The Eucharist: True differences between Catholics and Orthodox???

dzheremi

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I get that. This is something that I proposed a way back that philosophy and terminology are important factors in how we approach our faith differently. The question that is raise are these differences irreconcilable. I believe on our side they are not; but on yours they are it seems, and I can accept that.

Okay.

Again, I think using the word ontological to express our differences is an entirely wrong use of that word, unless it is being defined differently that how it is defined.

I am using it to mean "way of being" in the context of being Christians, again following HAH Bartholomew, who uses it this way in his Phos Hilaron address when he states:

Assuredly our problem is neither geographical nor one of personal alienation. Neither is it a problem of organizational structures, nor jurisdictional arrangements. Neither is it a problem of external submission, nor absorption of individuals and groups. It is something deeper and more substantive.

The manner in which we exist has become ontologically different. Unless our ontological transfiguration and transformation toward one common model of life is achieved, not only in form but also in substance, unity and its accompanying realization become impossible.​

I do not believe that we (Catholics, Orthodox and for that matter most Traditional Protestants are ontologically different).

If you truly believe this, then what is the point of being a Roman Catholic as opposed to one of these other things? Certainly you must believe that the Roman Catholic way, with all that is unique to it that is absent from these other ways of being Christian, is the way that Jesus Christ our Lord has established for everyone, such that we are not simply choosing this way over that way due to personal biases or tastes? I mean, I could not imagine even for a second being Coptic Orthodox if I did not believe that this is true in at least some ways that these other options are not, as I have nothing to do with Egypt, and no need for it outside of its Orthodox theological patrimony. I suppose I assumed that everyone must feel that way about whatever they are to at least some degree or on some level, or presumably they'd be something else.

Through our common Baptism, this is an impossibility.

What? Okay, that's really hard to stomach, to be frank. It was only a few months ago that the Coptic Orthodox Church agreed with the Roman Catholic Church to stop rebaptizing converts (in confirmation with our own historical norm of treating all who come back from Chalcedonianism the same, as per the decrees of HH Pope Timothy II, the successor to HH Pope Dioscoros). There was even a thread about it on this website. Before that we wouldn't have had in any sense a common baptism (at least not for the past few centuries), and that is still not the case with regard to the EO (as far as I understand it...EO members, please correct me if I've received some bad information here), nor I would imagine with many different kinds of Protestants, though they are by nature harder to generalize.

So what does this even mean?

It would be like claiming that three brothers begotten from the same Father and mother are ontologically different from each other.

No, because it has nothing to do with a common origin, but with the divergence in our modes of being since then. I believe that we all recognize a common well-spring in the first three councils and the Fathers of the pre-conciliar era, going back to the Lord and His apostles and disciples themselves, who established our respective churches (e.g., Sts. Peter and Paul in Antioch, St. Mark in Egypt, St. Peter in Rome, etc.)

That doesn't somehow make Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, and Classical Protestantism the same thing, because history does not end in 451, 1054, 1517, etc. (unfortunately; if it had, presumably we wouldn't have nearly as much work to do towards a unity of faith.)

Google it.

This is not a response.

See above.

Ditto.

It is what is being implied.

No it very much isn't. I wrote the post, but the implications are entirely yours, and you seem unwilling to explain where they're coming from (cf. "Google it"), so I don't appreciate being told what my own posts mean in this fashion. Either explain yourself or knock it off, please.

If we are ontologically different then that mean that we are substantially different.

How so? In what way are you using "substance" here? I don't think Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, etc. are different types of people, but surely these are different types of Christianity.

Baptism, our redemption, the God that we commonly worship and call Father, our common future, tells a quite different story that says no to us being ontologically different.

If this is so, then why'd you have to specify "our common future"? If there is such a unity of being among disparate traditions, then why is it not "our common present"?

Buddhist and Christian religions are ontologically different; but Catholic and Orthodox, and for that matter traditional Protestants? Not so much.

This is not an illuminating comparison. No one is claiming that Buddhism is a type of Christianity, or that Roman Catholicism is more akin to it than to some other type of Christianity.

In my opinion, God's relationship with all Christians is unique to that Christian. Why? Because we are all different, and different things effect us differently. God knows each one of us intimately, and treats us all differently as well.

I don't deny that, but I'm not talking about individuals. I'm talking about communions and the traditions that make them what they are and not something else.

This is what Fathers do with their children. If He treated us all the exact same...well then that would make Muslims right and us wrong.

What do Muslims have to do with anything? Who is talking about people of entirely different, non-Christian religions?

Its coming from the misappropriation of the word used. Ontological difference is just that, a difference in being. Like I wrote before two brothers from the same Father and mother, cannot be ontologically different.

And again, that's not what anyone's talking about. That is not an apt analogy. You are not understanding the words being used.

In all intents and purposes, we live in the same household.

