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Comparing intercommunion with adultery is not an apt description. By extension, communing in other Orthodox jurisdictions would be bigamy.

Dear Western Orthodox,

I can definitely see your point with respect to the Eastern Orthodox, but the experience of the other Eastern Churches with the West has been different.

The Miaphysite Churches just love the Anglicans, for example. When the Anglican Divine, Henry Martyn, translator extraordinaire (with whom you are very familiar, as I understand) died, the Armenians buried him as if he were one of their own bishops.

The Assyrians preferred the Anglicans since their missionaries did not expect Assyrians to convert to them - they sent them to their own parishes for services and the Qurbono. That is an historic fact.

Our Coptic priest here was given an icon screen for his early parish church by Anglican nuns etc.

These Churches might not have the same problem communing in a Western Church as a result.

The Polish National Catholics today often don't see the differences between theirs and the RC Church as meaning they are totally off limits from each other in terms of sacramental sharing.

If I attended a PNCC Mass and was allowed to commune, I would, BTW. The same with the Assyrian and Miaphysite Churches.

I was once invited to commune in an Orthodox parish by an Orthodox bishop, no less. We enjoyed a great friendship (went out to lunch all the time) but I courteously declined to avoid problems for him.

Alex

WO, I hadn't thought about the marital symbolism of Christ and the Church; you raise a good point to ponder.

Trust me, if it makes everyone feel better to have Catholicism unconditionally bar all non-Catholics from Catholic Eurcharist, you're not going to find me standing in the way!

Best,
Robster

I don't understand the above statement. The various Orthodox jursidictions are still one church so I don't see how bigamy would tie in. The different "ethnic" groups are just that..."ethnic" groups...but the faith is one and the same...

Chris

I agree. I don't get that post either. All canonical Orthodox churches share the chalice. Kind of like Roman Catholic Irish, Polish, Italian, etc, parishes. They're all RC.

Western Orthodox said that the Catholic Church stating that according to its rules and theology, members of the Orthodox churches, PNCC, and Assyrian Church of the East may receive communion if they request it is akin to a woman coming on to a married man. He defended this comparison of intercommunion to adultery saying it is an apt metaphor.

I pointed out that it is not an apt comparison to say the Catholic allowance for Orthodox reception is an invitation to adultery as that would relegate intercommunion between any churches to the realm of bigamy. If you are married to your own Church, then communing at another church would either be adulterous or bigamous. I don't know how to more clearly explain the flaw in his logic.

Compare the accused:
"You are invited back to my apartment anytime you want, Big Boy...but please respect the discipline of your wife."

to the reality:
"You and your sister are welcome to stop by for dinner any time you want, but talk it over with your parents first and respect their counsel."

I agree. I don't get that post either. All canonical Orthodox churches share the chalice. Kind of like Roman Catholic Irish, Polish, Italian, etc, parishes. They're all RC.

>>I think there is a bit of the difference between the various local Churches of the Roman Communion: they all share a common administrative governance. In Orthodoxy, often, the connections between the various local Orthodox churches are more theoretical than practical.

Basic dogmatic questions such as the validity of non-Orthodox baptisms or non-Orthodox sacred mysteries frequently diverge from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The schisms of the Old Calendarists vs. New Calendarists, and those caused by the heresy of ethnophyletism are prime examples of how Orthodox ecclesiology runs deficient.

Considering that Orthodoxy rejects the idea that you must be in communion with a primate, such as the Pope of Rome or even the Ecumenical Patriarchate, who is in schism and who is not becomes purely subjective. What makes the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate canonical and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church or the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate schismatic? Not to mention the mess that exists among the Oriental Orthodox relating to the schisms within the local churches in India and Ethiopia.

Concilliarist ecclesiology has much to be desired of.

Perhaps its my scholastic-influence background showing, but Orthodox ecclesiology seems closer to the Protestant concept of the invisible Church than the Catholic concept of the Church.

Dear Western Orthodox:

This may come as a terrible shock to you, but most Greek-Catholic parishes of my acquaintance routinely admit Eastern Orthodox Christians to the Eucharist, our priests are happy to hear their Confessions, anoint their sick, bury their dead, baptize their children, and so on (in the case of baptizing the children of Eastern Orthodox Christians we will normally note this in our register).

The thesis that we are somehow obligated to enforces someone else's rules is quite bizarre.

Your comparison to adultery doesn't hold water. Adultery is gravely sinful, and contrary to natural law. There is nothing sinful about your humble servant administering Holy Communion to an Eastern Orthodox Christian, nor does this violate natural law.

Our discipline emphatically forbids us to abuse the sacraments by enticing people to abandon their own parish and come to ours. Those who come spontaneously are welcome.

Fr. Serge

Other laundry lists about the PNCC
ministers can get married after ordination
private confession all but abandoned, general confession like the similiar protestant prayer organization, the episcolpalians.
removal of the filioque
the pncc have a "tridentine" mass, which is a modified 1962 missal (heavily modified) and in english
the pncc have the same mass as you would find at any catholic church... besides the general confession.

