Without delving into the appropriateness of Angel taking Communion at an Orthodox liturgy, I thought that the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches recognized the validity of each other’s Eucharist, I believe because the apostolic succession has been maintained intact in both churches. I am certain that the Roman Catholic Church admits the validity of the Orthodox sacrament. Is this not true for the Orthodox Churches?
The Roman Catholic Church does indeed believe that the Orthodox have valid sacraments; however, this is neither here nor their as far as the Orthodox are concerned. Orthodoxy teaches that Orthodox sacraments definitely have grace and are valid; once again, everything outside the Orthodox Church is a big question mark. They may have grace, they may not. Accordingly, Orthodox Christians are not to receive the Mysteries in non-Orthodox churches, and non-Orthodox may not receive the Mysteries in Orthodox Churches. In practice, however, certain Eastern Catholics or Oriental Orthodox may be allowed to commune at Orthodox Churches, if they do not have access to a clergyman of their own jurisdiction.
I have a friend who is Antiochian Orthodox. Most of the families in her church home-school their children, and she plans to do the same, because they literally don’t want their kids to be exposed to the unOrthodox. Is this a common practice in other Orthodox churches, or is it unique to her church/congregation?
To enlarge upon yBeayf’s statement, the Orthodox Church teaches that only the Orthodox Church has Apostolic Succession. Apostolic Succession is not merely maintaining a line of ordination. It also requires adhering to Apostolic Doctrine. Since Orthodoxy teaches that Rome has innovated, Orthodoxy likewise teaches that Rome has abandoned Apostolic Succession.
This is totally out in a strange and distant field as far as the majority of Orthodox (including Antiochian Orthodox) in the USA are concerned. I would make a guess that this particular parish is made up of a very large proportion of converts from Protestantism who felt that their old churches had become insufficiently strict and rigorist. This sort of exclusivism would be quite alien to any “cradle” Orthodox I’ve come across, possibly excepting Old Believers and some ultra-rigorist Old Calendarists.
There is a phrase I’ve heard from time to time: “more Orthodox than Orthodoxy”. It’s not a form of praise.
Yup, you hit the nail right on the head. She and her husband, and most of their friends, were adult converts. Interesting. Thanks for starting this thread, Dogface.
One of the things I associate with Orthodox Churches is attachment to a certain ethnic group, Greek, Russian, Serb, Christian Arab and so on.
Are there many Orthodox Christians who are not from one of the historically ethnic groups?
Of course I suppose there are few Swedish Catholics or Bulgarian Methodists too, but where I live the small Orthodox congregations are Greek or Lebanese/Syrian.
well, there are finish orthodox… in the u.s. a lot of churches have an ethnic identity, it helped when the immigrants came over. the greeks who were here for a bit helped the greeks that just came off the boat etc. with eastern europe and quite a few other iron curtain countries opening up there have been a bit of a flood into the churches of new immigrants. it is a way to find community.
the churches that are founded by people who are multi ethnic tend to have less of the “flavour.”
the orthodox church and the catholic church are not in communion with each other because there was this excommunication about a thousand years ago. due to theological differences a true communion between the churches will be a rather long time in coming.
i gotta admit the no female clergy thing always bugged me. this was one of those times that i went digging really deep for a reason. there is the argument that jesus was a man, only a man can represent him. that is somewhat logical. but it leaves out his mother, and the many women who also gave up things and followed him. so i kept digging. some of the people who followed christ were high up within the jewish religion, so i looked into why when there were high priests none of them were women. very logically it came down to interruptibility. women tend to be interupted more. a few sundays watching my choir director deal with her children while trying to conduct a service made it very simple. i can only imagine what would happen in the altar with her son thrown into the mix. she would be spending a good portion of the time keeping order amounst the altar servers and less time with the prayers of the service. right now a boy who “acts up” in the altar is tossed out and sent to mom in shame.
i should also mention that her husband is not in the choir and is “suppose” to be keeping watch over the daughter. doesn’t seem to work. mom is still interupted at least 5 or 6 times. the daughter is 10. there is a bit of moving around in an orthodox church and dad will lose sight of his daughter every now and then. although i guess another great mystery of the church is that mom’s never lose sight of the kids and seem to have an esp of where they are and what they are doing.