No we don't. You are with Rome, and I am with Alexandria. Pope Leo's request that Alexandria and Rome be "one in all things" was placed into the circular file by our beloved fathers in 445 (so, before the schism of Chalcedon), and we have not ever had any substantial reason to revisit this idea. Besides, I've seen HH Pope Tawadros II and Pope Francis in the same room together at the same time, so they obviously fail the Superman/Clark Kent test. Transparently not the same guy. So this is a very false assertion. You're in your own household, and we are in ours. We may visit each other every so often, praise be to God, but after the visit, we return to our respective houses, and that's as it should be unless you are willing to change your way of being for the sake of forging or better yet regaining our common faith.

We worship the same God.

I would personally say so, yes, though some on all sides would disagree or question that, vis-a-vis Chalcedon, the Filioque, and so forth. But okay, fine. I'm a simple layman, after all.

We share a common baptism.

I've addressed this above: it is technically true in one specific sense (i.e., that we have recently agreed to stop rebaptizing converts), but otherwise no, and in any case not nearly this simple.

And one day we will share the same heaven if God is willing.

Yes, but that is true of literally everyone, as that is God's inherent prerogative. So that can't be used as evidence that we have some kind of unity that we do not in fact have. For example, the common veneration of St. Isaac of Nineveh/St. Isaac the Syrian says nothing of the status of the Church of the East as an ecclesiastical body. It just says that we all happen to agree on St. Isaac himself. Or the recent addition of HH St. Nerses Shnorhali (Nerses the Gracious), the Armenian Patriarch, to the list of saints in the Roman Catholic Church. Does that mean that you and the Armenian Apostolic Church are one and the same? Of course not. That'd be silly. It's silly to argue for unity by way of similarity if these similarities do not obscure the essential differences between us that keep us apart to begin with, so really unless you are willing to give up being Roman Catholic yourself to join Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, or a traditional Protestant church, all of this talk of how united we are or will be doesn't amount to anything (at least not if unity is the explicit goal, rather than just trying to hear one another out).

In the end, nobody moves, because this is our faith, and what the other guy preaches is at least to some degree not the same. (Though it remains an open question whether or not the differences may be reconcilable, as you've said.)

Culturally different, yes; differences in worship, yes; differences in theology, yes; but ontologically different? No, that goes too far.

I don't see how. You haven't shown how. You've made one analogy that doesn't really work and then told me to Google things when I asked you to explain what you mean.

I am dissatisfied with this kind of engagement, to be honest. I would think that if a person wants to argue that we have this great unity or something, they'd be able to show it or argue for it beyond just stating that it is so when everyone else involved in the conversation says it isn't. Do you know the EO or the OO better than they do? It's hard to come away with any other impression when the RCC's unworkable stance essentially presumes as much by saying that we have almost everything in common. That's simply not the case.
 
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Paidiske

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If you truly believe this, then what is the point of being a Roman Catholic as opposed to one of these other things? Certainly you must believe that the Roman Catholic way, with all that is unique to it that is absent from these other ways of being Christian, is the way that Jesus Christ our Lord has established for everyone, such that we are not simply choosing this way over that way due to personal biases or tastes? I mean, I could not imagine even for a second being Coptic Orthodox if I did not believe that this is true in at least some ways that these other options are not, as I have nothing to do with Egypt, and no need for it outside of its Orthodox theological patrimony. I suppose I assumed that everyone must feel that way about whatever they are to at least some degree or on some level, or presumably they'd be something else.

While the question was addressed to Erose, and her answer may well be different, I certainly would have a very different sensibility here.

I am not an Anglican because I believe that it is more perfect than any other church. I believe it has all that is necessary, and that it has avoided some unhelpful things, and it is a tradition which suits my spirituality, and I believe God has called me to serve here; but I don't believe that God wills that all Christians should be Anglican, or that this is the only most correct way to be Christian.

Possibly this is an easier choice for me than a non-Egyptian choosing the Coptic church, which would present you with high barriers to being "at home" in it (although I was not raised Anglican, either). But the point of being Anglican, to me, is that it is a valid and precious tradition of being Christian, that it holds out to the world around us the fullness of the gospel, and that I am able to find my place in it and play my part. In fact part of the point of being Anglican, to me, is specifically that it doesn't seek to invalidate other ways of being Christian (although we do disagree on some points) but specifically recognises itself as one valid tradition in a wider Christian community.
 
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dzheremi

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Thank you for your perspective, Paidiske. It is always nice to read and reflect on.

I think it is important to recognize, however, that the Roman Catholic Church to which Erose belongs has historically made and in some sense still makes much stronger ecclesiastical claims than you apparently do. So I await Erose's reply. Perhaps there are a range of views allowed within RCism, including some that may be closer to your own, so long as fidelity to Rome is secured by allowing them (see, e.g., the Zoghby initiative pursued for a time by the Melkite Catholics, which essentially attempted to repudiate or ignore about a thousand years of EO-RC disagreement in theological and ecclesiastical matters for the sake of establishing communion between the Melkites and the Antiochian Orthodox; it didn't take).
 
