Purgatory And Prayers For The Dead.

[Xeno.of.athens]

Here's some interesting depictions of purgatory:

All who enter purgatory will come out from it and be received into heaven, there to behold God face to face in the beatific vision. The souls in purgatory are being purged of their faults, all of their sins are forgiven, and in purgatory they sin no more, yet their character and desires are still in need to cleansing until they are perfected by the grace of God and the prayers of the saints.

 

[ozso]

So I suppose the answer to this question, as I have explained above, is “yes.” For this reason, the Eastern Orthodox regard even recent saints as Fathers, for example, St. Symeon the New Theologian and St. Gregory Palamas, who lived in the twilight of the Byzantine Empire, and the Athonite monks St. Nicodemus the Hagiorite and St. Macarius of Corinth, who compiled the Philokalia, an anthology of earlier Patristic writings (not to be confused with the Philocalia, an anthology of the better writings of Origen compiled by the Cappadocians, in the 4th century, which basically includes his best Orthodox material while omitting some of his material that was of a more controversial nature, for example, where he speculated about metempsychosis and transmigration of souls), and St. Nicodemus also compiled the Pedalion, which is probably the most complete collection of the canons of the early Church (notice I do not say Canon Law, since Canon can literally be interpreted as Guideline, and that is how they are used in Orthodoxy, with bishops having the flexibility to apply a canon strictly (with Akrivia) or to relax it (Oikonomia), based on pastoral needs, and a major part of the formation of a prospective bishop and what is considered before ordaining one is whether or not they have the needed spiritual discernment, discretion and Orthodox faith to be able to exercise that kind of authority, which is why most bishops were, prior to becoming bishops, the abbots of monasteries, or monastic priests (hieromonks) or archpriests (archimandrites). Likewise, the Russian ascetic St. Seraphim of Sarov, who provided spiritual advise to people who visited his hermitage, and is much loved, being something of the Orthodox equivalent of St. Francis of Assisi, albeit St. Seraphim did not establish any order or engage in any grand organizational plan, but simply provided extremely good spiritual advice and infused some much needed spiritual fire into the Russian church, which had become stale and lukewarm after Czar Peter, in violation of all the ancient canons, refused to allow a new Patriarch to be appointed to replace Nikhon, removed all but three bishops from the Holy Synod, and added a fourth member, a layman, called the Imperial Procurator, as his representative (who controlled the purse strings and thus effectively became a sort of secular crypto-patriarch; this resulted in a phenomenon we call Caesaropapism, in which the leadership of the church is undermined or subverted by the national government, or conversely, in the case of the Roman Catholic Church, wherein the church government acquired territory and became a powerful national government in its own right, one that lasted for around twelve centuries as the sole government of the ancient city of Rome). Likewise, St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, a bishop and monastic writer whose work for monks, “The Arena”, and whose book for laity, “On the Prayer of Jesus”, became a leading 19th century Church Father, and also helped to revitalize the spirituality of the Russian church, and this is also true of St. John of Kronstadt, who helped to popularize weekly confession and reception of the Eucharist, and attracted many pilgrims to his church, where everyone would confess their sins before the service (this was done, because there were too many pilgrims for St. John to hear all of their confessions individually, by having everyone shout their sins as loudly as possible at once, which preserved privacy and was an effective system), and then would receive the Eucharist.

