www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News "Orthodox should settle own disputes before engaging the Latins"

http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=4084

18 December 2007, 17:03
Orthodox Churches must settle internal disputes before they start
dialogue with the Roman-Catholics, Patriarch Alexy II

Moscow, December, 18, Interfax - Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All
Russia has called the Local Orthodox Churches not to discuss their own
internal disputes and contradictions in the inter-confessional dialogue.

On Tuesday afternoon at the meeting with Metropolitan Christopher of
Czech Lands and Slovakia in St. Daniel's Monastery Patriarch Alexy II
mentioned that in October in Ravenna the Moscow Patriarchate' s
delegation abandoned the Joint Orthodox-Catholics Theologian
Commission session as a sign of the protest against the participation
in it so-called the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church. The latest was
established by the Constantinople Patriarchate on the Estonian
territory in 1996, breaking canonical rules of Orthodox Church.

"We think such issues to be settled in a dialogue and not to be
discussed in the presence of the Catholics part," said Patriarch Alexy
II addressing to Metropolitan Christopher.

Such public discuss, Patriarch said, "makes the wrong image about the
Orthodox-Catholics dialogue."

For his part, Metropolitan Christopher marked that the Orthodox Church
of Czech Land and Slovakia "always supported, supports and will
support the position of Mother-Church - Russian Orthodox Church."

He reported that the Czech delegation participating in the Commission
session in Ravenna reported to Hierarchy of the Orthodox Church of
Czech Land and Slovakia Hierarchy that a "very sad" incident had
happened at the session in Ravenna.

"Dialogue's subject is very important, and its break is disappointed
at any time," Metropolitan Christopher emphasized.

Alexandr

You see its all power religio-politics!
Stephanos I

I think that Patriarch Alexy has made a very good point.

There is a crisis in the Orthodox Church today. Sadly, there is not a universally accepted ecclesiology. This effects everything from primacy in the Orthodox Church and what it entails and does not entail, to how to resolve disputes among Orthodox Churches, to what Church has the authority to grant autocephaly to another Church, to whether a new Ecumenical Council can be convoked and if so how and by whom, to how we receive Christian converts to the Orthodox Church and what that means about their former communions, to how we view Christians and ecclesial bodies outside the Orthodox Church, to how Orthodox Churches can be using three different Calendars to regulate their liturgical life.

Does not the Orthodox Church have many issues to resolve within herself before she can resolve the question of unity with those outside her?

Fr David Straut

Some very hard questions here indeed, Father. The very realities that helped to dispel the first flush of convert romanticism from me! Thanks for summarizing them so succinctly,

Brigid

Father David:

Father bless!!

Would you be kind enough to explain this? I understand the use of the Julian calendar and the modified Gregorian calendar, but beyond that I'm at a loss.

Thank you. May the Lord bontinue to bless your service in His Vineyard.

In Christ,

BOB

The autonomous church of Finland uses the Gregorian calendar for their fixed and movable feasts. They're the only one. I believe it had something to do with getting support from the government.

Father David,as i am sure you know what you perceive as an internal problem is the norm for Orthodoxy. There is unity in our disunity. Disunity was the norm before Constantine unwisely in my opinion attempted to impose conformity on the church. If we were otherwise, we would be stuck with the centralized system used by Rome and I ran away from Rome precisely for that reason. let us rejoice in our differences and realize that it is a healthy part of being Orthodox.!.


There different calendars are in place in an attempt to leave control at the local level. We know that in the OCA there arfe some churches on the Julian calendar and some on the Gregorian calendar. Since when does conformity need be a hallmark of Orthodoxy in relation to the calendar since we all agree on the date of easter.

If the MP is right about dealing with our disputes in house before engaging the RCC, then we will have a continuation of the status quo ad infinitum, something of which i approve heartily.

This means that any further step towards unity with caholics will be possible only when ALL the Orthodox are UNDER the direct or indirect control of the Third Rome?

Dear Bob,

May the Lord bless you!