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Erose

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I am using it to mean "way of being" in the context of being Christians, again following HAH Bartholomew, who uses it this way in his Phos Hilaron address when he states:

Assuredly our problem is neither geographical nor one of personal alienation. Neither is it a problem of organizational structures, nor jurisdictional arrangements. Neither is it a problem of external submission, nor absorption of individuals and groups. It is something deeper and more substantive.

The manner in which we exist has become ontologically different. Unless our ontological transfiguration and transformation toward one common model of life is achieved, not only in form but also in substance, unity and its accompanying realization become impossible.​
Yes I know how you are using it, and it is fallacious for you or for HAH Bartholomew to use it as such. What he is claiming is that the difference between Catholics and Orthodox is similar to the difference between cats and dogs, instead of it being differences between two brothers from the same Father and mother, which is what we truly are.​

If you truly believe this, then what is the point of being a Roman Catholic as opposed to one of these other things? Certainly you must believe that the Roman Catholic way, with all that is unique to it that is absent from these other ways of being Christian, is the way that Jesus Christ our Lord has established for everyone, such that we are not simply choosing this way over that way due to personal biases or tastes? I mean, I could not imagine even for a second being Coptic Orthodox if I did not believe that this is true in at least some ways that these other options are not, as I have nothing to do with Egypt, and no need for it outside of its Orthodox theological patrimony. I suppose I assumed that everyone must feel that way about whatever they are to at least some degree or on some level, or presumably they'd be something else.
Here is the difference. I believe that the Catholic Church possesses the fullness of Faith. I believe that Orthodoxy is close to having the fullness, but have lost some things along the way. The differences though are not ontological, but accidental. Both groups are fully Christian, both groups teach all that is required for salvation, both groups have the same destiny; but both groups deviate in our practices and in some beliefs, which are accidental to being Christian. Thus our differences are not substantial (i.e. ontological), but only accidental.

An ontological difference would be what is between Catholics/Orthodox and lets say Hinduism or Buddhism, and maybe some of these fringe Christian groups who no longer believe in baptism or the creed or other substantial teachings on salvation and how one is saved.

What? Okay, that's really hard to stomach, to be frank. It was only a few months ago that the Coptic Orthodox Church agreed with the Roman Catholic Church to stop rebaptizing converts (in confirmation with our own historical norm of treating all who come back from Chalcedonianism the same, as per the decrees of HH Pope Timothy II, the successor to HH Pope Dioscoros). There was even a thread about it on this website. Before that we wouldn't have had in any sense a common baptism (at least not for the past few centuries), and that is still not the case with regard to the EO (as far as I understand it...EO members, please correct me if I've received some bad information here), nor I would imagine with many different kinds of Protestants, though they are by nature harder to generalize.
Even before then we had a common baptism. When you are baptized as a Coptic and I baptized as a Catholic, whether or not you like the idea, we were both brought into the Body of Christ. Not just into our Patriarchate, but into the Body of Christ. That is why it is a common baptism.


No, because it has nothing to do with a common origin, but with the divergence in our modes of being since then. I believe that we all recognize a common well-spring in the first three councils and the Fathers of the pre-conciliar era, going back to the Lord and His apostles and disciples themselves, who established our respective churches (e.g., Sts. Peter and Paul in Antioch, St. Mark in Egypt, St. Peter in Rome, etc.)

That doesn't somehow make Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, and Classical Protestantism the same thing, because history does not end in 451, 1054, 1517, etc. (unfortunately; if it had, presumably we wouldn't have nearly as much work to do towards a unity of faith.)
Two or more siblings are not the same thing, but they are all human beings sharing in their humanity. The CC, EO, and OO are pretty much the same. We are not the same things, and I don't claim as such; but we are all Christian, and we all share in a common Baptism, and we all share in the same salvation and destiny.




If this is so, then why'd you have to specify "our common future"? If there is such a unity of being among disparate traditions, then why is it not "our common present"?
I thought that was obvious from the other points made.

This is not an illuminating comparison. No one is claiming that Buddhism is a type of Christianity, or that Roman Catholicism is more akin to it than to some other type of Christianity.
I disagree. The point being made, is what is and is not ontologically different. Buddhism and Catholicism/Orthodoxy are ontologically different religions. Catholicsm and Orthodoxy are not



And again, that's not what anyone's talking about. That is not an apt analogy. You are not understanding the words being used.
I disagree, I think it is you who do not understand the magnitude of the word being used.



No we don't. You are with Rome, and I am with Alexandria. Pope Leo's request that Alexandria and Rome be "one in all things" was placed into the circular file by our beloved fathers in 445 (so, before the schism of Chalcedon), and we have not ever had any substantial reason to revisit this idea. Besides, I've seen HH Pope Tawadros II and Pope Francis in the same room together at the same time, so they obviously fail the Superman/Clark Kent test. Transparently not the same guy. So this is a very false assertion. You're in your own household, and we are in ours. We may visit each other every so often, praise be to God, but after the visit, we return to our respective houses, and that's as it should be unless you are willing to change your way of being for the sake of forging or better yet regaining our common faith.
So we are back to the idea that there is more than one Body of Christ, more than one foundation, more than one household of the children of God. Look you are looking at what is on the outside, what is material; but that isn't the way it should be seen. We should be looking beyond our physical senses and using our spiritual ones. There is one God, one Faith, one Hope and one Baptism, and these are what makes us one people, of one household, with one Father. All of these makes us ontologically the same, even when in our human weakness, we prefer not to be.
We at this time are at the point that we are brothers who dislike each other, and would prefer not to be part of the same family. Sadly this is the case, because we only see the differences; but we really need to be listening to our eldest Brother who is telling us to be one as He and the Father are one. We need to see that the same Blood is flowing through our veins, and when we see that the fallacy of us being ontologically different, will start to fall away.

