A Question to all the Non Protestant High Churches

[Valletta]

That's ridiculous. No one is talking--and certainly not yours truly--about Hebrew usage or some slang use of the word.

The points you are avoiding are these:

You own church, which encourages the veneration of the saints, says that there are different levels of worship, one for God, and another (still a form of "worship") in the case of the saints.

It is reasonable to consider certain acts of devotion to amount to worship if they treat spirits as if they were God or had the properties and powers that only God has. These are approved of by your church.

Absolutely not. We have a Catholic Catechism that lays out the facts of the teachings of the Catholic Church.

 

[Valletta]

I have, my source is Britanica.com not some random anti-Catholic website. And I take no pleasure in pointing out these events but unfortunately I believe they are very relevant when contemplating which church actually left the apostolic ways in the schism of 1054. I have no hatred for the RCC at all and have defended her many times here on CF on other matters.

The Catholic Catechism contains true Catholic teaching and I urge everyone to quote the Catechism if they have a problem with teaching. Who pointed you to Britanica. com, a known source of false information on Catholicism? At one time there apparently was some improvement, I send you to an article by Father Hardon who himself was instrumental in getting a Catechism published:
Fr. Hardon Archives - Religion in the Encyclopedia Britannica

 

[The Liturgist]

The worship given to God is for God alone, that is Catholic teaching. It's that simple. It seems to me that time spent as to how others pray could be better used by praying to God.

This is an extremely good point. I venerate the saints and occasionally pray for their intercession, as a Protestant (an Evangelical Catholic Congregationalist is what I would call myself) and am not troubled by prayers like the Hail Mary. To quote the Eastern Orthodox liturgy, “It is truly meet to bless you, O Theotokos, ever-blessed and most pure, and the Mother of our God. More honorable than the Cherubim, and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim, without defilement you gave birth to God the Word. True Theotokos we magnify you!”

Note that hymn is a direct response to Mary’s song, the Magnificat, one of the three great Evangelical Canticles in the beginning of the Gospel According to Luke, which @Albion, I expect you have heard doubtless heard along with the Nunc Dimitis, the Somg of Symeon, many times at Evening Prayer in the Anglican tradition.

 

[The Liturgist]

The Catholic Catechism contains true Catholic teaching and I urge everyone to quote the Catechism if they have a problem with teaching. Who pointed you to Britanica. com, a known source of false information on Catholicism? At one time there apparently was some improvement, I send you to an article by Father Hardon who himself was instrumental in getting a Catechism published:
Fr. Hardon Archives - Religion in the Encyclopedia Britannica

Indeed. People should also take care not to rely too heavily on the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia; it is a great resource for learning about the traditional liturgy, the lives of saints, Scholastic theology, and also how the Vatican bureaucracy operated a hundred years ago, but it is out of date in many places, and it shows. For example, just as an example, it calls the Oriental Orthodox Monophysite Heretics, whereas the current position of the Roman church following extensive ecumenical dialogue is that they are neither Monophysites nor Heretics.

 

[The Liturgist]

That's ridiculous. No one is talking--and certainly not yours truly--about Hebrew usage or some slang use of the word.

The points you are avoiding are these:

You own church, which encourages the veneration of the saints, says that there are different levels of worship, one for God, and another (still a form of "worship") in the case of the saints.

It is reasonable to consider certain acts of devotion to amount to worship if they treat spirits as if they were God or had the properties and powers that only God has. These are approved of by your church.

I am really surprised Albion that you are making the very common error of confusing veneration (doulia) with worship (latria). If I kiss my mother on the forehead, I have venerated her, but not worshipped her. If I shake hands with a parishioner, we have venerated each other. If I kiss an image of a deceased relative, I have venerated that relative, and the same applies to images of saints.

Lets put it another way: every Sunday, a great many Anglican priests and deacons, assisted by an acolyte, use a thurible to cense the Altar, and many will kiss the altar or indeed approach it in a manner analogous to the Tridentine Mass. Still others will additionally offer incense to the graves of persons buried in the church and to icons, if there are any. Are these pious Anglican clergy guilty of idolatry? Surely not, I would say.

