Calibacy For Priests - Vatican Secretary Of State

[Era Might]

I'm sure the Apostles would be thrilled with the United States. But who really cares about the Byzantine Empire or the United States. Holy Orthodoxy is the mystery of God lived here and now.

 

That's a weird way of looking at things from a traditional Christian perspective. The Orthodox peoples of the Byzantine Empire didn't think their empire was some ancillary matter, but the proof of God's favor and historical triumph of Orthodoxy. Your statement reflects more modern separations of religion and public life, so that religion can operate in its own domain. Which is interesting, because that is somewhat closer to how it operated in the early church, before the fall of the Roman empire, in the world but not (yet) strongly of it.

Edited September 13, 2013 by Era Might

[Apotheoun]

I don't think there's any realistic or feasible situation under which either Islam or Orthodoxy will dominate Western Civilization any time soon.  your overexagerated projections are fanciful at best.

I think Western Europe could see, within a generation or two at the most, Islam become the largest single religion. 

[Era Might]

I don't think there's any realistic or feasible situation under which either Islam or Orthodoxy will dominate Western Civilization any time soon.  your overexagerated projections are fanciful at best.

 

Can't you picture it, Putin and Patriarch leading Mother Russia and all the world to Holy Orthodoxy!!!1111

[Apotheoun]

That's a weird way of looking at things from a traditional Christian perspective. The Orthodox peoples of the Byzantine Empire didn't think their empire was some ancillary matter, but the proof of God's favor and historical triumph of Orthodoxy. Your statement reflects more modern separations of religion and public life, so that religion can operate in its own domain. Which is interesting, because that is somewhat closer to how it operated in the early church, before the fall of the Roman empire, in the world but not (yet) strongly of it.

The Byzantine Empire - as important as it was - has been gone for 500 years, but Orthodoxy is still around. Do the Orthodox advocate creating an Orthodox society? Yes. Orthodox Christians believe that the faith should inform the culture. So in that sense they are for creating Christian societies, but they do not need to have a new Byzantine emperor to do that, nor do they need a Czar, or some other king. It can be accomplished by instilling Orthodox values into daily life, which is the natural outcome of living the faith anyway. You cannot separate the Orthodox mindset from how you individually (or how society collectively) experience and organize your life.

Edited September 13, 2013 by Apotheoun

[Era Might]

The Byzantine Empire - as important as it was - has been gone for 500 years, but Orthodoxy is still around. Do the Orthodox advocate creating an Orthodox society? Yes. Orthodox Christians believe that the faith should inform the culture. So in that sense they are for creating Christian societies, but they do not need to have a new Byzantine emperor to do that, nor do they need a Czar, or some other king. It can be accomplished by instilling Orthodox values into daily life, which is the natural outcome of living the faith anyway. You cannot separate the Orthodox mindset from how you individually (or how society collectively) experience and organize your life.

 

So in other words, Orthodoxy can rearrange its worldview and civilization to fit any worldview and civilization (even a secular one like modernity). I don't think that's a bad thing, but it flies in the face of the caricature of Orthodoxy as some unchanging bastion. At least the Western church doesn't try to maintain such a fiction. It has come to grips with the fact that the old dogmatic imperialisms were problematic to say the least.

[Apotheoun]

Can't you picture it, Putin and Patriarch leading Mother Russia and all the world to Holy Orthodoxy!!!1111

I would prefer that to Obama. But the resurgence of Orthodoxy in the former communist block is still underway, after all it has only been going on for about 20 years. It is weird to say this, but my Orthodox friends are all very optimistic about the future, while many (possibly even the majority) of my Catholic friends are pessimistic. Perhaps the battles over gay marriage in the West are affecting Catholics perception of the world, while in Eastern European countries that form of attack has not had the same impact.

[Apteka]

Era your posts make me realize that the Western Church has given up on the idea of actually converting both individuals and society at large to the Christian faith, that is, to the faith as passed on from generation to generation beginning with Christ and the Apostles. In contrast my Orthodox friends see the modern world as in need of Orthodox faith and tradition, that is, they see the need to change the world to fit the Orthodox phronema, and not the other way around. 

