www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West The "Mother Church"?

Dear Friends,

As has been pointed out, both East and West have their divisions.

But the West has tended to be divided on matters of faith.

Eastern divisions rarely, if ever, involve disputes on matters of Orthodoxy but canonicity, calendar and culture.

Even what divides the Oriental Churches from Byzantine Orthodoxy in terms of faith is very little and, if the theologians are to be believed ( ) nothing at all really.

But the Armenian Catholicos has expressed concern that reunion might weaken the identity of Armenians etc.

The Eastern divisions would be a fascinating study on the relationship between faith and culture.

Alex

Diak,

Excommunication is a technical term. AFAIK "churches" are not excommunicated people are. In the Estonia situation the MP removed the EP from the Diptychs but I don't think that was reciprocated. If a term must be assigned to that unfortunate situation I think it was temporarily schism.

If you have any other information about this please share it.

Tony

While persons may be the target of excommunication, as can be seen with the Episcopalians and Henry VIII, Archbishop Lefebvre, etc. it moves to churches and entire communities eventually. It can never really be 'personal' when that person is the leader of a large group of believers who continue to support the person, can it?

One can't say it is merely just a person that is excommunicated if that person is the head of a community of believers who rally around that leader. I think that would be an oversimplification.

If, in Orthodoxy, liturgical commemoration make up "communion", and these are manifested publically through liturgical means (communion/commemoration) indeed Moscow did excommunicate Bartolomeos and by extention the Church of Constantinople.

A president doesn't declare war or sanctions on another president. His name may be the first mentioned, but it is far beyond a 'personal' matter. If the two persons having the authority of their communities to lead them, and being their visible heads and ultimate representatives, are no longer in communion with each other, it has to impact the relationship between the entire bodies with one another.

Thankfully this was resolved but the point is that these were two of the major canonical Orthodox jurisdictions at the time. These weren't theological splinters of each other. Had there been an arbiter of whom both mutually agreed to work with, i.e. some kind of primacy to arbitrate, these sorts of events could possibly be worked out avoiding painful schisms.

I only offered my thoughts on this after speaking to an Orthodox canon lawyer. I presented his understanding of the facts. If he makes the distinction between excommunication and what happened over the Estonian Church, I defer to him.

Just like the RCs, BCs, etc., should speak for themselves so should all others, Orthodox included.

And granted I am speaking from the perspective of someone who is Orthodox currently in communion with Rome.

And all Christian groups, lead by men, are going to be prone to disagreement, division, etc. at some point. Rome and Orthodoxy have different ways of handling those divisions.