The Orthodox Church

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Gerry_Hunter said:
Your accusations of me trying to be “cute” are becoming abusive. They stop - and right now!
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It was me who originally asked if you were trying to be “cute”. I could easily say “Your agression toward Holy Orthodoxy is becoming abusive. It stops- and right now!”. I think your response is a little overblown here. 🤷
 
josie_L said:
Excuse me, I have not misrepresented I asked for clarification, there’s a big difference.
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I could ask you to “clarify” whether or not the Catholic Church believes in birth controll, since most of the Catholics I know personally, use it. Might that seem more like a backhanded dig than a sincere question? Your question might be totally sincere, but that it could easily be seen the opposite way is what I’m trying to explain to you. No offense meant.
 
trophybearer said:
I could ask you to “clarify” whether or not the Catholic Church believes in birth controll, since most of the Catholics I know personally, use it. Might that seem more like a backhanded dig than a sincere question? Your question might be totally sincere, but that it could easily be seen the opposite way is what I’m trying to explain to you. No offense meant.
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I would not be offended if you asked me to clarify (if you kept repeating the same mistake after clarification, I would), that’s the whole purpose of CAF. God bless.
 
trophybearer said:
I could ask you to “clarify” whether or not the Catholic Church believes in birth controll, since most of the Catholics I know personally, use it. Might that seem more like a backhanded dig than a sincere question? Your question might be totally sincere, but that it could easily be seen the opposite way is what I’m trying to explain to you. No offense meant.
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Yes trophybearer. I had the same impression. 🤷
 
I asked in this thread, what Orthodox Church was being referred to in the thread title. Thereupon, I was accused of being “cute.” When I cited personal experience to illustrate that the question was indeed pertinent, I was eventually labelled as being “uncharitable.” Well then, if common observation and personal experience will not establish that the question posed was both personal and germane, then perhaps a brief look at history, and the words of Orthodox prelates (not just lay people) of the various groupings will. In fact, they indeed will; perhaps if that is not conceded, at least the illogic of the denial of pertinence, at least on a de facto basis, will be evident.

The history reference will be brief. With the collapse of the patriarchal system, the Eastern church lost its centre and fragmented along national lines. Russia claimed independence from the patriarch of Constantinople in 1589, the first nation to do this. Other ethnic and regional splintering quickly followed, and today there are eleven independent Orthodox churches. The Russian Orthodox church dominates contemporary Eastern Orthodoxy, representing seven-eighths of the total number of Orthodox Christians.

Today, it is impossible to point to a de facto central authority acknowledged by all Orthodox churches. In January 2009 His Eminence Metropolitan Philip Saliba of the Self-Ruled Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, decried the divisions of Eastern Orthodoxy in North America into separate ethnic-national Churches. They have, he lamented, “more than fifteen jurisdictions based on ethnicity.” He noted that over 10 Orthodox bishops claimed jurisdiction over the same ares in New York state. The Metropolitan states that this is, in his view, heretical.

He finds himself in the middle of a situation that is illustrative of the lack of ecclesiastical coherence in Eastern Orthodoxy. Constantinople claims to possess authority over Churches in the “diaspora” of Western Europe and North and South America, based on its interpretation of the 28th canon of the 4th Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon, a claim declared “completely fantastic” by another Orthodox Bishop, the canonist Peter d’Huillier in his book “The Church of the Ancient Councils”. Yet another Orthodox churchman, Archbishop Paul of Finland, stated in a 1990 report to the Preparatory Synod for a long-awaited Great and Holy Council that: “the Patriarchates of Antioch, Moscow and Romania strongly oppose the authority of Constantinople over the diaspora and maintain that the theory remains an anachronism as far from the modern age as the year 451 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council is from the 20th century.”

It might also be noted that the situation of who aligns with whom is somewhat fluid. Just several years ago, the Russian Orthodox Archbishop of Britain, Basil Osborne, placed himself under the jurisdiction of the Greek Patriarch Bartholomew, and was called to repentance by a Patriarchal Russian Orthodox Synod.

I am grateful for the work and writing of James Likoudis, who has gathered these facts and statements together.

I stop here. My purpose is to establish that the question I posed was a pertinent one. Clearly it was. That purpose accomplished, continuing might make it appear that, somehow, I am anything other than disturbed by the situation among our Sister Churches. On the contrary. I would be suspicious of the motives of anyone who said that this confusion and difference is, or can be, viewed by Catholics as in any way positive. But negative though the situation is, it certainly makes my question pertinent, and nothing like “cute.”

Blessings,

Gerry
 
Oh ~ I was curious about something.

Anyone know why the Orthodox triple cross is slanted at the bottom?
 
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