Moderator: Mark Templet
Deacon Nikolai wrote:One does not have to be in communion with an Orthodox Church to recognize it apart of the Church of Christ.
Really? How is that possible. If you are not in communion, then you are saying that that church's communion no longer is the Body and Blood.
Isn't that rigt?
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They say that I am bad news. They say "Stay Away."
Deacon Nikolai wrote:No, that is wrong, it means that there currently is not a sharing of the Body and Blood between the groups.
So, your Church agrees that any Orthodox Church (in name i.e., GOA) has Grace and the miracle of the eucharist?
If that is so, then how can a group NOT be in communion with another? I mean, who are WE to say that a Church is WRONG if you turn around and agree that that same Church shares in the same miracles and Grace?
If God chooses to bestow the SAME Grace on THAT Church (i.e., the miracle of the Eucharist) doesn't that mean that they are just as WORTHY as your Church?
If God chooses to overlook these human squables (sp?) Then why shouldn't we?
This is confusing to me.
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They say that I am bad news. They say "Stay Away."
Tom-
I may disagree with Metropolitan Valentin on some things but it is a difference between members of the same family (Orthodoxy). My disagreements with other Orthodox are over matters of discipline; my differences with other (heterodox) Christians are over matters of dogma.
God Bless,
David
Deacon Nikolai wrote:
No, that is wrong, it means that there currently is not a sharing of the Body and Blood between the groups.
Is this how God would want us to be? Not sharing His Body and Blood amongst us?
It's one thing to be seperated from the catholics because they fell away from the Body of the Church in order to make their own(and all the protestants that broke away from them), but amongst Orthodoxy, it is very disturbing. All these groups claim to follow the canons of the Seven Ecumenical Councils and yet condemn each other for being wrong, for one thing or another.
Why should it matter to me if a monk is ex-communicated in one group, when I'm told that that group is not ligitimate. Then the ex-communication is not ligitimate. Therefore, that monk can join my group, without repentence, because we don't recognize his ex-communication.
Pride is destroying the unity. Divide and conquer. That is satan's tactic and it seems to be working.
The hierarchs can't seem to get passed their personal prides.
And the laymen and women are the ones that will suffer for it, the most. I hope all clergy, here, understand the gravity of that.
Joanna
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. (Ps. 50)
joasia wrote:Is this how God would want us to be? Not sharing His Body and Blood amongst us?
It's one thing to be seperated from the catholics because they fell away from the Body of the Church in order to make their own...
Excellent post, Joasia! My point exactly!
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They say that I am bad news. They say "Stay Away."
Joasia is right on in her post.
I don't like the seeemingly endless fracturing of unity among the Orthodox in this century either. It is truly a stumbling block among any that are seeking the True Church. For my own part, I could recieve Communion from any Orthodox jurisdiction. However, being in obedience to my spiritual confessor, I would only recieve from whomever I was blessed to. I no longer spend much time on the politics of the various jurisdictions- its titillating but not edifying. I let the hierarchs battle it out on the upper levels of the Church while looking for the wisdom I need to conquer my pet sins wherever in the Church I can find it. I work out my salvation in my local ROCOR parish and won't "protestantize" Orthodoxy by straining out the gnat of my own understanding of the holy canons while swallowing the camel of schism.
