Could someone kindly explain the main differences between Oriental & Eastern Orthodox? I'm not trying to get either side arguing against the other so please, for the sake of the origional question don't do so.
EO and OO have the same faith, but were split to due differing opinions and misunderstandings at the council of Chalcedon in 451 AD.
EO accept seven councils as ecumenical, while we only accept the first three (the fourth being Chalcedon, which was the cause of a sad schism).
EO's was the Church that split from the RCC, but we were always split anyway, yet amazingly, the Holy Spirit has preserved the essence of faith of both Churches. While many polemic EO's disagree, I can debate that they are wrong, and that they can "second-guess" the fallible Holy Fathers, who regardless of the misunderstandings, continued to preserve the faith, as we know them by their fruits.
Here's an OO article about the two families of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Orthodox Church:
Now, small other differences can be cultural, ecclesiastical, and traditional (holy father wise). And extra EO councils mean extra canons, which are not part of our Church canons.
Xrictoc anecti!
Last edited by minasoliman; 10th November 2005 at 03:52 AM.
Reason: Changed the year "459" to "451" for accuracy's sake.
Welcome to the Oriental Orthodox Forum ! Mina gave a great summary of the difference between the Oriental and Eastern Orthodox and I would like to elaborate on what actually split the two churches in the Council of Chalcedon in 459. Bits and pieces were mentioned in the thread called, "Why the Copts are not Monophysites" and I have copied and pasted some of the things that I mentioned in that thread for the sake of making things simple.
In order to elaborate on what happened in the Council of Chalcedon, allow me to go back to the third Ecumenical Council which was headed by St. Cyril who was the 24th Patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church after St. Mark in the 5th Century. In that Ecumenical Council all the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Fathers were present.
"St. Cyril the Great is the hero of faith against the Nestorians. He exposed the heresy of Nestorius who was the Patriarch of Constantinople the Capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. St. Cyril explained to him the faith, but as he disobeyed and continued in his heresy, St. Cyril wrote against him twelve Anathemas which have become part of the Church Laws. Nestorius was then ex-communicated by the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus which was convened in 431 AD and headed by St. Cyril of Alexandria." http://www.copticcentre.com/article18.html
Here is a brief description of the Nestorian Heresy:
"According to the Nestorian concept, Christ was two separate persons, the one divine and beyond the reach of human frailty, and the other human and susceptible to all the fragility of the flesh. The divine Christ could neither suffer or die, and therefore, on the Cross it was the human Christ alone who suffered and died apart from the divine Christ."
"Thus the opinion of Nestorus was that the relation between the human nature of Christ and the Divine nature started just after His Birth from the Virgin and it was not a Hypostatic union. He explicitly said: "I distinguish between the two natures"". http://www.copticchurch.net/topics/t..._of_christ.pdf
Nestorius had spoken out against calling the blessed Virgin Mary the 'Theotokos''.....Abba Cyril strongly contested these views expounding the Orthodox doctrine of the indivisible union of the divine and human natures of Christ [calling it The One Nature of God the Incarnate Logos"], and arguing that if Jesus Christ is God, it follows that his mother is the ``Mother-of-God'' who bore Him forever. This is what the Apostles taught us and the doctrine of our Fathers. .......Just as Saint Athanasius had saved the Faith concerning the Logos in the Nicene Creed, so did Saint Cyril in defending the Theotokos maintaining the Orthodox Doctrine concerning the incarnation of the Logos in the Introduction to the Creed which he wrote in this regard.'' http://www.copticchurch.net/topics/synexarion/cyril1.html
Now in order to understand what St. Cyril meant by The One Nature of God the Incarnate Logos, here is an extract from H. H. Pope Shenouda III:
The Divine nature (God the Word) was united with the human nature which He took of the Virgin Mary by the action of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit purified and sanctified the Virgin’s womb so that the Child to whom she gave birth would inherit nothing of the original sin; the flesh formed of her blood was united with the Only-Begotten Son. This Unity took place from the first moment of the Holy Pregnancy in the Virgin’s womb. As a result of the unity of both natures-the Divine and the human-inside the Virgin’s womb, one nature was formed out of both: "The One Nature of God the Incarnate Logos" as St. Cyril called it.
The expression "One Nature" does not indicate the Divine nature alone nor the human nature alone, but it indicates the unity of both natures into One Nature which is "The Nature of the Incarnate Logos".
The same applies when we speak about our human nature which comprises two united natures: the soul and the body. Thus, man’s nature is not the soul alone nor the body alone, but their union in one nature called human nature. St. Cyril the Great taught us not to talk about two natures after their unity.
So we can say that the Divine nature united hypostatically with the human ture within the Virgin’s womb, but after this unity we do not ever speak again about two natures of Christ. In fact, the expression "two natures" implies in itself division or separation, and although those who believe in "the two natures" admit unity, the tone of separation was obvious in the Council of Chalcedon - a matter which prompted us to reject the Council and caused the exile of St. Dioscorus of Alexandria.
