www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Answering Eastern Orthodox points

Shlomo John Lee,
I will take each of your points separately:

1. I think that most Roman Catholics do not understand the Orthodox at all. 1054 is not the issue or even at issue.

Do you mean only Roman Catholics, or all Catholics in Communion with Rome? If you mean the former I would agree, but if it is the latter, then you also need to know that your "Western Church" (to those of us in the Middle East you are the Western Church) also lacks a full understanding of their "Eastern Brothers and Sisters."

2. What has been at issue is the means of governance. As an Orthodox christian I do not trust or wish to be governed by a monarch who will make proclamations on doctrine or dogma and then excommunicate his opposition.

We Eastern Catholics agree with you on the issues of governance, but is your system any better when you have patriarchs not recognize each other because of territorial disputes?

3. You ask the question "Can't we just get along", and then use the term Byzantine Catholic. The term Byzantine Catholic in Orthodox terms means a group who is Roman Catholic in every manner except in Liturgy.

Your statement above, is what we non-Byzantine Eastern Christians have been fighting with your Church about for the last 1600 years. Eastern Apostolic Tradition is not vested only in the Byzantine Churches. Further, none of us are Roman Catholics since he is not are Patriarch. Your statement would be the same as calling a Russian Orthodox believer, Sebian Orthdox and then when they protest it, saying: "well aren't you in Communion with them?"

4. They even accept the Roman Catholic Dogmas. To Orthodox Christians they are not Orthodox.

Yes we accept all the dogmas of the Catholic Church, which your Church shares 99.99% of, but we do not accept Roman doctinal definitions of said dogmas.

5. The truth is that the only reason that most of the Orthodox are declining is that they have been too ethnic in the past, but in the United States; there has been a change and the Russian Church and the Antiochian Church have become Autocephalious and will shorthly become one Holy Catholic and Orthodox Church.

I hope all the Orthodox Churches in the Americas join up, but that still does not make up for the fact that they are overall declining, and that most of the population of the world lives in the "Brown" South, and not the "white" North. Orthodoxy has had great success in Uganda, but it needs to become evangelical to survive.

6. Many Orthodox Christians and even my own Bishop think that the Latin Catholics are Protestants and that the issue in 1054 had the same affect as Luther's 96 Thesis. The Latin Church could have solved this problem by leaving the Eastern Churches alone and calling a Council to change the Nicean Creed.

I so wish that Byzantine Authorities had listen to your recommendation of "leaving the Eastern Churches alone" (in this case the Antiochene, Alexandrian, and Armenian Churches) and we would not have had the Muslim Conquest of the 600-700's. This is a major area that Eastern Orthodox seem to conveniently forget. That the Christian masses in those areas so hated the Byzantine Empire and Church that they prefered to live under non-Christian rule. That rule turned out to be worst for them, but you have to imagine how much hatred had to be produced for that to occur.

As to the Creed, I would like to point out that it was the Byzantine Church that forced through ex cathedra items too, that did not affect any of the other Churches, such as the iconoclast controversy.


7. For instance most Orthodox view Rome and the Patriarch of Rome as a tyrant who claims a divine attribute to enforce submission.

I agree that most Eastern Orthodox view Rome as a tyrant, but that same view is held of the Byzantine Churches in their dealings with other non-Roman Apostolic Churches. The prime example is the Antiochene Orthodox and Melkite Greek Catholic Churches. They were orginally Syriac in origin and liturgy, but were forced to become byzanitinized in order to prove their loyalty.

I and others are not asking for a "Kumbiya" moment. We are asking for serious dialog, with the understanding that yes we have all done wrong, let remember it, but don't let it become the reason for us not to rejoin.

To those of us who are part of the other three Apostolic Traditions both Romes (Old Rome's Roman Catholics, and New Rome's [Constantinople] Eastern Orthodox), are imperalistic. One uses the monarchal form of imperialism the other uses the oligarchal form of imperialism. And at least to us, Old Rome at least sees that and is trying to overcome. I hope that one day the Eastern Orthodox will too.

Poosh BaShlomo,
Yuhannon

Shlomo Lkhoolkhoon,
I posted my reply first, because I do want people to think about it. How do you answer some of his points, and do you feel that even though his points are valid, are they still being made to block unity and understanding?

