Seventh-day Adventist denomination - said to be 5th largest Christian denomination world-wide

[FireDragon76]

Quite true. As I understand it, Swedenborgianism is virtually unknown in Sweden today. It is also virtually unknown here in the USA.

At one time it was more popular in the US. Johnny Appleseed and Helen Keller were both Swedenborgians. Lisa Oz, the wife of Dr. Mehmet Oz, was raised Swedenborgian and still identifies herself as one, and you'll occasionally run across a Swedenborgian on the internet.

 

[bbbbbbb]

At one time it was more popular in the US. Johnny Appleseed and Helen Keller were both Swedenborgians. Lisa Oz, the wife of Dr. Mehmet Oz, was raised Swedenborgian and still identifies herself as one, and you'll occasionally run across a Swedenborgian on the internet.

Quite true. It rose in popularity in the US in the late nineteenth century into the early twentieth century. There is a splendid Swedenborgian cathedral in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania constructed by a single donor, John Pitcairn, who owned Pittsburgh Plate Glass, now PPG Industries. It seems to have been his personal chapel, writ large, as was the case with John D. Rockefeller and his construction of Riverside Church in New York City and the Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago.

Swedeborgianism, like Christian Science, seems to have run its course, having attracted its share of famous and wealthy adherents.

 

[The Liturgist]

Quite true. It rose in popularity in the US in the late nineteenth century into the early twentieth century. There is a splendid Swedenborgian cathedral in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania constructed by a single donor, John Pitcairn, who owned Pittsburgh Plate Glass, now PPG Industries. It seems to have been his personal chapel, writ large, as was the case with John D. Rockefeller and his construction of Riverside Church in New York City and the Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago.

View attachment 351078

Swedeborgianism, like Christian Science, seems to have run its course, having attracted its share of famous and wealthy adherents.

I personally am looking forward to the collapse of both. The Byzantine Revival “mother church” of the CS heretics would make a splendid Orthodox church … it and the Blue Mosque in Constantinople are among those structures I think the Orthodox should focus on acquiring, whereas the Swedenborg cult temple you see above could likewise be purified and turned into a splendid Anglican or Traditional Latin Mass church (or both, in the high Anglo Catholic tradition of St. Magnus the Martyr parish in the City of London, or via the route of Western Rite Orthodoxy).

 

[bbbbbbb]

I personally am looking forward to the collapse of both. The Byzantine Revival “mother church” of the CS heretics would make a splendid Orthodox church … it and the Blue Mosque in Constantinople are among those structures I think the Orthodox should focus on acquiring, whereas the Swedenborg cult temple you see above could likewise be purified and turned into a splendid Anglican or Traditional Latin Mass church (or both, in the high Anglo Catholic tradition of St. Magnus the Martyr parish in the City of London, or via the route of Western Rite Orthodoxy).

I agree with you concerning the hopeful demise of both. As it is, the CS has been closing its churches on a full-scale basis. Although their exteriors would give an ideal impression for an Orthodox Church, their interiors would need to be completely gutted and reconstructed, which is probably one reason why I have not yet observed an Orthodox congregation moving into a former CS building. As with the mother church in Boston (technically known as the Annex - it dwarfs the actual Mother Church) their interiors are the perfection of early twentieth-century auditorium design. If movie-going was still related to architectural splendor, as with the early twentieth-century movie palaces, these could be easily developed into movie palaces. As it is, even after gutting, the placement of a proper iconostasis would be problematic.

Curiously, the Greek Orthodox church in my hometown, which only ever was the focus of the miniscule number of Greek-Americans as I grew up, has now been growing and has moved into a much more spacious Collegiate Gothic Revival church formerly occupied by a liberal Methodist congregation. The Greek Orthodox Church seems to be quite active and has billboards directed to disaffected Roman Catholics, who form the majority of the citizenry.

As for the Swedenborgian cathedral, I agree with you completely that it would make an excellent High Church Anglican church. As you may know, Swedenborgianism is surprisingly liturgical.

 

[The Liturgist]

The Swedenborgians follow a religion based off Swedenborg's teachings, but he died in good standing with the state Lutheran church and never intended to found his own religion.

