A glimpse at our Eastern & Western Christian Churches

[The Liturgist]

And "limited communion" is meaningless. Either Churches are in communion or they are not. It is deceptive to state otherwise.

I don’t know how else to describe a scenario where Antiochians and Syriacs have full access to the sacraments at each other’s churches, are prohibited from converting, can be the godparents of children in either church (so an Antiochian can have Syriac Orthodox godparents), and where the churches have recognized each other’s legitimacy and laid down protocols for episcopal concelebration. It is Eucharistic communion which determines the status of ecumenical relations, and the only thing that as far as I know has not happened is concelebration, but since the laity can attend either church, and since both are recognized as legitimate according to the agreement, this means that as far as the laity is concerned, it is as if the Antiochian Orthodox and the Syriac Orthodox are in communion.

Now, whether or not this applies to Eastern Orthodoxy is a question of ecclesiology. According to the ecclesiology I see many Greek Orthodox using, the Antiochians are no longer Eastern Orthodox, if the principles of their ecclesiology are objectively applied. Certainly many Constantinopolitan Orthodox and members of the OCU have claimed the MP is no longer Eastern Orthodox, but the conditions that characterize the MP also apply to Antioch, to a still greater extent.

 

[The Liturgist]

The best evidence that two Churches are not in communion is that they are not in communion. That is simple, too.

No, that’s a tautology, and tautological statements are tautological - by definition, they prove nothing, since a self-referential assertion is effectively meaningless, since it can be eliminated from a sentence without changing the semantic structure. The two terms of the tautology cancel each other out.

 

[The Liturgist]

It is enough for me that their allegations against us were dealt with definitively (synodically) as early as 475 at the Third Council of Ephesus, with hundreds of bishops attending under the presidency of HH Pope St. Timothy II, who as the direct successor of our teacher St. Dioscorus can be fairly and accurately said to be a chief exponent of the authentic tradition of our Church regarding its dealings with the Chalcedonians (as they are not alone in having evolved a kind of canned response to what 'the other side' is doing or saying or reportedly doing or saying in the centuries following the schism; see, e.g., Maged S.A. Mikhail's From Byzantine to Islamic Egypt for the explosion of some of those developed myths, particularly with regard to the persistent Hellenistic element in indigenous Egyptian Christianity, which of course long predates any schism). At this council, Eutyches was anathematized by name, together with all who share in his error, and all who share in the errors of Chalcedon and the Tome it very unwisely and without true guidance accepted as orthodox.

That is a very interesting post, particularly since I was unaware of Ephesus III, so I will have to research that! So thank you for enduring this thread enough to articulate it.

For whatever reason, I consistently encounter the strongest anti-OO sentiments and pro-OO sentiments from the Greek churches, as either converts or ethnic Greeks.. Because on the one hand you have someone like Nicholas Marinides, who has written scores of cheap falsehoods about the OO, and on the other hand you have people like Metropolitan Kallistos Ware and especially Fr. John C. Romanides.

And then you have schismatic Old Calendarists whining about Fr. John being an ecumenist because he dared call the Oriental Orthodox by their name: Was Fr. John Romanides an Ecumenist? Yes!

 

[cradleGO]

No, that’s a tautology, and tautological statements are tautological - by definition, they prove nothing, since a self-referential assertion is effectively meaningless, since it can be eliminated from a sentence without changing the semantic structure. The two terms of the tautology cancel each other out.

The key word is evidence. There is no evidence that these churches are in communion with the EO. Therefore they are not in communion.
This should have been the one where I thought I could get agreement.

 

[The Liturgist]

This should have been the one where I thought I could get agreement.

I can never agree with a tautology. They contain no information. It’s literally a null-valued statement. It’s the equivalent if writing a computer program with a line such as if 1 == 1; return true; , in that it might compile, but it could literally be deleted without changing the semantics of the program. In like manner, tautologies can be deleted from arguments without changing their meaning. Especially the dreaded “it is what it is.”

The key word is evidence. There is no evidence that these churches are in communion with the EO. Therefore they are not in communion.

But the problem is that there is evidence, in the form of the 1991 agreement, that the Syriac Orthodox are in a state of limited intercommunion with the Antiochians, wherein the two churches recognize the legitimacy of each other’s doctrine and sacraments, have established protocols for episcopal concelebration, and will not even allow people to convert from one to the other under any circumstances, and that a similar arrangement exists between the Copts and Alexandrians.

Obviously these agreements are specific to these churches and do not extend to the entire Eastern Orthodox or Oriental Orthodox communion. The Ethiopians, for example, would never agree to such a relationship with an EO church, since powerful monasteries in their church maintain, incorrectly, that we are Nestorians, just as we have some people who continue to erroneously insist the Oriental Orthodox are Eutychian monophysites (although only one bishop outside of the Old Calendarists that I am aware of holds to that view, that being the very controversial Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus).

At any rate, I grow weary of discussing this, and I suggest we agree to disagree on this matter since neither of us seems likely to change our views on the matter, and I am not troubled by you having a difference of opinion on this issue.

