventually ending up in Orthodoxy).
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I would be interested to see that thread. (Well, assuming you meant Pope Benedict XVI. 😉 If Pope Benedict XIV said it, I’m less interested.)
 
Mardukm, I think I should have a right to know what your aim is in posting this:
mardukm said:
That’s a first. I’ve never been accused of proselytizing here before. All I do here is DEFEND the Catholic Faith and what I believe. I guess there’s a fine line if one is zealous about it.😃
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(emphasis added)

I did not accuse you of proselytizing. (I did say that you believe that the Oriental Orthodox should come into communion with the Pope.)
 
Peter_J said:
Just to make an observation here, it seems that you are as insistent on your definition of “apostasy” as MaryBeloved is on hers (or should I say ours, since it’s pretty typical/standard among Catholics to understand “apostasy” to mean leaving Christianity completely).
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I think Dzheremi recognizes there are different understandings present in Coptic Orthodoxy, but simply that he adheres to one of them more strongly than the rest.

Blessings,
Marduk
 
Peter_J said:
Just to make an observation here, it seems that you are as insistent on your definition of “apostasy” as MaryBeloved is on hers (or should I say ours, since it’s pretty typical/standard among Catholics to understand “apostasy” to mean leaving Christianity completely). Given that set of circumstances, it seems unlikely that the discussion will make much progress.
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Well, more like I don’t know what else to call it.
I would be interested to see that thread. (Well, assuming you meant Pope Benedict XVI. 😉 If Pope Benedict XIV said it, I’m less interested.)
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Whoops! Yeah, I’m not quite awake yet. Sorry. :o I meant XVI, though it’s interesting that you wouldn’t be as interested in what XIV had to say (I don’t know what that would be, but it seems like it should be just as interesting to you as a Catholic, right?)

I can’t find the thread (not sure how to find it using the search function because I can’t remember its exact title), but I think I found an article on the same statement: lifesitenews.com/news/pope-suggests-its-best-to-be-honest-and-leave-the-church-if-you-dont-believ/
 
ByzCathCantor said:
There have been several recent threads which, although only tangentially related to this subject, nonetheless have featured comment (ranging from factual to highly polemic) regarding both the status of ecumenical efforts toward reunion and, more profoundly, questioning the wisdom and necessity of ecumenism itself even in the context of dialogue among the Apostolic Churches.

In addition, there has been frequent mention of the role of the Eastern Catholic Churches, which is why I chose to post this here in the Eastern Catholic forum. While this is not meant to imply that the Eastern Catholic Churches are indeed the “bridge” to the East as often asserted (and refuted), the position of the ECCs within the Catholic Communion is essential to the dialogue and deserves careful consideration. None other than the eloquent Metropolitan Kallistos Ware speaks of this often, as he did near the beginning of this February 2010 speech on the Catholic-Orthodox dialogue.

With prayerful hope for open, honest and non-polemic discussion among the many knowledgeable and well-informed CAF contributors (Catholic, Orthodox and otherwise) this thread is intended to explore the current state of Orthodox-Catholic relations and progress toward meaningful reconciliation and reunion. Reference is made here at the onset to the work of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue Between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, which last met in September 2010 (some seven months or so after the referenced lecture of Metropolitan Kallistos), for a second plenary session dedicated to the subject of the “Role of the Bishop of Rome in the Communion of the Church in the First Millennium”.

As there has been a bit of a lull in the formal dialogue and not much mention out of Rome of late (or so it seems), this might be an opportune moment to reflect and share perspective from both sides.

Again, hoping to have a fact-based exchange from both perspectives.
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Here is a great story: catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1203788.htm
 
dzheremi said:
Whoops! Yeah, I’m not quite awake yet. Sorry. :o I meant XVI, though it’s interesting that you wouldn’t be as interested in what XIV had to say (I don’t know what that would be, but it seems like it should be just as interesting to you as a Catholic, right?)

I can’t find the thread (not sure how to find it using the search function because I can’t remember its exact title), but I think I found an article on the same statement: lifesitenews.com/news/pope-suggests-its-best-to-be-honest-and-leave-the-church-if-you-dont-believ/
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Thanks, and I’ve found the thread too.

Funny thing is, as someone on the other thread pointed out, it wasn’t actually Pope Benedict XVI that said it. And it wasn’t Pope Benedict XIV either ;D it was Monsignor Ignacio Barreiro.
 
True enough. I think I had remembered it as being Pope Benedict because of the half-remembered title of the article, but it wasn’t actually from the mouth of Benedict himself. I apologize for misremembering something with an already deceptive title. 😉
 
docnerves said:
Here is a great story: catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1203788.htm
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Interesting article highlighting some of the complexity of the situation in Ukraine and elsewhere. Hopefully, as suggested, Orthodox-Catholic relations in Canada, the USA, and elsewhere can help to ease tensions elsewhere.

I found one of the closing statements interesting regarding the implementation of Vatican II. I’ll probably start a separate thread on that issue.

Peace,
 
What are you referring to, Peter? Did something happen to him? (He’s listed as a veteran member, though offline at the moment…are you seeing something else on your screen?)
 
dzheremi said:
What are you referring to, Peter? Did something happen to him? (He’s listed as a veteran member, though offline at the moment…are you seeing something else on your screen?)
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Sorry. No I didn’t mean I had seen anything changed on his status, or anything like that. I just meant with respect to this thread.
 
Peter_J said:
Sorry. No I didn’t mean I had seen anything changed on his status, or anything like that. I just meant with respect to this thread.
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Are you still looking for evidence that the Oriental Orthodox are ‘high petrine’?
 
Sorry folks. I completely forgot about this thread after I got involved in the other thread about communion.:o Will be back in this thread soon addressing the old posts since there seems to be a detente in the other thread.😃

Blessings,
Marduk
 
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