Reason, Intellect, and Understanding in Orthodoxy and Western Christianity

[dzheremi]

Hello all,

In this thread on the differences in the approach to the Eucharist in Catholicism and Orthodoxy, some of the posts from our Western Christian friends seem to show an understanding of Orthodoxy that supposes that Orthodoxy treats reason as something bad, or to be neglected, or to be mocked if someone should find some use of it.

I do not think that this is at all the case, and I believe that such things are a result of misunderstanding the emphasis in Orthodoxy vis-a-vis Western Christianity, such that the Westerners are "scholastic" while the Orthodox are "mystical" or whatever you'd like to call it. As easy as that is to say, I think it's much harder to substantiate in a way that makes sense to the Western Christian (if you're Orthodox and looking at Western Christianity) or to the Orthodox (if you're a Western Christian and looking at Orthodoxy), so it seems that we spend an awful lot of time talking past each other because we do not necessarily understand or connect with where the person from another tradition is coming from.

With that in mind, I thought it might be good to share things from our own traditions that address the mind, the intellect, understanding, and reason. My purpose here is only to show that, no, Orthodoxy is not in any way predicated on a deprecation of such things, only a different emphasis that is not dependent on them in exactly the same fashion as in certain forms of Western Christianity. I do not wish to denigrate Western Christianity, and would appreciate it if anyone posting here would not take this as an opportunity to do so.

As I am Coptic Orthodox, I will be offering examples from my own Church and communion. I welcome others to offer their own examples from their own.

+++

First I will point out something that is kind of a formulaic introduction by a certain point in medieval Coptic writings in Arabic, as you can find in, for example, books like Ibn Kabar's (14th century) The Lamp that Lights the Darkness in Clarifying the Service, which begins "Glory be to God who enlightens the minds, and guides the souls by His proof, and
cleanses the understanding by the teachings of his Church; and educates the intellect with the sciences of His laws..." (and on and on like this).

Earlier examples of similar preambles, such as is found in the great bishop Severus El Ashmunein (Severus Ibn Al Muqaffa') in his Lamp of the Intellect (10th century) appear to likewise take it as a given that God directly enlightens us to know what we may know, but do not necessarily mention proofs and sciences. HG writes, after bringing many examples from the scriptures of what he intends to prove (as a defense of the faith against the charges of those outside of the Church), "I have entreated God, blessed and exalted be His name, and I have told you what has been made known to me; I have informed you of that which I have been successful in [attempting] to understand and know. If it is right, it is from the Holy Spirit speaking through our mouths, and uttering by means of our tongues; and if it is wrong, it is our shortcoming, weakness, error, and heedlessness. But do not take offense at our error, and may our fault not be gross in your eyes. Be content with what we have set forth for you, for we have laboured, explained, condensed and expounded, and have refrained from arguing each point and refuting [our] opponents, for these things are mentioned in the books which are suitable for them; and from God comes success and support."

And earlier than either of these, and from the Syriac Orthodox rather than the Coptic tradition, we have the very interesting preamble to A Homily on the Blessed Mar Severus, Patriarch of Antioch by Mar George, Bishop of the Arabs (d. 724). It is interesting to consider that this is a hagiographical work, which you may conceivably think does not require a great recourse to anything outside of the received tradition concerning the saint in question, and yet its opening paragraphs contain the following prayer to the Lord Jesus Christ:

Behold, I dare to measure the waters of the sea in my hands, although the hollow of my hand could not even contain a cup of water. Now I plan to count the sand of the sea, although I am not clever in the counting of all the seas. Behold, I dare to measure in the palms of my hands the dust of the earth, although my palms cannot hold even a pound of soil. I am trying to count with my fingers the stars of the heights, although I have only ten fingers on my hands.

