Why not Orthodoxy?

[LatinCat]

Goodness gracious. Here come the eastern orthodox from their divided churches, our so called “sister church”, to attack the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. I love these guys dearly but goodness gracious, don’t come in here to decieve a honest seeker of truth.

 

[LatinCat]

vern humphrey:

The filioque debate is a lingering relic of Arianism. The Arians denied the divinity of Christ. The Nicene Creed defines the Son as “begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father.” The Holy Spirit, the third member of the Trinity “proceeds” from the Father and the Son. The Orthodox Christians would rather see both the Son and the Holy Spirit “proceed” from the Father alone.

The filioque debate really no longer exists – the Catholic Church does not insist the Orthodox accept the precise wording to achieve union.

But they love to turn non-issues into to issues. Let’s watch and see.

 

[BrianH]

Some people have indirectly hit on this and I just wanted to share some information:

"The Catholic Church remains the largest faith group in the U.S. with 67,259,768 members and a growth rate last year of **1.28 ** percent. The second largest denomination in the U.S. is still the Southern Baptist Convention with 16,439,603 members and a growth rate of 1.18 percent. The United Methodist Church is third largest with a reported membership of 8,251,175 and a growth rate of .**002 ** percent.

The Church of Jesus of Latter-day Saints, with a reported membership of 5,503,192, rose from the fifth to the fourth largest church in the U.S. The yearbook noted that the church “continues to grow remarkably” at a rate of 1.71 percent last year.

A reported surge in membership of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) has placed the communion on the list of the largest American churches. The Syosset, N.Y., based church grew **11.11 ** percent to 1-million members, according to the yearbook. "

 

[byHisGrace]

I’m not trying to throw a monkey wrench into this…but I struggle to understand Orthodox teaching on both contraception AND divorce and remarriage.

 

[Mickey]

byHisGrace:

I’m not trying to throw a monkey wrench into this…but I struggle to understand Orthodox teaching on both contraception AND divorce and remarriage.

Me too!

 

[Ahimsa]

byHisGrace:

I’m not trying to throw a monkey wrench into this…but I struggle to understand Orthodox teaching on both contraception AND divorce and remarriage.

I friendly suggest posting (or better yet, searching) the Eastern Christianity forum. Lots of good stuff there.

 

[LatinCat]

Ahimsa:

I friendly suggest posting (or better yet, searching) the Eastern Christianity forum. Lots of good stuff there.

Lots of good stuff if you like to talk with people who comepletely detached themselves from reality and who have abandoned all reason.

 

[The_Iambic_Pen]

Lots of good stuff if you like to talk with people who comepletely detached themselves from reality and who have abandoned all reason.

Well, not an ideal starting point for dialogue, but we’ll see how this plays out…

 

[LatinCat]

The Iambic Pen:

Well, not an ideal starting point for dialogue, but we’ll see how this plays out…

Guess not. I must apologize for being so forward but the Eastern Orthodox, except for Michael/Hesychios, are impossible to have a rational discussion with. You ask them a question about their faith, and rather than just answering the question, their answers always come with some jab at the “evil Catholic Church”.

 

[The_Iambic_Pen]

DeFide:

Would you have the same anxiety about following Jesus?

Well, I’ll go ahead and repost a segment of my post:

I guess my concern is that some development of doctrine may have come about, not due to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but rather because of fallen human reason.

This is not a concern I would have about following Jesus. As a non-Catholic (at least at this point), I don’t have the trust in the Church that I have in Christ. I mean no disrespect by saying this. Obviously, if I fully trusted the Catholic Church, I would be Catholic (well, at least in spirit, with the intention to enter RCIA when it starts).

If you were an apostle, would you be afraid of what difficult teaching he might propose next?

I like to think I wouldn’t, though it’s hard to know. I think it’s safe to say that one is always a little anxious about giving over the rule of one’s life to God.

Perhaps. But that anxiety, that fear of having to strip away your personal pride and preference, shouldn’t stop you from following the beautiful truth of God.

Very true.

I guess the problem I see is this: When the Church says for several hundred years, “You must believe A to be saved,” and then suddenly says, “Oh, and now you need to believe B as well (or C, D, etc…),” it starts to make me wonder if these newer requirements are really from God. If these things were so important, why did it take so long for them to be pronounced? I know many will say, “These doctrines were always present, just not defined,” and I understand that. Before they were defined, though, I think it’s safe to say they weren’t binding, which is the key point here. Thanks for your post!

Aaron I:

I’m not too familiar with the differences between us and the orthodox, but I’ve started looking into it some lately. I find that almost every time I find a difference, the Orthodox are the ones I’m disappointed in.

I can’t say I’ve found that to be the case myself. The Orthodox claim that they have not introduced new doctrine since before the Schism, and that the differences between them and the West are due to Western developments after the Schism. I have yet to see anything that contradicts this. It seems, then, that the Orthodox have a greater claim to being more like the early Church.

