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Date Posted: 12:14:37 05/25/02 Sat
Author: Omega
Subject: Re: So, let me see if I'm right...
In reply to: mt. healthy mountaineer 's message, "So, let me see if I'm right..." on 11:39:48 05/25/02 Sat

Not exactly.

The Church as it started, from the missions of the Apostles around the world, developed different traditions for worship, and different expressions of their theological and spiritual understanding. This does not mean they have different dogmatic beliefs -- for they held in common the same basic teachings -- but the way to express it in daily life/worship differed according to the different cultures that the faith went to.

This is how the Church developed an Eastern, Western, and Far-Eastern major "branches" which then had different sub-branches. They were one together -- for centuries.

But as with humanity, splits happen. The first major split was at Ephesus, with the Church of the East (Persian, India, etc) splitting from the rest. Then the Council of Chalcedon had the Egyptians/Ethiopians split.

After that, there were centuries of conflict, between the East and West (not Church of the East, but Eastern edge of the Roman empire). This eventually led to the Schism of 1054 -- with the Western/Catholics under the Pope on one side, and the Orthodox on the other. The dogmatic teachings are more or less the same, but the cultural expressions were different, and politics were also involved.

There are many Eastern Catholic Churches. Some of them never left communion with Rome (Italo-Byzantine and Maronite, officially) -- while most were one with the Orthodox (Patriarch of Constantinople). Some of them were also members of the Church of the East (The Syro-Malabars in India, for example). But through the centuries, they rejoined communion with Rome, and left their other communion.

So for the Byzantine Catholic that I am, we come the tradition of the early missionary work of Sts Cyril and Methodius to the Slavs, and then were a part of the Russian side of the East/West split. So we are like the Russian Orthodox in our traditions and spirituality. A few centuries ago, we opened relations with the Pope, and rejoined commuinion with the Pope.

Now, there are at times differences between us and the Romans, for example, our ideas of marriage are slightly different. The major beliefs are the same -- but again expressed differently. The East never really was involved with scholasticism, for example, but they have their own major theological tradition of Palamite theology. We have married clergy in our tradition (though Bishops are celibates).

But if you have any knowledge of the Greek or Russian Orthodox, think of them -- and their tradition, their liturgy, their spirituality -- and that is what we are like, but we rejoined communion with Rome.

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