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Bereta_Eder
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Of course I couldn't care less but you have to know your place.
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Elok
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Land of Ramen Dragons
Mar 2003
time: 00:30
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quote:
Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
There's very little difference between orthodox and Western or catholic faiths. They are part of the same communion.
The Lutherans and Anglicans or Espicopalians aren't that far removed either. The Anglican communion service is strikingly similar to the catholic mass, even after 400 years of separation.
Christians should put aside their differences and concentrate on what they agree on. |
Er, we aren't in the same communion. Not according to us. While the Pope apparently has no problem with Catholics taking ours or us taking theirs, we have a large problem with both. An Orthodox Christian who takes communion in the Catholic church excommunicates himself.
On the other hand, Copts ARE in our communion, as are the Ethiopians, I believe. Monophysites and Nestorians, while heretical, were still technically part of our faith. If they don't count, neither do the hordes of Westerners under the rule of corrupt clergy at the time.
There aren't many dogmatic differences between us and the Catholics, but the ones that do exist are significant:
-No original sin. We do not believe in inherited guilt, only in inherited tendencies towards evil.
-No purgatory.
-No filioque clause in the creed. We think it renders the Holy Spirit excessively subordinate to the other two persons of the Trinity.
-Perhaps most importantly, mysticism, not scholasticism. We do not talk about matters like transubstantiation vs. consubstantiation, we just say what we know from scripture and leave it at that. We accept the concept of divine mystery much more readily than our western brethren, which avoids the hair-splitting problems that the RCC is always fighting with.
There are also lots of non-dogmatic but still vital differences. Married men can be ordained to our priesthood(though priests can't marry, for various reasons), our services are written with entirely different goals in mind, we're less tolerant of change, and our whole outlook is generally different from that of the Catholics.
It'd be nice if we could all be one church again, but not at the price of accepting heresy IMO.
And, while I know this request is probably futile: Sava, *please* don't post about things you don't know about.
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Straybow
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SG(2)… gone but not forgotten
Jan 1970
time: 23:30
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quote:
Again, not quite true; definite majority of Christians of Syria, Armenia and Egypt were monophysite, and of Mesopotamia and further east - nestorian. There were some 5 bishoprics (later even less) of greek rite in Egypt, compared to dozens of Coptic ones. |
 Only five Orthodox bishoprics in Egypt, yet Alexandria alone had nearly a million in population. Constantinople was 1.4 million, larger than whole countries in Europe! Average cities in Asia Minor and the Levant were ~250k, with huge walls encompassing enough acreage of wheat fields to be nearly immune to starvation seige tactics. No wonder crusaders returned to Europe with a new perspective!
 In terms of population the great centers of the West no longer existed. After the third sack of Rome in 491 IIRC the size of Rome never rose much above 50k (down from 800k at its peak in the 3rd-4th cen). Aachen and a few other trade centers in northern Europe had at most 100k people but typically closer to 70k.
When Toledo was captured from the Moors in 1085 it instantly became the greatest center of population, trade, and learning in the West even though half the population and almost all the scholars and merchants had fled south to Andalusia!
 As an aside, in Civ2 those European capitals would be size 4, while the average Asian cites size 8, larger cities 10-12, and capitals 14-16. It's like comparing the puny AI civs to the perfectionist player's civ in late mid-game.
In the end, every division among Christians is political. Politics is the process of deciding who makes the decisions, whether in secular law or in religious organizations.
To fall back upon claims of authority is a dilution of the genuine authority of Christ. Christ didn't die on the cross and rise from the dead to establish an earthly bureaucracy in Rome or anywhere else. Organization is a means to an end, and when it becomes an end to itself it is by definition corrupt and dead.
Bury the corpse and start a new institution to carry the practical burdens of organization. That's what happened in the Reformation, and in a couple mini-Reformations since.
RC is highly centralized, while EO is decentralized. The Papacy has evolved from "first among equals" to "more equal than others" to use the Orwellianism. RC has added a huge volume of dogma, codified and defined to the nth degree. EO has added little to the teachings of the medieval church and (as Elok mentioned) discarded some of the hair-splitting that flourished in Rome.