The first point is inaccurate, in that while Swedenborg did not personally try to organize the New Church, his writings envisage a New Church and the British implemented it.

The second point is also inaccurate: the King of Sweden and the more pious bishops of the Church of Sweden took actions to suppress his writings and their use, and also Swedenborg was exiled.

 

[The Liturgist]

Although their exteriors would give an ideal impression for an Orthodox Church, their interiors would need to be completely gutted and reconstructed, which is probably one reason why I have not yet observed an Orthodox congregation moving into a former CS building. As with the mother church in Boston (technically known as the Annex - it dwarfs the actual Mother Church) their interiors are the perfection of early twentieth-century auditorium design. If movie-going was still related to architectural splendor, as with the early twentieth-century movie palaces, these could be easily developed into movie palaces. As it is, even after gutting, the placement of a proper iconostasis would be problematic.

Actually I’ve studied the floorplan of the Annex in Boston, and I can assure you all it would require is redecoration.

By the way, the iconostasis does not have to go in a straight line, which makes almost any space adaptable. But I am not aware of any defunct Christian Science buildings we would want to buy.

The issue with purchasing their buildings before they fail completely is that we don’t want to give them money. Rather it would be ideal to wait until they are bankrupt and then acquire their properties in the liquidation.

As you may know, Swedenborgianism is surprisingly liturgical

Well, indeed, but so is Shinto. Well, one might say Shinto is theurgical, but that might be the case with the Swedenborg heretics, as some of their doctrines are pretty weird.

By the way, Western Rite Orthodoxy represents an ideal use of former Anglican or Roman Catholic churches, since, for example, the Antiochian Western Rite Vicarate provides the option of using services adopted from the Anglican and Tridentine masses.

 

[The Liturgist]

Curiously, the Greek Orthodox church in my hometown, which only ever was the focus of the miniscule number of Greek-Americans as I grew up, has now been growing and has moved into a much more spacious Collegiate Gothic Revival church formerly occupied by a liberal Methodist congregation. The Greek Orthodox Church seems to be quite active and has billboards directed to disaffected Roman Catholics, who form the majority of the citizenry.

That makes me happy to read, because historically GoArch had a reputation for complacency and ethnocentrism and for being disinterested in evangelizing, but lately some of their parishes are turning things around. I think this can be attributed to the positive influence of the monasteries founded by the Athonite Hesychast Elder Ephraim of Arizona, who revitalized a monastery on the Holy Mountain before founding almost twenty monasteries and convents in North America, which I believe is a record. It makes him the Conrad Hilton of monasteries.

 

[bbbbbbb]

Actually I’ve studied the floorplan of the Annex in Boston, and I can assure you all it would require is redecoration.

By the way, the iconostasis does not have to go in a straight line, which makes almost any space adaptable. But I am not aware of any defunct Christian Science buildings we would want to buy.

The issue with purchasing their buildings before they fail completely is that we don’t want to give them money. Rather it would be ideal to wait until they are bankrupt and then acquire their properties in the liquidation.



Well, indeed, but so is Shinto. Well, one might say Shinto is theurgical, but that might be the case with the Swedenborg heretics, as some of their doctrines are pretty weird.

By the way, Western Rite Orthodoxy represents an ideal use of former Anglican or Roman Catholic churches, since, for example, the Antiochian Western Rite Vicarate provides the option of using services adopted from the Anglican and Tridentine masses.

As I understand it, the Mother Church does not own the buildings of the daughter churches. However, when these churches reach the point of disbandment then the proceeds of their sales apparently revert to the Mother Church. My observation has been that these churches are typically sold for far less than their market value. One was sold here about three years ago for less than the value of the land it was sitting on. A Contemporary Christian church is now using the building.

Here is a photo of another CS church building which was sold to a small museum which, unfortunately, was unable to afford its maintenance and staffing and sold it within the past year to a micro-brewery. At this time, nothing has been done to the building to convert it into a micro-brewery, probably because the overall beer consumption level is significantly diminishing in the US.

