Are there major differences in belief...

[CanIHunt]

Are there major differences in belief between the Coptic/Oriental/Eastern and Aremian Orthodox Churches? Thanks.

 

[kit]

Coptic,Oriental, and Armenian Orthodox Churches are one Communion. Thus have one unified understanding. The Eastern Orthodox Church(s) are another communion.

The Eastern Orthodox (and Catholics) hold to the determination of the Council of Chalcedon and the Oriental (Coptic, Armenian, etc.) do not. The Council of Chalcedon defined the nature(s) of Christ (divine/human). You can find people in both Churches who say the differences are profound and others who say they are non-existent. I personally can't make out a difference in the distinction.

Apart from that Chalcedon thing. The two Orthodox Communions are pretty much alike.

 

[CanIHunt]

thanks

 

[rakovsky]

I think Ethiopians had some splits on christological issues in the last few centuries that got resolved?
And an Armenian bishop wrote some things on christology that maybe not everyone would agree with among OOs?
And St Severus of Antioch wrote some things on Christ having one hypostasis from two hypostases and was for a while controversial?
I am not asserting anything per se, just wanted to see if people heard of these issues.

 

[dzheremi]

I don't know of any such things in recent times, Rakovsky. The schism within the Ethiopian Church that led to their setting up an alternative synod in exile that isn't recognized by the other OO was in protest of the 1992 elevation of HH Abune Paulos, who just recently passed away in 2012. So it's not from a few centuries ago, and it doesn't have to do with Christology at all.

And St. Severus is an Orthodox saint, whether some of his writings are controversial or not.

 

[rakovsky]

Dzheremi,

About the Christological issues, see: Ethiopia By Paulos Milkias, p. 188:

There was the main Tewahedo sect... The second group was called Qebat, signifying "unction". THis sect put more importance on the announting of Christ and not on the incarnation of the Son. The third sect, called the Tsegga Lijoch (Sons of Grace), supported the teaching of three births: eternal birth... genetic birth..., and Jesus' birth from the Holy Ghost after the incarnation. Though some Ethiopian emperors were swayed by the nonOrthodox sects in earlier periods, more recent sovereigns... follow only the Tewahedo line.

And the Ethiopian Tezeta Website:

The internal stability of Ethiopian theology was not interrupted until the coming of the Portuguese Jesuits in the 16th century. Their influence brought fresh controversies concerning Christology. Thus, though there is still one official doctrine, called Tawahedo (Monophysite), stating the concept of the perfect unity of the divine and the human Christ, other formulations are now strongly supported.

Two of these, Qebat (Anointing) and Tsega (Grace), are especially significant. The first, associated with the Gojjam (Province of Gojjam) teachers, states that Jesus became a perfect man and perfect Saviour by the anointing of the Holy Spirit in the River Jordan. The other doctrine, associated with Gondar (the 17th-century capital founded by Emperor Fasilades, nicknamed " town of 44 churches ") and other monastic centres, holds that Christ was human by nature until he was changed at Jordan through a special act of Divine Grace. In the circles of sophisticated churchmen these formulations can become very important.
https://tezetaethiopia.wordpress.co...ure-of-the-ethiopian-church-by-ephraim-isaac/

The center of the debate concerned the anointing of Christ. Biblical texts (Luke4:16; Acts 4:27; 10:38) and the very name "Christ" ("Messiah," "Anointed One") teach that in some sense Jesus was anointed. Chalcedonian theology has generally understood that Christ received the appointment, power, and authority of anointing in his humanity. But the Ethiopian Orthodox Church had placedthe single nature of Christ at the center of its teaching. Therefore the question aroseamongEthiopian Orthodox Church theologians, "In what sense was Christ anointed?"

Soon after the Jesuits were expelled, two positions emerged. The
Tewahedo (Union) position stated that Christ was anointed before birth when his two natures fused into one nature. The anointing restored to Christ's humanity what was lost in Adam's fall.... However, to some Ethiopiantheologians this seemed to overly divide Christ into two natures, and so resembled theJesuit/Chalcedonianposition. Their alternative was the Qebat(Unction) position, whichstated that "the unction affected the union of both natures" , and which seems to have taught that Jesus' divine nature absorbed his humannature, a Eutychian understanding of the nature of Christ ... However, theTewahedowere afraid that this “produced adegree of subordination in the persons of the Trinity, and, moreover, tended to open theway for a continuing distinction between the Divine and Human natures of Christ”. They affirmed that the Son himself was anointer, anointed and oil of anointing.

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/papers/ets/2006/Strauss_Steve/Strauss_Steve.pdf

The article above by Dr. Strauss goes into much more detail about the exegesis and theologizing that the Tewahedo made in reaction to its disputes with the Qebat.

It is hard for me to know what to make of this as a non-OO, other than to guess that they are in accord with the other OO churches in theology and Christology.