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Jon Miller
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I don't think my church's division is politics
Jon Mille
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Elok
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Land of Ramen Dragons
Mar 2003
time: 00:30
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The reason for the split between east and west was originally just that they grew apart in traditions due to the gap in distance, yes. The final, formalized breakup, on the other hand, came from the Pope, or rather an uppity cardinal, demanding an unreasonable amount of control over the other bishoprics. We won't agree with that, nor to scholasticism, nor ex cathedra, nor a whole slew of other things, and at any rate it's downright unchristian to sacrifice the truth in the interests of everybody getting along with a smile on their face. So far as we're concerned the current Pope is doing an excellent job of trying to reform the church from within, he just happens to be stuck on ideas we regard as heresy while fighting against other heresies.
And "ecumenism," as it's called, is a slap in the face to the ecumenical councils and everything else that ever bore the label. "Ecumenical" implies different cultures and traditions united by a common belief. Ecumenism is just spinelessness disguised as tolerance.
If you're going to babble something about how everyone's right in response to every theological question, you'll never offer any form of genuine spiritual guidance. The whole point of any religion is that there is a definite and eternal truth to be found.
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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:30
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It is interesting that the East and Western churches continued to attend ecumenical councils together, IIRC, until the 1200's.
In my view, the only way to put Humpty Dumpty back together again would be to again hold joint ecumenical councils. As there no longer is an Emperor to call one, perhaps the EU could do it - as the EU, in a way, reflects a reunion of the Eastern and Western empires. Somehow, the Russians have to be invited as well - so perhaps a joint EU-Russian invitation for the clergy of the East and West to come to a joint ecumenical council.
BTW, is there a direct descendant of the last Western Emperor? Perhaps he could make the invitation? Also, isn't the Queen of England also the Elector of Hannover? Does this give her enough authority to call an ecumencial council as Elector, not as head of the Church of England?
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Heresson
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of frogs
Jun 2000
time: 06:30
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quote:
Originally posted by Straybow
quote:
Again, not quite true; definite majority of Christians of Syria, Armenia and Egypt were monophysite, and of Mesopotamia and further east - nestorian. There were some 5 bishoprics (later even less) of greek rite in Egypt, compared to dozens of Coptic ones. |
Only five Orthodox bishoprics in Egypt, yet Alexandria alone had nearly a million in population. Constantinople was 1.4 million, larger than whole countries in Europe! Average cities in Asia Minor and the Levant were ~250k, with huge walls encompassing enough acreage of wheat fields to be nearly immune to starvation seige tactics. No wonder crusaders returned to Europe with a new perspective!
In terms of population the great centers of the
West no longer existed. After the third sack of Rome in 491 IIRC the size of Rome never rose much above 50k (down from 800k at its peak in the 3rd-4th cen). Aachen and a few other trade centers in northern Europe had at most 100k people but typically closer to 70k.
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Nothing new to me...
But You're exagerrating; Constantinopleis not believed to have ever had over a million population, and yes, BIG eastern cities, like Ephesos in its good days, had over 250K population, but it wasn't average size. Mazaca, which was one of the main Anatolian cities, had allegedly 400K in Heraclius times. These were the major cities, but it all doesn't mean that the east outnumbered the west completely; still the majority of population was the rural one.
quote:
Bury the corpse and start a new institution to carry the practical burdens of organization. That's what happened in the Reformation, and in a couple mini-Reformations since.
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I believe that the separation from the mainstream church didn't help the cause at all; it was the thing that started the religious wars, it weakened the reformative wing of the catholic church, and anyway... protestants were even more zealous than catholics, as seen on Sweden's example, which was bad enough to ban all catholics and forbid catholicism, even though it had a catholic king.
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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:30
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quote:
Some months ago in his "Ecclesia De Eucharistia" he even forbade all Catholics, to visit non catholic Communions, just before the ecumenical Kirchentag in Berlin, where Catholics and Protestants in Germany celebrate together and where it is Traditon to hold a joint Communion where Protestants and Catholics aren´t separated.
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Yes, I heard about that latest ban. What a downer! My girlfriend wanted to come with me to my church, where we would have shared communion for the first time, before the Pope issued this edict.
Now, the Catholics reject what we offer in good faith. 
I understand why I can't take communion with the Catholics, but why bar Catholics from taking communion from a Protestant?
AH:
I agree with you that Christians should work together, but to do so does not mean glossing over the differences. It is only by examining the differences, can we ever come to a joint understanding.
Efforts are going to have to be met with compromises on both sides, not just the Protestants making concessions to the 'one true church'. Don't get me wrong, I admire this pope, who up until this ban has been the most ecumenical pope. Look at the second Vatican council where he said that Protestants are not apostate, but seperated brethren. This is why this latest edict seems so out of character.
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25-08-2003 01:07
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