"I am the door. By me if any man enter in he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture." - John 10:9 At every parish where I have had the pleasure of attending services, there is always a small group of people who find their way all the way up to the church building but don't actually attend services. At one parish it was a group of male gypsies who talked on cellphones or smoked cigarettes. At another it was a few Protestant husbands who, though they never attended services, opened the parish doors for people as they filed in. At yet another parish the men stood in the narthex and chatted until it was time to receive and then got in line. Latin or Greek Catholic, Eastern or Oriental Orthodox I see the same small throng of men standing next to the front door, but not standing, sitting, or kneeling amongst the people. If it were me (and I can only speak for myself here) this option would be an unsavory one. The boredom would be immediate. The anxiety of som...
Looks like this council is fostering a different kind of pan-Orthodox unity than what the Ecumenical Patriarch intended.
ReplyDeleteOh, come on. "Anti-Ecumenist?" Better to just say "Orthodox." I am so saddened by the attempts to brand some Orthodox opinions as somehow backward or unacceptable, instead of as a healthy and vital part of Orthodoxy and Orthodox dialogue (I said part, not necessarily the whole). Are we going to brand Saint Mark of Ephesus as "anti-ecumenical" now? These differences of opinion and interpretation are the life signs of the Church!
ReplyDeleteArchpriest Theodore Zisis calls himself that. You can imagine little air quotes over the term if you'd like.
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