Lord of the Universe, of the seas and of the earth and also of the sky, my trust is in You; help me as You are accustomed to do; Oh He who perfects His strength in the weak, as He said, perfect Your strength in me, and I shall be made strong by You for the narration.
​

+++

What if anything can be made of these short examples, three among tens of thousands, concerning the attitude of those in these traditions towards the intellect, reason, and understanding? In all three it is by the direct intervention and guidance of God that we are capable of knowing or doing anything, whether that is by the "proofs" and "sciences" of Ibn Kabar, the measured successes and crowning humility of Severus El Ashmunein, or the daring reliance on the strength of God displayed by Mar George, who compares even speaking of the blessedness of his predecessor of some centuries to every impossible thing he can think of. And there is in these a sense of limitation, that the Lord should set before His holy ones that which may only be accomplished in their unceasing prayers to Him, and reliance directly upon Him, and their use as His instrument ("...speaking through our mouths, and uttering by means of our tongues").

Intellect, understanding, and reason are not necessarily in themselves the/a problem -- they are just not the focus of Christian prayer or life more generally. The focus is on supplication before the Lord and His direct guidance and sustaining of the life of the Church and its shepherds and believers. It is through Him and only Him that we have any understanding whatsoever, as we pray in the litany of the 9th hour prayer of Good Friday in the Coptic tradition "Let my supplication come before You O Lord; give me understanding according to Your word. Let my prayer come before You and revive me according to Your word." The understanding -- the illumination and transformation of our minds -- is according to the word of God, given by Him directly to us, not as mediated according to this or that school of philosophy or principle. (Which is not to say that such philosophical traditions don't exist or are somehow 'bad' for existing; to be sure, they have helped to shape the traditions of Alexandria, Antioch, and so on. But again, these are not to be held up as things; Christ our God is the One who gives light to every man that comes into the world, not "the Alexandrian tradition" as a thing...and I write this as someone of the Alexandrian tradition!)

So I would say that indeed there is a kind of reason(ing) and understanding that is not only accepted in Orthodoxy, but which is essential to the way that we are to live -- reason placed in submission to the Lord, and understanding following from that which He gives to us in response to fervent prayers. All else is at best speculation, and at worse heinous error.

And finally, a hopefully preemptive response to one possible question I could see to this, which would be very reasonable: "Then how do you know when you are receiving such direct guidance, and when you are suffering spiritual delusion/prelest?" Ah, but it is not you or I who receive it as individuals, but all of us who have received it from our fathers, within the bosom of the Church. The job of any one generation is only to guard and pass on, not to discover any 'new truths', even if there were any to discover (which there are not; Christ died upon the holy wood of the cross, He is risen, and He will come again in His glory to judge the living and the dead -- the end). This is why the prayers of the Church are its rule of faith/standard of belief, because the core anaphoras of all received traditions as found in, e.g., the liturgy of St. Basil, St. Cyril (in Greek, St. Mark), St. John Chrysostom, have remained remarkably stable through the centuries, and the Church and her people believe as they pray and pray as they believe. Hence I can pick up the Didache (1st century) and find my faith in it, or the Teaching of St. Gregory the Illuminator (early 4th century), and find my faith in it, or the Letters to the Orthodox in Persia (6th century) and find my faith in them, etc. So if a person will stick to the prayers and traditions of the Church, which are jealously kept to, intellectual pursuits will be given their proper place (i.e., not broaching matters of revelation but in a speculative, non-dogmatized fashion to the extent that such speculation may be allowed, depending on the form it takes and the matters it addresses) as at the most an aide in understanding, never the means to understanding.

 

[~Anastasia~]

Excellent comments!

I'm not sure I can add much to them. But it's a very good treatment of the question.

I'm no expert, but we do have reasoning intellectuals within our Tradition, who often speak at a level that makes me head ache to read them. Sometimes I need the "for Dummies" version to comprehend, lol. And sometimes I have to go over it many times. And quite a bit I have not managed to fully comprehend. But it's definitely there.

Perhaps it's a question of what topics are properly submitted to this kind of thought? I think for us, this is necessarily limited, and why we cannot arrive at such doctrines as the Immaculate Conception and Papal Infallibility through such a process (among other reasons, this may actually be a lesser reason, but it does prevent us from reasoning our way into something that goes against another understanding we already possess).

