www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Is anti-papal Catholic rhetoric the norm in Orthodoxy?

Andrew,

I'm sort of playing off Gordo's referring to particular kinds of statements as anti-Catholic.

[I am not accusing Gordo of knee-jerk responses or ignorance here.]

In the eyes of many Catholics, the Orthodox response to them and to certain kinds of ecumenical issues is often shocking to them at first. Even the mild things are not easily understood.

Because of the trajectory that my life has taken, I've had a great deal more experience with Orthodox people interacting among themselves than most eastern or western Catholics that I know have had. So I know that there are levels of attitude and emotion expressed and some are much less rigid than others.

But once in a while I can still be shocked by the 'when the Catholic Church decides to come home we'll be waiting' sort of attitude over things and issues that have already been discussed in bilateral meetings of Catholics and Orthodox and resolved, very substantially, without those 'big holes' that Michael is talking about here. Now those documents and agreements are not binding on any universal Church really but they do indicate a deeper commonality that some folks are willing to allow. It is that harshest of rhetoric in the face of efforts to agree that I wonder about. The door-slamming kinds of rhetoric. And I have heard it among Orthodox people outside of the parish hall and coffee hour.

It's not that I step up to condemn that kind of response and rebuttal but to try to get a better handle on how prevalent it is, how influential it is in Orthodoxy, in the United States, and then outside for I have no experience with Orthodoxy outside of the U.S. save for the occasional exchange of letters.

Eli

I really don't know. Like Hesychios said, it doesn't come up a lot.

I will say I've never heard an Orthodox Christian suggest Catholics are just full of pride or that if an Orthodox Christian converts to Catholicism they will lose their salvation. I've read both on this board this week said by Catholics about Orthodox. Those are not just statements directed at one church or its leadership, they are quite personal.

I don't know how prevelant those attitudes are in Catholicism, nor frankly do I really care.

Andrew

To ebed melech and everyone else from the "Does Orthodoxy need to be anti-Catholic?" thread,

If I may, I'd like to say a quick word of explanation about my post there (yesterday).

When I wrote it, I had not reloaded the explorer window in several minutes, and hence had not yet seen Father Anthony's 4:37 PM post (yes, I can be a little sloppy at times). Then once I did see his post, I tried to edit my post -- which seemed out of place in view of what Father had said -- but the thread was closed by that time. So instead I'd just like to ask everyone to take what I said in the spirit in which it was intended.

God bless,
Peter.

Well, from one point of view, an Orthodox who agrees with the Catholic position on the papacy would be a dissenter.

�It was not the fault of the Dwarves that the friendship waned,� said Gimli.

�I have not heard that it was the fault of the Elves,� said Legolas.

�I have heard both,� said Gandalf

Before I add anything to your contribution here I need to ask you if you are familiar with the anti-papal Catholic rhetoric to be found on most of the larger Orthodox discusson lists?

Once I have a sense of your experience with that then I can decide how to pursue another aspect of my inquiry.

So far, even with the limited responses here, I think it is likely that the answer to whether or not that kind of rhetoric is normative is "no it is not" but that leads to another kind of question.

Thanks so much for your responses thus far.

Eli

I realize that this comment wasn't addressed to me, but I can understand how some Orthodox comments can be taken as insults, they are generally not insults but are definitely shocking to someone who may have never heard their church addressed in this manner.
I myself have stated many times that the Roman Catholic church should return to Orthodoxy. I won't deny it, I really mean it, but I intend no offense by it.

I see that as the surest way to reconcile Christianity.

Imagine Marcus Grodi asking Protestants to "Come Home" and Protestants being offended by that. He means no offence, it is a gesture of genuine love.
As stated before, you just don't hear that kind of discussion among Orthodox. However, if you place yourself as a Roman Catholic in the middle of an Orthodox group and want to discuss theology you are going to hear an earful!

Imagine an Protestant fundamentalist inviting himself into an RCIA class, Bible study or some other Roman Catholic function and always want to discuss the difference in beliefs, if the RC feel challenged by this person they will respond strongly and firmly.

If it were possible to be unobtrusive, like a "fly on the wall" one would see there is no Roman Catholic bashing going on among Orthodox, amongst ourselves we hardly even think about the RC church.

+T+
Michael

I disagree. At the same time though, I can't imagine why I should be offended at that statement.

I hope I won't shock any of my fellow Catholics by saying this, but I personally have no liking at all for Mr. Grodi's show. (But your point is well taken.)

And vice versa.

-Peter.

Yes, and what would CCC 846 say about those people? That's why the whole thread started by Ebed Melech actually made no sense to me.

Eli

Are you familiar with the anti-other-Orthodox rhetoric to be found there? Or with the anti-everything-that-isn't-exactly-the-way-I-do-it-rhetoric?

