OrthodoxyOrDeath wrote:CGW,
It is not a struggle for a superior position "my bishop has more grace than your bishop". That is the explaination given by and for those who want to ignore history, fact, and the simple reality which is the Church of Christ.
If it were a simple reality, we would not have fora such as these, or witness the "who is communing or commemorating whom" arguments, or argue over the calendar(s), or contrast "canonical", "world", "traditionalist", and of course, "heretical". Therefore, it is not simple, since those of the "true" church engage in every one of these controversies-- especially you. "Simple" in this case appears to mean nothing more than that, in the usual manner, since I (or in your case, you) am/are in the church, there is nothing left but the "simple" problem of explaining how those who are divided from me/you are outside the church.
Except for the nagging difficulty that I don't do this.
"World orthodoxy", I suppose, enjoys the privilege of being seen as Orthodox and therefore doesn't have to constantly clamor for its authority. The various traditionalists and the like can only have authority by displacing those in "world orthodoxy"-- else they are beset with canonical problems. ROCOR, it seems to me, has a special position courtesy of the miasma of canonical problems brought on by the DCs, so that they only have to tussle with the OCA and the MP.
In that wise, it does in fact seem simple. But it isn't the simplicity of "my church is right!"
Quite simply, the Church has always taught that non-Orthodox beliefs are not of or from the Church, and that those men who invent or follow such things, are lost and divided by an enormous gulf from the Church and all Her Graces.
Well, there is the problem here that you, personally, do not really seem to have authority to teach any of these things. You seem to be usurping the office of the bishop-- even to tell me what bishops say. And when it comes to what bishops say, we fall back into the spectacle of contending bishops, and then it is simple in one not so edifying way, and not simple at all in one very edifying way.
You see, you can tell me what bishops say, and others can tell me what other bishops say, and I can read what my own bishops say and also read the traditions and the canons and scripture itself. And indeed it seems a great cloud of witnesses, but in the form of a thundercloud, turbulent and given to raining down destruction to no purpose. And hardly simple. Well, it can be simple, because even in the midst of the storm the voices say together, "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord." And they also say, "Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ shall come again." Here alone is simplicity, and yet it seems almost irrelevant to the stormy bickering.
And in all of this, is it the great "heretical" churches which imitate the small "true" churches, or is it the little "separatist" churches which imitate the larger "canonical" churches? Or do they both imitate the church of their common past?
