Western Protestants Jumping to Eastern Orthodoxy

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spoiltvictorian

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A Quaker friend of mine posted the Nicene Creed on his Facebook the other day without the Filioque. Now, that’s a hot issue, but it seems to me that’s too huge a jump to take. He can’t really know where he’s going to land, especially since he lives in Quaker Pennsylvania.

I think a western Protestant should reunite with the western church, the Roman Catholic Church, and then see if they feel they’re still in the wrong district.

Edit: and I say “Western Protestants” because protestants have expanded into Orthodox territory, and I understand why a Russian Lutheran or Baptist would revert straight to the Russian Orthodox Church.
 
spoiltvictorian said:
A Quaker friend of mine posted the Nicene Creed on his Facebook the other day without the Filioque. Now, that’s a hot issue, but it seems to me that’s too huge a jump to take. He can’t really know where he’s going to land, especially since he lives in Quaker Pennsylvania.

I think a western Protestant should reunite with the western church, the Roman Catholic Church, and then see if they feel they’re still in the wrong district.
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That is spiritually dangerous. Every time you jump ship you risk leaving a bit of your soul behind. It is a far more serious thing to break communion with the See of Rome than just to leave a Protestant denomination.

I share your suspicion of this phenomenon, but you can’t tell people that it’s illegitimate just because they are Westerners. If they are really convinced that the Orthodox Church is the true Church then that’s the only thing for them to do. Joining some other church first which they don’t think is the true Church would do no good to anyone.

Edwin
 
Contarini said:
That is spiritually dangerous. Every time you jump ship you risk leaving a bit of your soul behind. It is a far more serious thing to break communion with the See of Rome than just to leave a Protestant denomination.

I share your suspicion of this phenomenon, but you can’t tell people that it’s illegitimate just because they are Westerners. If they are really convinced that the Orthodox Church is the true Church then that’s the only thing for them to do. Joining some other church first which they don’t think is the true Church would do no good to anyone.

Edwin
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When you say you risk leaving a bit of your soul behind, do you refer to the rootlessness or the risk of being marked as a member of the True Church and then leaving it?
 
I think probably what draws your Quaker friend to Orthodoxy is it’s spirituality, which Friends relate to I would think.

In Meeting I have taken a “chokti” and recited the Jesus Prayer during Meeting for Worship to “Center down”…one time during such an exercise I looked up and across the room another Friend had a mala using it as well. I have a mala but liked the chokti better as it was made of wool and didn’t make any noise as my fingers moved from knot to knot.

The book “Way of the Pilgrim”, spoke to my condition as this man struggled for an authentic spirituality and searched high and low for instruction…some of it’s words “echoed” Thomas Kelly’s “Testament of Devotion”…one of my all time spiritual classics.

Perhaps the iconograhy also appeals to this Friend…I have a couple of icons in my home and find them useful in meditation and personal devotional time.

I have attended one Divine Liturgy many years ago. While I didn’t understand much of what was going on the “disipline” of standing for over an hour and kneeling at times impressed me…the Mystery of the liturgy moved me as I was brought into the Presence…and perhaps it does for this Friend as well.

While I have found Orthodox spirituality moving and useful in framing my thoughts during the Living Silence of worship…for me, I still meet the True Presence in simple Friend’s worship…in ways that liturgical worship doesn’t quite satisfy…nor “speak to my condition” as completely as the Gathered Meeting.
 
spoiltvictorian said:
A Quaker friend of mine posted the Nicene Creed on his Facebook the other day without the Filioque. Now, that’s a hot issue, but it seems to me that’s too huge a jump to take. He can’t really know where he’s going to land, especially since he lives in Quaker Pennsylvania.

I think a western Protestant should reunite with the western church, the Roman Catholic Church, and then see if they feel they’re still in the wrong district.

Edit: and I say “Western Protestants” because protestants have expanded into Orthodox territory, and I understand why a Russian Lutheran or Baptist would revert straight to the Russian Orthodox Church.
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Perhaps for some (many?) it’s easier to accept the liturgical Church without having to give up one’s Protestant sensibilities regarding Rome and its Bishop. 🤷
 
spoiltvictorian said:
A Quaker friend of mine posted the Nicene Creed on his Facebook the other day without the Filioque. Now, that’s a hot issue, but it seems to me that’s too huge a jump to take. He can’t really know where he’s going to land, especially since he lives in Quaker Pennsylvania.

I think a western Protestant should reunite with the western church, the Roman Catholic Church, and then see if they feel they’re still in the wrong district.

Edit: and I say “Western Protestants” because protestants have expanded into Orthodox territory, and I understand why a Russian Lutheran or Baptist would revert straight to the Russian Orthodox Church.
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**Remember that both including and not including the Filioque Clause is acceptable by the Catholic Church ** Reference the Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraphs 246 through 248.
 
I think if I ever “jumped” it would be to the EO Church. I would find swimming across the Bosphorus easier than swimming across the Tiber. EO’s are comfortable with mystery, and Westerners seem to want and try to explain it away.
 
O.S.Luke said:
I think if I ever “jumped” it would be to the EO Church. I would find swimming across the Bosphorus easier than swimming across the Tiber. EO’s are comfortable with mystery, and Westerners seem to want and try to explain it away.
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Well, to make it easier for you, there is a nice bridge across the Tiber so no swimming necessary…just a nice afternoon stroll…👍

As for mystery…that is a bit of a misunderstanding/misconception…Western protestants like to explain it away…The Catholic Church is more than comfortable with mystery…
 
Evangelical and other Protestants become Orthodox all the time. A Catholic canonist even wrote an article saying that Protestants could “validly” become Orthodox.

