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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: From Roman Catholicism/Eastern Orthodoxy
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Forthview
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# 12376
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Posted
It's not just as simple as you say .mousethief.
The bishop of Rome is recognised,at the very least,as primus inter pares,first among equals.Antioch,Constaninople (new Rome) as well as Moscow (third Rome) claim their status as stemming from the See of Peter.
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
I've heard both RCs and Orthodox acknowledge that it ain't all that simple ...
I'm not sure Mousethief is suggesting that things were as clear cut as that either.
Ok, as a Protestant it's in my spiritual DNA to baulk at Papal claims (transferring them instead to mini-popes or to a Paper Pope ... perhaps) ...
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
But one of the things I've never quite grasped about the Schism is how it suddenly made one side or the other apparently invalid ...
I mean, are we seriously suggesting, from the Orthodox perspective, that the very moment Cardinal Humbert marches into Hagia Sophia or wherever it was with the Papal Encyclical and has a hissy fit on the Pope's behalf, that way, way over in Western Spain or the Western Isles of Scotland a priest suddenly finds himself offering an 'invalid' Mass?
Or, from an RC perspective, that the moment Humbert shook the dust off his feet and left Constantinople the whole panoply of Orthodox orders and ceremonies were suddenly compromised?
What about someone over in Baghdad who wasn't aware of the spat between the Pope and the other Patriarchs?
Ok, I'm over-simplifying ... I know the Schism was more gradual than that ... and had, arguably, been looming for many, many years ...
But at what point did one side or the other's rites and ceremonies become invalid from t'other's perspective?
What does that even mean in practice?
How can we tell?
I know it doesn't come down to 'feelings' and fuzzy-wuzzy reactions ... if it did, then I'd be hard-pressed to assess the validity or otherwise of any side's rituals, ceremonies or clergy.
They both seem to convey grace insofar as I can tell - by the simple expedient of hearing wise words and grace-filled things expressed by clergy and laity on either side ... and by observing what I've taken to be grace-filled responses on the part of those who engage and partake in the services and so on on both sides ...
Of course, we can't open someone up or X-ray them to see what 'effect' it's having ... but if it was a by their fruits thing then I'm sure we could find examples of good and bad fruit in both East and West - across the whole kit and kaboodle ...
Sure, that's not to say that I don't see the differences - of course I do. There are very marked differences in terms of approach and mindset between East and West ...
But are we talking about complementary and reconcilable differences?
Or are we talking about complete non-negotiables?
Neither side is denying the Trinity or the Deity of Christ or the Deity of God the Holy Spirit.
I don't want to get all reductionist here in a Protestant kind of way ... but I'm sorely tempted to whenever I sit in on a spat or a discussion between the Orthodox and the RCs ...
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stoic29:
quote:
Originally posted by Young fogey:
The criteria are credal orthodoxy so basic that it includes the Nestorians, an unbroken claim to apostolic succession (them what got it don't pull out charts to try to prove their "lines"), and unbroken true teaching about the Eucharist (it's Christ's actual sacrifice made present and the elements completely change). Reformed theology falls short on the last one, so the Pope said no to Anglican orders, after centuries of caution treating them as invalid.
God created valid orders but he's not limited to them, which is why we don't dare say an Anglican priest of either sex's ministry is graceless. Nice Orthodox say the same of Catholics.
I was under the assumption that when Rome said "null and void" it meant that the sacraments in the Anglican communion are "without Grace".
IIRC, Cardinal Frings who was Joseph Ratzinger's mentor formulated that "channels of grace" line at the Second Vatican Council. Pope Leo, I dare say, was less complimentary. ISTR that Catholic theologians hold that grace is not 'a substance' but nothing less than the life of God, Himself, so I'm not sure exactly what benefit valid sacraments bestow if protestant sacraments bestow the life of God Himself
AIUI, according to Rome the Orthodoxen have valid sacraments for the reasons outlines by Young Fogey. The Orthodoxen divide into those who hold that the Orthodox Church definitely has valid sacraments and that God may well be working through the sacraments of other churches but only the Orthodox can be sure and those who hold that only the Orthodox have valid sacraments.