 

[dzheremi]

Oh...the Qebat. The aforementioned Abune Paulos has a section in his Ph.D. dissertation from 1988 (Filsata: The Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and the Mariological Tradition of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church), which is available as a pdf here, that deals with them (though he calls them by the English translation, "Unctionists"). It begins on page 263 of the dissertation, in the section on heresies emerging within the EOTC, and explains that this idea began with a Jesuit missionary during the days of Emperor Susenyos (1607-1632). This missionary, one Pedro Paez, taught his heretical doctrine of adoptionism by unction and three births of Christ to the Ethiopians during this time when the Portuguese were first trying to convert Ethiopia to Roman Catholicism (which would eventually lead to all foreign missionaries being banned from Ethiopia for a few centuries), and succeeded in making a disciple of one Sanqua Eustathiowas, who thereby galvanized an adoptionist party of Ethiopians to oppose the Orthodox doctrine of the Church in these matters. The future Abune Paulos was right to describe this idea and its proliferation as "one of the worst aberrations" to arise from within the Church, though it is important here to emphasize that it (unlike some others that Abune Paulos describes in the same section) was a result of foreign ideas deliberately introduced by outsiders, rather than popular piety gone awry or something.

The dissertation is really worth saving and reading when you have the time, if you want to get an Ethiopian view on the history of their Church and its ups and downs over the centuries. It can be rather dense (it is a Princeton Ph.D. dissertation, after all), though it is quite clear and accessible just the same, and I have returned to it as a reference to answer general questions in this area relatively regularly.

 

[rakovsky]

The dissertation is really worth saving and reading when you have the time, if you want to get an Ethiopian view on the history of their Church and its ups and downs over the centuries. It can be rather dense (it is a Princeton Ph.D. dissertation, after all), though it is quite clear and accessible just the same, and I have returned to it as a reference to answer general questions in this area relatively regularly.

Yes, I think that these writings appear dense to me. Like I said, I would guess that they are the same as the rest of the OOs, it would just require a lot of effort to check, and some of the things sounded unusual at first blush from the Tewahedo, like Christ being "thrice anointed".

Probably in the case of the Armenian archbishop I would have to make a new thread to do it justice. I will PM you.

 

[dzheremi]

Like I said, I would guess that they are the same as the rest of the OOs, it would just require a lot of effort to check, and some of the things sounded unusual at first blush from the Tewahedo, like Christ being "thrice anointed".

The point, though, is that you are not distinguishing between beliefs held by some heretical sects embraced by people who were in the EOTC and what the actual Church itself believes and teaches. It seems like even your sources do that, though, since your first quote from Paulos Mikias' book begins "there was the main Tewahedo sect" (by which I take it he means the Church itself) before describing these other beliefs, which shows that the main body of the Church stood against these other people and their heresy. The dissertation makes this very clear, if you are interested.

It would be like taking a group like the Molokans and saying "Well, these people were within the Russian Orthodox Church, so I guess this is what the Russian Orthodox Church believes and practices." They may have started within it, fine, but if by virtue of what they embrace they place themselves outside of the doctrinal and practical mainstream of that Church, then it is inappropriate to take their existence as some kind of evidence of heresy on the part of the ROC. It is the same situation here. The adoptionists are no more Orthodox Tewahedo than the Molokane are Russian Orthodox.

 

[rakovsky]

You are certainly right when you say: "The adoptionists are no more Orthodox Tewahedo than the Molokane are Russian Orthodox."
I was referring to the Tewahedo's arguments against the Qebat, though.
It sounded to me like the Tewahedo's arguments were also confusing, like when it said that the Tewadeo "affirmed that the Son himself was anointer, anointed and oil of anointing."

That's why I said that my guess is that Tewahedo believe the same as the other OOs, but if I wanted to doublecheck it, I would have to get really deep into it, and it's already a dense topic.

 

[dzheremi]

Ah, I see. I'm sorry, I misunderstood you. Yes, I'm not quite what to make of this, since this was a controversy that happened among the Ethiopians as a result of the Jesuits, not in Egypt among my own Coptic Orthodox Church. And it strikes me that what you are taking as the EOTC position is apparently this Steve Strauss person's understanding of it, which he himself doesn't seem very sure about either ("this seemed to", etc.). In fact, that entire paragraph starting with "Soon after the Jesuits were expelled" is really muddled and confusing to me. I'm reading the pdf it came from right now to see if I can make some more sense of it. It seems like this person is trying to use what he understands the EOTC to be teaching to see if he or his group of Protestants can abandon Chalcedon. So this might be another case of Chalcedonians conveniently using us for whatever warped theology they have, sort of like how the Landmark Baptists tried to give themselves apostolic roots by claiming that this or that group of the past were really Baptists. I'm cautious in apporaching this Strauss guy's writing, given his background and the presuppositions that are likely behind it, and you should be tpp. Note that I linked you to a dissertation by an actual EOTC person (one who later became Patriarch, no less), not an outsider trying to claim this or that about the EOTC for his own reasons.

(It should be said that the other Wordpress site that you found is suspect, too, as Dr. Ephreim Issac is not EOTC, either; he is an Ethiopian Jew with a certain special academic interest in the EOTC, but it should be said that the book he recently produced about it has been criticized by EOTC people for its misunderstanding and false claims about basic EOTC doctrines and history. Again, if you want to know about the EOTC or any OO church, it is better to stick with OO sources, and be very careful in what you take away from Jewish and Protestant ones.)

Anyway, I will read Strauss' paper now and see what he's on about.

 

[rakovsky]

Yes, that's a good point, Dzheremi. i just used it because I couldn't find alot on this topic!!