www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Melkite-Antiochian agreement: why not ...

There is a problem with refusing to accept members of one Church into another--freedom of conscience. True belief cannot be coerced, and refusal to accept someone who sincerely wants to be admitted of his own free will is indeed a form of coercion. That is why the Catholic Church, though it rejects proselytization of the the Orthodox, will not refuse an Orthodox Christian who, of his own free will, wishes to be received into the Catholic Church. And note, such persons are neither re-baptized nor chrismated, but received by a simple profession of faith--which is a tacit acknowledgment that the Orthodox Church, though separated from the Church of Rome, is indeed part of the Catholic Church.

Stop [Linked Image] you're embarrassing me. I mean what can I say, I guess we're just more enlightened than the Antiochian Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox with their wicked, coercive conspiracy.
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14. The Balamand Document speaks frequently of the "religious freedom of persons" (10) and "the religious liberty of the faithful" (24), of "freedom of conscience" (27) and "respect for consciences" (25), acknowledging "the inviolable freedom of persons and their obligation to follow the requirements of the consciences" (15). The language employed in modern presentations of this theme is familiar enough in the Western world in its concern for human rights, and is certainly not alien to either of our churches. In developing this theme, however, our churches have called attention to the need for a coherent understanding of community and therefore to the need to locate individual rights and responsibilities within the common good. When the Document speaks of "the faithful" and of their religious liberty "to express their opinion and to decide without pressure from outside if they wish to be in communion either with the Orthodox church or with the Catholic church" (24), this distinction becomes crucial. Neither the Orthodox nor the Catholic understanding sees the "faithful" only as referring to an individual Christian apart from community. Rather, we both urge that personhood can only ultimately be grasped in relation to the "Body" and, through the Body, to the tri-personal life of God. Where concern for the solidarity and spiritual health of the community as a whole is absent, the exercise of "freedom" and "liberty" can lead all too easily to the fragmentation of society and to the alienation of persons from each other and from God.

I've thought a better idea than intercommunion would be for Melkites and Antiochians in the same area to have joined liturgical activities. So, for example, we'd have one parish building, one parish hall.

There could even be one liturgy together, but with two altars, one for the Catholic priest, the other for the Orthodox priest. Traditionally, the men would stand on one side of the parish, the women on the other. It wouldn't be too much of a change to have the Catholics stand on one side, the Orthodox on the other for ease at communion time.