 

[bbbbbbb]

That makes me happy to read, because historically GoArch had a reputation for complacency and ethnocentrism and for being disinterested in evangelizing, but lately some of their parishes are turning things around. I think this can be attributed to the positive influence of the monasteries founded by the Athonite Hesychast Elder Ephraim of Arizona, who revitalized a monastery on the Holy Mountain before founding almost twenty monasteries and convents in North America, which I believe is a record. It makes him the Conrad Hilton of monasteries.

I have mixed feelings about this particular situation. On one hand I am pleased to see evangelization taking place, but on the other I am concerned that it is being targeted at another Christian church rather than those who are outside of the Christian faith.

 

[FireDragon76]

The first point is inaccurate, in that while Swedenborg did not personally try to organize the New Church, his writings envisage a New Church and the British implemented it.

The second point is also inaccurate: the King of Sweden and the more pious bishops of the Church of Sweden took actions to suppress his writings and their use, and also Swedenborg was exiled.

His writings were critiqued on some points by some bishops, but on other points were not seen as necessarily problematic. Swedenborg was never formally excommunicated or exiled. He traveled abroad for intellectual pursuits, not because he was persecuted in any way.

Swedenborg's remains are in Uppsala Cathedral, in Sweden, next to the naturalist Carol Linaeus.

 

[The Liturgist]

I have mixed feelings about this particular situation. On one hand I am pleased to see evangelization taking place, but on the other I am concerned that it is being targeted at another Christian church rather than those who are outside of the Christian faith.

Those churches which are having problems with liberal postmodern theology have to ne replaced, particularly since Pope Francis has allowed for Fiducia Supplicans, and is preparing for a total ban on the TLM according to reliable sources. The Orthodox Church has a moral obligation to make traditional Catholics aware that there is an alternative, a place where they can be safe.

As it stands the mainline Protestants, particularly the Anglican Communion, have supplied a large number of our converts (there are so many former Anglicans in the Antiochian Orthodox Church in the UK that they are known as Angliochians). The only reason not to blatantly target a particular denomination is the need to lease worship space for smaller congregations, however the Roman Catholics have never leased to us. Also it would be a bit rich if they complained about us actively pursuing them considering that the very existence of the majority of Eastern Catholic churches was the result of aggressive non-evangelical actions that tended to involve secular politics in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa which took a divide et impera approach to the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and the Assyrian Church of the East.

 

[The Liturgist]

His writings were critiqued on some points by some bishops, but on other points were not seen as necessarily problematic.

By Royal Statute the importation of his books was banned and their use restricted from 1770.

Swedenborg was never formally excommunicated or exiled. He traveled abroad for intellectual pursuits, not because he was persecuted in any way.

He was banned from returning to Sweden while abroad, which is an exile. And it is not a persecution; he was a dangerous proponent of the Sabellian heresy and a false prophet, who was and is a danger to the Kingdom of Sweden.

Swedenborg's remains are in Uppsala Cathedral, in Sweden, next to the naturalist Carol Linaeus.

Swedenborg upon his death was buried in London, admittedly at the Swedish Church, but I doubt there was any possibility of being buried elsewhere given his ecclesiastical status, or lack thereof, and national identity.

His remains were only transported to Sweden and interred in 1912, by which time liberal and pietist influences were already the dominant forces in the Church of Sweden and a few other European churches, for example, the Remonstrants, and even a segment of the Church of England.

For my part, I think his remains should be respectfully reburied in a civil cemetery or mausoleum along with those of any other persons not originally buried in the Uppsala Cathedral who are not known to be proponents of Nicene Christianity, so as to facilitate the translation of any surviving relics of Swedish saints, such as St. Brigitta.

 

[FireDragon76]

Swedenborg upon his death was buried in London, admittedly at the Swedish Church, but I doubt there was any possibility of being buried elsewhere given his ecclesiastical status, or lack thereof, and national identity.

His remains were only transported to Sweden and interred in 1912, by which time liberal and pietist influences were already the dominant forces in the Church of Sweden and a few other European churches, for example, the Remonstrants, and even a segment of the Church of England.

For my part, I think his remains should be respectfully reburied in a civil cemetery or mausoleum along with those of any other persons not originally buried in the Uppsala Cathedral who are not known to be proponents of Nicene Christianity, so as to facilitate the translation of any surviving relics of Swedish saints, such as St. Brigitta.

