:) ;D :DDear members and non-members I also go to a Catholic Church. The Catholic Church has the same beliefs as the Orthodox, we should not say that it's a sin by taking commuinon in the Catholic Church. We all have to understand not to say to other beliefs that they are wrong or that they are right. You Should never judge these things because you are the one who is the sinner and at the end of the world God will not say that we the Orthodox people are the only people that actually worships God. This is not what he will do, God says that if you do the right you have the light but if you the wrong you have dark. And I just want to say something else, do not say that the Catholic Faith is wrong because they never said anything bad about us so you all better watch out. Get the picture. 8) [glow=red,2,300][/glow]<ay the Lord be with you all and go in peace
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We have the right to judge and critique the doctrine of others, this is not something wrong. You need to take it easy bud.
I hope I helped....
Pray for me your bro kiro
Out of all Western churches, the Roman Catholics are the closest to the Orthdox in beliefs. The present Pope, John Paul 2 is very eager for dialogue and future reconcialition for both Orhtodox and Catholic Churches. This is very admirable. JP2 is a slav so he understands better than previous RC popes Rc-Orthodox relationships. God grant him many years.
However, many of Rc teachings are reasons for the split as well other political reasons of the times. We can never say who is going to hell as well who is not. We can be faithful to the Faith "delivered once and for all to the saints". We haven't added nor subtracted from the Apostlic Faith in the name of "Doctrinal development". There are holy peopel in many churches
individually. But there's a modernistic tinge in some of the ecumensitic practices of the Catholic Church. JP2 kissing the Quran as a goodwill gesture is a bit too much. Having a day of prayer in the Italian town of Assisi with Christians and polytheists and muslims as well is also too much. I say this because i was a Roman catholic for almost all my life active in a parish, living in a religious community of celibates and non-celibates. I speak as a former insider.
We all are sinners and "short from the glory of God". Lets pray as Christians for unity in Faith as a witness to the world for the Lord Jesus Christ!
Please share more of your life experiences,they sound very interesting. :)
ummm for Coptic Man...here's what the pope and Church history has to say about the differences between the Coptic Orthodox Church & the Catholic church...caz yea sorry buddy but they aint quite the same....
here's the site: http://www.stmark-la.com/book.html
quick summary: the website addresses the following issues that the two churches differ on: double procession of the Holy Spirit (filoique), purgatory, immaculate conception OF ST.MARY!(apparaently there was sum confusion bout that), primacy of Peter,whether fasting is biblical ???, facing the east, baptism by sprinkling or immersion, divorce, eucharist, priests and celibacy, ecuminical council issues (chalcedon i think to be exact), also as sumone already mentioned issues of papal infallibility (belief that the pope doesn't sin ???).... etc etc as u see there are certain differences...again I hope you don't take it the wrong way...no one here would dare "trash" the Catholic church...were just pointing out differences .... a good book on this topic is "Orthodoxy and Catholicism" by Fr. Theodore Pulcini....
also i dun mean to mix Catholic church doctrine with my personal experiences...but i went to a catholic school where we were taught that the story of Adam & Eve is a myth to explain how evil and sin got in to the world etc...n I talked to one of their bishops about it who "okayed" this curriculum b/c I personally thought that was unnacceptable ...if Adam and Eve is a myth, where in Genesis does that myth stop? if u cant by faith accept Creation Story then why would u accept the parting of the Red Sea etc...i hafta agree with kiro_sheno when he says "......i still love them [Catholics] but i donno .....they got so much things that are totally wrong ........" Some of ma best friends are Iraqi Catholic & one is a Croation Catholic n i luv them but sum of the doctrinal stuff they got aint clickin with me
anyways hope ive helped...check the site out bro...salaam
One more thing to add, "St. Mary as co-redeemer". They believe that Virgin Mary is equal or almost equal to Jesus.
I have some family members who like to go to the catholic church for the socail asspect of it. I went to visit them last summer and they made me go attend thier church services, etc... I have to be honest, I realized how important the Orthodox church and amazing in its Liturgy. Though it is 3 hrs here for a litrugy (vs. thier 40 min) I started to appreciate the Coptic Church and that experience made me closer. thought I would share my thoughts
Merry Christmas!!!!
God is indeed great, JFranklin! He is ever merciful and loving towards sinners! What can be said is i became Orthodox be cuase i was a devout Roman catholic! The more i read the origin of the Catholic Church, the more it pointed East! Plus the suffering i went thru with some personal issues led me to the warm arms of Holy Orthodoxy! Now i am truly home!