Yes, but that is true of literally everyone, as that is God's inherent prerogative. So that can't be used as evidence that we have some kind of unity that we do not in fact have. For example, the common veneration of St. Isaac of Nineveh/St. Isaac the Syrian says nothing of the status of the Church of the East as an ecclesiastical body. It just says that we all happen to agree on St. Isaac himself. Or the recent addition of HH St. Nerses Shnorhali (Nerses the Gracious), the Armenian Patriarch, to the list of saints in the Roman Catholic Church. Does that mean that you and the Armenian Apostolic Church are one and the same? Of course not. That'd be silly. It's silly to argue for unity by way of similarity if these similarities do not obscure the essential differences between us that keep us apart to begin with, so really unless you are willing to give up being Roman Catholic yourself to join Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, or a traditional Protestant church, all of this talk of how united we are or will be doesn't amount to anything (at least not if unity is the explicit goal, rather than just trying to hear one another out).

In the end, nobody moves, because this is our faith, and what the other guy preaches is at least to some degree not the same. (Though it remains an open question whether or not the differences may be reconcilable, as you've said.)
In my opinion the differences don't have to be reconcilable. There are different levels of communion. If the ancient Patriarchates ever find any level of reunion, IMO it will not be based upon common knowledge, but rather based upon our common Flesh and Blood. Even brothers with opposing opinions on matters can share the same table, if they only listen to their Father and mother, and not their own idiocy.



I don't see how. You haven't shown how. You've made one analogy that doesn't really work and then told me to Google things when I asked you to explain what you mean.

I am dissatisfied with this kind of engagement, to be honest. I would think that if a person wants to argue that we have this great unity or something, they'd be able to show it or argue for it beyond just stating that it is so when everyone else involved in the conversation says it isn't. Do you know the EO or the OO better than they do? It's hard to come away with any other impression when the RCC's unworkable stance essentially presumes as much by saying that we have almost everything in common. That's simply not the case.
I guess I look at this on a spiritual level and not a material one. Again whether you like it our not, we are brothers from the same Father and mother. We were reborn the same way, we have the very same Blood flowing through our veins, and because of this it is impossible for you and I to be ontologically different.
 
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dzheremi

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Yes I know how you are using it, and it is fallacious for you or for HAH Bartholomew to use it as such. What he is claiming is that the difference between Catholics and Orthodox is similar to the difference between cats and dogs, instead of it being differences between two brothers from the same Father and mother, which is what we truly are.

I thoroughly disagree that this is an accurate summation of the use of 'ontology' in this context. You keep coming up with analogies that attempt to make its usage akin to talking about different species and so on (cats and dogs), but the reason why I highlighted the portion from HAH's speech that I did is that he explains it in very simple terms: our modes of living have become ontologically different.

So it's not about the people engaged in those modes at all -- they're still people and share that in common in any case; it's about the modes themselves. And truly it would be foolish to pretend that there is no such difference between being a Roman Catholic Christian and being an Orthodox Christian. That's why they are different things. That's why you, the Roman Catholic, cannot simply show up to an Orthodox liturgy and take communion, and vice-versa. We do not recognize that we share the same mode of being, because we don't. HAH is correct.

Here is the difference. I believe that the Catholic Church possesses the fullness of Faith. I believe that Orthodoxy is close to having the fullness, but have lost some things along the way. The differences though are not ontological, but accidental.

No, I'm sorry. This is too much. Your church did not "accidentally" assert prerogatives over others' that all others reject that it ever had. Your church did not "accidentally" insert the filioque into the creed (it was placed there rather deliberately after several centuries of Roman resistance to it). Your church did not "accidentally" come up with the idea that its patriarch is infallible in certain circumstances. None of the things that separate the Roman Catholic Church from others, that it asserts as matters of divinely revealed doctrine and fidelity to the apostolic Christian faith, can be described as such. I know this because I know that the Roman Catholic Church does not describe them as such.

Nobody woke up one day and said "Oops! Would you look at that -- we've suddenly all become Roman Catholic/Eastern Orthodox/Oriental Orthodox/etc." These are very definite places to be, and while individual people may stay or leave according to whatever is keeping them in or drawing them to a particular communion, that doesn't make the communions themselves all part of the same Church (cf. my point above and in other posts regarding what you don't seem to understand about the idea of ontology in this context). The "branch theory" of Christianity does not come from Orthodoxy, or (as far as I can remember) from Catholicism.

