That’s what I’ve always heard the Episcopal church called. Man, even with half the guilt, this Baptist boy would rather have his serving of religion with 0 calories instead of the 1 that Episcopals put in.
Jodih:
Well, yes, except that most of the names within the Catholic and Orthodox groups have tended to follow the rites of the group.
There used to be many more divisions within the Catholic Church, generally based on the rites practiced by each group–which tended to follow ethnic lines. The Maronites, Chaldeans, Greeks, Armenians, and others who lived within the Byzantine Empire, but who accepted the pope as the ultimate leader of the church were “protected” by their separation from the west and maintained their own religious rites. There were probably as many of these groups/rites in the west, but (especially after the schism of 1054) the Roman hierarchy actively suppressed those various groups. The Gothic rite is the only one I can remember off the top of my head, but I remember hearing of several others when in school. (These rites were probably never as well-established as those in the east, since most of them were simply local variations on the Latin/Roman rite that was introduced by missionaries from Rome, whereas the eastern rite groups can generally trace their histories back to the second century or earlier. I still think the church lost a wonderful opportunity to recognize diversity by insisting that they all conform to the Roman convention.) So the Catholic (“universal”) church has the 800 pound gorilla of Rome and a number of smaller rites in the east while the Orthodox (“correct teaching”) church is composed solely of ethnic (now national) rites with size being determined simply by the population of the region in which they are established.
The various “Old” churches are generally not affiliated with any other churches. They may be considered “protestant” because they were formed in protest of the Catholic (or, more rarely, Orthodox) churches, but their theology usually looks more like the Catholic or Orthodox group from which they split than any group that can trace their heritage to Luther or Calvin. Several of the “Old [national] Catholic” churches split off in the 1870’s in revolt against the teachings of Vatican I; we now have a new group of splinters that have declared that the in Vatican II, the Catholic Church stopped being Catholic and that they are the only true Catholics. Whatever.
Tom~
:::Raising hand in back, rising slowly from my seat:: Aye. Bein’ Irish Catholic it’s Twice th’ Guilt and none of the fun.
Irish Catholics are Roman Catholics.
Bíonn caora dhubh ar an tréad is gile (there is a black sheep even in the whitest flock).
The schism between Rome & Constantinople goes even deeper. The peoples of the East also abandoned the Latin alphabet & kept the Greek or the Cyrillic alphabets. I can’t argue with the excellent post from Pickman’s model that states the the line separating the two empires ran through modern-day Romania (next GD ? - is it Romania or Rumania?), but I can tell you where it is today… The line separating east & west churches, alphabets, & identities turns into a tangle in Bosnia-Herzogovina. Croatia is west; Serbia is east. In Bosnia, they are intermingled, along with a strong Muslim contingent. The Balkan peninsula is where the schism was felt most strongly, and brings to mind a quote from some 1960/70’s poets:
Too many people have lied in the name of Christ for anyone to heed the call.
Too many people have died in the name of Christ; and I can’t believe it all.
- CSN, Cathedral
Sue from El Paso
members.aol.com/majormd/index.html
Sue: I’d have to say that “abandoned” isn’t the correct, er, most apt description of the choice of alphabets. After all, both the Romand and the Cyrillic (sp?) alphabets are an adaptation of the Greek alphabet. There’s also the issue of the existing alphabets in the region being replaced by the ones currently in use.
“Romand” should be “Roman.”
I believe that prior to the Reformation, the western church was simply called the “Catholic church.” The term “Roman Catholic” started to be used by those Anglicans who maintained that they were reformed Catholics, not Protestants: Anglo-Catholics, not Roman Catholics.
jodih - agree with most of your comments, especially your assessment of the growing gulf between moderate and fundamentalist Christians.
But, I would say that the rites are also important in understanding the different Christian groups, because they reflect the various doctrines that set them apart. Infant versus adult baptism is a very good example, since they reflect very different understandings of the purpose of baptism: to welcome an infant into the church, protected from original sin, compared to the personal choice made by the individual.
Similarly, the sparse liturgy of some Protestant churches plays down the eucharist, because it is seen to carry the idea of the priest as mediator with God. Instead they emphasise sermons and prayers - individual communion with God.
Some Protestant churches are sparsely furnished, because they take the prohibition on graven images very seriously - that’s why Cromwell’s Roundheads destroyed so many statutes and stained glass.
As for the Catholics that strayed from the Roman Catholic church - I disagree with Pickman’s Model that they became Protestant. They view themselves as Catholics, and do not accept Calvinism, Luther or Zwingli. They left the Roman Cathoic church over points of doctrine and church govenrment (usually in relation to the extent of the Pope’s authority). I suppose the Roman Catholic church would view the Old Catholics as schismatic, rather than Protestant.
TennHippie,
I hadn’t heard the “Catholic Lite” expression, but I used to have Catholic (Roman, to be specific) friends who referred to their Lutheran friends (totally in jest) as “Lapsed Catholics”.
When I was a kid, the Catholic kids and the Lutheran kids used to play ball together on the vacant lot next to the hardware store. They called us “mackerel-snappers” and we called them “Looeys”. We all seemed to get along okay; we’d swap notes on how our services were conducted, and the Looey kids preferred theirs, but they were terribly jealous of the neat holy cards and medals of saints and rosaries we always carried.
When I said that Catholic groups who split from the Church became Protestant, I didn’t mean doctrinally. Actually, you’re right, they were considered schismatic rather than Protestant; but I was using a sort of mental shorthand that’s a hold-over from parochial school----anything that was Christian but not Orthodox or Catholic (i.e. in good standing with Rome) was Protestant. My apologies.
Incidentally, we used to get a huge charge out of the anti-Catholic jokes the Lutheran kids used to tell us. I remember one that went something along the line of the Lutheran kid seeing a crucifix for the first time, mounted on a wall right between a picture of the Pope and a picture of the diocesan bishop, and telling the priest he knew the man on the cross was Christ since Christ was “hung between two thieves”. A real thumper, that. Ah, memories!
There’s no denying the Pope is a hero in Ireland.
j2browning, welcom to the SDMB. Generally, if a thread is over a couple of months old, we prefer that you start a new thread with a link to the previous one, rather than resurrecting a zombie thread.
This is now closed.
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