www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West The Greatest Error of Protestantism

Slava Isusu Christu!

The criterion for Orthodoxy is validly shared amongst all the Apostolic Churches, Latin Catholic, Eastern not United, Eastern United, Orientals and others. We all know the historical reasons for the schisms; could it not be accurately stated that in Christ all of the baggage accumulated over the years to keep us out of communion is utter nonsense. And the diatribes about Eastern Catholic Churches losing their "O" rthodoxy at the time of union with Rome are superficial at best and ignorant at worst.
The Eastern Christians of Carpatho-Rus and Ukraine who entered communion with Rome not only retained their Orthodoxy and Identity, but also gained the brotherhood of the Western Catholic Church which despite its rocky relationship, helped preserve the Ruthenian rescension of the Rite of Constantinopolis and the culture of a people of great dignity and matured way of life.

In Christ,


Robert Horvath

Without a doubt this is the view of the Catholic Church and should be respected. While Orthodoxy cannot agree with this statement, we nevertheless try to do all we can to advance legitimate ecumenism with Western Christians in all their various versions.

Axios

Axios:

You are the king of diplomacy:)

Blessings,


Rob

Dear Cizinec,

Again, I'm not trying to say that Protestantism is somehow other than what it is from Catholic and Orthodox perspectives.

What has always irked me was the notion that the Bible somehow fell out of heaven, with all the books already set out, etc.

The fact is when Protestants, who deny the role of the Church in establishing the canon of Scripture, read the Bible, they are already making an act of trust in the judgement of the Church that they don't believe in.

The reasoning I'm following here is, I hope, similar to that of Cardinal Newman and others of that ilk who tried to be a bridge between Catholicism and Protestantism.

Personally, I'd just rather blow off the 39 Articles of Religion of the Book of Common Prayer - I don't see how it relates to the first millennium of Christianity at all.

But Newman actually did an analysis of those articles and explained their background - he concluded that once we know their background, they are actually an assertion of the Catholic, not Protestant, tradition!

Another Franciscan scholar has also come to the same conclusion.

I'm not that much into Protestantism to understand all this, but I like to think that there are aspects to the Protestant traditions that can be valid within a Catholic framework.

The Lutheran-Catholic group "Die Sammlung" or "The Gathering" have studied each other's traditions and have drawn from Luther's works a number of points that are both "Catholic" and "unique."

Should the Lutherans wish to enter into communion with Rome, their ecclesial traditions, deficient though they are by Catholic standards, need not be cancelled - but completed by Catholic faith and practice.

Newman himself believed that Protestants only need to "add on" what their forefathers jettisoned and he was quite the expert in explaining to Protestants things like the papacy et al. within an Evangelical framework, paying fine attention to the "pulses" of Evangelical thought.

It's all a question of perspective and there is no reason that the Evangelical framework could not be adapted to a Catholic context.

Protestants see Protestantism, in a number of cases, as being more than just a set of doctrines. They see it as a spiritual culture and identify with it as such, just like many Eastern Churches do.

I suppose I'm sensitive to that because even my Church's Latinizations are cherished by many of my confreres - and they must be respected too.

Alex

Dear Brother Axios,

Certainly, one may believe everything about Orthodoxy and not be Orthodox because one is not in actual communion with it.

The Catholic tradition has developed and accepts that a person may be Catholic without having been received into the Catholic Church for reasons that may not altogether fault that person.

Ultimately, it is between God and the person. And I like to think that the same life of Grace can flow through all of us, working imperfectly and in weakness, as we do, with the lights that God bestows on us.

Alex

It is interesting that in the forward to Moghila's Orthodox Catechism I have from the late 1890s it discusses the common purpose of Catholicism and Orthodoxy against the inroads of Protestantism, which at the time of Moghila was raging all through Europe. It certainly found its way into Eastern Europe and continues to be a large target area for evangelical activity amongst fundamentalist Protestants.

I posted a link to a manual I think last year used at one of the Baptist colleges in the USA to prepare seminarians to specifically proselytize Orthodox Christians.

