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To: Honorary Serb; Kolokotronis; Agrarian; kosta50

Ping.


3 posted on 09/01/2007 6:24:57 PM PDT by lightman (The Office of the Keys should be exercised as some ministry needs to be Exorcised.)
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To: lightman; Kolokotronis; Agrarian; kosta50; sionnsar; Huber; redgolum

There was a prominent ELCA Lutheran evanglical catholic clergywoman, Sharon Zanter Ross, who became Orthodox way back in 1997:

http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9701/public.html

....Several months ago was the news that the first woman ordained to the priesthood in the Church of England had been received into the Roman Catholic Church. Now Pastor Sharon Zanter Ross, a prominent figure among “evangelical catholics” in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), has been received into the Orthodox Church in America (OCA).

She writes to friends in the ELCA: “In the past, I encouraged you to stay and resist the various idolatries that have plagued us. Naively, I believed that the evangelical catholic vision would, because it should, win the hearts of all Lutherans. Without a right appraisal of the complexity of the problems as well as the depth of the deterioration of our church (and indeed, of all Western Protestantism), I could continue to hope that even a small group could rescue it from its worst tendencies. But over the last six years I have been made to face, with great anguish and many tears, the truth about the future and come to some difficult decisions.”

She writes that it might have been possible to stay in the ELCA were it not for her children. “Since 1990, as my understanding of motherhood and the responsibilities of the spiritual guidance of children has grown, I have come to see that it would not be fair to the little flock entrusted to my care to stay.” She wrestled with the fact that, as a member of the Orthodox Church, she would be giving up her ordained status, but concluded, “After all, what good is my ordination in a church body which witnesses less and less the faith of the apostles and fathers which is the essential core without which the reformers would have nothing to confess?”

“Sharon’s decision,” says an ELCA theologian who is remaining, “puts further pressure on all of us as to what we will do, since we cannot disagree with her description of what has happened in the ELCA.”....


10 posted on 09/02/2007 2:52:40 PM PDT by Honorary Serb (Kosovo is Serbia! Free Srpska! Abolish ICTY!)
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