www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West WRO if Catholics/Orthodox unite?

Most people don't. That's the problem. It has always been the problem.

Stuart is correct ...

I could not resist posting a provocative statement.

By the way ... that is an excellent way to explain union.

So we are praying for union (in communion) between ourselves as a particular church not the UNION of all churches.

I don't think there's as much uniformity as you are supposing, even among the hierarchs. I'm reminded of something I read many years ago about Cardinal Mercier: that he set out to convert the Anglican Archbishop of Cantebury (Ramsey, I think it was?) to Catholicism, but instead he himself "converted" to ecumenism.

Only for those who hold to Pastor Aeternsu. Which, as the Patriarchal Encyclical of 1895 so eloquently expressed, we do not.

That is what is, and always has been, expressed by the Orthodox diptychs of the Catholic Church.

Depends. Who's "we"?

Epiphanius, I'm not unfamiliar with the title "Universal Theologian" but I think it's just an honorific title, nothing official. I'm sorry if I misinterpreted you, it's just that I have seen some interesting debates between EO and RC on St. Augustine, so I might have been predisposed.
I know you didn't question the orthodoxy of the filioque, I made that comment because many if not most EO do question it, so the filioque controversy goes beyond its use in the Creed.

We is the person participating in the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom.

WE are not passive in the Liturgy - we act - we bring the Holy Spirit in the Epiklesis as much as the priest does by our Faith and prayers.

The difference - The Priest is a formal SERVANT of the people allowed on the ALTAR.

Getting back to the Western Rite Liturgy as a source of communion between Orthodoxy and Latin Rite Catholics -

It is very unlikely.

While there are movements within several Orthodox Churches (Antiochian, ROCOR, ROC and others) most of the Orthodox Laity do not like it. They want the Divine Liturgy of John Chrysostom to the point that they charge heresy for WRO using WRL.

Even Father Thomas Hopko has stated somewhere that the Divine Liturgy of John Crysostom and other DL's ARE WHAT DEFINE orthodoxy and that he did not recommend change --- ( I need to verify this comment from where I think I remember reading it)


I for one see the benefit and the beauty of an ancient liturgy that was valid in the Church Triumphant - and remember it took a few years (in some cases a hundred or 2) for the Schism to take hold across the known world and I believe many Orthodox practiced the Roman Mass which was basically the Western Rite Liturgy.

The Western Rite Liturgy was designed to attract and evangelize the primarily Anglican/Episcopal America and England in the 19th and 20th century.

In fact the Episcopal's financially supported the Russian Orthodox Church in America in many ways prior to Revolution in Russia and WWI and WWII.

All this is reminiscent of the Bi Ritual Priests of the Byz Cath World --- I wonder how they feel about bouncing back and forth on Sunday between the Latin Mass and the DL?


One of the problems with the premise of this Topic is that we are assuming the Western Rite Liturgy is attractive to Eastern Orthodoxy. I think the way the Byzantine Catholics have handled communion and unity with the Holy See is probably the best model - practice AND PRESERVE your traditions in communion with the Holy See.


Watch out for Evangelical Christian converts to Orthodoxy -
they are the most vocal about their opposition to the Holy See
- due to past hatred of the Pope? due to insecurity about their conversion? using Orthodoxy as the sharp knife of polemics?
They also seem to think they are the most Eastern Orthodox people who have ever inhabited planet Earth! The Antiochian Orthodox Church is loaded with them. And the Western Rite Vicariate of AO seems very polemic to me. The most polemic activity in Christendom seems to be from the entities that are the closest together in Dogma and Traditions. (ie Catholic Anything)

Hmmm ... how would that work?

I don't know about that (as far as know, of course; someone could have made that assumption without my realizing it). More just that it exists.



I think Pope John Paul II would agree with you -- see, for example "We give thanks to God for the Union of Brest" [ewtn.com](!)

What happened to my post in response to Epiphanius :confused:

are WE anathematizing those who profess the filioque, or are we communing with them?

Up to but not including. No communion has been ever been broken even by the harshest "Orthodox" critics of WRO.

The first WRO DL was in 1870 for those in what is now in jurisdiction of the Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia. The original impetus came from contacts with those who refused to go along with Vatican I and mostly ended up as "Old Catholics."

And...?

Why should it be attractive to Eastern Orthodox? It should be attractive to Western Orthodox. Why would the Greek Orthodox worry about being attractive or unattractive to the Russian Orthodox?

Best model for what?

Jerusalem? Antioch? Alexandria? Constantinople? Moscow? New Justiniana/Nicosia? Mtskheta-Tbilisi? Athens? Tirana? Sofia? Belgrad? Bucharest? Warsaw? Prague? Washington? All of the above, including (via Bucharest and New Rome) Old Rome?

LOL. Yeah, that's what it is. Only thing separating them from "the Holy See" is their past hatred of the pope. In the Vatican, that is. They all love the original Pope, in Alexandria.

The former evangelicals are pikers compared to large numbers of the Russians and, of course, Mount Athos. There are former evangelicals/baptists etc. in the later, but I don't think they formed the Athonite opinion on the supreme pontiff of Pastor Aeternus.


Yeah, that's it. Couldn't possibly be their emulation of the Pillars of Orthodoxy, SS. Photios, Gregory Palamas (the guy removed, and now recently restored, to the Melkite calendar approved by the Vatican. Don't know about the rest)and Mark of Ephesus.

No, just the most Orthodox. Not the most Eastern, as most are quite Western, and insistent on that.

Some are right. I remember at my old parish, a woman (who had previously, at a meeting on outreach and evangelization, prattled on about "getting our own," not taking notice that besides herself only one or two other persons at the meeting was not a convert), when she heard I had been to the parish which is now my parish, which had come from a Bible study at Wheaton College into Orthodoxy, if I thought "that they will ever become Orthodox like us." "God, I hope not," was my honest reply.

May we harvest many more!


Specifically how?

This question is loaded with questions of what you mean in practically every term, so I can't comment at the moment.

We're not supposed to bring that up.

Ah. I'll try to remember that, though it may be difficult considering what a large chuck of my life was during JPII's pontificate.