A glimpse at our Eastern & Western Christian Churches

[mindlight]

This is categorically inaccurate. The Russians were never defeated by the Byzantines but rather converted to Orthodoxy of their own volition. And unfortunately, the Byzantines were never able to defeat Islam, merely restrain it.

What is more, of the Asian churches continually persecuted by Islam, which have never been associated with state power, that accurately describes several of the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches, for example, the Syriac Orthodox, Antiochian Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, and for most of their history, the Alexandrian Greek Orthodox, and also the Assyrian Church of the East / Ancient Church of the East, and, again, for much of its history, and for all of its history in some of its patriarchates, the Armenian Apostolic Church (which is Oriental Orthodox) and the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, and the Church of Sinai (which is an autonomous but not independent church, whose leader is appointed by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which at present consists mainly of St. Catharine’s Monastery, which has the most valuable collection of icons and also one of the most valuable libraries of any monastery in the world).

There are no other Asian churches which John 3:8 could be referring to, aside from these churches and Eastern Catholic offshoots of them (specifically the Melkite Catholics, Maronite Catholics, Armenian Catholics, Syriac Catholics, Coptic Catholics and Chaldean Catholics).

You misread about Russia and Byzantines, I saw both as bastions against Islam not against each other,

There was a Nestorian church in China in the fifth century and a church in Iran and India from the time of the first apostles and there have been scattered communities of Christians across Asia for much of the last two millennia. Many have been too persecuted to form the clear structures and denominational labels of the sort you listed. The Near Eastern churches you listed and the Orthodox churches are not Eastern by this geographical reckoning. The Holy Spirit has been at work in this world more widely and more profoundly than our church histories describe and Joh 3:8 is a perfect description of His work in Asia.

 

[The Liturgist]

There was a Nestorian church in China in the fifth century and a church in Iran and India from the time of the first apostles and there have been scattered communities of Christians across Asia for much of the last two millennia. Many have been too persecuted to form the clear structures and denominational labels of the sort you listed.

On the contrary, I am intimately familiar with every legitimate Christian community which has operated in Asia since the time of the early church. I am also familiar with those heretical groups such as the Paulicans of Armenia, and also with the persecuted crypto-Christians of Japan, who unfortunately were not fully catechized before the Portuguese missionaries were executed, and with numerous other groups. However, the denominations which I enumerated, which include the Christians you mention in China and Iran and India

The church in China was a part of the Assyrian Church of the East, which is sometimes inaccurately called the Nestorian Church (it does venerate Nestorius, and for a brief period in the 5th century it adhered to his deeply flawed Christology, but in the early sixth century this was replaced by the Chalcedonian-equivalent Christology of Mar Babai the Great), but unfortunately its members in China, Mongolia, Tibet, Central Asia and Yemen (where it reached its southern-most point in the island of Socotra) were killed off by Tamerlane and his sons starting in the 12th century, in a sweeping genocide, which left only the portions of the Church that existed in Iraq and Iran (where it still thrives), and among the Mar Thoma Christians in India. The Mar Thoma Christians, as the name implies, were first evangelized by the Holy Apostle Thomas, who was martyred in Kerala in 53, AD, and I have written about them numerous times on the forum, including about their relationship to the Kochin Jews of Kerala, and also other places evangelized by St. Thomas, with his disciples Saints Addai and Mari, such as Edessa.

In both places, the Church of the East coexisted, and continues to coexist, with Miaphysite communities (which is why the Mar Thoma Christians who resisted integration into the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church reached out to the Patriarch of Antioch and not the Catholicos of the East, although the Syriac Orthodox did transition them over to the West Syriac liturgy as used by the Syriac Orthodox in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, the Holy Land and elsewhere.

