Nektarios wrote:You said OFFICALLY they are not in Communion. They are not in communion this is the point. This "Agreement" is just like the Balamand Agreement, empty promises and wrong.
Dear Nektarios,
Let me assure you, there is NOTHING empty about concelebrations. And I say that as someone who, while regarding the Greeks in Antioch as Orthodox, cannot at the present time condone concelebration between Greeks and Syrian Orthodox.
If the Antiochian Patriarchate, OFFICALLY delcared the AP and the Syrian "Orthodox" in communion the Orthodox World would throw a fit and every body would know about it.
I don't know if the "Orthodox World" would throw a fit. What I think would happen is that some more "conservative" Churches within the Eastern Orthodox world would throw a fit, while other more "liberal" Churches would also have a problem with it...but the main problem would not be doctrinal as much as practical--"how dare they unilaterally do something like that!" instead of "how dare they unite with heretics"--because I think the consensus in "World Orthodoxy" is that, while the OO need to accept the post-Ephesine councils and what not, it is not all that clear if they indeed are still to be deemed heretical, since various Churches, in dialogue with OO Churches, see in the latter the same substantial faith as that professed by the former.
Yes there may be some indiviual priest who communion monophysites but that doenst speak for the entire Patriarchate. Say one of your priests communes a anglican that doesnt mean that your patriarcahate and the anglican church are IN COMMUNION with each other.
I agree with you. But I would submit that there is a difference between a priest deciding on his own to commune an Anglican and a priest communing one because it is an allowed, patriarchate-level, official policy of one's Church (indeed, an encouraged policy, seeing as I cannot for the life of me figure out what on earth would justify concelebration--I can easily think of economical allowances for intercommunion).
So regarding this so called "Agreement" I hold it where I would hold the so called Balamand "Agreement/Union". And untill that day when there is a declaration saying that the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and the Syrian "Orthodox" Patriarchate are in Full Ecclesiastical Communion then I will not recognize them as truley Orthodox Christians. Even if this would ever to happen I would leave the Greek Orthodox Antiochian Patriarchate all togethere.
Nektarios, I don't mean to offend, but although I'm sure the Chrism is dry by now, you still think very much like a Roman Catholic, in my opinion. Yeah, there's no official declaration of full ecclesiastical communion, but does there need to be one? If the Syrian Orthodox joined with the Greeks, a piece of paper would not be enough. Concelebration is the way you manifest such unity. That is why this policy of your patriarch and mine (although he's technically not my patriarch, but that's a whole other can of worms) is troubling--it alludes to a unity there currently is not. It doesn't matter to me that there is no official declaration in the books that full ecclesiastical communion has been restored: normative intercommunion (as opposed to economical) and concelebration are the actions of united Churches.