One thing I find particularly disappointing is that the different Orthodox Churches have different canons of scripture. They don’t differ greatly, of course, but it’s significant nonetheless. If I’m wrong about that, someone please correct me, but I’m pretty sure it’s correct.

I still haven’t gotten into this yet, but I agree that it is troubling. I’ll have to bring it up in the Eastern Christianity forum.

DeFide:

The schism has left them paralyzed and open to slow decay.

And yet, in the thousand years since the Schism, has this happened? It’s an honest question. I’m not being difficult on purpose.

TamaraS:

For me, at some point I just had to lay everything out in front of myself and decide. As long as I’m breathing I will “cast my lot” with the Catholic Church.

Yes, we all must decide eventually. May God bless you in the Catholic Church! As for myself, I suppose I’ve really just started my search. Some people search for years!

byHisGrace:

I’m not trying to throw a monkey wrench into this…but I struggle to understand Orthodox teaching on both contraception AND divorce and remarriage.

Me too.

LatinCat:

Guess not. I must apologize for being so forward but the Eastern Orthodox, except for Michael/Hesychios, are impossible to have a rational discussion with. You ask them a question about their faith, and rather than just answering the question, their answers always come with some jab at the “evil Catholic Church”.

Well, I haven’t browsed enough threads to see if that’s the usual case, but I have seen it sometimes. Personally, I think Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants all need to be less defensive and just share the truth (even if we don’t always agree on what it is) in love.

God bless!

 

[Eden]

Guess not. I must apologize for being so forward but the Eastern Orthodox, except for Michael/Hesychios, are impossible to have a rational discussion with. You ask them a question about their faith, and rather than just answering the question, their answers always come with some jab at the “evil Catholic Church”.

I have to agree with LatinCat. If you ask a Catholic who has not dialogued with an Orthodox person on this forums what they think of the Orthodox, they will have a very positive view. Every Catholic that engages with the Orthodox here for the first time is shocked by the ingrained anti-Catholic sentiment that is deeply rooted in their theological culture. In that way, the Orthodox are just as defensive about why their existence is justified as the Protestants. When you see that kind of anti-Catholic culture, you have to realize who split from whom. You won’t find that kind of anti-Orthodox sentiment in the Catholic Church. Any hostility that Catholics display in these forums toward the Orthodox is directly related to the attacks we’ve encountered here.

Even the Orthodox agree that Peter had a special role. Why would you want to go with any Church but the one with Peter; the one on whom Christ built His Church?

 

[SFH]

The Iambic Pen:

So, I was browsing the Eastern Christianity forum, and I noticed a discussion about Catholic-Orthodox unity and the prospects for it. This article, by Fr. Thomas Hopko, was mentioned. There were a few statements in it which I found interesting:

He goes on to say that there were:
He also says:
The Orthodox position seems to be that the Bishop of Rome had primacy in the first thousand years of the church, but this was more a primacy of honor than a primacy of authority. They believe that the office of the papacy grew far beyond its purpose in the years after the schism. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Fr. Hopko goes on to list some things the Pope must do in order for reunificiation to happen (basically, become Orthodox…). I don’t really see reunification happening on those terms. Basically, it seems that either the Catholics or the Orthodox will have to admit they have been wrong about the role of the Pope. And, of course, it appears that, regardless of how this debate goes, we Protestants are still wrong.

So, to get back to the thread title, why should a Protestant trying to find the one true Church choose Catholicism over Orthodoxy? I have read some tracts and articles on this site, and I am almost completely inclined to accept the Catholic view (though perhaps my Western European bias is affecting my judgment), but I wondered it anyone had any more information that might be helpful. Thanks!

God bless!

Oh yeah, and what’s with the whole filioque debate?

Boy, that’s a hard nut to crack. The Fathers of the Church, including the ones mentioned above, wrote many things that both Catholics and Orthodox can point to in support of their positions. Where the Orthodox point to passages that say Rome had a primacy of honor, the Catholics point to passages that say the primacy extended to resolving doctrinal disputes.

While I think there are many decisive arguments in favor of Catholicism, I find the most persuasive to be the absence of ecumenical councils (from an Orthodox perspective) the most compelling. An Orthodox will tell you there were only seven ecumenical councils and those councils ended around the 7th or 8th century, while a Catholic will tell you there have been more than 20 ecumenical councils and the last one was Vatican II. If we believe that Christ will always provide for His Church, it follows that we should see ecumenical councils (or a church that takes the position that the council was ecumenical) whenever the need arose right down to the present day. Looking back at history, I can’t agree that the need for ecumenical councils stopped sometime in the 7th or 8th century. Because I can’t accept that the need for ecumenical councils stopped in the 7th or 8th century or that Christ no longer provided for His Church, I find the Catholic Church’s position more compelling.