However, later, what is now the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East were able to convert members of the Syro Malabar Catholic Church (which used a modified form of the East Syriac Rite). Indeed it was an Indian bishop of the Church of the East responsible for the end of the uncanonical hereditary patriarchate that had plagued the Assyrian church for centuries, who caused this by forming the traditionalist Ancient Church of the East jurisdiction when the last hereditary Catholicos, Mar Shimun XXIII made an ill-advised change to the liturgical calendar, and installing Mar Addai II, memory eternal, as its Catholicos. Later, Mar Shimun XXIII was unfortunately the victim of an assassination in the 1970s, and his successor Mar Dinkha IV, memory eternal, began a reform program in the Assyrian Church of the East which aimed to restore traditions to that church which had been suppressed and at the same time to reassure the larger Christian community that the Assyrians were not Nestorians. This was a success, and it also facilitated the beginning of the reunification process between the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East, which started around 2010, and probably would have been finished already had it not been for the ISIL war in Iraq which had a profoundly adverse affect on the operations of the Church in much of its ancestral homeland, and also the deaths of Mar Dinkha IV and Mar Addai II.

Many heterodox Christians, unaware that the Church of the East is still intact and operating in Iraq, Iran and India, attempt to ascribe various false beliefs to it (this is also commonly done with the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church). For example, I have seen it argued that these churches are, or were, Sabbatarian, or that they adhered to various doctrines that are widely believed in by Restorationist Christians or by some Evangelicals such as Baptists, when in reality we know this not to be the case, because the history of the Church of the East, and also the Syriac Orthodox Church, which has always heavily overlapped it geographically (in part because the two churches serve the same ethnic group, since many Syriac Orthodox, particularly in Iraq, identify as Assyrian, and the Classical Syriac language and the Peshitta translation of the Bible binds these communities together), is extremely well documented, including its historic liturgies, and related facts.

Indeed we even have (most of ) a book of doctrinal theology from the Paulicans, who were heretics, who lived in Armenia and some of whom emigrated to Romania, but all of whom converted to Orthodoxy in the 19th century. This did not stop the Landmark Baptists and other groups from including the Paulicans among their alleged predecessors.

 

[The Liturgist]

You misread about Russia and Byzantines, I saw both as bastions against Islam not against each other,

Well the Byzantines were only able to temporarily hold back the Muslims; the Russians on the other hand, after an initial period of subjugation by the Golden Horde, managed to, after a series of victories such as that of St. Alexander on Lake Neva, beecome more successful and were even able to push the Turks back to such an extent that in the Crimean War, the Turks managed to persuade France, Austria, Prussia and England into providing them military assistance, for fear that an Ottoman collapse would threaten the delicate balance of power constructed by Ferdinand von Metternich after the final defeat of Napoleon, at the Congress of Vienna.

In the 1870s, however, this decision would be exposed as the folly that it was, for there was a rebellion in Bulgaria and Romania, and the Turks sent in the Bashi Bazouks (“broken heads”), who were exceptionally violent mercenaries, and the attrocities they committed were so appalling that all of the European powers, including Russia, united, and forced the Turks out of its remaining European territories, so that it lost those parts of Greece which were not liberated in the Greek War of Independence, and the Balkans, and the entire Province of Roumelia, except for the small portion of land to the west of Constantinople and the Bosphorus that it retains to this day.

 

[mindlight]

On the contrary, I am intimately familiar with every legitimate Christian community which has operated in Asia since the time of the early church. I am also familiar with those heretical groups such as the Paulicans of Armenia, and also with the persecuted crypto-Christians of Japan, who unfortunately were not fully catechized before the Portuguese missionaries were executed, and with numerous other groups. However, the denominations which I enumerated, which include the Christians you mention in China and Iran and India

The church in China was a part of the Assyrian Church of the East, which is sometimes inaccurately called the Nestorian Church (it does venerate Nestorius, and for a brief period in the 5th century it adhered to his deeply flawed Christology, but in the early sixth century this was replaced by the Chalcedonian-equivalent Christology of Mar Babai the Great), but unfortunately its members in China, Mongolia, Tibet, Central Asia and Yemen (where it reached its southern-most point in the island of Socotra) were killed off by Tamerlane and his sons starting in the 12th century, in a sweeping genocide, which left only the portions of the Church that existed in Iraq and Iran (where it still thrives), and among the Mar Thoma Christians in India. The Mar Thoma Christians, as the name implies, were first evangelized by the Holy Apostle Thomas, who was martyred in Kerala in 53, AD, and I have written about them numerous times on the forum, including about their relationship to the Kochin Jews of Kerala, and also other places evangelized by St. Thomas, with his disciples Saints Addai and Mari, such as Edessa.

