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Cavaradossi
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I’ve heard of somebody who has gotten so far as only to tip his hat at the mention of his name.
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Captain_America
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Good comment. I think the fatal flaw in Protestantism is this incredibly arrogant (although this arrogance is surely not perceived) view of the human intellect; that we can understand everything thoroughly and fully, that our intelligence has no limits. It is putting one’s self on a pedestal and then wanting the rest of the world to mirror this self.
I doubt there really ARE true Protestant denominations. From what I’ve seen, whenever there are controversial matters, these are ducked and sent off to each individual member’s own judgment. In the end, it’s only threads – and so many seem so similar – holding together the various denominations. And so this permits a Methodist in one city to comfortably become a Baptist or Presbyterian in another, howsoever he wishes.
I’m not a Protestant banger. I just think the Protestant answer of “let every man be king” ends up dissolving group identify.
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Peter_J
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Riotous chuckle.
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Peter_J
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But seriously, I don’t think there’s much danger. I think some (presumably not including you, Kosta, etc) are just glad that he’s Orthodox but doesn’t “tow the line” (or whatever we want to call it). If the same article had been written by an nO (non-Orthodox) it probably wouldn’t get as much attention.
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wynd
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Great Lent is coming up faster than I realized. Maybe we should all take a break and focus on prayer. (Me included!)
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Kosta
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Thank you.You make some very good points there, but I think one needs to be added: I don’t think you have sufficient appreciation for the variety among Eastern Catholics. Let me just mention two dimensions.
First, only 14 are Greek-Catholic Churches. The 8 Oriental Catholic Churches are another story entirely. (And some might even object to that statement as simplistic and misleading, saying that the term “Oriental Catholic” is just a catch-all for Catholic Churches that are neither LC nor GC.)
Secondly, the Union of Brest and the Union of Uzhgorod were specific local events, but many people speak (on blogs and forums at least) as though they were the norm everywhere. More to the point, when you get away from the particular lands where those unions took place, you find Greek Catholic churches (in the Balkans for instance) that are pretty much like the Western-Rite Orthodox (in reverse).
I thought seriously about doing something like that, probably three or four different times over the last few years, back when I was spending 10, 15, or however many hours per week here. (Eventually other circumstances in my life changed; then it didn’t take much will power to limit my forum-time, since I simply didn’t have the time.)
I’m not totally ignorant on the umbrella of Eastern Catholic Churches. I’ve discussed the Coptic Catholic Church with Coptic Orthodox Christians (one of my closest mentors is a Coptic Orthodox priest) and the Series of Fortunate Events that was the period of Portuguese rule in India (and this is coming from an avowed Lusophile). I’d say that the creation of the Coptic Catholic Church is even sadder than the Union of Brest.
I might add, though, that there’s still a different. The one Eastern Catholic Church that I know a bit about is the Greek-Byzantine-Catholic Church (way too many adjectives in that name if y’ask me, but no one did), and it was started when Jesuits in the 16th-17th Centuries and then Assumptionists in the 19th Century dangled free education, monetary aid, and a promise of a better life in Western Europe away from the Ottomans in front of the faces of poor Greek villagers. Earlier on, in the 13th-16th Centuries, the Italians didn’t play so nice in the Cyclades where Latin Rite Catholicism was forced upon some islanders and Hellenized Italians helped swell their ranks. There’s some poster on Orthodoxchristianity.net (who was banned here after about a week for being too vitriolic and anti-Orthodox; that’s quite a feat) who complains that the Byzantine rite has business operating in the west, but then had the gall to ask me if my family was part of Greece’s Latin Rite Catholic minority. The Western Rite has been mostly grassroots phenomenon and return to orthodoxy and Orthodoxy; there weren’t Arab or Russian priests infiltrating Episcopalian society in New York City promising parents’ free education for their kids at a cost. I don’t much about the rest of Eastern Catholicism in the Balkans, such as the Croatian Greek Catholic Church, but I think you’re right about the Bulgarian Catholic Church. That Church I believe is a mixture of Western European missionaries and oppressed Bulgarian bishops turning around and getting a better deal from the Vatican than the Fanari/Phanar.
But point taken. Localized movements, indeed. I fall into the trap of talking about these movements as if they were all connected and not movements that took place many miles and many years apart, I’ll admit.
We’ll probably come out of it better people the day we can put the Internet away for good. Someday, eh?
Pascha is my Dad’s birthday this year. That means Lent ought to start what, the last day of February or first day of March? No time indeed!
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wynd
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Not even. Cheesefare Sunday is February 22, Zacchaeus Sunday is in 2 weeks!
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7_Sorrows
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I would like nothing more than to see the Orthodox churches united once again with the Catholic churches. We need each other.
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Peter_J
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And likewise I think I need to acknowledge your point that proselytism was not entirely absent from, well basically anywhere in Christendom.
(Or, in more positive terms, Vatican II really did something new by deciding that we aren’t to encourage Orthodox to “convert to Catholicism” (i.e. switch to the Roman Communion, or whatever you want to call it) anymore.)
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a_priori
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I just wish I read less Van Til and more Augustine.
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Kosta
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Oh yes, absolutely. I hope it did not come off that I was implying that problems run from west to east: that would certainly be as inaccurate as it would be unfair to say.
And likewise I think I need to acknowledge your point that proselytism was not entirely absent from, well basically anywhere in Christendom.
(Or, in more positive terms, Vatican II really did something new by deciding that we aren’t to encourage Orthodox to “convert to Catholicism” (i.e. switch to the Roman Communion, or whatever you want to call it) anymore.)
So then where do a lot of people here get their marching orders from, if not the Papacy since 1962?
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Peter_J
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That’s a good question; but my take on it (I welcome alternate views, if anyone wants to share one) is that there isn’t any such “where”. It’s just that “birds of a feather flock together” so if you spend time on any particular blog/forum/whatever you’re likely to hear a lot of people agreeing with each other.
(As a different example, I’ve spent time on Eastern Catholic forums, and people there are pretty like-minded to each other as well)
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spedteacherita
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