/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

Well the answer to that should be obvious. The one true church is the "Temple of God", which is every person filled with the Holy Spirit since the veil ripped in Matthew 27:51.

For reference here is the scripture 1st Corinthians 3:16 "Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?"

>>258065

>Well the answer to that should be obvious. The one true church is the "Temple of God", which is every person filled with the Holy Spirit since the veil ripped in Matthew 27:51.

ya but if you actually understood this you wouldn't need scripture to back it up, you'd just say it as a fact

Protties are the one true church, Romanists and Eastern mystics practice man-made tradition.

The one true, holy, universal church consists of all genuine believers in Jesus Christ who have repented and possess a real, saving faith.

>>258056

The Oriental Orthodox Church.

>>258056

there is no "one true church".

let us consider that if both East and West had apostolic authority in 1054, then when East and West mutually excommunicated one another, the church's authority on earth was destroyed. how can either be correct if they, as two authoritative parties, revoked one another's authority?

>>258087

What

Can someone clear this up for me? It screams "wrong!", yet its so confusing i dont get it.

>>258056

In general Orthodox Church is more true to Early Christian traditions than the Catholic Church.

>>258065

>>258067

this is the correct answer

there is no man-made church that's a "one true church", so catholics and protestants and orthodox arguing against each others does not do anyone any favors.

After a lot of reading about Catholicism I converted to Orthodox Christianity. It is undeniable that the Orthodox Church is closer to the original teaching, practice and intent of the Early Church.

Catholicism claims to be infallible in the dogma that it defines, so after 21 Church Councils it has come to a different tradition to Orthodoxy. I believe the theology remains correct but modernist teaching, scholastic justification for changes to theology, and the general liturgy have made it a stumbling block to a true Christian faith.

Orthodoxy seems to state (and I am still learning) that the Holy Tradition and Church Councils are authoritative and infallible, but that bishops do not have the magisterium to define dogma. The fullness of the faith was found in the Early Church, and to be an unchanging Church is to have the fullness of the faith.

dear OP, the Orthodoxes already recognized the Pope als Protos

>>258136

As an Orthodox, I agree that Orthodoxy, at least aesthetically, appears to more closely resemble early Christianity.

However, there's nothing aberrant in Catholicism. It's more a matter of approach than anything else. Catholic reasoning for a number of its dogma that isn't also seen in Orthodoxy is very sound and scriptural. But that's kind of my problem with it. At some points, it appears too sound, if that makes any sense. Too logical, too reasoned. I don't oppose logic and reason, but I worry sometimes about the vain philosophy of men.

That being said, Catholic arguments for papal authority and also papal infallibility are pretty convincing. Whether it be passages where Peter was singled out or OT passages on the Prime Ministerial office in Israel or how God allowed Caiaphas (an antagonist of Christ) a gift of prophecy by virtue of being High Priest, the hardest thing as an Orthodox for me is making sense of the papacy.

But, yeah, we truly hold as dogma only the seven ecumenical councils. In most matters we defer to Holy Tradition and Patristic scholarship, but because the fathers often differed wildly, you can hold a number of different beliefs on matters not considered foundational.

>>258056

>this post

Guaranteedreplies.jpg

>>258136

>bishops do not have the magisterium to define dogma

"Defining dogma" is merely affirmating the teachings of the early church. We don't create new dogma or doctrines. We just take a certain teaching and make it obligatory. People believed in the Immaculate Conception before 1854, but they wouldn't get excommunicated if you didn't believe in it. Now, you either accept it, or you're not part of the Church.

>>258065

The One True Church is the Body of Christ, the Temple that was destroyed and rebuilt in three days.

>if you actually understood this

Did Jesus refer to scripture to prove to Himself He was right? Do not speak arrogantly. I trust since you know the scripture so well there is no need to quote scriptures on pride and humility?

>>258075

All churches are man-made traditions.

To think otherwise is to deny that Jesus Christ is just as human as He was divine.

Apostolic succession is just fan fiction. There is no where in the Bible that supports it but many scriptures that overturn it.

