www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West A Plea Against Polemics Between Catholics & Orthodox

The original use of the term "Two Lungs" was not from (as is generally believed) the highly honored His Holiness Pope John Paul II. It was from the current Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of Pittsburgh, His Eminence Metropolitan Maximos (who Chairs the North American Dialogue from the Orthodox side). Those of you who will be attending the Antiochian House of Studies later this Summer may well find that out personally.

Does that shed a different light on the original meaning of the term and to whom it referred?

Christ Is Among Us. Indeed He Is And Ever Shall Be!

Three Cents

I am sure such things have occured and still do at times but...
It has always been my experience that when Roman Catholics discover the eastern Churches and it is explained to them that the eastern Churches are in union with Rome and respect the universal jurisdiction of the Pope, Latin Catholics always accept those eastern Churches as part of the ONE Catholic Church. At least that was my personal experience.

I am glad you have had this experience - I have to say that mine does vary from this. I suspect also that many of us here would say the same thing..

So far I have to admit that I find that you seem determined to tell us that though we are Catholics as you are - somehow you seem to have the view that you are a ' better' version of Catholicism .

If I have misunderstood you - then I apologise - but this is the way that your posts come across to me

No I do not view any particular church as better than any other. The Catholic Church is simply the Catholic Church.

Latin Cat

From your posts - I reiterate you seem to regard the Catholic Church as the only one .

I would remind you that our Orthodox brethren say they belong to the Holy Catholic Church too

Prayer for the Unity of Christians

(Introductory Meditation) Our Lord Jesus Christ prayed that all of us might be one as He and the Father are one. And here we are. Allow me to propose that we begin to pray for the unity of the Faith and the unity of the faithful with particular fervor and not stop from this day onward. Let's pray that the Lord Jesus will take over this work since we cannot seem to get it right by ourselves.

Lord Jesus, You came to earth to break the bonds of death for us and to show us the Way to the Kingdom where You and the Father dwell. Send the Holy Spirit to us and let us see that Your Kingdom is within each of us to the extent that we let the Spirit in. Help each of us to see that there are others that You have called who are not of the particular flock that You have placed us in, but that they are our brothers and sisters nonetheless because they are Your followers just as we are. Grant us the grace to let the Holy Spirit heal the terrible wounds that we have all inflicted on Your Holy Body, the Church, just as we have inflicted the wounds on Your Physical Body by our sin, though we may be centuries in time removed from the time You suffered. Help us all to rise from the tombs we have constructed around ourselves that seal us in with our own self-righteousness and the Holy Spirit and our brothers and sisters out. Expand our vision and make our love so grow that we will see each one who calls himself your servant as our brother or sister rather than "one of them" that is "separate from us." Show us Your kindness and have patience with us and with the mess we have all made.

Lord, may each of us who calls himself Your servant take time today to remember that there are others You have placed in this world with theological and doctrinal positions that are directly opposite to what You have given us in the place where You placed us. Let us with Your Grace learn that these may also call themselves Your servants. Let us remember that we have no corner on You, Your Grace, Your Great Mercy, or Your Promises. Let us remember that we do have the same command from You, that we love one another as You have loved us. Help us to remember that Your commandment of love does not release us from living and preaching Your Good News as we have received it, but let us also remember that our brother who may be opposite to us has also been given the Good News even though we may not recognize it in the form he has received it. Shine into all hearts and let each one speak the Truth as he has received it and be charitable to others in listening to them speak. Grant to us the day when the Holy Spirit will cut through the Tower of Babel we have erected in Your Vineyard by our own sin. Let each one remember that his brother does not hold his understanding of the Truth as a heretic, but rather as one who has been placed in another place than oneself.

Grant all these things, Lord, so that the healing of Your Holy Body, the Church, may come quickly.