I wholeheartedly agree, Axios.

Robert, if I may...

I have never heard this to be the position of the Holy Catholic Church. The Church's consistent teaching has been that those not united to her are lacking in something (in varying degrees) depending upon their dogmatic and doctrinal accuracy. I would humbly welcome any official Catholic document or quote that supports the idea that other Apostolic bodies not united to Her are wholly orthodox.

Logos Teen

Dear Teen Logo,

I think it certainly DOES matter in the grand ecumenical scheme of things if Catholics come to understand and appreciate Orthodoxy better.

They can see in Orthodoxy a number of elements that they once shared with it before the schism and understand why the schism occurred in the first place.

Unfortunately, the attitude of some Orthodox is "We're the true Church, if you want unity, come back to us."

And there are Catholics like that as well.

That kind of attitude helps nobody.

Alex

I completely agree 100%; every iota!

I think when that attitude is coupled with pride and arrogance, it is definitely no help. However, I don't think that these two outlooks (the ecumenical one as well as the "We're the True Church" one) are mutually exclusive. Clearly the Catholic Church is devoted to true ecumenism, learning and appreciating Eastern Orthodoxy (and others), as well as staking the claim that the Catholic Church is the True Church founded by Christ. I believe it is only fair to admit that the Eastern Orthodox Churches do this as well.

Logos Teen

Dear Teen Logo,

May the faithful of both Catholic and Orthodox Churches wake up one day to find themselves in complete communion!

And if they both continue to consider that the other joined itself to the "true Church," so be it!

When they asked some Ukrainian peasants after the Union of Brest-Litovsk why the Pope was now being commemorated in their Churches, these were known to reply, "It must be because the Pope has joined our Orthodox Church!"

Alex

I think that the fact that Protestantism and Catholicism are seen as one same thing by Orthodox in the United States is due to a cultural situation. The USA has been culturaly Protestant since the country was founded and Protestant culture was always predominant. Although Catholics had conflicts with that at the beggining, in the XIX Century American Catholics got integrated to this culture and after the 1960's when Catholic worship changed, the external distinction between Protestants and Catholics blured (the worship, the appereance of the temples, etc) and their political and cultural attitude is secularist, but this is just an external appereance.

I have always seen Protestantism not as a "religious movement" per se, but as a political faction whose main aim was political and not religious: the secularization of the society. Protestantism doesn't come alone, it's always accompanied by free trade economy, rationalist philosophy, and antropocentrism. The reforms in the worship were the key of secularization, the mystery and the trascendental character of the liturgy was gradualy supressed in Protestantism so this "supersticious obstacle to progress" was eliminated, religious images and the ornamentation of the temples were discouraged because, as the modern man (who is esencialy non-believing), the superior man is self-sufficient, the temples and the liturgy must reflect this superiority ("man has overcome the "mystery" stage so that human capability and qualities becomes the main purpose of their worship, a worship centered in man, from God to man, and not viceversa").

It is not surprising that Protestantism has played this role in history, for example: In the 1860's, since religious freedom would have had no sense if Mexico was 100% Catholic, Juarez' first act of government was to invite Protestant missions. (As long as Nationalist Catholicism was strong, foreign domination would not have been possible). Much later in the 1940's, Communists brought the Summer Linguistic Institute to convert indigenous peoples to Evangelicalism, depriving them from their cultures and traditions and integrating them to the secular society.

For centuries the East has been far from this problems, because the East had few importance to those who had political domination and free trade as a purpose. But nowadays, since they've already swallowed the Western nations, it is not surprising that groups like the Evangelical Christians or the Jehova's witnesses in Greece and Russia, receive so much money from outside, or that they're trying to divide Catholics and Orthodox in the ex-Soviet Union while Pentecostalism grows. As we all saw in the infamous "manual of conversion" used by Protestants in Orthodox countries, Orthodox liturgy and sacraments are depicable in the eyes of the Protestant sects, including those of the WCC and they will try to infiltrate the Orthodox as they did with the Roman Church in the 1960's.