www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Episcopal Church General Convention: Damaging the Church?

Seeing that the thread started in the Byzantine News topic has been redirected into a talk about homosexuality and changing such an orientation, I have decided to start a new thread here to discuss the three items that are occuring at this Convention and how they will affect christianity as a whole.

The three issues are...

1) Confirmation of Bishop-Elect Robinson as Bishop.

2) The creation of Rites for the Blessings of Sex outside of Marriage

3) Direct Ordination, with this they are moving to the direct ordination of priests, that is a permanent deacon will be ordained to the diaconate and a priest will be ordained directly to the priesthood, no more transitional diaconate.

What kind of affect will this have on our Churches, if any?

This does seem like it will offer great encouragement to those in our churches who want us to do this sort of things.

As for #3, what does is say about the office of priest and bishop, are they no longer will share in the office of the deacon?

Again, I will end with...

Matthew 7:14
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.


David

Dear David:

Re: 1 and 2 - it will cause a further division. The Roman Catholic Church and the Evangelical groups will continue it's vocal stance against homosexuality, while the main line Protestant denominations might just follow the example of the American Anglicans.

Side note: I can't help but think that the Episcopalians have simply chosen to acknowledge something that has been going on for a long time all over the Christian world rather than hide from it. Not that it makes it right or moral, of course, but it's there. (Let the verbal assault begin).

Re: 3 - minimal effect, if any. Certainly what the Episcopalians do will not change how our Rites are practiced. Compare this to the big-c Catholic Church where Latin, Byzaninte, Melkite, etc. etc. etc. ritual practices remain (for the most part ) a product of their own traditions.

Yours,

kl

I'm going to be terribly blunt here. Sorry.

Hopefully, any and all members of the Anglican Communion who have any sense about them whatsoever will fly out of that ecclesiastical community like bats out of Hell (pun intended).

In some ways, I see this as a posiive for both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Perhaps, by the grace of God, traditional members of the Anglican Communion will come into the Catholic fold and embrace the True Faith (of course, I also believe that many Anglicans will convert to Orthodoxy because of Romophobia or just out of sheer preference for Orthodoxy). I cannot lie and say that I'd not prefer them to become Catholic rather than Orthodox, but if it's ECUSA or any of the Orthodox Churches, it's NO contest.

Apparently the ECUSA (and the rest of the Anglican Communion) has gone to hell in a handbasket (or did that happen 475 years ago?), so why not gather what treasures we can? The ECUSA will only continue to become more heterodox; this much is unmistakably clear.

I think the Catholic and Orthodox Churches should make the best of this situation; the glass is half full, for us anyway. Not to say that this abomination isn't regrettable, but did we ever really think that the Anglican Communion would return to the Church before? I'd say it's been obvious for the last thirty years that this is simply impossible. Let the heterodox take over the ECUSA and eventually the entire Communion; but let's make a killing while they screw themselves over.

Logos Teen

Dear Teen:

There are certainly stories of Anglicans (and even Anglican communitites) coming back into the fold of the Latin Church. If I recall correctly, Rome has allowed certain elements of the Anglican liturgy to be incorporated into the Latin practice where an entire parish converted.

Byzantine spirituality is foreign to them. While singular exceptions exist, don't hold your breath.

Still, I cannot help but notice that you appear to celebrate the fact that the Anglican Church will be wounded and possibly fractured by the appontment of an openly gay bishop.

As Dr. John says, let's show some compassion.

Yours,

kl

Appointment of an openly homosexual Bishop is a clear indication that the ship is damaged beyond repair. All we can do is to stand by to pick up survivors.

Dear Lawrence:

Our ship is certainly big enough to accomodate the "survivors."

Let's just not party in the face of what we perceive as someone else's sinking ship.

Yours,

kl

Krylos Leader,

Your point is well taken. Perhaps I am uncompassionate. However, I see this as a decline of an ecclesiastical community whose genesis began in apostasy. Hopefully the Church will gain members through this. It's heart-rending for those traditional Anglicans who love their church, but I'd rather them be a little sad and frustrated and in the Church, than happy go-lucky outside of it. But the pain this has caused is regrettable and sad. I guess I just see it as the coming of the inevitable.