According to Google Gemini, Swedenborg's views may be prone to misinterpretation. Swedenborg wasn't a Sabellian. He believed the Father was in Christ, which is compatible with the perichoresis of the Trinity.

 

[The Liturgist]

Here is a photo of another CS church building which was sold to a small museum which, unfortunately, was unable to afford its maintenance and staffing and sold it within the past year to a micro-brewery. At this time, nothing has been done to the building to convert it into a micro-brewery, probably because the overall beer consumption level is significantly diminishing in the US.

Now that would be a good church to acquire. It has a Greek Cross plan, and the boring exterior walls are ideal canvases for gilded iconography. The only question is whether the exterior is protected.

 

[The Liturgist]

According to Google Gemini, Swedenborg's views may be prone to misinterpretation. Swedenborg wasn't a Sabellian. He believed the Father was in Christ, which is perfectly compatible with the perichoresis of the Trinity and is an orthodox statement of faith.

He expressly rejected the doctrine of the Trinity as taught by the Council of Nicaea and is therefore a heretic. Furthermore, his views are not an orthodox statement of faith: any statement of faith which denies that the Trinity is a union of three consubstantial persons is heretical, as his was. He specifically taught that the Father was Jesus Christ, which is a sort of pneumatomacchian Sabellianism, and also that after the resurrection, our Lord discarded His human body and put on that of the Father, which is also a heresy.

There is also the important issue of him being a false prophet.

At any rate rejection of the Nicene Creed makes him a non-Christian according to the CF.com Statement of Faith and also according to confessional Lutheranism, since he utterly contradicts the Book of Concord. He also rejected several Old Testament books otherwise regarded as canon, including Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs and Proverbs. Seriously, Proverbs! It’s beyond the pale. And then there is also his deprecation of the Pauline Epistles to a lower status of inspiration than the Gospels, Acts and Revelation, and his rejection of the other books of the New Testament.

I haven’t evaluated Google Gemini but I am curious if it cautioned you the way ChatGPT does when providing theological information of the need to check with an expert.

By the way please continue to inform me when you use a large language model or other AI to assist you in writing your posts.

 

[bbbbbbb]

Those churches which are having problems with liberal postmodern theology have to ne replaced, particularly since Pope Francis has allowed for Fiducia Supplicans, and is preparing for a total ban on the TLM according to reliable sources. The Orthodox Church has a moral obligation to make traditional Catholics aware that there is an alternative, a place where they can be safe.

As it stands the mainline Protestants, particularly the Anglican Communion, have supplied a large number of our converts (there are so many former Anglicans in the Antiochian Orthodox Church in the UK that they are known as Angliochians). The only reason not to blatantly target a particular denomination is the need to lease worship space for smaller congregations, however the Roman Catholics have never leased to us. Also it would be a bit rich if they complained about us actively pursuing them considering that the very existence of the majority of Eastern Catholic churches was the result of aggressive non-evangelical actions that tended to involve secular politics in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa which took a divide et impera approach to the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and the Assyrian Church of the East.

The problem with the Catholic Church in my hometown is not liberal theology at all. It is quite the opposite. Because of the crisis in recruiting Catholic men to the priesthood, the archbishop has taken the very unpopular move of closing some churches. The member of the closed churches, to say the least, are not thrilled with being merged into other churches which, historically, have not been on the greatest of terms with each other. The population, historically, was divided between Germans and Irish. One of the closed churches was German and it was merged into an Irish church. The Greek Orthodox seem to be making their appeal to the disaffected Germans. Ironically, some German Catholics view the Greeks as less alien to them than the Irish.

As you know, I am hardly a fan of Catholicism and I do find it ironic that the Catholic church is losing some members to the Greek Orthodox. In the meantime there is a tiny Anglican church in my home town which, very politely, is refraining from recruiting Catholics and is viewed as a haven for disaffected Episcopalians.

 

[The Liturgist]

Because of the crisis in recruiting Catholic men to the priesthood, the archbishop has taken the very unpopular move of closing some churches.