Part of our Liturgy refers to the faithful as "rational sheep" or "reason-endowed sheep". We don't toss out the idea of reason. We have the expectation that we were given reason by God, and that we are responsible to make use of it.

But as I said, I think maybe it is the ways we use it, or how we properly apply it. Honestly, at the opposite end of the spectrum, I see the tendency extended quite a bit sometimes in some of the more independent Protestants - taking this verse, that phrase, this definition, that point of history, and stringing them together to reach a conclusion, which is often used as the basis to consider other verses, new ideas built, and so on. I used to be part of a fellowship that frequently did this. Sometimes the conclusions were correct in principle, and it was heady and inspiring even to "find" (or more properly "confirm") them in this way. But looking around CF, now it is possible to see this happen and go in multiple directions for any question. And sometimes the conclusions reached are wildly diverse, and even conflict with foundational principles, that perhaps those doing the reasoning aren't aware of.

Anyway. Your post is very good. Just some random thoughts in response.

 

[dzheremi]

Good thoughts, my friend. Very good. Thank you for sharing them. Hopefully some of our Western Christian friends who participated in that other thread (or didn't) will share their own as well.

It is a blessing to note your reference to the liturgical wording that the faithful are "rational sheep". I had wanted to include relevant portions from the Coptic liturgies, but felt that the post was already becoming overly long for an OP. Anyway, we share that same expectation of rationality made explicit in our prayers, as in the Syrian Fraction of the Coptic Orthodox Church, which states that God is "exalted by thousands of thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand of the rational servants."

Even more to the point, in the commentary for the sixth Sunday of Great Lent, the following is proclaimed:

Our Lord Jesus Christ the only-begotten God became a man like us except for sin.

The Good Shepherd who watches His flock and protects them daily from the fox
that is the devil. Our Master the Savior is a teacher and scribe who overflows His knowledge to teach the nations the way of truly knowing Him. He, the wise and rational, reveals His wisdom. He calls on the ignorant to become wise. A physician who heals the wounds full of rot freely by the words of His mouth.​

(Source; emphasis added)

So with this being what we proclaim about Christ our Lord and God in our liturgies, I don't doubt the place of rationality in my Church's tradition; and neither would I doubt it in yours, from what you have presented. But in the above we can also see something similar to what I presented from the medieval Coptic and Syriac writers: that He (Jesus Christ) teaches us the way of truly knowing Him. He is wise and rational, and He reveals His wisdom, calling on the ignorant to partake of it and become wise.

What is interesting to me is that I am 100% sure that the Western Christians would not say anything against what has been said in the above commentary, and yet when particular topics come up, things rapidly degenerate into presuppositions about what other churches we are not a part of are about. So we both see some differences (or else we would not be able to generalize as we do), even though we 'agree' in the sense that nobody will say anything against our Lord's wisdom.

I think it is like you said, about the ways and the proper application. I don't imagine any Western Christian would have a problem praying the prayer of Mar George, Bishop of the Arabs, which recognizes the inherent limitations of man and prays that God guide him in completing his tasks. That kind of mindset is basic to any prayer of supplication. But I wonder if perhaps Eastern prayer (er...'Oriental'...whatever...hahaha) does not seem to go far enough, in the view of some people? Like yes, we are rational creatures...and then what? Is that it? I don't want to assume that this is what anyone else is thinking just because it's my guess, but I could see that, because it's one thing to recognize rationality, and it's another thing to put it to use in this or that pursuit, and of course, if you believe that God has granted you a rational mind (and it would seem we all do), then surely He would want you to use it, right? But the question is all cases how, and to what degree, and it seems like the different traditions answer that question differently, if not always in the "how" then at least in the "to what degree" -- e.g., you as Eastern Orthodox have seven councils and hence have more "stuff" to affirm than I do, without necessarily operating differently in terms of ontology (read: you may have more "stuff", but I have no reason to believe that you arrived at it by any other means than how my own Church says that we ourselves have ever arrived at anything, as can be seen in our prayers and proclamations already presented).

Hmmm!