I think that the first of the two Orthodox positions has some merit. I am quite sure, for example, that the Holy Ghost is at work in churches which have a Zwinglian understanding of the Eucharist and which deny Baptismal regeneration but to say that their sacraments are 'valid' (meaning one claims for them what one claims for one's own sacraments) seems to involve a claim that the participants don't understand what they or doing or how God works in it.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Do any of us understand what we are doing and how God works in and through it?
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
Sure, though we see through a glass darkly, we still see ...
Again, I'm reluctant to cite personal, subjective experiences but I can remember having a very real sense of the 'enormity' of what we were doing in a very prosaic, very memorialist Baptist setting in South Wales - when something the guy presiding at the 'table' said triggered a whole string of thoughts and associations that made me feel that were in some sense connected in a very real way to events in Palestine 2,000 years previously.
No flashing lights, but a sense that what we were doing went beyond 'mere memorialism' and had an eternal, cosmic and eschatological dimension.
That neither 'proves' the 'validity' or otherwise of Baptist 'ordinances' - arguably the 'church meeting' is the only Baptist sacrament ...
But I submit that it may indicate that whatever it is that any of us are doing we may well brush or touch the hem of His garment in some way ...
If it's true that 'the heavens declare the glory of God' and that God is 'present everywhere and filleth all things' then who are we to say what is or isn't going on in this, that or the other ceremony or ritual ...
Yeah, yeah, I know, that's all very Protestant ...
But let's turn it round. I once went to an RC Benediction and Exposition ... the Protestant wiring within my system was short-circuiting, crackling and fizzing like nobody's business ...
And yet ... and yet ... and yet I felt a sense of holy dread. Was that real, imagined or simply some kind of cognitive dissonance reaction?
I have no idea.
I have felt something very similar during the silence at an Orthodox vespers. Again ... how do we assess or evaluate that?
Was the Orthodox Vespers 'valid' but the RC Exposition 'invalid'? Were both valid? Were neither?
A hotter Prot than me would probably have taken issue with both ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Forthview
Shipmate
# 12376
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Posted
I think that Protestant 'baulking at papal claims' is not the same as Orthodox baulking at papal claims.
From the Catholic point of view the Orthodox have a valid episcopate and therefore valid sacraments
(in the Catholic understanding of the Sacraments)
Over the centuries of separation, no doubt misunderstandings on both sides have crept in, but on the Catholic side,at least at top administrative level,the Orthodox are fully accepted as a part of the One,Holy,Catholic and Apostolic Church.
This is not to say that all Catholics in areas where there is the same tension between the 'Catholic' and the 'Orthodox' church,as we have in the west between the Catholics and the Protestants will see things that way.
To me, the problems between the papacy and the Orthodox church are really political and historically cultural ones. Both sides have the same view of bishops,priests and deacons.Both sides have ultimately the same view of the sacraments. The external forms of the liturgy are really the same ,but there are immense cultural and historical divergencies,in particular with the universal jurisdiction of the Roman pontiff.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:
It's not just as simple as you say .mousethief.
The bishop of Rome is recognised,at the very least,as primus inter pares,first among equals.Antioch,Constaninople (new Rome) as well as Moscow (third Rome) claim their status as stemming from the See of Peter.
But not content to be primus inter pares, he styled himself the ruler of inferiors. This started early and culminated in 1870.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Gamaliel, very good point about the R.C.. sacraments suddenly becoming invalid the moment that fool Humbert soiled the altar at Holy Wisdom. I don't have an answer to that. I wonder also about the popes and anti-popes at Rome and Avignon, and how the faithful and indeed the priests could know from Sunday to Sunday whether they were getting the real deal, or a false mass. The road to hell is paved with the skulls of bishops, as the old Orthodox adage goes.
Is this a discussion or a spat? Well I'd like it to be a discussion, but another party introduced abuse.
Callan, for what it's worth, I am off the opinion that God told us, the ancient, undivided Church, of which today's Orthodox Church is you might say the rump, how to continue in His grace as concerns the the sacraments. But the Spirit moves where it will, and we do not presume to tell God whom to bless and whom not.
Although as you say, there are those who think, I don't know what, that God perhaps promised to never bless anyone but us. I understand that in very early days, churches promoting strange gospels were a very real threat. But any modern church that accepts the Nicene-Constanopolitan Creed is in quite a different category, I believe, than those older guys. Maybe I'm wrong. But I'll wager that if I should go to Hell, it won't be for this.
