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20090126

Met. Jonah at March for Life, 1/22/09

Some comments by Metropolitan Jonah at the March for Life on Thursday (the second video cuts off near the end)



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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I appreciated his comment about the Orthodox church stepping out (something to that effect) ... being silent no longer. I'm glad the OC is taking such a strong and public stand against abortion. Did you see/hear that Obama has signed a paper (policy) retracting Bush's ban on sending (our) money to other countries for abortions? (The Mexico City initiative?) I'm very disappointed.

1/26/2009
Anonymous said...

Random question: what does it mean for the Orthodox Church to "be in communion" with another church?

1/26/2009
Matt said...

Yes, I have to admit that I did not expect the president to advance the pro-choice agenda with such zeal; not this soon anyway. It is disappointing.

Regarding being "in communion," this answer comes from an expert whose privacy I will respect by witholding his name:

"To be in communion means that we are united in every way dogmatically and liturgically. It means that we can receive and give communion to those people or persons. Example: The Greek Orthodox Church is in communion with the Russian, Romanian, Serbian ...etc. There are some splinter groups calling themselves "Orthodox" which in fact are not in communion with the official Orthodox Church. The way to best understand who is a part of the Historic official Orthodox Church is if they are connected to an ancient Patriarchate."

Now my own comments: There are some groups who were formerly in communion with the Orthodox Church--Greek Old Calendarists and Russian Old Believers are two examples--but who broke communion for reasons of practice (calendar usage with the former, liturgical particulars with the latter), but who otherwise have the same beliefs. Those, I think, are the "splinter groups" he is refering to.

1/26/2009
Anonymous said...

The reason I asked about 'being in communion' is that I understood from a radio interview I was listening to, that the Charismatic Episcopal Church was in 'communion' with the Orthodox church. From what I gather, the CEC was the sect started, orginally, by Peter Gillquist as a transition from evangelicalism to orthodoxy; many, however, have remained with the CEC. I only listened to the interview once, so maybe I am mistaken.

1/29/2009
Anonymous said...

I read your links and found the one about the Russian Old Believers most interesting. Would Fr. Pachomy say that St. Sabbas church is post-Nikonian? And if so, doesn't that fly in the face of a continuous faith and liturgy from the Apostles, because it sounds as if Nikon made some arbitrary changes to the traditions of the Orthodox church.

1/30/2009
Matt said...

Actually, the faith didn't--and doesn't--change at all. Only the expression of the faith. Liturgical worship has been a part of the Church since day one, but the Liturgy itself has evolved little by little over the centuries.
That's why many people prefer to call Old Believers "Old Ritualists," because all the beliefs are identical; only some particulars of the ritual are different.

Patriarch Nikon, as I understand it, was trying to correct some liturgical discrepancies that had developed over time between the Russian and Greek churches. He wasn't thying to change the beliefs. The Old believers objected to these corrections and split with Nikon. So they broke communion over matters of practice, not faith.

Likewise the Old Calendarists, who broke communion over calendar usage, but who confess the exact same beliefs as the churches they split from.

I'm not certain what Fr Pachomy would call St Sabbas, but I know he would not call it "Old Believer."

1/30/2009

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