Now his practice was an extraordinary solution to a systemic problem, which helped revitalize the Russian, Ukrainian, Belarussian, Finnish, Baltic, Moldovan, Japanese and Central Asian churches (also at this time almost all Orthodox churches in America were either Russian or were ethnically Antiochian, but the Antiochian parishes operated together with the Russian parishes until the confusion caused by the situation in the Soviet Union that resulted in various Russian Orthodox churches winding up as part of ROCOR, or the Metropolia, which would later become the Orthodox Church of America after receiving a Tomos of Autocephaly from Moscow in 1970, with a few remaining under the Moscow Patriarchate directly, this naturally resulted in the Antiochians having their own hierarchy in North America, but there is a discernable Slavonic influence, for example, many Antiochian churches use music that is equivalent to that of English speaking OCA, ROCOR, MP and Bulgarian Orthodox parishes). Because what St. John of Kronstadt accomplished in terms of pastoral care and revitalizing frequent communion, without allowing it to become casual communion, by insisting on preparation through confession and so on, his book My Life In Christ can be considered another example of a 19th century Patristic work. And there are 20th century Church Fathers as well, such as St. Tikhon of Moscow, who died under abusive conditions in a Soviet prison in the early 1920s, and St. Rafael Hawaheeny of Brooklyn, who during the aforementioned period where the Antiochian churches in North America operated with the Russians (which at the time included Ukrainians, Belarussians and other citizens of the Russian Empire) in a unified hireararchy, when St. Tikhon of Moscow was the Archbishop of New York and of the Americas (or perhaps the Metropolitan; the title is Metropolitan today; I can’t remember off hand what his title was in the 1900s), served as the coadjutator bishop together with St. Tikhon, leading the Antiochian part of the church, and the two men worked well together until the Czar abdicated and St. Tikhon was recalled to Moscow, where he was made the first Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia since the death of Patriarch Adrian in 1700. More recently, we have St. John Maximovitch of Shanghai and San Francisco, and St. Alexis Toth, among American Eastern Orthodox saints, and in the Coptic Orthodox church there is Thrice Blessed Bishop Karas, who is one step away from becoming a saint, who founded St. Anthony’s Monastery near Barstow, California.

Importantly, if you read the writings of these 19th century fathers, you will find them consistent with the fathers of the first millenium. For a poignant example, compare Orthodox Dogmatic Theology by Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky, translated into English by Fr. Seraphim Rose, with The Fount of Knowledge, including The Exact Exposition of The Orthodox Faith, by St. John of Damascus. With such a comparison, you will notice a lack of any doctrinal variation between the two books, the only difference being the manner in which they organize and present information, and also the fact that Orthodox Dogmatic Theology includes refutations of Roman Catholic and Protestant doctrines which did not exist at the time St. John of Damascus wrote The Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith and the other parts of the Fount of Knowledge (the most interesting of which is a section on heresies, including one of the first descriptions of Islam by an early church father). There is also some philosophical material in the Fount of Knowledge lacking in Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, which is more narrowly focused, but the two works are completely compatible in all doctrinal respects.

And don’t take my word for it; examine them for yourself, as they both make fantastic reading material.

With regards to all of the material I have mentioned to you in the course of this thread, I can connect you with copies of it.

Okay, I read through all of that and understood little of it. I'd have to spend hours just looking up all of the numerous references given. If I had already spent years learning all of this in seminary and or self study and had a photographic memory or close to it, then I'd probably readily understand these kinds of posts. But like most, I don't have that kind of background.

Now something like this is readily understandable:

Who were the early church fathers? | GotQuestions.org

Who were the early church fathers? What were the beliefs and practices of the early Christian church fathers?

www.gotquestions.org

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

Okay, I read through all of that and understood little of it. I'd have to spend hours just looking up all of the numerous references given. If I had already spent years learning all of this in seminary and or self study and had a photographic memory or close to it, then I'd probably readily understand these kinds of posts. But like most, I don't have that kind of background.

With google assistant and Bing copilot, and some judicious reading of links from searches all the historical background can be found. It is not thousands of pages and does not take decades to acquire.

 

[The Liturgist]

So Orthodox teaching is that after death we will suffer a frightening experience?

Not necessarily; it is complex. I would ordinarily be happy to provide an overview of the different concepts but the problem is, it is a complex subject and you seem to have an aversion to long posts and there is no way I could attain the brevity you desire without misleading you as to the correct doctrine through oversimplification. And frankly I am not sure if anyone on the forum can explain the different Eastern Orthodox conceptualizations of what happens to the soul after death, since there are at least three different theories I am aware of, and the principal commonality between them is found in the liturgical services held after an Orthodox Christian reposes. Oriental Orthodoxy is similar but not identical and not as well understood in the West, and the same is true for the Assyrian Church of the East.

