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| Cardinal Koch and Bp. Brian Farrell of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Armenian clerics, and others attended the opening session of the Holy and Great Council as observers from the Vatican. |
Monday, June 20, 2016
Conciliar observers in Crete
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Ya see what we're missing!? I'm waiting for the photos of the Orthodox hierarchs and the heterodox in a group hug. I wonder how many of the Orthodox PR folks make sure those don't surface.
ReplyDeleteYa see what we're missing!? I'm waiting for the photos of the Orthodox hierarchs and the heterodox in a group hug. I wonder how many of the Orthodox PR folks make sure those don't surface.
ReplyDeleteThe fact non-Orthodox observers are there is the silliest objection to this Council, especially as it regards public sessions on topics the churches are all in agreement over. Private sessions on more sensitive topics could be held in private, if needed, though allowing those observers to see how the church as a whole thinks - as opposed to those with whom they are usually in contact - would also be a good thing. By not attending, more 'traditionalist' churches have given up an opportunity to make their case directly to the non-Orthodox they want to convert but don't want to talk to in a much less friendly (to them) environment than a typical WCC event. Orthodox views on intermarriage could also have been helpful given similar, recent wrangling in the Church of Rome.
ReplyDeleteActually 123, as has been pointed out elsewhere, the only time heterodox were allowed at ecumenical councils in the past were as defendants so that they could answer for and repent of their apostasy--not as observers.
DeleteSorry, but when my family gets together for a family meeting, we do not invite the neighbors for them to be spectators. It is our family business, not theirs. Same principle with this Council regards the heterodox...NOT their business.
ReplyDeleteStrange to have people who ascribe to heresies and are in schism from the Church as observers but not a single member from the OCA. Shame on Istanbul.
ReplyDeleteStrange to have people who ascribe to heresies and are in schism from the Church as observers but not a single member from the OCA. Shame on Istanbul.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't and was never going to be an ecumenical council. I'm not sure anyone claiming this point can point to actual research confirming it. Have there been other councils in Orthodox history where non-Orthodox were present for some portion of the proceedings, e.g., Old Believers or Old Calendarists considering reunion or rapprochement in modern times, perhaps those times where there were competing Patriarchs in a local church where each camp anathematized the other, perhaps in those centuries where Chalcedonian and Non-Chalcedonian bishops alternated, etc. I seem to remember such observers being present at the Moscow Council of 1917-18 though I would have to confirm.
ReplyDeleteAlso, this isn't the first millennium, there isn't an Emperor holding the sword over heretics' heads and making church law secular law, and this council was always, obviously intended to be a quickie ice breaker to accept, reject, and/or discuss pre-prepared materials. It wasn't really a deliberative process or a 'family meeting' in any official sense, though the EP kept over-hyping it for its own sake and then undermining the safeguards around unanimity and consensus that allowed some to trust there was no danger in attending. Any serious "Council" or "Synod" would have taken weeks, months, not days to get into anything that might have required closed door meetings in executive session, so to speak.
People keep forgetting that if we can't really even talk to each other, we are probably in schism from each other. We can argue about who's right or wrong, of course, but it just makes us look more and more schismatics, like a bunch of rabid Old Calendarists who think their tiny little synod is the last true remaining church on earth liek they were a bunch of radical Protestants.