In both places, the Church of the East coexisted, and continues to coexist, with Miaphysite communities (which is why the Mar Thoma Christians who resisted integration into the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church reached out to the Patriarch of Antioch and not the Catholicos of the East, although the Syriac Orthodox did transition them over to the West Syriac liturgy as used by the Syriac Orthodox in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, the Holy Land and elsewhere.

However, later, what is now the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East were able to convert members of the Syro Malabar Catholic Church (which used a modified form of the East Syriac Rite). Indeed it was an Indian bishop of the Church of the East responsible for the end of the uncanonical hereditary patriarchate that had plagued the Assyrian church for centuries, who caused this by forming the traditionalist Ancient Church of the East jurisdiction when the last hereditary Catholicos, Mar Shimun XXIII made an ill-advised change to the liturgical calendar, and installing Mar Addai II, memory eternal, as its Catholicos. Later, Mar Shimun XXIII was unfortunately the victim of an assassination in the 1970s, and his successor Mar Dinkha IV, memory eternal, began a reform program in the Assyrian Church of the East which aimed to restore traditions to that church which had been suppressed and at the same time to reassure the larger Christian community that the Assyrians were not Nestorians. This was a success, and it also facilitated the beginning of the reunification process between the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East, which started around 2010, and probably would have been finished already had it not been for the ISIL war in Iraq which had a profoundly adverse affect on the operations of the Church in much of its ancestral homeland, and also the deaths of Mar Dinkha IV and Mar Addai II.

Many heterodox Christians, unaware that the Church of the East is still intact and operating in Iraq, Iran and India, attempt to ascribe various false beliefs to it (this is also commonly done with the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church). For example, I have seen it argued that these churches are, or were, Sabbatarian, or that they adhered to various doctrines that are widely believed in by Restorationist Christians or by some Evangelicals such as Baptists, when in reality we know this not to be the case, because the history of the Church of the East, and also the Syriac Orthodox Church, which has always heavily overlapped it geographically (in part because the two churches serve the same ethnic group, since many Syriac Orthodox, particularly in Iraq, identify as Assyrian, and the Classical Syriac language and the Peshitta translation of the Bible binds these communities together), is extremely well documented, including its historic liturgies, and related facts.

Indeed we even have (most of ) a book of doctrinal theology from the Paulicans, who were heretics, who lived in Armenia and some of whom emigrated to Romania, but all of whom converted to Orthodoxy in the 19th century. This did not stop the Landmark Baptists and other groups from including the Paulicans among their alleged predecessors.

That was a very impressive and knowledgeable post giving a lot of detail about what can be known of the church in Asia. Thanks for that.

My main point was more that the legitimate church in Asia did not always surface as it does in our Western experience in definite buildings and denominational labels and that therefore the John 3:8 verse fits their experience very well.

The church in Asia is not a thing that can be studied by the wise and learned in the same as the church in the West. Indeed the very nature of its small and fragile presence throughout most of the last two millennia required an anonymous and low-key profile. Also since it was not the ruling classes in the main that subscribed to the faith but rather the poor, illiterate, and oppressed I do not see how there could be much of public record to discuss here. The church surfaced for brief interludes into the public consciousness as with the Christian members of Kublai Khan's government but their more commonplace experience was that of figures like Tamerlane dedicated to wiping them out and especially since the times of Islam in Asia.

Since we now seem to be moving away from state-sanctioned Christianity with a few exceptions as with Russia I wonder if the Asian experience of anonymity and fragile security is the future for Christians in the West also in the coming century.

