www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Reconciliation and Reunion

But the MP is the largest of all the Orthodox churches and will make sure that you remember them as the third Rome. Nothing will happen without them. Not to mention their little brother Serbia who was destroyed by NATO and the Pope. These are the things that I have listened to in Trapaza from the people. Be it MP, ROCOR, Serb. Do you think that they dont believe that the Vatican has an agenda? Chad

This sentence does not make sense. Could you restate it, please?

Yeah, but eventually Moscow will have to face reality. As for the fate of Serbia, the Serbs had just a little bit to do with it. But the Serbian connection to reality has always been much more tenuous than the Muscovite.

I am sorry, please provide information on how the Pope destroyed Seberia?


Just because someone says it in the Trapaza doesn't make it true.

The Vatican has an agenda, I believe, the reunion of all Christians. Does Moscow have an agenda? I think if we look at Ukraine it is very clear that it does- domination of the Slavic Orthodox world, as the Third Rome.

Serbia, Nelson, not Siberia. Just one more bit of Slavic paranoia that diverts attention from their own responsibility for their situation. For the Serbs, it will always be 1389, and "Sacred Kosovo" will remain the center of Serbian aspirations. But, contrary to current mythology, Kosovo became predominantly Albanian (and Muslim) by the sixteenth century at the latest, and the Serb population had been dwindling steadily for more than a century. It was not the intervention of NATO that finally detached Kosovo from Serbia, but attempts by Serbia to overturn the demographic situation by displacing the Albanian majority.

Not that there are any good guys in the Balkans, mind you. There are just various degrees of nasty.

Forgive my mispelling. I was writing in a bit of a hurry.

Look my point is what the people think. I can think of several examples but why expand. As for Serbia Stewart is right. I have listened to alot of strange stuff from them. Although I will never forget them asking my why we were atacking them and not the invaders. That is a wound that runs deep clear back to the 1400s. In their mind it is like Dearborn,Mi. with Sharea law being more predominant than our own. Or Arizona for that matter.

http://www.kosovo.net/histkim.html
I know this link is long but this is the history that I was directed to from more than one Serb.

All,

This might be a good time to bring this discussion back on track. In the OP, I mentioned that I would like to focus the discussion around the premise that all of our visible divisions have sin as their origin, since sin divides man within himself and makes unity with others impossible without the aid of divine grace.

Any thoughts on that one?


Peace,
Deacon Richard

I think that is too vague. I could say the same about the reformation or islam. Does it emply concessions from both sides? or does it emply "forgive us our debts as we forgive others"? When it comes to the OP wouldnt you think it is more complicated than that?

You could indeed, as this is the fundamental, underlying principle of all human division.

Like a disease that cannot be cured unless it is first properly diagnosed, this issue cannot be resolved until the real underlying issues are brought to light.


When dealing with the subject of reconciliation and reunion, I don't like to use terms like "concessions," since they imply a kind of business deal in which the parties say "I'll give up this if you'll give up that," and that sort of thing. I think we can all agree here that such an approach cannot produce a lasting union.

Forgiveness, however, is essential to this process. We usually think repentance needs to come before forgiveness, but I would like to propose that in many cases, it is forgiveness that makes repentance possible.

God is, and has always been, able to heal our divisions--if He is sought. We will truly be seeking Him when we have lost the attitude: "you need to repent, we do not!"


Peace,
Deacon Richard

Deacon Richard:

Christ is in our midst!!

I think Stuart referred to something that we so often miss--that the first millenium was not the seamless unity we sometimes romantically think it was. But it was a period when people thought that minor differences in approach were not the things that needed to cause permanent division. Yes, there were the great theological disputes in defining who Christ was, eternally and in time. But the things that we have made into mountains were things that probably didn't register as such major points during that period. The calendar; the type of bread used; the primacy and how it was exercised all come to mind.

And we've developed differently. The West changed because of a political vacuum into soemthing the East could not recognize. Then there was the Church of the East that found itself beyond the Roman Empire and needed to develop as something indigenous and not be seen as a fifth column for another empire. ISTM we have to see ourselves as Christ-followers first, as brothers and sisters together first, and then only as parts of the particular places we have been planted by God to leaven by our faith and example of lived-out faith.

I think we all need to get to the point that we understand that the Mystery of God in our midst is larger and more mysterious than anyone's particular theological approach, that we all need to learn from each other, that we all have insights provided by the Holy Spirit that are beneficial to all others, and that there needs to be some sort of "holy ambiguity" in some areas that will allow us to move forward toward the Kingdom together without derailing any of us. We're all looking "through a glass darkly" when it comes to fully understanding what it is that we experience liturgically each Sunday. And I firmly believe that at the level of the entry into the eternal life of the Trinity we experience at Liturgy we are not divided because the Trinity cannot be divided though we are so divided visibly from each other.

There are many wounds to be addressed all around. And we've all got out own group of "my way or the highway" people--the "nothing beyond what I've learned" people, whether Latin or Byzantine or Oriental Orthodox. And that doesn't even begin to address the much more serious divisions caused by the Protestant Reformation. ISTM if the Apostolic Churches cannot get some sort of communion established as a way toward the Kingdom--as some sort of re-estalbing what the Church from the earliest days to now really is--there isn't a chance in the world of approaching the many ways that these other bodies have gone in any sort of serious dialogue to bring all into one.

In Christ,

Bob

Sadly it is apples and oranges. The mystical mind will never understand the legal mind.

I think there may be some hope on Athos. During my stay at Simonopetra, I was able to talk to a monk who seemed quite sensible. He is a college educated Greek monk and spoke very good English. It seems that they're getting rather tired on Athos of the stunts pulled by Esphigmenou of late.

He also mentioned that he thought that Pope Benedict, was a gifted thinker and theologian for the West but was greatly disappointed by his lack of restoring the 1962 Missal since his election.

Maybe with more of the monks at some of the monasteries coming from careers in the outside world and being more educated and thus exposed to the realities of the West, things will start to thaw, even on Athos.

And of course, for our part, the Latins will have to shape up if we hope to attract any sympathy from the Orthodox. It's all to easy to point at guitar Masses and lax translations and say "see they are the false Church."

Chad,

Is it not the other way around? Surely, it is the legal mind that cannot (or will not) understand the mystical mind.

Our Lord could very well have chosen to respect the legal mindset of the Pharisees, and yet it seems that He made a point of doing just the opposite, as most of the healings recorded in the Gospels take place on the Sabbath, in the presence of one or more Pharisees.

The legal mind wants everything to be black and white, with those who obey the law--as they do--being honored, and those who do not being cast out. As portrayed in the Gospels, the Pharisees had no concept whatsoever of charity, but only of rigorous adherence to the "letter" of the law. This blind adherence to the law can easily bring about the opposite of its intended result, as it did when they put Our Lord to death, thinking all the while they were honoring God by doing so.

When we learn to put the Great Commandment in its rightful place above all other laws and prescriptions, we will be well on the way to doing away with our man-made divisions.


Peace,
Deacon Richard

No as an Orthodox Christian I got it just right.That is why I put it that way. I am sorry but for now we will continue to pray for each other. I really think it will take the emergance of visable saints for there to be any progress.