Now I will grant that the differences between us all have been exacerbated in some cases and lessened in others, but the basic differences that make being Roman Catholic different from being Orthodox and vice-versa remain.

Both groups are fully Christian

I don't believe I've ever even slightly hinted otherwise. As my own priest was fond of reminding us at St. Bishoy, the line separating an Orthodox Christian and a non-Orthodox Christian is different than the line separating a Christian from a follower of some other religion entirely. So, yes, of course Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Church of the East, Anglican, and so on are all Christians.

both groups teach all that is required for salvation

I disagree, if only because I know that some of the things that your church in particular has taught are absolutely not what is necessary for salvation (i.e., ecclesiastical/temporal and spiritual submission to the Roman Pope; see here the Papal bull Unam Sanctam, 1302), and reveal a difference in the way that your tradition views and teaches concerning salvation and the way that others do.

both groups have the same destiny

This is for God to know, not for us to know. (1 Corinthians 5:12)

but both groups deviate in our practices and in some beliefs, which are accidental to being Christian. Thus our differences are not substantial (i.e. ontological), but only accidental.

See, I just can't agree with this. I think that when you're Orthodox you (come to) understand that we don't do "accidental" things. Absolutely everything we do and everything we affirm with our mouths reflects our theology in deep and substantial ways. Like it's not an accident that we don't have the filioque in the Creed, but you do.

An ontological difference would be what is between Catholics/Orthodox and lets say Hinduism or Buddhism

No, again, this is highly inappropriate and wrong. It is not like that. HAH Bartholomew does not say that Roman Catholicism isn't a form of Christianity, and neither do I, and neither has anyone in this thread. Please stop forcing the words of others into your own paradigm in order to lessen or explain away the differences that really do exist between RC, EO, OO, Anglican, etc.

and maybe some of these fringe Christian groups who no longer believe in baptism or the creed or other substantial teachings on salvation and how one is saved.

Has anyone in this thread claimed that the Roman Catholic Church can be placed among these groups? I haven't, and I haven't seen anyone else do so. I think this is irrelevant.

Even before then we had a common baptism. When you are baptized as a Coptic and I baptized as a Catholic, whether or not you like the idea, we were both brought into the Body of Christ. Not just into our Patriarchate, but into the Body of Christ. That is why it is a common baptism.

No, no it isn't. If anything, the very fact that we've spent the last 200 years or so rebaptizing Catholics, as shameful as it is (because it was not in line with our own fathers and tradition, not because we don't believe we are different), shows that this is not what we believe. Even returning back to the historically-attested way, whereby all Chalcedonians are received into our Church in the same way (see here the decrees of HH Pope St. Timothy II, the direct successor to HH St.Dioscorus), does not say "we are part of the same body". That's clearly false. That is not our ecclesiology, and moreover I know that it is not yours, either. When I was received into Orthodoxy, none of my Roman Catholic friends were rejoicing that I had been received into the Body of Christ, and I didn't think it odd that this was the case. And I still don't.

Two or more siblings are not the same thing, but they are all human beings sharing in their humanity. The CC, EO, and OO are pretty much the same.

What? Get outta town. No. That's not true at all.

The OO are their own tradition(s), and the EO theirs, and the RCC theirs. I really can't stomach this conflating of everything to absolutely no good end, because at the end of the day, we are not actually in communion with one another, and haven't been for 1600 to 1000 years.

We are not the same things, and I don't claim as such

What? You literally just wrote that we are all basically the same.

but we are all Christian, and we all share in a common Baptism, and we all share in the same salvation and destiny.

Again, the truth of these statements is variable, to put it politely.

I thought that was obvious from the other points made.

No, it's not obvious at all. You have not explained how it is that we share all this stuff despite the reality of it not being manifest in the actual world in which we live as it is within our respective communions.

I disagree. The point being made, is what is and is not ontologically different. Buddhism and Catholicism/Orthodoxy are ontologically different religions. Catholicsm and Orthodoxy are not

For at least the third time, this is not an apt comparison.

I disagree, I think it is you who do not understand the magnitude of the word being used.

I think I understand it in the sense that it is being used in the source that I am pointing you to. That you disagree with how that source is using it is obvious enough, but you have not shown how it is appropriate to bring up different religions, different species, etc. when HAH does not do so. It seems that you think the argument being made is different than what it actually is. Suffice it to say that if anyone were saying that the relationship of Catholicism to Orthodoxy is akin to that of any kind of Christianity to Buddhism, then I would reject that out of hand. But nobody has said that. So you are arguing against a straw man here.

So we are back to the idea that there is more than one Body of Christ, more than one foundation, more than one household of the children of God.

No, we aren't. As uncomfortable and scandalous as it may seem to the RC way of looking at things, we are back to the strong and historically-grounded Orthodox ecclesiology that says that the Orthodox Church is the body of Christ, and hence anything else that is not within it is not a part of His body. This is not a judgment of individuals, but of entire ecclesiastical bodies and the claims that they make, just as you yourself have pronounced judgments upon Orthodoxy (albeit more positive ones, from your view where we are all "basically the same"), so it is not saying anything about your status as a Christian, but rather about the RCC claim to be the Church, which is unanimously rejected.

