www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Boycott of Robert Sungenis & CAI

It is true that both Christianity and Islam share a history of slaughter and butchery in the name of God.

The leadership of the Catholic Church have--couragously and publicly--acknowledged the long and violent history of Catholicism against all dissenters, and not just Jews.
That is integrity in action.

Now if only Muslim and Orthodox leaders had the integrity to do the same.

www.kanaan.org/israel5.htm [kanaan.org]

Caught up in the euphoria of Zohar and congenitally curious,

Abdur

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Dear Abdur, when you first came here, you were a Muslim and then became a Protestant because to join an Apostolic Fiath would have made your relatives mad. From what I am hearing now, I am wondering, have you now become a Jew? The attacking of Christians and Muslims alike makes it appear that way. God Bless!

IC XC NIKA,
-Nik!

I'm afraid that's wrong on all counts. Christianity, and indeed the Church Fathers (it isn't just a modern cliche') teaches that we are to love the sinner and hate the sin. If the culture (let's say, America) is sinful, we are to hate the aspects of it that are sinful. You cannot then infer that because I hate many aspects of American culture and might speak out against them that I hate Americans!!! Neither do I hate Jews. We also do not hate true Judaism, but only the Judaism that developed that led so many people astray. I do not despise, for instance, the Judaism of Mary, Joseph, Anna, and Joachim. I do hate the Judaism of the Talmud's (and if you don't think they hate Christianity, just read some of the early Jewish literature and what it said about Christianity. -- using your logic, the Jews must have hated Christians since they hated Christianity). I honor and respect the beliefs of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.


We aren't counting casualties, only pointing out that the Jewish people have no moral high ground; all sides went over the line from time to time if judged by modern standards.


Which is interesting, because Christianity lives in a state of "Static Motion". They are "dynamic" in the sense that we deal with new contexts and problems; yet we are fixed in that we believe the same thing we did in the first century, for God does not change. If your intended jab is that we haven't changed much, I'll thank you kindly for the compliment

I'm attacking Christianity?

I'm just repeating what Catholic leaders--including the Pope--preach about the historical legacy of their own Church. Are they "attacking" Christianity?

Muslims and Orthodox must follow the example set by Catholics.

It is true that there has been a great deal of spiritual and philosophical cross-fertilization between Jews and Sufis through the centuries; therefore, conversion would be redundant. Many Ottoman Jews were members of Sufi brotherhoods while retaining their Judaism.(So were Ottoman Greeks....but...facts are dangerous and....well...better skip that).

Abdur

[ 09-16-2002: Message edited by: traveler ]

Maximus writes:

<Originally posted by George Blaisdell:

>>I remember [Israel] did that big [extraction of oppressed Jews] out of Africa... <<<

>That was Ethiopia. A Christian state. Orthodox Christianity (of the Oriental and Ethopian stripe) being the state religion for close to 2000 years.<

I think you are right. But Ethiopia had a running problem with takeover by Moslems in the low country, and especially Marxist-Islamicists, back before the Communist abdication in Russia, and that it may have been this that prompted the extraction. Ethiopia is a poor country generally, and starvation is never far behind anything that happens there, and that starvation is an accepted Islamic rule of war in Africa, so that fear for the survival of their Jewish brothers may have been the reason for the airlift, and not just their societal marginalization in a state divided between Orthodox and Islamic rule... The revolutionaries in the low lands were a pretty vicious bunch...

>And if memory serves me correct it was, the historical air lift, that occured when after, the Communist over through the State and Christian monarchy.<

Could have been, but I think the Communists were allied with Islamic fundamentalists...

>Many Ethiopian Jews were saved from starvation by the Israelie intervention.<

Their survival was definitely at stake... And that would not have been a product of the Ethopian Orthodox State in the mountains...

>On another note: It would probably be sensible to suspect that the Ethiopian Jews lived as "marginalized" citizens under the Christian State. That a glass ceiling did exist.<

Maybe - I don't think so though, because of the marginalization of the whole society. And the Ethiopian Church services are the most like those of the Judaic Temple services of any of the Orthodox services - They keep the Ark - I really do not think you will find a lot of discrimination against Jews by Ethiopian Orthodox - But I could be wrong!

>It would also be note worthy to state that Ethiopia was not a Western Christian state<

Ya got THAT right!

geo

Great screenname you have, positively disgusting website you recommend. One of the "gems" among the nonsense there is the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion. No thanks.

