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Where are members of the Orthodox Church of Finland when you need them...

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'at'sa them!

I knew they were here somewhere!

East and West, I think you need to look in to the saint in question, and his link with St. Photius the Great and St. Mark of Ephesus (because they form a grouping of pillars of Orthodoxy in the mind of the church and are depicted in icons as such). Also consider the era that St. Gregory "became a saint" (1973 I think it was said) and decide for yourself whether or not it makes sense that this happened, or if it happened during an era of turmoil, contradiction and loss of identity. Then I think you can decide what you're going to do.

Dear AMM,

That St Gregory Palamas would have agreed with his own Church on this and all other matters is something I have no wish to argue about either!

The point is - he didn't make it a point to go out of his way on this.

Alex

Dear AMM,

Now that's where I can fully agree with you!

Alex

In Finland where they are "Lapp" dancing!

Alex

Dear AMM,

Now mind your own business with respect to "East and West."

We're working on him, so don't you upset things!

The fact that his pastor, being traditionally Catholic, wants to venerate St Gregory, indicates that he is widely-educated and very ecumenical as well as Eastern in outlook.

The Very Rev. Fr. Archimandrite Sergius Keleher would have some choice words for you!

So don't be giving him any anti-Palamite "AMMunition!"

Cheers, Friend in Christ,

Alex

I'm just yanking his chain. It's not like he's going to go to St. Gregory Palamas Sunday liturgy and wake up the next day and start deciding the creed can't be altered, papal supremacy is wrong, purgatory doesn't make sense, Orthodoxy has an iresistable appeal, etc.

Unless....

Dear AMM,

Yes, unless . . .

I guess I better be careful too!

Alex

Good idea. Sounds like what I need to do. I have already ready the Catholic Encyclopedia article on Hesychasm. But of course, this article is slanted by a strong latin view point. I will have to research else where.

My priest also believes in the Immaculate Conception, Purgatory, the infallibility of the Pope etc.

Uh oh, it's starting.

LOL. What is starting? You forget that I am still a strict Thomist. I think his approach to God is the most reasonable and consonant with the Christian faith.

Dear East and West,

And the great Confessor Patriarch Joseph Cardinal Slipyj who spent 18 years in Siberia was also a Thomist (he taught my father in seminary in Lviv).

And the Patriarch had a Byzantine icon of St Thomas Aquinas placed in this Cathedral of St Sophia in Rome.

He is also the one who restored the veneration of St Gregory Palamas to our calendar.

If I'm not mistaken, the article you cite is more dated than Latin.

And to what extent Eastern Orthodox saints rejected "Latin" formulations of Christian faith rather than the "pith and substance" of it is something that is always up for debate.

Fr. Francis Dvornik has written much to show that St Photios of Constantinople, far from being the originator of any schism or controversy, was truly Catholic and died in communion with Rome.

When Pope John Paul II once met the Patriarch of Constantinople, he ordered that their Chairs/Cathedra's be placed on an even keel to indicate equality.

That is something the Holy Father took from the meeting of Photios with Pope John VIII in Rome when the two reconciled (and they reconciled with the recitation of the Nicene Creed sans Filioque).

You are both a learned and a spiritually forthright person.

I thank you for the privilege of making your acquaintance here on this forum.

Alex