 

[prodromos]

I haven't had a chance to fully digest the above, however I thought it appropriate to add how our different approaches have played out in regards to catechism. While Rome has put together a large volume with virtually every aspect of their faith laid out in detail, in the East there has never been felt a pressing need for such a document. Teaching of the faith is approached with an entirely different mindset.

 

[Cappadocious]

The Orthodox Fathers loved to explain and give reasons for almost everything so the whole story of mystic east reasonable west is just projection

 

[dzheremi]

It's certainly an oversimplification, yes.

I don't about the rest of you, but I remember reading the Desert Fathers for the first time and being shocked at how utterly reasonable and practical they were, in ways that I probably did not expect because I had been fed this whole "East = Mystical; West = Rational" thing, so I figured "Well...I'm a Western person, so I guess I'll get whatever I can get from it, but most of it will seem esoteric and weird, since I'm not living in Egypt or Syria in the fourth century."

Then I actually started to read them and found things like "Control your eyes, tongue, and stomach", and thought "Well that makes sense." Whereas the Western sources I had been given (this was when I was still a Roman Catholic, but in the process of leaving) like Therese of Lisieux, John of the Cross, etc. were more difficult for me to understand or feel any real connection to.

So I think it takes all kinds, and it's not necessarily helpful to approach things according to generalizations.

 

[~Anastasia~]

It's certainly an oversimplification, yes.

I don't about the rest of you, but I remember reading the Desert Fathers for the first time and being shocked at how utterly reasonable and practical they were, in ways that I probably did not expect because I had been fed this whole "East = Mystical; West = Rational" thing, so I figured "Well...I'm a Western person, so I guess I'll get whatever I can get from it, but most of it will seem esoteric and weird, since I'm not living in Egypt or Syria in the fourth century."

Then I actually started to read them and found things like "Control your eyes, tongue, and stomach", and thought "Well that makes sense." Whereas the Western sources I had been given (this was when I was still a Roman Catholic, but in the process of leaving) like Therese of Lisieux, John of the Cross, etc. were more difficult for me to understand or feel any real connection to.

So I think it takes all kinds, and it's not necessarily helpful to approach things according to generalizations.

You know, my experience somewhat mirrored yours. I had encountered Catholic mysticism, as well as Orthodox mysticism except I'd assumed it was Catholic (back then I thought monasticism = Catholics). I didn't have any trouble relating to it though (but I did learn the hard way that it is not meant to be a self-guided practice). By contrast when I encountered Orthodoxy I too found reason - so much so that it made my head spin (and I'm one of those weirdos who does math and logic challenges for fun). But then it wasn't long before I was asking questions I wasn't supposed to ask about things we don't define. That was a difficult switch for me, that we simply accept certain things and not try to figure it out or explain it. That's why I said that I think it's certainly NOT anti-intellectualism, but rather rational thought directed in some directions but not in others. That is my best understanding of how Orthodoxy works.

 

[Erose]

Okay I'm not really sure how I want to respond to this. IMO opinion the greatest challenge for me when dealing with those from the East, is clearing up confusion on their part about what is actually taught. Transubstantiation was a perfect example of this, I keep getting well we don't like how your tradition try to explain the "how" of the Eucharist, or how you added this or that, when quite frankly none of these is the case. So there seems to be some confusion on the side of the East about what we believe, which is quite reasonable since it isn't your faith tradition to learn. Heck I have quite a bit of confusion on my part about what the Eastern side teaches, and I wont pretend to be an expert on Eastern theology. The issue is, and I have the same issue with Protestants as well, that once corrected on the matter, the correction normally isn't accepted. Does that make sense?

The intent here on these forums is to learn about each other, and hopefully gain some respect for each others beliefs, and where we are in line with each other and where we conflict. In all honesty the only place that I have relations with Orthodox Christians are here on this forum.

Anyway here is the other issue, I encounter, it is difficult at times to learn what the position of the Orthodox Church is at times, because there doesn't seem to be an official position of the Orthodox Church, or if there is, it isn't well taught. In the Eucharist thread, among three different Orthodox Christians there were three different understandings of the Eucharist. One was more in line with what we teach, except didn't like using the term "substance" but preferred "essence". Anothers understanding was close to consubstantiation, and another was closer to Calvinistic belief of the Eucharist. In all honesty those are three very distinct differences that would be very difficult to reconcile.

