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Dear David,

Don't be confused, you are right.

I've spoken with Orthodox Christians who insist that they have a consistent view of grace etc. and they do not. They only do when they get into a heated debated with us Byzantine Catholics ("Uniates", Roman Catholics of the Byzantine Rite, Heterodox whatever the current Orthodox usage is and there is no consistency here either, I'm sorry to say!).

If our Reverend Father Seraphim has had difficulties while conversing with ROCORites, then what can an RC or BC expect?

Would any Orthodox priest/confessor counsel their own laity to attend a Church where their faith is deemed heretical and where it can be exposed to danger?

Would Fr. Seraphim counsel a member of his flock to attend an RC or BC Church and to engage in debate about Catholicism vs Orthodoxy? Or else expose one's faith to similar dangers? Somehow I can't imagine the good Father doing that. Or else, I can't imagine his bishop looking too kindly on Fr. Seraphim were he to do that.

That is morally untenable for a Catholic, and if anyone says it is, I say that is unacceptable morally, spiritually - any which way.

In addition, Fr. Seraphim seems to be inviting RC@work to test his faith. Only a priest of +Ray's Church may bless him to do this. Fr. Seraphim is, unfortunately, out of line here. Sorry to seem to be harsh, but that is the reality and I'm no modernist either.

As for the obvious sincerity of religious practice among ROCORites and their saints - holiness is a function of the Life in Christ.

Saints exist in both East and West, to be sure. That doesn't mean that the existing divisions are any less real. Sad, but both sides agree on this.

Alex

[ 06-27-2002: Message edited by: Orthodox Catholic ]

Once again, we have the spectacle of some Catholics wanting to treat adult lay people as children or feeble-minded. Thankfully, it is rare. I can't imagine having to get anyone's permission to attend a church of any variety, whatever their opinion of me and my church. If I decide to accompany my Dad to his Southern Baptist church this Sunday, or my friend Patrice to her Church of Christ, I would not seek a blessing from my priest. I guarantee that if I did, he'd look at me like I'd sprouted two heads and waltzed out into the sunshine, and deservedly so. (So would every Roman priest I know.)

On top of that, considering he's a past president of the Memphis Minister's Association (in addition to being a mitered archpriest), he'd give me a STERN lecture on how it was always commendable to visit other churches (and synagogues, and mosques), show genuine respect toward them, cultivate friendships with them, and LEARN from them, provided I came back next Sunday, of course. :-) How are people from ROCOR to the Baptists going to learn I don't have horns and a tail if they never meet me?

Dear Tim,

I guess by "some Catholics" you are referring to me, I think . . .

I too have visited churches of the Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, United, Congregational, Apostolic, Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox and other traditions.

I also attend the OCA parish for liturgy when I am in Florida.

This has nothing to do with this situation.

Were you attacked for your Orthodox faith where you were a visitor at that Church?

Why did you go there? Ostensibly not to join together in indiscriminate worship and communion with them, I am sure.

The Baptists don't have liturgies.

ROCOR does and +Ray attended there for the purpose of joining with them in their liturgy.

All I said is what your own priest, whom you were afraid to consult before going off to see the Baptists, would have told you.

When I visited a ROCOR parish last, and told the priest about my interest in mutual learning etc., he bluntly told me that my interest showed that I was searching for the true faith in Orthodoxy that only ROCOR has.

Unless you have a mutual respect for one another's faith commitments, you do not have open dialogue in which both parties learn about one another. You have the opposite in fact.

In Russia, attending Baptist and other such sectarian services, including, I might add, the ROCOR parishes, would be considered a GRAVE sin by the Russian Orthodox Church.

If I want to study the Orthodox Church, there are plenty of mainstream Orthodox Churches (my choice is the OCA)that represent the BEST of official Orthodoxy without needing to resort to groups on the periphery who are also quite dead set against Catholics, Eastern Catholics and "modernist" Orthodox.

Which is most of us . . .

I ask my priest for a blessing before I set out to do anything like this in religious terms.

That is not an effront to one's intellectual integrity.

It is an expression of humility and subjection to the teachings and authority of the Church.

I would say that anyone who refuses to be subject to Christ's Church, refuses to be subject to Christ.

To say that you somehow need to go out and meet them so they can "learn" about you - come on, that's just being plain naive.

They already know about you and they've already reached conclusions about you and your Church.

And they won't change. But they will try and change you.