The reason for the shortage in vocations is because of the NLM and theological liberalism. There is no shortage of vocations for the Traditional Latin Mass. For example, the FSSP, which is one of only two groups I am aware of that are canonically regular (the SSPX is in a complex situation of canonical irregularity, with some people saying it is schismatic, but others saying it is merely canonically irregular), the current number of seminarians is equal to 50% of the serving clergy! Which is a very good number. The other group, the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, is doing even better in terms of vocations, with 147 priests and 108 seminarians. In contrast, if we look at the Roman Catholic Church worldwide, the ratio of ordained priests to seminarians is 4:1, and if we focus on North America, this drops to 7:1, and in Europe, it drops to a dire 11:1, while in Australia and New Zealand, the ratio is a catastrophic 14:1, meaning mass parish closures outside of the TLM community are inevitable due to the priest shortage, unless the RCC can do something to stabilize the situation. And I can think of things they could do, but I doubt Pope Francis would do any of them. One major problem is the Roman Rite’s requirement of priestly celibacy, which becomes an unappealing prospect outside of the TLM communities, since one really does not want to be an unmarried male outside of the TLM communities which make a strong effort to ensure that homosexuals are not admitted to the vocation; also the TLM communities by their very nature tend to attract heterosexual men who are willing to be celibate, and furthermore, the high birthrate among TLM families compared to Catholics overall reduces the pressure to reproduce. Single children, who have no brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews to love them, are faced with isolation, and for a great many of them, reproduction is the best solution to this problem, since if one has children and raises them in a loving manner, the chances are that one will not be left alone, particularly in the environment of traditional Catholics where divorce is a strong taboo. Whereas in our modern secular society, divorce is rampant, because people think it is alright to divorce simply because their marriage is going through a slump, even if there has been no domestic violence or adultery. It’s a bit reminiscent of Islam where men can freely divorce any wives they get bored with (if I recall, the reverse is theoretically the case, but is inadvisable in countries like Afghanistan, Iran or Saudi Arabia).

If Pope Francis were to reverse course on Traditiones Custodes and Fiducia Supplicans, he would see more vocations and less membership loss. The adverse impact of Fiducia Supplicans cannot be overstated - it represents the start of the terminal decline phase which the mainline Protestant churches are already experiencing, which is leaving them as burnt out husks of their former selves, with many denominations having lost more than half of their membership.

Now, I am well aware of your preference for low church Protestantism, but at the same time, I’d like you to consider the immense unpleasantness that the demonstrable increase in liberalism are causing for Catholics, even where the bishop himself might not be a liberal (although if he is closing parishes, he might well be liberal, since the more traditional bishops, like the Traditional Latin Mass communities, tend to be able to get more vocations in their diocese).

By the way, how do you know that your local Greek Orthodox church is only going after the Germans? This seems quite a claim. While it is true that crypto-ethnophyletism exists in the Roman Catholic Church, ethnophyletism is condemned as a heresy in the Orthodox Church. The problem of ethnocentric Orthodox churches does exist in GoArch, admittedly, but among those GoArch churches that are actively evangelizing, I have seen no trace of it.

At any rate, the problem with saying that the GoArch church is only going after Germans is this: if an Irish Catholic wanted to join that parish, and the clergy refused to receive them for fear it would torpedo their efforts to convert the Germans, that would be a violation of canon law and would result in the clergy being anathematized for teaching a false Gospel in contradiction to the one handed down from the Apostles in accordance with Galatians 1:8-9.

And also, I can think of no practical way of soliciting German American converts without soliciting Irish Americans also. I mean, its not like you could post German or Gaelic messages on the billboard. Indeed, even neo-Nazis do not generally exclude the Irish (although some of them do exclude Irish Catholics) so the presence of a swastika, which I doubt any billboard owner would permit, would not deter the Nazis. Also, St. Patrick is actively venerated in the Orthodox Church and is much more widely known and venerated than St. Boniface, although St. Boniface is venerated, to be sure, but we have no parishes named for him, whereas we do have one of the larger Western Rite parishes named for St. Patrick and another named for Pope St. Gregory I Diologos. Rather the problem is that St. Boniface is simply obscure, as is St. Willibrord the Patron Saint of Luxembourg. Unfortunately, because they were born after the Great Schism in 1054, St. Leopold III the Patron Saint of Austria,St. Nicholas of Flüe, the Patron Saint of Switzerland and St. Florinus the Patron Saint of Liechtenstein are not venerated, although like St. Brigitta of Sweden, I hope they will be at some point in the future.