Poosh BaShlomo Lkhoolkhoon,
Yuhannon

Dear Yuhannon,

Forgive my great ignorance - but where is what John Lee wrote that occasioned your response to him?

Alex

Shlomo Alex,
It is my fault. I belong to a Catholic Orthodox Forum on Yahoo. Here is the link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/catholicorthodoxforum

Poosh BaShlomo,
Yuhannon

This Orthodox poster seemed very much influenced by "Americanism", tending to favor a Patriarchate in the United States. His views are consistent with a person who has "left" Protestantism to join Orthodoxy.

Mexican,

Metropolitan +Philip (Saliba) favors a united Orthodox Church in America and i don't think comes from Protestant roots

Dear Yuhannon,

Well, I wouldn't go to other boards when you are already a member of such an excellent one as the Byzantine Forum!

A lot of those "other boards" have real fanatic converts who see things in "Black and White" only and whose idea of an "open discussion" is to see how many canons from the "Rudder" they can rhyme off by heart while taking a walk in the park

If that person you mention is difficult, I believe you.

He isn't a part of this great forum and he's not in the same league as you.

Stay put here!

Alex

Huh? How is Orthodox ecclesiology which is theoretically organized by geographic and regional boundaries "American" or "Protestant"? A united American Orthodox Church has been the desire of the greatest bishops and theologians of Orthodoxy, including St. Innocent of Alaska, St. Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow, and most current credible American Orthodox theologians. Whether America eventually is a "Patriarchate" or not, that is not the true issue at hand (Greece is not a Patriarchate, but it is a Church), but rather that of administrative unity, which is completely consistent with Orthodox practice.

Priest Thomas

Bless me a sinner, Father Thomas,

Just between you and me, I think Mexican can be very "Hispanic" at times . . .

By the way, remember you told me to ask my OCA priest friend about his wearing the cassock etc.?

I did ask him last week, and he told me he does not wear it . . .

Kissing your right hand, I again implore your blessing,

Alex

I believe that Father Thomas makes good points regarding the general desire amongst Orthodox in the Americas for administrative unity.

Sometimes the "unity" card is played to the extremes by folks claiming that we CAN NOT witness to the Gospel because we are not unified. Ridiculous! Witnessing to the Gospel is something that we should be doing every day at every hour amongst our families, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and the poor among us.

The fact is that we are unified, eucharistically and canonically, but we are not "administratively" unified, meaning that all of our bishops do not sit on the same synod/council.

The establishment of SCOBA in 1950(?) was the first move toward a closer liaison and will someday serve as the model for that administratively unified Church in the Americas. The model (as we see it in SCOBA) allows for the continued existence of diocesan structures based upon ethnic identification. That is often a point that bothers some of the folks (not necessarily of Protestant background or recently received into the Church) that tend to see all things ecclesial in black and white only.

Such a synod, with an overlapping of territorial-based with ethnicly-based dioceses, while a canonical anomaly, would be no more strange than what we see today amongst the Eastern/Byzantine Catholic Churches in the Americas.

With love in Christ's unity,
Andrew

PS: [I have been a member of or received the eucharist in parishes from more than seven different dioceses in a few different jurisdictions and encompassing four ethnicly-defined and three geographically-defined dioceses. (I moved around a bit due to school/work.) I have never encountered problems related to eucharistic and canonical unity, although the teaching upon various canons and traditions has varied.]

Explain.

Yuhannon,

....So,it doesn't matter if John Lee is on another board .... your words were very interesting even without his letter.

I am a Roman Catholic, and I have to say I don't agree with everything you said....however it is just the kind of letter that really perks my interest. You are eager to share your beliefs, and that shows through your letter.

I truly want to understand the Orthodox point of view more clearly, to understand what has been hurtful or helpful in achieving true unity....sometimes a heavy-duty discussion helps in that area....

I am glad you posted your response here....

As does every other serious person who takes canons such as I Nicea 8 seriously. ONE BISHOP PER CITY is the name of the game.

anastasios

Dear Anastasios,

But that canon was written before the advent of a multicultural nation like the U.S. or Canada.

And before the Churches of the East became 'national churches' too.

Alex

Thank you, Alex.