It seems that the good outweighs the bad in this situation, at least for Catholic Church. For traditional Anglicans, it is definitely another story.

Logos Teen

Yes ... a prayer to St. C.S. Lewis might be in order.

" But why dost thou see the speck in thy brother's eye, and yet dost not consider the beam in thy own eye? And how canst thou say to thy brother 'Brother , let me cast out the speck from thy eye,' while thou thyself dost not see the beam in thy own eye?" (Luke 6:41-42.)

Lets stop worrying about what the Anglicans are doing. Our job is to be Byzantine Catholics and manifest the Kingdom of God within our own context as Eastern Christians.

How well are we doing? Lets do a little self examination... I don't think these appalling recent posts on this Forum about Cantors getting attacked during Liturgy (and similar hostilities we often encounter in our parishes) speak well of our own Spiritual and Social evolution.

Lets clean up our own backyard first...

Slava Isusu Christu!
Stefan-Ivan

update-While Cannon Robinson has been ratified as bishop of NH, the Rite of Blessing Relationships other than marriage is in "limbo" and the abolishing of the transitional diaconte was defeated.

Sometimes, it is news like this that gets decisions made. So much laxity in the 60's and 70's, especially in the seminary where it was allowed to fester.

//Lets stop worrying about what the Anglicans are doing. Our job is to be Byzantine Catholics and manifest the Kingdom of God within our own context as Eastern Christians.//

In defense of David, his questions were posted on the Town Hall forum, where we can, �Discuss everything that doesn't fit into one of the above categories �� What is happening in other churches and jurisdictions DO affect us as Byzantine Catholics. What happened after Vatican II became our problem: dissatisfied Latin Catholics. How were we to welcome them and introduce them to our church if they fled theirs? How were we to discern their reasons for coming to our shores? Were we to send them back as illegal refugees or grant them a safe haven? When the above-mentioned church began ordaining women, a number of clergymen left for Catholicism and/or Orthodoxy. Provisions were made for married clergy seeking a spiritual home. What the Anglicans are doing ARE important as much as we BECOME involved. You make a good point about �our job is to be Byzantine Catholics and manifest the Kingdom �� Many issues going on in other churches creep into our parishes. For instance, many question why we can�t have musical instruments for liturgical purposes. What will be your answer if you refuse to understand the history of why instruments were employed in other churches? Can you give a good explanation why we don�t utilize them in ours? Some of our churches HAVE introduced them.

Joe

If I can interject, I do think that the issue of schism is probably overblows...as was the case with the ordination of women, only a small number actually left (I believe around 500 were accepted under Cardinal Hume?) and that group in the 80's that converted to Orthodoxy. The decision to endorse the election of the new bishop was unexpected because most believed that the Bishops would choose unity over innovation (as Rowan Williams said)...no doubt some will leave the Episcopalian Church but most will learn to live with it...the blessing of the same-sex union in Canada has not caused as much havoc as was expected and most conservatives/evangelicals do want to stay in the Anglican Communion - my guess is that they might look to outside pastorship (Africa and Asia) or demand the creation of another province. I think that Rowan Williams has his work cut out for him....

Anton

As to how it might effect our respective churches, I am not really too sure...to my knowledge, Orthodoxy has never had advocates for women ordination or same-sex support...tell the truth....I think the whole discussion is probablt alien to us...I guess we can be called "sticks in the mud" but - more apparent in east rather than west - is that the monastics have much more influence and I do not think that we will be debating these issues soon...

As for the Catholic Church perhaps it is a bit more problematic...there is a concervative Pope and the majority of the cardinals are of a similar vein but they do have various advocating groups...the whole discussion issue might be postponed but I think it is more likely that the Catholics will face the problems faced by the Protestants much earlier than the Orthodox...but bear in mind that this is merely an observational view....

Anton

Given that when persons were elected Roman pope who were publicly known to have one or more mistresses, Orthodoxy didn't pick up any members, I'm not sure everyone who objects to this action will feel completed to leave.

Axios