Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs, 1848 A Reply to the Epistle of Pope Pius IX, "to the Easterns

Orthodoxinfo.com ^ | 1848 | Various

[kosta50]

I am sure you will agree that sub deacons are in fact ordained

In the Orthodox Church a subdeacon is the highest of the minor clergy, higher than the cantor, lower than the deacon. Although there is ordination of a deacon, a bishop can "borrow" someone and "promote" him to act and vest as a subdeacon without ordination. Subdeacons are usually found right behind a bishop as his personal assistants.

Catholic subdeacons were abolished in 1972. Until that time, subdeacons used to be considered major clergy, like deacons and priests and bishbops.

[stfassisi]

KOLO-”You will grant me, I am sure, that women are absolutely forbidden to be ordained. The Councils are uniform in this. I am sure you will agree that sub deacons are in fact ordained, as the canons provide and yet, sub deacons “...have no right to a place in the Diaconicum, nor to touch the Lord’s vessels.” Canon XXI Council of Laodicea, “...must not give the Bread, nor bless the Cup” Canon XXV Council of Laodicea, and most tellingly when one understands the lay out of a church in those days (and to this day in Orthodox, Monophysite and Oriental Orthodox Churches), “Women may not go to the altar.” Canon XLIV Council of Laodicea””

I agree with you on this,Kolo. It’s another thing that needs to be addressed.

FYI..From INAESTIMABILE DONUM

Instruction Concerning Worship Of The Eucharistic Mystery
Prepared by the Sacred Congregation for the Sacraments and Divine Worship
Approved and Confirmed by His Holiness Pope John Paul II 17 April 1980

http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2INAES.HTM

Excerpt
“”18. There are, of course, various roles that women can perform in the liturgical assembly: these include reading the Word of God and proclaiming the intentions of the Prayer of the Faithful. Women are not, however, permitted to act as altar servers.[27]””

[stfassisi]

You know the old saying "love means never having to say you are sorry." It's better to prevent than to fix.

Saying your sorry is an act of humility therefore an act of love.

All of us need to fix things during our lives.

I certainly have!

[Kolokotronis]

“If something was “always” practised and believed, it is an Apostolic Tradition, subjected to being called an infallibly declared doctrine if the Church so wills it through the Spirit at a later time. IF women were EVER allowed to “go to the altar” as part of a licit action, is it reasonable to say Laodicea is more along the order of a discipline that CAN be abrogated later?”

Jo, for at least 1700 years that has been the practice, East and West until you folks decided to change it under the influence, so far as I can see, of the Zeitgeist. That’s the problem. We have zero reason to believe that you will hold to any tradition, even those practiced always and everywhere...until Americans and enlightened Western Europeans decided that the Holy Spirit is doing a new thing.Aside from the fact that +JPII, a pope not at all liked in the East, nor trusted for that matter, declared that women aren’t to be ordained, is there any reason at all that the next pope won;t decide that the tenor of the times demands women priests because that’s what The Church needs to do to remain “relevant”? Jo, how come the liturgy I will attend tomorrow morning, essentially unchanged for 1700 years, is “relevant” in 21st century America, but the Tridentine mass, a comparatively modern liturgical construct, I remember as a child wasn’t? Why is it that the Western Church is falling apart in the face of Western culture while Orthodoxy survived hundreds of years under the Mohammedans and recently 70 under the Reds, survived and now prospers without any attempts at being “relevant” beyond doing what it has always done in the way it has always done it?

“The East is rightly emphasizing the Holiness involved in the Eucharist. I think the West is emphasizing the Banquet aspect.”

The former works, the latter plainly hasn’t.

[Kolokotronis]

“Although there is ordination of a deacon, a bishop can “borrow” someone and “promote” him to act and vest as a subdeacon without ordination.”

In the GOA, we ordain our subdeacons. I am quite sure the Antiochians do too. is the “borrowing” a Slavic practice?

[kosta50]

You will never have the Catholic Church as culturally unified as the Orthodox Church is, because we have all of Europe represented to at least an extent, and we grow in Vietnam, China, Africa — all places that look strange to us

Alex, I lives in Japan for six years and I can tell you that the autonomous Orthodox Church of Japan (under Moscow Patriarchate) is as Orthodox as the one in Russia. No special "rite" was required because of a culture that is for practical purposes to just foreign, but alien to Europe.