And this is not a later, sectarian interpretation of how ecclesiology works, either. It is found not only in fathers specific to my own Church (see below for one such example), but also in the text of our anaphoras, as in the litanies of the Liturgy of St. Basil:

Priest:
Make us all worthy, O our Master, to partake of Your Holies, unto the purification of our souls, our bodies, and our spirits,

that we may become one body and one spirit, and may have a share and an inheritance with all the saints who have pleased You since the beginning.

Remember, O Lord, the peace of Your one, only, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church—

Deacon:
Pray for the peace of the one holy catholic and apostolic orthodox Church of God.

People:
Lord have mercy.

Priest:
this, which You have acquired to Yourself with the precious Blood of Your Christ,

keep her in peace, with all the orthodox bishops who are in her.

Foremost remember, O Lord, our blessed and honored father, the archbishop, our patriarch, Abba (Tawadros the Second),

and his spiritual brothers, the Patriarch of Antioch Mar Ignatius (Afrem the Second), and the Patriarch of Eritrea Abouna (Antonios).

In the presence of a bishop:

and his partner in the liturgy, our father the bishop (metropolitan), Abba (...).

Deacon:
Pray for our high priest, Pope Abba (Tawadros the Second), pope and patriarch and archbishop of the great city of Alexandria,

and his spiritual brothers, the Patriarch of Antioch Mar Ignatius (Afrem the Second), and the Patriarch of Eritrea Abouna (Antonios).

In the presence of a bishop:

and his partner in the liturgy, our father the bishop (metropolitan), Abba (...).

And concludes with:

and for our orthodox bishops.

People:
Lord have mercy.

Priest:
And those who rightly divide the word of truth with him,

grant them unto Your holy Church to shepherd Your flock in peace.

Remember, O Lord, the orthodox hegumens, priests, and deacons.

Deacon:
Pray for the hegumens, priests, deacons, subdeacons, and the seven orders of the Church of God.

People:
Lord have mercy.

Priest:
And all the servants, and all who are in virginity, and the purity of all Your faithful people.

(Remember, O Lord, to have mercy upon us all.)

People:
Have mercy upon us, O God, the Father, the Pantocrator.

Priest:
Remember, O Lord, the salvation of this, Your holy place, and every place, and every monastery of our orthodox fathers.

Deacon:
Pray for the salvation of the world and of this city of ours and of all cities, districts, islands, and monasteries.

People:
Lord have mercy.

Priest:
And those who dwell therein in God’s faith.

+++

Note that these are Oriental Orthodox leaders mentioned by name in the above litanies. We do not include the Syriac or Etirean Catholic patriarchs in their place or in addition to them.

And it is not wrong to say that this is a very definite stance vis-a-vis those of other confessions, and has been so for a very long time:

"...that you must not recognize any distinction between those who are banished from the East, and made illustrious by the combat of confessorship, and the saintly bishops in Egypt, and that you must reckon that to be one church which is compacted together in the orthodox faith, and is most pure and serene through the non-association with the heretics..."

-- HH St. Severus of Antioch, in a letter written between 525 and 531 to his fellow Syrians (from Lucas Van Rompay "Severus, Patriarch of Antioch (512-538), in the Greek, Syriac, and Coptic Traditions", in the Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies, ed. Amir Harrak, vol. 8, 2008, 3-22)

Look you are looking at what is on the outside, what is material

Excuse me, but I'll thank you not to call me a materialist for following my own faith, and not yours. Such presuppositions regarding what others do and why are unwelcome and unhelpful.

but that isn't the way it should be seen.

Oh, really? So now you're going to tell me how it should have been?

And you don't see any problem with this? It doesn't strike you as paternalistic and insulting in this context in which you asked about differences?

We should be looking beyond our physical senses and using our spiritual ones.

What? No, no...I don't go in for this cosmic, dematerialized ecclesiology. That's a non-starter. That's not what being in communion is about. You too have standards. Don't even bother going down this road, please. I'm not interested in it in the slightest.

There is one God, one Faith, one Hope and one Baptism

Amen.

and these are what makes us one people, of one household, with one Father.

No. You're not Orthodox. We do not share one faith. You are Roman Catholic, I am Oriental Orthodox, other people are other things. These are not all the same.

All of these makes us ontologically the same, even when in our human weakness, we prefer not to be.

Unacceptable. This is just another iteration of the RC canard that the Orthodox would prefer disunity to unity, which was not supported last time, and can't be supported now.