 

[mindlight]

Well the Byzantines were only able to temporarily hold back the Muslims; the Russians on the other hand, after an initial period of subjugation by the Golden Horde, managed to, after a series of victories such as that of St. Alexander on Lake Neva, beecome more successful and were even able to push the Turks back to such an extent that in the Crimean War, the Turks managed to persuade France, Austria, Prussia and England into providing them military assistance, for fear that an Ottoman collapse would threaten the delicate balance of power constructed by Ferdinand von Metternich after the final defeat of Napoleon, at the Congress of Vienna.

In the 1870s, however, this decision would be exposed as the folly that it was, for there was a rebellion in Bulgaria and Romania, and the Turks sent in the Bashi Bazouks (“broken heads”), who were exceptionally violent mercenaries, and the attrocities they committed were so appalling that all of the European powers, including Russia, united, and forced the Turks out of its remaining European territories, so that it lost those parts of Greece which were not liberated in the Greek War of Independence, and the Balkans, and the entire Province of Roumelia, except for the small portion of land to the west of Constantinople and the Bosphorus that it retains to this day.

The Byzantines held back Islam for 800 years which was crucial for the development of Christianity and arguably allowed the Franks to grow to be a power capable of thwarting Islam and then by extension the rest of Europe also. But you are right to point out the contrast between their defensive slow decline and the Russian expansion into previous Muslim lands. Western European maritime expansion into the New World and elsewhere and then the conversion of great territories was also an example of this. Indeed we and many Asian Christians owe a great debt to the Russians, the Spanish, the Portuguese and the British especially and the expansion of their empires in Asia.

Meternich was scared of a Russian-dominated Europe for good reason as it was Alexander and the Russian armies that rolled into Europe all the way to Paris as its liberators after the failure of Napoleon's invasion of Russia. Alexander was a defender of Christians across the world though his lifestyle was hardly a mirror of that of Christ. Metternich's compromise was far from perfect but made sense in the circumstances. Millions had died in the war that preceded that and a balance of power was the best way to keep the peace and avoid the chaos and dissolution of secular revolutions.

That said a great many Christians from Britain and France died defending a corrupt and false religious order in Turkey (in the Crimean War) that should have been allowed to break and crumble earlier and I believe the church in the East may well have been a lot better off if that had happened sooner rather than later. The massacre of Bulgarians and later Armenians and Greeks by the Turks was a major cost of that delay.

 

[cradleGO]

Copts live in the midst of Muslims, and Copts are rich in icons. Look how many icons the Copts have, how rich their iconographic culture is.

This has nothing to do with my statement. You realize that the Copts and EO are not in communion?

 

[cradleGO]

That’s categorically untrue. The reason why the Ukrainian Greek Catholics were subordinated to Rome was due to the military annexation of Western Ukraine in the formation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Kyiv was (and is) the piñata of multiple parties wanting it subdued for their own purposes. Yes, there were multiple reasons, but the hierarchs acted to preserve their language and autonomy - such as it was. Would not be everyone's resolution but it was theirs. Without Moscow's involvement, action and inaction, the separation would have been avoided. The latter is an opinion.

 

[cradleGO]

We don’t see it in Mormonism or other heretical religions; the Holy Spirit has nothing to do with these, which are of a demonic nature.

I think due to certain inaccuracies being stated in this thread about Orthodoxy, which to my chagrin I did not notice when reading the thread previously, I had better loop my pious Eastern Orthodox friends @prodromos and @FenderTL5 into this conversation, along with my pious Oriental Orthodox friend @dzheremi , since @cradleGO is using the word “Orthodox” without qualifying it with “Eastern” or “Oriental” and I would hate for people to make assumptions about Oriental Orthodoxy based on what might be an unusual minority opinion among some Greek Orthodox of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (the EP also frustratingly one of the local churches of the Eastern Orthodox communion with a more regressive attitude to the Oriental Orthodox, but the real problem with the EP is the Archbishop of North America and his offensive and entirely incorrect assertions, made when he was Metropolitan of Bursa, that the EP was primus sine paribus rather than primus inter pares and among other disturbing details, had the power to revoke autocephaly. One nice thing about the OO communion is that, in addition to having never had a church fall under the control of iconoclasts, which did happen to Constantinople, it is also devoid of any figure who might claim to be primus sine paribus or even primus inter pares of the entire communion.