In short, the Catholic Church appears to me as a living organism that has continued to develop doctrinally for 2,000 years. The Orthodox appear to have stopped developing doctrinally sometime around the 7th or 8th century, which incidentally is about the time that they split with Rome and the rest of the Catholic Church.

 

[BillyT92679]

Eden:

I have to agree with LatinCat. If you ask a Catholic who has not dialogued with an Orthodox person on this forums what they think of the Orthodox, they will have a very positive view. Every Catholic that engages with the Orthodox here for the first time is shocked by the ingrained anti-Catholic sentiment that is deeply rooted in their theological culture. In that way, the Orthodox are just as defensive about why their existence is justified as the Protestants. When you see that kind of anti-Catholic culture, you have to realize who split from whom. You won’t find that kind of anti-Orthodox sentiment in the Catholic Church. Any hostility that Catholics display in these forums toward the Orthodox is directly related to the attacks we’ve encountered here.

Even the Orthodox agree that Peter had a special role. Why would you want to go with any Church but the one with Peter; the one on whom Christ built His Church?

But the biggest difference is that the Orthodox have true particular churches. They are not ecclesial communities like the Protestants.
Do I feel they should be ecumenical? Of course… but their apostolic origin makes them have a much more compelling case, even though they are, objectively, in schism.

I like the Orthodox, but I feel they sometimes come across as triumphalistic about all things Eastern.

 

[Eden]

BillyT92679:

But the biggest difference is that the Orthodox have true particular churches. They are not ecclesial communities like the Protestants.
Do I feel they should be ecumenical? Of course… but their apostolic origin makes them have a much more compelling case, even though they are, objectively, in schism.

I like the Orthodox, but I feel they sometimes come across as triumphalistic about all things Eastern.

Yes. I realize that the Eastern churches have apostolic succession. But they are in schism. I’m just stating that you can tell who separated from whom by the attitude they have against the Catholic Church. They have a culture that is anti-Catholic to some extent and I’m just pointing out that it is similar to the culture of Protestants. It is an attitude born out of justifying their existence. If you go to the Eastern Christianity forums you’ll see what I mean. We don’t have that historical animosity in the Catholic Church against the Orthodox.

 

[Ahimsa]

SFH:

While I think there are many decisive arguments in favor of Catholicism, I find the most persuasive to be the absence of ecumenical councils (from an Orthodox perspective) the most compelling. An Orthodox will tell you there were only seven ecumenical councils and those councils ended around the 7th or 8th century, while a Catholic will tell you there have been more than 20 ecumenical councils and the last one was Vatican II. If we believe that Christ will always provide for His Church, it follows that we should see ecumenical councils (or a church that takes the position that the council was ecumenical) whenever the need arose right down to the present day. Looking back at history, I can’t agree that the need for ecumenical councils stopped sometime in the 7th or 8th century. Because I can’t accept that the need for ecumenical councils stopped in the 7th or 8th century or that Christ no longer provided for His Church, I find the Catholic Church’s position more compelling.

One question: does the absence of a council, mean that Christ is no longer guiding a church? I’m thinking specifically of, say, the Council of Trent, which arose because of the Luther and Calvin reformations. The Orthodox had no need of a “Trent” council, because it never had such a large scale “protest” movement as you had in the Latin Church. So, maybe the lack of councils is actually a good thing.

 

[LatinCat]

Iambicpen, you claim that the Orthodox have more of claim to being like the early Church. Well, lets see if that is true. From my perspective, the different Branches of Catholicism function as follows: The Orthodox have become ossified because they have no way of functioning in a true teaching role to answer new questions or to explore the faith handed down by the Apostles. Protestants simply introduce new dorctrines as they see fit. The Catholic Church never changes the deposit of faith but has the capabilities to define, explore, and clarify. the teachings handed down by the Apostles. For example, the Catholic Church has always held to the Apostolic teaching of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The thinking man asks the question: “How is that possible since the Eucharist looks like bread?” The Catholic Church answers by claifying its teaching: The substance of the Eucharist is transformed into the body and blood of Christ, while the accidentes (outward appearance and behavior) remain those of bread, i.e. transubstantiation. The Eastern Orthodox are horrified at this “innovation” but it is not really an innovation but a clarification. We have simply given names to what we know to be true of the Eucharist, the same truth that the Eastern Orthodox believe in but have no way of describing in their ossification. Protestants on the other hand, dump the Apostolic Teaching and develop a new one: symbolic presence. Now the question is, how did the early Church function with regard to such matters? Well, I think that it functioned like the Catholic Church. The Church always had some idea that Jesus and the Holy Spirit were divine but that there was only one God. They also held in some way that in Jesus Christ there was divinity and humanity. However, during the first few centuries of the Church, the specifics of the matter were unclear. As the great theologians fo the Church tried to work this out some made great errors and some had great insights. Some almost took asubdinationist view of Christ with regard to the Father. Some developed almost the precise language used in the Nicean creed. To clarify the matter in the face of heresies such as the arian heresy, the Church had councils. The Church clarified at the Councils of Nicea and Chalcedon that God was trinity, three persons in one God,that the Son is of the same substance as the Father, and that the Father is the basic generating principle of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. At the Council of Ephesus, the Church clarified that Jesus Christ was one person with two natures: a divine nature, and a human nature, and thus it is proper to call Mary the Mother of God. You see, had the Church behaved in an ossified manner as the Eastern Orthodox Churches do, such matters could not have been clarified. If the Church behaved as innovationists like the protestant Churches do, the Church may have become nestorian, or arian, or gnostic. However, since the early Church was neither the Eastern Orthodox Churches, nor the Protestant religion, but rather was the Catholic Church, the early Church was able to retain the faith handed down by the Apostles and clarify the meaning of that faith. Thus, really the Catholic Church has more of a claim on being like the early Church.