Alex

[ 06-27-2002: Message edited by: Orthodox Catholic ]

[ 06-27-2002: Message edited by: Orthodox Catholic ]

>>>[QUOTE]Originally posted by aRomanCatholic@Work:
[QB]I went to a Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russian this Sunday. I kind of was weirded out after Liturgy when one of the members was telling me they do not recognize the Patriarch of Constantinople because he is a Mason. Any way this conversation kind of digressed into an Anti-Uniate one that I was desperately trying to avoid.<<<

Interesting. I have had surprisingly good experiences with our Synodalist bretheren at their Cathedral of St. John the Bapatist in Washington, DC. The people have always been friendly and welcoming to me and my family. The congregation is surprisingly youthful, not at all like the Russian ex-pat community in Parish (Cathedral of Alexander Nevsky), and there are many families with small children. The liturgy is celebrated mainly in English, with some Slavonic, which also surprised me, since the OCA Cathedral of St. Nicholas either swings one way or the other, but seldom mixes.

So we see. The more important question is, "What are you for?"

>>>[QUOTE]Originally posted by aRomanCatholic@Work:
[QB]Orthodox Catholic,

Also, +Ray, you really had no business attending liturgy at a ROCOR church.<<<

Oh, another person who wants to play pope.

Dear Stuart,

Shalom Brother!

Where have you been?

No matter, I am pleased that my posts here have smoked you out and that you felt compelled to step forward, if only to berate my for my assumed caesaropapalism!

I only affirm what any deacon, priest, bishop, reader would more than likely tell you, as they've told me, about this very same matter.

Sorry if that is at odds with your usual traditionalist stance on things theological

(I thought you'd be under the Patriarch of Seleucia-Ctesiphon by now ).

But perhaps you yourself should approach the ROCOR and let them know of your own views on ecumenical questions.

I think that would really make their day.

I don't really want to play pope.

But you can forget about that cardinal's hat I once promised you!

Great to have you back, Stuart.

Administrator, don't I get an award of some kind for bringing Stuart back?

Alex

Dear Friends,

Just a note to say I apologise to anyone who took offense at my telling them which church to attend or not.

That wasn't my intention.

Everyone hear will do as they see fit with or without my blessing.

Those who would LIKE to have it, can't have it because I am not authorised to give blessings. And I am not playing Pope. The current one we have is doing a great job, thank you very much.

Please remember what I said earlier in this thread that if my position is against Catholic teaching and can be shown to be so, I will repent!

So far all I've received is some snarky comments from some people who obviously don't have anything to back their views up with.

Again, if I can be shown to be in the wrong from a Catholic moral perspective, rather than one's own personal views on the matter, I will say I'm wrong.

If no one cares, there are lots of other threads here to keep one's interest and attention.

Alex

I'll take Pope Alex over Patriarch Stuart in a heartbeat, thank you very much.

Dear Alex,

Your statement of faith in this thread and in threads on another forum help us from the West to build a better picture of the faith of Eastern Catholics about their communion with the Pope.

Your have a nuanced approach to relations between Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. Your comments and explanations shed light on the pastoral considerations that guide practices like attendance at liturgies of members of one group at the Church of the other.

Pope you're not; caring and informed brother you are. But, you already knew that!

Keep on sharing.

Steve

Stuart K,

You're back! Welcome.

Can't wait to learn from your posts when you contribute as only you can.

Steve

I have no desire to be Pope, thank you very much.

Dear Alex,

How are you going to tell Ray that he had "no business" going to a ROCOR Church because they are anti-Catholic, when he said himself that he didn't know they were that way!

A priest in your diocese, Alex, Fr. Richard Doherty, has been a frequent visitor to Jordanville monastery. He is always welcomed there.

TO say that becuase a priest told YOU to stay away, that that should equate to you telling others to stay away, is wrong.

I'm also very surprised that you invoked the "Church authority" argument against Ray, when you yourself have always been open to all points of view.

In Christ,

anastasios

DavidB

The qoute: "we can not tell where grace is except for within our own Church" - as far as I know this is a realativly modern way of thinking.

We of course know very well there is no Grace in heterodox institutions nor with heretic bishops and those who follow them.

This is an enduring and obvious fact through the entire history of the Church.

The phobia of modernism and ecumenism is very dangerous as I have seen some people loose sight of Christianity.

Dear David,
May God bless you!
Forgive me for not being clear on the matter of grace. The Orthodox Church teaches that there is grace only within Orthodoxy. This means according to St Cyprian of Carthage, who wrote when there was no division between west and east, that members of the Church have at baptism, the grace of the Holy Spirit(dynamis) working on the inside. Those outside the Church, i.e.Orthodoxy are subject to grace from the outside. After the great schism, the Orthodoxy view is that grace (dynamis) is only to be found in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Now there are some modern jurisdictions who would like to tone this down and in the spirit of ecumenism are simply embarrassed by this teaching. However the teaching has not changed and I believe it is dishonest for certain Orthodox bishops to pretend that there is basically no difference between east and west. These hierarchs are misleading the heterodox.

Yours in Christ,
Fr Serafim