However since it is topical if other users want to know, and if my Eastern and Oriental Orthodox friends @prodromos @Lukaris @HTacianas @dzheremi and another new member whose name I keep forgetting don’t want to get into it, I might cover it.

For the time being I recommend Orthodox Dogmatic Theology by Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky, The Orthodox Church and The Orthodox Way by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, and for a detailed look at one of the three theories, The Soul After Dearh by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware. I would of course suggest these works anyway, so I suppose no matter what I will be accused of demanding hundreds of hours of time to find and research the books, despite the fact that I have offered to assist members in accessing any of the books I recommend, and of requiring a photographic memory, despite the fact that I lack such a memory, and as far as an MDiv is concerned, my knowledge of the liturgy and of Eastern Christianity did not come from there, and indeed the seminary in question is so over the top in liberalism that I have disowned it, and one of these days I’m probably going to remove my diploma from its mounting and toss it in the garbage. The unfortunate fact is that In the US, the universities tend to have the worst divinity schools, with a few exceptions. Actually, the best Anglican, Lutheran and Orthodox divinity schools in the US are more or less free-standing institutions (such as Concordia Theological Seminary on the Lutheran side, Nashotah House and St. Joseph of Arimathea on the Anglican side, or St. Vladimir’s on the Orthodox side) or are in some Orthodox cases associated with a monastery (St. Tikhon’s and Holy Trinity).

 

[BNR32FAN]

Jesus never spoke against pedophilia either, that doesn't mean we should practice it.

It's too late to pray for the dead.

Not true, God being both omniscient and omnipresent can take our prayers for the dead into consideration before they actually died. This is one reason why prayers for the dead is not necessarily evidence supporting purgatory.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

That the practice of praying for the dead has descended from Apostolic times is evident also from the Liturgies of the Church. A Liturgy is the established formulary of public worship, containing the authorized prayers of the Church. The Missal, or Mass-book, for instance, which you see on our altars, contains a portion of the Liturgy of the Catholic Church. The principal Liturgies are the Liturgy of St. James the Apostle, who founded the Church of Jerusalem; the Liturgy of St. Mark the Evangelist, founder of the Church of Alexandria, and the Liturgy of St. Peter, who established the Church in Rome. These Liturgies are called after the Apostles who compiled them. There are, besides, the Liturgies of St. Chrysostom and St. Basil, which are chiefly based on the model of that of St. James.

Now, all these Liturgies, without exception, have prayers for the dead, and their providential preservation serves as another triumphant vindication of the venerable antiquity of this Catholic doctrine.

The Eastern and the Western churches were happily united until the fourth and fifth centuries, when the heresiarchs Arius, Nestorius and Eutyches withdrew millions of souls from the centre of unity. The followers of these sects were called, after their founders, Arians, Nestorians and Eutychians, and from that day to the present the two latter bodies have formed distinct communions, being separated from the Catholic Church in the East, just as the Protestant churches are separated from her in the West.

The Greek schismatic church, of which the present Russo-Greek church is the offspring, severed her connection with the See of Rome in the ninth century.

But in leaving the Catholic Church these Eastern sects retained the old Liturgies, which they use to this day, as I shall presently demonstrate.

Cardinal Gibbons writes, "During my sojourn in Rome at the Ecumenical Council I devoted a great deal of my leisure time to the examination of the various Liturgies of the schismatic churches of the East. I found in all of them formulas of prayers for the dead almost identical with that of the Roman Missal: “Remember, O Lord, Thy servants who are gone before us with the sign of faith, and sleep in peace. To these, O Lord, and to all who rest in Christ grant, we beseech Thee, a place of refreshment, light and peace, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.”