With all due respect, all this looks to me like intellectual excuses that are simply not founded in reality which I can document, as I have painfully done to make my point vis-a-vis liturgical abuses.

Nikolai-do (Nikolai's home), Holy Resurrection Cathedral, Tokyo, Japan.

Metropolitan +Daniel of Japan (middle) with a Japanese and a Russian bishop flanking

Orhtodox Church Korea (Greek Patriarchate)

It's all the same. No native dancers. Trust me.

Theophany in Tokyo

Japanese Orthodox Church Yokohama

New Deacon, South Korea

It's all one and the same Church and one and the same morality no matter where it is.

[kosta50]

is the “borrowing” a Slavic practice

No. Subdeacons don't have to be ordained. I am pretty sure about that.

A quicky reference form Orhtodoxwiki:

"The subdeacon's essential role is to assist the bishop during a hierarchical Divine Liturgy (a Divine Liturgy at which a bishop is present and presiding) by vesting him, holding his service book, carrying his staff, presenting him with the dikiri and trikiri, etc. There is a special service for the ordination of a subdeacon, although in contemporary practice an acolyte or a reader may receive the bishop's blessing to vest and act as a subdeacon, either for a particular occasion or permanently."

[kosta50]

He said he was sorry in 1980. That’s when the abuses started to really pick up.

[kosta50]

I do not know what a sub-deacon is or whether he is ordained. We don't have those here in the US as far as I know, maybe in the Curia? I do know that deacons are ordained and they do have the right to "touch the sacred vessels of the Lord"

Of course you don't. You odn't know what the Cathoiic Church was like 50 years ago. You think "this" is the way it always was.

Subdeacons have been abolished by Pope Paul VI in 1972 after at least 1,700 years.

[Kolokotronis]

The Pat. of Alexandria inaugurating the new Greek Orthodox seminary in Ghana last June.

His Grace Bishop Jeronymos of Bukoba; Greek Orthodox Bishop of Bukoba, Tanzania, 1999-Current. Ordained Deacon, Greek Orthodox Church, July 1, 1995. Ordained Priest, Greek Orthodox Church, February 1, 1996. Vicar General of Kampala, Uganda, 1996-1997. Vicar General of Bukoba, Tanzania, 1997-1999. Bishop of Bukoba, Tanzania, Greek Orthodox Church, December 11, 1999-Current.

Orthodox clergy in Indonesia

We are just about everywhere in Africa. The only places I can think of in Asia where we are not are Burma and Laos. We are in every country, I believe, in South America. Same liturgy, same religious culture...even the same vestments, Alex.

[kosta50]

Kolo I thought you'd appreciate this detail from the Cathedral of Christ's Resurrection in Tokyo...the Gospel is in Japanese!!!

Of course, everything else remains the same. :)

[Kolokotronis]

Neat! BTW I have a nephew who attends the DL in Seoul with his Korean wife and American/Greek/Korean kids!

[kosta50]

I knew a retired Greek-American Marine who was married to a Taiwanese lady. Of course she became Orthodox when they got married and learned how to cook Greek food. They would bring me baklava or spanakopita, and an occasional icon whenever they were on base. They had two Greek-American/Chinese Orthodox kids, just like your nephew. They lived in Nagoya where there is a small Japanese Orthodox Church. I really, really loved Japan.

[stripes1776]

The filioque certainly DOES change things. It changes the entire meaning of the Holy Trinity. The Local Council of Toledo added the filioque without even consulting the Pope! And Pope Leo the Great condemned them for doing so! There is one Creed. Not two.

At least Catholics and Orthodox believe that God is a Holy Trinity. The situation is very different in Islam.

What bothers me greatly is that the Orthodox Church in Constantinople preferred to live under the yoke of Islam rather than the yoke of Catholic Rome. That decision had consequences. That is why Hagia Sophia is a museum today rather than a great Christian Cathedral. What kind of rock was Hagia Sophia build upon?

[stfassisi]

He said he was sorry in 1980. That’s when the abuses started to really pick up

Abuses in the Church are persecutions.

