www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology St. Alexis: a dilemma

You say you haven't, yet you do exactly that in the next breath.


What bothers you is not normative for what bothers others, and definitely doesn't give you the right, especially in a forum like this one.


I agree, but as they teach the children, two wrongs do not make a right, and only produce more wrongs.


It's not either/or.

And most people do get that "gates of Hades" wrong, all the time. It does not mean that, at any one moment in time, that the Church of Christ (wherever it subsists) is following a straight line to the eschaton. It means rather, that at the Parousia, God's plan will not be gainsaid by Satan or anyone else; God's will must and will prevail, but in the meanwhile, as we make our messy and imperfect way towards the end times, the path followed by the Church resembles not so much a straight line as that of the rolling English road laid out by the rolling English drunk. We wander first one way, then the other, and we may even backtrack for a while, but we'll get where we need to be, when we need to be there. God assures us it will be so, and all He asks is that we have faith in Him and trust Him.

But that is the point: Where do you say it "subsists"?

Slava Isusu Christu!


Well, I think we are at least in partial agreement on one issue, or at least in the same ball park, so to speak.

As my family was received into the Orthodox faith, along with the several thousands of others who followed Fr. Chornock by means of an informal reception, I too am profoundly troubled by what seems to be an increasing attitude of 'rebaptize me' on the part of converts and an eager willingness among some Orthodox clergy to do so even in jurisdictions where their hierarchs have spoken out against this practice. This practice is problematic among certain monastic orientated groups and ultra-traditionalists.

If you read Orthodox fora and boards, you will see many converts who are not properly catechized and who fear the consequences of not having been baptized by triple immersion. (Honestly, I guess I am in 'big trouble' as none of my family were so baptized, including my own children! Rest assured that none of us are losing any sleep over this! Of course, like the BCC today, ACROD has restored a more traditional baptismal practice over the past twenty years or so.....)

I had always been taught that when the ACROD schism occurred there was no defining moment of 'accepting Orthodoxy' but rather a practical realization that one had left the Greek Catholic faith and one was no longer in union with the Pope of Rome. For those who kept the 'property', one Sunday the Pope was commemorated, the next he was not. As for those who 'lost' the church property, when they voted with their feet and set up their own church - another Bishop - or at first even no Bishop was commemorated. So be it. That was all.

None of the priests who followed Bishop Orestes were rebaptized or reordained. Bishop Orestes was consecrated as an Orthodox Bishop at the Phanar by the Ecumenical Patriarch and two other members of his synod. Ipso facto, he was therefore an Orthodox Bishop and as such, he was entitled to all of the respect and honorifics said office entails. He was not 'reordained' nor was any other formality followed. He got off the boat in lower Manhattan in 1938 looking for all of the world like any of his contemporary Greek Catholic peers. Nor in 1966 was Father John Martin "re-anything-ed" at all. He came to Johnstown, was invested as an Archmandrite in the summer of 1966 (at age 13, I was there) and he was consecrated as an Orthodox Bishop later that year by the late Archbishop Iakovos and two other bishops at the Greek Cathedral in New York.

As far as I know that was also the situation fifty years prior to that when St. Alexis was received into Orthodoxy along with the first wave of those who knowingly entered into schism with the Greek Catholic Church. (Likewise for the countless priestly 'flip-floppers' of that era who switched 'sides' as seemingly often as day turns into night - Greek Catholic one week, Orthodox the next and Greek Catholic again! Including one priest who switched, became an Orthodox priest, then Bishop and returned to die in the Catholic faith.)

I have no problem in stating that our two churches are in fact 'in schism'. This has been the case for nearly 1,000 years. I will concede that from your point of view, it is proper to view men such as St. Alexis and later Bishop Orestes and those who consciously left the Greek Catholic church with them as being 'schismatics.' I think, however, that it is difficult for those of us living two generations hence to view either of us as 'schismatics' as we are what we are and,from our own point of view, what we always have been in our lives.

Just as the 'universal' teachings of the Church of Rome are difficult for the Orthodox to fathom, the 'diversity' of practice within the Orthodox world is maddeningly frustrating for those of the Church of Rome. Our answer to many questions, such as the one you posed is often an odd sounding 'well, it depends.' Yet we have an equally difficult time understanding Eastern Catholics who try to persuade us that they remain true to their eastern ecclesiology and doctrine in not accepting certain promulgations of the Western Church which are in conflict with those of the Orthodox while at the same time proclaiming fealty to the Pope.

The choices that were made by our ancestors can be as described by the poet Robert Frost in his 1915 poem, 'The Road not Taken":

... And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back...

Yet as Frost observed, as a traveler on another 'snowy night', we (i.e. fair minded Catholics and Orthodox who truly seek a path to reunion) can honestly note:

"...The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."

