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Cavaradossi,

I did a quick Google search on Patriarch Athenagoras, and saw that some consider him to have been a heretic because of his endorsement of ecumenism, but even more are suspicious of him because of an infelicitous remark he made, something to the effect that "the age of dogma is past."

I call this remark "infelicitous," because one thing I've learned about the EOC in my years on this forum is the deep reverence the Orthodox faithful have for dogma! (RCs, on the other hand, tend to take dogma far less seriously, presumably because the RCC has defined so many more of them!) One thing I draw from this is that in order for the ecumenical movement to go forward, it is vital that those who participate in ecumenical dialogue be aware that ecumenical dialogue must always be undertaken in both directions!

In other words, it is useless for me, as a representative of my own communion, to engage in dialogue with members of other communions if I fail to realize that by so doing, I have already alienated a number of members of my own communion, to whom I must now show the same patient concern and openness that I so gladly show to members of the other communions! Otherwise, how can I say that I truly "represent" my own communion?

Given the above, I can't see Patriarch Athenagoras' "age of dogma" remark as anythng but a faux pas--he clearly meant well, but it certainly seems the remark did more harm than good.

(BTW, what I think he meant by it is that it's time to stop using dogmatic differences as an excuse to avoid dialogue and simply continue to demand capitulation.)


Peace,
Deacon Richard

Not all of us feel so poorly disposed to the late Patriarch of thrice blessed memory. To the ACROD, he is a heroic figure who accepted us as we were in 1938 without forcing upon us immediate changes to our practices as did the Russian Church some forty years prior to that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Statue_of_Athenagoras_in_Chania.jpg

http://www.goarch.org/news/goa.news1013

For those of you unfamiliar with the life of this great Church leader and Patriarch, here is a link to a biography of him.

http://www.orthodoxinstitute.org/athenagoras.html

Yes. I have heard this often.

Yea, and while your at it don't forget the Jews and the Elders of Zion. Pro pudor!

You believe that stuff?!?

[/quote]You believe that stuff?!? [/quote]

No, and I hope you don't believe that "stuff" about His Beatitude, Athenagoras, of blessed memory. You seem to have gotten my point.

Total nonsense. It's an old tactic used by certain organizations trying to fake some kind of legitimacy - include famous/celebrity/political people as members who have never set foot in the group or have ever even heard of it, and claim they are prominent members.

The only place you will see this claim is either within the Masonic Organization itself, or some conspiracy group. They will tie X to Q using C as a connection and call them all "Masons/Illuminati/Communist/fillintheblank"..

It's also a tactic used by those who want to discredit an individual by associating them with a group whose members are commonly regarded as disreputable, as we see in John 8:48:

I don't think there is any hard evidence that he was a freemason. I know that he was/is a very controversial figure. Some have even called him "a second Meletius Metaxakis."

For my part, I am not a supporter of his ecumenism (and Patriarch Bartholomew has followed in his footsteps).

There are multitudes of Orthodox hierarchs, clergy, and laity from all jurisdictions who feel the same way....so I think it is highly unlikely that he would ever be glorified as a saint.

Dear brothers Alex and Thomas the Seeker,

I'm not sure why you think the Pope of Rome could unilaterally remove the Filioque from the Creed of the Latins? It certainly was not placed there unilaterally by a Pope of Rome in the first place, so I don't know why you think it could be removed in such wise by one.

The Filioque was in use in most parts of the Western Church long before any Pope of Rome supposedly made a unilateral change in the Creed.

The actual historical facts are that no Pope of Rome ever made a unilateral change to add Filioque to the Latin Creed. What actually happened was that during a crowning ceremony for a German emperor, the extant Pope of Rome used Filioque in the Creed being recited, probably simply in honor of the way the Creed was recited by the Church in Germany at the time (in the same way that whenever a Pope recites the Creed in Greek with his Eastern brethren, he does NOT recite Filioque). There was NO command or motu proprio or Encyclical or papal Bull to insert Filioque. It's just that pro-Filioque controversialists at the time used that single and simple act to promote their own agenda.

What sealed the inclusion of the Filioque in the Western Creed was not a unilateral action by the Pope of Rome, but the subsequent polemical reactions and overreactions over the issue from both Western and Eastern controversialists.

I believe if the Filioque is removed from the Latin Creed, it should be up to each bishop (or perhaps Episcopal Conference), for his own territory. I don't believe the Pope should, or actually has the power to, remove filioque from the Western Creed unilaterally. If he actually does it, it will certainly not be according to a unilateral prerogative, but according to a personal prerogative to be spokesman for the Latin Church in agreement with his brother bishops.

In any case, I think that it goes without saying that any Mass or DL or qorbono or badarak concelebrated by the Pope of Rome and his non-Latin brother bishops will normatively not contain the Filioque.

Blessings

LOL. If the Pope says to remove the filioque from the Creed. It will be removed.

That's one of our Orthodox 'problems'....plenty of Orthodox felt that the Tsar was not worthy of glorification, but there you have it he's a 'Passion Bearer' ...likewise many seek the glorification of Father Seraphim Rose - while many more view his works as troublesome in many ways... So I suppose that if the Patriarch is ever glorified by the Church of Constantinople, one can simply 'ignore' that action and carry on.

I going to go ahead and pontificate that the pope could remove the filioque.

Can I just toss this out there real quick in regards to the filioque?

In the absence of the pronouncement of an ecumenical council, isn't it up to each patriarch to be the final arbiter of truth within the confines of his patriarchate? Assuming so, and assuming there has never been an ecumenical council expressly declaring the filioque to be heterodox (maybe I'm behind on my history and there has been one?), then is it really necessary for the Latin Patriarchate to drop its use of the filioque since it does not, in fact, mean what some Orthodox think it means (that there are two ultimate "sources" for the Holy Spirit, rather than just one)? Couldn't the filioque just remain as a sort of "neither here nor there" Latin "peculiarity" or "accent", if you know what I mean?