[Kolokotronis]

“What kind of rock was Hagia Sophia build upon?”

The Rock of Peter’s Faith, the kind that suffers 700 years of Islamic oppression and still survives and grows. Rome’s reaction to a century of modernism is compromise and surrender to the demonic spirit of the age.

[Kolokotronis]

“Women are not, however, permitted to act as altar servers.”

I have seen them sitting next to the priest, like altar boys do/did, bringing water and wine to the priest as altar boys do/did and of course, carrying the chalice and or a ciborium and handing out communion. From what I can see, +JPII notwithstanding, Eucharettes are an order or two above mere altar boys.

[jo kus]

I wrote: The East is rightly emphasizing the Holiness involved in the Eucharist. I think the West is emphasizing the Banquet aspect.”

You responded: The former works, the latter plainly hasn’t.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "works"...

Does the NO Mass bring about a sense of holiness and awe? It CAN, but most people do not get that sense since they are uneducated on theological matters. In that sense, it doesn't "work". As I said, the Orthodox have better retained that sense of awe.

In the sense that the NO Mass brings about the idea that man is a communion of people gathered together in Christ's name? Yes, it "works".

And finally, does the NO Mass bring graces from God Himself? Yes, it "works"...

People of the modern culture want participation. They want to feel part of the sacred act, not viewing it from the outside. While there are certainly abuses by priests who have taken upon themselves to innovate, that was clearly forbidden by Vatican 2. Discipline has been lax, admittedly. But is the NO Mass of itself "not working"? I think whether the Mass "works" or not, Kolo, is DEPENDENT UPON GOD, NOT MAN.

Otherwise, the Mass begins to take on a magical charecteristic in people's minds. If the priest doesn't perform the incantations correctly, nothing happens. It is an attitude strikingly similar to a magical performance. I do not feel that God is bound by that understanding of Sacred Rites.

Regards

[jo kus]

Of course you don't. You odn't know what the Cathoiic Church was like 50 years ago. You think "this" is the way it always was.

When did I say that? Try to follow what I say, rather than telling me what I think.

Regards

[Kolokotronis]

At what level, if any, do you believe that the NO mass becomes a travesty, destructive of The Faith? On my way to Liturgy this morning, we passed, as we do every Sunday, some sort of Protestant assembly, an Assembly of God I think. The parking lot, as always, is full. When I was a kid, there were exactly four protestant churches in our town, now there are perhaps 15, maybe more. When I was a kid, every mass at the 10 or 11 Roman Catholic Churches was full.

Jo, there has been no influx of fundy Protestants into my town in the past 40-50 years. Those Protestant assemblies are filled with former Catholics who have left the Roman Church since Vatican II. Now three of the Catholic parishes have closed and the others have all been combined. From six Catholic schools, they are down to one. But they’ve got their Eucharettes and their Saturday afternoon/evening masses and no fasting and virtually no abstenence and anyone, living in sin or not, nearly 100% without the benefit of that forgotten sacrament Confession, can march right up to the Eucharette, pop a host in his or her mouth, grasp the chalice and take a good drink.

Is that your modern “communion of people gathered together in God’s name”? Is that how you cater to “People of the modern culture who want ‘participation’”?

You say, “And finally, does the NO Mass bring graces from God Himself? Yes, it “works”...” and “I think whether the Mass “works” or not, Kolo, is DEPENDENT UPON GOD, NOT MAN.”

Jo, with all due respect, your Eucharistic theology of off. Those who approach the Holy Mysteries unworthily, eat and drink to their own condemnation! The Body and Blood are as a hot coal in their mouths. And the priests who preside over these abominations carry an even greater condemnation as they are charged with being the guardians of the Holy Mysteries. Far from being guardians, they provide the Holy Mysteries to God’s enemies, while metaphorically giving Him the kiss of a Judas.

There is nothing magical about the liturgies or the consecration by the power of the Holy Spirit, the derivation of “hocus pocus” to the contrary notwithstanding. Do you think that if the Roman liturgy had maintained an ancient continuity, it would have been viewed by the modern pagans and heretics in the pews as magic? Where does this idea come from?