Why Eastern Orthodoxy?

[Hesychios]

Michael this misses utterly and totally the ecclsiology of papal authority and the serious difference with distinction of having overlapping jurisdictions and having somewhat competing ones.

Orthodox churches are not competitors with each other, they are sojourners and partners.

It should be no surprise Orthodox bishops have disagreements. They can be very public about them, but at the end of the day their own authority stops at the diocesan border. Should I make a list of Roman Catholic bishops and administrations with disagreements with their church? I don’t think we need to go there, just spend a few hours reading the Traditionalist forum for enlightenment.

In those cases where we have even the greatest of disputes among us, such as the Macedonians, the faithful are easily accommodated with confession and communion for the asking, it is only concelebration of hierarchs that is prevented.

In Holy Orthodoxy every bishop is a true bishop, and can determine what is best for his charges. He decides how to receive converts and when to grant exceptions in economia.

Your poor examples are not persuasive.

Your own Catholic churches have their own problems, but nobody can do anything about them because they are under the Big Umbrella. Yet the multiple jurisdictions in Catholicism are just as much against the ancient canons as the Orthodox. You cannot pretend otherwise.

So we have Melkites with altar girls, Ruthenians with Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, Ukrainians following the Ordo Celebrationes of 1944 and Ruthenians ignoring it. All of these with overlapping jurisdiction.

You might not hear the Catholic bishops criticizing each other publicly, but the disparity in practice is far worse than any examples you can present about disunity in Orthodoxy. And your church cannot do anything about them.

It’s true we have a messy little church, an old church, we know it. It is composed of human beings who, being simple sinners, just do the best they can for the love of God.

Peace, and all good things
Michael

 

[ASimpleSinner]

Orthodox churches are not competitors with each other, they are sojourners and partners.

It should be no surprise Orthodox bishops have disagreements. They can be very public about them, but at the end of the day their own authority stops at the diocesan border. Should I make a list of Roman Catholic bishops and administrations with disagreements with their church? I don’t think we need to go there, just spend a few hours reading the Traditionalist forum for enlightenment.

Please do make a list. From there we can analyze where the disagreements are and what nature they are off. There is room for legitimate variety in some praxis. In other instances some parties are in clear dissent - and the demarkation of that dissent is made clear by the fact that there is a possibility of authoritative end to the dispute.

So the Traditionalist reference is a red herring. Where they overstep their bounds with what has been taught, we have a clear problem not of confusion as to what is to be believed or practiced, but in fact a problem of obedience. 1000 clerics ordained by illicitly consecrated bishops who are off the reservation do not make for one doubt. Their pet opinions are not an opening to a debate of rabbinic proportions where each side is left to make their best case.

In those cases where we have even the greatest of disputes among us, such as the Macedonians, the faithful are easily accommodated with confession and communion for the asking, it is only concelebration of hierarchs that is prevented.

In Holy Orthodoxy every bishop is a true bishop, and can determine what is best for his charges. He decides how to receive converts and when to grant exceptions in economia.

Your poor examples are not persuasive.

I don’t know what a bishop would be but a true bishop!

Michael I would like you to be able to point out to me the documents or rulings that allow for this Eucharistic Ecclesiology. Also how distinction can be made between what falls under the perview of a local hierarch and where a ranking archbishop, patriarch or nationally organized synod comes into play? At what point can they pull rank? What are the canons that outline where economia ends for the local hierarch and when it begins for the rankings bishop or synod?

The wide latitude and amazing power one supposedly grants to a bishop with economia far rivals the worst distorted characatures of papacy. How it can be understood that my baptism was valid according to X but not Y? Who recieves me makes the call appropriates a power to bishops via economia over the sacraments itself without any clear understanding of where that could begin or end.

Your own Catholic churches have their own problems, but nobody can do anything about them because they are under the Big Umbrella. Yet the multiple jurisdictions in Catholicism are just as much against the ancient canons as the Orthodox. You cannot pretend otherwise.

Again, lets list what those problems are that supposedly we can’t do anything about because of the Big Umbrella, Michael.

As to the ancient canons laid out in the council… Perhaps in the interest of logical consistency we could appropriate to the Pope of Rome at least as much economia in their application as is provided for bishops determining how to recieve converts coming from the same church with the same baptism.

Included among the ancient canons are canons against clergy serving in the military - which chaplains clearly do - and canons demanding a bi-annual (every 6 months) diocesan synod.

As we have not made sacrosanct canons in and of themselves (and in fact no one really can) the fact that disciplinary canons penned (or was it quilled?) over 12 centuries ago do not hold sway in the new world is something logic would almost demand. These disciplines are, however, not dogma.

So we have Melkites with altar girls, Ruthenians with Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, Ukrainians following the Ordo Celebrationes of 1944 and Ruthenians ignoring it. All of these with overlapping jurisdiction.

Again let’s list and quantify these objections (and if possible, let’s not use text size for emphasis… that is kind of like shouting).

• So we have Melkites with altar girls,
• Ruthenians with Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion,
• Ukrainians following the Ordo Celebrationes of 1944 and Ruthenians ignoring it. All of these with overlapping jurisdiction.

Aside from a laundry list of liturgical praxis objections, none of these have come about in proclaiming one practice to be THE appropriate one. None of these proximate conflict in teaching objective truth.

Also none of these jurisdictions in turn would be free to determine different and conflicting theologies on the reception of the baptized and contraception. Melkite praxis will vary from Ukrainian, but no bishop could unilaterally institute the use of new rites with the others in turn anathemize. (i.e. WRO)

But are you equating the bishop’s rights to regulate liturgical celebration with conflicting teachins on say the morality of birth control up to and including some parties which affirm ABC tacitly or directly allowing for abortifacients?
Hesychios;3326073:

You might not hear the Catholic bishops criticizing each other publicly, but the disparity in practice is far worse than any examples you can present about disunity in Orthodoxy. And your church cannot do anything about them…

When push comes to shove we do and actually can do something about it. Firstly we look to the modern codes of canon laws, the catechism, or other rulings. Should that not settle the matter, appeal to Rome is possible.

What appeal is possible as recourse to disparity in teaching or praxis in the communion of Orthodox churches?