The net result of this has is that two of the five national patron saints of countries where German or a dialect thereof is the predominant native tongue are not well known and the other three were only canonized, or as we would say, glorified, after the Great Schism of 1054, which means they are not yet venerated by the majority of the Orthodox or included in the offical synaxaria, such as the Prologue of Ohrid. Now, Belgium has a German speaking minority that is the third largest ethnolinguistic group in the country and the majority of the population in the East Cantons of Wallonia (which are semi-autonomous and have their own regional parliament and flag), and the patron saint of Belgium is St. Joseph, but this is not well known among German Americans, particularly since Belgium only acquired this territory in World War I. And of course after World War II captured Germans were taken to the Soviet Union and Kazakhstan where some remain even today, such as Bishop Athanasius Schneider in Kazakhstan, who I greatly admire for his traditional theology and family values, and these countries obviously have Orthodox patron saints, but alas, putting St. Vladimir the Great on a billboard is unlikely to attract German Americans to a Greek Orthodox parish.

Indeed, the result of doing that would I think cause quite a bit of confusion - if you have a ROCOR or OCA parish in your town, or a UOCNA parish, the Russians and Ukrainians (all three churches have Ukrainians, and some dissident Russians have joined Ukrainian parishes) would be confused as to why St. Vladimir was being used in advertisements for a Greek Orthodox parish, when St. Nicholas of Myra is the patron saint of Greece.

 

[bbbbbbb]

The reason for the shortage in vocations is because of the NLM and theological liberalism. There is no shortage of vocations for the Traditional Latin Mass. For example, the FSSP, which is one of only two groups I am aware of that are canonically regular (the SSPX is in a complex situation of canonical irregularity, with some people saying it is schismatic, but others saying it is merely canonically irregular), the current number of seminarians is equal to 50% of the serving clergy! Which is a very good number. The other group, the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, is doing even better in terms of vocations, with 147 priests and 108 seminarians. In contrast, if we look at the Roman Catholic Church worldwide, the ratio of ordained priests to seminarians is 4:1, and if we focus on North America, this drops to 7:1, and in Europe, it drops to a dire 11:1, while in Australia and New Zealand, the ratio is a catastrophic 14:1, meaning mass parish closures outside of the TLM community are inevitable due to the priest shortage, unless the RCC can do something to stabilize the situation. And I can think of things they could do, but I doubt Pope Francis would do any of them. One major problem is the Roman Rite’s requirement of priestly celibacy, which becomes an unappealing prospect outside of the TLM communities, since one really does not want to be an unmarried male outside of the TLM communities which make a strong effort to ensure that homosexuals are not admitted to the vocation; also the TLM communities by their very nature tend to attract heterosexual men who are willing to be celibate, and furthermore, the high birthrate among TLM families compared to Catholics overall reduces the pressure to reproduce. Single children, who have no brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews to love them, are faced with isolation, and for a great many of them, reproduction is the best solution to this problem, since if one has children and raises them in a loving manner, the chances are that one will not be left alone, particularly in the environment of traditional Catholics where divorce is a strong taboo. Whereas in our modern secular society, divorce is rampant, because people think it is alright to divorce simply because their marriage is going through a slump, even if there has been no domestic violence or adultery. It’s a bit reminiscent of Islam where men can freely divorce any wives they get bored with (if I recall, the reverse is theoretically the case, but is inadvisable in countries like Afghanistan, Iran or Saudi Arabia).

If Pope Francis were to reverse course on Traditiones Custodes and Fiducia Supplicans, he would see more vocations and less membership loss. The adverse impact of Fiducia Supplicans cannot be overstated - it represents the start of the terminal decline phase which the mainline Protestant churches are already experiencing, which is leaving them as burnt out husks of their former selves, with many denominations having lost more than half of their membership.

Now, I am well aware of your preference for low church Protestantism, but at the same time, I’d like you to consider the immense unpleasantness that the demonstrable increase in liberalism are causing for Catholics, even where the bishop himself might not be a liberal (although if he is closing parishes, he might well be liberal, since the more traditional bishops, like the Traditional Latin Mass communities, tend to be able to get more vocations in their diocese).

