Is there a great divide between the Roman Catholic religion and the Orthodox Catholic religion?
My wife and I were asked to be the Godparents of a new born, the mom is from Romania, and is Orthodox. After meeting with a priest, she regretfully told us that the church required that one of the Godparents had to be Orthodox, leaving either myself or my wife out of the ceremony (we are both Roman Catholics).
Are the teachings and the believes that far apart that this rule must apply?
Yep. The Catholics accept the Orthodox as essentially Catholics who are temporarily in schism, and so part of the Church, but the Orthodox see the Catholics as just another non-Orthodox denomination, with their “Church” status being undefined.
I’m actually mildly surprised they’d allow one of the godparents to be non-Orthodox; traditionally, anybody involved as a sponsor in a sacrament would have to be Orthodox.
I’m pretty sure that the Catholics consider the Orthodox as not just guilty of schism, but heresy (for the filoque thing if nothing else). It’s just that the Catholic Church says that the Orthodox churches are legitimate Churches, derived from the apostles.
I’m not so sure of it. It seems to me that the sacraments of the Orthodox church, including the communion (hence the mass), are considered as valid by the Catholic church. I don’t think this would be true if the Othodox church was considered heretical.
I’m not positively certain, though , so maybe some other poster could shed some light on this issue (from the catholic point of view. The Orthodox one is significantly different, as far as I understand).
That’s strange, I am an orthodox and my godfather is Muslim. My parents said despite this they were never given any problems by anyone.
usually the parent who is the same gender as the child must be orthodox.
the catholic church would have to change quite a few things for the orthodox church to consider them in the fold.
Depends-do you mean Orthodox Catholics, which are simply Catholics who are in communion with the Vatican and Rome, but practice the Greek rites as opposed to the Roman ones (they’re also known as Byzantine Catholic), or Orthodox Christians, who are not Catholics. (Except in the universal sense).
There’s also the distinction between godparent meaning “Baptismal sponsor, who vows to assist in the spiritual upbringing of the godchild,” “person who will take care of the child in the case of the deatrh of the parents,” and “person who gets to stand next to the family at the baptism and feel like they’re a special part of the ceremony.”
When a pastor uses the term, it’s almost always with the first meaning in mind. Sometimes, though, a pastor eager to please everyone will use the third meaning, with the explanation that only some “godparents” (the one(s) who are actually sponsoring the child) have to meet the requirements for godparenthood in the traditional religious sense.
When anyone else uses the term, it seems to have one of the latter two meanings.
Indeed. It’s worth remembering since many people nowadays seem to not know anymore what is a godfather, from a spiritual point of view (actually, the second traditionnal role you mention, the godfather/mother as a potential parental substitute is even more readily ignored).
No. The filioque is a much bigger issue for the Orthodox than for the Catholics. Catholics tend to see it as a bit of power politics (under Charlemagne) that got out of control while Orthodox see it as a serious religious stumbling block. The Catholic recognize the separation, but do not get too heavily into blame (which is just as well, since there is a certain legitimacy in saying it is “their fault”).
From the Catechism:
If I remember right - and it’s hard to keep track of all those crazy little Catholic/Orthodox groups - the Catholic Church recognizes Orthodox ordinations, and an Orthodox priest who converts to Catholicism is recognized as a legitimate Catholic priest. I seem to remember that both sides recognize some at least of the various rites and sacraments and so forth. I’m surprised to learn that the Orthodox Church doesn’t consider the RCC to be at least somewhat legitimate, as both churches maintain the historic episcopate.
… especially since the designated representatives of most Orthodox churches actually agreed to rejoin the Catholic church at the 1439 Council of Florence (admittedly this was extracted rather under duress, witness the fall of Constantinople to the Turks only 14 years later), but which was repudiated on the representatives’ return when they discovered that essentially the entire population, church and civil authorities would rather live under Muslim rule than agree to Rome’s heresies (as they saw it). Only the Byzantine Emperors remained committed to the union (presumably due to seeing Western military help as the only way of staving off their fall).
While we’re talking about this, I was baptized in a Ukrainian Catholic church. I’ve never heard of that - just Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox. I believe the church follows Orthodox rites (no communion wafers, the bread is already in the wine). But I’ve never seen any other differences - old masses done in Latin and things, and almost identical to any Roman Catholic church I’ve seen.
What is the Ukrainian Catholic church? How is it different from Roman Catholicism?
very simply, the ukranian catholic church is one that tries to have a foot in each camp. some switched for help breaking away from russia (political reasons over religious reasons). many ukranian churchs don’t want to be linked to russia, some went to rome (became catholic), some went to constantinople (stayed orthodox) for autonomy.
in the u.c.c., priests can be married men, church slovanic was used instead of latin, and services are much closer to orthodox , communion is bread and wine. they follow the pope of rome over the patri. of moscow (polictics went into that decision), and go along with differences in theology (ie filioque, and immaculate conception, pascal dates).