To expound further, another aspect of the Orthodox concept of validity is communion with the general body of world Orthodoxy. A group that teaches Orthodox doctrine, but is in communion with no-one but itself, is not Orthodox. This means that the multitude of vagante groups that trace their “apostolic succession” back to this or that hierarch are not Orthodox, even if they call themselves such. It doesn’t matter who ordained you if you’re not in communion with the Body of Christ, which is the church.
A concrete example of this can be seen in two separate Greek Old Calendarist groups. The True Orthodox Church of Greece is one of the groups that formed after the calendar change, in resistance to what they saw as innovation in the faith. They are Orthodox, however, as they believe that the mainstream Orthodox hierarchs are Orthodox, and with grace. Furthermore, they are in official communion with the Russian Church Abroad, who are in communion with the Churches of Serbia and Jerusalem, and thus in communion with world Orthodoxy. In contrast, there are the Matthewites, a group of a few thousand individuals in Greece who believe they are the only true Orthodox left. They are in communion with nobody. Despite the fact that they teach Orthodox doctrine, and the founders of their sect were legimitately consecrated, almost nobody considers them Orthodox, as they have cut themselves off from the Church.
Note that when I say “in communion,” this refers to the official policy of the hierarchs. Clergy of the ROCA and the Church of Serbia can concelebrate, but not, for example, clergy of ROCA and the OCA. Each recognizes the other as Orthodox, it’s just that for historical reasons, and because ROCA wishes to maintain a more traditional stance, they are not officially in communion. This primarily affects clergy; in practice, laity are free to attend churches of whichever jurisdiction they wish.
The vast majority of world Orthodox are “ethnic,” that is, living in the old country and tied to their historical culture. In America, most Orthodox are descended from immigrants, but the number of converts is large, and growing. My current parish is all-convert, and the cathedral I attended while living in Dallas, which is the cathedral for the OCA’s southern diocese, is about half-convert and half-ethnic, although all of the clergy, including the Archbishop, were converts.
Aye, and they’re an autonomous Church, even! (In Orthodoxy, autonomous Churches are largely self-governing; they still maintain ties to a mother Church, though. Autocephalous Churches are totally independent. One of the major differences is that the chief hierarch of an autocephalous Church can consecrate Holy Chrism for that Church’s use, while the head of an autonomous Church receives Chrism from their mother Church.)
The Orthodox Church in Japan is autonomous, as well, and is of decent size. Historically, the Orthodox had a respectable presence in China, and until the revolution, they weren’t doing too shabbily. Thousands of Chinese Orthodox were martyred during the Boxer Rebellion, and the Cultural Revolution did a pretty good job of finishing off those that were left. There still are a few Orthodox in China, but they no longer are even close to the numbers they once were.
Speaking of converts being more Orthodox than those who were born Orthodox-
The Empress Alexandra was said to be that way. She was very devout, almost fanatical, in her devotion to the church. (Mostly, I would say, because of her extreme desire to produce an heir, and then because her son was a hemophiliac-she turned more and more to the church for answers).
Actually, she turned more and more away from the Church and more and more towards strange fringe movements.
Having just finished a “course” entitled “The World of Byzantium”, I find this thread particularly timely and interesting. I would like to point out a couple of misperceptions about “Western” and Protetant theology presented by the Orthodox posters.
First, no Christian denomination/sect/group has ever taught that there is some kind of “ticket” to heaven or hell. The closest any group has come to such a thing was the Roman church making promises to motivate crusaders. (Some of the leading Norman figures had been excommunicated a few times, and were promised to be, ur, “recommunicated?”.) Protestant theology teaches that you enter heaven through the grace of God alone. At least some Protestants teach that the only way to receive such grace is to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. Perhaps I missed it in the earleir discussions, but what is the Orthodox position? Do the Orthodox consider, say, Presbyterians, to be Christians? Mormons?