 

[GreekOrthodox]

I am really surprised Albion that you are making the very common error of confusing veneration (doulia) with worship (latria). If I kiss my mother on the forehead, I have venerated her, but not worshipped her. If I shake hands with a parishioner, we have venerated each other. If I kiss an image of a deceased relative, I have venerated that relative, and the same applies to images of saints.

Lets put it another way: every Sunday, a great many Anglican priests and deacons, assisted by an acolyte, use a thurible to cense the Altar, and many will kiss the altar or indeed approach it in a manner analogous to the Tridentine Mass. Still others will additionally offer incense to the graves of persons buried in the church and to icons, if there are any. Are these pious Anglican clergy guilty of idolatry? Surely not, I would say.

I think one thing is that we in the west just don't understand the eastern concepts of veneration. I think this really come into play of how some of the poetry of liturgical hymns can sound very over the top. If I were to invite a protestant to a Paraklesis to Mary, they'd faint.

To the Theotokos, let us run now most fervently,
As sinners and lowly ones,
Let us fall down in repentance,
Crying from the depths of our soul:
Lady, come and help us,
Have compassion upon us;
Hasten now for we are lost
In the host of our errors;
Do not turn your servants away,
For you alone are a hope to us.

Most Holy Theotokos, save us.

 

[Albion]

I am really surprised Albion that you are making the very common error of confusing veneration (doulia) with worship (latria). If I kiss my mother on the forehead, I have venerated her, but not worshipped her. If I shake hands with a parishioner, we have venerated each other. If I kiss an image of a deceased relative, I have venerated that relative, and the same applies to images of saints.

Well, I'm not making that mistake at all. I'm saying that there is veneration and then there is worship of God, both of which are considered forms of worship in Catholicism. You made reference to them in your post.

But that's just about the use of the word itself. Independent of that, there is a point at which veneration ceases to be giving honor, etc. and becomes worship for all intents and purposes. That happens in the Catholic Church, although once again, that isn't something that Catholics are normally willing to admit. I gave one example, but it drew no comment, so there's probably nothing more to discuss.

Lets put it another way: every Sunday, a great many Anglican priests and deacons, assisted by an acolyte, use a thurible to cense the Altar, and many will kiss the altar or indeed approach it in a manner analogous to the Tridentine Mass. Still others will additionally offer incense to the graves of persons buried in the church and to icons, if there are any. Are these pious Anglican clergy guilty of idolatry? Surely not, I would say.

It looks like you would like to move the discussion away from veneration and worship and take up the matter of idolatry instead. If so, do proceed with it.

 

[The Liturgist]

I think one thing is that we in the west just don't understand the eastern concepts of veneration. I think this really come into play of how some of the poetry of liturgical hymns can sound very over the top. If I were to invite a protestant to a Paraklesis to Mary, they'd faint.

To the Theotokos, let us run now most fervently,
As sinners and lowly ones,
Let us fall down in repentance,
Crying from the depths of our soul:
Lady, come and help us,
Have compassion upon us;
Hasten now for we are lost
In the host of our errors;
Do not turn your servants away,
For you alone are a hope to us.

Most Holy Theotokos, save us.

Not this Protestant, or indeed many Anglo-Catholics I know. We are admittedly a rare breed. That said, some Anglican and Episcopal churches in the US regularly use the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, complete with the Theotokion. There is even a club of “Eastern Rite Anglicans.” Some Orthodox I know are hostile to this, but I think it should be encouraged; what better way to inspire Orthodox values and perhaps fix some of the serious issues in the Episcopal Church than to promote the use of the unmodified Divine Liturgy, the use of which is literal Orthodoxy (Correct Worship). For my part, I aspire to be like John Wesley, actively infusing the West with the theology of the East, and beautifying Protestantism and turning it into a realization of what St. Jan Hus originally desired (a restoration of those Orthodox practices suppressed by Rome when Austria conquered Prague and the Czech and Slovak people).

The tragedy of the Reformation was that there was actually no need to form any new church, but since new churches were formed, and since some of them did a very good job in certain areas* I think the best approach to spreading Orthodoxy into the West is to inject it into the Protestant churches under the guise of the Emerging Church Movement (which left to its own devices, can produce very unpleasant and heterodox results). Of course this has to be done carefully and in a way that avoids eclecticism; perish the thought my efforts might lead to something like St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church.