If you are to split from rome for property reasons and still have a strong desire to be considered catholic........ as the PNCC does, why then start to mess with theological issues and abandon Catholic policy? What started as a property dispute has turned into a psuedo-theology of pure protestanism in the PNCC. So, one wonders how the PNCC can share communion in a Catholic church since the PNCC clearly protests Rome on many many levels?
Is a hold out hope that the PNCC churches will come back to the fold? I know a PNCC parish that sheep steals the RCC's flock in a town. The PNCC parish grows huge as it sticks its claws into the RCC fold and promises them great pierogies and no private confession. Yes, I may seem opinioted but this parish hasn't just stolen scores of Roman Catholics.... It's as if they are Catholic but underneath the surface they smell like any other protestant prayer organization... their "bishops" waver on critical elements that are part of the Deposit of Faith, pick and choose mentality from the top down, no solid ground.
I remember listening to a girl go on about how great her Episcopalian parish and so forth was, first married bishop, first black bishop, first woman priest, fist this and that.......
If you go to church to focus on "firsts" and awards then maybe you should find yourself in a real church that hasn't done anything hip or cool to attempt to bolster parish records. This episcopalian "church" she goes to is packed on sundays, but why? Because anyone can believe anything they want, they rally around "firsts" all the while seemingly being rather liturgical. But honestly as awesome as all of that sounds about being so far in "firsts" and what not and allowing people to believe what they want to, ask them about church history before the 1500's and their mind draws a blank. As a certain famous American Orthodox priest said about his Protestant seminary experience, a seminarian asked the protestant instructor why they didn't study all the great church fathers and ignored the first 1000 years of Christianity and the great monastic contribution to Christianity, the proffesor answered, "don't ever ask that question again."

Actually your post doesn't show your scholastic influence. It shows you have do a lot of homework before making such accusations.

These are not "basic dogmatic questions": the Three Persons of the Trinity is a basic dogmatic question. The eternal Divinity and manhood of Christ is a basic dogmatic question.

The Orthodox Church is averse to dogmatizing about what happens outside Her boundaries, as was the Apostle Paul. ("For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth." - I Cor. 5:12-13) It's hard to consider this a failure.

I have heard vagantes [orthodoxwiki.org] or non-canonical (Pseudodox [westernorthodox.blogspot.com]) "Orthodox churches" make this argument as a justification for their existence outside the Church. A priest once told me, "It's not that hard." To be Orthodox, one must hold and practice the Orthodox faith, and be in communion with one of the autocephalous or autonomous Orthodox Churches [orthodoxwiki.org].

It's true bishops have different practices from one jurisdiction to another -- for example, receiving heterodox, with greater or less oikonomia or acrivia; some ask them to be baptized, others chrismated, and some merely to make a profession of faith. Sometimes other Orthodox get bent out of shape about these differences, and there's an internal family squabble, but we still commune with other Orthodox, and we still maintain a unity of faith. If such a church were to be out of communion with all the autonomous and autocephalous churches, it would be outside the boundaries of the Church. This is hardly an invisible ecclesiology.

This differs from Roman Catholicism, where self-professed "Orthodox in communion with Rome" [ukrainian-orthodoxy.org] may be led by a Patriarch who believes he is the Pope's equal, but they must accept all the Roman Church's doctrines (including those that oppose Eastern teachings), and they must commune the visitor from the FSSP parish who believes the Vatican I doctrine of papal infallibility was instituted by St. Peter.... What unites these people into one church? Not the faith.

Both our churches believe the Church is visible and one. We differ over whether that unity stems from one man's primacy or the collegiality of the episcopate. I daresay we won't settle that here.

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Western Orthodoxy Blog [westernorthodox.blogspot.com]

Actually, OP, you're missing the worst of them: in the words of one of their parishes, "We Reject the notion of Eternal Hell." [bvmc.org]

Then they describe themselves as smarter than Jesus. "[N]otions such as devils and demons are more the mind-set [sic.] of a pre-scientific society than they are descriptions of actual supernatural beings whose sole purpose is to counteract the will of God. Even Jesus spoke in the language of His day and cannot be expected to express psychological or medical prognoses of abnormal behavior."

Simply put, "Our Church does not deny the teaching of punishment after death, but we do not accept that this punishment is eternal."

Of course, this idea is an officially condemned heresy of the Church, anathematized by an Ecumenical Council. Origenism, anyone?

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Western Orthodoxy Blog [westernorthodox.blogspot.com]

I find this offensive. Our faith in Jesus Christ is what unites us - I believe it is very unfair that you declare otherwise just because of the Catholic belief of Papal Infallibility. I highly suggest that read the Catholic perspective on things, not just the Orthodox. Chapter 3 of Lumen Gentium explains things pretty nicely.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_...-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html

I also dare suggest you read the Eastern Catholic perspective on things before attacking us and calling us Roman Catholics. http://www.east2west.org/doctrine.htm

And lastly while I dislike many anti-eastern attitudes carried by Traditional Catholics, there is nothing wrong with me taking communion from a FSSP priest or him taking communion from my priest (and I am not forced to commune as you suggest, I choose to take communion from him and from every other Roman Catholic priest).

The Catholic position is a combination of both, again I suggest you read Chapeter 3 of Lumen Gentium to see what the Catholic Church says about what she teaches.

"a seminarian asked the protestant instructor why they didn't study all the great church fathers and ignored the first 1000 years of Christianity and the great monastic contribution to Christianity, the proffesor answered, "don't ever ask that question again."

I know this is a bit off topic, but that last part really got to me. That was the exact same answer I got from the nuns and priests when I was in catechism and asked a question about contradictions in the Gospel (John versus the other Evangelists, in particular). I was told to just shut up, don't ask questions and repeat what I was told.

Basically, not to think, just regurgitate things by rote. But this was during the latinization period and the nuns were still the kind that used rulers on knuckles. One sister in particular had a thermos of "coffee." One third Irish Whiskey and the rest coffee. She opened it and the first three row of kids would pass out.

Tim

I am going to make a request here. There seems to be two developing themes as of late in this thread, one on the topic and one off. Because the posts that are off-topic are interspersed with posts that are on the topic it makes it impossible to split them off into a thread of their own.

Therefore, to cool some posters down in their remarks that are stretching the limits of charity here, and to have posts kept on topic, this thread is going to be closed. Posters are asked continually to keep posts on-topic and to post with charity and not polemics.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+
Administrator