>>258218

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2008/01/apostolic-succession-the-biblical-data-protestant-reluctance-to-discuss-bible-interpretations-with-catholics.html

>>258099

But remember, traditions is all that the orthodox church uses to stay afloat. The catholic sacraments and matters of faith are virtually unchanged since the martyrdom of St. Peter. Even if some aspects are renewed in consideration to matters of faith, the catholic church is able to survive whatever culture is thrown at it, which is definately what "One, holy, CATHOLIC, apostolic" church means. If the traditions in the country orthodoxy is present in changes, then the orthodox faith changes as well.

>>258139

>That being said, Catholic arguments for papal authority and also papal infallibility are pretty convincing.

Really? One of the things drawing me to the OC is that I don't see the arguments for papal primacy as being serious or convincing at all.

>>258923

>vicar of Jesus Christ

>not serious or convincing at all

>>258924

That's what I said, yes. It looks like wishful thinking applied to scripture. It doesn't seem like early church fathers saw things that way either:

http://www.christiantruth.com/articles/mt16.html

But I haven't made a final decision yet regarding conversion, so feel free to convince me otherwise.

>>258927

The Orthodox church rests on the same arguments used by protestants if I understood that article correctly.

>>258930

Why do you say that?

>>258932

Rejecting the vicar of Jesus christ just because they don't want to conform to his power in religious matters. That's why they excommunicated the orientals as well, even though the oriental church has as much, or maybe even more apostolic sucession than the Russian/Greek orthodox churches.

>>258934

> the orientals

the schism happened because they didn't accept the council of Chalcedon. It was over arguments surrounding Christ's nature.

Pretty sure they are mostly in communion now. That's what I've heard.

>>258934

What does it mean to be "more apostolic"?

>>258938

Ignore that part, fam.

>>258937

They are in as much communion as the RCC and the OC.

>>258940

I thought they overcame their issues recently.

>>258941

I say again, they are in as much communion as the RCC and the OC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28r8jwBu1a8

>>258945

They are "the true church" as much as the OC or the RCC. I really don't like this "holier than thou" approach of most of the orthobros on this site.

>>258947

I'm not a Christian (yet), let alone an Ortho. I don't care to designate a "one true church", I just think the OC makes a better case for themselves.

Anyway, I'm participating in this thread because I would like to see how a debate between members of the RC and OC plays out; how each responds to the other's arguments, how each states their case etc.

>>258949

I am a catholic catechumen myself. So not officially christian either, but I chose the RCC. Not that the divine liturgies are bad at all. I visit an orthodox church every other sunday. It's just that the RCC fulfills the role of the one holy catholic apostolic church described in the council of Constantinople.

>>258951

>>258951

>the RCC fulfills the role of the one holy catholic apostolic church described in the council of Constantinople

Could you explain:

I. What you mean by this.

II. Why this doesn't apply to the Orthodox

III. Why your decision to convert hinges on this, first and foremost, rather than other considerations.

>>258952

I. I chose to convert to the catholic church because I wanted to be a part of the mystical body of Christ.

II. Depends on what you mean by orthodox, any catholic can be orthodox in his worship and study. Do you mean Eastern Christianity and The Russian/Greek churches? They are apostolic, they are holy, but they are well, not exactly catholic. Try to find an Orthodox saint after 1054 who was not greek, russian, serbian, or has one of these direct lineages.

III. I have a counter-question, how does your decision to convert NOT hinge on this? Any christian wanting the fullness of truth has to take the early councils and early church history into consideration. In that sense, I would definately understand the intent to convert to orthodoxy from protestantism. The Orthodox Church is protected by the Holy Spirit, and I can understand the feeling of having your eyes opened in a divine liturgy after a life of protestant masses.

>I.

I meant what does it mean to have those qualities exactly?

>II.

Yes I was referring to the OC. So Catholicity refers to the ethnicity of the members? Orthos are predominately (not exclusively) Russian, Serbian, Greek, etc because those are the areas they mostly spread to.

>III.