Gamaliel, "enormity" means "great evil". Is that really what you want to ascribe to your Baptist friends?
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
When did he drop the title Western Patriarch?
I sometimes wonder what would have happened had the Pope remained that and not made universal claims ... Would Constantinople have done so?
An Orthodox priest recently observed to me that whilst Byzantium didn't go quite as far as Rome, it only just stopped short ...
Meanwhile, fast forward to the 21st century and it seems Pope Francis is in trouble with some of his Cardinals for moving towards a more lenient - and more Orthodox - position on divorce and remarriage - or at least, the Eucharistic response in such circumstances ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
'Enormity' has come to mean that, Mousethief, but it can also, I think, be used to mean something enormous...
But perhaps 'immensity' would be the better choice of word, so substitute that and our Baptist friends are off the hook ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Yes, I remember Bingo made the Roman position on divorce a sine qua non of Catholicism, and an insurmountable deal-breaker to reunion between Rome and Orthodoxy. And the RCC redefined marriage to be the only sacrament whose minister was not clerical, presumably to build a foundation under the castle in the clouds that is the bizarre (one might say magical thinking) doctrine of its temporary permanent indissolubility.
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Young fogey
Shipmate
# 5317
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Posted
Good catch, Stoic; "absolutely null and utterly void" seems not to leave any wiggle room for the Holy Spirit to sneak in some grace; ha ha. My spin: it means they're not holy orders as we and the Orthodox have them; nothing more.
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I hate to intrude on someone else's spat - but that's never stopped me before ... ![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
So, Young Fogey, how do you account for 'unorthodox' doctrines such as Papal Infallibility, the Assumption of the Virgin (as opposed to the Dormition) and the Immaculate Conception of Mary being adopted by the apparently 'Orthodox' Roman Catholic Church?
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
Or are these 'Orthodox' and worthy of all acceptation?
Orthodox and worthy of all acceptation. Byzantine Catholics' calling is in part to bear witness to all Catholic teaching but entirely in Orthodox terms.
Papal infallibility: there is only one church, it has a head bishop, and as part of the church, sharing in the church's infallibility, he has certain narrowly defined powers.
The Assumption: talk about the Orthodoxen cutting off their noses to spite their faces! As I like to say, they try so damn hard to deny they're really Catholic that they make self-refuting statements. They end up Pelagian about original sin and Lutheran about the Eucharist. The Assumption is an Eastern legend! Talk about an own goal. Catholics can believe Mary died. We don't have to.
The Immaculate Conception: the shared Eastern and Western belief that Mary is all-holy, something the Byzantine Rite often proclaims, here in Western terms regarding original sin. Again, no problem so why create one?
The Orthodox assume an empire is the church.
[ 24. January 2017, 10:24: Message edited by: Young fogey ]
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Meanwhile, Mousethief is of course right that I haven't been using 'enormity' in its original sense, but the sense that I intended it has been in common use since the 18th century ...
Dang!
That's far too recent.
In deference to Mousethief's pedantry I will desist using the term in its post-1700s sense.
But I might ask him to trade some horribly recent Americanisms for older and more eloquent forms in return ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Forthview
Shipmate
# 12376
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Posted
The title 'Patriarch of the West' was dropped by Benedict XVI.It was meant to ease sensitivity in the relations between the Catholic and the Orthodox Church.
Of course one can turn this round and say that it denies any limitation of jurisdiction on the part of the 'Patriarch of the West' and emphasises the claim to universal jurisdiction by the Bishop of Rome who is also the 'Servant of the Servants of God'.
The pope can be seen then as the servant of unity,
but what's in a title ?
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:
The title 'Patriarch of the West' was dropped by Benedict XVI.It was meant to ease sensitivity in the relations between the Catholic and the Orthodox Church.
Which is kind of weird because the Pope (any Pope) thinks he's the arch-patriarch of both East AND West. The throne of Peter, blah blah blah. (As you allude to.) If he would ONLY claim the "west" that might be a place to start talking. Or he might go back to his earlier title, Pope and Patriarch of Rome. But the Caesar complex has probably gone on too long to be reversed now.
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
But I might ask him to trade some horribly recent Americanisms for older and more eloquent forms in return ...
Many Americanisms are just older and more eloquent words that you Brits have tossed into the harbor. One might mention "gotten."
