www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West How important is the question of which church?

How inadequate I find the word "church" to be in such discussions. We need a better vocabulary and taxonomy.

I think the Churches should convene a council to discuss the ecclesial separation. The various disparate Protestant denominations should be invited to explain their reasons why they continue on as individual units.

I definitely think the vast denominational split from the ancient Church, thus creating major spiritual chaos, is one primary reason why the Western world is falling into ruin. Denominations ruin the truth of Christ, IMHO

Do you mean in the sense of Catholicism being spoken of as one church, and Orthodoxy being spoken of as one church?

Church can mean:

1. a building in which Christian worship services are held

2. an ecclesial community which acknowledges Christ and the Trinity, but has otherwise abandoned the Apostolic Tradition.

3. a diocese or eparchy

4. a self-governing grouping of dioceses or eparchies under patriarchal, metropolitan or arch-episcopal oversight

5. a communion of self-governing local or regional Churches

6. the fellowship of believers in Jesus Christ united through baptism and sharing in his Royal Priesthood under Christ as the one true high priest.

Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrian Church of the East, and what? What is PNCC?

The Polish National Catholic Church. It is the only Church of the Old Catholic alliance of Churches that did not deviate from the Traditional Catholic/Orthodox teachings on priesthood and homosexuality. The PNCC broke communion with the Old Catholics (though the story might be different depending on the source) back in 1992, IIRC.

Blessings,
Marduk

Interesting... I wasn't aware there were Old Catholics too.

I supposes they could come to talk, but it would be hard to participate, not having any actual bishops . . .


And we seem to be forgetting about the Armenian Apostolic Church.

For those not familiar with the "Old Catholic Church", that schism is from Vatican I, and the newly imposed Papal powers.

But fairly recently, they decided that women can be priests, and otherwise adopted "interesting" positions. A bishop who adopts such views does not have a sufficient understanding of Orders to confer valid Orders when he tries; he simply commits a blasphemy.

I'm not sure what you mean here. If the Catholic Church doesn't recognize someone as a validly ordained bishop, how would that make it difficult for him to participate in the discussion? (Or are you referring to something other than recognition by Rome?)