What We Believe

ArmyMatt said:

start with the Orthodox Church closest to you.
but check out the Church, talk to the priest afterwords, and please keep us posted on your journey!

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LJCTAM said:

ArmyMatt, why would ever say I am drawn to the Byzantine style? LOLOLOLOL

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Dorothea said:

My videos have been erased.. It has a 10-minute limit

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little bubbe said:

I am interested in what Eastern Orthodox Christianity believes. I know they believe in Justification by both Faith and Works. But what I am curious about is what this actually entails. Does that mean that non-Christians can be saved by works?

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little bubbe said:

I am interested in what Eastern Orthodox Christianity believes. I know they believe in Justification by both Faith and Works. But what I am curious about is what this actually entails. Does that mean that non-Christians can be saved by works?

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Dorothea said:

GOOD NEWS, all! A fellow member here has these lectures on video as well, and the videos that follow that called "The Inner Life of the Church" (for catechumens...the first one "What We Believe" is for inquirers).

Here's the link. Thanks for angelsbooklove for uploading all of them and in one place for me! The 12-part series "What We believe" is at the bottom...you need to scroll down to get to them. I will be watching the next set since I haven't seen that one yet!

https://www.adrive.com/public/xgRt5e/AndersonVideoLectures

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Dorothea said:

Ok, So, I'm afraid I didn't take any notes from the first DVD, which seemed to be a basic intro on what he was going to talk about.

Anyway, I took sporadic notes throughout this lecture, but, I took lots and lots of notes on some things.

I'll start with the few notes I jotted down from the DVD #2 on God the Father and some basic notes I jotted down from the DVD #1:

The Church wrote the Bible. The Apostles were the Church's first bishops, so therefore, they were still in the midst of writing their gospels and epistles while they were spreading the Good News and starting Churches and appointing bishops and such to the churches they started.

God is outside of time and is eternal. He is always in the present. He is eternally in the present because He has no past and no future.

AGIOS = GEE (G) in AGIOS = Earthly or Geological

A in AGIOS = Not Earthly - not of this world.

HOLY = Wholly Other.

The whole experience of worship in the Church is in reverence and response of faith to the Holy God.

St. John is closer to God than the other Apostles. His Gospel was even a bit different than the other three. St. John's perception of God was deeper than the others.

100% of the instances in the NT where an Apostle is quoting from the OT scriptures, it is from the Septuagint. That's what Christ and the Apostles used.

Fr. David talks about the different levels of faith we go through.

Infantile (or child faith, not to be confused with coming to God with a childlike belief in Him) is one who has faith in faith and through emotions may manipulate what they do or read in life to what they believe God to be saying, and in essence, making us puppeteers. This is not a relationship with God, Fr. David points out.

Adolescent faith is about dissecting God....through the mind. This also does not lead to a full relationship with God.

Faith in God transcends the emotional and the intellectual.

"Why did God create the universe and people and all that is? God was not lonely. He did not have to create us. The Trinity is the perfect union in Love. Out of God's goodness, He created the universe and all in it. He created it out of nothing. This is the difference between Christianity and most of the other world religions. Other world religions have no beginning and end, but we do. Creation has a beginning and an end. God has no beginning and end. He is always eternally in the present. He is outside of time. Time is in the created world, as I'm sure you all know.

Man was created in the image of God. Man is two things, explained Fr. David: 1) Microcosm = both spiritual and material existence, and 2) Mediator - Man is the link between the cosmos and God. Man has both worlds in him! He has both the spiritual (of God) and the material (of the creation).

Man, the priest, king of creation. Man was created to live forever, not die but to share the same life as the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, not to be identified in being with them, mind you, because Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the essence of their being are not creatures. But to the extent of God's grace making it possible, the creature of man was intended by God to be invited into the life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and through sharing the communion in that life, everything that is all creation was to be filled with the glory and beauty of God through the means of the human being. And that act by which man glorified God by offering Him in praise and thanksgiving, the creation was intended by God to be the essential, most basically human act, says Fr. David.

So, with this, Adam and Eve were created to be in union with the Trinity. God gave them intellect, free will, and life, of course. God takes a risk, if you will, by giving humans free will (and angels...this is how Lucifer and the angels that followed him fell from heaven). God allows the probability of evil in world. But we must say that Satan is not the opposite of God. There is no evil personified. No existence in itself. The devil is not the opposite of God, Fr. David explains, because God and the devil are no equals and are not good vs evil because the devil is a creature and has limitations.

Lucifer was the perhaps the smartest, most knowledgeable spiritually of the angels. He was an archangel. But his pride got the best of him, so to speak. He wanted to be God. He wanted people to worship him. Pride seems to be the most paramount of sins since both Lucifer in the angelic world and Adam and Eve in the material world both fell because of Pride. We have to be humble and not let our pride have dominion over us. If we do, we would be trying to be our own gods.

