St. Nektarios an Ecumenist?

[PFC Nektarios]

I will try to find it let me go get my book I will post it when I find it.

In Christ
Nektarios

[PFC Nektarios]

I found the page it says

To the reader,
I have the honor to announce to all the Orthodox members of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church that this book examines the schism that exists between the sister churches of the East and West.

Located: "Saint Nektarios: The Saint of our Century: Sotos Chondropoulos, Pg 216, 5th Paragraph down".

Is this the secretive bias of the author or a mistranslation from its original language? I hardly doubt that St. Nektarios would call the Latins
"Sister Churches".

In Christ
Nektarios

[romiosini]

Lord Have Mercy!

[PFC Nektarios]

Thats what I thought.

In Christ
nektarios

[Vicki]

I found the page it says

To the reader,
I have the honor to announce to all the Orthodox members of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church that this book examines the schism that exists between the sister churches of the East and West.

Located: "Saint Nektarios: The Saint of our Century: Sotos Chondropoulos, Pg 216, 5th Paragraph down".

Is this the secretive bias of the author or a mistranslation from its original language? I hardly doubt that St. Nektarios would call the Latins
"Sister Churches".

In Christ
Nektarios

ARRRGH...Nektarios...I am so sorry...There are different editions of this book, both in Greek and English. I CANNOT find this reference...What is the chapter title, please?

Thank you, in advance...

Vicki

[Seraphim Reeves]

While I would appreciate the exact reference as well, having read a few similar things from men of some repute (though not Saints as of yet), I have some thoughts.

I think it needs to be kept in mind that just as it took time for the ecumenist movement to develop, so too did it take time for the vocabulary to develop. We live in times now where, unfortunately, the simplicity Christ wanted for us ("let your 'yes' be yes, your 'no' be no") is severely comprimised - though this wouldn't be the first time in history where words and phrases became "loaded" with meaning beyond what they say "according to the words."

From a strictly historical perspective, it can be said the Roman Catholic Church and the Holy Orthodox Church share a common history, and that the RC's are the descendents of the old Orthodox Church of the west. There is also a sense in which the RCC has retained something of that aura, since the Pope was generally referred to by the Eastern Patriarchs as a fallen ecclessiastic - the general posture being, for centuries, that with repentence the Roman Patriarchate could be restored, rather than an Orthodox Bishop moving into Rome and assuming the Latin Pontificate himself (though strictly speaking that could have happened, and still CAN happen - though in the past, political circumstances prevented such from happening.)

Unfortunately since the rise and "flowering" of the ecumenist heresy, to speak undifferentiatedly of "sister churches" has taken on a new meaning, a meaning I highly doubt Orthodox in times past would have infused into it. In a way this parallels the modern problem of sacramental economy. In times past, there was a clear consciousness that the Orthodox Church is the "Church of Christ" clearly and unambiguously, and that if laymen (and even clergy) were received with great leniency, it was taken for granted that life was being given to that which was barren, what existed in form was being given content. Unfortunately, this assumption no longer stands, both at a heirarchal level, and very sadly as well, on the "ground" level amongst the laity. Hence, why genuine Orthodox generally do not receive converts from western heterodoxy by any means save 'exactitude' (Baptism, Chrismation, Holy Communion, and in the case of clergy, ordination as well.)

Seraphim

[Justin Kissel]

Ok, I read back over the page in question. For those who don't have the book, here is the quote:

I have the honor to announce to all the Orthodox members of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church that this book examines the schism that exists between the sister churches of the East and West. - Sotos Chrondropoulos, Saint Nektarios: The Saint of our Century, p. 216

I think the context of the quote is important here. First, the book that this quote of St. Nektarios comes from was written in 1895. That means it was written decades before the ecumenical movement rose up. This date is also important because, while I believe that at this time some in the Roman church were trying to "be nice" to the East, there was still a lot of harsh polemics between East and West. I don't think that anyone was denying that there was a schism (ie. that there was a real division), and around this very time the Orthodox were clearing stating their position (e.g., the response to the Pope by the Eastern Patriarchs in their Encyclical of 1895).

This is just speculation, but perhaps in the middle of all this, St. Nektarios was so humble and meek that he thought he had to blunt the edge of his work, somewhat, so as not to do more harm than good. Whether the choice of the word "sister" should be judged to be bad choice I can't make; certainly today we would consider it a bad choice, but I think we should be careful to understand the word not as we today might hear and use it, but we should attempt to think about why St. Nektarios might have used a word like that at a time like that.

It is known that not a few times during the history of the Church, seemingly strange language has been used (even by saints). Think of times when Saints would use kind and even complimentary words when speaking to heretics or schismatics. This did not mean that the Saints accepted their error. Even in our own day we can look at an example of this in how Met. Philaret addressed the various hierarchs at the beginning of his Sorrowful Epistles, and then compare how he elsewhere speaks of the various hierarchs. I would love to see what type of language St. Nektarios uses throughout the rest of this book.