 

Yes, Roman Catholicism is dying, as someone in contact with the Orthodox this should be nothing new to you. Rome vainly proposed that her visible institution was invincible, and that the man who governed her was infallible. Now we know by all leading statistical indicators that she is all but ruined, and that like a dying body shunting blood from other organs to preserve the brain, she is altering her thousand year old constitutions to preserve herself as long as possible. Permitting priests to marry will be just one of many attempts to delay the inventible, and as the time draws nearer even more remarkable innovations will be seen. I take this as no shock and it is why I am not in Rome's fold, and sadly there is no church alive that has not succumb to the world in some way. We must remind ourselves that no man-made network can save us, but only God can, and that he can operate outside of the sacraments. If a sincere believer were to fervently pray the Tridentine liturgy in their own home, who is to say God could not transform that bread into flesh? And if the substance is not transformed, God still sees our contrite efforts and there is still spiritual value to be gained.

[Apotheoun]

Yes, Roman Catholicism is dying, as someone in contact with the Orthodox this should be nothing new to you. 

I had a sense of this even before I changed ritual Churches and became Eastern Catholic in 2006. I would say that my first awareness of it began when I converted to Roman Catholicism in 1988, and started attending the modern Roman liturgy after having spent three years as an Anglo-Catholic. My first feelings were a sense of the loss of beauty, because I went from a liturgy that was ritually magnificent to one that seemed like I had entered a liturgical bargain basement.

Edited September 13, 2013 by Apotheoun

[Era Might]

I would prefer that to Obama. But the resurgence of Orthodoxy in the former communist block is still underway, after all it has only been going on for about 20 years. It is weird to say this, but my Orthodox friends are all very optimistic about the future, while many (possibly even the majority) of my Catholic friends are pessimistic. Perhaps the battles over gay marriage in the West are affecting Catholics perception of the world, while in Eastern European countries that form of attack has not had the same impact.

 

There is a thinly veiled nostalgic imperialism in the idea that the "former communist bloc" is Orthodox territory, but just doesn't know it yet. The world is moving away from that kind of regional imperialism...the emergence of nation states has been a big part of that, as well as globalization.

Edited September 13, 2013 by Era Might

[Apotheoun]

There is a thinly veiled nostalgic imperialism in the idea that the "former communist bloc" is Orthodox territory, but just doesn't know it yet. The world is moving away from that kind of regional imperialism...the emergence of nation states has been a big part of that, as well as globalization.

You're reading more into my post than is there. I was making a simple historical and geographical reference, I was not talking about canonical territory.   :smile3:

[Apotheoun]

Postscript: The Russian Orthodox Church has Churches throughout Western Europe, so it clearly does not see itself as limited to a specific canonical territory.

[Era Might]

Well, to try and tie all this back to the original topic, I think one of the more interesting and fruitful "projects" for Catholicism is developing a theology of history and how the church can sort out the different ways it has been shaped, and how it can use that to inform its mission in the world going forward.

[Apotheoun]

Well, to try and tie all this back to the original topic, I think one of the more interesting and fruitful "projects" for Catholicism is developing a theology of history and how the church can sort out the different ways it has been shaped, and how it can use that to inform its mission in the world going forward.

I think it would be better to develop a theology of memory, because that is truly biblical, while the latter is really a 19th century German idea.

Edited September 13, 2013 by Apotheoun

[Apteka]

Well, to try and tie all this back to the original topic, I think one of the more interesting and fruitful "projects" for Catholicism is developing a theology of history and how the church can sort out the different ways it has been shaped, and how it can use that to inform its mission in the world going forward.

 

It's mission going forward? You speak as if the Roman Church has a way out of this mess.

[Era Might]

I think it would be better to develop a theology of memory, because that is truly biblical, while the latter is really a 19th century German effort.

 

The West has always been good about growing its knowledge along with the world. Well, it hasn't always been good...in its best days it has been (and is) good at that. The west was not as closed in on itself as the Orthodox world was, nor as ossified.