www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology How Catholics should berate Orthodox

Dear Dan,

Welcome to the Eastern Christian swimming pool - come in, the water's fine!

But not always . . .

Eastern Christians have learned to live with each other's sensitivities, but still but heads most of the time.

Eastern Catholics have learned not to parade around in front of the Orthodox with icons of St Josaphat etc.

Again, "Byzantine" would have been a term exclusively used by Eastern Catholics.

It is ostensibly used by Latin Catholics to differentiate them from the "Roman Church."

True ecumenism is all about recognizing the sensitivities and living with one another with all courtesy and due respect.

I know you are a man who embodies those values.

And so is Brendan and the way he posed an earlier question here should serve, in my view, as an example of courteous, gentlemanly discourse for us all here.

I'm learning about this slowly . . .

Alex

Dear Alex:

And don't forget Orthoman, the "other" Orthodox Catholic in our midst.

Both he and Brendan epitomize, IMHO, the true Orthodox and gentlemen that they are, albeit one or the other is "harder" in his approach.

And how can you not appreciate the interesting accounts of ABDUR, the traveller, on his own measured journey from Sufism to the East?

Wonders really never cease!


AmdG

The Church of Haghia Sophia is still considered by the Greeks-and others-to be the Cathedral Church of The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople.

But she really belongs to the hordes of Hellenic Christians who shed their blood for Christ.

In our Lord,

Abdur

[ 08-07-2002: Message edited by: traveler ]

[ 08-07-2002: Message edited by: traveler ]

Dear Amado,

What, Orthoman "hard in his position?"

Since when?

Are you confusing him with someone else?

But you are right.

Brendan and Orthoman are two knowledgeable gentleman representatives of the OCA.

I like to think of them as lay versions of Meyendorff and Schmemann (the latter, I believe, was somewhat "harder" than the former too!).

Alex

OrthoMan posted:


OrthoMan,

I appreciate your presence here on the Forum even if I disagree with some of what you say (as, for example, the above.) That this Forum can continue to operate with such opposing views expressed here is remarkable. I apologize to OrthoMan for sometimes being too quick to take up the sword to do battle than to embrace him as a brother. May I learn to respond much slower and with more patience.

Just a personal note: Every time I receive the Eucharist I know I am "home" already (be it in a Eastern or Western parish). So, I feel no need to go anywhere else than to Christ Himself.

We may disagree as to where "fullness" resides. I had a remarkable discussion with an Orthodox priest recently at his home and we both agreed that the Church is "wounded" by our schism. We need each other and something is missing by our separation.

May the Lord whose Body and Blood we share in the Eucharist lead the Church into an awareness of the sin of our separation and help us to find ways to draw closer together!

Dave Ignatius DTBrown@aol.com

[ 08-09-2002: Message edited by: DTBrown ]

In all my reading, the phrase "The Great Church" and/or "The Great Cathedral" referred to Hagia Sophia and "The Great City" referred to Constantinople (now Istanbul).

I don't believe Eastern Catholics are (generally) treated like second-class Roman Catholics. Au contraire, I think many Western Catholics admire the Eastern Catholic Churches (if they know of them) for their traditions and heritage. Even though I think the Vatican II did some damage to Latin Catholicism, I think the council's mentality greatly helped Eastern Catholicism, calling its leaders to readopt and reaffirm its former practices before they were so "latinized." The Eastern Catholic Churches are just not beginning to blossom, in my opinion, and they serve as a cultural and theological bride between Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Without Eastern Catholicism, that bridge would be much more narrow and treacherous. Let's celebrate this fact, rather than wish it out of existence.

Soli Deo Gratia,
ChristTeen287

*just NOW* beginning to blossom. Normally I don't correct typos but this one was kinda crucial to my main point.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by ChristTeen287:
[QB]>>>I don't believe Eastern Catholics are (generally) treated like second-class Roman Catholics. Au contraire, I think many Western Catholics admire the Eastern Catholic Churches (if they know of them) for their traditions and heritage.<<<

Ah, the idealism of the young! And that's all I'm going to say.

>>>Even though I think the Vatican II did some damage to Latin Catholicism<<<

Ah, the naivte of the young, who yearn for a golden past they never knew, and could never know, because it never existed.

>>>I think the council's mentality greatly helped Eastern Catholicism, calling its leaders to readopt and reaffirm its former practices before they were so "latinized."<<<

That might be due to the fact that the driving force of the Council was His Beatitude Maximos IV Saigh, and the rest of the Melkite Greek Catholic Synod.

Ah, the obnoxiousness of the old!

Come on, I'm not saying the pre-V2 Latin Church was perfect in any respect, but I think there was a stronger general piety in the average Latin Catholic back then, but maybe these changes are due to the times in general and not to the Council.