Lucifer was jealous/envious of human beings because they were made in the image of God, and he and the other angels weren't. His hatred was aimed at the human, to bring them down along with him.

Fr. David said that Adam and Eve were supposed to grow in communion with God. God had Adam name all the creatures. To name something is to give authority over them.

We will also notice that in the garden with regards to eating from the tree of knowledge, God said to Adam and Eve, 'If you do this, you will die.' Not 'I'm going to get you.,' says Fr. David. No, He didn't say anything along those lines. It's based on a choice."

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Dorothea said:

To Mark: Yes, these are the dogmas and doctrines of the Orthodox Church. I do believe the two natures of Christ and Mary being ever-virgin are dogmas, though, not doctrines.)

Thank you, mark and musicluvr, for bumping the thread!



DVD #11 - The Church (cont'd.)


"They have a different spirit than the Holy Spirit that holds the Church together. That we have, and it's important we speak of it this evening. Then we have the second great, in the order historical chronology, strife in the Christian history and that is, of course, the division of the Greek Church and the Latin Church.

We mentioned last time the teaching concerning the Holy Spirit. The Orthodox Church - the Greek Church - rejected the innovation of the filioque - of saying that the Holy Spirit proceeded equally from the Father and the Son - and also rejected a development which in Orthodox eyes was an addition to the faith that had not been held from the beginning, and that is what evolved into the RCC teaching concerning the authority of the Pope - of the Papacy. It's this - this is at the center of the rift between Latin West and Greek East. This is what caused after several centuries of tension - it's important to not have an overly simplistic attitude toward this schism between the Eastern and Western Church.

In summary form, the year 1054 is given as the year of division between East and West. There really is not an accurate way to look at it. In the year 1054, there was an unfortunate occurrence. There had been other unfortunate occurrences before that, that had their consequences. There would be other ones afterwards, but the division between East and West occurred over six centuries, ending really in the 15th century, and at that time, what was different at the end of the flat time. Before this time of trouble, when the Greek East and the Latin West looked at each other, they saw themselves as two different expressions of the same Church comprising one Church together. At the end of this time of schism and strife, when the Greek Church and the Latin Church looked at each other, they did not recognize in each other an expression of the one Church. They saw themselves as two different phenomena. And though there might have been a continuation of many things that were held in common, in the Faith, there had been a breach that resulted and continues to result to our day in the breaking of communion between the Greek Church and the Latin Church, and it was over this question of authority in the Church.

So, it's good for us right now to talk about the three things that are taught in the Latin Church concerning the papacy and how the Orthodox regards those things. The first is that in the early Church from the days of the Apostles, it was always understood that there is order in the Church. The Church is not an anarchy. The Church is not a monarchy. The Church is not a democracy. The Church reflects the life of the Holy Trinity. And just as there is an order in the Persons of the Holy Trinity - the Son is begotten of the Father, not the other way around. The Spirit proceeds from the Father, not the other way around. The Son is begotten. The Spirit proceeds. The Son and the Spirit are not confused. The relationship of each of the Persons of the Son and the Spirit is a unique one. So likewise, it was understood that Christ established an order in His Church. There was an order in the Apostles, we can see it even in the Scriptural account that Christ singled out Peter, James and John. From Peter, James, and John, He singled out Peter, after Peter gave that confession of Him as Messiah, when Peter said speaking, we can say, for all the Apostles, to Jesus, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' Jesus says to him, 'blessed are you Simon Peter, flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father in heaven. And so I say to you, that you are Peter and upon this Rock, I will built my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.'

It had been understood in the Church from the beginning that Peter was first among equals, together with Paul, we sing in the Orthodox Church, they are first enthroned of the Apostles. We don't have this idea in the Church that the relationship of each person to God within the communion of the Church is an identical relationship. There are people who are greater, there are people who are lesser.

Jesus spoke of Himself in the sermon on the mount. He said there will be those that are least in the Kingdom of Heaven. There will be those who are greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. So, Peter was always considered to be the first among the Apostles. The first among equals. That teaching regarding Peter is called Primacy - from the word meaning first. And it means that first of all, in the rank of the Apostles, Peter had the first place.

Likewise, it was the understanding of the early Church of Rome that had a special relationship - is the best way to speak of it - to the Apostles Peter and Paul, and also because, of course, Rome was the central city of the known world. There are practical reasons fro this. It was agreed in the early Church, among all the Churches, the Church of Rome had the first place, and that the bishop of Rome was the first bishop in the ranks of the Church. For the bishop of Rome to be called the descendant of St. Peter was understood by the entire Church and accepted. Though that does not mean, for example, that the bishop of Antioch, where Peter also was, claimed the same thing. But that didn't matter. All of this was able to coexist very well."

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Dorothea said:

DVD #11 - The Church (cont'd.)