As someone has stated, the third calendar is the Western (Gregorian, Papal) Calendar utilised by the Orthodox Church of Finland (and, I have heard, in a few other isolated places) which celebrates both the fixed Feasts of the Menologion and the movable Feasts (and Sundays) of the Paschalion according to the calendar of the Churches of the West. I have read that the Church of Finland adopted the Gregorian Calendar under pressure from the Finnish Government as the price of becoming the second State Church of the Country.

Fr David

Dear John,

I find a few things that you said somewhat disturbing.

You say: "If we were otherwise, we would be stuck with the centralized system used by Rome and I ran away from Rome precisely for that reason."

I would hope that someone joining themselves to The Church would not be running away from something, but running to something. The reason to become an Orthodox Christian is because one finds in the Orthodox Church the clearest and most faithful expression of the Truth, not because one does not care for centralised systems. Were this so, Protestantism would be the best place for Christians! I know that you probably wrote in haste and did not weigh the impression your words give to one who reads them for the first time without knowing you.

You also wrote: "There different calendars are in place in an attempt to leave control at the local level. We know that in the OCA there arfe some churches on the Julian calendar and some on the Gregorian calendar."

I am sorry, but I cannot agree that having multiple calendars in place is a hallmark of Orthodoxy! From the time of the First Ecumenical Council until the 1920's all Orthodox Churches (in theory, at least) had the same calendar. In fact, our Bishops reproached the Pope for breaking unity with us by changing the calendar! What you are glorying in is just a mess. As for the OCA, please do not hold her up as some gold standard for the way Orthodox Churches should be. Churches such as the OCA and the Orthodox Church of Poland that have two calendars operating in a single Church are schizophrenic not normal!

You also write: "Since when does conformity need be a hallmark of Orthodoxy in relation to the calendar since we all agree on the date of easter."

As I am sure that you now aware from reading this thread, the Orthodox Church is not even united in celebrating the Feast of Feasts, Pascha, and all the Sundays and commemorations dependent on the date of Easter. One thing, at least, can be said for the Church of Finland. Like the Churches on the Old Calendar, her calendar makes sense. Those Churches on the so-called Revised Julian Calendar are neither fish nor foul. Examples: Some years there is no Apostles' Fast. In many years, the Feast of St George, whose service is full of hymns mentioning the recent celebration of Pascha, is observed within Great Lent.

You write lastly: "If the MP is right about dealing with our disputes in house before engaging the RCC, then we will have a continuation of the status quo ad infinitum, something of which i approve heartily."

Spoken like someone who really hates his former Church. How can you be a Christian if you do not have hope that all Christians may be one (in a unity of Truth of course)?

Fr David Straut

Father David, I would not use the word hate... you are reading into my staements words that I did not use. I simply believe there is unity in disunity and that it is the normal course of things and describes the current state of affairs. You and I choose to disagree and let us leave it at that.

Primacy in the Orthodox Church is not about control, direct or indirect, of one Church over all others. Those who believe that the Second Rome (Constantinople) should be exercising some sort of control, direct or indirect, over other Orthodox Churches seem to be multiplying, at least in Turkey. As for the real Orthodox Churches (as opposed to pretend Orthodox Churches), I hope that the growing realisation that the Emperor has no clothes will be expressed sooner rather than later. (We Orthodox simply do not like change.) I know on no one who spouts the pretensions of former Romes on behalf of the "Third Rome" (Moscow.)

Fr David Straut

John,

I am really left wondering why I bother to write anything on these forums. You make no comment on anything I wrote. I took what you wrote seriously and responded. I will remember this about your posts in the future. John wants no contradiction, no discussion. You know , of course, the derivation of the word pontification?

Fr David

Father you can discuss all you want. We just diaagree, no offense was intended.

Father David:

Father bless!!

Aaah, yes, I remember reading this same thing in Timothy Ware's The Orthodox Church many years ago but had forgotten it.

Many thanks.

Asking for your continued holy prayers and blessing,

BOB