My sincere thanks.

Before you start crying about your ill-use, review the record.

I asked a serious question about which elements of faith are considered essential for sharing the Eucharist and observed that different churches will answer that question differently but that ecumenism raises the question of where to draw those lines.

To that question, you provided the snotty reply, “If you have to ask, then the answer is you don’t share unity in faith.” You then proceeded to contradict yourself by explaining that you “personally” in fact have an answer that differs from other Orthodox. You can’t seem to decide whether what constitutes unity of faith is self-evident or not.

The rest of your reply went south from there into derogatory comments about ecumenism as “squishy, lowest common denominator, hold hands and get-your-kum-bay-yayas off.”

None of these comments recommend you as someone who is afraid of insults or who possesses great intelligence. If you can’t take it, don’t dish it out.

I won’t reward your boo-hooing with further conversation.

You say that all the time, just before you insult me–or my intelligence. Which is it to be this time?

“So you’re saying that “hierarchs of both Churches have come to agreement” but “the agreements repudiated by the people.” And further you’re saying that this is not an example of “institutional politics.””

That is correct.

“Then what is it? I would say that the “people” are more attached to the “institution” of Orthodoxy than they are to their identity as Christians and in that sense they are participating in “institutional politics.” In other words, they have come to think that Orthodoxy means the same thing as Christian or true Christian, but you seem to think otherwise. You could explain your logic calmly and respectfully as I just have, or you could resort to your usual dismissive non sequiturs.”

You would, considering that you are married to the infinitely malleable definition of Christianity that is modern Methodism. But I would say that, to the typical Orthodox Christian, the essence of Christianity is offering right worship (or true glory) to God–ortho doxia. Or as the Latins would put it, Lex orandi, lex credendi: the rule of prayer is the rule of belief. The institution of Orthodoxy–the hierarchy, clergy, the buildings and so forth–are all subordinate to that right worship. Time and again, when all or part of the hierarchy fell into heresy (Is there such a concept of heresy in Methodism? But I digress.), the people emerged as the defenders of the true faith–even when it went against the institutional interest (which is why Constantinople is Istambul today). It is ironic that a Protestant who believes the Church is the aggregation of the baptized would begin making distinctions between the people as the Laos tou Theou and the people as part of the institution.

“As for your reference to the parable of Publican and Pharisee, the reference again demonstrates the divide between Orthodox and Protestant. The Orthodox use the parable merely to prepare for Lent, while we Protestants see the parable as part of a far larger pattern of parables, debates, and references that warn us, not to be more humble as the Orthodox reduce the parable, but to turn our attention away from empty ritual and toward real sanctification. Perhaps you would better understand Protestantism if you took the time to understand it.”

So, it’s going to both at once: you insult me, and then you insult my intelligence.

I don’t think you’re actually capable of conversing respectfully with someone who disagrees with you, but I’m game to try one more time.

So you’re saying that “hierarchs of both Churches have come to agreement” but “the agreements repudiated by the people.” And further you’re saying that this is not an example of “institutional politics.”

Then what is it? I would say that the “people” are more attached to the “institution” of Orthodoxy than they are to their identity as Christians and in that sense they are participating in “institutional politics.” In other words, they have come to think that Orthodoxy means the same thing as Christian or true Christian, but you seem to think otherwise. You could explain your logic calmly and respectfully as I just have, or you could resort to your usual dismissive non sequiturs.

As for your reference to the parable of Publican and Pharisee, the reference again demonstrates the divide between Orthodox and Protestant. The Orthodox use the parable merely to prepare for Lent, while we Protestants see the parable as part of a far larger pattern of parables, debates, and references that warn us, not to be more humble as the Orthodox reduce the parable, but to turn our attention away from empty ritual and toward real sanctification. Perhaps you would better understand Protestantism if you took the time to understand it.

An excellent example of why it is so difficult to take Michael seriously. If he knew an iota of Church history, he would realize that the last thing standing in the way of restored communion of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches is “institutional politics”.

Indeed, throughout history there have been several occasions on which the hierarchs of both Churches have come to agreement (e.g., Second Council of Lyons, 1274; Council of Florence, 1439), only to see the agreements repudiated by the people. Today, the theologians of the Joint International Theological Commission have reached agreement on all substantive issues but one, and undoubtedly, given time, they could resolve the last Big Problem (which is, of course, the definition and exercise of Papal primacy).

