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Just curious.

I was chrismated/baptized when I was a baby in the then Greek Catholic Church. Now I am an episcopalian/priest wink. Do you consider my bapism valid and do you think that I'm saved.

Not trying to stir up a hornets nest; just wanting some clarity.


fr. mike

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Your Baptism and Chrismation are not in question. There is no reason not to pray and hope that you shall be saved, but it is not usual to consider someone "saved" who is still living in this vale of tears.

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If that is so - then does the Catholic Church look at the Orthodox Church the same way it looks at the Lutheran Church?

No. Lutherans are not treated as Church because they don't have valid episcopate. They're an "ecclesial community". Orthodox have valid episcopate so they are referred to as "Church". (See "Dominus Iesus [vatican.va]", signed in 2000 by a certain Cardinal Ratzinger)

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Does that Mean for instance that the baptism of the Orthodox Church is only a baptism of water while the Catholic Church alone has Baptism of Spirit!

No. Catholic teaching is that everybody, including an atheist, Jew or heretic can make a valid baptism, providing there was correct matter (water), form (Trinitarian formula, baptism "in the name of Jesus" like Jehovah's Witnesses do, doesn't count) and intent (to do what the Church does). It is noteworthy that you don't have to know what the Church actually does, because it is Holy Spirit who is operating.

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Originally Posted by Fr. Mike
Just curious.

I was chrismated/baptized when I was a baby in the then Greek Catholic Church. Now I am an episcopalian/priest wink. Do you consider my bapism valid and do you think that I'm saved.

Not trying to stir up a hornets nest; just wanting some clarity.


fr. mike
No one can be certain until he dies, but we should trust God, repent and make good deeds. If you don't belong to the visible Church, you must belong to the "soul of the Church" to be saved. Don't ask me what it means now, but I think traditionally it meant a desire to belong to the true (Catholic) Church, which was unable to be realized for whatever reasons, like in the case of catechumens martyred before baptism, whom we venerate as saints notwithstanding.

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No that is not what the Catholic cChurch holds about Baptism!
Any Baptism that is done in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit with water is valid, even if preformed by an unbeliever, however all sacraments done are mediated through Christ's Church because she is one with her Head Jesus Christ and therfore they have their validity.


The Catholic Church views the Orthodox and other oriental Churches as differnt from non Catholic communions or groups, because of her Apostolic origin.

Please forgive me if I have not expressed this in the most clearest of terms since I am feeling a little under the weather.

Stephanos I

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Originally Posted by eli
Originally Posted by PeterPeter
The teaching of the Catholic Church is that there's one Church (we sing that in the Creed), and the one Church is the Catholic Church.

If that is so - then does the Catholic Church look at the Orthodox Church the same way it looks at the Lutheran Church?

Does that Mean for instance that the baptism of the Orthodox Church is only a baptism of water while the Catholic Church alone has Baptism of Spirit!

Ahh!
Woe to us if that is what Catholics teach!


Since it isn't, and a cursory read of the Catechism would show that, I can only hope you're not intentionally twisting things.

No, the Catholic Church does not at present look upon the Orthodox as they do the Anglicans nor the Lutherans.

The Orthodox are seen as part of the church, yet in material schism. Fully valid, even licit (due to the nature of the schism), and usually, orthodox (in the lowercase-o sense). (The exceptions tend to be splinter groups, so-called non-canonical Orthodoxy.)

Lutherans are material heretics and material schismatics, lack apostolic succession, and thus only one lutheran sacrament is valid: baptism. Lutherans, being still (at least most synods) trinitarian, their baptism is still valid.

Anglicans as a generality are material heretics, material schismatics, and have lost apostolic succession, and are thus in the same category as Lutherans. Their heresies, however, are far more minor than Luther & Zwigley's, involving (primarily) ordination of women, and ecclesiology. Those still include major heresies, and thus corporate unification is impossible.

Thus, it's far easier to integrate Anglicans into the Catholic Church; reordain them, and 90%+ of their theology is still Roman.