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I wasn't thinking of the older ones that we've dropped and you've retained, Mousethief.
Need I spell out those I have in mind?
They'd probably bring you out in hives just as much as they would me ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I wasn't thinking of the older ones that we've dropped and you've retained, Mousethief.
Glad I could jog your selective memory.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Au contraire, I'm well aware of the words and phrases we've dropped and you guys have retained ... as I am of newly coined Americanisms, some of which are fine and dandy and others of which suck ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
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http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Forthview
Shipmate
# 12376
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Posted
I get the impression from some Orthodox that whatever the pope may do with titles it is wrong. The present pope emphasises in many ways his position as Bishop of Rome - (and therefore Successor of the Prince of the Apostles ,blah, blah, blah or to use a papal Latin phrase, et cetera)
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Au contraire, I'm well aware of the words and phrases we've dropped and you guys have retained ... as I am of newly coined Americanisms, some of which are fine and dandy and others of which suck ...
And vice versa with Briticisms. Why even bring this up? It serves no purpose in this discussion.
quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:
I get the impression from some Orthodox that whatever the pope may do with titles it is wrong. The present pope emphasises in many ways his position as Bishop of Rome - (and therefore Successor of the Prince of the Apostles ,blah, blah, blah or to use a papal Latin phrase, et cetera)
It's more whatever the pope does with titles who gives a fuck?
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Ian Climacus
Liturgical Slattern
# 944
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Posted
I haven't darkened the door of an Orthodox church for almost a year, but in my experience what MT wrote is true -- though no Orthodox I know dropped the f-bomb. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Whenever there was talk about the Pope, which was not very often at all, it was either (1) approvingly for him defending the Faith or (2) disapprovingly for him claiming more jurisdiction than the Orthodox thought was right.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ian Climacus:
I haven't darkened the door of an Orthodox church for almost a year, but in my experience what MT wrote is true -- though no Orthodox I know dropped the f-bomb.
Pansies.
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:
The title 'Patriarch of the West' was dropped by Benedict XVI.It was meant to ease sensitivity in the relations between the Catholic and the Orthodox Church.
Of course one can turn this round and say that it denies any limitation of jurisdiction on the part of the 'Patriarch of the West' and emphasises the claim to universal jurisdiction by the Bishop of Rome who is also the 'Servant of the Servants of God'.
Which is no doubt exactly how it was received there and in the Anglican communion as well. YMMV, but that, and the proclamation of the Personal Ordinariate, justify a new title of his - Benny the Rat.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
The jogging about language, the 'word wars' if you like, was a tangent if course but in one sense it is pertinent by analogy as the divergence in vocabulary and usage on either side of the Atlantic - for Anglophones, Francophones and speakers of Spanish and Portuguese alike - is akin to what we've seen in the divergence between Eastern and Western Christianity ..
In the sense that it can be a tussle over arcane and minor differences in words and meaning very often rather than substantial differences in intent.
Call me simplistic but I can't see why some of these issues couldn't have been ironed out years ago - the filioque, for instance ...
I'd say the same about relations between the Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox?
'Bloody sort it out, why dun yew?' he wrote in his vernacular ...
I notice Mousethief is the master of a particularly fruity old English word ...
Meanwhile, apropos of Transatlantic co-operstion our Prime Minister will be going down on your President later today in order to secure post-Brexit deals on the higher quality forms of British cheese, which would be good news for US palates as hopefully these will replace the plastic versions currently available in Wal Mart.
In exchange, we are going to let Uncle Sam take us up the ass on human rights, acquiescence to torture and the erosion of standards in food preparation, animal cruelty, ecology and climate-change.
Thanks.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Ian Climacus
Liturgical Slattern
# 944
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Meanwhile, apropos of Transatlantic co-operstion our Prime Minister will be going down on your President later today...
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
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Ian Climacus
Liturgical Slattern
# 944
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Call me simplistic but I can't see why some of these issues couldn't have been ironed out years ago - the filioque, for instance ...
I'd say the same about relations between the Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox?
I know there was a quite a long dialogue, but if I recall "traditionalists" often had concerns for any closer ties, and communion itself. When you have memorandums from Mt Athos:
quote:
vigorously object[ing] to “purging the liturgical books of texts which refer to the Anti-Chalcedonians as heretical.”