Aside from all of that though, two wrongs don't make a right. Many Orthodox who don't engage in these things would probably, and rightly, be shocked (to use your word) by the things said about them by members of the Catholic communion. Things for instance said on this very board.

I don't spend time discussing Catholics or the Papacy with other people at church. That is my only real answer to the topic.

Andrew

Of course, that might not have been what Eli was referring to

I believe CCC 846 is about the necessity of Baptism (through which men enter the Church, as through a door); so I'd have to say it doesn't apply, since Catholics recognize Orthodox baptism (and even Protestant baptism, for the most part).

To All,

I don't believe this really adds to this discussion, and I don't wish to detract. I just wanted to share my thoughts.

I remember the first time I stepped foot inside an Orthodox church. It was during the food festival at the Greek Orthodox church in my local community. I saw a sign on the doors of the church inviting those who may be interested that there would be tours of the church at various times of the day. I was very much interested and told my wife we are going to tour the church at the time the next tour was taking place.

When we went for the tour we were guided by an elderly gentleman who walked with a cane and spoke with a fairly heavy Greek accent. He was beaming from ear to ear and it was obvious he was proud of his church and his church community.

He explained about the church and the icons and such and then he briefly talked about the faith of the church. The thing that has always stayed with me was when he said, "We believe much the same as the Catholic Church, though we have some differences, the first being we hold the Pope of Rome to be 'first among equals' among the bishops.

That old man led me on the journey to find out what our differences are.

My first stop was Holy Transfiguration Monastery (HOCNA), to purchase a prayer book, some books, and a couple of icons. After corresponding back and forth and being given much literature by a couple of the monks there, and being most graciously and charitably told ecumenism is an evil and I pretty much follow the ways of a heretical church (and there are fellow Latins who will tell me the same), in a round about way, I wound up here on this forum.

This leads me back to the affable old man, and the majority of Orthodox Christians I have personally come into contact with.

I believe there are saints on both sides of the aisle.

My prayer is for unity. I leave it to the leaders and theologians of our respective churches to work that out.

May God be our Judge,
Bill

Dear Eli you said:
I say:

I agree with you on this. There are much too many Orthodox fundamentalists on Orthodox discussion lists. Then there are other Orthodox discussion lists that have a purely political agenda. It's unfortunate our modern saints are so few. What we have is much too many Orthodox on the forums thinking only in the 'negative'. In other words, bash this and bash that. :rolleyes:

If you do read anything said by a modern Orthodox saint, (and they do exist), you will find they can express true Orthodox beliefs without any reference to other denominations. Actually, we have to consider fundamentalism as spiritual immaturity. Now who was it that said that? Was it Bishop Kallistos Ware, or that saintly bishop from Cyprus in Kyriacos. C. Makrides' book 'Gifts of the Desert'.

Zenovia

priest-monk Seraphim Rose calls it the correctness disease.

It seems to come and go in waves on some of the inquirers lists on-line.

Thing that concerns me is that you can find nearly 2000 people on one Orthodox inquirers list and because it is a ROCOR dominant list the anti-papal Catholic rhetoric can be thick at times, very often presented by ex-papal Catholics who will swear that the Catholics teach things that are not at all what I know as Catholic teaching. And their credibility is therefore deemed to be impecable. You can't even shake all that loose using Orthodox sources.

The real problem for the future of Orthodoxy I think is the very fact that Orthodox teaching itself is being distorted.

What I am trying to get a handle on, since Orthodoxy calls itself the Church of converts, is how prevalent are these somewhat biased teachings.

I can tell you that I have experienced it off the Internet as well as on, and in places where it was not known that I was a papal Catholic. Some knew but not all so essentially they were all speaking freely amongst themselves. I was just another person in the room. I've also seen that sort of thing break out at small speaker's conferences and the like.

Again, I do not speak to compare or condemn at all.

These things are of concern, not only to me, but to other Orthodox faithful, clergy and lay faithful. I think it is a stronger influence than most of us would like to concede. The implications of that are not encouraging.

Eli

Dear Elitoft,

As far as I'm concerned, I believe that the Orthodox Church contains the Fullness of Truth, yet that does not mean that many people, (if not more), within Churches with less fullness, do not contain within themselves a greater fullness of those Truths.

I will go even further and state that the Orthodox Church, although it contains the fullness', might not be the best vehicle of bringing elements of 'Truths' to others. So in that sense, denominations that exist outside of the Orthdox Church could have organizational abilities of presenting certain 'Truths' in a way that can be understood by the masses. Therefore the gain of souls would be more profitable, though the 'fullness' or completeness of 'Truth' might be lacking them.

Zenovia

You know this is really getting wearisome - here we are - once more debating anti papalism and yet on another thread we got the reverse - anti orthodoxy
Anti Orthodox comment

both the quote and the thread are showing triumphalism and lack of charity

I has to be said however that our Orthodox members have chose to refrain from going after it even though it was posted in a mean spirited way. For this I thank them