www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Christ's directive? Just explain it away.

1) True, many are filled with pride. They must take the Log out of their eye before they can proceed to take the speck out of their brothers.

2) The issue of Primacy is more complicated than simply slinging verses around.

3) The Churches have been arguing over this since 1054. If were as easy saying hey... Matt 16:18 this issue would have been solved years ago

4) I am convinced that the western lung of the Church isn't ready for a married priesthood. Because they have the wrong idea and basis for this. Choice isn't the issue, the issue is vocation. The West has embraced choice to mean that a person can choose anthing at any time, when just the opposite is true. A priest who is ordained, and is single will always be celebate, a married man who is then called to the vocation of Priesthood will be married, but when his wife dies, he will embrace the celebate life.

5) There is no vocation crisis. Where the faith is preached in truth, vocations are no problem. It is where the faith is lukewarm and the faith has been watered down is where there is a lack of vocations.

6) The life of John Paul II, and his death and his final pilgrimage which started when he died, will do more to foster vocations. I believe in the next few years there will be more priests raised up by this holy man than we will be able to count.

John Gibson

Dave, Catholics don't wiggle at all on this point; none denies that the Spirit procedes from the Father - none. Or are you, like Luther in another context, inserting "alone" into the verse?

Third Pew,

I'm curious about your declaration of member status as "used to be" but, that aside, this suddenly pervasive notion here that "Orthodox = Protestants" is one that I find disturbing and redolent of one readily subscribed to on any number of conservative Latin Catholic boards. With all due respect to our Protestant brethren who post here, I find it to be counter to the understanding of Orthodoxy as enunciated by His Holiness John Paul II, of blessed memory.

Many years,

Neil

OK, so you think my opinion stinks.
You missed the point of that quote from my post.
My premise is that both the Orthodox and Protestants take Our Lord's words when He calls Peter the Rock "on which I will build my church," as a metaphor because they don't believe that Peter/The Pope heads the Universal Church with "authority." you know, bind and loose; feed my sheep; etc., at least the Orthodox do see the Bishop of Rome as the Patriarch of the West, but that's about it.

In other wordsm he should stay in the West!
Now, Protestants do not believe in Transubstantiation. Orthodox do.
Both come from Christ's lips to His Apostles.

All I'm saying is that you can't have it both ways. Either Our Lord's words, in these two matters specifically, are to be believed without eqivocation or not.

I don't consider the Orthodox to be Protestant, since that historically began in Northern Europe. But let me share an aside I remember reading years ago - and don't ask for a source since it's too far in the past. I remember reading that the Patriarch of Constantinople sent word to the Church of England when it broke away from Catholicism, congratulating it on becoming "Protestant," too.

Wow, I've been compared to a lot of things and a lot of people, but that is the first time me and Luther have been put together.

No, I'm not adding "alone" to the verse. (I'm also familiar enough with the long and complicated history of the Filioque to not condemn those who use it.)

In the same way, though, the Petrine verse doesn't say the church would be built on Peter's rock alone. Orthodox often view the promises to the Apostle Peter (the rock, the keys, binding and remitting, etc.) as being part of the ministry of all bishops. This was elaborated a bit in a good explanation of the Orthodox POV that was posted on this Forum just a short time ago:

https://www.byzcath.org/bboard/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=001313

Dave

That's is a much better response to 3rdpew.

The comparison was made with a wink - of course.
But "alone" was actually added to the verse by a poster here, a couple of years ago. I still lapse into shock when jogged to remember it.

Yea, yea, yea, but why did Christ "single out" Peter?
Why didn't He just say "Amen, Amen, I say to all of you simply; "all of you are the rock(s) that I will...."?
Jesus might have misspoken???

Third,

There are many questions, why didn't Christ kick Judas out since he knew that he would betray him? Because God wants all mean to be saved. At any time, Judas could have repented, sadly he did not.

I believe that you are looking at surface issues, and not looking deeply into the problems. You are looking through the lens of the Roman Catholic. I too used to look at the world through that lens. However to tackle the problems of unification, we must be able to bend our minds and start looking at the Primacy of Peter in view of the Orthodox. I will admit that I have a hard time with that, being a Roman and all that. However since migrating toward the Eastern Catholic Churches, I have become a deeper thinking and a more complete Catholic in the process. Less of "Can't you guys read the fricking verse???!!" and more of "How did the Fathers of the Church see this pre 400, what happened between the time of 400ad and 1054ad to cause us to become so polarized in the first place? And what has been the view from 1054ad that will give us the lens that will help us understand the entire situation.

Again, you have to realize that unification isn't as simple as tossing verses around. There is more to it, there are humans on either side, and when you deal with humans you get a whole mix of emotions. For many the scars run deep and there is much mistrust on either side. How do heal a cut where the scab has been picked off many times?

I wish unification were as easy as going up and saying... The bible says "xxxxxx," but it isn't. There is no easy answer, and what you lead off with was the easy answer.

John

Hello Father Gregory. I am always saddened by the misunderstanding between Catholics and Orthodox. Perhaps it is true that we always hurt those whom we are closest to.

If my own family could have harmony and mutual respect and never have a Catholic parent or brother or sister or cousin call an Orthodox parent or brother or sister or cousin a "heretic" or "misguided" or vice versa, then I think there is hope for us all.

As someone quoted once awhile ago and I'm guessing it was Alex, "there are no schisms in heaven." It is the work of all of us to seek peace and understanding among faithful apostolic Christians. To pursue that path is to pursue the path of the apostles and to follow the recent example of our departed Pope of blessed memory.

Post edited by Admin to remove offensive content.

How about -

First, we decide to become friends with each other and stop fighting about what happened in 1054 and what the role of the Pope should be?

The Schism is a terrible thing but it will never be resolved with Scripture quotes or early Church council minutes or anything like that. Only a deisre, filled with Christian love, to do waht jesus would have us do will bring about healing.

I think that the Western Church should take a break from ecumenism and try to get its own house in order. We have no business pointing fingers at anyone - and that goes for me.

And many Orthodox (myself included) are sad over this. I know a sweet elderly Polish Orthodox woman at the church I attend while at school; she actually met the now-reposed Pope two or three times when he was a cardinal in Poland. She was very sad that the Pope was unable to visit Russia, and rightly stated the reason: politics.

We must also remember that, while he did not get to visit Russia, he did get to go to numerous other "Orthodox" nations.

Who leaked out that information?! We were trying to keep that a secret from all the non-Orthodox! Operation "Parousia Epikalimafkion" has been compromised! ABORT! ABORT!



Dave

Finally, someone with a sense of humor in this forum!
Mazeltoff!

ROTF