12-03-2007, 04:12 AM
Hi Akhi,
Akhi, in all seriousness.....why would the CoE care about which city was the capital of the Roman Empire at ANY given time?
And why would the Apostolic Seat of Babylon, centuries older than Constantinople, consider the Patriarchate of Constantinople it's elder?
Why not add Moscow to that mix?
I agree that ecclesiastically, the CoE has more in common with the EO than with the RCC.
However.....
Wait a minute, hold on there a second. The use of the word "re-union" there is inappropriate. It's the same thing the Roman apologists attempt when they play with words like "re-establishment of communion", etc.
First of all, "re-anything" presupposes that something existed prior.
Whether or not there ever is a "re-anything" with the EO, or any other group for that matter, the fact remains that the COE has an independent Patriarchate, and that fact is not dependent on your recognition. It's a fact, whether it's "recognized" by anyone else or not.
The Church of the East, being to the east of the Roman Empire, never was in union or communion with anyone over the other side. Yes, all believers consider themselves part of the Universal Church. We proudly calls ourselves by one and the same name.
However, that ends whenever jurisdiction or ecclesiastic matters arise.
Remember, we don't even share the same Synods. The "Ecumenical Councils" within the Roman Empire, were local to that empire's Church. We had nothing to do with them. As you had nothing to do with our "Councils."
If we can collectively view history in a truthful manner, then the relationship can be more fruitful. However, we immediate become suspicious the very moment anyone prepends "re-" to anything.
Of course. We won't even attempt to discuss anything with the Copts. Cyril was their man. That's totally understandable. That will never change.
But the EO refuse to talk to us without a very important pre-existing condition, and that's the acceptance of a co-called "Ecumenical Council" that condemned 3 innocent men. That's what I've heard from our bishops themselves.
To us, condemning any of those 3 Greek Doctors (Theodore, Diodore and Nestorius) would be akin to condemning the Apostolic Faith itself. That's never going to happen. So as long as that pre-existing condition is there.....that we have to accept a local council held in the Roman Empire, that incidentally we did not participate in, but that's somehow "Ecumenical", it's a no-go.
Then quit asking us to accept the decisions of that local council! It's not we who are making it a point of contention. We'd be more than happy to forget it ever happened.
And I assume by your statement above that you concede that council had no authority to speak for Christendom in total? If it's not our place to have authority over those Western decisions, then it's not your place to impose the decisions of that council on non-attendees.
Because YOU have excluded from your definition of "Orthodoxy" anyone who disagrees with decisions made "when they were not at any one council nor part of the discussion."
Additionally, we have never declared any Western synod as invalid. We don't have that right. As you don't have the right to claim that the Synod of Beth-Lapat was invalid.
We've simply refused to accept the decisions of a local Western Synod that we did not agree with, nor participate in.
A robber Synod, by the way, with no shame......POSTHUMOUSLY condemning a Doctor of the Faith, resting in the Arms of our Lord, without the possibility of any defense by the accused who was lying in the grave and up until that time was in the good graces of the Church Universal.
That's not even the same comparison. The question you should be asking is: Does the COE require that the EO accept the condemnation of Khenana of Adiabene?
No, it doesn't. Neither have we delivered the decisions of our Synods to Constantinople's doorstep and demanded that they be included in your Canon Law........have we?
Why were they delivered in the first place? Did we ever deliver any Synods to the West to be signed off on or pushed down their throats?
No, we haven't. What makes the EO think that we care what debates were happening in the West?
It's not. That's were you are wrong. We didn't care until AFTER the documents were delivered to us to sign, as if you need our approval, anyway.
There's a difference between refusing to accept something someone else decided, and calling it invalid.
There's two errors there:
Firstly, Beth-Lapat was a sane voice when the West was in disarray. Every heresy ever born came from there, not in the East. We simply refused to condemn 3 men who obviously held to the Apostolic Faith. If the fact that Persia and Rome were warring prevented the Church of the East from accepting decisions of Western councils, then the acceptance of Nicea would never have happened. As you well know, the persecution of Christians in the East by the Sassanids was even greater during the time of Nicea than during the time of Beth-Lapat. For your argument to hold any truth, that we refused Ephesus simply because it was the politically expedient thing to do at the time, then the same would have held true for Nicea.