But assuming they did so, it is almost certain that the agreement would be rejected once again by the rank-and-file (though Catholics are more likely to go along than the Orthodox), whose perspective on theological matters tends to be more rigid and less well informed than that of the higher clergy and theologians, and who tend to view any accommodation, of whatever kind, as a betrayal of the Tradition.

Ecumenism therefore must be built from the bottom up, as well as from the top down, and the dialogue must proceed along two tracks: the Dialogue of Love, by which we recover our knowledge of each other as brethren in Christ, and share, to the extent we are able, in the exercise of the Great Commission; and also the Dialogue of Truth, in which both sides frankly exchange their own positions, and consider objectively and with charity, the positions of the other, not diluting the truth in order to reach agreement, but working prayerfully and diligently together to reach a mutual understanding of truth.

There are no shortcuts in this, and, ultimately, the unity of all will be the result of the descent, action and divine grace of the Holy Spirit, in God’s own good time, and not our own. But, good Eastern Christian that I am, I believe that the Spirit requires our active cooperation if grace is to bear fruit, for it is just a gift, freely given, and we are free to accept or reject the gift.

(Snort!)

And right after the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee, too. The Prayer of the Publican (Michael’s Methodist Recension):

O Lord, I thank thee that thou didst not make me as this Pharisee, whose poop stinketh not, and whose righteousness is distasteful in thy sight.

Every tradition and communion has to ask what it might to learn from the others.

I try to show what this might mean for the Reformed tradition (my own) in my eucharist book.

Smugness and ecclesiastical one-up-manship, however, have no place in serious ecumenical dialogue.

I aver something opposite, of course, which is that, to a greater or lesser extent, Catholicism, whether Roman or Greek, and Orthodoxy, whether Eastern or Oriental, have given themselves over to some form of Phariseeism, using pride in empty ritual to bury the active discipleship for which Jesus called. Roman Catholicism at least has the virtue of remembering the meaning of discipleship more frequently than either Greek Catholics or the Orthodox, though I wouldn’t expect you to understand what I mean.

What most concerns me right now is your participation in a forum whose basic assumptions you don’t share or even respect. Ecumenism of whatever sort, even the impoverished version you promote, requires requires both charity and an interest in sharing.

You, however, have a chip on your shoulder, an inferiority complex linked to your attachment to a Roman Church whose adherents ignore your kind entirely and whose leadership only makes use of you for its purposes. The result is that you praise Roman Catholicism only to complain of its misuse of you. Meanwhile, your contributions exhibit a desire only to show off how much book knowledge you have accumulated. Book knowledge can only carry you so far, especially with your limited ability to think logically.

Whenever you confront someone who has reached a different conclusion or who works from a different set of assumptions, you resort to caricature and insult instead of genuinely engaging the issues at hand. We could have had an interesting and mutually edifying conversation about what various Christians share and how we might build community, but you remain sadly self involved.

Best of luck on your life journey.

To a greater or lesser extent, every Protestant denomination is wrong. Their assertions can only be made by consciously ignoring the overwhelming weight of history from the end of the first century through the dawn of the 16th.

Protestantism is thus ahistorical, which is why Newman correctly observed that to be deeply immersed in history is the death of Protestantism

You’re surely right that, in those regions in which there is no Protestant presence, Catholics don’t think much about Protestantism, but I was making a point similar to JB’s and to Stuart’s response to JB, which is that Catholic theology and practice has been wrestling with Protestantism ever since the Reformation. Rome lost much of its territory and influence, and it has cleaned up its act and tried to regain that territory and influence ever since. In the process, it has reshaped its theology, liturgy, and other elements.

—

Stuart,

When you say, “If you have to ask, then the answer is you don’t share unity in faith,” you give a silly answer to a serious question. You then go on to give examples from you personally as distinguished from other Orthodox that illustrate my point that deciding on what counts as “unity of faith” is a conscious decision to agree on which elements are important to hold in common.

Your conclusion does little more than stir up more dust than clarity. Every Protestant church believes that it maintains the faith of the apostles and fathers and believes that its faith has established the whole world.

Although you mock my assertion that institutional politics gets in the way of ecumenism, you had just written a paragraph describing how politics gets in the way of Orthodox seeing how they share a unity of faith with Rome.

You need to think more clearly about the subject.