 

[cradleGO]

I don’t know how else to describe a scenario where Antiochians and Syriacs have full access to the sacraments at each other’s churches, are prohibited from converting, can be the godparents of children in either church (so an Antiochian can have Syriac Orthodox godparents), and where the churches have recognized each other’s legitimacy and laid down protocols for episcopal concelebration. It is Eucharistic communion which determines the status of ecumenical relations, and the only thing that as far as I know has not happened is concelebration, but since the laity can attend either church, and since both are recognized as legitimate according to the agreement, this means that as far as the laity is concerned, it is as if the Antiochian Orthodox and the Syriac Orthodox are in communion.

Now, whether or not this applies to Eastern Orthodoxy is a question of ecclesiology. According to the ecclesiology I see many Greek Orthodox using, the Antiochians are no longer Eastern Orthodox, if the principles of their ecclesiology are objectively applied. Certainly many Constantinopolitan Orthodox and members of the OCU have claimed the MP is no longer Eastern Orthodox, but the conditions that characterize the MP also apply to Antioch, to a still greater extent.

Your first statement is clearly not true. I have copied the 4 provisions of the letter agreement below. There is no "...full access to the sacraments...." 6. applies only if there are both bishops present for a funeral, baptism, or matrimony, and merely says who presides. 7. prohibits mixed bishops concelebrating Divine Liturgy, while 8. extends that to priests.

The tricky one is 9. where a priest from one can celebrate services including Divine Liturgy and matrimony, for the other, if there is no priest of the other. I have some questions, but clearly yes there is literally communion between them. I still relate this as an accommodation between two churches in a hostile land. If there is a requirement that there is a church building - a physical church - with no priest, but with a community, that is even more support that this is an accommodation.

I do not know what happens in practice, but the letter is written so as to bar "...the laity can attend either church (meaning for communion)...". The letter gives only one situation where that is allowed.

Letter provisions:
6. If bishops of the two Churches participate at a holy baptism or funeral service, the one belonging to the Church of the baptized or deceased will preside. In case of a holy matrimony service, the bishop of the bridegroom's Church will preside.
7. The above mentioned is not applicable to the concelebration in the Divine Liturgy.
8. What applies to bishops equally applies to the priests of both Churches.
9. In localities where there is only one priest, from either Church, he will celebrate services for the faithful of both Churches, including the Divine Liturgy, pastoral duties, and holy matrimony. He will keep an independent record for each Church and transmit that of the sister Church to its authorities.

 

[cradleGO]

I can never agree with a tautology. They contain no information. It’s literally a null-valued statement. It’s the equivalent if writing a computer program with a line such as if 1 == 1; return true; , in that it might compile, but it could literally be deleted without changing the semantics of the program. In like manner, tautologies can be deleted from arguments without changing their meaning. Especially the dreaded “it is what it is.”



But the problem is that there is evidence, in the form of the 1991 agreement, that the Syriac Orthodox are in a state of limited intercommunion with the Antiochians, wherein the two churches recognize the legitimacy of each other’s doctrine and sacraments, have established protocols for episcopal concelebration, and will not even allow people to convert from one to the other under any circumstances, and that a similar arrangement exists between the Copts and Alexandrians.

Obviously these agreements are specific to these churches and do not extend to the entire Eastern Orthodox or Oriental Orthodox communion. The Ethiopians, for example, would never agree to such a relationship with an EO church, since powerful monasteries in their church maintain, incorrectly, that we are Nestorians, just as we have some people who continue to erroneously insist the Oriental Orthodox are Eutychian monophysites (although only one bishop outside of the Old Calendarists that I am aware of holds to that view, that being the very controversial Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus).

At any rate, I grow weary of discussing this, and I suggest we agree to disagree on this matter since neither of us seems likely to change our views on the matter, and I am not troubled by you having a difference of opinion on this issue.

We agree to disagree. I pursued this because I've seen 'some' (cannot say 'many') who want to portray that EO and certain OO (and others of long tenure not identifying as OO) are closer than they are, or by clever wording or omission, leave the impression that they are in communion.

 

[The Liturgist]

Unfortunately I can’t agree to disagree yet, since after I posted that, you posted a reply with inaccuracies which unfortunately must be addressed, but I will give you a bit of time before replying; specifically, you made a claim about the articles which is completely bogus, and I am concerned that you would make such a claim, because the agreement does not say what you claim it says; I am not accusing you of intentional dishonesty, by any means, but rather I feel you have inadvertently misread the articles, and should objectively reread them.

We agree to disagree. I pursued this because I've seen 'some' (cannot say 'many') who want to portray that EO and certain OO (and others of long tenure not identifying as OO) are closer than they are, or by clever wording or omission, leave the impression that they are in communion.

I don’t think that’s the case. But many people have advocated for full reunion, including Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, memory eternal.

Also I have never claimed that the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox are in a general state of full communion. The agreement we are debating is specific to the Antiochian and Syriac Orthodox churches and only applies to them, and does not even apply to the autonomous Antiochian Orthodox Church in North America.

A similar agreement exists between the Alexandrian Greeks and the Coptic Orthodox, but I do not have the text of that agreement.