Newly ordained priest, Fr. Seraphim Reynolds

[Light of the East]

Prayers for you! Lord have mercy!

Are you still communing in the RC church? I became Orthodox long before I actually joined the Church-fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, for example. I read so much about Orthodoxy I could have taught a catechism class by the time I entered.

What finally drove me over the line was that I no longer felt at peace in my old church. We should feel at peace, but I no longer could take communion in a place where I was not theologically in sync. I wasn’t in communion, so participating in the Lord’s Supper didn’t make sense anymore.

Now that I am Orthodox, I miss some things, but I am at peace. I say that in spite of my wife still being RC and our not being able to attend together. But I sort of felt that I was living a lie before and that caused me disquiet. Glory to God for His peace that passes all understanding.

Not communing in RC church. I am in Eastern Catholic Church.....you know, that idea of being "Orthodox in Communion with Rome."

 

[Jesus4Madrid]

Not communing in RC church. I am in Eastern Catholic Church.....you know, that idea of being "Orthodox in Communion with Rome."

Yes, but it is one RC church. You still must officially accept all those post schism dogma, which I would consider innovations, even if your local Eastern Catholic priest downplays or whitewashes those. I know. I tried to square the circle, to be Orthodox in theology within the Catholic Church. It doesn’t work. And every time one takes communion in the RC, he affirms the entire catechism of the church, not just the Orthodox bits.

I know there are Eastern Catholics who try to “understand Catholicism in an Eastern way”. That seemed to me like a form of self deception, since that is not the way the Pope understands it, so such Eastern Catholics are by definition not de facto in communion with the Pope, even if de jure they are.