Orthodox vs. Protestant belief differences?

[Constantine the Sinner]

Thanks for your comments. Before I explain the Biblical teaching of Justification. Can you clarify Why Christ had to satisfy the Law?

He didn't have to, he did it out of love.

 

[Constantine the Sinner]

You speak differently from others I have engaged with. They say that not until a person personally sins, that they need Christ. But that people are not included in the judgement of the first Adam. Please explain.

They're wrong. We baptize and commune infants.

 

[Constantine the Sinner]

Whether one believes (as do Calvinists) that regeneration preceeds faith or the other way around (as do Arminians) -- we all believe that initial salvation includes responding to the "prompts" of God.

I'm not sure what you mean by "sharing in Christ's death".

If that has to do with dying to self daily and taking up His cross in that way - most Protestants would have no trouble using that language.

If, on the other hand, it is meant in the same sense that, say, Mother Theresa meant it - we would have a big problem.

To paraphase her - we earn our way to Heaven by dying to self in the form of good works.

She also taught that any religion could make it to Heaven as long as the person following it "filled up what was lacking in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ" by suffering himself.

To that end she was know to have withheld pain medications from the dying in order that they might more likely make it to Heaven.

I doubt that Orthodox would think that way any more than would Protestants.

It's mystical, and therefore not something that can be readily understood except in the Spirit. It does involve bodily communion with Christ, and a cutting away of the passions. Those who have become deeply graced are virtually indifferent to insult or compliment, heat or cold, being dead to all things save Christ; money to them is nothing, they could be given a million dollars and robbed an hour later without so much as a change of expression. This is not self-control, it is mystical death, your body and soul actually joining Christ in his death.

 

[Constantine the Sinner]

You speak differently from others I have engaged with. They say that not until a person personally sins, that they need Christ. But that people are not included in the judgement of the first Adam. Please explain.

Satan gained control over the world with the fall, thus all are in bondage to him. He is the prince of this world. Christ came to liberate us and to transform us into God, since Christ is God and we are called to be his body.

 

[Constantine the Sinner]

Yes, we believe God's present in both as well. But reading your post, I notice that Salvation lies in the Transformation & Process, rather than in Christ our Mediator. Who stood in our stead and took upon his head the full wrath of a Holy Righteous God. Its Christ and His Perfect Righteousness that PROPITIATED the wrath of God. Only in Christ can we live and grow in the Faith to Persevere as Saints. Because our victory has already be won.

Now walking in holiness is a duty of all Christians. Because we are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ. Only in Christ our Mediator we find life. Not in our transformation. Sorry but this is the old teaching of legalism. Placing hope in our own efforts, instead of finding it in another. When Paul preached the Gospel of Christ. He was condemned by the Pharisees for antinomianism. What Paul once condemned and executed Christians for; Faith in the Gospel apart from the Law. He now was preaching and teaching, and was condemned by the Pharisees and Judaizers .

Christ is both the source and object of our transformation.

We don't believe God killed himself.

 

[Monk Brendan]

You signed Vatican I, which declared the infallibility of the Pope. Please stop pretending to be Orthodox.

How old do you think I am? Vatican I was back in 1869-1870. I am not 200 years old. I had NOTHING to do with Vatican I. Nobody asked me to sign it, or swear to it, or anything.

YOU ARE NOT LISTENING TO ME! But anyway, STOP CALLING ME A LIAR!

 

[Monk Brendan]

Also, during festival, our parish is open for tours.

But the Greek Cathedral here in Phoenix is NOT!

 

[Monk Brendan]

Please stop lying about an "ethnic barrier". They didn't say you were the improper ethnicity, they said you had to convert, that was the real barrier you weren't prepared to cross.

At the time I went, I was a Protestant, and I was minding my own business. Only catechumens were allowed inside the church.

 

[Monk Brendan]

No, as a Catholic you have to accept the Council of Florence. You do not have the same faith as the Orthodox.

As an Eastern Catholic, I do not have to accept the Council of Florence. The only Councils I have to accept are the first 7!

And the people on this thread that are attacking me do not know me, they do not know my life, They know nothing about me except for what I have posted. If I am telling about my own life, how can they call me a liar. And this type of treatment is NOT about to make me convert, ever!