However, as many Orthodox priests have noted, it takes a while for the Chrism to sink in. Many seem to come to Orthodoxy, not for the sake of the Way, the Truth, and the Life, but as the perceived last bastion of cultural conservatism, which it isn’t. And they bring with them a fundamentalist mind-set, which tends to want to reduce the Orthodox faith to a few simplistic propositions.
 
FCEGM said:
Perhaps for some (many?) it’s easier to accept the liturgical Church without having to give up one’s Protestant sensibilities regarding Rome and its Bishop. 🤷
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Funny the first person to mention this happens to be a Roman Catholic. No one else has gone there.

I am not picking on you, it just happens to be how these discussions flow, if not you someone else would have brought this idea to the fore.

It happens a lot, I think Roman Catholics lean upon this excuse too heavily, to their own detriment. The bishop of Rome is only a smaller part of a whole complex of differences between the Orthodox and Latin Catholic churches.

I myself have seen time and again Protestants and Jews who have been attracted to Roman Catholicism by aspects of the Faith not directly connected to the Papacy (such as certain forms spirituality ie Eucharistic Adoration, LOTH, Marian spiruality etc.), and later overcome any concerns they may have had over church authority.

And here is a point I cannot stress enough…In regard to authority Holy Orthodoxy is as big a change for Protestants as Roman Catholicism may be. Orthodox bishops are real bishops and they exercise unique forceful authority over their dioceses. Anyone skittish about a church authority…and a theology which is non negotiable…will simply not be comfortable in an Orthodox church.

No one, not even a bishop, can just believe or teach anything they deduce on their own initiative. In that respect Holy Orthodoxy is in some ways even more rigid than Roman Catholicism. It’s admittedly shorter list of dogmatic truths is utterly inflexible and compelling.
*
Michael*
 
The reason probably differs from person to person. I visited a group of ‘do-it-yourself’ orthodox once in the US midwest. They had been a ‘nondenom’ protestant congregation and came to the group realization that theirs was not historic christianity, but a peculiar US derivitive of it. Their solution (sigh) was to announce their pastor to be an orthodox priest and they have adopted EO liturgy, doctrine, mysteries, prayers, etc. Oh, except for all that pesky stuff regarding apostolic succession.:rolleyes:

What I got out of it all was that they had realized the dead end of protestantism, but still couldn’t shake the ‘sola scriptura’ bug. That and innate hostility to Rome seem to have combined in a rather innovative solution. (And I do mean innovative in the traditional sense - not a good thing!)

As for Hesychios, Consider that us catholics don’t so much see a need to explain away mysteries as we do see a need to refine descriptions of them from time to time in response to those who push clearly WRONG ideas. A shepherd’s very job is to instruct and correct, so they DO that. Articulating what is wrong with a heretic’s viewpoint via formulating a counter explanation that excludes it is not an attempt to explain mystery.
 
spoiltvictorian said:
When you say you risk leaving a bit of your soul behind, do you refer to the rootlessness or the risk of being marked as a member of the True Church and then leaving it?
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Both. That’s why I used metaphorical language–I didn’t want to have to clarify!

Edwin
 
Chaldean_Rite said:
like the Mystery of why they throw out the Papacy or deny purgatory but still pray for the dead lol
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Throw out the Papacy? There was none to throw out and this you should know. People who make such statements tend to be telescoping history. The bishops of Rome had no right to administer or interfere outside of his own Metropolitan church for most of the first millennium, and never legitimately in the east.

In fact, it was Cardinals Frederic and Humbert who did the throwing, cutting their own church off from it’s eastern Apostolic roots.

Purgatory? No teaching on Purgatory. There is no historical record of such a theory being rejected by the church. It’s just an idea, no more valid or invalid…correct or incorrect…than a lot of speculations floating around in people’s imaginations. If we do not know it, it is not Apostolic teaching.

Payer for the dead? We have always done so, no need to explain God’s mechanism for the afterlife in order to justify our practices. We do not need convincing.

Enough said. 🙂
 
Hesychios said:
Throw out the Papacy? There was none to throw out and this you should know. People who make such statements tend to be telescoping history. The bishops of Rome had no right to administer or interfere outside of his own Metropolitan church for most of the first millennium, and never legitimately in the east.

In fact, it was Cardinals Frederic and Humbert who did the throwing, cutting their own church off from it’s eastern Apostolic roots.

Purgatory? No teaching on Purgatory. There is no historical record of such a theory being rejected by the church. It’s just an idea, no more valid or invalid…correct or incorrect…than a lot of speculations floating around in people’s imaginations. If we do not know it, it is not Apostolic teaching.

Payer for the dead? We have always done so, no need to explain God’s mechanism for the afterlife in order to justify our practices. We do not need convincing.

Enough said. 🙂
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yeah yeah. Matthew 16:18 and end of John my friend. Please deal with those first and maybe we’d get somewhere.
 
Did protestants learn the rhetorical tricks from the East or the other way around? Seems pretty clear to me right in Scripture that the Petrine included included a major role in making universal decisions (Pork, anyone? 😃 ) But you can surely make the criticism that the word ‘papacy’ didn’t show up in the Early Church. Heaven forbid we create words to describe realities present in Tradition! (Good thing we came up with ‘Trinity’ before the split or that one would have to go too, eh?)

And heaven forbid that those in apostolic authority should dare to draw true inferences from true revelation. (Purgatory)
 
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