Romanian church not welcome

Why were they excommunicated?

The Romanian Church was only excommunicated within the jurisdiction of the Jerusalem Patriarchate. Romanians may still receive communion at Churches in Jerusalem, but the hierarchy of the Romanian Church may not concelebrate with Jerusalem.

Both the Romanian Church and the Church of Jerusalem are still in Orthodoxy. This is a local break in communion, and both are still in communion with the Orthodox Church.

Since both are still in the Orthodox Church, neither are heretical, and neither churches sacraments are invalid.

Jerusalem "excommunicated" the Romanian Church because the Romanian Church has been building churches & has been acting in Jerusalem's territory without the permission of Jerusalem.
Some of the hierarchy of Romania has also suggested that they have jurisdiction over all Romanians, which is the heresy of phyletism.
However, that doesn't mean the Romanian Church isn't Orthodox, and it doesn't mean it's heretical.

The Romanian Church is still a part of the Orthodox Church.

Livingdesert, are you actually inquiring or are you trolling?

First of all, the Romanian church isn't excommunicated. Actually, the Patriarch of Jerusalem stopped mentioning the Romanian one in the diptics (or whatever they are called in English - the list of Patriarchs according to their rank). In the same decision it is mentioned that the Romanian believers are welcome to come and pray in the Jerusalem churches.
Yes, this would be the first step in case of an excommunication, but unless all Romanian Orthodox are guilty of some heresy, they can't rightfully excommunicate the whole church. Even in that case, the other local churches have the right to choose the side they are standing with.

In that case I am sorry for believing otherwise.

Livindesert said:

If you want to see me troll hit my idol worship thread in the debate area

I could have sworn that excommunication lent sacraments were no longer valid but I guess depends on different things.

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It does depend on context quite a bit. The EO /= systematic. This schism COULD (God forbid!) turn into something more IF no resolution is reached and the OTHER EO churches follow suit in joining one or the other. That would, then, functionally create two communions and then we'd have to talk about two churches (though only one would be Orthodox).

Currently, though, this is an (extreme) measure being taken by the Jerusalem Patriarchate to communicate to Romania the seriousness of their phyletistic actions. The conflict is on-going, and is not resolved (one way OR the other). Until such a resolution exists, it would be pre-mature to declare one or the other "no longer Orthodox"

Well, that's not quite the stage we're at yet. Right now we're what might be considered, say, stage 2 or so along a maybe 10 step process before you're at that point. Even the Great Schism of 1054 wasn't step 10 for the Catholics, things were a bit uncertain for a while there. Numbering of steps is an analogy, not anything exact. Right now this only involves Jerusalem and Romania, nobody else.

The Jerusalem church temporarily suspended concelebration with Romanian clergy. The Orthodox faith is not based upon which bishops are buddy buddy with each other. They have simply suspended communion with each other over administrative meddling, it doesnt touch upon heresy.

It saddens me to see that brothers of the faith do things like this to each other. Governments and states can be rivals, yes, but as Orthodox we are all one body in Christ. This is supposed to transcend things like jurisdiction and territory.

ortho_cat said:

It saddens me to see that brothers of the faith do things like this to each other. Governments and states can be rivals, yes, but as Orthodox we are all one body in Christ. This is supposed to transcend things like jurisdiction and territory.

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But the problem laying underneath this goes beyond simple issues of jurisdiction and territory. Some in the Romanian hierarchy may be committing phyletism. That is, some seem to believe that all Romanians are under the jurisdiction of Romania because of their ethnicity.

If you read some of the issues in the Ecumenical Councils, there are many instances of "jurisdictional" conflicts.