*The Anglicans in particular dramatically improved attendance at the Divine Office to levels on a par with Orthodoxy, especially when Choral Evensong became ubiquitous, whereas under Rome, outside of monasteries, the Divine Office had degenerated into a private devotion.

 

[The Liturgist]

Well, I'm not making that mistake at all. I'm saying that there is veneration and then there is worship of God, both of which are considered forms of worship in Catholicism. You made reference to them in your post.

But that's just about the use of the word itself. Independent of that, there is a point at which veneration ceases to be giving honor, etc. and becomes worship for all intents and purposes. That happens in the Catholic Church, although once again, that isn't something that Catholics are normally willing to admit. I gave one example, but it drew no comment, so there's probably nothing more to discuss.


It looks like you would like to move the discussion away from veneration and worship and take up the matter of idolatry instead. If so, do proceed with it.

It seems I misunderstood your post to the Roman Catholic member. But what I meant of course was whether or not you felt the Anglicans who cense their altars, the nave of their church, icons and the graves of persons buried within the church are engaging in worship rather than veneration.

 

[Albion]

We may still not be on the same page with this discussion, but censing the altar and icons (not typical Anglican practices hereabouts!) are not about honor or respect or prayer directed at the saints. Therefore, we could discuss the appropriateness of such practices, but it isn't what had been the topic before.

And frankly, I wasn't wanting to make too big an issue out of the issue anyway. My contribution began with what was little more than a passing comment, and neither that member's comments about veneration of the saints nor my comment are likely to do the writer of the OP much good when it comes to answering the question he put to us.

 

[GreekOrthodox]

Not this Protestant, or indeed many Anglo-Catholics I know. We are admittedly a rare breed. That said, some Anglican and Episcopal churches in the US regularly use the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, complete with the Theotokion. There is even a club of “Eastern Rite Anglicans.” Some Orthodox I know are hostile to this, but I think it should be encouraged; what better way to inspire Orthodox values and perhaps fix some of the serious issues in the Episcopal Church than to promote the use of the unmodified Divine Liturgy, the use of which is literal Orthodoxy (Correct Worship).

I sort of side with those Orthodox, but not out of hostility. It takes the liturgy but leaves behind the phronema, mindset, of Orthodoxy. So for example, as we're coming up on the Triodion (three Sundays prior to the Great Fast), we are treated to the three Gospels, the Publican and the Pharisee, the Prodigal, Final Judgement and finally Forgiveness Sunday. These all lead into the Lenten season and the Fast. The week of the Publican and the Pharisee is fast-free. We learn once again that all we can say is "Lord, have mercy". The week of the Prodigal is a normal Wed/Fri fast, and we focus on the Prodigal, the Father and the other son. Final judgement is known as Meatfare Sunday where we have one last meal with meat. The final morning before Lent, The Gospel reading is the separation of the sheep and goats and the OT reading is about Adam and Eve being expelled from Eden.

The exapostelarion hymn for the Sunday reads:
We were expelled of old, O Lord, from the Garden of Eden, for wrongly eating from the tree. But, O my God and Savior, You once again have restored us through Your Cross and Your Passion. Thereby, O Master, fortify and enable us purely to finish Lent and to worship Your holy resurrection, Pascha our saving Passover, by the prayers of Your Mother.

Finally, we hit Forgiveness Sunday with the vespers service where we have to ask and receive forgiveness from all in attendance. Only then can we enter into the Joy of the Fast properly.

Like I said I'm not hostile to the Eastern liturgies being used in western services. It just is that the would feel out of place without the rest of Orthodoxy. As a convert to the EO, trying to use a Lutheran service would feel, "alien", to me now. A grand Bach organ pumping out "A Mighty Fortress" in an Eastern service, I think I'd run off screaming.

(FYI, if you've seen the Lutheran Satire video of Horus Ruins Christmas, the church in the video is my home LCMS where I grew up and was married in. Lemme tell ya, A Mighty Fortress, played correctly on that pipe organ sounds MAGNIFICENT!!)