Second, Augustine’s teachings, are not merely part of Western Christianity. Augustine preceded almost all of the Christian schisms. However, as the last great Latin rhetorician, his influence was understandably greater in the Latin church, which had very few Greek speakers from about Justinian’s time on. (I won’t claim I understand his doctrine of “Original Sin”, which was invoked to solve some issue I don’t remember.)
Sorry for pontificating, if you’ll pardon the pun, but I find splitting
these kinds of hairs fascinating. From this thread, it is apparant that the Orthodox value the continuity of traditions very highly, and not to value innovations. I am a Presbyterian. Presbyterians (and I think Congregationalist, Christian Church(ists? ians?) and the Baptists denominations) would hold that they adopted the early Christian organization, which did not have Bishops. Historically, the role of bishop appeared rather naturally as the church grew and immitated the well ordred Roman world. Is the whole bishop thing considered an innovation?
Finally, I don’t understand Apostolic Succession. Presbyterians hold that any Peter, Paul, or Mary could have instigated the first conversion, or God alone, as in the case of Paul. Any Christian knowledgeable about, and professing to believe in, Presbyterian theology is eligible for the job, women included. My understanding of the Catholic belief is that priests must derive from that group converted by Peter, and more particularly, from those “priestized” by the Pope. (I’m sorry Catholics, I don’t know the term.) What precisely is the Orthodox take on this? What are the justifications?
And why not women as priests and bishops? I don’t buy the bit about interruptions. Catholic nuns would be as free as any guy, and any child can be taught to go to papa during a service.
And many Westerner Christians teach that there is a “ticket” to heaven and/or a “ticket” to hell. One need merely to “accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior” to be “saved”. Likewise, not being Christian is enough in the eyes of many Western Christians to entail automatic damnation–I’ve come across several in the USA who believe this.
Presbyterians are considered to be Christians primarily because they are Trinitarian. Mormons are not considered to be Christians because they engage hammer-and-tongs in forms of Nestorianism, Arianism, a touch of Modalism, and even some Pneumatachianism.
The Presbyterian approach to bishops is an innovation from an Orthodox standpoint. The Orthodox Church teaches that the Apostles were the first Bishops and that they appointed successors (Episkopoi) to handle affairs with similar authority. As for Apostolic Succession, the Church teaches that it is how the Church has always done things. There is a reason that we call it “Apostolic” Succession. Why is not the Theotokos, Mary, counted among the Apostles? Because she did not act as an Apostle. She did not go among the masses and preach, nor did she set up and guide Christian communities as an explicit head. Likewise, the first convert was not St. Paul. There were many converts before him, and they were converted by the preaching of Christ and then the Apostles. Thus, even though there were exceptional circumstances, the rule was that the Apostles provided the general daily leadership of the Church, and even St. Paul submitted himself to the Apostolic council at Jerusalem.
Thus, rejecting the tradition of the Episcopate goes against what Orthodoxy holds to be the most ancient practice.
As to the “inturruptions” argument regarding priesthood, that smacks of Westernism to me. Unfortunately, in recent years, individual Orthodox have adopted forms of explanation that are alien to the Orthodox phronema. In Orthodoxy, it is permissable to admit that there might not be a “rational explanation” for something, but that it could still be right to do it that way. Unfortunately, the Western cult of rationalism demands that everything must have a “reasonable explanation”. It’s hard to shed this desire.
The reason that Orthodoxy does not have priestesses is that Orthodoxy has not had priestesses. I explained this in detail earlier on this thread, you can go read it there. Attempting to dot every “i” and cross every “t” leads to doctrines like “transubstantiation”, which simultaneously over-explains and ultimately explains nothing.
The thing is, most Orthodox would consider this idea of salvation to be exactly equivalent to a “ticket to heaven,” in that it sees salvation as a one-time event. You accept Christ as your personal Savior, and boom! you’re saved, you go to heaven, no more questions asked. The Orthodox see salvation as a process of becoming ever more like God. It’s not a binary state; rather, there are stages of growing closer to God or moving away from God, etc. We are called to be perfect (Matt. 5:48), but this perfection does not happen immediately. We must work with God’s Grace to purify ourselves, and to grow ever closer to the perfection which is God.
