The spiritual leader of the Orthodox Church in America offered to begin talks aimed at full communion with the new Anglican Church in North America, then named a series of obstacles whose removal could tear apart the hard-won unity among the 100,000 theological conservatives who broke from the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.
“What will it take for a true ecumenical reconciliation? Because that is what I am seeking by being here today,” Metropolitan Jonah said to a standing ovation from 900 people assembled in a tent on the grounds of St. Vincent Cathedral in Bedford, Texas.
He spoke of St. Tikhon, a 19th-century Russian Orthodox missionary to the United States who initiated a close relationship with the Episcopal Church that later cooled.
One hates to rain on what was clearly a great parade, but the voice of the Patriarch puts into rather stark relief the continuing incoherence of big-tent Anglicanism.
In the same room are women clergy, those who feel their ordination is sacrilegious, those who think the idea of “priesthood” is neopaganism. There are Anglican papalists who yearn for the Roman Rite Anglican Use, neo-Calvinists who would happily unite with the more sober varieties of Presbyterians, neo-Lutheran believers in imputed righteousness, charismatics with novel theologies of sanctification, and devotees of every worship style from the Tridentine missal to free flowing overhead projector praise songs.
It’s great that they all get along. But can they really be a church? Isn’t mushy indecision about core matters of doctrine and practice what sunk the last Anglican experiment?
[blockquote]Bishop Christopher Epting, ecumenical officer for the Episcopal Church, who said he has tried and failed to interest the Orthodox in new talks.
He believes that the Orthodox Church in America and the Anglican Church in North America “would be strange bedfellows … but that is their choice to make,” he said.[/blockquote]
Bishop Epting sounds a mite peevish, no?
I wonder why TEC has failed to interest the Orthodox Church in talks?
#2 Johnd, that choice was made, not by the Orthodox, but by General Convention over 30 years ago when they started ordaining women priests. That ended what had been promising talks with the Orthodox.
Thank God for division without it the majority church would have destroyed the minorities as it has done so often in history. As C. S. Lewis said, unity comes from drawing close to Christ, not by merging bureaucracies. I’m so glad we have divisions.
Nos. 2 & 3 – The Orthodox are not interested in new talks not only because of WO, but also because Anglicanism makes room for the embracing of Calvinist heresy.
[url=http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2278822/posts]Another site[/url] has a bit more comprehensive review of the conditions for full communion:
[blockquote]What would it take for this reconciliation to occur? The Metropolitan was explicit:.
Full affirmation of the orthodox Faith of the Apostles and Church Fathers, the seven Ecumenical Councils, the Nicene Creed in its original form (without the filioque clause inserted at the Council of Toledo, 589 A.D.), all seven Sacraments and a rejection of ‘the heresies of the Reformation.”
His Beatitude listed these in a series of ‘isms’; Calvinism, anti-sacramentalism, iconoclasm and Gnosticism. The ordination of women to the Presbyterate and their consecration as Bishops has to end if intercommunion is to occur.
These are controversial words, especially given the make up of the Assembly, which is admittedly divided on key issues such as the ordination of women, the nature and number of the Sacraments and perhaps the essential character of the Church itself. Still, the delegates welcomed his candor with applause, perhaps because His Beatitude was self-evidently “speaking the truth with love.” Less controversially, he called for a true renunciation of sin and immorality, “We must eliminate any shred of immorality in our lives,” not least because sin “kills and maims the soul,” likewise immorality, which destroys the soul and “demoralizes our culture.” Coming from a faith tradition fully alive to the aggressive threat of militant Islam, the Metropolitan issued the following warning:; a culture demoralized by immorality “cannot stand up to the strict asceticism of Islam.” [/blockquote]
[url=http://southern-orthodoxy.blogspot.com/]Orthodixie[/url] also gives his take on his blog.
Peace
Jim Elliott <><
The fact that Bishop Epting doesn’t understand it is reason enough to not bother. Soemtimes you just get tired of explaining what a catechumen should know to a purple shirt. Met. Jonah has made the best ecumenical move of this and the last century. It will be resoundingly ignored by the mainstream of Anglicanism.
[Comment edited by Elf]