joseph b wrote:anastosios wrote:
"I don't think someone sending someone else greetings blurs the distinction between Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy,"
Yet, you yourself refer to the other "Churches". The distinction has indeed been blurred.
Of course I refer to people the way they refer to themselves; this is what polite people do. Being True Orthodox doesn't give you a license to be rude. Are you like a certain priest on another list who refers to the "Roman Catholic Religious Organization"? (which I consider an absolutely uneducated and crude thing to do, and which I know for a fact has driven off potential converts from Roman Catholicism). Just because I refer to another Church as a Church doesn't mean I think it has valid sacraments--the word Church has multiple layers of meaning. I was raised in the Lutheran Church--does that mean I recognize my Lutheran baptism? No. But the Lutheran Church is a body that calls itself Church, so I call it Church in common parlance, although if I am discussing what it means to be a Church with a Lutheran, I might go further to help show the Lutheran how his Church does not measure up to the standards of Churchliness found in the Orthodox faith.
In a similar vein, the Orthodox Church is the "real" Roman Catholic Church because it is truly Catholic and truly Roman (in the sense that Romanides used). But do I run around saying I am a member of the True Roman Catholic Church and tell the commonly-called Roman Catholics "Frankish wannabes"? No. What would be the purpose and what would that effect? Besides being RIGHT we need to be CHARITABLE.
Anastasios