Did I make a mistake when I said "that the Orthodox see the Holy Spirit in this world." No? Then what is your point with all that?
Need a platform to bash the EP and Archbishop Elpidophoros?
My whole persona here clearly indicates I am EO. How can you not know? Too anxious to bash the EP would be my guess.

 

[cradleGO]

No, that's not true. There were Orthodox brotherhoods in Ukraine; they were under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The urban communities of Ukraine were grouped into these same church brotherhoods. The most influential were the Lviv brotherhood in Galicia, the Vilna brotherhood in Lithuania and the Epiphany brotherhood in Kyiv. The brotherhoods took part in the selection of bishops and metropolitans, monitored the management of church property, protested against the abuses of bishops and clergy in general, defended the interests of the Church before the authorities, etc. Bishops and clergy were burdened by the interference of brotherhoods in church affairs. Some bishops had a desire to get rid of unwanted tutelage; this called for a fight against the brotherhoods and subsequently even encouraged a transition to a union. Under these conditions, a group of representatives of the highest Orthodox hierarchy began to lean toward the idea of the advisability of a union with the Roman Catholics. Such sentiments were based on both the personal interests of the clergy (the desire to preserve their own land holdings and equal political rights with the Catholic clergy), and the desire of the rulers to lead the Church out of the crisis. Secret discussions of these plans continued for several years. When they became known to the Orthodox public, in addition to Prince Ostrozhsky, they were opposed by the petty Western Russian nobility, the middle-level Orthodox clergy, the philistinism, and also a new class - the Cossacks. But I repeat that the Orthodox brotherhoods were under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople.

None of that refutes my statements regarding the Kyiv Metropolis and Moscow's actions.

 

[The Liturgist]

None of that refutes my statements regarding the Kyiv Metropolis and Moscow's actions.

You claimed that the Ukrainians entered into communion because of the incident you refer to, but in reality, it was limited to Western Ukrainians who were forcibly, by military force, to be clear, made to recognize the Pope as their Patriarchate, as part of the creation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (in which Ukrainians were furthermore very much second-class citizens).

 

[The Liturgist]

Need a platform to bash the EP and Archbishop Elpidophoros?
My whole persona here clearly indicates I am EO. How can you not know? Too anxious to bash the EP would be my guess.

I am aware that you identify as Eastern Orthodox, and I am not disputing your status as a cradle member of the Greek Orthodox church.

As an Eastern Orthodox Christian, I would expect you would be deeply troubled by the remarks of Archbishop Elpidophoros when he was Metropolitan of Bursa (and also by his failure to keep the one church in his diocese from closing).

I would not dream of criticizing the Church of Constantinople as a whole, or even GoArch, because the Church of Constantinople includes Mount Athos, and GoArch includes the Athonite-based monasteries founded by Elder Ephrem, memory eternal, who I had the very great pleasure of meeting In 2015.

I regard the idea of “bashing” an autocephalous Orthodox church as offensive, whether it is the Patriarchate of Constantinople, or of Jerusalem, or of Alexandria, or of Antioch, or of Moscow, or of Serbia, Romania or Bulgaria, or the Orthodox Church in America, or the Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia, or the Church of Georgia, or any other autocephalous church, such as the Church of Poland or of Greece or of Albania or of North Macedonia. These churches deserve a dignity, since autocephaly entails their ability to operate in perpetuity as fully independent churches, which in turn can charter autonomous churches and also grant autocephaly to their subordinate churches. For example, among our Oriental Orthodox friends, the Coptic Orthodox church granted autocephaly to the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church in the 20th century in what was a very good decision, since it allowed the Coptic Church to focus on Egyptian issues and the Ethiopian church to focus on Ethiopian issues, and since that time, both churches have been more dynamic and functional.

 

[The Liturgist]

This has nothing to do with my statement. You realize that the Copts and EO are not in communion?

