Eastern Orthodoxy

[CoreIssue]

Note: The first posts here is a repost from the old board by CoreIssue.

Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2004 4:13 pm by Sid

Eastern Orthodoxy has remained unchanged for over a thousand years. There have been few developments in Orthodoxy since the last of the Great Church Councils held in 787. John of Damascus, an eighth century Orthodox theologian, said "we do not change the everlasting boundaries which our fathers have set, but we keep the traditions just as we received them".

The main advantage of Eastern Orthodoxy - and, its opponents would say, its main drawback - is that it has not moved from the position it held fifteen hundred years ago. Its theology did not develop in the Middle Ages: there was no Aquinas to create whole new systems of belief; and it did not become a political tyrant: there was no Pope Innocent to turn the church into a political animal. As a result, there was no need for a Reformation to return the church to its original mission.

Discovering Eastern Orthodoxy (http://www.reality.org.nz/articles/32/32-simmonds.asp)

[Sid]

The Orthodox church believes it is the One True Church, and the RCC left them.

. . . they consider papal infallibility the last straw of RC apostasy.



Paul VI and John Paul II have repeatedly emphasized our supposed commonality of faith with the Oriental Churches. It is striking that these declarations have found no resonance from the Orthodox Churches. In fact this commonality does not exist.

Walter Kasper is mistaken to claim that "the only true theological controversy with the Orthodox" concerns papal primacy. The idyllic image he proposes of relations between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox is a deceptive one. There is no truth of the Faith that the Orthodox do not understand in a different way from the Catholic Church, even in the details.

The primacy of jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome is unanimously rejected by the Orthodox. Furthermore, the Orthodox maintain that the third Person of the Most Holy Trinity proceeds only from the Father, not from the Father and the Son as the dogma of the Catholic Church holds. On the problem of original sin, they approach the Protestants in inferring from it the total corruption of man.

The dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin finds powerful opposition in Orthodoxy. Many Orthodox consider baptism administered by heretics to be invalid. Catholics and Protestants who convert to Orthodoxy are rebaptized [unconditionally -Ed.].

The same holds for confirmation in some circumstances. Transubstantiation (when it is accepted) is ascribed not to the words of consecration but to the subsequent invocation of the Holy Ghost (epiclesis). Eucharistic adoration does not exist. The doctrine of indulgences has no place.

The sacred oil is administered not only to the sick but also to the healthy. There is notable uncertainty about the possibility of women becoming deaconesses or priests. The minister of the sacrament of marriage is the priest, not the spouses. Divorce is permitted for just cause. The divorced can remarry up to a third time in a sacramental marriage [!].

Orthodoxy has no objection to impediments to conception. In relation to homosexuality an "opening" is apparent. Some uncertainties are apparent in the doctrine of the last things. Purgatory is denied by most of their theologians.

Furthermore, the Orthodox themselves do not entertain the possibility of shared communion with Catholics, whom they consider heretics.



Let us now consider doctrinal differences with the Orthodox. (http://www.sspxasia.com/Documents/SiSiNoNo/2005_April/Ecumenism_Trap.htm)