Anyway, glad to have this cleared up that reason is still being used in the East, and hopefully at some point there won't be as much animosity against the West for using reason to better understand our Faith.

 

[~Anastasia~]

Okay I'm not really sure how I want to respond to this. IMO opinion the greatest challenge for me when dealing with those from the East, is clearing up confusion on their part about what is actually taught. Transubstantiation was a perfect example of this, I keep getting well we don't like how your tradition try to explain the "how" of the Eucharist, or how you added this or that, when quite frankly none of these is the case. So there seems to be some confusion on the side of the East about what we believe, which is quite reasonable since it isn't your faith tradition to learn. Heck I have quite a bit of confusion on my part about what the Eastern side teaches, and I wont pretend to be an expert on Eastern theology. The issue is, and I have the same issue with Protestants as well, that once corrected on the matter, the correction normally isn't accepted. Does that make sense?

The intent here on these forums is to learn about each other, and hopefully gain some respect for each others beliefs, and where we are in line with each other and where we conflict. In all honesty the only place that I have relations with Orthodox Christians are here on this forum.

Anyway here is the other issue, I encounter, it is difficult at times to learn what the position of the Orthodox Church is at times, because there doesn't seem to be an official position of the Orthodox Church, or if there is, it isn't well taught. In the Eucharist thread, among three different Orthodox Christians there were three different understandings of the Eucharist. One was more in line with what we teach, except didn't like using the term "substance" but preferred "essence". Anothers understanding was close to consubstantiation, and another was closer to Calvinistic belief of the Eucharist. In all honesty those are three very distinct differences that would be very difficult to reconcile.

Anyway, glad to have this cleared up that reason is still being used in the East, and hopefully at some point there won't be as much animosity against the West for using reason to better understand our Faith.

It is not as easy as having a codified catechism, but just to let you know (and it may underscore your point that it is difficult to understand what we teach - at least from a few posts in an Internet forum) ... I haven't asked A4C and OrthodoxyUSA but I'm willing to believe that we all believe the SAME THING about the Eucharist. You just happened to get different nuances from each of us. We replied according to what you were saying, trying to show the borders of our belief and extend and clarify what we could.

I think the particular difficulty is with the Eucharist, though there may well be other particular teachings as well that would develop the same problem.

In some things we are very precise, such as Christology. In some things we are given a particular framework and nothing must be added, such as the Eucharist. In some things we are simply given borders of the faith, and allowed to believe anything within that border, but nothing outside of it. Many, many things just "are" and are presented in the hymns, etc.

Quite a bit of it is very rich and interconnected in a way that makes it difficult to explain. This also means that you can study diligently, and get great truth, and understand wonderful things and how it all fits together like some beautiful tapestry ... but at the same time, you can keep learning the same thing on and on, and more nuances and connections develop. It's mind-boggling really. But never, ever boring. But explaining that kind of theology is not easy.

If you want to know, ask away. You might want to come to TAW as well if you don't get sufficient answers here. We will try.

 

[Philip_B]

Sometimes we have to look at how we pray, as much as what we say. In my own tradition where the 39 Articles are very clear in a rejection of Transubstantiation, we yet find the much loved Prayer of Humble Access. It's origins are almost certainly in pre-Norman Conquest English liturgy.

Prayer of Humble Access
We do not presume
to come to this thy table, O merciful Lord,
trusting in our own righteousness,
but in thy manifold and great mercies.
We are not worthy
so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table.
But thou art the same Lord,
whose property is always to have mercy:
grant us therefore, gracious Lord,
so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ,
and to drink his blood,
that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body,
and our souls washed through his most precious blood,
and that we may evermore dwell in him,
and he in us. Amen​

 

[Erose]

It is not as easy as having a codified catechism, but just to let you know (and it may underscore your point that it is difficult to understand what we teach - at least from a few posts in an Internet forum) ... I haven't asked A4C and OrthodoxyUSA but I'm willing to believe that we all believe the SAME THING about the Eucharist. You just happened to get different nuances from each of us. We replied according to what you were saying, trying to show the borders of our belief and extend and clarify what we could.