Presbyterians (and most Protestants, for that matter), in the Orthodox view, are Christian, although not possessing the fullness of the truth. Mormonism is a bit iffier, as they have innovated new scripture and doctrines that are not to be found in historical Christianity, and does not conceive of God in a “Christian” way (note: I have no desire to debate the merits of Mormonism in this thread; this is simply how Orthodoxy sees the situation). In the same manner, the status of such groups as Unitarians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Pentecostals who hold to modalism is a similar grey area, with them being more likely to be not Christian.
Not according to the Orthodox. We hold that the Church has always had bishops, even from the earliest days of the Church after Pentecost, and believe it is those who are without a hierarchy that are the innovators. The bishop with his flock is the basic unit of the Church.
Apostolic Succession, in the Orthodox view, means that Christ ordained the first bishops: the Apostles. Those bishops ordained other bishops, who ordained other bishops, and so on down the centuries. Furthermore, for the Orthodox, having been ordained by a bishop with Apostolic Succession means nothing if one is not in communion with the body of world Orthodoxy. Thus, we don’t play the games that Western vagante groups tend to, tracing their “lines of succession” back to such-and-such bishop. Apostolic Succession is a living continuity, going back to the Twelve, of an unbroken chain of consecrations, existing within the unbroken and uninterrupted Body of the Church.
What Catholic nuns do is irrevalent to Orthodox Christians 
I’ve never actually heard distraction during services as the reason for not ordaining women. There are theological arguments that have been put forth, such as the fact that Christ was male and only ordained men as bishops, but these do not convince everybody. We do have the failsafe fall-back argument, though, which is we’ve never done it that way. In the absence of any truly compelling reason for ordaining women to the episcopacy or priesthood, we are not likely do so.
Q: How many Orthodox does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: One person can clean an oil lamp quite nicely.
That is not actually what Protestantism believes, at least I think not - I can’t speak for fundamentalists. First of all, you have to die having accepted Christ. In the second, no act on your part, even the act of belief, “gets you in”. Quite literally, an Act of God, is required.
Presumably a loving God loves you if you believe He exists, and that you are doing your best, geniunely sorry for your imperfections, etc, but there are no guarantees. He might even love you if you don’t believe in him, do not accept Jesus as the Christ, etc, but there are no guarantees there either, and considerable room for theological debate. From what little I know, the different forms of Christianity differ little in their application, but differ greatly by their theory.
If I understand what you are saying, the Orthodox then reject the Roman Catholic form of Apostolic Succession, as do some Protestant groups (Lutherans accept the Roman Catholic form, after all Martin Luther was a priest). However, to pick a bizarre example, if God were to convert Osama Bin Laden and he were to convert the Al Qaeda, and Osama were to understand and profess Orthodox theology, he would have to be ordained by an Orthodox bishop to be one?
Tell me if I understand this. It is a historical fact that no one at the moment of Pentecost called themselves a bishop. (It is If I remember correctly, the Roman government invented a position with that name sometime after Marcus Aurelius, and Christians adopted the label later. Is the Orthodox view that the early Apostles were bishops, even if they didn’t call themselves that? (It is a rare group indeed without some leaders!)
Your answer to the question of women priests brings up another question. Is there much pressure from within the Orthodox church to accept women priests? Is there much pressure from the outside? (I am neither female nor Catholic, so perhaps I am wrong, but it has seemed to me that much of the pressure on the Catholic church is generated from outside of the church.)
Finally, and this might be a bit of a hijack, does anyone know how the term “Pope” came to be applied to the patriarch of Alexandria, and the Roman Catholic Pope? I know it is derived from the Greek “pappas”, or father, but why just those two positions?
Well, yes and no. Her interest in “miracle cures” and Rasputin, yes. She was extremely guilible.
