October 27, 2009 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: bishops, Christianity, church denominations, church history, church jurisdictions, church patriarchates, church patriarchs, church provinces, churches, denominations, dioceses, Eastern Christianity, Eastern Church, Eastern ecclesiology, Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, ecclesiastical provinces, ecclesiology, ecumenical councils, ecumenical synods, eparchies, great and holy council, history of Christianity, holy great council, Holy Spirit, jurisdiction, omophorion, Orthodox bishops, Orthodox Catholic Church, Orthodox Christianity, Orthodox Church, Orthodox dioceses, Orthodox Eastern Church, Orthodox ecclesiology, Orthodox jurisdictions, orthodoxy, patriarchs, religion, theology of church
As commonly used in reference to Orthodoxy and Eastern Catholicism – broadly considered (I can’t speak about other Churches) — in the Western world, the informal noun jurisdiction seems to indicate a particular ethnic, national, and/or patriarchate’s Church in a given country, region, or continent(s) … considered a part of The One Single Orthodox Church [or "The [...]
July 24, 2009 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: archbishops, autocephalous churches, autocephaly, autonomous churches, bishops, bishops' conferences, Catholicism, chief bishops, church dialogue, church history, church organization, church polity, church primates, conference of catholic bishops, Eastern Christianity, Eastern Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, ecumenical dialogue, ecumenism, episcopacy, episcopate, first among equals, hierarchs, hierarchy, Latin Patriarchs, metropolitan archbishops, metropolitans, national churches, Orthodox bishops, Orthodox Christianity, Orthodox Church, Orthodox church history, Orthodox Church polity, Orthodox Eastern Church, Orthodox patriarchates, Orthodox patriarchs, orthodoxy, papal claims, Patriarch of the West, patriarchal structures, patriarchates, patriarchs, Pentarchy, pope, Pope of the Universal Church, popes, presiding bishops, primacy, primates, primatial sees, protos, provinces, regional church, Roman Catholicism, Rome, titular patriarchs, universal bishop, universal jurisdiction
(Take One is here, where I ran off at the mouth for a while!)
Patriarch is one possible title for the presiding bishop or primate of a region of The Orthodox Church comprising a number of bishoprics, and/or even a number of smaller such regions. Currently the other two possible titles are Metropolitan or Archbishop, although [...]
July 16, 2009 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: Aboriginal Australians, Aboriginal missions, Aboriginal peoples, Aborigines, Australia, Christianity, church history, County Waterford, Eastern Christianity, Eastern Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, Indigenous Orthodoxy, indigenous peoples, Irish Christianity, Irish Orthodox, Metropolitan Hilarion Kapral, Orthodox Christianity, Orthodox Church, Orthodox missions, orthodoxy, ROCA, ROCOR, Russian Orthodox Church, Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, Russian Orthodoxy, St Declan, St John Maximovitch
The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) has recently launched an Aboriginal Australian mission in Gunning, New South Wales, near an Aboriginal community north of Canberra, the capital of that Commonwealth. The parish has been named for one of the Saints who has shined forth here in North America (and around the world, really!), [...]
January 28, 2009 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: bishops, Bolshevik Revolution, canon law, Catholic Church, Catholicism, Christianity, church, Church canons, church history, church polity, College of Cardinals, Communism, early Christianity, early church, Eastern Christianity, Eastern Church, Eastern church history, Eastern church polity, Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, Great Patriotic War, history of Christianity, Latin Church, Latin Rite, locum tenens, locum tenentes, martyrdom, martyrs, Moscow Patriarchate, Orthodox bishops, Orthodox Christianity, Orthodox Church, Orthodox church history, Orthodox Church polity, Orthodox patriarchates, Orthodox patriarchs, orthodoxy, papacy, Patriarch of Moscow, Patriarch of Russia, Patriarchate of Moscow, Pope of Rome, religion, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholicism, Russian church, Russian Orthodox Church, Russian Orthodoxy, Russian patriarchate, sede vacante, Soviet Union, spiritual guidance, spirituality, St. Peter of Krutitsy, St. Tikhon of Moscow, theology, USSR, Vatican, World War 2, World War II, World War Two
It’s being noted in news coverage that Moscow Patriarch-elect KYRILL was “Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne” since shortly after the repose of Patriarch ALEXEI. This concept is not unknown in Western Christianity … in fact, locum tenens is the traditional Latin-language term whose Greek or Slavonic counterpart I do not know, but seems commonly [...]
June 18, 2008 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: agape, Andrew Greeley, apologetics, charity, Christianity, church history, community, conversion, doctrine, dogma, early church, Eastern Christianity, Eastern Orthodoxy, established church, established religion, establishment, evangelism, evangelization, friendship evangelism, Greeks, Hellenism, Hellenistic world, Hellenization, Jewish Christians, Jews, Judaism, Latter Day Saints, LDS Church, love, martyrdom, Mormonism, Mormons, Orthodox Christianity, orthodoxy, paganism, pagans, Providence, religion, religious free market, Rodney Stark, Roman Empire, seminaries, service, social change, sociology, sociology of religion, statistics, theology, urban ministry, urban mission, women's issues
What follows is extracted from this blog post I know nothing else about, which is why I’m giving you what I got out of it here instead of sending you there to try and pinpoint it. The book-author discussed, Rodney Stark, a sociologist (and BTW, according to Wikipedia he’s not “a Mormon fanatic” as one of [...]
June 11, 2008 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: Christian spirituality, Christianity, Church Fathers, church history, deification, Divinization, Early Christian Writers, Early Church Fathers, Eastern Christianity, Eastern Orthodoxy, Evangelicalism, Fathers of the Church, glorification, heartland, kansas, Middle America, Orthodox Christianity, orthodoxy, Patristics, Protestantism, religion, Roman Catholicism, salvation, spiritual guidance, spirituality, theology, Theosis, wichita
Says an Antiochian Orthodox bookstore owner in Wichita, Kansas,* in this 2002 Publishers Weekly roundup / preview of then-new Orthodox books entering the mainstream book market (in English in the United States).
