The Great Schism

[ForeverAdam]

Most certainly… without an instrument of unity (papal primacy) the Orthodox faith has crumbled into little more than like-minded autocephalous Churches.

The Holy Fathers point to the Faith as the bond of unity, not one bishop, whose orthodoxy is as conditional as any bishop’s.

There is only ONE Church… one head, one body, one faith.

Every time you affirm that all Orthodox bishops are true bishops you are affirming that they, together, form one icon of the one Christ, for a bishop can be none other than the icon of Christ. The logical conclusion is that since these bishops are the concrete presence of the one shepherd (Christ), their flocks are one flock under one shepherd. And since we also share one Faith, we possess the characteristics you just enumerated.

“As the “convocation” of all men for salvation, the Church in her very nature is missionary, sent by Christ to all the nations to make disciples of them.”… it’s not about “seeking media attention” it’s about the salvation of souls… and in this regard I can’t imagine anyone could say that they have not failed at this… to the detriment of us all.

I suppose the Church at Pentecost failed at this also, as it hadn’t went to all nations. And both Orthodoxy and Catholicism failed at this before the 16th century, as both Faiths were bound to Europe. Both of these assertions are incorrect. If you examine history, Scott, you’ll realize that attempts to define the catholicity of the Church based on historical missionary endeavors is very subjective and would cause us to conclude that the Church lost part of her nature for entire centuries, during which missionary expansion dramatically decreased for both Orthodoxy and Catholicism. A surer, and I would argue, more patristic, way to define the Church’s geographic catholicity is her consciousness of missionary expansion. And, as should be obvious to both of us, this consciousness of spreading the Faith has remained constant in both of our Churches.

God bless,

Adam