Concerning the codified catechism, what do you guys do with the Catechisms of the Fathers? Gregory of Nyssa and Cyril of Jerusalem?

Anyway, I'm not sure if you all do believe in the same thing. There were significant differences IMO in the viewpoints expressed. That cannot be ignored.

In some things we are very precise, such as Christology. In some things we are given a particular framework and nothing must be added, such as the Eucharist. In some things we are simply given borders of the faith, and allowed to believe anything within that border, but nothing outside of it. Many, many things just "are" and are presented in the hymns, etc.

Quite a bit of it is very rich and interconnected in a way that makes it difficult to explain. This also means that you can study diligently, and get great truth, and understand wonderful things and how it all fits together like some beautiful tapestry ... but at the same time, you can keep learning the same thing on and on, and more nuances and connections develop. It's mind-boggling really. But never, ever boring. But explaining that kind of theology is not easy.

There is no difference between us and you in this statement.

If you want to know, ask away. You might want to come to TAW as well if you don't get sufficient answers here. We will try.

TAW isn't very welcoming in my opinion, and there is just too much anti-Catholic bigotry in it, or there was. Haven't been there in some time. Anyway I have issues when people start insulting my Church and its hard for me to ignore, so it is better to stay away,...unless it has recently changed.

 

[~Anastasia~]

We have the Catechisms you mention. I have read St. Cyril's.

If you mean how is Catechism approached, that depends. In our parish, we read a variety of books, we meet with the priest for a couple of hours a couple of times a week, and it's usually mostly a discussion format where he asks and answers questions. He does also have a series of lectures.

We should take the question of whether or not we believe the same thing back to the relevant thread.

As to TAW, I don't know. It is not our purpose to attack Catholicism, or Protestantism for that matter, but if someone asks specific questions about our beliefs, there may be things that come up that we can't compromise on. And honestly, we are all individual persons. Different people may express themselves in different ways, or have different sentiments. For that matter, TT is a perfectly good place to ask. I just thought it might be helpful that we have some very knowledgeable members in TAW that don't usually venture elsewhere. But here is fine.

 

[Erose]

Another difference I think and this is probably going off the rails here that I see, and am not sure why this is the case, is that for the most part you see folks feeling the need to contrast their beliefs against Catholic beliefs. I have seen too many posts, that are going along explaining something, and then BAM!!! "The Catholics believe this..., which we don't believe...". I really don't get the need to do this. I can understand if you are talking to Catholics; but Protestants don't know what we believe even though they think they do, and quite honestly there isn't many Orthodox Christians who know what we believe either. The phrase just comes out as saying: "Catholics bad, we good" type of phrase.

The reason why I point this out is that Catholics don't talk this way. We don't really compare ourselves to another Christian Church when discussing theology unless we are discussing directly to a specific faith tradition. I guess we don't feel the need normally. It just makes me scratch my head at times, and ask why.

 

[~Anastasia~]

I think that may happen in some circles because of a lot of published material that you're probably aware of, particularly among certain Protestants. And they did come FROM Catholicism, and you guys also present a very large target in most of the world. I think those are some of the reasons you may get it from Protestants.

Generally speaking, Orthodox don't do it much either. I think I offended someone in your other thread by saying that most cradle Orthodox I know don't even concern themselves with what Catholics or Protestants believe.

But it can be useful in discussing theology to contrast Orthodoxy with Catholicism on some issues, since we share the history of the early Church ... so it tends to be instructional to note our differences. It depends on who I'm talking to and what the question is, for me.

Honestly, I view Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Protestantism as forming a triangle-shaped arrangement of three overlapping circles. (Well, Protestantism is more like an elongated oval to encompass beliefs that continue to diverge.) Some things we all have in common. In some ways, Orthodoxy and Catholicism are most similar. In some ways, Catholicism and Protestantism are most similar. In some ways, Orthodoxy and Protestantism are most similar. And we all have our own distinctives.