As you well know, we accepted the decisions of Nicea and in fact liked them so much we incorporated the Creed within our liturgy....not that we had to, not that we were present at the council, not that we were subject to anyone over there .... but simply because when Marutha delivered it, it was interpreted as valid by our Apostolic tradition.
Secondly, marriage was never forced upon anyone by the decisions of Beth-Lapat. Quite the opposite: celibacy was no longer forced down the throats of those who didn't want to be celibate. The Synod simply declared that anyone, from Patriarch on down, can be a married man. The reasons were both scriptural and cultural. Celibacy was seen, correctly, as a Western invention. Scripturally, bishops were to be married men and have children.
Again, there's a big difference between allowing marriage (which was the decision) vs. forcing marriage upon anyone. The Synod actually stopped forcing celibacy.
Do I need say anything here?
If someone is ready to abandon the Truth for the sake of the reconciliation of a bunch of heretics, under the guise of so-called "unity" - are you surprised that a disinterested 3rd-party, like the CoE, would tell you to take a hike when presented with this so-called "Ecumenical Council?"
These games you guys played in the West, with the reputation of a deceased Doctor of the Church, are despicable. And we're the ones that aren't "Orthodox" unless we ascribe to this silliness. That's what kills me.
Of course he didn't. Modern scholarship has proven that the CoE was right all along in not condemning Nestorius.
Are we ready to abandon this silliness if true "re-conciliation" is desired?
Let me ask you a question: why does the EO, or RCC for that matter, care about the CoE? We're decimated, only a few hundred thousands left.....aren't there bigger fish to swallow up?
Or is the EO, like the RCC, just interested in counting the glorious history of the CoE as it's own? Because that's what it sounds like to me. It sounds to me like an independent CoE is the bane of the mythology that at any time the Church was ever united in any sort of Western model....whether one ascribes to the Papacy, or to the even more ludicrous and later "First Among Equals (sic)."
Then you hold to the same Faith as Theodore, Diodore and Nestorius.
Are you ready to condemn them for the sake of some false "unity?" Go ahead and condemn them....you've only succeeded in tearing the Church asunder with your silly Greek debates.
You guys over there have taken a simple, Semitic faith and have turned it into some Greek mess of debates, theatrics and tragedy....mostly tragedy.
Sitting there inside the walls of Constantinople, ready to fall to the infidel Turks who were waiting outside the gates, all the while the Greeks are debating about how many angels fit on the head of a pin!
Does this silliness never end?
No thanks!
That's why our talks with them ended abruptly. Did you notice we also threw out the former bishop of the CoE who was conspiring against us, to deliver the CoE on a silver platter to the Pope?
We had hoped, against all hope, that something changed with Pope John Paul II - that somehow, someway unity could be achieved without a destruction of historic reality and without a compromise of truth.
Apparently, nothing has changed much since Ephesus.
Except when it comes to appeasing apostates by continuing to condemn a dead man, who died in the graces of the Church, who cannot come to his own defense, and a 2nd man who tried to defend himself..... but you burned any trace of his writings you could find, and those that you couldn't find in time to burn, and are available now on the internet, you don't have time to read.
We would love to resolve divisions in a un-hypocritical fashion, but as long as you're in denial that the "shared faith" you speak of was also shared by those 3 most unfortunate souls, there is nothing we can do.
You guys are sitting on the fence between the CoE and the Copts. You know Cyril was in the wrong, you know Nestorius' faith was Orthodox, yet for political expediency you condemned him and a dead man. And continue to honor that robber Synod that tried to force Cyril's decrees down the rest of our throats.
I'm sorry - I can't be as politically correct as you are trying to be, I'm not a PR-type.
Something is broke - and it's not in the East. There's only one faith there, decimated and insignificant as it is. It's in the West that you have a Yellow Pages full of thousands of branches of Christianity.
That's not our fault.
The history of the CoE is replete with periods of magnificent missionary activity punctuated with periods of extreme persecution. We just finished with 1915, 1933, Saddam Hussein, 2 gulf wars....and are now dealing with Al-Qaeda. Excuse us while we try to survive before embarking to China again. We'll be OK......alone, but at least independent of Western silliness.
aalkhas Wrote:This does not mean that one patriarch is in submission to any other but rather that the ancient see's venerable history is recognized by formalities such as the Patriarch of Constantinople would be like the oldest priest in a given liturgical celebration.