Not in full communion, unfortunately, however, the Coptic Orthodox church, which is fully doctrinally Orthodox, is in a very close ecumenical arrangement with the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria. The agreement is not quite as good as the broad agreement between the Syriac Orthodox and Antiochian Orthodox churches, which is the model for EO-OO relations, and which among other things prohibits people from being converted into one church or another; unfortunately this agreement does not apply to North America, as the AOCNA is a separate autonomous church under the Omophorion of the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, analogous to the relationship between the Church of Finland and the Patriarchate of Constantinople, or between the Church of Sinai and the Patriarchate of Jerusalem. In the latter case however, this is also an area where surprisingly, despite the occasionally fraught relations between the Armenians and Greeks in Jerusalem*, the monks at St. Catharine’s monastery are known for being extremely welcoming to Coptic Orthodox pilgrims, and I have heard reliable reports of Copts partaking of the Eucharist at St. Catharine’s, which is very good, since the Church of Sinai really represents all Orthodox Christians in Sinai, and the Coptic Orthodox and other Oriental Orthodox churches have in common with the Church of Sinai the distinction of never having engaged in iconoclasm.
*In theory, this impacts OO-EO relations since most Oriental Orthodox access is mediated by the Armenians, although fortunately the Syriac Orthodox at least have their own monastery of St. Mark as well as St. Mary’s, which is directly adjacent to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and these are doubtless present because of the large Syriac Orthodox community in the Holy Land, and also would certainly have been useful during the schism between the Syriac Orthodox and the Armenian Apostolic Church.

 

[The Liturgist]

Did I make a mistake when I said "that the Orthodox see the Holy Spirit in this world." No? Then what is your point with all that?

You made a major factual error when you suggested that we investigated Mormonism in an optimistic manner, when in reality, the Eastern Orthodox hierarchs upon finding out about Mormonism has immediately and consistently dismissed it as a gross heresy, and what has been particularly unpleasant are the attempts by representatives of Mormons, J/Ws and other heretical offshoots of Christianity to proselytize Orthodox Christians. The Adventists have also done this, although at least they are Nicene, and I do know of some Adventists who converted to Orthodoxy (and I suspect with the recent influx of converts in North America (which would probably be a net positive were it not for the fact that some of the more liberal and ethno-centric jurisdictions continue to lose members at a faster rate than new converts arrive, and also are less likely to be able to retain those converts than the more traditional and less ethno-centric jurisdictions) we can look forward to more. But what we really need is to evangelize the Mormons and J/Ws as a matter of priority, since I am not worried about Nicene Christians, but we know that the LDS and J/Ws are dangerous cults, which have been directly connected and indirectly connected to debased practices. Indeed I was disturbed by the connection between Jodi Hildebrandt and the leadership of her local LDS “temple”; I was under the impression that the LDS avoided such things and such abuse mainly happened among the polygamist FLDS community, which is, astonishingly, still run by Warren Jeffs, despite the fact that he is serving a life sentence in the State of Texas for paedophilia.

 

[concretecamper]

I've often wanted to attend a Byzantine Divine Liturgy. I just haven't made it there. What I am expecting is something much closer to the TLM

 

[The Liturgist]

I've often wanted to attend a Byzantine Divine Liturgy. I just haven't made it there. What I am expecting is something much closer to the TLM

The Byzantine Rite liturgy is like a more extreme version of the TLM, in that if served properly (and the Eastern Catholics who do the best job with it are some of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic churches, for example, St. Elias Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the Eparchy of Toronto, and also I would assume the Belarussian Greek Catholics and the Russian Greek Catholics, of which there is a parish in Los Angeles which I want to visit to compare to the local ROCOR and OCA Russian Orthodox parishes), everything from the liturgical acts to the vestments will be more ornate, the services will be longer (the Divine Liturgy or mass will typically be 90 minutes to two and a half hours in length, sometimes three, plus an extra hour if preceded by Orthros (Matins), and alternately Slavic churches tend to celebrate Vespers, Compline, Noturns, Matins and Prime together at All Night Vigils, which is generally a two hour service on Saturday night, maybe two and a half hours long), and at the same time, the people, even to some extent the clergy, will be slightly more relaxed. For example, Byzantine Rite clergy process at walking pace, and since until the introduction of pews at Greek Orthodox parishes in Western Europe in the 19th century, every able bodied man, woman and child would stand at Orthodox liturgies, the people tend to be somewhat more relaxed (the same was historically true of attendees at the Roman Rite, who would receive the Eucharist at a low mass celebrated by a priest they liked at a side altar, since the Eucharist was not originally distributed at the Solemn High Mass, and the complex “active participation” demanded by the Novus Ordo was not really a thing, which is nice, as the TLM allows for a contemplative interior participation.