If it were about preferences, then to be exceedingly frank about it, I would prefer it if Chalcedon and all subsequent councils were relegated to the status of local councils akin to those councils which were binding upon the Latins or the Greeks respectively from before your schism from one another (say, Elvira for the Latins and Trullo for the Greeks). And the Roman Pope, of course, would go back to being "Patriarch of the West" (a title used until quite recently), and give up any claim to jurisdiction over other territories or churches, either through proxies or personally, and the non-Western Catholic churches would be welcomed back into the fold of their Orthodox mother churches, Greek with Greek and Oriental with Oriental, with those who truly have no counterpart such as the Chaldeans and the Syro-Malabar either being brought into conformity with Orthodoxy doctrinally with their liturgies following as a consequence and remaining their own thing (as the Persian church was its own thing before Nestorius was ever alive, as any COE person would be happy to tell you), or being welcomed into whichever Church they are closest to in a cultural and geographic sense (e.g., I would imagine it would be easier for a Syro-Malankaran Catholic to become Malankara Syriac Orthodox than, say...Romanian Orthodox or something).

And if some of you wanted to take up the Agpeya and the five yearly fasts, that'd be welcome too, though not as strictly necessary as getting more basic matters of ecclesiology dealt with. (I suppose more so for the Latins than the Greeks, as the Greeks have not eviscerated their own pre-schism practices in this area as the Latins have. But in either case, we generally do not have a problem with different traditions having different practices, so long as everyone is fasting and praying. I used to attend the hours as a Roman Catholic, and I don't see anything wrong with that just because it's not in the form of the Agpeya. This is why I can very easily and naturally reject your claim that such 'outward' things are being focused on and used as a pretext for maintaining division. That's simply not the case.)

But it is most emphatically not a matter of preferences. I mean, I would really prefer it if none of this had happened in the first place and hence this conversation wouldn't have ever happened, but that's even more out of the question than everything else I just typed.

We at this time are at the point that we are brothers who dislike each other, and would prefer not to be part of the same family.

Again, no. Stop claiming this. It's ridiculous on its face. I would certainly prefer that people leave the heresies of non-Orthodox churches and come to Orthodoxy, but that is miles away from saying that we dislike each other and hence prefer to not be part of the same family. Rather, we quite simply are not part of the same family because we do not hold to the same standard of what it takes to be considered as within the Church. It's not hatred. It's having some standards, which again, you also have (or at least your Church have). Do not wonder why no one here, either EO or OO, has asked you why you "dislike" Orthodox people? Because that's an insulting and ridiculous thing to say.

So please stop this. Orthodox ecclesiology is not a matter of personal animus.

Sadly this is the case, because we only see the differences

In a thread about differences (which you started), yes.

Why do you ask questions that you don't want answers to?

We need to see that the same Blood is flowing through our veins, and when we see that the fallacy of us being ontologically different, will start to fall away.

Ughhh...for the millionth time, that's not what ontology means. It's about mode of being (the way that something is), not ousia.

In my opinion the differences don't have to be reconcilable.

Huh? You meant irreconcilable, no?

There are different levels of communion.

Ehhhh...it is better to say that there are some mutual agreements forged between individual Patriarchates (e.g., the Antiochian Orthodox and the Syriac Orthodox) for their own reasons in recognition of their unique circumstances that do not rise to the level of sustaining communion across entire communions. And that's fine, so long as both sides agree to them willingly and do not try to make them into more than they are.

Before we were enough in number to get our own priest, the Coptic Orthodox people in New Mexico used to receive in the local Greek Orthodox church, with the full knowledge and approval of the nearest Greek and Coptic Orthodox bishops. When the Copts in Albuquerque got their own priest, that arrangement ceased, because there was no longer a need for it. Is this a "different level" of communion? I guess it depends on who you ask. In the view of my own Church, which is the only view I care to follow, it appears that pastoral care does not intercommunion make, as our priests have said in no uncertain circumstances that they will not commune Chalcedonians for any reason under any circumstances, and that's in keeping with the guidance of our bishop, which is following the guidance of the synod.

Of course your mileage may vary, but this is how things are for us, and they too have their own reasons for being. Would I like it better to be in communion with the Chalcedonians? Yes, sure, but openly and with no preconditions, in mutual recognition of our shared faith. We do not yet have that mutual recognition, though great strides have been made informally since the 1960s (and formally beginning a little later).

If the ancient Patriarchates ever find any level of reunion

I should point out here that the formalization of the Pentarchy significantly post-dates the Chalcedonian schism, being first expressed in laws of Justinian (527-565), and given ecclesiastical sanction in the Quinisext Council of 692.

I only bring this up because as both of these are significantly after Chalcedon (and even more or less after the lines had been solidified concerning Chalcedon with regard to the Alexandrian and Antiochian patriarchates), there's nothing in them that makes this an inherently more desirable arrangement than any other, so far as the OO communion is concerned.

So, go figure...another difference between your Church and its way of being and mine. Even what you're trying to get back to is different.

IMO it will not be based upon common knowledge, but rather based upon our common Flesh and Blood.

And yet what does Christ our God say is life eternal? In John 17:3 that they may know Thee, the one true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent.

That they may know Thee.

Even brothers with opposing opinions on matters can share the same table, if they only listen to their Father and mother, and not their own idiocy.

