www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Kneeling Is A Mortal Sin!

Indeed, FDD, it must emanate in all directions if it is to work at all. And while I agree, in principle, with most of what Eli posted above, let's be clear: picking up a news story and leaping to conclusions about guilty parties, heretical errors, and excommunications is the antithesis of what Eli terms charitable judgment. So also is the inflammatory claim of malignancy. These are not "useful, good, and innocent discernemnts. (And they are certainly not just "ask[ing] what is going on", Monomakh. :rolleyes: ). While discernments might not be "inheretly wicked", they can, as we do "condemn [or] make any effort to exact a punishment", miss the mark. And discernment that precedes due diligence to get the story, also misses the mark.
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Well then let us put this to the test a bit from this morning's posts.

What do you make of the unfavorable comparison between EC bishops and the bishops of the OCA, particularly when the results of an independent audit have publically indicated no illicit use or misuse of funds in the OCA.

Is that a charitable discernment? Or is it part of what you decry as uncharitable?

What is your criteria and do you apply it in every instance?

Eli

Ya znayu, brat' Oleksandr...

I have a friend who is a priest in the UOC here in the US. As a zealous young priest in his first assignment as the pastor of an older parish, he announced forcefully from the pulpit on Cheesefare Sunday that the first week of Lent there would be no "Masses and Stations" on Fridays of Lent.

When he went to the church to prepare for Presanctified, the locks had been changed...(and yes, this was an Orthodox parish).
FDD

Alex,

Sure, there are some things that should be done privately. However, I don't think posting examples of liturgical abuses needs to be private. On the other hand, if I were to write a letter to the Bishop, which I'm not going to do, this would be a private matter that I would never post to a public forum.

Congratulations on your decision to pursue the Oblate life.

I was a Byzantine Benedictine Oblate from October '96 until February of this year when I transfered my affiliation to a Latin Monastery.

An article clearfied from the LA TIMES

"Kneeling or standing are not mortal sins"...

http://www.rcbo.org/highlights/images/pdfs/Kneeling_Standing.pdf

Dear Eli,

Perhaps I should not have said that about the OCA.

It is just that I know some OCA priests and people ( a number of whom I personally directed there during their conversion to Orthodoxy) and they are now telling me about their own struggles there etc. - and NOT just about the financial thing.

We need to guard against idealizing Orthodoxy in North America as well, we all have our problems and issues. And the notion that if we adapted to the idealized "Orthodox standard" is simply a form of "the grass is greener on the other side."

Sorry you took offence and I apologise for offence I may have given to others.

I too take offence at things said on this "news" thread.

Alex

Dear John K.,

As Father DIAKon has shown above, the matter of "Latin devotions" in our parishes isn't up to our bishops alone.

Our people who love them would skewer their bishops and priests for trying to take them away from them!

They are quite serious - and this also applies to "Latinized" Orthodox parishes - yes, there are such animals.

But that is the difference between Latin bishops and clergy trying to get traditional Latin faithful out of the kneeling habit - and us.

In our Churches, the traditions are jealously guarded by the faithful who have an understanding with their clergy and hierarchy for the most part - don't mess with us.

The RC tradition is used to more of a "top-down" approach reminiscent of the "good old (Tridentine) days." It is just that now that approach is applied from within a Novus Ordo/Vatican II perspective.

Also, the idea of becoming more "like the Orthodox" may be an ideal for our converts and specifically our non-ethnic converts.

Given the enduring "bad history" between the EC and Orthodox Churches in Eastern Europe especially, there are circles where even the term "Orthodox Christians" in the Liturgy is frowned upon with local petitions to bishops to get it removed - I heard this from a Presbytera/Cantorka from western Ukraine herself who said she always looks around to see the people make a "sour face" whenever "Orthodox" is mentioned.

For those people, "Orthodox" represents a Church that is both spiritually and culturally foreign to them and, what is worse, oppressed them for years behind the backs of an atheist regime.

Alex

Dear Athanasius,

Blessings to you and may our Father among the Saints Benedict the Great protect us always!

(I can see your point about not wishing to write the bishop - usually, people with gripes ask me to write or see him on their behalf - they know I'm an inoffensive fellow - no matter what Eli says! )

Alex

Dear Pani Rose,

Neither, I hope, are lying down, crouching, running or just leaning over (as long as one does not do too much of it . . .)

Alex

Eli, To his credit, Alex has already made his own comments on his remark - as have a few others on this thread. But let's not confuse things. Alex was responding to the interesting idea raised and repeated, of a malignancy and plague entering our hierarchy through contact with RC, but not EO, bishops.
While Alex may have been a bit glib, a reality check was not uncalled for. However, Alex did not accuse any one of heresy or heterodxy, did not claim to identify guilty parties, did not call for excommunication, did not claim malignancy. He did not condemn, or call for punishment. It might not have been the finest of his 19,500 posts, but he didn't violate your criteria in the manner of other posters on this thread.

I was simply asking whether or not you used an objective criteria in your own determinations of the value and propriety of a comment, and using a real life example to which you could respond so that we could see more clearly the nature and substance of your critism of others in the thread.

Eli

Dear Alex--I probably was not too clear as I was writing quickly this morning. I was not referring to Latinizations as such. I know that there needs to be time and pastoral sensitivity to change those things. I meant more the "policy and procedure" methods that the Greek Catholic bishops here in the States employ.

John K

Dear djs,

Thank you, sir! And I ask pardon for my glibberish!

However, I will affirm readily that I would rather be with my Church, warts and all, than with the OCA or a number of other Orthodox jurisdictions right now.

And if my Church became Orthodox tomorrow, I would follow it into Orthodoxy.

But only it!

Alex

Dear John,

O.K., but I think it is dangerous to generalize.

There are bishops and there are bishops. One Orthodox one refused to open his door to a new convert because he didn't like his ideas to "revitalize" his parish. He saw him through the window and wouldn't open the door, not in half an hour, not in one hour.

Another Orthodox bishop I know is to die for!

The same is true with EC bishops.

The grass is NOT greener on the other side.

And I would still stay with my own Church, even if it became Orthodox, than with ANY Orthodox jurisdiction in North America.

Alex

That is the wrong attitude and your faithful should be obedient to clergy.

Your "Churches" should follow the norms of the universal Church and be obedient to the Hierarchy.

Dear Eli,

How are you today, sir?

If I may, I don't know why it is being imputed to me by certain individuals that I am referring to the financial issues in the OCA in saying what I said above.

In fact, I was not and I should have mady myself more clear.

I was simply saying that the grass is not greener on the other (Orthodox) side - that is simple naivete on the part of those who think that way - and you are not among them.

I've heard it say many times that when people have "had enough" of the EC Churches, they threaten to go over to the OCA.

That is the wrong reason to join it or any other Orthodox jurisdiction.

And Orthodox hierarchs, God bless them, would not tolerate the kind of insolence towards episcopal authority that can sometimes be noted on this thread with respect to Catholic bishops and clergy.

And good for them!

Again, I will repeat what I said above that I would stay with my Church, through thick and thin, than join the OCA now or at any time - and this refers to the above context.

Have a wonderful day, sir, scholar and gentleman that you most certainly are!

Your servant,

Alex