This is what bothers me about Orthodox Christians. The bishop of each diocese pretty much makes his own rules. I have never seen such disunity in my whole Christian walk! The only priest for whom I had any respect was thrown out of his parish because an Orthodox nun told lies about him. Lies I knew not to be true. He is now a Protestant minister.

 

[Monk Brendan]

Then Christ would have been banned.

Outside of the Pharisees and Saducees, whom He denounced as a class, when did He ever call anyone a liar.

 

[Marvin Knox]

We don't believe God killed himself.

You've made that staement several times now.

I don't know anyone of any Christian persuasion who teaches that "God killed Himself".

Is there someone you have in mind when you emphasis that?

Perhaps I've missed where you explain it. But could you tell us exactly what you mean by that and why you keep saying it?

 

[Monk Brendan]

Yes, because he explained them when I expressed doubts. A parish said he could not come in if he wasn't interested in converting. A bad policy, certainly, but not ethnic prejudice.

More examples, then. The ROCOR Church here in town also will not let anyone in to the church. I went with an Orthodox friend to see how Vespers was done, and we were both impolitely shown the door.

Another time, I went to an OCA church. They let me in, but I was given a strong talking to after Liturgy, even though I did NOT present myself as anything but a monk, and I did not present myself for Communion.

The priest said it was unacceptable for strangers to "wander" in and sit through the prayers of "his" church.

Still another time, I went to the Antiochean Church GIFT SHOP (not on a Sunday) to buy a bread stamp. I was not dressed as a monk, because at the time I was not a monk. I just wanted to buy a bread stamp! They wouldn't sell it to me. What did I do wrong there?

Never have I seen, in all my years, in the various places I have worshiped, a more recalcitrant group of people than Orthodox. And now, here on an open forum, I am getting the same treatment. Is this Christ standing before me? Or is it someone else?

 

[Traveling teacher]

bro branden

I am not overly familiar with the orthodox or the catholic faith....however
I believe the problem is Monks come for these 2 faiths.......
And some of these churches feel you are impersonating one of their clergy without being ordained......when you walk into their groups.....
and they feel you are being a fraud...

You gotta understand their viewpoint as anyone from any church business or orgainization would not allow you to look or pretend to be in their orgainization if in fact you are not aproved by thier orgainization.......

for example you can't impersonate a police officer ......
I believe a guy got arrested for impersonating an army officer awhile back....

I had a friend of mine who went to Jerusalem back in the 1990's and bought a Talit or prayer shawl.......
For the next 15 years or so he thought he was Jewish and could only worship with Jewish believers although there were none around this area......
He decided he would not associate with us gentiles in our churches....although he had no proof that he was jewish...and we tried to tell him this....
He would wear his Talit sometimes to gentile churches sometimes and they would ask him to sit down and not make a show or others would ask him if he was jewish and he would go into his long ordeal about how he could have been jewish.......

I believe he has now outgrown this and now he thinks he is batman and he and his new wife wear batman and batwoman costumes all over town even wore it to the hospital he had to go to recently....

 

[Jack Isaacks]

You signed Vatican I, which declared the infallibility of the Pope. Please stop pretending to be Orthodox.

As a matter of fact, the Melkite bishops LEFT Rome before the vote was taken. When they, including their patriarch Gregory Yussef, were later forced to sign the decree, they added a caveat: "Provided the rights and privileges of the Eastern Patriarchs and bishops are respected, and without prejudice against or diminution of these rights."

Did you know that, Constantine?

Christ is risen!

 

[Jack Isaacks]

bro branden

I am not overly familiar with the orthodox or the catholic faith....however
I believe the problem is Monks come for these 2 faiths.......
And some of these churches feel you are impersonating one of their clergy without being ordained......when you walk into their groups.....
and they feel you are being a fraud...

You gotta understand their viewpoint as anyone from any church business or orgainization would not allow you to look or pretend to be in their orgainization if in fact you are not aproved by thier orgainization.......

for example you can't impersonate a police officer ......
I believe a guy got arrested for impersonating an army officer awhile back....