By the way, how do you know that your local Greek Orthodox church is only going after the Germans? This seems quite a claim. While it is true that crypto-ethnophyletism exists in the Roman Catholic Church, ethnophyletism is condemned as a heresy in the Orthodox Church. The problem of ethnocentric Orthodox churches does exist in GoArch, admittedly, but among those GoArch churches that are actively evangelizing, I have seen no trace of it.

At any rate, the problem with saying that the GoArch church is only going after Germans is this: if an Irish Catholic wanted to join that parish, and the clergy refused to receive them for fear it would torpedo their efforts to convert the Germans, that would be a violation of canon law and would result in the clergy being anathematized for teaching a false Gospel in contradiction to the one handed down from the Apostles in accordance with Galatians 1:8-9.

And also, I can think of no practical way of soliciting German American converts without soliciting Irish Americans also. I mean, its not like you could post German or Gaelic messages on the billboard. Indeed, even neo-Nazis do not generally exclude the Irish (although some of them do exclude Irish Catholics) so the presence of a swastika, which I doubt any billboard owner would permit, would not deter the Nazis. Also, St. Patrick is actively venerated in the Orthodox Church and is much more widely known and venerated than St. Boniface, although St. Boniface is venerated, to be sure, but we have no parishes named for him, whereas we do have one of the larger Western Rite parishes named for St. Patrick and another named for Pope St. Gregory I Diologos. Rather the problem is that St. Boniface is simply obscure, as is St. Willibrord the Patron Saint of Luxembourg. Unfortunately, because they were born after the Great Schism in 1054, St. Leopold III the Patron Saint of Austria,St. Nicholas of Flüe, the Patron Saint of Switzerland and St. Florinus the Patron Saint of Liechtenstein are not venerated, although like St. Brigitta of Sweden, I hope they will be at some point in the future.

The net result of this has is that two of the five national patron saints of countries where German or a dialect thereof is the predominant native tongue are not well known and the other three were only canonized, or as we would say, glorified, after the Great Schism of 1054, which means they are not yet venerated by the majority of the Orthodox or included in the offical synaxaria, such as the Prologue of Ohrid. Now, Belgium has a German speaking minority that is the third largest ethnolinguistic group in the country and the majority of the population in the East Cantons of Wallonia (which are semi-autonomous and have their own regional parliament and flag), and the patron saint of Belgium is St. Joseph, but this is not well known among German Americans, particularly since Belgium only acquired this territory in World War I. And of course after World War II captured Germans were taken to the Soviet Union and Kazakhstan where some remain even today, such as Bishop Athanasius Schneider in Kazakhstan, who I greatly admire for his traditional theology and family values, and these countries obviously have Orthodox patron saints, but alas, putting St. Vladimir the Great on a billboard is unlikely to attract German Americans to a Greek Orthodox parish.

Indeed, the result of doing that would I think cause quite a bit of confusion - if you have a ROCOR or OCA parish in your town, or a UOCNA parish, the Russians and Ukrainians (all three churches have Ukrainians, and some dissident Russians have joined Ukrainian parishes) would be confused as to why St. Vladimir was being used in advertisements for a Greek Orthodox parish, when St. Nicholas of Myra is the patron saint of Greece.

There are a number of reasons for the dearth of new priests within the Catholic Church. It would be too simplistic IMO to ascribe it merely to one only. Among the reasons are the NLM as you noted, secularism in general society which has affected all elements of society, priestly celibacy, the issues of homosexuality and child abuse, and gender roles both within the church and within the home. One stark statistic is that the average family size in society as well as within the Catholic Church has fallen markedly since the introduction of effective means of birth control. Although the Catholic Church condemns birth control as a mortal sin, either Catholic couples are devoutly abstaining from intercourse or they are using other, more effective, means of limiting the sizes of their families. In previous centuries, children from large Catholic families faced the stark reality of either taking work in menial pursuits because they could not attain the education required for higher pursuits, or going into the religious life, despite its constraints. Today, such is not the case, with most children in the USA having access to quality education (that is, relative to little or no education in the past) with the result being that although employment in factories has diminished with the decline in American industrial production, employment in other areas of the economy is generally stable to robust.