I suggest listening to Fr. Thomas Hopko's podcast, since November 01, he's been discussing the place of Bishops in the Early Church.
In more recent episodes, he has gotten into the Ecumenical Councils, and there were certain jurisdictional issues that had to be worked out/solved.
Speaking the Truth in Love - Ancient Faith Radio

Another good podcast to listen to is Frederica Matthews-Greene's podcast...
Thats Not Orthodoxy - Frederica Here and Now - Ancient Faith Radio

Nope--when it comes to America, there WAS no native, established church. So the people, after the Russian Revolution caused the Russian Church to have to cut loose its authority on all churches in the US, all went back to being under the governmental rule of the country they came from. It's about time we eventually structure into one, but it's not heresy.

Same thing in other countries--the churches have permission from the local governing church to be there.

Sorry to disappoint, but we're just SO not full of heresy.

choirfiend said:

Nope--when it comes to America, there WAS no native, established church. So the people, after the Russian Revolution caused the Russian Church to have to cut loose its authority on all churches in the US, all went back to being under the governmental rule of the country they came from. It's about time we eventually structure into one, but it's not heresy.

Same thing in other countries--the churches have permission from the local governing church to be there.

Sorry to disappoint, but we're just SO not full of heresy.

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GOOD POINT ABOUT PERMISSION.
THIS WHAT HAPPENED THERE: LATE PATRIARCH DIODOROS GAVE PERMISSION, PRESENT PATRIARCH CANCELLED PERMISSION.
OTHERWISE THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND MONASTERY IN JERUSALIM AND THE OTHER RUSSIAN MONASTERY AT THE LAKE OF TIBERIADA ARE NOT ABOUT PHILETISM, OF COURSE...

You can have ethnic parishes with ethnic priests etc. What you cant have is those same ethnic priests or bishops or parishes belonging to a synod of a foreign territory while there already is an established local church already in that area. If a group of american Orthodox migrate to Africa they can no longer belong to the OCA. An OCA bishop cannot set up jurisdiction there since the Patriarchate of Alexandria has jurisdiction over all of Africa. They would be under a bishop from the alexandrian synod which would be the same bishop who oversees the native churches.

The United States, Canada, Latin America, Australia is a different situation where there is no established jurisdiction, each immigrant brought their faith (and language) here as pioneers where it did not exist before.

Could you phrase your questions in a less accusatory or confrontational manner?

Livindesert said:

I thought the OCA was given autocephelacy(forgot how to spell it) over the USA not cut loose?

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Later. Back at the time of the communist revolt, the Russian Church had to let go of all its American churches. The Greek ones then turned to Constantinople to ask for Greek bishops and priests. The Arabs turned to Antioch, the Romanians to Romania, the Serbians to Serbia, the Bulgarians to Bulgaria, etc. etc. The American Russian churches became the Metropolia, which was out and in communion with various churches at various times. In the 70's, Moscow granted this Metropolia autocephaly. This became the OCA. Constantinople threw a hissy fit, then re-entered communion with the OCA, and now threatens to break that communion if the OCA doesn't shape up and recognize the overlordship of Constantinople over all the lands of the "barbarians." I jest (barely) on the last part, but that's the overly simplistic summary of jurisdictionalism in America.

And yes - it is uncanonical. Fortunately, it hasn't caused any serious breaches in communion yet, so we're all moving SLOWLY towards ending jurisdictionalism. We all know its not right, but if we can repair the problem without damaging communion we should make every effort to do so, and that takes caution.

But jurisdictionalism in America is NOT an example of phylitism - there isn't a real commitment to control over a given ethnicity for the sake of controling that ethnicity. Rather, it is a quirk of history wherein the people of a given ethnicity turned to their homeland in a crisis, and the division caused by that is only slowly healing.

So, for example, we are now engaged in pan-Orthodox conciliar bodies comprised of every jurisdiction (including the OCA) to advise the old-world Patriarchs on how best (from our view) to end jurisdictionalism. Eventually, we'll have a world-wide Orthodox council to try and resolve the issue once and for all, but we need to have an acceptable plan in place BEFORE that council or the council would just devolve into bickering and schism (or would, at best, be a lot more tense / divisive).

Hope that helps clarify...

In Christ,
Macarius