"True" Catholicism, traditionality, and Eastern Orthodoxy

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ConstantineTG said:
Definitely. The Eastern Churches were trapped in terms of expansion, and they didn’t send out ships like the Western powers had. The faith did spread north to Russia, which is the only opening the Eastern Churches have, then slowly East into the rest of Russia above the Muslim nations. But with the Latins in the West, the non-Chalcedonians in the south, and Muslims in the East, it was no picnic for the Eastern Christians to spread out.
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One thing of note, Russia did successfully spread it into some Muslim territories, but only through policies that were nearly as draconian as those used by Muslims to spread among Christians.
 
Greetings, Welcome Home to the Catholic Church! No matter which of the 22 rites you join. We are Maronite Catholics but I (convert) and my husband (revert) began by attending the Tridentine (approved) and then went to the Church where my husband grew up in the Faith. Unless there are “grave” abuses, we prefer an Eastern rite or the indult for the Tridentine. It is difficult for us in the Latin rite during the “sign of peace” to see/hear people (and we have visited a number of parishes) act like it is the 7th inning stretch. In the Latin rite (NO) this is after the consecration…Jesus is present on the altar and others talking about whatever, is disturbing to prayer for us. We understand that many do not really know their faith nor realize the True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. You can be one to help them learn as we are trying to do.

God Bless you and Welcome Home!
A.M.D.G.,
2maronites
 
Greetings, please excuse my ignorance or stupidity. Our Maronite priest uses the term rite and tradition, together. I am not sure why you say one does not join but it may be my ignorance/stupidity of using the correct wording. I thought when I accepted all that the Holy Catholic Church teaches through God that I was joining Her. When I became a Maronite Catholic I thought I joined, became part of the Maronite Catholics. I apologize to anyone if my vocabulary is incorrect. I thought joined and became a member would mean the same. I guess I was wrong.

Anyway to Mort Alz, Welcome to the Catholic Church, She is Beautiful, Awesome and such a gift.
A.M.D.G.,
2maronites
 
2maronites said:
Greetings, please excuse my ignorance or stupidity. Our Maronite priest uses the term rite and tradition, together. I am not sure why you say one does not join but it may be my ignorance/stupidity of using the correct wording. I thought when I accepted all that the Holy Catholic Church teaches through God that I was joining Her. When I became a Maronite Catholic I thought I joined, became part of the Maronite Catholics. I apologize to anyone if my vocabulary is incorrect. I thought joined and became a member would mean the same. I guess I was wrong.

Anyway to Mort Alz, Welcome to the Catholic Church, She is Beautiful, Awesome and such a gift.
A.M.D.G.,
2maronites
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I believe what Constantine was getting at is that Rite is a word to denote the groups of churches, and not the churches themselves. You join a church of a rite, but you do not join the rite. 🙂
 
Rite denotes the ritual tradition, not the Church itself. Rite is the way of worship, the praxis of the faith. Church is where one joins.

2maronites, its not ignorance or stupidity. Many people are confused by the two terms, I was once as well. Its a loving fraternal correction.
 
ConstantineTG said:
Definitely. The Eastern Churches were trapped in terms of expansion, and they didn’t send out ships like the Western powers had. The faith did spread north to Russia, which is the only opening the Eastern Churches have, then slowly East into the rest of Russia above the Muslim nations. But with the Latins in the West, the non-Chalcedonians in the south, and Muslims in the East, it was no picnic for the Eastern Christians to spread out.
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Eastern and Western Churches didn’t view themselves as something different until some time after the schism, correct?
 
Celticnovice said:
Eastern and Western Churches didn’t view themselves as something different until some time after the schism, correct?
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Rather depends how you mean.

They considered themselves one Church until well after the schism (assuming you use the 1054 date), but the traditions were quite divergant very early on. Praxis in east and west has almost always been different.

Certainly the belief in multiple regional churches within the Church has always been believed, and was at one time common between east and west.
 
Mort_Alz said:
Suddenly, this bias finds its roots in a very real and critical point: the Eastern Orthodox church just isn’t quite as “catholic” as the Catholic church!
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The use of the word “catholic” as it is understood nowadays it is not and cannot be applied the same as the historical understanding of the “Catholic Church”.

The first who was to mention the word “Catholic” was Saint Ignatios (an Eastern early Father) who was the Bishop (overseer) of the Holy Church of Antioch (Eastern See) and when he used this word he referred to the Church being “Complete” “Lack of nothing” because he was referring to the importance of the Bishop in his Church.
… This spoke volumes to me, so I began to study history as well. I do not intend for the following to be a “nanny nanny boo boo” to the Orthodox; I view their tradition with great respect. (In fact, I view it with more respect than the tradition I was born into). But, when I studied history, I found that the Orthodox have a severely lacking track record when it comes to evangelism.
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The Orthodox lacking track record when it comes to evangelism, true… BUT why? history shows beyond any doubt that the Orthodox Churches since the 700s started to fall under persecution by the Muslims then the Communism since the early 1900s almost all the Orthodox Churches were under persecution whether directly or indirectly.