Akhi, in all seriousness.....why would the CoE care about which city was the capital of the Roman Empire at ANY given time?
And why would the Apostolic Seat of Babylon, centuries older than Constantinople, consider the Patriarchate of Constantinople it's elder?
Why not add Moscow to that mix?
I agree that ecclesiastically, the CoE has more in common with the EO than with the RCC.
However.....
aalkhas Wrote:So the COE would never have to submit to any Orthodox bishop but, were there a re-union, would be an independent Church with it's ancient see recognized as an independent patriarchate.
Wait a minute, hold on there a second. The use of the word "re-union" there is inappropriate. It's the same thing the Roman apologists attempt when they play with words like "re-establishment of communion", etc.
First of all, "re-anything" presupposes that something existed prior.
Whether or not there ever is a "re-anything" with the EO, or any other group for that matter, the fact remains that the COE has an independent Patriarchate, and that fact is not dependent on your recognition. It's a fact, whether it's "recognized" by anyone else or not.
The Church of the East, being to the east of the Roman Empire, never was in union or communion with anyone over the other side. Yes, all believers consider themselves part of the Universal Church. We proudly calls ourselves by one and the same name.
However, that ends whenever jurisdiction or ecclesiastic matters arise.
Remember, we don't even share the same Synods. The "Ecumenical Councils" within the Roman Empire, were local to that empire's Church. We had nothing to do with them. As you had nothing to do with our "Councils."
If we can collectively view history in a truthful manner, then the relationship can be more fruitful. However, we immediate become suspicious the very moment anyone prepends "re-" to anything.
aalkhas Wrote:Issue #2. Speaking as a layman and not anyone who has political authority. I can not imagine the Orthodox refusing to dialouge with the COE. We dialouge with the non-Chalcedonians without them rejecting anyone. Now the Coptic "Orthodox" Church of Alexandria is rather nasty towards Nestorius and will not even allow the COE to join the Middle Easter Council of Churches until they reject Nestorius. We have nothing to do with the Copts, Syriani, Armenians, Eritrians, or Ethiopians as they schisimed with us 1600 years ago. I believe it is them and not us that will not speak to you. Sadily, it may be that when the Copts refused the COE, it was taken as the Orthodox refusing, which are totally seperate.
Of course. We won't even attempt to discuss anything with the Copts. Cyril was their man. That's totally understandable. That will never change.
But the EO refuse to talk to us without a very important pre-existing condition, and that's the acceptance of a co-called "Ecumenical Council" that condemned 3 innocent men. That's what I've heard from our bishops themselves.
To us, condemning any of those 3 Greek Doctors (Theodore, Diodore and Nestorius) would be akin to condemning the Apostolic Faith itself. That's never going to happen. So as long as that pre-existing condition is there.....that we have to accept a local council held in the Roman Empire, that incidentally we did not participate in, but that's somehow "Ecumenical", it's a no-go.
aalkhas Wrote:The issue of Nestorius is tricky. Firstly, he was anathemized in the Christian West, so the COE has no authority over these decisions.
Then quit asking us to accept the decisions of that local council! It's not we who are making it a point of contention. We'd be more than happy to forget it ever happened.
And I assume by your statement above that you concede that council had no authority to speak for Christendom in total? If it's not our place to have authority over those Western decisions, then it's not your place to impose the decisions of that council on non-attendees.
aalkhas Wrote:Why should the COE have any right to declair a Wester synodal decision invalid when they were not at any one council nor part of the discussion.
Because YOU have excluded from your definition of "Orthodoxy" anyone who disagrees with decisions made "when they were not at any one council nor part of the discussion."
Additionally, we have never declared any Western synod as invalid. We don't have that right. As you don't have the right to claim that the Synod of Beth-Lapat was invalid.
We've simply refused to accept the decisions of a local Western Synod that we did not agree with, nor participate in.
A robber Synod, by the way, with no shame......POSTHUMOUSLY condemning a Doctor of the Faith, resting in the Arms of our Lord, without the possibility of any defense by the accused who was lying in the grave and up until that time was in the good graces of the Church Universal.
aalkhas Wrote:Should the Orthodox require the COE to change its anathemas against Khnana of Adiabne, etc because he may have been wronged?