Through the prayers of the All-holy, Ever-Virgin, Mother of God, Mary, who is also our mother by Your gracious Gift from the Cross, through the intercessions of the holy apostles, saints, martyrs, and of all the blessed spirits You have gathered into Your Kingdom from every age, land, and culture, through the intercessions of the holy Choirs of angels who have one will in doing the Will of the Father, O Savior, save us all. AMEN.

I realize that they believe that. But they are wrong. I would think that people on a Catholic Forum, if they are Catholic, would agree with Catholic teaching.

"It has always been my experience that when Roman Catholics discover the eastern Churches and it is explained to them that the eastern Churches are in union with Rome and respect the universal jurisdiction of the Pope, Latin Catholics always accept those eastern Churches as part of the ONE Catholic Church. At least that was my personal experience."

Latincat what do you mean by "your expereince"? You hav e been told over and over by people here of various Byzantine Churches that this "respect" is NOT the case now and in the past it was worse.

Your experience seem to be very limited and still you lecture us there about this one church stuff.

So "respectful" has the relationships been since the various unions with Rome that the one document from Vat II on the various church in union with Rome, is full of apologies for centuries of ill treatment and encouragment to undo the Latinism that had been introduced for all the wrong reasons.

Sadly there is still a long way to go but we are working on it. Some places are better than others.

You come across as very badly informed of our actual place in the Universal Church and very well informed with misinformation of an informal nature gleaned at the church door.

Dear Chris you said:

I say:

Proselytizing, (or so I believe) is when someone tries to convert someone from another Christian denomination, because they believe that their own denomination is the one that contains the 'Truth'...or the only 'Truth'. :rolleyes: In reality, Jesus Christ is the 'Truth', and one denomination might contain a greater fullness in relation to that Truth... and so on and so forth.

Missionary evangelizing is when we spiritually edify others so that they may achieve our Lord's sanctifying Grace.

Zenovia

LOL!

We New Yorkers, Orthodox and/or Catholic, have a strange sense of self deprecating humour!

Alice :p

This line of posts is not the Love Fest I thought it would be. I still say stop the polemics. Our forefathers in the Faith did not convert the pagans with polemics and apologetics. They converted them by shedding their blood for the Faith and loving the pagans as if they would shed their blood for them as well...

Hmmm, I seem to remember the Church Fathers actually engaged in a fair amount of apologetics if not outright polemic in dealing with Pagans going back the Pauline Epistles themselves. They also engaged in other tactics such as the felling of the Oak of Donar by St. Boniface which led directly to the conversion of many from the Germanic tribes.

Andrew

If we are going to talk about the best conversion technique it would have to be the one used by Our Lady of Guadalupe. She brought 9,000,000 Aztecs and other Central Americans into the Catholic Church by her apparitions to St. Juan Diego.

But don't you see where these arguments lead? Check out the other recent posts in this East-N-West Forum. Everyone argues and finally we reach a point in which there can be no progress and then the name calling and ad hominem attacks begin and the non sequiturs start flying. Every thread reaches a point where the inevitability of that point where the heretic and schismatic name calling starts. And eventually Papal Supremacy and Infallibility comes up and is followed with the filioque controversy. It all comes to one big impasse.

All this arguing and no one is convinced one way or the other.

BTW, the Teutonic peoples were pretty easy to convert since their afterlife consisted in continually waging war only to party at night and kill some more tomorrow forever and ever.

Dr. Eric,

I pray for the polemics, alcoholics etc...

I set no boundries...

james

Dr. Eric, I was not trying to argue about what is the best conversion technique. There probably is no one best technique anyway. I simply wanted to point out that the Church Fathers didn't shy away from taking it directly to the Pagans and that a lot of early Christian literature is in fact apologetics. That's all.

[boring trivia alert]Also, I believe some Germanic tribes did convert fairly easily. Others did not. The Saxons were particularly resistant and were converted only by force. The areas in the North, what came to be called Prussia, held out for a long time and were only Christianized after the Great Schism.[/boring trivia alert]

Andrew