The Greek Orthodox Church in my hometown is not particularly targeting German Catholics, but disaffected Catholics in general. It is not unlike the billboard campaign of the Catholic Church begging former Catholics to "come home" or the billboard campaign asking Catholics to pray for more religious in the Church. Catholics are leaving the Catholic Church for a very wide range of reasons, not merely the one example I cited. Many of them, as in Europe, have decided to remain Catholic in registration only, but have no engagement with the Catholic Church at all, except, perhaps for a wedding or funeral. I have a friend here who is an active Catholic, having sent his children to Catholic schools. One of his sons was married a couple of weeks ago. The wedding was quite excellent, according to my friend. It was held, along with the reception, in the local botanical garden. My friend, by the way, is divorced, but maintains a good friendship with his former wife. I could cite many similar situations.

The point seems to be that in my hometown the Greek Orthodox Church is seriously seeking to engage disaffected Catholics in the Christian faith. I personally am a simple bystander.

 

[The Liturgist]

There are a number of reasons for the dearth of new priests within the Catholic Church. It would be too simplistic IMO to ascribe it merely to one only. Among the reasons are the NLM as you noted, secularism in general society which has affected all elements of society, priestly celibacy, the issues of homosexuality and child abuse, and gender roles both within the church and within the home. One stark statistic is that the average family size in society as well as within the Catholic Church has fallen markedly since the introduction of effective means of birth control. Although the Catholic Church condemns birth control as a mortal sin, either Catholic couples are devoutly abstaining from intercourse or they are using other, more effective, means of limiting the sizes of their families. In previous centuries, children from large Catholic families faced the stark reality of either taking work in menial pursuits because they could not attain the education required for higher pursuits, or going into the religious life, despite its constraints. Today, such is not the case, with most children in the USA having access to quality education (that is, relative to little or no education in the past) with the result being that although employment in factories has diminished with the decline in American industrial production, employment in other areas of the economy is generally stable to robust.

The Greek Orthodox Church in my hometown is not particularly targeting German Catholics, but disaffected Catholics in general. It is not unlike the billboard campaign of the Catholic Church begging former Catholics to "come home" or the billboard campaign asking Catholics to pray for more religious in the Church. Catholics are leaving the Catholic Church for a very wide range of reasons, not merely the one example I cited. Many of them, as in Europe, have decided to remain Catholic in registration only, but have no engagement with the Catholic Church at all, except, perhaps for a wedding or funeral. I have a friend here who is an active Catholic, having sent his children to Catholic schools. One of his sons was married a couple of weeks ago. The wedding was quite excellent, according to my friend. It was held, along with the reception, in the local botanical garden. My friend, by the way, is divorced, but maintains a good friendship with his former wife. I could cite many similar situations.

The point seems to be that in my hometown the Greek Orthodox Church is seriously seeking to engage disaffected Catholics in the Christian faith. I personally am a simple bystander.

Forgive me, in your prior reply you said “The Greek Orthodox seem to be making their appeal to the disaffected Germans. Ironically, some German Catholics view the Greeks as less alien to them than the Irish” and this is what I was replying to.

At any rate, the fact is the TLM communities, although small, have very high ratios of seminarians to priests, which is why I am so adamantly opposed to Traditiones Custodes and the rumored upcoming complete ban. I would also note that every TLM community I have visited fills up. Indeed TLM parishes get some of the best attendance of any traditional churches outside of the Orthodox Communion.

 

[bbbbbbb]

Forgive me, in your prior reply you said “The Greek Orthodox seem to be making their appeal to the disaffected Germans. Ironically, some German Catholics view the Greeks as less alien to them than the Irish” and this is what I was replying to.

At any rate, the fact is the TLM communities, although small, have very high ratios of seminarians to priests, which is why I am so adamantly opposed to Traditiones Custodes and the rumored upcoming complete ban. I would also note that every TLM community I have visited fills up. Indeed TLM parishes get some of the best attendance of any traditional churches outside of the Orthodox Communion.

That is my understanding, as well. Thank you, as always.