Elisha: Linus,
It is good (and expected!) to not compromise your faith - and no one is expecting you too. Noone here is directly advocating immediate communion with NCs or rushing to some sort of false ecumenism. All that is going on is trying to understand exactly what the issues are and understand what they (NCs) are saying from their POV
I don't think you have kept up with these threads.
That is not "all that is going on."
What has gone on is this: a particular member presented himself as the advocate of peace, compromise, and unity while simultaneously attacking the Council of Chalcedon and Orthodox Fathers like Pope St. Leo the Great.
This person ranged throughout the entire web site, giving advice and answering questions for new converts and enquirers, often with a decidedly NC spin, leaving the false impression that whether one becomes Coptic or EO is simply a matter of taste and/or convenience.
Elisha: You seem to be stubborn as hell and refusing to even try and understand. Instead of saying, "Hmmmm, I think I understand what you are saying about X, but I disagree that Y=Z." You are stating the issues empirically, as if you both understand the cultures and historical context to a 't' and are speaking as if you are the spokesperson of EOxy. You are not disagreeing/debating in charity, but being deliberately polemnical.
We disagree.
I am stubbornly adhering to what I know is right.
I appear to be "polemical" because I seem to be the only one here willing to disagree with Peter Farrington.
Elisha: Furthermore, if the EO and OO are two different faiths, then why are they so similar in rites and praxis historically speaking?
Do you actually know that is the case, or are you assuming it is so?
I imagine the Arians were also very similar to the Orthodox "in rites and praxis" (and no, I am not trying to equate NCs with Arians).
Did such things make them orthodox?
Elisha: Why has there actually been so much recent (past few years) positive dialogue between major Orthodox groups (e.g. SCOBA and SCOOCH locally and EO and other OO Churches abroad)? Why did that Vespers at the GOA cathedral in NY happen?
What kind of a century was the 20th century, Elisha?
One of steadfast loyalty to the Apostolic Tradition, or one of increasing modernism, secularism, and ecumenism?
In which century did many of the Orthodox churches join themselves with the sponsor of many of these dialogues, the World Council of Churches?
Are you saying that such meetings negate what the Orthodox Fathers had to say?
If the GOA says vespers with some Non-Chalcedonians, does that unsay and unwrite what men and women full of the Holy Spirit had to say and write?
Do these men-pleasers and compromisers know more than the Fathers did?
It is not surprising that erroneous ideas would infiltrate even the Orthodox Church during the 20th century.
Look at what was happening in so many other denominations once thought conservative.
Elisha: The only theological issue, big as it it, is the Chalcedonian issue. As opposed to the many differences between the EO and RCC (post schism issues at least), the EO and OO are small in comparison.
I really disagree.
At least one major Non-Chalcedonian leader has said the Sixth Council (Constantinople III, 680-81) is even more problematic for Non-Chalcedonians than Chalcedon.
We share a Trinitarian faith (and that is good), some Eastern approaches to mysticism, and some external appearances.
But we differ on Christology, on ecclesiology, on the councils, and on the saints and fathers.
That's a lot.
It seems to me that an EO who says of Non-Chalcedonians and the EO, "We are both Orthodox," is wrong. If he says it innocently in his ignorance and desire to heal what he sees as a lamentable schism, that is excusable.
On the other hand, it seems inexcusable to me that an EO who knows what the Fathers had to say would dare to contradict them.
We don't hate Non-Chalcedonians.
That's why we
must tell them the truth.
The door of the Church is open to them.
But it lies at the end of the path of repentance and acceptance of the full Orthodox faith, including the ecumenical councils.
