Response to Moxie

[fish0251]

With the federal marriage amendment in the news lately, I've been thinking some about Christians who lobby for the acceptance of homosexual relationships both within and without the church. My former church, Spirit of Hope UMC, has become a reconciling congregation which means they "welcome people of all sexual orientations". I'd like to respond

Comments

[anonymous]

The whole issue of the Protestant Reformation was rejecting the authority of the Pope, so why shouldn't the Methodist Church instead go into communion with the Orthodox church, which never recognized the self-proclaimed authority of the Pope over the eastern (non-latin) christian churches in the first place?

Among the most striking things about the liturgical worship of the Eastern Orthodox Church is the uniformity of its form, and the high degree of correspondence to the form that was in practice across the Christian Church in the sixth century. The Eastern Orthodox Church has experienced no Reformation that transformed the theological foundation of the faith as well as essentially doing away with the liturgical form and music, as has almost all of Protestantism. Neither has Orthodoxy experienced a twentieth century council that modified both the liturgical form and music, as has the Roman Catholic Church. While the liturgical form did undergo change in the fourth and fifth centuries to reflect the theological maturity of the faith, it still retains a high degree of similarity to early Christian practice.

[fish0251]

Brother, I'm sorry you didn't sign your comment, but I hope you stop back. Indeed the Orthodox Churches have preserved a beautiful liturgical and spiritual tradition down through the ages, of which I'm woefully ignorant. However, I do believe the See of Peter was given the necessary role and authority of maintaining unity in the body of Christ here on Earth.

If you have particular affection for the Eastern Liturgy, perhaps you could find a home in an Eastern Rite Catholic Church which shares that tradition of worship?
Vatican II Decree on Catholic Churches of the Eastern Rite
Catholic Encyclopedia: Eastern Churches
Wikipedia: Eastern Rite Catholic Churches

[fish0251]

Also:
Eastern-Rite Catholicism by Robert Taft on Byzantines.net.

[anonymous]

The bottom line is that, during its 2000 year existence, the Orthodox Church had not been subject to the administrative authority of the Pope of Rome, and this is borne out in the extant decrees of the early Church councils. These councils, while acknowledging the Pope as the "first among equals," in no way envision the Bishop of Rome's "primacy of honor" as a "supremacy of jurisdiction." The papal claims to supremacy are of much later origin, and there are many who would argue that such claims have done far more damage to the unity of Christendom than anything else. [If one looks at the hundreds upon hundreds of Protestant groups that grew out of Roman Catholicism -- there is little parallel here within Orthodox Christianity -- one might also question the papacy as a point of unity.

While Orthodox Christians do indeed pray and hope for "the unity of all," and while it is unfortunately that there are some Orthodox Christians who are less than charitable in addressing non-Orthodox confessions, the fact remains that the unity one seeks must be a genuine unity rooted in Jesus Christ as the Great Archpastor and High Priest, as Saint Paul writes, and not in an administrative "Vicar."

[anonymous]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140146563/sr=8-1/qid=1151153981/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-7595287-1905543?ie=UTF8

"The Orthodox Church" is the best introduction of the church to the Western mind. It vividly describes the reasons for the great schism (e.g. claims of papal primacy, lots of added-on, invented dogma by the Western wing of the church, after the schism to become the Catholic church).

[fish0251]

Thank you for the reference. Obviously I don't agree with your summary of the history of the early Church. I would appreciate it if you would sign your posts, perhaps with any email address, for any future comments.