At the Ecumenical Councils, the representatives sent by the Pope always had the first place, you see. But as time went on and as the Church of Rome became more and more responsible - some of this is the result of historical circumstances - you know, the Greek-speaking half of the empire, the whole political structure did not fall apart for 1500 years. Constantinople did not fall to the Turks until 1453. But the old Rome in the West - the Latin Empire, had fallen to barbarian invaders by the 5th century. So the whole structure of society - political/social structure - was collapsing, and it was the figure of the bishop of Rome in the West, even beginning with for example, Pope Gregory the Great (pointing to an icon of St. Gregory) in the 6th and early 7th century, who had to pull the pieces together of the entire society, not simply be the first bishop of the Church, but be really the leader of society at that time. But as a result, as the centuries progressed, the bishops of Rome began ascribing to themselves an authority that in the eyes of the Greek Church was something that was not there in the early Church. They claimed to have two things that we reject, regarded as additions to the deposit of Faith.

1. Supremacy
2. Infallibility

The bishops of Rome claimed to exercise infallibility. Now, infallibility isn't the problem here because as we're going to see, as Orthodox, we believe in the infallibility of the Church. To believe in the infallibility of the Church is a very simple thing. It means that because it is not a human society - the Church is a communion of persons called by God to share the life of the Holy Trinity, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit; therefore, we have the promise of God, the promise of Christ, Who will be with his people until the end of the world, that the truth that He came to give us will always be taught in this world until the end of time. That's what we mean, as Orthodox, when we speak of the infallibility of the Church.

However, in the Roman Church, when it began to be claimed that this infallibility was expressed through one mouthpiece, you see, the bishops of Rome, well, this was a great problem. This was something that was not in our understanding and experience of the early Church...something that was not present in the early Church. Likewise, when the bishops of Rome began to claim, what is called supremacy - Supremacy is the understanding that the bishops of Rome - the Pope- has immediate authority over the entire Church. You see, that's quite different than saying that those who have received the Apostolic authority, just as the Apostles, everywhere, by the laying on of hands, established bishops and presbyters and deacons to be means through which the authority that Christ gave to His Apostles is perpetuated in the Church until the end of the world. That these Churches begun by the Apostles, whose existence continued through the bishops, priests, and deacons, that the Apostles established, all existed together in communion with the bishops being in communion with one another just as the Apostles were. The bishops of the great Churches, the great cities, the Patriarchs, as they were called. The cities of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Constantinople, and among these Patriarchs, the bishop of the greatest city, Rome, having the first place. That's one thing. But to say that the bishop of Rome has immediate jurisdiction over the entire Church is quite another thing.

That is the doctrine of supremacy of the Pope that began to be exercised with great force in the middle ages. And it's over this that the core, we could say, the center of the division between Greek East and Latin West occurs. And we would say, the Orthodox claim would be that what happened here in this great tragedy - no one would deny it is a tragedy - is by claiming that these doctrines regarding the papacy, together with the doctrine of the filioque - regarding the Holy Spirit - were, in fact, to be imposed on the entire Church. You see, they tried to force the Orthodox Church to accept these doctrines. By doing so, the Latin Church, the Roman Catholic Church, left the communion of the one Church.

So, there was no division of the Church that occurred here. You did not have the Church split into two Churches because there cannot be two Churches anymore than there can be two Gods. It cannot be that the claims made by one Church and the claims made by the other are equally true because we are dealing here not simply secondary matters. Rather we are dealing with things that are at the very core of what God wills to do for the human race, the revelation that He has made of Himself and entrusted to those human beings that compose His Church. So it is the Orthodox doctrine when there is this kind of strife in the Church that either one claim must be true or the other must be true. They cannot be equally true. Nor can one say that both are false, that truth is relative. There is no such thing as relative truth in the Christian experience. Truth regarding God is always absolute.

In the third tragedy to befall Christianity, the Reformation, which is when the Orthodox look at Reformation beginning in the 16th century, of course it is a phenomena of the Latin Church. The Orthodox Church never underwent the Reformation. The Latin Church continued to have this tension within itself regarding the nature of authority. You see, in the Orthodox Church's eyes, I believe we mentioned this already, that once there is the attempt to narrow down the tradition of the Church, insist on a visible criterion of authority, rather than seeing as the criteria of authority in the Church, the entire tradition found in the Scriptures, the Fathers, the liturgical services, the councils, the Creed, the Saints, and everything else that goes along with it. To say that instead of that, we will have this one point of authority whether it's in the case of the infallible and supreme pontiff, the bishop of Rome, or later on when that is cast off by the teachers of the Reformation - whether it is the Bible independent from how the Bible has been understood in the communion of the Church, and the inevitable consequence of that - that the criterion of the truth becomes my own interpretation of the Bible - my own conscience regarding what is right and wrong. Of course, the result of that is umpteen hundred Protestant denominations."

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