I had a friend of mine who went to Jerusalem back in the 1990's and bought a Talit or prayer shawl.......
For the next 15 years or so he thought he was Jewish and could only worship with Jewish believers although there were none around this area......
He decided he would not associate with us gentiles in our churches....although he had no proof that he was jewish...and we tried to tell him this....
He would wear his Talit sometimes to gentile churches sometimes and they would ask him to sit down and not make a show or others would ask him if he was jewish and he would go into his long ordeal about how he could have been jewish.......

I believe he has now outgrown this and now he thinks he is batman and he and his new wife wear batman and batwoman costumes all over town even wore it to the hospital he had to go to recently....

Monks are not necessarily ordained--that is, becoming a deacon, priest, or bishops.

Monks are professed (in the West) or tonsured (in the East).

Christ is risen!

 

[Traveling teacher]

still to be a Monk you have to have lived in a convent or something....
just saying........

I believe it is cultural I wouldnt try to be a Jew if I am a gentile....

I was in one of these groups one time where a whole bunch of gentile christians thought they were jewish....
no one in the group was Jewish but on occasion 1 time a year or so they would have a real jewish christian come to visit.....that was a big ordeal........
These gentile wanta be jews can get very legalistic and judgemental........

not exactly the same but similiar situation......

 

[Monk Brendan]

still to be a Monk you have to have lived in a convent or something....
just saying........

I do live in Community. It is a small hermitage, my monastic superior and myself, that is all. Oh we have two cats, tons of icons, and God knows how many angels.

 

[prodromos]

As a matter of fact, the Melkite bishops LEFT Rome before the vote was taken. When they, including their patriarch Gregory Yussef, were later forced to sign the decree, they added a caveat: "Provided the rights and privileges of the Eastern Patriarchs and bishops are respected, and without prejudice against or diminution of these rights."

It would be good to actually be able to see the above. I've heard of it before but no one has ever been able to provide solid documentation of the fact. The bishops were not permitted to disagree, however, with the decisions of the council, were they. This is what comes across as schizophrenic. They have to assent to Western doctrine, all the while claiming to believe differently to those doctrines. The above also makes monk Brendan's claims of disunity among Orthodox bishops ring hollow. On the Orthodox side it will merely be on matters of discipline where they differ, while on the Catholic side monk Brendan claims disunity on doctrine. Odd that he finds this a picture of stability.

 

[Monk Brendan]

This is what comes across as schizophrenic.

Have I called you psycho? Have I labeled you with ANY mental disease? No, I have not. Why do you feel it is important to insult me? I have not called you a single name.

God bless you!

 

[Monk Brendan]

For your edification:

It seems to me that the official Melkite position was sufficiently demonstrated when our Patriarch and his delegate first walked out of the Council, then finally subscribed to the document only after adding it's famous clause. It also seems to me that the Melkite position was further clarified in 1996 (?) when all but two members of our Synod of Bishops (one of those members being a current bishop emeritus here in the U.S. [I won't name names, but it wasn't Samra or Bustros

) signed Archbishop Zoghby's "Profession of Faith" (not to be confused with his Initiative).

1) I believe everything that Orthodoxy teaches.

2) I am in communion with the Bishop of Rome as first among equals according to the limits recognized by the Greek Fathers in the first millenium before the separation.

Our own current Patriarch is on record as publicly having proclaimed, "I am Orthodox with a plus!"

This, I would say, is our official position. It is also the position of many other Eastern Catholics, both within and without the hierarchy. From what I've read the former Patriarch of the UGCC held the exact same belief (although he may not have expressed it in those same words). From what I've studied of his life, Metropolitan Sheptytsky also held the same belief (or at least a very similar belief to the point of being revolutionary in its day) for which he was very much persecuted by many of the other "Ruthenian" (I use the term here in its proper sense, not in the sense that it's commonly understood today) and Galician bishops - later, of course, he was completely vindicated, as I believe the Melkites will be also one day.

On the official level Rome has always demanded, at least on paper, that Eastern Catholics remain true to themselves and to their Orthodox roots. Sadly this official position is not always lived out. Too often Eastern Catholics, both here and elsewhere, have been persecuted for "not being Catholic" (meaning of course not being Roman Catholic).
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I would also point to a book "We are all Schismatics" by Bp. Elias Zoghby.