On the other hand, a few Lutheran synods are darned near as Catholic as the average Anglo-Catholic Anglican; that is, they maintain a teaching and belief that is not at odds with Catholic belief, other than their lack of apostolic succession, and communion with heretics. In fact, I know of some lutheran priests who would gleefully come into union under an arrangement such as that of the new ordinariate system. And the LCW needs few adjustments for validity... mostly needing a valid priest!



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New book just arrived "We believe in One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church".
Going to enjoy the read from the fathers quoted since this should provide interesting material for conversation.
Stephanos I

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I think the ordinariates are the best that Anglo-Catholics could hope for: like national parishes and the Pastoral Provision but with more clout. Not a sui juris church because they're a group in the Latin Church.

Re: Fr Mike, what Fr Serge said.

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It is interesting what St Cyprian of Carthage 248-254 AD said,
" I do beg you that, at least so far as you are concerned, this unlawful rending of our brotherhood should not persist. Rather, we beg that, being mindful or your confession and of God's teaching handed down to us, you should return to your mother from whom you have departed, from whom you went forth to win glory of your confession, bringing such jubilation to your same mother. Letter 46;1-3.
We pray that all those of good will seek that unity which our Lord desires.
Stephanos I

If not now when? If not us whom?

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Dear Aramis,

I am surely not trying to twist things.

What I was trying to say, maybe in a bit of a provocative tone I apologize, is that it seems to me what we are discussing too much formalities, laws, culture and God knows what and we fail to see what is important, unity in Christ.

It is starting to look as if the Catholic Church has a different Jesus than the one in the Orthodox Church or the Anglican Church.

It also seems that each church tries to assimilate another under its own umbrella and in a way "reconfirm" its members into its own.

I wish we could feel the pains and joys of each other the same way we can discuss the differences and throw arrows and pin point our little differences.

You tell me, we are discussing a topic which lies (in my eyes) on a thin thread between politics and inter-church relations, while many things around us work against us all: persecution, cultural/religious invasion, indifference ...

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If a group has no valid clerics, they have at most only one valid sacrament: Baptism.

If they have no valid bishops, they can not create new priests nor deacons nor bishops.

Without multiple bishops, no group can sustain itself in Apostolic Christianity; even St. Paul went to St. Peter for a blessing after God called him.

Without valid sacraments, salvation is impossible. Without the full range of valid sacraments, salvation is unlikely, perhaps even impossible.

This is all Catholic and Orthodox Doctrine.

Without Bishops, priests, and deacons no church is biblical. Without the Eucharist, no church is biblical. Without bishops and priests forgiving sins, no church is biblical. Without Baptism, no church is biblical. Without ordination by bishops, no church is biblical. Without Marriage being one man and one woman, and indissoluble, no church is biblical.

Confirmation, while not exactly biblical, is the Church extending the gift of Pentecost to all the faithful who were not present at the first Pentecost. In Confirmation, one is made present in the reality of the faithful on the 1st Pentecost.

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An ecclesial community without validly ordained clergy can nevertheless have valid marriages.

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Originally Posted by aramis
Without valid sacraments, salvation is impossible. Without the full range of valid sacraments, salvation is unlikely, perhaps even impossible.

Aramis.

This looks mightily like the earlier, since restated, understanding of extra Ecclesiam nulla salus frown

Many years,

Neil


"One day all our ethnic traits ... will have disappeared. Time itself is seeing to this. And so we can not think of our communities as ethnic parishes, ... unless we wish to assure the death of our community."
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Originally Posted by Irish Melkite
Originally Posted by aramis
Without valid sacraments, salvation is impossible. Without the full range of valid sacraments, salvation is unlikely, perhaps even impossible.

Aramis.

This looks mightily like the earlier, since restated, understanding of extra Ecclesiam nulla salus frown

Many years,

Neil


Indeed it does. Except that it puts it in a way that makes the Church-ness of the orthodox more obviously excluded from being extra ecclesiam.

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