The detail of what actually happened in the Council of Chalcedon is followed in the next post.
love and blessings
erini
Last edited by erinipassi; 4th June 2005 at 04:05 AM.
In 451, a man called Eutyches started a heresy which taught that Christ has only one nature because his humanity dissolved in his Divinity and he was only divine. So in other words, he taught the heresey of Monophytism. The problem with Eutyches was that he was extremely cunning and although he was excommunicated for teaching this heresy, he later pretended that he was preaching what St. Cyril taught by saying he is teaching the One Nature of God the Incarnate Logos.
The major difference which Eutyches ommitted was the fact that according to Eutyches Christ's humanity dissolved in his Divinity forming only one nature, while St. Cyril taught us that there is a distinction between Christ's humanity and Divinity but they are hypostatically united and are not separated and are combined in one nature called The Incarnate Logos. This combination does not mean that the humanity and Divinity became dissolved into one, but it means that in this combined nature there co-exists Christ's Humanity and the Divinity along side one another. Just like the soul co-exists with the body to form one human nature.
So Eutychus appealed to the Eastern and Oriental Patriarches, in particularly, to St Dioscorus who was the 25th Patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church, on the pretext that he is teaching the doctorine of the "The One Nature of God the Incarnate Logos". So Pope Disocorus absolved Eutychus' excommunication because Eutyches did not tell him the real truth of his heresy. Later, Pope Disocorus discovered that Eutyches has lied to him and was teaching a heresy and excommunicated Eutyches in a local Coptic Council.
"At the Council of Chalcedon, the Coptic Church was misquoted and its teachings were wrongly deemed as being Eutychean. The Patriarch of Alexandria was accused of being Eutychean, because he had presided over the second Council of Ephesus which had absolved Eutyches........When Pope Dioscorus' Orthodoxy could not be questioned, other accusations were raised, centring around material issues such as the question of preventing Egyptian corn from being sent to other parts of the Empire. Neither Pope Dioscorus nor the civil judges were present when the council handed down the verdict deposing him, mainly for having excommunicated the bishop of Rome and not appearing at the Council session when summoned three times, although he was under house arrest at the time. Because of his Orthodoxy, Pope Dioscorus could neither be degraded of Ecclesiastic honour nor excommunicated." http://www.copticcentre.com/two.html
"In spite of the fact that the Council of Ephesus had excommunicated Nestorus, the Nestorian roots extended to influence the council of Chalcedon where the trend to separate the two natures became so apparent that it was said that Christ is two persons......Following the same trend, Lee, the Bishop of Rome, accordingly declared his famous Tome which was rejected by the Coptic Church and [the Oriental Churches]. But the Council accepted and voted for it, thus confirming that two natures existed in Christ after their unity." http://www.copticchurch.net/topics/t..._of_christ.pdf
So to sum it up, the Coptic Orthodox Church has faithfully preserved what was passed down by St. Cyril who headed the 3rd Ecumenical Council and who taught us "One Nature of God the Incarnate Logos" (Mia Physis Tou Theou Logou Sesarkwmene). That is why we call ourselves Miaphysite and it comes directly from St. Cyril's teachings.
But we are wrongly accused of being Monophysites which I explained before is a totally different and is a heresy. Now we don't view the Eastern Orthodox as heretical because after much Dialogue, as Mina said, we found that, the Eastern Orthodox are stating that there is unity between Christ's Divinity and Humanity and is not separated. But the Coptic Church will not change the expression and terminology which was handed down by St.Cyril that is One Nature of God the Incarnate Logos. So this is where the main difference lies.
I hope this explains it to you Michael, please feel free to ask more questions.
love and blessings
erini
Last edited by erinipassi; 4th June 2005 at 04:07 AM.
You mentioned that you acknowledge Dioscorus as a saint. Do you do the same to Timothy Ailouros?
Yes! Naturally, your Church would accuse them of Eutychianism, but as the air of misunderstanding clears up, the truth is known these Miaphysite fathers are not heretics, but simply Cyrillian. All they did was repeat what St. Cyril wrote.
What is your church's position on Pope Leo of Rome? Pope Hilary of Rome? Flavian of Constantinople? The council of Ephesus in 449?
Again, naturally they used to be accused of Nestorianism, but now as misunderstandings are lifted, we see (or some of us see) the Orthodoxy in them.
But as usual, there are still those who will not relent from polemics, whether it be EO or OO.
While the status of EO and OO fathers are still anathematized from one another, there will come a time, and I pray, where these anathemas be lifted because in reality, their theologies do not contradict, but compliment.
Ephesus 449 is not confessed as an ecumenical council, since the whole Church did not accept it. However, we used to defend it to find nothing wrong with it. As the truth is revealed, Ephesus 449 was similar to Chalcedon. Both councils were hasty in condemning the other party without careful investigation.
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