GOA, Serbians, OCA, and Ukrainians in joint prayer service with...everyone!

mothcorrupteth

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Ugh. I'm all for being nice to other groups and encouraging people toward increments of the truth. But that doesn't necessitate joint services, and... the PCUSA? Really??? I mean, you don't get any more stereotypically liberal mainline. What hath Jerusalem to do with Athens?
 
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prodromos

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All4Christ

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Are they just part of the committee or are they actually concelebrating? The Chicago Metropolitis website linked on the article goes to a page not found. The actual conference talks about participating in multiple ways, not all of which include concelebrating in a unified service. To properly evaluate what happened, a more authoritative source is need imho.
 
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dzheremi

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Yeah, from looking at the archdiocese website, it says that they're members of a committee which sponsors a prayer service as part of a "Week of Prayer for Christian Unity", and is "a catalyst for ecumenical courtesy" (I guess that's like regular courtesy, but with heretics). I don't see any evidence from the website that they actually pray together, only that they sponsor this thing. You could say that's bad enough, I guess, but it is a difference.

Looking around further for general information, it seems that the "Week of Prayer for Christian Unity" was started c. 1930 by a Catholic priest, joined by Anglicans and later by other Protestants. Today it involves the World Council of Churches (which includes most EO churches, except for Georgia, Bulgaria, and Estonia), because that organization propagates preparatory materials for the week (since so many of its member churches that are Catholic or Protestant participate in it), but if you look on their website (I know...it's creepy), you see that the materials for the observance of this week are available in English, French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. That's it. No Greek, Russian, Arabic, etc. That's a pretty big clue as to who probably actually participates in the week (or at least who disseminates information about the week in their own churches), versus who is just a member of another organization that happens to sponsor it due to other members' in the same organization being among those who participate in it.

So it seems like primarily a Catholic and Protestant thing which Eastern Orthodox jurisdictions are only at best tangentially related to.
 
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All4Christ

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Yeah, from looking at the archdiocese website, it says that they're members of a committee which sponsors a prayer service as part of a "Week of Prayer for Christian Unity", and is "a catalyst for ecumenical courtesy" (I guess that's like regular courtesy, but with heretics). I don't see any evidence from the website that they actually pray together, only that they sponsor this thing. You could say that's bad enough, I guess, but it is a difference.

Looking around further for general information, it seems that the "Week of Prayer for Christian Unity" was started c. 1930 by a Catholic priest, joined by Anglicans and later by other Protestants. Today it involves the World Council of Churches (which includes most EO churches, except for Georgia, Bulgaria, and Estonia), because that organization propagates preparatory materials for the week (since so many of its member churches that are Catholic or Protestant participate in it), but if you look on their website (I know...it's creepy), you see that the materials for the observance of this week are available in English, French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. That's it. No Greek, Russian, Arabic, etc. That's a pretty big clue as to who probably actually participates in the week (or at least who disseminates information about the week in their own churches), versus who is just a member of another organization that happens to sponsor it due to other members' in the same organization being among those who participate in it.

So it seems like primarily a Catholic and Protestant thing which Eastern Orthodox jurisdictions are only at best tangentially related to.
Also, being a part of the group implies acceptance of the service being held but not the initiation directly from the Orthodox churches. It says that the “organization” sponsors it. It may be a fine nuance, but it is an important one. I can be affiliated with a political organization, for example, but disagree with some of its actions or not participate in them.

ETA: What I can say is that my experience with my parish and diocese is that they won’t concelebrate services with non-Orthodox, and while we are welcoming to all, we don’t compromise beliefs in order to be more accepting or unified with heterodox groups.
 
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ArmyMatt

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the article just mentions the group that sponsors it. it doesn't actually say who is gonna be at this particular event.

as the article stated, only the Greek Archdiocese actually had this event posted, and the event was taken down from their site.
 
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AMM

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(I guess that's like regular courtesy, but with heretics)
I laughed out loud.

On topic: the fact that this is on Francis of Assisi's feast day reminds me of the New Skete Monastery - I think they celebrate his feast as well as having icons of some non-Orthodox saints. Francis seems to be an interesting one... some sources seem to indicate that he is an Orthodox saint, whereas others take quite the opposite stance.
 
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ArmyMatt

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I laughed out loud.

On topic: the fact that this is on Francis of Assisi's feast day reminds me of the New Skete Monastery - I think they celebrate his feast as well as having icons of some non-Orthodox saints. Francis seems to be an interesting one... some sources seem to indicate that he is an Orthodox saint, whereas others take quite the opposite stance.

no, he is not a saint. he was never in the Church.
 
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