 

[LatinCat]

Furthermore, the Catholic Church behaves much more like the early Church with regard to Rome. The earliest Christians saw Rome as the center of unity and teaching authority in crisendom.
Ignatius of Antioch says of the Church of Rome:
“Ignatius . . . to the church also which holds the presidency, in the location of the country of the Romans, worthy of God, worthy of honor, worthy of blessing, worthy of praise, worthy of success, worthy of sanctification, and, because you hold the presidency in love, named after Christ and named after the Father” (Letter to the Romans 1:1 [A.D. 110]).

“You [the church at Rome] have envied no one, but others you have taught. I desire only that what you have enjoined in your instructions may remain in force” (ibid., 3:1).
Dionisius of Corinth says of the Bishop of Rome:
“For from the beginning it has been your custom to do good to all the brethren in various ways and to send contributions to all the churches in every city. . . . This custom your blessed Bishop Soter has not only preserved, but is augmenting, by furnishing an abundance of supplies to the saints and by urging with consoling words, as a loving father his children, the brethren who are journeying” (Letter to Pope Soter in Eusebius, Church History 4:23:9 [A.D. 170]).
Here The bishop of Rome is called not only a father to his own Church in Rome but a loving father to his children, i.e. the christians outside of Rome.

“Today we have observed the Lord’s holy day, in which we have read your letter [Pope Soter]. Whenever we do read it [in church], we shall be able to profit thereby, as also we do when we read the earlier letter written to us by Clement” (ibid., 4:23:11).
The custom of reading the letters of the bishop or Rome in the Churches around the world even after St. Clement. Why do this if the bishop of Rome has no special authority?

St. Iranaeus says, concerning the Church in Rome:
“But since it would be too long to enumerate in such a volume as this the succession of all the churches, we shall confound all those who, in whatever manner, whether through self-satisfaction or vainglory, or through blindness and wicked opinion, assemble other than where it is proper, by pointing out here the successions of the bishops of the greatest and most ancient church known to all, founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul, that church which has the tradition and the faith which comes down to us after having been announced to men by the apostles. With that church, because of its superior origin, all the churches must agree, that is, all the faithful in the whole world, and it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the apostolic tradition” (Against Heresies 3:3:2 [A.D. 189])."
Here, it is shown that all must agree witht the Church in Rome not just because it maintians the apostolic faith, but also because of its SUPERIOR ORIGIN, having been founded by Peter and Paul, and since the bishop of Rome recieves their teaching authority. The Orthodox will often argue that at the time Rome had correct teaching and that is why all had to be in agreement with Rome. But, haha, that is not the only reason. The other reason is because of it superior origin. Thus, whether we choose to agree with Rome or not, we must submit to her because of this origin. Thus, if we disagree with Rome, who do you think is right? Us or Rome? If we are required to submitt to her, or agree with her, it must be Rome and not us who is correct because God would not require our obedience in Holy matters to a false teacher.

 

[LatinCat]

What I have posted above is the Earliest teachings on the Bishop of Rome and the Papacy. (I should make clear that the Pope is the bishop of Rome). This is before eastern Christians got their feelings hurt over silly matters. Thus the Orthodox have turned away from the such a teaching as time has gone on, ignoring what the earliest Fathers said, and reducing the Successor of Peter, to nothing more than a figure head.

 

[LatinCat]

Catholics simply clarified the doctrine of the Papacy.

 

[Hesychios]

LatinCat:

Goodness gracious. Here come the eastern orthodox from their divided churches, our so called “sister church”, to attack the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. I love these guys dearly but goodness gracious, don’t come in here to decieve a honest seeker of truth.

Hi LC!

Um, where did you see this happen on the thread?

And I really don’t think you mean “divided churches” do you? You understand the ecclesiology is different from yours.

+T+