(ACNS) Following a private meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams, His Holiness Pope Shenouda III, the Coptic Pope, received the Primates of the Anglican Communion at the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate in Alexandria on Saturday evening, 31 January. The Primates are meeting in Alexandria in the latest of their series of regular meetings.
In thanking Pope Shenouda for his warm welcome and hospitality the Archbishop of Canterbury drew attention to the significance of meeting together in the city where many of the universal doctrines of the Christian faith were formed and where the seeds of the Christian monastic movement had been sown in the fourth century.
In thanking Pope Shenouda for his warm welcome and hospitality the Archbishop of Canterbury drew attention to the significance of meeting together in the city where many of the universal doctrines of the Christian faith were formed and where the seeds of the Christian monastic movement had been sown in the fourth century.
Replace “significance” with “irony” and I might agree.
Under the mercy,
[url=http://ad-orientem.blogspot.com/]John[/url]
An [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj4pUphDitA]Orthodox [/url] Christian
Pope Shenouda should ask each bishop to sign to the Creed. If not, leave the city. Worked in the 4th century, and it ought to work now. Williams is SUCH a goof. What a vile offense to invade a city that has an *actual* Orthodox Christian heritage with a meeting of heretics. This is what tar and feathers were designed for.
It worked in the fifth century too when the Coptic church fell into Christological heresy by not adhering to the fourth ecumenical council. They haven’t had an *actual* Orthodox Christian heritage since.
I thank God I am not like them.
This is particularly special to our church since we worship in the chapel of the local Coptic Orthodox Church. We are very compatible!!
(I love the icons!!!)
The Coptic Orthodox liturgy is beautiful and spiritual. It is very long, but time and space seem to stand still. The exact nature of the dispute between them and the consensus at Chalcedon is very confusing to me.
Because they split away so early, they weren’t as influenced by scholastic theology as were Rome and Constantinople.
If Anglicanism were to dissolve away, I might well head to Alexandria, not Rome.
Pope Shenouda’s views on the Great Matters facing Christianity are crystal clear:
See:
http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles2/ShenoudaHomosexuality.php
and
http://tasbeha.org/content/hh_books/ordofwom/index.html
Homosexual Priests
What may members of the congregation say when they know
that their priest is homosexual, and that he holds the Body and
Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ?
How can a homosexual priest lead the congregation to holy life
without having repented, without having confessed, without
changing his life? If he cannot repent how can he guide others
to repentance? If he cannot control himself, how can he guide
others to such control? If he cannot enjoy the beauty of holy
life, how can he speak about holy life? If he leads a carnal
life, how can he guide others to live a spiritual life?
What will be said about the teachings of Christianity if such
abominations take place in the Church itself?
As one who has met some of the primates on both sides of the issue… I must say that Pope Shenouda would be a great model for all of them. He spends Thursday through Sunday each week in retreat, he’s a real monastic, a genuine man of prayer. That would be a good start for all of them. Of course I’d take a single non-Calcedonian Orthodox Christian over all the Revisionists in the US, Canada, and Britain combined.
Saint Cyprian, the Coptic Orthodox explain their dissent from Chalcedon in different terms. They view it as a technical dissent, not a rejection of the essential Christian faith. And indeed, all disputes among Orthodox aside, it’s hard to look at a Church which has endured in the face of 1400 years of Islamic oppression as heretic. The real heretics in the far East have generally died off. Muhammad may have known heretics in Arabia, where their ideas merged into his major heresy. St. Mark’s see in Egypt has stood for Christ against a false prophet.
I don’t come here much now but this thread saddens me.
Jesus commands us to love God, and to love our neightbours. There is no love in this thread, for God or man.
#2 – we are commanded not to judge others, lest we be judged.
#4 – I wonder if you are being ironic? Whether you are or not, you surely have Luke 18:9-14 in mind.
“To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
God help us all.
I did, badman.