The Orthodox Church is the persecuted Church that the Bible spoke of, (20,000,000 Martyr in the twentieth century alone, this more than what the whole Western churches combined together suffered since the beginning of Christianity) and yet She spread the Gospel to many nations and tongues, and by GOD’s Grace now it seems like things got a little lighter on us and thus we are evangelizing again…journeytoorthodoxy.com/category/mass-conversions/#axzz1m7p7xNNy
… I am aware that they are responsible for proselytizing Russia to the Christianity,
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I am sure you meant Evangelizing.
…but that is dwarfed in comparison to Catholicism. Catholics converted nearly all of South America and have even got great numbers in the United States, which is a very Protestant country in mindset and in history.
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I really don’t like to turn this into “we are better than you are” thing… now we are not going to speak of how the vast majority of South America was “converted” but why not look at it now, the RCC is diminishing daily over there, where S.America is the second fastest growing Orthodox convert after Africa.
On the other hand, the Orthodox are very few in America. If the Orthodox church is the true Church, then I hardly find the gospel to be available to a person such as myself.
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the Bible hasn’t been preached yet to all, if it did …than the end would have come, and you are one of the “all”…“Matthew 24:14
And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations; and then shall the end come.”
It seems one can go anywhere in the world and find the Sacraments available through the Catholic Church.
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…Then how come the end hasn’t come yet?
The same cannot be said of Orthodoxy.
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When the time comes where the same can be said of Orthodoxy, you and I will be standing before the great judgement seat of GOD.
Our Lord commanded His disciples to “go into all the world.” St. Paul brought our attention to prophesy, saying “their voice has gone out into all the world,” and “how can they believe without being told?” That’s question I ask of the Orthodox with regards to where I live.
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HHHHmmmm…are you going to stand around and wait for the Orthodox Church to come to you? you are invited to bring the Gospel to your town.
journeytoorthodoxy.com/category/mass-conversions/page/2/#axzz1m7p7xNNy

GOD bless you †††
 
Ignatios said:
I really don’t like to turn this into “we are better than you are” thing… now we are not going to speak of how the vast majority of South America was “converted” but why not look at it now, the RCC is diminishing daily over there, where S.America is the second fastest growing Orthodox convert after Africa.
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Maybe Orthodoxy is growing in South America but then so is Protestantism although these two are nothing alike. The Catholic faith is still going strong down in South America and from I have heard, it is growing in this regard. Also, you meationed that the Catholic Church is everywhere but that is not really true. While the Catholic Church is going strong in bringing the Gospel to all nations, it still isn’t there all the way. Many people around the world, in parts of Asia for example have never heard the Good News yet. But hopfully that will change soon.

But seriously lets try NOT to turn this into a fight between Holy Orthodoxy and Holy Catholicism.
 
Cavaradossi said:
If you will trace the spread of Christianity during the age of Enlightenment, you will find that it is closely linked with colonialism (especially so in the Americas). Given that the Russians were the only colonial power that was Orthodox during this time period (and not a very strong one at that), it is not surprising that Catholicism has spread more than Orthodoxy. Had the British been more gung ho about converting everybody in their empire to Anglicanism, we might be saying the same thing about Anglicanism today.
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That may be so, but we are dealing with what has actually happened. I am not trying to say that the Catholics are “better” at Evangelism, just that it has been (historically) given more success.
 
Nine_Two said:
You will certainly find yourself without a Catholic Church throughout much of the Muslim and Orthodox world. Only in the major cities would you find them, much like Orthodox Churches in the West.

While 12 of the 13 original states were Protestant, a significant amount of its territory was originally colonized by Catholics, and Catholics showed up in great numbers. As it is they make up a very large minority of American Christians (being the largest single Christian organization). The fact that you can find them where you are is unsurprising.

In Alaska the Catholic and Orthodox populations are nearly equal. The Orthodox population was arrived at through missions, while the Catholic and Protestant population through immigration.
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I was not bringing an assumption that Catholics cover every square foot of earth, just that they are more available in general than Orthodox sacraments.

I was also not trying to “surprise” anyone by noting that there are Catholics where I live. Just making a point that if I had not done my own individual study, I probably wouldn’t have even heard of the Orthodox. I was only giving a plain and simple, personal example.
 
Hesychios said:
Hi Manualman,
I agree.
The term ‘catholic’ means ‘according to the whole’. While it’s meaning and may have evolved somewhat over the years it basically means ‘complete’ as in complete and correct. It referred to the theology. It did not mean ‘widespread’ as some people will use it today.