That's not even the same comparison. The question you should be asking is: Does the COE require that the EO accept the condemnation of Khenana of Adiabene?
No, it doesn't. Neither have we delivered the decisions of our Synods to Constantinople's doorstep and demanded that they be included in your Canon Law........have we?
aalkhas Wrote:The debates that happened in the West were often delivered to the COE in a very convoluted manner that resulted in some strange descriptions of Western theology; that the westerners believed in two half natures, etc.
Why were they delivered in the first place? Did we ever deliver any Synods to the West to be signed off on or pushed down their throats?
No, we haven't. What makes the EO think that we care what debates were happening in the West?
aalkhas Wrote:If the COE should be respected as an independent Church that never was nor could have been under the rule of Ecumenical Synods, why should it be going beyond its rights in deciding of the results of those synods.
It's not. That's were you are wrong. We didn't care until AFTER the documents were delivered to us to sign, as if you need our approval, anyway.
There's a difference between refusing to accept something someone else decided, and calling it invalid.
aalkhas Wrote:This is a point of ecclesiastical polity and respect. I don't believe the Beth Lapeh and the heralding of Nestorius was based on theology but on a purposeful distancing of the COE from the West in a time that the Roman Empire was the avowed enemy of Persia. That is why marriage was forced on celibates in the same council.
There's two errors there:
Firstly, Beth-Lapat was a sane voice when the West was in disarray. Every heresy ever born came from there, not in the East. We simply refused to condemn 3 men who obviously held to the Apostolic Faith. If the fact that Persia and Rome were warring prevented the Church of the East from accepting decisions of Western councils, then the acceptance of Nicea would never have happened. As you well know, the persecution of Christians in the East by the Sassanids was even greater during the time of Nicea than during the time of Beth-Lapat. For your argument to hold any truth, that we refused Ephesus simply because it was the politically expedient thing to do at the time, then the same would have held true for Nicea.
As you well know, we accepted the decisions of Nicea and in fact liked them so much we incorporated the Creed within our liturgy....not that we had to, not that we were present at the council, not that we were subject to anyone over there .... but simply because when Marutha delivered it, it was interpreted as valid by our Apostolic tradition.
Secondly, marriage was never forced upon anyone by the decisions of Beth-Lapat. Quite the opposite: celibacy was no longer forced down the throats of those who didn't want to be celibate. The Synod simply declared that anyone, from Patriarch on down, can be a married man. The reasons were both scriptural and cultural. Celibacy was seen, correctly, as a Western invention. Scripturally, bishops were to be married men and have children.
Again, there's a big difference between allowing marriage (which was the decision) vs. forcing marriage upon anyone. The Synod actually stopped forcing celibacy.
aalkhas Wrote:Now, the Theodore question is much more open to debate given that his theology posses less difficulties. Rather, his anathemization by the Fifth Council is what is difficult for many Orthodox since HE WAS DEAD at the time. The reality of the anathemas of the 3 Chapters is that they were an attempt at reconcilliation by St Justinian, who was ready to anathemize a couple of dead fathers for the sake of Church unity.
Do I need say anything here?
If someone is ready to abandon the Truth for the sake of the reconciliation of a bunch of heretics, under the guise of so-called "unity" - are you surprised that a disinterested 3rd-party, like the CoE, would tell you to take a hike when presented with this so-called "Ecumenical Council?"
These games you guys played in the West, with the reputation of a deceased Doctor of the Church, are despicable. And we're the ones that aren't "Orthodox" unless we ascribe to this silliness. That's what kills me.
aalkhas Wrote:He is loved by as many if not more Orthodox scholors than hated by others. He wrote within the context of apollinarianism and he context serves to help understand his strong diophysite stance. Nestorius, no the other hand, is more murky. Yes, the book of Heraclides certainly shows that he didn't believe the NestorianISM that Cyril condemned him of--that there are two Christs or two persons.
Of course he didn't. Modern scholarship has proven that the CoE was right all along in not condemning Nestorius.
Are we ready to abandon this silliness if true "re-conciliation" is desired?
Let me ask you a question: why does the EO, or RCC for that matter, care about the CoE? We're decimated, only a few hundred thousands left.....aren't there bigger fish to swallow up?