"Not content with studying their books, I called upon the Oriental Patriarchs and Bishops in communion with the See of Rome, who belong to the Armenian, the Chaldean, the Coptic, the Maronite and Syriac rites. They all assured me that the schismatic Christians of the East among whom they live have, without exception, prayers and sacrifices for the dead."

Now, I ask, when could those Eastern sects have commenced to adopt the Catholic practice of praying for the dead? They could not have received it from us since the ninth century, because the Greek church separated from us then and has had no communion with us since that time, except at intervals, up to the twelfth century. Nor could they have adopted the practice since the fourth or fifth century, inasmuch as the Arians, Nestorians and Eutychians have had no religious communication with us since that period. Therefore, in common with us, they received this doctrine from the Apostles. If men living in different countries drink wine having the same flavour and taste and colour, the inference is that the wine was made from the same species of grape. So must we conclude that this refreshing doctrine of intercession for the dead has its root in the Apostolic tree of knowledge planted by our Savior.

 

[BNR32FAN]

The Catholic Church teaches that, besides a place of eternal torments for the wicked and of everlasting rest for the righteous, there exists in the next life a middle state of temporary punishment, allotted for those who have died in venial sin, or who have not satisfied the justice of God for sins already forgiven. She also teaches us that, although the souls consigned to this intermediate state, commonly called purgatory, cannot help themselves, they may be aided by the suffrages of the faithful on earth. The existence of purgatory naturally implies the correlative dogma—the utility of praying for the dead—for the souls consigned to this middle state have not reached the term of their journey. They are still exiles from heaven and fit subjects for Divine clemency.

The doctrine of an intermediate state is thus succinctly asserted by the Council of Trent: “There is a Purgatory, and souls there detained, are helped by the prayers of the faithful, and especially by the acceptable Sacrifice of the Altar.”

It is to be noted that the Council studiously abstains from specifying the nature of the expiating sufferings endured therein.

Is it not strange that this cherished doctrine should also be called in question by the levelling innovators of the sixteenth century, when we consider that it is clearly taught in the Old Testament; that it is, at least, insinuated in the New Testament; that it is unanimously proclaimed by the Fathers of the Church; that it is embodied in all the ancient liturgies of the Oriental and the Western church, and that it is a doctrine alike consonant with our reason and eminently consoling to the human heart?

Is it coincidental that the doctrine of purgatory was conveniently formulated during the time when the abuse of indulgences was at an all time high? Especially since the Roman Churches would only pray for the deceased if their loved ones gave donations to the church? This still happens on a daily basis in the Philippines which is primarily Roman Catholic. When someone dies the priests tell their family members that they must pay the church typically around 5000 pesos which is equivalent to about $100 US and only if they pay the donation the priests will pray to Mary so that she will intercede on the deceased’s behalf so that they will be released from purgatory without having to endure the full purification process. Basically if you pay the church money they no longer have to undergo the purification process they’re somehow purified just by giving the church money. If you can’t pay or refuse to pay they won’t pray for the person. The church was actually selling forgiveness of sins beginning in the 12th century and went on into at least the 16th century which was a huge contribution to the Reformation by the protestants. Not to mention that this was right smack dab in the middle of the inquisitions which gives reasonable question as to the leadership of the church during this time.

 

[BNR32FAN]

That the practice of praying for the dead has descended from Apostolic times is evident also from the Liturgies of the Church. A Liturgy is the established formulary of public worship, containing the authorized prayers of the Church. The Missal, or Mass-book, for instance, which you see on our altars, contains a portion of the Liturgy of the Catholic Church. The principal Liturgies are the Liturgy of St. James the Apostle, who founded the Church of Jerusalem; the Liturgy of St. Mark the Evangelist, founder of the Church of Alexandria, and the Liturgy of St. Peter, who established the Church in Rome. These Liturgies are called after the Apostles who compiled them. There are, besides, the Liturgies of St. Chrysostom and St. Basil, which are chiefly based on the model of that of St. James.

Now, all these Liturgies, without exception, have prayers for the dead, and their providential preservation serves as another triumphant vindication of the venerable antiquity of this Catholic doctrine.