Idiocy, huh? Idiocy like the Tome of Leo and Chalcedon; or idiocy like the filioque; or idiocy like the medieval Roman Popes and the modern Roman ecclesiology that springs from their wrong and baseless assertions contra errores Graecorum; or idiocy like the fiction of Papal infallibility; or idiocy like the post-schism developments in Mariolatry and related things; or...?

I want to know what 'idiocy' in particular I shouldn't be listening to.

I guess I look at this on a spiritual level and not a material one. Again whether you like it our not, we are brothers from the same Father and mother. We were reborn the same way, we have the very same Blood flowing through our veins, and because of this it is impossible for you and I to be ontologically different.

I find what you have written to be frankly pretty despicable, and very far from showing any kind of spiritual insight or illumination. To baselessly insult and paternalistically drag others' traditions through the mud out of fidelity to your own preconceived answers to questions that you yourself have asked strikes me as a pretty low form of communication.

But what do I know? All that the Lord wills to happen will happen according to His power and His time, so it is better to pray as we do at the conclusion of the liturgy.

Save us and have mercy upon us. Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy, Lord bless Amen. Bless me, bless me, behold the repentance, forgive me, say the blessing.


May God forgive me for anything I have written in error, ignorance, or zeal without compassion.
 
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thecolorsblend

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In 1098, Crusaders took the city and set up a Latin Patriarchate of Antioch to adorn its Latin Kingdom of Syria, while a Greek patriarchate continued in exile in Constantinople. After nearly two centuries of Crusader rule, the Egyptian Mamelukes seized Antioch in 1268, and the Orthodox patriarch, Theodosius IV, was able to return to the region. By this point, Antioch itself had been reduced to a smaller town, and so in the 14th century Ignatius II transferred the seat of the patriarchate to Damascus, where it remains to this day, though the patriarch retains the Antiochian title.

Nope... didn't have to defend against Protestants.

Forgive me...
What role did Luther and his Protestant minions play in that?
 
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Targaryen

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I'm a bit bemused at being "minions," though, are you, Targaryen? I don't think such belittling language is really necessary.

I don't really consider myself protestant either, but I've heard worse directed to those like us, or Catholics or EO/OO's before TT became a thing. I'm not happy about the language but I'm sadly used to such terrible attempts to shut down debate and learning.
 
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dzheremi

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Certainly it's useful or at least cravenly emotionally satiating to be able to paint our interlocutors as the devil's cabana boys when engaged in debate which finds us on opposing sides, but it's also a rather rash admission that we don't want to deal with the substance of an argument. I can't say I haven't ever done it, but if I'm honest with myself the rush of being able to say "nyeh nyeh nyeh" like a five year old goes away pretty quickly, and then I'm just left with the fact that I'm not doing my own cause any favors by behaving like a child. :oops:
 
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Erose

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Erose, did you see my question to you in post #339?

I apologize but I did not. But here is the answer to the question.
If I may, Erose, and without wishing to derail your conversation, but your last posts have confused me...

It is my understanding that Roman Catholics would say that clergy are ontologically different from laity, (a claim which gives me significant pause, but let's set that aside for a moment). If even clergy and laity within the one communion can be ontologically different, how is it so unreasonable to say that Christians of different communions are ontologically different? Surely the gulf between a Catholic lay person and an Orthodox lay person is much larger than that between a Catholic priest and a Catholic lay person?
The answer is no. This is not correct. The Sacrament of Ordination imposes upon the recipient a "spiritual character" that only one ordained has. The same applies to Baptism, Confirmation and maybe Matrimony. These spiritual characters do not make us ontologically different from each other, but rather provides the necessary grace for us to fulfill the character of the Sacrament.

Catholic Church does not use this term "ontologically different". Outside of a few Orthodox Patriarchs and laity, the only folks that use the term are a certain breed of modern philosophers. Really google the term and see what you get. What you will get is not how the Orthodox Patriarchs used said term.

Anyway the point being made is that the term used, is not the appropriate term; and if the Patriarchs did use said term in how it is defined, then that says a whole lot more about what they think of us, than what we can discuss on this thread.
 
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prodromos

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To add further here, the above post is the last I will speak on this in this thread. If it interest others, then another thread should be made to discuss the misapplication of the term "ontologically different" by an Orthodox patriarch.
Wow. I'm lost for words.
 
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prodromos

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Anyway the point being made is that the term used, is not the appropriate term; and if the Patriarchs did use said term in how it is defined, then that says a whole lot more about what they think of us, than what we can discuss on this thread.
Erose, have you actually read the speech HAH Bartholomew gave at Geogrtown University? It seems pretty apparent to me that you haven't
 
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Paidiske

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The answer is no. This is not correct. The Sacrament of Ordination imposes upon the recipient a "spiritual character" that only one ordained has. The same applies to Baptism, Confirmation and maybe Matrimony. These spiritual characters do not make us ontologically different from each other, but rather provides the necessary grace for us to fulfill the character of the Sacrament.

That's interesting. In my experience, at grass roots level, Catholics do indeed talk about ordination as an ontological change. So if that's not coming from, say, the catechism, I wonder where that comes from...?
 
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