I myself prefer liturgies where joining in the singing of any hymns is strictly optional, and where aside from during the reading of the Gospel, when piety requires that everyone stand, I can just sit quietly and in solemn silence.

 

[cradleGO]

You made a major factual error when you suggested that we investigated Mormonism in an optimistic manner, when in reality, the Eastern Orthodox hierarchs upon finding out about Mormonism has immediately and consistently dismissed it as a gross heresy, and what has been particularly unpleasant are the attempts by representatives of Mormons, J/Ws and other heretical offshoots of Christianity to proselytize Orthodox Christians. The Adventists have also done this, although at least they are Nicene, and I do know of some Adventists who converted to Orthodoxy (and I suspect with the recent influx of converts in North America (which would probably be a net positive were it not for the fact that some of the more liberal and ethno-centric jurisdictions continue to lose members at a faster rate than new converts arrive, and also are less likely to be able to retain those converts than the more traditional and less ethno-centric jurisdictions) we can look forward to more. But what we really need is to evangelize the Mormons and J/Ws as a matter of priority, since I am not worried about Nicene Christians, but we know that the LDS and J/Ws are dangerous cults, which have been directly connected and indirectly connected to debased practices. Indeed I was disturbed by the connection between Jodi Hildebrandt and the leadership of her local LDS “temple”; I was under the impression that the LDS avoided such things and such abuse mainly happened among the polygamist FLDS community, which is, astonishingly, still run by Warren Jeffs, despite the fact that he is serving a life sentence in the State of Texas for paedophilia.

"...when you suggested that we investigated Mormonism in an optimistic manner,...." Find that in my comment. That is a fabrication, and in that it is so wrong, you must know that it is wrong, so therefore it is a lie. You Lied Here. The object, again, is what? Make yourself an authority? What?
What do you want to achieve here? What is worth lying?

 

[cradleGO]

Not in full communion, unfortunately, however, the Coptic Orthodox church, which is fully doctrinally Orthodox, is in a very close ecumenical arrangement with the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria. The agreement is not quite as good as the broad agreement between the Syriac Orthodox and Antiochian Orthodox churches, which is the model for EO-OO relations, and which among other things prohibits people from being converted into one church or another; unfortunately this agreement does not apply to North America, as the AOCNA is a separate autonomous church under the Omophorion of the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, analogous to the relationship between the Church of Finland and the Patriarchate of Constantinople, or between the Church of Sinai and the Patriarchate of Jerusalem. In the latter case however, this is also an area where surprisingly, despite the occasionally fraught relations between the Armenians and Greeks in Jerusalem*, the monks at St. Catharine’s monastery are known for being extremely welcoming to Coptic Orthodox pilgrims, and I have heard reliable reports of Copts partaking of the Eucharist at St. Catharine’s, which is very good, since the Church of Sinai really represents all Orthodox Christians in Sinai, and the Coptic Orthodox and other Oriental Orthodox churches have in common with the Church of Sinai the distinction of never having engaged in iconoclasm.
*In theory, this impacts OO-EO relations since most Oriental Orthodox access is mediated by the Armenians, although fortunately the Syriac Orthodox at least have their own monastery of St. Mark as well as St. Mary’s, which is directly adjacent to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and these are doubtless present because of the large Syriac Orthodox community in the Holy Land, and also would certainly have been useful during the schism between the Syriac Orthodox and the Armenian Apostolic Church.

