www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Old-Ritualists Forum Old Believers and Protestants

Please bear with this question, but what is the difference between a Protestant and a member of an Eastern Orthodox (Old Believers ), Priestless group?

You mean, beyond belief in a Holy Tradition, the Sacraments, a rejection of Sola Scriptura and perceiving their situation as anomalous rather than normative? I dunno.

LOL! Stuart, Не выпендривайся! It's a legitimate question.

Chirstopher (Are you sure you don't mean Christopher?), the Russian Starovertsy differ from Protestants not only in their beliefs and practices as Stuart so politely described, but in the manner in which they came about. Protestants left the Catholic Church and adopted new thinking, a revolt to the left, shall we say. With the Old Believers, the Church really left them, it was they who maintained the original Russian Orthodox praxis, a revolt to the right, so to speak. I guess the best analogy would be the Roman Sedeprivationists. The Priestless Old Believers (Bezpopovtsy) are really nothing more than Apostolic Old Believers who lost their episcopacy through death and left no true bishops to consecrate new priests. Now when I speak of Bezpopovtsy, I am not referring to some of the Russian sects that resemble them, such as the Dymiki, Netovtsy or the Khlisty, among many others.

Our brother Irish Melkite has posted quite a bit about the subject. Look up some of his old posts for more information.

Hope that helps.

Alexandr

If the Bezpopovtsy had truly been Protestant, they would simply have laid hands on some guys and said, "You're our priests, now". That they did not do so shows a deep respect for Tradition that transcended their pastoral needs: rather than violate the Tradition that only bishops can ordain, they decided to do without the sacraments (except for baptism). In place of the sacraments, they developed a deep pietism resembling that of the Old Order Amish.

Some of the Popovtsy did in fact ordain their own, but even they were careful, whenever possible, to have these ordinations regularized by a canonical bishop, and even managed, from time to time, to have some of those priests ordained to the episcopacy, thereby restoring Apostolic Succession.

When I hear "What's the difference between ..." I generally expected a joke or a riddle. This ^^ doesn't appear to be either, however.

I'll just say that the answers already given seem pretty good to me.

It would be well for us to follow the example of Pope Benedict XVI and differentiate between "Lutherans and Protestants".

Luther believed that the late mideval church had departed from Tradtion; his movement began as an attempt at reforming and restoring the practices of the apostolic era.

As for Ordinations, yes, the Lutherans (or "Evangelicals" as they called themselves in Germany) did Ordain Presbyters by other Presbyters out of the emergcncy situation of lacking an Evangelical Episcopacy. It was the hope of the Luther and his movement that and Evangelical Episcopacy would emerge; indeed, that even the Bishop of Rome might some day embrace their teachings.

Some Lutherans would say that they are protestant.

Fr. Robert Hart is ... well, not exactly an example, because he isn't Lutheran, but he's a Continuing Anglican who considers himself to be both catholic and protestant. (Actually, he says he's "both Catholic and Protestant", but I won't go into the capitalization issue at the moment.) See for example:
http://anglicancontinuum.blogspot.com/2010/09/two-heads-are-better-than-one.html

To which I would reply, "Which Lutherans?"

What exactly did Pope Benedict XVI say or do? Where? When?

And, sadly but necessarily, I agree...that question must be asked.

It is not possible to answer the question merely along the lines of the alphabet soup of Lutheran church bodies, with the possible exception of the NALC which is solidly in the evangelical catholic tradition. Its top leaders were warmly received by Pope Benedict last fall at the Vatican.

There are confessionalists in the ELCA, wonderful pockets of orthodoxy in a denomination otherwise running headlong toward being part of generic American liberal protestantism.

But, conversely, there are too many in the LC-MS that are enamored with "seeker services" and abandonment of the great tradition. No easy deliniations.

Surely, the difference between Old Believers and Protestants are practically the same when one considers the difference between Orthodox and Protestants?

Alex

I'm afraid I'm not sure what you mean, although it's certainly nice to see you. How have you been these last few months?

Do you mean that the differences are great or small? Or do you mean something else?

Hello sir!

Nice to see you as well!

I mean that the Old Rite Orthodox are the same as the Orthodox, so the same discussion as to the differences between Orthodox and Protestants would apply to them as well i.e. they have icons and Protestants do not etc.

Your servant,

Alex