In the Hapgood translation of the Service Book, I found the following, emphasis mine:
http://tinyurl.com/3c5wjvr
The Catechumen is then asked to renounce his errors and confess his belief.
The Jew renounceth: The blasphemies of the Jews against Jesus Christ our Saviour, his most holy Mother and his Saints; circumcision; the observance of Saturday, and all Jewish festivals and ceremonies; the Rabbinical interpretation of the Scriptures contained in the Talmud and ancient and modern writings; the doctrine that the Messiah is not yet come; and the vain expectation of his coming.
(The Jew accepteth the belief: That the Fatlwr, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one God, divided in three Persons, but in Essence undivided; that Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God, was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary for the sake of our salvation, and became very man, yet remaining very God, one in Essence, but in two Persons, divine and human; that our Lord Jesus Christ, of his own free will, in very truth, and not in appearance only, suffered for us in the flesh, but not in his divinity, and, having died and been buried as man, rose again by virtue of his divinity, and ascended into heaven in the flesh; that the Virgin Mary was and remained truly Virgin, and truly is worthy of reverence as the chief intercessor for us with God; and that the Cross of Christ was the instrument and emblem of our salvation.)
Is the bolded part really Orthodox belief? How was the Lord of Glory really crucified, then? I was under the impression that one of the differences with Nestorianism was that not just the Man, but also the Second Person of the Trinity suffered.
Volnutt, I believe you have come to an interesting question that most EOs quickly explain away but requires a more subtle and has been treated more subtly.
EO gets mired in (neo)Platonism. When it comes to the impassibility of God, EOs and RCs and, to a less sophisticated extent, Protestants quickly reject the incredible witness of scripture to the changing and passionate relationship of God with humanity before even the birth of Christ.
The common apologies boil down to anthropomorphic language in the Scriptures, which I find very lacking, since nearly all the language of God with his people is one of relationship that changes and bold, so some Patristic exegesis is about getting rid of Scriptural witness in exchange for Platonic witness and especially those who quote mine the Church Fathers. To say it again, we are theomorphic, the God of Moses, Abraham, and Issac ain't anthropomorphic.
Christ's sufferings and emotions and like are not just in virtue of His humanity but also in virtue of His divinity.
Ontologically within the relationship of the Persons of the Trinity there nothing by communion of love. But in the economy of God's relationship with humanity there is nothing but steadfast love of God, but that love is expressed by God in many ways. To discount nearly the entirety of Scripture which makes clear that the Christian God is a Living God and one who is passionately in love with humanity and thus becomes angry with them, sad, etc., I think is utter folly.
Thankfully, the Church Fathers work this out by adopting apophatic thought via neo-Platonism.
One cannot say: God is impassible.
Or rather you can, but you must also then say God is not impassible.
These are mysteries to be such, but I think if you look at the writings of some Church Fathers they are dealing with exactly these issues. The relationship of the Persons of the Trinity ontological and the relationship of God with humanity through the economy of salvation. Probably the height of the defense of this seemingly paradoxical course of thought finds itself in St. Gregory Palamas' writings.
For a podcast primer on this interesting and important issue:
http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/hopko/the_wrath_of_godhttp://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/hopko/the_wrath_of_god_-_part_2You will see that Fr. Thomas Hopko caused more than a little ire in his first podcast, as he addressed the subject again in the second.
If you are interested in the related problem of evil. Fr. Thomas Hopko also has a very sober and provocative take on it as well.
It seems to me that he and those writings he suggests to read are much more sophisticated and satisfying than the typical apology of worshiping the god of Plato incarnate.
FWIW.
BTW, I am just a Catechumen, so what do I know.
However this is probably my greatest sticking point with what seems to be the "majority" opinion in Orthodoxy. It is an issue my Priest and I have talk more than a little about.
Best of luck.
(As an interesting aside, which ties this thread into the one with the evolution thread is that God in his foreknowledge gave shape to man knowing that in that form He would become incarnate. I think that insight by the Church Fathers is something to think on.)