What is Orthodox Answers
We are a partnership of Orthodox Christians working together to provide sound answers to any questions you may have about the Orthodox Faith. We contribute our time and effort to try and make sure that there are good resources available to those who have questions about Orthodoxy. We hope you can sense the love of God in our work of apologetics.
This website includes answers for (in this order):
Roman Catholics
Evangelicals
Calvinists
Atheists
On the Roman Catholic page appears the following:
We recommend that you take some time to read the stories of people who have converted from Roman Catholicism to Orthodoxy. Hearing from those who have been down this same path, working through the same questions and challenges as you, is a powerful witness to the truth of Orthodoxy. You are definitely not alone in your journey.
And well, just like Catholic Answers, Orthodox Answers wants to make sure to provide answers to none other than.... James White. And of course:
We recommend that you take some time to read the stories of people who have converted from Calvinist Protestantism to Orthodoxy. Hearing from those who have been down this same path, working through the same questions and challenges as you, is a powerful witness to the truth of Orthodoxy. You are definitely not alone in your journey.
Addendum
Here's an interesting quote from an advocate of Eastern Orthodoxy on the CARM boards:
Many Orthodox love to believe that the RCC is a few cups of coffee away from complete doctrinal unity, but as an ex-RCCer, I know better. The sheer volume of things the RCC would need to repent of at the church level, not to mention the individual level of all her clergy, is staggering. So many truths have been lost, the RCC would have to collectively spend years unlearning what it has invented, and then more years catching up to the Holy Spirit revealed truth. The entire Western concept of salvation would have to be almost completely dismantled. The Catholic Catechism would have to go, along with the Magisterium, the college of cardinals, the jesuits, most of the ministries, and then all of the various errors that have crept in to each of the liberal Catholic churches that have sprouted up across the globe over the past few centuries would have to be dealt with as well. Even the Eastern Catholics would have to unlearn and relearn quite a bit. All of this would have to be entered into prayerfully, fearfully, and reverently. The reintroduction of icons in the West would certainly be a big step and would help immensely with the reeducation part.
Posts
8 comments:
This is very interesting! Thanks for finding this and posting on it, James!
I have not had time to look around much, but it does it deal with the Eastern Orthodox denial of inherited sin and their rejection of that Augustinian tradition?
I can see Dr. White possibly eventually studying Eastern Orthodoxy more in depth in the future by listening while riding his bike, after he deals with Islam more for a few more years. (smile) or maybe sooner on some Dividing Lines !
I've only skimmed through this link.
I had one of their mp3 lectures on, the one about Sola Scriptura, and in reference to Dr. White. The sound quality is poor. I listened to about the first 20 minutes before I accidentally shut the window. From what I did hear, I was somewhat amazed the lecturer did not know the 5 solas of the Reformation without looking at them. on the other hand, I did hear quite a number of attempts to present a fair evaluation of the Protestant Reformation. I'm so used to Romanist presentations.
James,
Another great find. I especially appreciate the CARM quote. In some ways I am sympathetic to Eastern Heterodoxy, especially its Trinitarian focus.
Call me an iconoclast if you wish, but two- dimensional idols aren't any better than three dimensional ones (although they're usually far less tacky). Further, EO hagiography can be even sillier and more superstitious than anything RCs have ever come up with.
And why would an RC find it congenial to trade an infallible pope/magisterium for an infallible collection of "equal" churches?
And then there's orginal sin. I think Augustine had it pretty much right. I don't really get how salvation works in Eastern Heterodoxy and every time I try to get an answer I find myself understanding less.
But now there's Orthodox Answers to the rescue! Oh boy!
And then there's orginal sin. I think Augustine had it pretty much right. I don't really get how salvation works in Eastern Heterodoxy and every time I try to get an answer I find myself understanding less.But now there's Orthodox Answers to the rescue! Oh boy!
I've spent a lot of time recently in the book, Robert Letham, Through Western Eyes, Eastern Orthodoxy: A Reformed Perspective. Letham appears to have done good work in examining his subject, and IMO, navigates through definitions quite well. It's worth picking up.