The Eastern and the Western churches were happily united until the fourth and fifth centuries, when the heresiarchs Arius, Nestorius and Eutyches withdrew millions of souls from the centre of unity. The followers of these sects were called, after their founders, Arians, Nestorians and Eutychians, and from that day to the present the two latter bodies have formed distinct communions, being separated from the Catholic Church in the East, just as the Protestant churches are separated from her in the West.

The Greek schismatic church, of which the present Russo-Greek church is the offspring, severed her connection with the See of Rome in the ninth century.

But in leaving the Catholic Church these Eastern sects retained the old Liturgies, which they use to this day, as I shall presently demonstrate.

Cardinal Gibbons writes, "During my sojourn in Rome at the Ecumenical Council I devoted a great deal of my leisure time to the examination of the various Liturgies of the schismatic churches of the East. I found in all of them formulas of prayers for the dead almost identical with that of the Roman Missal: “Remember, O Lord, Thy servants who are gone before us with the sign of faith, and sleep in peace. To these, O Lord, and to all who rest in Christ grant, we beseech Thee, a place of refreshment, light and peace, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.”

"Not content with studying their books, I called upon the Oriental Patriarchs and Bishops in communion with the See of Rome, who belong to the Armenian, the Chaldean, the Coptic, the Maronite and Syriac rites. They all assured me that the schismatic Christians of the East among whom they live have, without exception, prayers and sacrifices for the dead."

Now, I ask, when could those Eastern sects have commenced to adopt the Catholic practice of praying for the dead? They could not have received it from us since the ninth century, because the Greek church separated from us then and has had no communion with us since that time, except at intervals, up to the twelfth century. Nor could they have adopted the practice since the fourth or fifth century, inasmuch as the Arians, Nestorians and Eutychians have had no religious communication with us since that period. Therefore, in common with us, they received this doctrine from the Apostles. If men living in different countries drink wine having the same flavour and taste and colour, the inference is that the wine was made from the same species of grape. So must we conclude that this refreshing doctrine of intercession for the dead has its root in the Apostolic tree of knowledge planted by our Savior.

God being both omniscient and omnipresent can take prayers for the dead into consideration before the person actually died. He knew every prayer that would ever be prayed before creation. So this is not conclusive evidence to support the doctrine of purgatory.

 

[BNR32FAN]

That the practice of praying for the dead has descended from Apostolic times is evident also from the Liturgies of the Church. A Liturgy is the established formulary of public worship, containing the authorized prayers of the Church. The Missal, or Mass-book, for instance, which you see on our altars, contains a portion of the Liturgy of the Catholic Church. The principal Liturgies are the Liturgy of St. James the Apostle, who founded the Church of Jerusalem; the Liturgy of St. Mark the Evangelist, founder of the Church of Alexandria, and the Liturgy of St. Peter, who established the Church in Rome. These Liturgies are called after the Apostles who compiled them. There are, besides, the Liturgies of St. Chrysostom and St. Basil, which are chiefly based on the model of that of St. James.

Now, all these Liturgies, without exception, have prayers for the dead, and their providential preservation serves as another triumphant vindication of the venerable antiquity of this Catholic doctrine.

The Eastern and the Western churches were happily united until the fourth and fifth centuries, when the heresiarchs Arius, Nestorius and Eutyches withdrew millions of souls from the centre of unity. The followers of these sects were called, after their founders, Arians, Nestorians and Eutychians, and from that day to the present the two latter bodies have formed distinct communions, being separated from the Catholic Church in the East, just as the Protestant churches are separated from her in the West.

The Greek schismatic church, of which the present Russo-Greek church is the offspring, severed her connection with the See of Rome in the ninth century.

But in leaving the Catholic Church these Eastern sects retained the old Liturgies, which they use to this day, as I shall presently demonstrate.