What does one base this on? The prevalence of Jewish customs in their celebrations? Yuhannon rightly noted in another thread that the liturgies of the Syrian Churches "are the closest to the Hebrew Temple rituals of the 1st Century".

Mor Ephrem writes:

From geo:
>>And the Ethiopian Church services are the most like those of the Judaic Temple services of any of the Orthodox services<<

>What does one base this on? The prevalence of Jewish customs in their celebrations?<

I am not sure... I simply read it as a reported fact, and said it as if I knew what I was talking about. I am not even sure I know where I read it.

I was originally very taken with the idea of the Ethiopian Church, because it was the most insulated of all the early Christian Churches, lying virtually forgotten or ignored in the mountains of western Africa for over a thousand years with almost no outside influence. Iceland is a western parallel in culture - It still speaks the language of the Vikings, and lives their culture, although with disruptions from the last 200 years or so...

So that I thought "Maybe this Ethiopian Church is the least modified from the original churches." There is an Ethiopian mentioned in the NT [eunich], and they carved 12 Churches out of living rock by hand, some in the shape of Greek Crosses, and they have a level of piety that is normally only found elsewhere in monasticism, and at that, not all... And the article I read simply described their services as being very close, and indeed much more so than other EO churches, to the ancient temple worship of the Jews.

Sorry for being so dim on this one!

>Yuhannon rightly noted in another thread that the liturgies of the Syrian Churches "are the closest to the Hebrew Temple rituals of the 1st Century".<
I really do not know. Is the EO Antiochian Church one of these Syrian Churches? I sometimes have to remind myself that Christianity started out, in many important ways, as a Jewish sect...

geo

Ethiopia is located in east Africa, not "western Africa" as you write in your post.

Just a reminder.

Abdur

IrishJohan,

As I stated, I am unfamiliar with the creators of that website. Nor do I claim to endorse their views on any given subject. This doesn't change what is stated in the Talmud, however. Just because you hate the site doesn't mean the information is wrong.

Columcille

Please check out this site:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Cyprus/8815/

It refutes what the above site and other sites like it write about the Talmud. These kinds of sites take quotes out of context which completely distort their meaning. Some quotes are complete fabrications.

This page of the site:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Cyprus/8815/exp.html

...specifically deals with the site mentioned above (http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/talmud.htm).

God Bless,

Jenny

Irish Johan,

Boycott who?

Does Robert Sungenis speak on behalf of Byzantine Catholics? I don't remember our parish or eparchy getting any materials from him ... so ... how can we boycott someone we don't subscribe to?

If what R. S. writes bothers you, then you should contact him and those affiliated with him. He does have a bishop, right?

All this leads me to ask: Why do wish to take this concern to this particular forum?

[ 09-17-2002: Message edited by: Joe T ]

Dear George,

Yes, the Ethiopian Church has the fullest measure of Judaism in its liturgical practice and her theologians say so in conversations with other Oriental Orthodox and others.

They were, after all, Jews after St Makeda, the Queen of Sheba, and St David-Menelik ben Solomon introduce the Temple worship into Ethiopia at Axum.

They have also borrowed from their pagan and Muslim neighbours, although their Judaistic practices predominate.

What is most beautiful I find is their Tabots or Arks that are carved out of wood and named for a saint.

They venerate BOTH the Tablets of the Law AND the Cross as the bearers of the Shekinah or presence of the Lord.

They are the closest thing we have to the Apostolic Church of Jerusalem before 70 AD.

Next come the Syriac Churches of course.

Alex

Abdur writes:

>>>Ethiopia is located in east Africa, not "western Africa" as you write in your post.<<<

Well, at least I got the mountains part right! Funny - I remember visualizing it on the map, and then just wrote the wrong word. Thank-you for the correction... Old age needs a lot of it!

geo

Alex writes:

>>>What is most beautiful I find is their Tabots or Arks that are carved out of wood and named for a saint.<<<

Hey, Alex - I am unfamiliar with these - Do you find them in their churches? Or [I am really hoping!] do you have a url with pics???

>>>They venerate BOTH the Tablets of the Law AND the Cross as the bearers of the Shekinah or presence of the Lord.<<<

I know they claim the Tablets, that they still possess the presence of the Lord, and are the caretakers of them, of the Ark of the Covenant, but do they as well include the representation of them in their Churches, and have them incorporated into their, say, Liturgy? Or as a part of the daily prayer cycle of the Church, or is the guardianship something that their Church commemorates less frequently?

Or are you saying that they venerate both the Cross and the Tablets equally in their religious practices and services and prayers...? That, to me at least, would be really surprising...

geo