Or is the EO, like the RCC, just interested in counting the glorious history of the CoE as it's own? Because that's what it sounds like to me. It sounds to me like an independent CoE is the bane of the mythology that at any time the Church was ever united in any sort of Western model....whether one ascribes to the Papacy, or to the even more ludicrous and later "First Among Equals (sic)."
aalkhas Wrote:But one must be careful to show that he does believe Christ to be one divine person in two natures. Personally, I have just begun to enter into the issue of Nestorius' christology and have not read the book of heraklides (much), so I am only pointing at some issues. We believe Christ to be a Divine Person (that suffered) with a human nature (that suffered) and a divine nature (that didn't suffer).
Then you hold to the same Faith as Theodore, Diodore and Nestorius.
Are you ready to condemn them for the sake of some false "unity?" Go ahead and condemn them....you've only succeeded in tearing the Church asunder with your silly Greek debates.
You guys over there have taken a simple, Semitic faith and have turned it into some Greek mess of debates, theatrics and tragedy....mostly tragedy.
Sitting there inside the walls of Constantinople, ready to fall to the infidel Turks who were waiting outside the gates, all the while the Greeks are debating about how many angels fit on the head of a pin!
Does this silliness never end?
No thanks!
aalkhas Wrote:In the end, I think that unity must always be the coming together of two groups that believe the same faith. Rome is much more welcoming with issues like Nestorianism and doctrine since once you're unified, they own you--you're a "particular church" and it doesn't matter what you believed.
That's why our talks with them ended abruptly. Did you notice we also threw out the former bishop of the CoE who was conspiring against us, to deliver the CoE on a silver platter to the Pope?
We had hoped, against all hope, that something changed with Pope John Paul II - that somehow, someway unity could be achieved without a destruction of historic reality and without a compromise of truth.
Apparently, nothing has changed much since Ephesus.
aalkhas Wrote:We only want to resolve divisions in a un-hypocritical fashion by acknowledging a shared faith which means holding one communion and demonstrating in that communion the un-breakable body of Christ.
Except when it comes to appeasing apostates by continuing to condemn a dead man, who died in the graces of the Church, who cannot come to his own defense, and a 2nd man who tried to defend himself..... but you burned any trace of his writings you could find, and those that you couldn't find in time to burn, and are available now on the internet, you don't have time to read.
We would love to resolve divisions in a un-hypocritical fashion, but as long as you're in denial that the "shared faith" you speak of was also shared by those 3 most unfortunate souls, there is nothing we can do.
You guys are sitting on the fence between the CoE and the Copts. You know Cyril was in the wrong, you know Nestorius' faith was Orthodox, yet for political expediency you condemned him and a dead man. And continue to honor that robber Synod that tried to force Cyril's decrees down the rest of our throats.
I'm sorry - I can't be as politically correct as you are trying to be, I'm not a PR-type.
Something is broke - and it's not in the East. There's only one faith there, decimated and insignificant as it is. It's in the West that you have a Yellow Pages full of thousands of branches of Christianity.
That's not our fault.
aalkhas Wrote:Furthermore, I believe that the missionary spirit of the COE is dormant if not dead and that the Church needs the support of the Orthodox to escape the millet mentality. By coming together, we can share our reflections on missioning to America. Here at the US' flagship Orthodox Seminary, bringing the faith to America is always on the mind. Most students are converts and the sons of Converts. I am not saying that the Orthodox can fix the doctrines of the COE, or that money is the issue. I would like to see COE students study here where the Eastern model of Christianity is being brought to America since there is little Assyrian diaspora anymore. We are mostly sons of immigrants and therefore not immigrants but US americans. For the COE to live if must mission to America, since that is who their children are (applied likewise to Europe and Australia). Our, COE and Orthodox, clergy need to be prepared to bring the faith to Americans and not be merely Roman trained scholors. We need to know our faith as it is taught within the ancient context and understand the modern context in order to bring the modern person to see the Ancient and eternal Christ.
The history of the CoE is replete with periods of magnificent missionary activity punctuated with periods of extreme persecution. We just finished with 1915, 1933, Saddam Hussein, 2 gulf wars....and are now dealing with Al-Qaeda. Excuse us while we try to survive before embarking to China again. We'll be OK......alone, but at least independent of Western silliness.