Cardinal Gibbons writes, "During my sojourn in Rome at the Ecumenical Council I devoted a great deal of my leisure time to the examination of the various Liturgies of the schismatic churches of the East. I found in all of them formulas of prayers for the dead almost identical with that of the Roman Missal: “Remember, O Lord, Thy servants who are gone before us with the sign of faith, and sleep in peace. To these, O Lord, and to all who rest in Christ grant, we beseech Thee, a place of refreshment, light and peace, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.”

"Not content with studying their books, I called upon the Oriental Patriarchs and Bishops in communion with the See of Rome, who belong to the Armenian, the Chaldean, the Coptic, the Maronite and Syriac rites. They all assured me that the schismatic Christians of the East among whom they live have, without exception, prayers and sacrifices for the dead."

Now, I ask, when could those Eastern sects have commenced to adopt the Catholic practice of praying for the dead? They could not have received it from us since the ninth century, because the Greek church separated from us then and has had no communion with us since that time, except at intervals, up to the twelfth century. Nor could they have adopted the practice since the fourth or fifth century, inasmuch as the Arians, Nestorians and Eutychians have had no religious communication with us since that period. Therefore, in common with us, they received this doctrine from the Apostles. If men living in different countries drink wine having the same flavour and taste and colour, the inference is that the wine was made from the same species of grape. So must we conclude that this refreshing doctrine of intercession for the dead has its root in the Apostolic tree of knowledge planted by our Savior.

I would also point out that the entire patriarchy sided against Rome and adopted the name Orthodox Church. The pentarchy consisted of the bishops of Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. These 5 bishops governed the churches in their jurisdiction. When the schism of 1054 took place all of the other bishops sided against Rome. So I wouldn’t exactly say that they left but more like Rome was excommunicated since the church has always been governed by ecumenical council and in a council setting one member can’t overrule all other members. Now there was never an ecumenical council held on this particular subject since there was no dispute on the matter it was already unanimously decided so no reason to hold an official council on a subject that is already unanimously decided.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

Is it coincidental that the doctrine of purgatory was conveniently formulated during the time when the abuse of indulgences was at an all time high?

That claim is not correct. Purgatory and prayers for the dead go back to Judaism before the birth of Christ.

 

[BNR32FAN]

All who enter purgatory will come out from it and be received into heaven, there to behold God face to face in the beatific vision. The souls in purgatory are being purged of their faults, all of their sins are forgiven, and in purgatory they sin no more, yet their character and desires are still in need to cleansing until they are perfected by the grace of God and the prayers of the saints.

Paul said in Colossians 1:22-23

“yet He has NOW reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister.”
‭‭Colossians‬ ‭1‬:‭22‬-‭23‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬

If we are.NOW reconciled there is no reason for further forgiveness.

 

[BNR32FAN]

That claim is not correct. Purgatory and prayers for the dead go back to Judaism before the birth of Christ.

Before Christ no one knew anything about how we would be forgiven for our sins and prayers for the dead in Maccabees is irrelevant to Christ’s birth. God was still omniscient and omnipresent before Christ’s birth.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

I would also point out that the entire patriarchy sided against Rome and adopted the name Orthodox Church.

That claim is similar to saying "The entire Lutheran, Anglican, and dozens of reformed, and anabaptist churches sided against Rome", which while true is quite insignificant.

 

[The Liturgist]

Okay, I read through all of that and understood little of it.

Anything you don’t understand, I am happy to clarify. Rather than just criticizing my work as being somehow academically inaccessible and the product of an MDiv education (which it is not; I learned very little about the early church in Divinity School and even less about liturgics and Eastern Christianity, the emphasis rather being on the liberal postmodern theology that has basically destroyed the United Church of Christ, causing it to lose the majority of its members and causing it to earn the derisive nickname “Unitarians Considering Christ”, rather, my knowledge of the Eastern Church and of liturgics was formed long after I had left the halls of academia and the liberal mainline church, while simultaneously working as a freelance software developer specializing in embedded systems programming, which is fun but particularly challenging, since it consists of programming the very simple computers that run anything from a television, a microwave oven or a wireless router to the process control computers such as SCADA systems used in industrial automation, or other hard real-time applications in safety critical environments. So the time I had available to study this material was negligible. Suffice it to say, if I can do it, and if my friend @MarkRohfrietsch who works in an equally demanding technical profession can do it, in terms of the advanced knowledge he has acquired regarding Lutheran theology and his ordination as a deacon, I daresay you can do it also.

