- Aug 27, 2014
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Note: Even though I already put it in the thread title, I want to reiterate that I'm posting this in St. Basil the Great's Hall, not St. Justin's, because I don't see any need that this turn into a debate. I don't want one. (This is also why I didn't put it in the general forum.)
It's a pretty simple question, really: Is it a good thing or a bad thing (or something else) that we OO or EO people show up in each others' churches on occasion? I'm thinking here of things like this, which is clearly in no sense a liturgical service but does involve OO people praying in an EO cathedral:
HG Bishop Youssef of the Southern United States diocese of the Coptic Orthodox Church and believers pray together in Holy Trinity Cathedral, Tblisi, Georgia
Though I don't have any fancy video to prove it, I've written before about the Chalcedonians from Jordan who chose to come to our liturgy over their own for something on the order of at least half a year (basically until they moved away). There were also the curious EO visitors who we essentially held a liturgy for the benefit of (since they were too elderly to make the 6 hour trip to and from Albuquerque to see it in our parish church) in Las Cruces, NM. So the reverse also happens.
Obviously no one is communed or seeks to be, so I would think questions of what exactly it 'means' ecclesiologically that we might attend each others' churches is more or less a moot point, since it doesn't involve leaving one communion for another (I assume that any attendance of the other communion's church would be for some other purpose, hopefully with the blessing of your own authorities; that is how it is in the Coptic Orthodox Church, anyway, and I don't have reason to assume that you guys would be more lax than we are), so it is not about painting everything as equal. Just visiting. I too have gotten the message before that "we don't do that" when I mentioned perhaps visiting the local OCA in my home area when I was leaving for Christmastime with my family, but obviously that was meant to emphasize that we are not the same communion, since I was very new to the Coptic Orthodox faith at the time. And obviously that kind of blunt warning doesn't stop people from going to the others' church despite lingering doctrinal disagreements and suspicions.
So what do you think? I have a feeling that, painted broadly, we might have different takes on this, so I will not share my personal opinion in this post. Maybe subsequently. I am interested to hear your takes on this.
It's a pretty simple question, really: Is it a good thing or a bad thing (or something else) that we OO or EO people show up in each others' churches on occasion? I'm thinking here of things like this, which is clearly in no sense a liturgical service but does involve OO people praying in an EO cathedral:
Though I don't have any fancy video to prove it, I've written before about the Chalcedonians from Jordan who chose to come to our liturgy over their own for something on the order of at least half a year (basically until they moved away). There were also the curious EO visitors who we essentially held a liturgy for the benefit of (since they were too elderly to make the 6 hour trip to and from Albuquerque to see it in our parish church) in Las Cruces, NM. So the reverse also happens.
Obviously no one is communed or seeks to be, so I would think questions of what exactly it 'means' ecclesiologically that we might attend each others' churches is more or less a moot point, since it doesn't involve leaving one communion for another (I assume that any attendance of the other communion's church would be for some other purpose, hopefully with the blessing of your own authorities; that is how it is in the Coptic Orthodox Church, anyway, and I don't have reason to assume that you guys would be more lax than we are), so it is not about painting everything as equal. Just visiting. I too have gotten the message before that "we don't do that" when I mentioned perhaps visiting the local OCA in my home area when I was leaving for Christmastime with my family, but obviously that was meant to emphasize that we are not the same communion, since I was very new to the Coptic Orthodox faith at the time. And obviously that kind of blunt warning doesn't stop people from going to the others' church despite lingering doctrinal disagreements and suspicions.
So what do you think? I have a feeling that, painted broadly, we might have different takes on this, so I will not share my personal opinion in this post. Maybe subsequently. I am interested to hear your takes on this.