If I can't comment on something that happened twenty-somethings years before my birth, how can you comment on anything hundreds of years before your own birth, such as the Fathers, the East/West Schism, etc.?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by ChristTeen287:
[QB]

>>>Ah, the obnoxiousness of the old!<<<

Watch it, sprout! I'm literally old enough to be your father. And I've earned the right to be curmudgeonly.

>>>Come on, I'm not saying the pre-V2 Latin Church was perfect in any respect, but I think there was a stronger general piety in the average Latin Catholic back then, but maybe these changes are due to the times in general and not to the Council.<<<

Unless you are old enough to remember those days (and my guess is that you don't even remember Ronald Reagan), you have no way of judging. I, who am old enough, can tell you that a great deal of that piety was extremely superficial, legalistic, and per rota. Most Catholics could recite at least some of the Baltimore Catechism, but few could tell you what any of it meant. Most attended Mass out of a sense of obligation, and in this country, most of them preferred the silent low Mass, conducted as quickly as possible. Under no circumstances would anyone voluntarily attend a "solemn high Mass" except on major feasts, and then only with the sense of engaging in a penitential ritual.

The Church in the US--and in most of the rest of the world--had become a house of cards by the early 1960s. An organization does not implode as rapidly as the Latin Church did in the 1970s unless there's a lot of rot already in the woodwork, and cracks in the foundation. The problem predated the Council (and probably can be traced back to the general lessening of faith that followed World War II), and if you see the Council as having damaged the Latin Church, a lot more people see it as having done a very useful combination of controlled demolition of unsound structures combined with necessary patchwork repairs and bracing.

>>>If I can't comment on something that happened twenty-somethings years before my birth, how can you comment on anything hundreds of years before your own birth, such as the Fathers, the East/West Schism, etc.<<<

Because I've done my homework on those things, as I have on the Council. If the Church is ever going to heal itself, then the most important thing for all its members to do is inform themselves, and to look at history in an unfiltered light, the good and the bad together, devoid of pious myth, sectarian polemics, and nostalgic sentimentality.

I think Stuart is generally right about the Pre-Vatican II Latin Church. Yes, there were elements of the Liturgical Movement before the Council (The Benedictines of St John's Abbey in Collegeville, MN among them, not to mention Chevetogne in Belgium) but these did not really seep down to many of the parishes unfortunately. Things were pretty much rote (this is of course not a comment on anyone's personal Faith)
On an anecdotal note, I remember my Mom telling me how the nuns would drill the Altar Boys on the Latin Responses but of course, they did not explain what they meant! Also, my dad often recalled how he would enter Church, see the 6 candles lit on the High Altar and literally groan!!! My grandmother preferred a priest who could say the Low Mass in 20 mins etc etc

Peace,
Brian

As I said before, the pre-V2 Latin Church wasn't perfect, but it seems to me that the post-Council Latin Church isn't any better off. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

Soli Deo Gratia,
ChristTeen287

[QUOTE]Originally posted by ChristTeen287:

>>>As I said before, the pre-V2 Latin Church wasn't perfect, but it seems to me that the post-Council Latin Church isn't any better off. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.<<<

Different problems, with different causes. The Church is constantly in need of reformation if it is to be true to its nature as a sacrament of the Kingdom of God. The Church has always fallen short of the mark, and it will always fall short. That is why Vatican II cannot be considered the "definitive" reform council--it only started the work that needed to be done, and it will probably take several more councils to accomplish the goals outlined by the Second Vatican Council. In the meanwhile, you might take comfort in the knowledge that the Church has been in far worse straits in the past--usually self-inflicted--and has survived and prospered in the end. It is futile, therefore, to go looking around for a time in the past when the Church was "pure" or "pristine" (a common failure of certain evangelical types), because that time never existed. Christ rose on Sunday, and by Monday morning there were problems to be confronted.

+JMJ+

People, I am most disheartened to see this uncharitable bickering among people who are truly members of the same spiritual body.

When Jesus looks down from heaven He doesn't see OCA, ROCOR, RC, BC, etc. What He sees is members of the same Body, His Body. You see when we bicker among ourselves it is like unto the eyes bickering with the ears and nose bickering with the tongue.

We have the same sacraments, the same faith, the same Lord.

I am not saying this as an ecumenist. Those who know me know that I am not an ecumenist by any stretch of the imagination. Roman Catholics, Byzantine Catholics, and Orthodox Catholics are already in the same Church because we share the same faith and the same Eucharist.

OrthoMan recently helped me to aquire and Ikon of Tsar St. Nicholas II. It is among the most beutiful Ikons I own and he went out of his way in order to help me aquire it. I can think of no greater example of a good Christian than people like Orthoman. If we all lived and acted as Orthoman, all those in the protestant heresy would see the truth of apostolic Christianity and come home. All the Jews still living in perfidy would see the light and be converted. All pagans would be converted by such wonderful Christian examples.

Again Orthoman is a living saint and we would do better to imitate him than to berate him.

JOe Zollars
(a hardline traditionalist Roman Catholic)