The sacred services of many confessors of the Faith, of many righteous Fathers, and especially the Holy Fathers of the Fourth Council in Chalcedon will be mutilated...
[considering that the anathemas were laid upon the heretics by the Ecumenical Councils in a spirit lacking love, while today, since love now exists, union can be accomplished] directs a profound blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, through Whose inspiration these decisions were made, and against the sacred memory of the Holy Fathers...
source
I do not see much hope of unity soon.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
One could argue that Athos keeps us from going off the rails. One could also argue they keep us from going at all.
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
One could argue that Athos keeps us from going off the rails. One could also argue they keep us from going at all.
I appreciate the shock of losing Constantinople, and then 360 or so years under Ottoman rule with its repression, but perhaps it's time for Athos to come up to date and indeed back onto the rails. But who has the power and interest in doing that? The Ecumenical Patriarch does not have the strength, and while the Russian church does, the Moscow Patriarch probably prefers to leave things as they are.
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Young fogey
Shipmate
# 5317
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Posted
Their battles royales:
The patriarchs of their old empire vs. their new one (Byzantine Christianity assumes an empire), the old being gone and its patriarch an employee of the Turks but he has Greek-American money backing him, the new being the only Orthodox country with any power (superpower with nukes).
Julian vs. Gregorian calendars: the Russians are old-calendar but many of the others have breakaways because of this.
Ecumenist vs. anti-ecumenist. The ones who talk to us and to Protestants are suspect. When you confuse your empire with the church, that's natural.
I don't have to tell you where Athos is in all that.
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
Gee D and Young Fogey, is it any of our business to tell the monks of Mount Athos what they should think or how they should conduct their affairs?
I've got my views on things various popes have and haven't done that I agree with and don't agree with. Some of them make reunion more possible and others that make it less. Nevertheless, as a member of the CofE, it isn't really my business how the RCC conducts its affairs, any more than it's Pope Francis's or the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster's how we conduct ours.
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
My (recently deceased) cousin was born and raised Roman Catholic and was there many years, before joining the Church of England. I don't think she did so for any particular intellectual reasons, but it was apparent that within the CofE she found a lot more to do which suited her gifts and abilities.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I don't mean this as a dig at Rome, but I've often heard it said, both by RCs and non-RCs that it isn't very good at deploying it's laity to best effect.
Mind you, many Protestant churches run to the opposite extreme and fill their members' time to the extent that they hardly do anything that isn't connected with church ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I don't mean this as a dig at Rome, but I've often heard it said, both by RCs and non-RCs that it isn't very good at deploying it's laity to best effect.
Mind you, many Protestant churches run to the opposite extreme and fill their members' time to the extent that they hardly do anything that isn't connected with church ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Gee D and Young Fogey, is it any of our business to tell the monks of Mount Athos what they should think or how they should conduct their affairs?
Perhaps, but we can deplore the inability of the Ecumenical Patriarch to conduct his affairs.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Gee D and Young Fogey, is it any of our business to tell the monks of Mount Athos what they should think or how they should conduct their affairs?
Perhaps, but we can deplore the inability of the Ecumenical Patriarch to conduct his affairs.
In which case are we deploring Bart, or are we deploring the circumstances under which he finds himself? I think Ankara keeps him on a pretty short leash.
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
I deplore the way in which the present holder of a distinguished office is ignored right, left and centre; he should be treated by his own flock with the respect in which we Anglicans - heretics from a schismatic church - treat him.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I'm not part of his flock. He's not a pope.
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
No he's not a pope and has never pretended to be. I understand the long history of those seeking autocephalic status. Yet the present day Orthodox communities treat him as an irrelevance.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Ian Climacus
Liturgical Slattern
# 944
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Posted
Well of course they do. Look who he hangs out with.
[/sarcasm]
With some communities, or keyboard warriors, I'd say it's contempt rather than irrelevance. I've read too many uses of the word heretic to pay much heed anymore.
[ 28. January 2017, 01:47: Message edited by: Ian Climacus ]
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
And various ++Cantaur as well.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Bart's getting a lot of stick at the moment, even from people who once spoke highly of him.
I've heard priests say that he's becoming too 'Papal' and that's why the recent Council hit the buffers.
I've also heard rumours that he_s got dementia.