In fact when the term was first used for Christians the church had a very limited geographical scope, so the fact that it wasn’t present in Thailand or Patagonia in the second century was not an issue. It was that wherever there were colonies of Christians at least some people were in theological agreement with other Christians in every other Christian area, hence a strong logical case could be made that those people believed the earliest and most conservative set of Christian teachings. Heretics in the second century (when the church was young) were usually recognized as being restricted in distribution, since they were so close in time in those days to their founders or originators, in fact the founders were generally known by name and in some cases the founders were still alive. That has nothing to do with later missionary efforts or successes nor with the presence of the church in Texas. 🙂

http://www2.div.ed.ac.uk/courses/Animated_Maps/divinity_map/images/ad250_2.gif

Another point worth mentioning is that at one time the greatest and most widespread Christian church was neither Orthodox nor Roman catholic, but the Nestorian church! It literally had 90 to 100 million supporters at one time and dwarfed all other Christian churches, reaching India and China by the seventh century. So if we lived at that time and had chosen to use geographical spread as the litmus test of authenticity we would certainly all be seeking to join that church.

Had history been kinder to them they could have dominated world Christianity to this day.

The presence of one church or another in north America, particularly the USA, has a lot to do with immigration patterns, and the laws of admission. Irish and Germans were early immigrant groups (in fact both were present before the revolution and both saw accelerated expansion in the early nineteenth century 1800 - 1840), central Europeans and eastern Europeans started to come much later, mostly especially as industrial recruiters were actively promoting the prospects of working in the mines and factories of the USA after the US War Between the States in the 1860’s. Orthodox belong to the latter group, except for a number of native Americans evangelized in Alaska in the 17th & 18th century.

http://web.missouri.edu/~brente/usimmigr.jpg

So let us examine the immigration policy and the effect of quotas …

At some point in the late 19th century (I am not sure when) the law of the USA restricted the number of new immigrants by country according to a ratio [3%] of how many living immigrants were already present. Thus if community A had 5 million living immigrants in the USA the quote would be 3% of that (or 150,000) as a limit for immigration that year, and of course as that initial population died off the numbers would be ‘squeezed’ accordingly. A group which had only 250,000 living immigrants would be limited to 7,500 new immigrants in the calendar year.

Later this ratio was changed to 2%.

The groups who had had an early start thus had an enormous advantage if they had a large number of still-living residents in the USA. Western European nations (mostly Roman Catholic and Protestant) came in large numbers early, eastern Europeans came very late in the game, in a period when immigration policy was becoming very restrictive.

The effect shows something like this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...mmigration_to_the_United_States_1881-1940.png

In this time frame, as immigration was being restricted, nations like Germany and Austria-Hungary were sending much larger numbers of people than countries like Russia, Serbia or Bulgaria (traditionally Orthodox nations).

Here is a nice map depicting a general idea of the ethnographic make-up of the USA today. It does not show everyone, just the dominant ethnic group in each county where that can be determined. No predominantly Orthodox nationality appears here due to historical immigration trends…

So it is no surprise that there isn’t an Orthodox parish around every corner yet, but we are working toward that goal.
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I am well aware that the Latin word, “catholicus” comes from the Greek word “katholikos” which does mean “according to the whole.” However, can you give me some sort of citation that it pertained strictly to theology, basically meaning “correct?” I was not applying it as if it meant “widespread” but as if it meant “universal; according to the whole.” Including all peoples.

I am not concerned with specifically how certain locations got to be made up of their religious demographics. Atheists will claim that everything Christians did right was accidental.
 
ConstantineTG said:
Definitely. The Eastern Churches were trapped in terms of expansion, and they didn’t send out ships like the Western powers had. The faith did spread north to Russia, which is the only opening the Eastern Churches have, then slowly East into the rest of Russia above the Muslim nations. But with the Latins in the West, the non-Chalcedonians in the south, and Muslims in the East, it was no picnic for the Eastern Christians to spread out.
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Hmmm.
 
2maronites said:
Greetings, Welcome Home to the Catholic Church! No matter which of the 22 rites you join. We are Maronite Catholics but I (convert) and my husband (revert) began by attending the Tridentine (approved) and then went to the Church where my husband grew up in the Faith. Unless there are “grave” abuses, we prefer an Eastern rite or the indult for the Tridentine. It is difficult for us in the Latin rite during the “sign of peace” to see/hear people (and we have visited a number of parishes) act like it is the 7th inning stretch. In the Latin rite (NO) this is after the consecration…Jesus is present on the altar and others talking about whatever, is disturbing to prayer for us. We understand that many do not really know their faith nor realize the True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. You can be one to help them learn as we are trying to do.

God Bless you and Welcome Home!
A.M.D.G.,
2maronites
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Thank you for your answer 🙂

This was truly helpful and addressed the main purpose of the post. 🙂

Thanks for the welcome, too
 
ConstantineTG said:
True. If we’re lucky, either will refer to the same Church soon enough.
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That’s also another thing. The Catholic Church seems very proactive in ecumenical efforts. Such notions have only seemed to get stiffness from the Orthodox.
 
Mort_Alz said:
I was not bringing an assumption that Catholics cover every square foot of earth, just that they are more available in general than Orthodox sacraments.

I was also not trying to “surprise” anyone by noting that there are Catholics where I live. Just making a point that if I had not done my own individual study, I probably wouldn’t have even heard of the Orthodox. I was only giving a plain and simple, personal example.
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And my point was that that isn’t true. There are large areas where there are no Catholics.
 
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