Uh Since When

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew Presides Over Ninth Annual Prayer Service for the U.N. CommunityAs His Holiness visits these shores in his wake news is in the making. We wouldn't have it any other way, would we? And we are not surprised when the rhetoric of"Unity!At all costs!Now!Forget all our differences in the past-all only a simple misunderstanding, really! "is in the familiar repertoire of His Holiness.The press release begins:"NEW YORK - LAST EVENING, MONDAY, OCTOBER 26, HIS ALL HOLINESS, ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH BARTHOLOMEW presided over the Ninth Annual Orthodox Prayer Service for the United Nations Community"which alone raises issues which I will not go into here but feel noteworthy to mention nonetheless.And it just gets better from there:This Service is sponsored annually by the Joint Commission of the Standing Conference of the Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas (SCOBA) and the Standing Conference of the Oriental Orthodox Churches of America (SCOOCH).And the press release continues with telling us the who's who at the party and who did what and all the usual niceties.But I leave the last part, the best one, well, last, to dramatically add effect to this post's title, "Uh, since when?"His Holiness' own words:"The theological dialogue between our two Christian families - that is the Orthodox Church and the Ancient Oriental Churches, has formally ended the misunderstandings of the past. It is not theology that divides us. Rather, we are united in our commitment to address the pastoral, liturgical and ecclesiastical issues on which we may ever build our unity in Christ more and more. The dialogue must continue, and we must continue to seek opportunities for mutual exchange. As our knowledge grows, our love will grow as well."Since when was it agreed in a Universal Orthodox Council that this is the case?It would seem to me that if this be the case, a much more in depth exchange take place between the Orthodox Catholic Church and the Oriental Church to go down the line with each and every Ecumenical Council and get straight with each and every one. Would that not be a logical way to proceed? For that matter, it seems that in the Ecumenical Councils is available the same means to proceed with the Latins and to compare the very different Orthodox Catholic Faith with the Roman Catholic one.Simple questions between the two such as:"Does Christ have two natures or one? Two wills or one?" and so forth, hammering it out point by point, determining if indeed we share the same faith.But to unilaterally make the kind of statement His Holiness makes is reminiscent of the whole change to the Calendar that took place unilaterally through Constantinople in 1923 through dubious-at best- means.This ought not to be so.I read somewhere that as we go day by day towards the last day of history, "lawlessness will abound and the love of many will grow cold" but that's not important. The changing of conciliar Church understandings unilaterally is not important and certainly can not qualify for the adjective of "lawless".Maybe bringing all the other "Orthodox" bodies "into the fold" is a precursor to a greater and easier "unity" then with the Papal Church?I must just be plain crazy to even be thinking such things.Go here to read the entire press release.

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