Conversely, I know some of the Russian parishes here and splits there from have taken refuge under his jurisdiction. So he does have a flock here to some extent.
Those who have applied to him directly see him as a safer pair of hands than Kyrill's ...
The whole thing is a bloody mess.
Yes, I know Patriarch Bartholomew isn't the Pope but it does strike me that he is respected more outside his own Church than within it.
Who'd be Ecumenical Patriarch?
You'd get savaged by the Athonites on one hand and booted in the balls by Moscow ...
Moscow's throwing its weight around at the moment.
As I look down from my perch on the fence I see a lot of weeds in the Orthodox pastures. I see Southern US style religious conservatives setting up camp there, I see Moscow treading on tender plants. I see a resurgence of Slavic nationalism. I see incipient fascism.
Other than that ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Of course here in the US we don't need to squint to see incipient fascism. You have to close your eyes not to see the real thing.
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The Scrumpmeister
Ship’s Taverner
# 5638
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
Mousethief, don't get me wrong. If that's the Orthodox rule, then that's the Orthodox rule and while I may not accept that the argument behind it is valid, I'm not going to debate that.
I do question why it's for the Anglican priest to tell the Orthodox couple that they ought not be taking communion. Surely that's a job for the Orthodox priest.
How so?
It's been a while since I read them, so please forgive me if I am incorrect, but I seem to recall that the canons of the Church of England make it clear that, in order for a communicant member of another trinitarian church to receive communion in a CofE context, the person must be in good standing in their own church. Has that been changed?
If not, it seems to me that the Anglican priest is simply fulfilling his own canonical obligations as a priest of the Church of England, and I don't see how it is the duty of any Orthodox priest to intervene.
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If Christ is not fully human, humankind is not fully saved. - St John of Saint-Denis
Posts: 14741 | From: Greater Manchester, UK | Registered: Mar 2004
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Ian Climacus
Liturgical Slattern
# 944
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Posted
I may be misunderstanding [past my bedtime], but given the Orthodox canons are quite different and this person was Orthodox, and I assume attending an Orthodox parish, I'd be surprised if the Orthodox priest did not speak up.
My views may be coloured in that in my first Orthodox parish we were treated to a denunciation about the wrongness of taking the Eucharist in a Catholic Mass in place of the sermon by the priest; when it was somewhat known among the congregation a member was doing so.
Why it wasn't done in private I'll never know. I thought it rather poor form.
edit: I think the Copts were mentioned too. A few must've been visiting them on the not-so-quiet.
[ 13. February 2017, 10:34: Message edited by: Ian Climacus ]
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
I just can't see why it is the obligation of an Anglican priest to explain Orthodox teaching. That surely is a job for the Orthodox priest.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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The Scrumpmeister
Ship’s Taverner
# 5638
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
I just can't see why it is the obligation of an Anglican priest to explain Orthodox teaching. That surely is a job for the Orthodox priest.
But they're not going to an Orthodox priest; they're going to an Anglican priest. And the Anglican priest's job is to gently explain why the rules of his church do not permit him to admit them to communion, as they are not in good standing in their own church.
If he then wants to direct them to an Orthodox priest for further clarification of why they are not in good standing, then let him do so.
[ 13. February 2017, 10:57: Message edited by: The Scrumpmeister ]
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If Christ is not fully human, humankind is not fully saved. - St John of Saint-Denis
Posts: 14741 | From: Greater Manchester, UK | Registered: Mar 2004
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The Scrumpmeister
Ship’s Taverner
# 5638
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
That doesn't mean I haven't had arsey comments from the Orthodox in other ways. I most certainly have.
You have, and I know that I have been guilty of this in the past, for which I ask forgiveness.
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If Christ is not fully human, humankind is not fully saved. - St John of Saint-Denis
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Scrumpmeister:
And the Anglican priest's job is to gently explain why the rules of his church do not permit him to admit them to communion, as they are not in good standing in their own church.
Depending on the flavour of Anglican involved, that's not even technically true. TEC admits "all baptized Christians," which would include the Orthodox couple whatever their standing with their own congregation.
With respect to the C of E, Canon B 15A (b) does indeed admit those who are communicant members of their own Trinitarian church, and in good standing with that church. Whether this obliges the C of E to pay attention to other churches' decrees of automatic sanction for various acts would be an interesting question for canon lawyers.
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