I'd have to spend hours just looking up all of the numerous references given.

No, you wouldn’t. As I believe I stated in the post, I am available to help members of ChristianForums obtain easy access to any of the materials I cite in my works (with a few exceptions, certain books which are expensive and not in the public domain, like the Oxford History of Christian Worship or the Oxford Guide to the Book of Common Prayer, or the nine volume Cambridge History of Christianity, but you will note that I did not cite those publications.

If I had already spent years learning all of this in seminary and or self study and had a photographic memory or close to it, then I'd probably readily understand these kinds of posts. But like most, I don't have that kind of background.

I don’t have a photographic memory, I don’t know of anyone on ChristianForums who does have a photographic memory, and the only members who have MDivs who I routinely engage in discussions with, when we have discussions, we primarily talk about issues relating to pastoral care and the proper governance of a parish church.

[quote[
Now something like this is readily understandable:
[/QUOTE]

It also varies from being a gross oversimplification to being wildly inaccurate. For example, it includes Eusebius of Caesarea as an early church father, despite the fact that he was a semi-Arian who protested the actions at the Council of Nicaea but then melodramatically signed the document, as if he were under duress (which he was not). His history of the church is regarded as being of dubious accuracy, his Life of Constantine is sycophantic, and smacks of being a part of the effort of Arians, led by Eusebius of Nicomedia, to cozy up to the Emperor and his family in order to bypass the Council of Nicaea, a plot in which they were successful, resulting in decades of persecutions of Christians by the Arian emperors from Constantius through Valens, and also, it was not so much St. Ambrose who was responsible for the conversion of St. Augustine as his own mother. The article also follows the Great Apostasy trope that we see from Adventists, Landmark Baptists, adherents of various other Restorationist denominations such as the Plymouth Brethren and the Churches of Christ, and which has also increasingly been adopted by fundamentalist Calvinists and non-denominational Evangelicals, many of whom take their Eschatology wholesale from John Nelson Darby, founder of the Plymouth Brethren. Lastly, the article perpetuates the false dichotomy of Protestantism vs. Roman Catholicism, completely ignoring the existence of the Eastern churches, which is perhaps its most infuriating defect of all.

I suppose my greatest criticism of the article is that it buys into the hagiographic descriptions of certain Early Church Fathers when it suits it, and then makes an unsubstantiated claim that defending the Gospel against heresy resulted in a loss of doctrinal orthodoxy, the development of Roman Catholic theological errors, and a loss of focus on transmitting the Gospel in its pure form. In making this assertion, it does not explain why this is so; it does not mention any specific Church Fathers who defended the Gospel against heresy in a manner that was detrimental to evangelization (because there were none), and it also seeks to deflect attention away from this unsupported statement with a strategically placed declaration of the usual Nuda Scriptura argument along with a statement of the Infallibility of Scripture, ignoring the fact that for the Post-Nicene as well as the Ante-Nicene Fathers, the four canonical Gospels, and certain other writings whose canonicity was never disputed, were central to their faith, and once the New Testament canon was finalized by St. Athanasius, who the article does not even mention despite him doing that, and almost single-handedly defeating Arianism, not just at the Council of Nicaea, but through enduring decades of exile during which time he built a coalition of fellow Christian bishops who were ready, when the Arian emperor Valens was succeeded by a Christian emperor, to convene another ecumenical council and ensure that the Arian heresy was disposed of, by closing the loopholes inadvertently included in the initial version of the Nicene Creed that some Arian heretics as well as others, such as the Pneumatomacchians, who denied that the Holy Spirit was God, a person of the Holy Trinity, and the Apollinarians, who claimed that our Lord had a human body but a divine soul, and also subscribed to chiliasm.

