A Common Date for Easter is Possible

WCC ^ | 5/28/09 (?) | Contact: Juan Michel, World Council of Churches

[Mrs. Don-o]

BTW, I apologize for all my typos, past, present, and future. These fingers!!!

[annalex]

By another ecumenical council, and since it is a matter decided by the unified Church, it better be a hyper-ecumenical supercouncil with East Orthodox and Catholics together.

[FredJake]

All participants at the seminar in Lviv, which included Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant theologians from a variety of European countries, endorsed a compromise proposed at a World Council of Churches (WCC) consultation in Aleppo, Syria, in 1997.

Whenever I read that the World Council of Churches is involved with anything that has to do with Christianity, I disregard the rest of the story. These people are trying to lead Christians to hell, not Heaven.

Nothing here see people, move along, move along.......

[annalex]

Yes, but the topic is by itself fascinating.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Amen! Here’s one vote for a hyper-ecumenical super-council!
I usually have a strong personal bias in favor of “hyper.” :o)

[Mrs. Don-o]

Cool. I love stuff that corresponds to solar/lunar events. Howcome 7 days in Israel, and 8 outside? (Jus’ curious...)

[annalex]

Here’s one vote for a hyper-ecumenical super-council!

I vote no. Neither Church is ready, and unity from top down will not last. That already was tried, at Florence, and did not work.

Conditions favorable to reunification now exist, but the maturity necessary for reunion is not there. What best can be done now is to study each other and, Catholics in particular, to study the patristic Church. The two Churches need to fall in love with each other once again. By and large, it is not happening.

[OneVike]

Yes, but the topic is by itself fascinating.

Maybe it is, but FJ has a point in that the only reason the WCO is involved is to minimize the fundamentalist Christians who still adhere to the written word and have not become leberal bastions of the false church of Satan.

If the Catholic church desires to reconcile it's differences with evangelicals then the Catholic church needs to step back away from any dealings with the WCO. This will only make the Catholic church look even worse to evangelicals then they already do.

I mean give me a break, the Pope just a week or so ago, gave a sermon where he appeased Muslims in one of their Mosques. I highly doubt Christ would have entered a pagan temple, let alone appease the followers of that pagan god. So evangelicals are watching this and saying, "Uhuh, just as we thought, The Anti Christ"!

So, the Catholic's need to get their church leaders to step back from the course their leaders are taking it, not cozy up to the false religions they are in the process of doing.

[annalex]

If the Catholic church desires to reconcile it's differences with evangelicals

Well, that's a big if. The Evangelicals are welcome to study Catholicism and convert, and of course we are happy to cooperate on some social issues with the Evangelicals (or anyone else), but the doctrinal differences are not reconcileable at all. A reconciliation with the Orthodox is, on the other hand, the logic of history and undoubtedly will happen perhaps even in our lifetimes, but more likely in a couple of generations. Yet it is the calendar issue that visibly separates us from the Orthodox (and the Orthodox within themselves). We do not have calendar issues with the Protestants that I am aware of, except certain judaizing factions of them.

The WCC is a bastion of false ecumenism: the notion that all differences between Christians are reconcileable. As a whole, that is a silly and profoundly heretical idea. However, if they sponsor a technical study on an issue such as this and help the Orthodox and the Catholics find common ground, that is quite salutary.

[Uri’el-2012]

Cool. I love stuff that corresponds to solar/lunar events. Howcome 7 days in Israel, and 8 outside? (Jus’ curious...)

I believe it is Rabbinical, putting a hedge around the law.

The correct seven days will be covered by making
it eight days for different time zones.

shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach

[Mrs. Don-o]

Let’s say I’m for the hyer-super with the necessary preconditions.

[Jewbacca]

Correct; there are 8 days really because of historical differences in calendars and just plain error — until the advent of “Greenich Mean Time” (and train timetables) — even “unified” calendars weren’t unified.

So they made it longer in case the local-current date was “off.”

IMHO, it’s unnecessary in this day and time of atomic clocks, and I actually agree with the Reform folks that it should be just 7 days.

[kosta50]

Do we have Orthodox Old Calendarists around the forum? I guess I don't count, but that's okay. The Russians, Serbs, the Jerusalem Patriarchate and Mt Athos are Old Calendarists—about 85% of all Orthodox in the world. Now, there may be a reason why they are not on the forum.

[kosta50]

Yet it is the calendar issue that visibly separates us from the Orthodox (and the Orthodox within themselves).

There is no division on the issue of Easter. All Orthodox Churches celebrate Easter on the same day, according to the Old Calendar.

[annalex]

I didn’t mean to slight you; I pinged Kolokotronis because he has a ping list, as well as the others to whom I addressed that initial post.

I do not maintain my own ping list any more and instead piggiback on others.

[annalex]

Correct; the divisions of calendar exist among the Orthodox but not on the paschalia.

[kosta50]

Do we have Orthodox Old Calendarists around the forum?

Orthodox ping!

[kosta50]

Kolo gave me the list. It’s on my profile and I ping all of them.

[annalex]

Thank you.

[Romulus]

Trying to get it to match up with Passover isn't important.

Yes it is. The solemnities of the Christian pasch are fulfillment of the Jewish Passover, whose full moon enabled the Israelites' travel out of Egypt by both night and day. Conforming to this, Christians are reminded of the urgency with which we are called to escape death and cross over into life.