We’re so theologically perfect that we would give our bodies up to be burned for the Common Book of Prayer, or the correct Latin or Orthodox services. But love our enemies? Hell, no, we’re too busy digging the mote out of our BROTHER’S eyes. And we’re finding so very, very many of them!
re 4: Do you realize whom you quoted?
Perhaps we cannot judge others OUTSIDE the church, but St. Paul tells us we are to judge those INSIDE the church. Jesus also tells us that ‘by their fruits we shall know’ whether they bear good fruit or bad fruit, and “If you love me, keep my teachings”.
Thus we look at the theology one espouses within their office in Church leadership, and their actions towards others, and we know if they are for Christ and fellow Christians, or for themselves and power-mongering.
Look at those in leadership in the American TEc and see how they measure up to Christ’s teachings. Then look to the primates in other areas of the Communion and see how they measure up to His teachings.
Like it or not, there is a base standard for calling oneself Christian, one that was set up long before the 21st Century. To deny those teachings is to deny the Christian faith, and to remove yourself from the community of believers.
I agree, Jim. We need to weed out those who are not Christian, or those that are heterodox, or those that are liberal.
I am:
1. Christian (unlike most of the evil sinners out there in the world).
2. I am Anglican (unlike the papist, marian Roman catholics, and the statist, enthocentric Orthodox churches).
3. I am a member of the new ACNA (unlike the liberal, heterdox TEC, and the ABC who is in collusion with them).
4. And, once ACNA is fully formed, I’m proud to say that I am Anglo-catholic (unlike the WO and neo-protestant members who are faking it as part of the new province). We’ll kick them out too, and form a smaller, newer, holier province.
Justin, you do your namesake no favors.
Sarcasm in such a serious matter as dealing with heresy under the guise of Christian leadership deserves serious discussion.
I’m talking about:
*ordaining sinful behavior instead of calling for repentance
*accusing those who disagree with the above action of being intolerant and following a ‘narrow-minded view’ of God
*declaring Jesus as being ONE path to the divine instead of the ONLY way to the Father
*declaring the Bible to be the work of the church, and therefore able to be re-written by the church
*declaring orthodox Bible believing Christians as second class citizens of a Christian denomination
*suing Christians who take a stand for orthodoxy
*deposing orthodox bishops and inhibiting orthodox priests for no other reason than that they disagree with the leadership of the denomination and voice their displeasure.
*refusing to agree to the consecration of orthodox (reasserting) clergy as bishops of a diocese, or allowing conservatives to be sent to seminary and be ordained.
I am not talking about differences in denominations, which, while present and real, generally do NOT reach to the level of the essentials of the Faith.
These are what is on the table, this is what the primates are discussing and this is the decision before them: how to handle this situation. The solution before them is the second North American province.
Oh, I forgot one biggie:
The head of the Episcopal club LYING to the primates, assuring them they would not take or undertake an action and then turning around and doing the opposite with the explanation:
*When we agreed to the position we were affirming the truth in your community. When we took the opposite action back home we were affirming the truth in our community
and
*When I signed the agreement and said we would uphold it, I really meant I agreed to take it and present it to the House of Bishops.
and
*moratorium? What moratorium?
Do God’s followers knowingly lie or mislead other Christians? Or do we strive for truth? God’s Truth not what we say is truth for our ‘community’ but not for yours?
“Williams is SUCH a goof. What a vile offense to invade a city that has an *actual* Orthodox Christian heritage with a meeting of heretics. This is what tar and feathers were designed for.”
I (and some others in the thread above) find comments such as this a tad vitriolic and illogical. Meeting with a heretic or a leader of a heterodoxy does not make one a non-christian, as far as I am aware. This comment seems to me so far removed from Christ’s prayer at crucifixion. I hope you will acknowledge that this has little to do with “defending the faith.” It’s more about defending our little club, a sentiment I don’t see going away once ACNA is under way.
Now [i]THAT[/i] you and I can agree on, JM.
LJ – I think that JM was replying TO NWL, don’t you?