Posted on 06/10/2002 9:05:25 AM PDT by Siobhan
The sempiternal opposition of some is, oddly, a sort of comfort. What do you say about Patriarch Bartholomew I making nice with such an infamous heretic as our Pope?
The website of the The Holy See.
Don't forget we never killed heretics (save the nasty Bogomil heresiarch Basil who was given ample opportunity to repent, and would, because of the antinomian secular doctrines of the Bogomils, been subject to execution for sedition in any nation of Europe at the time), but exiled them and prayed for their repentence. It is one of the unfortunate indications of the fall of the Patriarchate of Rome that you abandoned the urgent patristic counsels against the execution of heretics.
LOL. On the other thread in which we are "dialoguing," I had just responded to you that you have an inexhaustible supply of grudges nursed, accusations against us etc etc and here you are rolling them out.
You never prove my expectations about you incorrect :)
I just have one question; Are you renting your computer from an Orthodox business and is there a rental lease that includes a provision that you must introduce extraneous material into each thread that will highlight your opposition to Rome so as to prove your Bona Fides as an Orthodox?
You must be getting anxious. Your hateful rhetoric and unquenchable opposition has driven you so far into the extremist corner that when (when, not if) ReUnion occurs, you will neeed heroic virtue and a gargantuan appetite to eat the crow set before you. Or, will you and a few disgruntled orthodox move back into some mountainous cave , like Pelayo in Spain, and plan a long campaign of reconquest against the barbarous heretics?
Pelagius vainly imagined that men by their own efforts could overcome all the effects of the Fall, that is could not only avoid intentional sin, but also unintentional sin, and overcome the deformity of our nature. This is not the case. If I may I will suggest an analogy:
Fallen man is like one who has fallen into a well with a mire at the bottom.
The Pelagian's imagine that not only can Fallen man on his own avoid voluntary actions which make him sink deeper into the mire (voluntary sins), but can prevent himself from unwittingly sinking deeper (involuntary sins) and climb out of the well (no need for Christ's grace).
The Orthodox teach that with only ordinary help from God we may avoid voluntary actions which make us sink deeper, but would still unwittingly sink deeper, that we need grace in Christ to be lifted out, as by a rope sling dropped to us, but that we must cooperate with that grace, as it were by putting on the rope sling, hanging on to it and fending off tree roots (temptations) which assail us during our ascent.
The Augustinian teaching (held in purest form by Calvinists, and in compromise with the Orthodox position by the Latins) maintains that without grace in Christ we will always both voluntarily and involutarily sink and that God will snatch some out of the mire (unconditional election or inexorable grace) and leave others (those predestined for perdition in Calvinist terminology) in the mirey pit.
It seems to me that John Paul II has been going out of his way to move toward Orthodoxy (the current Catechism of your confession is probably the most Orthodox document your Patriarchate has produced since you left the Church). I have pointed out the last steps needed to reunite on Orthodox terms, and your Pope has shown some flexibility on some of them.
The trouble is that the movement in the Latin church to declare the fact of her assumption as a solemn dogma included many who denied her death, and the solemn dogmatization your confession formulated was deliberately ambiguous on the point, leaving her assumption after death or assumption before death as a matter for private opinion. The coupling of the unnecessary dogma of the IC of the BVM with the assumption before death opinion seems to me to be heretical, though as a humble subdeacon I am in no position to propose new anathemas.
I think you are confusing us with the more radical interpretations of grace [in Augustinian form], as we believe that grace is freely given if asked for and that it is accesible to anyone. But prayers for others can sustain them as well.
What do you have to say about the tradition of baptism and Romans V?
One wise Orthodox priest was once asked by a Latin what the biggest difference between their Churches was. He thought for a moment, and said, "Ah, the biggest difference is that whereas you have St. Augustine and Blessed John Cassian, we have St. John Cassian and Blessed Augustine."
The response is a bit delphic unless one knows the writings of the two men, in which case almost all the differences between East and West can be found flowing from that difference in emphasis.
An Orthodox ping to appreciate the humble and Christlike behavior of our Latin brothers who stoop to consider reunification with the pathetic likes of us.
For the record, The_Reader_David merely spelled out the differences that remain between the two Churches. These differences may not be ignored for any one person's benefit.
What is the difference between her "nature" and "any stain of unintentional sin"? I see you are making some differentiation between the two that I do not see. Is "the stain of unintentional sin" not part of the Fallen nature?
SD
That's a mighty broad brush you have there. I realize you have issues, but spreading around calumny does not solve anything, does it?
(Which is to say that I acknowledge that we have many jackals acting as bishops, but to say that "Our Bishops aren't gay" is to make a statment that you can not prove. #1, you don't know that every Orthodox bishop is not gay. #2, not every Catholic bishop is gay, which is your implication. That is a lie, and it does not become you.)
SD
As I said before, Havoc could learn from you how to use humor in an exchange. The Pope, it is said, is writing an Encyclical on The Eucharist. But, I have no doubt he is even now, in his mind, starting to formulate an Encyclical that will repudiate everything since Ephesus and surrender to The Reader David's limpid and irreformable Doctrine.
Since this is identical to another thread, I think it worth reposting what I said on that thread:
Patriarch Bartholomew speaks only for the Patriarchate of Constantinople. He cannot speak for the other autocephelous Orthodox Churches, despite his self-assumed title of "Ecumenical Patriarch." (What the dickens does that mean, anyway? The Patriarch of Constantinople is First Among Equals -- no more and no less.)And the vitriol exhibited by certain, unnamed, on this thread illustrate what I meant in my previous paragraph better than I could have stated in my own words.Except for the GOA, the Patriarchate of Constantinople has shrunk to a shadow of its former self. Even among the GOA, anyone who wanted to be Catholic would have converted long ago.
Until the Pope is ready to accept that he is one patriarch among many, we can hope for better relations between the Orthodox and Cathnolic churches, but that is what it will remain -- hope.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.