Dear Father Glykerios:
Χριστὸς Ἀνέστη! Εὐλογεῖτε.
This
is loosey-goosey ecclesiology. It can eventually lead to questions
about the nature of Christ Himself. Since He is the Church—i.e., the
Church is the very Body of Christ and the pillar of Truth—can we say
that He contains
within Himself the fullness of His Humanity and
Divinity, but that “other Christs” may have “elements of the One, True
Christ within them?” If such a Christological formula would cause
consternation, why should we accept an equally perverse ecclesiology?
I may sound facetious, but the kind of thought presented below is incredibly theologically pernicious and simplistic.
Understate
the unity and oneness of the Church and it stands to reason that you
will eventually begin to pervert the Unity and Oneness of Christ, Whose
Body the Church is, and quite literally. And if we do not believe in
such a literal ecclesiology, then what will become of our
Mysteriological theology and the Eucharistic tradition of the Church,
since we believe that Christ is literally and truly present in the Eucharist. As one “domino" falls…. [Pun tragically intended.]
Is it to this that the Oecumenical Patriarchate has lowered itself?
Of
course, being a fundamentalistic half-wit who eschews the lofty message
of “ecumenispeak” (read: “babble”), I am sure that such simple issues
as the ones that I raise will invite laughter. Imagine what our Internet
Orthodox circles would have to say in their “beer”-reviewed wisdom. I
am daily reminded, as I see developments in “modernist” Orthodoxy, of
the Jester’s Folly, which dresses itself in Satan’s Sagacity. To affirm
that God reaches man outside Orthodoxy is a matter of speculative
ecclesiology. To impugn the uniqueness of Orthodoxy in this speculation,
whatever the language used and however sincere the intention, is to
defile the Church.
Father Georges Florovsky
once told me that we should draw clear distinctions between a theology
of facts and a theology of mere belief, just as we should not mistake
theological speculation as anything more than a way to clarify dogma.
Once we understand and then experience dogma, as he said, we must be
ready to set aside our speculation. Dogma is self-evident, just as
Patristic Truth is self-confirming. To dogmatize ecclesiological
speculation into six principles foreign to Orthodox ecclesiology is
alienate oneself from an experiential and Patristic ecclesiology.
Least Among Monks, † BC
———
On May 14, 2016, at 12:26 PM, Father Glykerios wrote:
Exactly the same paper could have been written by the theologians of Vatican II
Now one question: in what exactly consists the fullness that the ORTHODOX Church has, and the other churches have not (yet?)
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