Someone else in this thread mentioned something the Holy Theothokos and Catholic's belief in her as "Co-Redemptrix". This is not official Catholic teaching but a popular belief among the latiy that want Rome to declare as dogma or "revealed teaching". The Pope of Rome hasn't declared St Mary as "Co-Redemptrix". There's a good Rc website that may explain better the meaning of Co-redemptirx that i can: http://websearch.cs.com/wm/boomframe.jsp?query=Mary,+Co-+Redemptrix&page=1&offset=0&result_url=redir?src=websearch&requestId=ceb38ceb0bbefc23&clickedItemRank=1&userQuery=Mary%2C+Co-+Redemptrix&clickedItemURN=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.voxpopuli.org%2Fresponse_to_7_common_objections_part1.php&invocationType=-&fromPage=wmtsearchsearch&ampTest=1&remove_url=http://www.voxpopuli.org/response_to_7_common_objections_part1.php
lool.....or just type in Co-Redemptrix, Virgin Mary and you will get a very good list of websites that will give you good info.
As an Orthodox i don't accept it as dogma. Roman Catholic Theology invent alot of dogmas under the disguise of "Development of Doctrine" or that a revealed teaching is like a seed that grows in its interpretation or the Churche's understanding of it thru out the ages by the "guidance" of the Holy Spirit. I used to defend this view and know its arguments well.
From the Orthodox point of view, we do not accept this. A Dogma is complete in itself since it comes from God Himself. Thru out the ages what develops is our UNDERSTANDING of it but the DOGMA itself does not change! For example, we call St Mary "Theotokos" or God-Bearer" usually translated in English "Mother of God". This says that St Mary gave birth to the second person of the Most Holy Trinity- Jesus Christ, the Logos Incarnate! The Lord Jesus got His Humanity from her.
Roman Catholic development of doctrine inovatesby adding that she was conceived without Original Sin so that she may have Jesus Christ in her womb. Of course this is becuase they have a different concept of Original sin that the Orthodox do. They believe the guilt of Adam is passed on thru sex (although nowadays this view is played down alot in Rc teaching) thus the Lord Jesus couldn't inherit the guilt thru St Mary so she had to be conceived without the guilt either which makes sense in THEIR way of viewing Original sin. But this is not the Orthodox way. This is just an example of development of doctrine. Some of the Medieval Rc saints didnt agree with the Immaculate Conception of Mary but Rome imposed her weight misquoting Holy Fathers to "prove" their point.
So we can thru the guidance of the Holy Spirit as promised by Christ in John 14:26 see that the Holy Spirit will guide the Church founded by Christ (Mat 16:18). This is not about just having the "Right Faith" but its about living it more importantly.
Please pray for this big gamuz..ty!
Heard what? Mooooo... ;D?
Big "gamuz" is a big cow? I've heard that term before but didnt know what language it originated from.Could it be YIDDISH or Polish?Maybe Italian?...lol ;D
Please get this topic back on track or it will be closed.
Thanks
no, theyre not bad at all, just um off, well way off but i dont see y noones bothering to bring the two branches back the way it was..i guess thats too late now
Its never too late. Who knows what the future holds? Some of our differences arent even doctrinal - the filioque issue for example seems be more of a semantical misunderstanding rather than a difference in Trinitarianism. The Orthodox and Catholic church have always carried out dialogues in efforts to reconcile our differences, and through the grace of God the day might eventually come when we can fulfill Christs wish:
"That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me." John 17:21
anywayz, if they agree to get back to the original creed then maybe that can get us a step closer to be united again :)
wasn't the whole problem with the filioque that they actually added something to the Creed which is wrong in itself?
Well yes that was one problem - a big problem, the "ultimate" problem causing the actual schism - yet this is clearly a political issue that divided the church.
Another "apparent" problem (based on doctrine rather than politics) that the filioque presents, is the implications that a "double procession" of Holy Spirit from Father and Son, might have for the Orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. Which is why the Orthodox church didnt want to add it to the creed in the first place.
In Orthodoxy, we say that Christ is eternally "begotten" of the Father, and that the Holy Spirit eternally "proceeds" from the Father. The Father is thus the "fountainhead" of the Trinity.
These are the hypostatic properties differentiating Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Father = Source, Son = begotten, Holy Spirit = proceeds. In light of this, to say that the Holy Spirit proceeds also from The Son is to in effect transfer the hypostatic property of the father to The Son, for now The Son becomes the "source" as well. So yeah, it gets technical into the finer points of Trinitarianism, but from what ive read this is only an "apparent" problem, based on a misunderstanding of what the latin expression "proceeds" means in comparison to the greek expression for it.