That is not true. Show me where "full communion" is a thing. Churches are either in communion or they are not.
Those churches that did not accept the 4th Ecumenical Council - Chalcedon - need only to adopt its provisions. They don't even need to change their verbiage - my opinion - just issue the statement by their Synod/Assembly of Bishops/Faithful Assembly. Then after an investigation, and barring anything else, they will be accepted into Orthodoxy, I believe. Neither hard nor exotic.

 

[cradleGO]

I am aware that you identify as Eastern Orthodox, and I am not disputing your status as a cradle member of the Greek Orthodox church.

As an Eastern Orthodox Christian, I would expect you would be deeply troubled by the remarks of Archbishop Elpidophoros when he was Metropolitan of Bursa (and also by his failure to keep the one church in his diocese from closing).

I would not dream of criticizing the Church of Constantinople as a whole, or even GoArch, because the Church of Constantinople includes Mount Athos, and GoArch includes the Athonite-based monasteries founded by Elder Ephrem, memory eternal, who I had the very great pleasure of meeting In 2015.

I regard the idea of “bashing” an autocephalous Orthodox church as offensive, whether it is the Patriarchate of Constantinople, or of Jerusalem, or of Alexandria, or of Antioch, or of Moscow, or of Serbia, Romania or Bulgaria, or the Orthodox Church in America, or the Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia, or the Church of Georgia, or any other autocephalous church, such as the Church of Poland or of Greece or of Albania or of North Macedonia. These churches deserve a dignity, since autocephaly entails their ability to operate in perpetuity as fully independent churches, which in turn can charter autonomous churches and also grant autocephaly to their subordinate churches. For example, among our Oriental Orthodox friends, the Coptic Orthodox church granted autocephaly to the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church in the 20th century in what was a very good decision, since it allowed the Coptic Church to focus on Egyptian issues and the Ethiopian church to focus on Ethiopian issues, and since that time, both churches have been more dynamic and functional.

"I regard the idea of “bashing” an autocephalous Orthodox church as offensive,..." Did not include the Orthodox Church of Ukraine - you know, the one that got the Tomos a few - 5 - years ago. Same process as the others received theirs.

I don't know what Elpidophoros said in Bursa. Seems to me you should be more concerned that the Russian church in Ukraine (Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarchate) by currently operating there, 1 violates the Tomos and canonical precepts, and 2 when they said they were not directed by Moscow, they exist in some sort of zombie status within Orthodoxy. You should also be concerned that the Moscow Church violates canonical precepts by saying it has established an Eparchy in Africa. Those should concern you, not Elpidophoros.

 

[The Liturgist]

"...when you suggested that we investigated Mormonism in an optimistic manner,...." Find that in my comment. That is a fabrication, and in that it is so wrong, you must know that it is wrong, so therefore it is a lie. You Lied Here. The object, again, is what? Make yourself an authority? What?
What do you want to achieve here? What is worth lying?

You wrote the following:

Only that they looked into it. I'm sure they didn't proceed any further once they were told the Mormon's view of the Virgin Mary. The main point is that the Orthodox see the Holy Spirit in this world.

This paragraph suggests, to me at least, that we investigated Mormonism in an optimistic manner.

 

[The Liturgist]

Did not include the Orthodox Church of Ukraine - you now, the one that got the Tomos a few - 5 - years ago. Same process as the others received theirs.

Well, actually, it is not the same process, in that the Church of Constantinople did not grant a tomos of autocephaly to various ancient churches which predate its existence, such as Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem and Cyprus, all of which have always been autocephalous (as was Rome, when it was in communion with us). Likewise, the OCA received its Tomos from the Moscow Patriarchate, but unfortunately the Patriarch of Constantinople still has not recognized its autocephaly, although fortunately that has not precluded its membership in SCOBA.

The fact that I did not mention the OCU was not an intentional omission, for I was not providing a complete list of autocephalous churches, and I believe I made that clear in the text. For example, I did not mention the Church of Cyprus. Obviously that was not an intentional omission; the autocephaly of the Church of Cyprus is thoroughly uncontroversial, but as it was I feel I mentioned too many churches, and the result was it looked like something of a laundry list; had I mentioned any more it would have been untenable.