(*–For the record, home of 5 Orthodox churches, visible at orthodoxyinamerica.org.)
March 29, 2008 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: Christianity, church history, dialogue, Eastern Orthodoxy, ecumenism, Lutheranism, Martin Luther, Orthodox Christianity, Orthodox mission, orthodoxy, religion
“Martin Luther once remarked that he believed the pure Faith of primitive Christianity is to be found in the Orthodox Church,” according to this very informative UK site on Orthodoxy. I’ve also read that some early Lutheran leaders in Germany corresponded with a Patriarch of Constantinople over a number of years. But in the end, [...]
March 11, 2008 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: Catholicism, church history, creed, Eastern Orthodoxy, filioque, Holy Spirit, John 15:26, Latin Mass, nicene creed, Orthodox Christianity, Orthodox mission, orthodoxy, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholicism, Trinity, Vatican Council, Vatican II
A knowledgeable, intelligent working-class layperson I know in the Latin Church, even a product of parochial schools, even arguably in the Latin Church’s most conservative jurisdiction, who hasn’t been to Mass much since it was translated into English, was shocked to learn that her Church teaches that God’s Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son, [...]
March 10, 2008 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: church history, church union, Constantinople, East-West Schism, Eastern Catholic Churches, Eastern Catholicism, Eastern Christianity, Eastern Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, ecumenism, Great Schism, Orthodox Christianity, orthodoxy, papacy, pope, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholicism, Rome, schism, tradition, Uniates, Uniatism, Uniats
(Opinion Alert: Just a few ruminations.)
Was it an accident that Rome and Constantinople’s break in communion of 1054 became permanent? Like I’ve said, there were previous ones. Doctrinal divergence? Even this hadn’t prevented patching-up differences previously. And between 1054 and 1453 there were several attempts to do so again. The last one actually resulted in [...]
March 10, 2008 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: Alaska, Alaska Natives, Alaskan Indians, American history, American Indians, Christianity, church history, Eastern Orthodoxy, indigenous languages, Native Americans, Orthodox Christianity, Orthodox mission, orthodoxy, religion, Russian Orthodox, saints, Santa Claus, visions
According to their parish webpage at oca.org (scroll to bottom section), he appeared in a dream to several leaders. How cool is that! More details are on their own website. (I guess they can’t work this into the movie!!)
Looks like they need help renovating, too, I imagine because the wet southern-Alaska coast weather is murder on [...]
March 9, 2008 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: Bible, church history, converts, evangelism, evangelization, Middle East, Orthodox mission, Patristics, religious conversion, Russia, Scripture
The interview, conducted by email by a magazine, is mostly reproduced by another blogger here, though he re-posted it in installments, so start with Number One at the bottom of the page and work your way back up.
I might offer for clarification, first, that there have been several more-or-less intensive missionary periods in Orthodox Church history:
the first [...]
Excommunication, for Orthodoxy, is not expulsion from membership in the Church, merely barring from receiving Communion, usually temporarily, on account of some sin or other offense taken particularly seriously by Holy Tradition or the Canons. This article is very informative. In fact, when Latins discuss this kind of excommunication, they state that you’re still required to [...]
September 24, 2007 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: Catholic Church, Catholicism, catholicity, Christianity, church history, church polity, conciliarism, conciliarity, doctrine, Eastern Catholic Churches, Eastern Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, ecclesiology, local church, Orthodox Christianity, orthodoxy, papacy, Philip Sherrard, pope, prelest, Protestantism, Quakerism, religion, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholicism, Rome, Russia, sobornost, spirituality, theology, Uniates, Uniatism, Uniats, Western Christianity
The blogger from the previous post, Mr. Brooks Lampe in the Washington, DC, area, here tackles some heavy stuff, without it coming across too heavy! He’s reporting and reflecting mostly on a book by Philip Sherrard, whose writing can be extremely dense – well-planned, well-packed, making for downright oppressive reading, like much philosophy can be [...]
October 28, 2005 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: Catholicism, Christianity, church history, conciliarism, conciliarity, contraception, deaconesses, divorce, Eastern Orthodoxy, economic justice, Fathers of the Church, first among equals, Liberal Catholicism, liberalism, liturgy, Orthodox Christianity, Orthodox mission, papacy, Patristics, pope, progressive, religion, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholicism, sobornost, social justice, spirituality, theology
(Polished and expanded a little on 18 January 2008.)
How can Orthodoxy possibly dovetail with liberal Roman Catholicism?
Collegiality and conciliarity; no Papal Infallibility. While the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople has some very supportive supporters, he’s really not supposed to be a worldwide ecclesiastical autocrat, merely “first among equals” among the bishops of the Orthodox Church, permanent [...]
July 1, 2005 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: apostolic succession, Bible, Catholicism, Christendom, Christianity, church history, churches, conciliarism, conciliarity, Divinization, Eastern Orthodoxy, first among equals, glorification, Great Schism, Holy Spirit, infallibility, John 16:13, Matthew 18:18, Matthew 6:13-19, Orthodox Christianity, Orthodox Church, orthodoxy, papacy, patriarchates, pope, religion, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholicism, Rome, salvation, Scripture, sobornost, spirituality, St. Peter, theology, Theosis, Western Christendom, Western Christianity, Western Church
Yesterday was the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, the Apostles. The Gospel reading for Divine Liturgy was Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi, Matthew 16:13-19 (here, from the NAB).
13
When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
14
They replied, “Some say [...]