Also I would note the article provides no citations to back up any of its claims, and thus fails the most basic standards of academic and intellectual rigor. Everything I have asserted in this thread can be verified by reading the aformentioned books on the history of the Orthodox Church, and also through the Cambridge History of Christianity, the Blackwell Companion to Eastern Christianity, and other sources. For that matter, I anticipate that Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican and Roman Catholic members will endorse my appraisal of that article, such as my friends @prodromos @Lukaris @dzheremi @MarkRohfrietsch @ViaCrucis @Ain't Zwinglian @Jipsah @chevyontheriver @Michie and @Valletta .

Basically, Patristics is too rich and complicated a subject to be crammed into three paragraphs, since at a minimum, it concerns itself with the activity of the Christian Church during the first 500-1000 years of its existence, and even the question of how long the Patristic era lasted before, for example, the start of the Scholastic Era in the Roman Church, where St. John of Damascus is regarded as the last Early Church Father, and subsequent leaders like St. Odo of Cluny, Anselm of Canterbury, Thomas Aquinas and so on were not Early Church Fathers but rather Schoolmen, who would later benefit from various works of antiquity such as the writings of Aristotle being translated into Latin from Arabic, into which they had been translated from Greek and Syriac manuscripts by monks of the Syriac Orthodox Church and the Assyrian Church of the East.

 

[BNR32FAN]

That claim is similar to saying "The entire Lutheran, Anglican, and dozens of reformed, and anabaptist churches sided against Rome", which while true is quite insignificant.

No because Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem were all apostolic churches, those were never affiliated with the Catholic Church.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

No because Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem were all apostolic churches, those were never affiliated with the Catholic Church.

Every last one of them was Catholic, Orthodox is a later name adopted by the Eastern Patriarchs. Nevertheless, until 431 AD there was just one Church and it called itself Catholic.

 

[Terri Dactyl]

That claim is not correct. Purgatory and prayers for the dead go back to Judaism before the birth of Christ.

Not in the Bible. It is in Macabees and also the Mourning Kaddish which was practiced by the the Jews is by tradition and not part of Torah or the biblical prophets.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

Not in the Bible. It is in Macabees

Maccabees is in my bible, starts on page 445, right after Esther and just before Job.

 

[The Liturgist]

That claim is not correct. Purgatory and prayers for the dead go back to Judaism before the birth of Christ.

Prayers for the dead, at least. Purgatory is another matter altogether; I cannot find any definitive evidence of the doctrine as it was explained by Scholastic theologians and also in Dante’s Divine Comedy before the Great Schism caused by the Roman Catholics excommunicating the Eastern Orthodox, and perpetuated by violence committed against Eastern Christians by crusaders, up to and including acts of cannibalism when Crusader forces ran low on food while transiting the mountains on the coast of Syria and in Lebanon, as well as various acts of pillaging, ransacking and otherwise inflicting catastrophic damage on Christian towns in the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Caliphate.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

Prayers for the dead, at least. Purgatory is another matter altogether; I cannot find any definitive evidence of the doctrine as it was explained by Scholastic theologians and also in Dante’s Divine Comedy before the Great Schism caused by the Roman Catholics excommunicating the Eastern Orthodox, and perpetuated by violence committed against Eastern Christians by crusaders, up to and including acts of cannibalism when Crusader forces ran low on food while transiting the mountains on the coast of Syria and in Lebanon, as well as various acts of pillaging, ransacking and otherwise inflicting catastrophic damage on Christian towns in the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Caliphate.

The east has mountains of complaints from the past, the west has too; what good do they do?

Purgatory is just a word; it signifies the state between a Christian's death and their reception into the presence of God in the beatific vision. What one thinks it is like is a matter for the Church to teach. Eastern churches believe such a state exists but do not teach anything definitive about it. That is fine. The Catholic Church does teach something definitive about it and that is ever better.