JS
Wow, how refreshing to find an Eastern Orthodox commenter taking on the RCC. On CAF and on some Eastern Orthodox websites, the EOs and RCs seem very friendly to eachother (I wonder why) and I hardly ever see emotional forum battles between them, though they will both come hard at Evangelicals.
From what I have seen, the typical EO apologetic website is 60-70% anti-Protestant and 30-35% anti-Catholic.
The typical RC apologetic website is 80-90% anti-Protestant and 10-20% anti-Other stuff.
I would really like to see some moderated debates between Catholic Answers and Orthodox Answers. Do Catholic Answers even do debates with anybody these days??
In my opinion, debating EOs will be harder than debating RCs because EOs follow the early church somewhat closer than RCs do.
I really wonder if most EOs follow the traditional or modern version of Ex Ecclesia Nulla Sallus.
Eastern Heterodoxy
Hahahaha, nice.
That is a revealing quote from the CARM board, though RCs who want to minimize differences btwn them and EOs would be dismissive of it as they do with RC voices that oppose them, even if by popes.
But there are RC counterpart voices that scorn the EOs, as http://www.waragainstbeing.com/partiii
And you have SV RCs who contend, "The Eastern Schismatics Are All Damned" (http://www.romancatholicism.org/eastern-schism.htm) with whom Boniface 8 would apparently agtee.
Yet the EO CARM poster is not alone.
Here (http://www.orthodox.net/articles/against-ecumenism.html) "Against Ecumenism" it warns, "there are those who attempt to join together all Christian religions into one faith. They would be horrified at the idea of a service with Hindus and Christians celebrating together, yet they do not bat an eyelash at the idea of Orthodox celebrating with Roman Catholics, who with no authority broke off from the Church close to a thousand years ago."
http://www.goarch.org/ourfaith/ourfaith7076: The Orthodox Church does not believe in purgatory (a place of purging), that is, the inter-mediate state after death in which the souls of the saved (those who have not received temporal punishment for their sins) are purified of all taint preparatory to entering into Heaven, where every soul is perfect and fit to see God.
Also, the Orthodox Church does not believe in indulgences as remissions from purgatoral punishment. Both purgatory and indulgences are inter-corrolated theories, unwitnessed in the Bible or in the Ancient Church,..The Church lived for fifteen hundred years without such a theory.
http://almoutran.com/2011/03/251: Orthodoxy and Catholicism - What are the differences - Father Theodore Pulcini ISBN 978-1-888212-23-5: I sadly concluded that the erroneous Roman understanding of original sin had led to another erroneous teaching, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. The dogma was clearly an unwarranted innovation.
It was much the same with the dogma of papal infallibility. This doctrine asserts that when the pope speaks ex cathedra, "from the throne," or officially, on matters of faith and morals, he teaches infallibly.
http://www.goarch.org/ourfaith/ourfaith7063: Despite the high honor and the highest admiration which the Orthodox Church bestows upon the Virgin Mary Theotokos, it does not teach either her immaculate conception or her bodily assumption into the heavens.,,
http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/reading/ortho_cath.html Roman Catholicism, unable to show a continuity of faith and in order to justify new doctrine, erected in the last century, a theory of "doctrinal development...On this basis, theories such as the dogmas of "papal infallibility" and "the immaculate conception" of the Virgin Mary (about which we will say more) are justifiably presented to the Faithful as necessary to their salvation."
http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/charmov.aspx: There is nothing Orthodox about the charismatic movement. It is incompatible with Orthodoxy...
Vladimir Lossky, a noted modern Eastern Orthodox theologian, argues the difference in East and West is due to the Roman Catholic Church's use of pagan metaphysical philosophy (and its outgrowth, scholasticism) rather than the mystical, actual experience of God called theoria, to validate the theological dogmas of Roman Catholic Christianity. For this reason, Lossky argues that the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics have become "different men".[18] Other Eastern Orthodox theologians such as John Romanides[19] and Metropolitan Hierotheos[20][21] say the same
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic–Eastern_Orthodox_theological_differences
Twelve Differences Between the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches (http://vivificat1.blogspot.com/2009/08/twelve-differences-between-orthodox-and.html)
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