Fr. Gabriel Bunge (OSB), a renowned monastic and master of Patristics, was received into the Orthodox Church by Patriarch Kyril of Moscow and all Russia and Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk on the eve of the Dormition (Old Calendar). Fr. Gabriel has been living the life of a hermit in Switzerland for several decades and is the author of a number of books.

Source

May God grant Father Gabriel many years.

His reception into the Orthodox Church is yet another example of people taking serious steps to follow their consciences and their hearts. May God indeed grant him growth in faith, life and spiritual understanding, in his new spiritual home.

It saddens me whenever I learn the news about a Byzantine Catholic priest becoming Eastern Orthodox. The last one that I am aware of was Fr. George Maloney,SJ whom I served with at a Divine Liturgy years ago.

Fr.Maloney is one of my favorite authors. I have been trying to find copies of most of his books. One thing for sure, each one is a new adventure with Jesus.

Why does it sadden you? We are all destined to become Orthodox, some day, and if a priest or layman feels he can no longer live the fullness of the Orthodox Tradition in the Greek Catholic Church, then he should enter into the Orthodox Church in order to do so. Insofar as both the Catholic and Orthodox communions possess the fullness of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, what matters where one stands?

I agree.

Have you read Dominus Iesus lately?

It states:


The Eastern churches not in communion with Rome do not have the fullness of the Christian faith because they deny the universal primacy of the Pope of Rome which has been revealed by God through His Church.

It is erroneous then to say and believe that the Catholic and Orthodox Churches compose the one Church of Christ. As it states the Church of Christ "continues to exist fully only in the Catholic Church".

One need only read the lives of our holy martyrs Theodore Romzha, Leonid Feodorov, Nicholas Charnetsky, the Martyrs of Pratulin, Josaphat Kuntsevych, etc. to see that they believed to the point of shedding their blood in the fullness of the Catholic faith.

As a Greek Catholic I revere and invoke all those Eastern Catholic martyrs you refer to,(I am blessed to posess 1st. class relics of 3 of them) BUT -
-their situations were quite complicated and oftentimes political and ethnic and not merely religious considerations were involved;
- they all lived in times before the ecumenical movement really got underway and thus some of their choices do not fully reflect the insights we Eastern Catholics have gained from fruitful and friendly dialogues with our Orthodox counterparts (and I hope they've learned a few good things from us as well);
-we really gotta work on putting polemics and mutual hostilities in the past, where those things belong.I think this is a task for both Catholics and Orthodox.
- I think it's crucial to reflect with gratitude on the beliefs and values we share while not flinching away from the issues that continue to divide us.
- sincere prayer for re-union of the Churches has to accompany these efforts and we Eastern Catholics and Orthodox must really and truly want it to happen. We probably must want it to happen more than we may want "our" particular position on this or that issue to prevail.

Hospody, pomiluj i spasi nas.

As a Ukrainian Greek Catholic, I think millions would be hardpressed to feel destined to become Russian Orthodox (since Ukraine isn't allowed a canonical autochephalous Orthodox church because of Russian imperialism), even though more Orthodox belong to the noncanonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kyivan Patriarchate) than the MP. You see I agree with Prof. Geoffrey Hosking, one of the world's most respected historians of Russia from the University of London when he writes of Russians in the 2000s:

"identification with Orthodoxy was more a statement about national feeling than a reflection of religious belief. Most church hierarchs also emphasized this aspect of the church, preaching loyalty to the Russian State, and the development of national unity as much as they dealt with personal salvation or moral issues. This approach continued in the role of the church as it had been under the tsars and with modifications, in the latter Soviet decades, as the spiritual extension of the state.
Hosking, The Russians in the Soviet Union, 2006

The loyalty to the Russian State as in the MP Patriarch Kirill's propagation of the "Russian World" to include Ukraine, means a canonical Orthodox in Ukraine should be loyal to Russia's regime, which is run, let's be cleary, by K.G.B. agent Putin which provides a farce of protection of freedom of assembly, democracy, or rule of law. This is what the Russian Orthodox Church looks like to many Ukrainian Catholics: a church which demands of the Pope that Ukrainian Catholics be slowly cornered into one area of Ukraine and not grow more in numbers. (I guess one is to take off from where the KGB pseudocouncil of 1946 didn't finish).

A Ukrainian Catholic may hope (and I do sincerely) for union with any future hypothetical Ukrainian Orthodox truly Autocephalous or Patriarchal canonical church, but the question of Russian Orthodoxy raises the issues of its relationship to Putin's Kremlin and the view propagated by Putin that Ukraine isn't a country. Today's Russian Orthodox Church's calling card is the same as it was under the czars: "Orthodoxy, Autocracy (Putin is an autocrat), and Russian Nationalism."

Not all Orthodox jurisdictions preach their land as "Holy Russia" but if you join the MP (Moscow Patriarchate) it would seem to me you are joining a church which does not merely follow spiritual goals but secular and imperialist goals in countries like Ukraine.

For instance, on the caesaropapist nature of the Russian Orthodox Church, one wonders how much of the following is true:
"French secret service fear Russian cathedral a spying front"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew...ying-front.html

Just my 2 cents on this but may the Lord Bless the new convert.

Oh Mod. Do all member's posts have to wait some hours to be vetted before they are posted as mine are? I've been a member since April I believe but can never post upon pressing post.?

The one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church is fully present wherever the Eucharistic liturgy is celebrated, the Orthodox faith is professed, and the authority of a bishop in apostolic succession is recognized.

Vlad,

For a period they do. And the change required to transfer one out of that status is a manual one, so it much depends on a mod or admin noticing that a new poster has been here a while and is clearly not a spammer, hack, bot, etc. That's easily missed if one posts infrequently and during times such as Lent. I'll pass the word to the Admin and you should be fine w/in a day or so.

Many years,

Neil

Yes. Ask me if I care.

Stuart, from yr post it sounds like you just peremptorily dismissed a significant Vatican/papal document, instead of delving into it and wrestling with the issues it addresses.

If that's the case, why did you? I am not attacking you; I'm just astonished and curious. Other posters may be as well.

By the way, I don't consider myself destined to join the Orthodox Church.