We are obliged, in my firmest of beliefs, to keep on the path to mutual understanding, reconciliation and ultimately communion.

S'bohom!

S'nami Boh! Christos Posredi Nas!

It subsists in all the local Churches wherein the Eucharist of the Lord is celebrated by rightly ordained bishops in succession to the Apostles.

David, my brother and friend,

Wonderfully put! All of it! And, the following, in particular, is very, very true.



Many years,

Neil

That is correct to a point, 1 out of 3 to be precise. Those are the churches, the many (point 2). There is also the one, the One Church, the communion of the many (point 1). There is also the epiphany of the church, as you correctly say, in the Eucharistic assembly, the actual coming together (point 3).

So where does it "subsit" in the One Church (point 1)? To answer in the many (point 2), well, misses the point.

As there is one Eucharist, all those who share that Eucharist constitute one Church. Everything else is administration.

A valid point that all do well to consider.

Here is the problem. So many see only the structures, the man-made institutions: patriarchies, metropolia, arch this, papal that, your Grace, Excellency, Beatitude etc., even the liturgical Kyr. They all can have their place but too often that is all that's seen and the two fundamentals that are foundational are lost in the label "administration." So the Eucharistic assembly itself (say a parish for example) must be tied to a bishop (an eparchy; the church of Passaic for example). But a church in isolation (a loner) contradicts the meaning of catholic and must be in communion (The One Church: Catholic for example).

As the bishop is the true ordinary minister of the Eucharist, there is no contradiction in what I wrote, nor any real need to elaborate beyond it. As Ignatios of Antioch noted, the Church is the bishop, assisted by his presbyters and deacons, surrounded by the people of his flock, celebrating the Holy Eucharist in a particular place. Where the bishop is, there is the Ekklesia katholike. All higher structures evolved to address issues pertaining to the administration of relations among the local Churches. The parochial structure of the Church likewise devolved authority from the bishop to the presbyters assigned to parishes beyond the walls of a particular polis or civis. The presbyter is not the ordinary minister of the Eucharist, but the bishops authorized deputy. In our Church, that relationship is made clear through the bestowal of the antimension, and by leaving the thronos empty when the bishop is not physically present at the Eucharist.

Like the Patriarchies, for instance: venerable but NOT essential?

Nothing is essential, not metropolia, not patriarchates, not even the Papacy itself, beyond the bishop celebrating the Eucharist in communion with other bishops. Each local Church, in the celebration of the Eucharist, possesses the fullness of the whole Church of God (think fractals).

However, just because something is not essential does not mean its evolution over the centuries should simply be discounted. Organic institutions are organic, and like all organisms, they develop and evolve in response to real needs.

This is good to note in relation to the importance give to the patriarchal structure in Orthodox ecclesiology.

It is misleading to place the Papacy with the others. Whatever ones specific view, the Papacy is undeniable based on Scripture and Tradition. Interpretations differ. The Catholic Church has a well-known theological position.

A core element but one MUST add (as you do)...

This is the point -- can't get away from it. Here is where the identity of the One Church is manifested. Medieval theologians put it well: Ecclesia ex Trinitate. Churches catholic (i.e. Eucharistic communities with a bishop) without communion are like Persons (three) without a Trinity. Person / Hypostasis implies Communion.

Interesting, I was thinking fractals just the other day. Its a very good analogy, so good in fact that I chose to dismiss it -- didn't want a rationalization supplanting the mystery. Think instead, Christ-Christian (each "christs" as Zizioulas notes), or Adam-Man-Mankind, or Trinity-Persons: catholic resolutions of the one and the many.

It should not be discounted.

Tautologically so it seems!

But in such a way that: "Moreover, in the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all." (In ipsa item Catholica Ecclesia magnopere curandum est ut id teneamus quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est.)[St. Vincent of Lerins, A.D. 434]. And that faith is the faith within us, what we do, who we are: the Eucharist is the great discriminator in ecclesiology.

Bishop Dzubay? He stands chronologically between Fr. Alexis and Fr. (later bishop) Chornock. Bishop Dzubay has been, perhaps correctly, characterized as "overambitious," but he may have been the one in the end who took the fundamental ecclesiology we have been discussing (and needs to be considered in this thread' context) most to heart.

I've been through one of the "it's economia" discussions here. "'universal' teachings" are open to (proper of course) interpretation -- discussion. I don't, however, see anything mitigating a sacrament/mystery: "The servant of God N. is baptized..." and water baptism in the Trinity. (BTW, one of the most ancient of sources attests that "living water" not immersion is the necessity. link)

So do I. We are right and they are wrong (my opinion). So here, we do agree after all.