So sometimes I need to mention any of the above, and make distinctions between different kinds of Protestants.

But ... I do see discussions going along on various topics, mostly among Protestants, that will suddenly veer into "and we are not like the Catholics, who teach xyz ... "

And I sigh with you. I get tired of seeing it too.

 

[All4Christ]

When I make statements that talk about Catholic beliefs - it typically is due to someone stating or implying that I believe something that the RC Church teaches, since many CF members do not know that we have different beliefs in some areas. It is never my intention to demean Catholics, but often people have an idea of what they think we believe, when in reality we do not. For example - I have been told that we are "xyz" because we believe in the immaculate conception. In that case, I want to clarify that the Immaculate Conception is an RCC belief, not an Orthodox belief.

 

[prodromos]

TAW isn't very welcoming in my opinion, and there is just too much anti-Catholic bigotry in it, or there was. Haven't been there in some time. Anyway I have issues when people start insulting my Church and its hard for me to ignore, so it is better to stay away,...unless it has recently changed.

If it was that way, it was probably a flow on from having to deal with Alonso.

 

[All4Christ]

If it was that way, it was probably a flow on from having to deal with Alonso.

That was a tough situation.

 

[~Anastasia~]

If it was that way, it was probably a flow on from having to deal with Alonso.

That was a tough situation.

It was.

That actually crossed my mind about what Erose might have walked into. That's one reason we have to enforce rules sometimes, or at least balance that with answers to questions.

 

[dzheremi]

Hmm. This thread is developing in an interesting fashion I had not foreseen. Good, I guess...?

I think a lot of what has been discussed subsequent to the OP and the first few posts is more focused on similarities that Rome and the EO share, and since I'm neither, I will not comment on them. I would still like to read more examples from your prayers and services that shed some light on how your commmunion approaches this topic, however, like the fine post from Philip_B.

And just for Erose's benefit (well, for everyone's benefit, but Erose is the Roman Catholic member who has replied so far), I'll tell you that after the very first Coptic Orthodox liturgy I ever attended, we sat together in the traditional post-liturgy Agape meal, and someone asked me what my background was. I told them I was Roman Catholic, because at the time I still technically was (I wouldn't be received into Orthodoxy until some time after this), which prompted someone else to ask if it's true that the Roman Catholics worship St. Mary. I don't know why they thought that (there really isn't very much interaction between Catholics and Orthodox in Egypt, though I suppose in New Mexico, where we were, this might be different), but I told them that no, Roman Catholics do not worship St. Mary. That's a popular but incorrect belief about Roman Catholicism. Then someone asked the priest, Fr. Marcus, "Is that true, Abouna? Cos I heard that they did", and Fr. Marcus, in his gentle but authoritative way, replied "You heard what he said." They didn't ask about that anymore after that.

I'm sharing that because I think it shows kind of a best case scenario when it comes to interacting with those from outside of your own faith tradition. While it's entirely possible that I could have been mistaken had they asked me something more technical about RCism (like Transubstantiation, apparently...), I would like to think I did an okay job and was accurate in explaining what they did ask about, and moreover it seemed like the priest took this as an opportunity to learn and did not project some kind of "Coptic Orthodox presuppositions" onto the very straightforward answer I did give, but gave his people a very straightforward answer, too. And that answer was essentially not to presume that others are willingly misrepresenting their faith.

I do wish that this were followed in online (and offline) cross-communal discussions, as well. Perhaps such a thing is more possible in that type of situation (where the person asking the question really doesn't consciously share very much with the tradition they're asking about) than in the situation we are in on this messageboard, however.

 

[Erose]

I think that this is very important, which I also pointed out in the other thread, and I will repeat it here for those who are not participating in the other one, that it is extremely important IMO and the great advantage that we can have through forums like this if used correctly is to learn from each other about our beliefs and how we understand things. There is no doubt that our individual Faith Traditions have differing approaches to looking at the Sacred things and beliefs, and this is not a bad thing IMO, but something that needs to be realized. Anyway, I think it allows us a chance to look at things that we may take for granted, in a different light.