But she would not sanction anything like the khlysty, for example. She was very devout, collected icons, etc.
well, according to canon law, a woman was to remain totally silent in the church building as well as in a learning gathering. they were also prohibited from chanting either in a choir of thier own or along with men. (the rudder)
within a two page explanation, the corintian letter of st. paul was used, " let your women remain silent. for it has not been permitted them to talk but to obey, as the law directs. if they wish to learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home." and in timothy " let the women learn quietly with all subjection. but i suffer not a woman to teach, not to exercise authority over a man, but to be quiet. for adam was formed first, and then eve. and adam was not deceived, but the woman having been deceived became at fault. but she shall be saved through child-bearing."
“it further states that the woman’s job is to bear children and rear them in the belief and love of god.”
( hence it is mom who is responsible for the actions of the children in church and to deal with the interuptions there of.)
there is a bit dealing with ancient idolaters that had priestesses and that the church must keep themselves separate from them.
i would think that the bit about the ancient idolaters was directly aimed at the greeks. there were quite a few priestesses during ancient greece. the woman’s job to bear and rear the children spoke directly to those that were jewish and used old testament examples to explain.
female choirs were considered a scandal. “the appearance of a woman in the church choir constitutes a stumbling block; for the eyes and ears of the congregation are at once turned to them, and becoming intoxicated with the sight and sound of the highstrung melodramatic voice of women;… they are rendered incapable of enjoying the modest and contrite songs of the church.”
when my mother was growing up there were women in the choir, but a female choir director would have the church turned into a vacuum from all the gasping.
not to mention the biggie, the pesky monthly. according to canon a woman who is in her cycle is not even to darken the church door. having a priest that can’t go into a church for two weeks of the month would create a bit of a problem. this one comes directly from jewish law. the rudder further states: “that it was on this account too that deaconesses lost their rank owing to their troublesome menses.”
nuns who are beyond their cycles can be allowed into the altar, in their monestary. not all the nuns in the monestary mind you, just the mother, and perhaps one more. to keep things orderly not to serve any services.
there are quite a few factors against women priests. even though there have been many “relaxing” of the rules with regard to women, it would take something rather earthshattering to drop them completely to allow women in the clergy.
i know the question of women partaking of communion while in cycle is still hotly debated. i can only imagine the “thuds” of the patriarchs falling to the floor in a faint, at the thought of a woman in the altar during “that time.”
I can’t speak as one, but I can say that there are Fundamentalists in the USA who believe that they can become sinless in this life merely by “accepting Jesus as their personal savior”. The head of Operation Rescue adheres to this doctrine.
Likewise, I have come across several Fundamentalists who maintain quite vehemently that anyone who does not make the explicit and conscious choice is damned.
Yes. This is because Orthodoxy is not merely a doctrine. We hold the Church to be the mystical body of Christ on earth. Thus, one must formally “join” to be joined to it.
You remember very wrongly, or your source is pure fiction. It is true that the Apostles did not call themselves “bishops”, but the Apostles did appoint “overseers” (Acts 20:28, Philippians 1:1, 1 Timothy 3:2, Titus 1:7, 1 Peter 2:25). The Greek for this is “Episkopos”. The office of the Orthodox Church that is translated as “Bishop” in English is called “Episkopos” to this day in Greek. Thus, the Apostles exercises all the powers of the Bishops, but the Bishops are their heirs, the “overseers” that they appointed and so called by name.
Unfortunately, a lot of English-language religious history relies very heavily upon ignorance of Greek by English-speakers to be acceptable.
**
No. There is very little “pressure”. In part, this is because in Orthodoxy, a woman can be well-respected and even effectively lead without being a priest or bishop. A geronta’s word can carry more weight than a bishop’s, even though the bishop has more theoretical “authority”. This is in part because Orthodoxy is less saddled with clericalism than are many other Christian groups.
Ah, a bit of Church history. Originally, Alexandria was the only seat of a Pope. The Patriarch of Alexandria was so called because of the strength and vigor of Alexandrian theology. Since Rome was the “first city” of the Empire, Rome’s Patriarch was also extended this title. When Rome no longer was the “first city”, Constantinople was raised in precedence but not granted a special title.