I haven't decided what Church to convert to. I don't consider myself knowledgeable enough to say which Church is "most true". I'm simply leaning toward the Orthodox.

>protestant

I'm not Protestant. Like I said, I'm not a Christian.

As an outsider, though, I would like if you could explain why the liturgy is such a huge deal. I'm sure it's very important, but sometimes it seems like people base their decision on which church is truest on this alone.

>>258956

>those qualities exactly

That is "holy catholic etc"

>>258958

What I would really like to see, if anyone has links or sources, are what the early church fathers had to say on these four marks. i.e. what does it mean to be catholic? what does it mean to be holy? etc

Because I've seen different definitions for these terms based on which church was doing the defining.

>>258959

Consult the scriptures described in the image.

>>258960

I will, but I would like to see the opinions on those passages and these four marks by those most qualified to comment on them.

>>258961

Remember, I'm just a catechumen. Try to converse with your local priests and deacons. After all, you need to consult the church you want to become a part of.

>>258967

I know, thanks.

>>258968

Good luck in your journey, wherever it may end. Also, try to pick up some Orthodox and Catholic books. And to get familiar with the catholic church, try to get your hands on the "Catholicism" series by Fr. Robert Barron. And if your journey leads you to the orthodox, pick up the Orthodox Study Bible. And many theological orthodox books can be found on the Ancient Faith Radio website.

>>258916

>what is Vatican II

Neither, Judaism is the way.

>The document released on Thursday is not a doctrinal text, but a "stimulus for the future", the Vatican says.

>Judaism, it points out, "is not to be considered simply as another religion; the Jews are instead our elder brothers".

>Turning to the vexed question of salvation, the document says: "that the Jews are participants in God's salvation is theologically unquestionable, but how that can be possible without confessing Christ explicitly, is and remains an unfathomable divine mystery".

Neither, Judaism is the way.

>The document released on Thursday is not a doctrinal text, but a "stimulus for the future", the Vatican says.

>Judaism, it points out, "is not to be considered simply as another religion; the Jews are instead our elder brothers".

>Turning to the vexed question of salvation, the document says: "that the Jews are participants in God's salvation is theologically unquestionable, but how that can be possible without confessing Christ explicitly, is and remains an unfathomable divine mystery".

>>259089

Did you hear what I said? The sacraments and matters of faith are unchanged. The appearance and customs can be renewed if it takes into consideration the sacraments and the matters of faith.

>>259100

Suicide is a sin fam

>>259100

>le kike on a stick

>tips fedora

Is this the best you can do? Really?

For me, it's Orthodoxy. It's not a question of "Jesus will only save people who join this Church". It's being closest to the religion that he founded, the best example of which we have is the Early Christian Church, which Orthodoxy has remained much closer to than Catholicism. Catholicism has simply strayed so far from this by so many reformations. The Orthodox still use Divine Liturgies written by St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil the Great, whereas the Catholics use a Mass dating from the 1960's. The Orthodox still keep the four fasts of the year, most especially Great Lent, whereas Catholics aren't even required to fast during Lent anymore, only to "give something up". The Orthodox still pray a daily cycle written by the Desert Fathers and the great hymnogrophers of antiquity, whereas the Catholic LOTH also dates from the 1960's and excludes a good bit of the Psalter entirely for being "too damning". In my opinion, Orthodoxy is the only real Church that can still call themselves the continuation of the Early Church.

>>258139

As I've said before, the Catholic argument for Papal Supremacy isn't very convincing because of the historical gap argument. Thr Catholic Church teaches that since St. Peter the Church has believed in Papal Supremacy. And yet We only see evidence of a belief in papal Supremacy beggining to appear in the fourth-fifth century, and really catching hold in the sixth-seventh century. Up until then, there are only a few dozen examples of belief in papal supremacy that Catholics like to throw around alot, but that simply aren't convincing enough in numbers. Papal supremacy in the early church would not have been a minor issue to be glossed over, it would have been a core tenet of the Church itself, and we would have countless writings about it. And yet we only have those few dozen excerpts. Because of this it seems more likely that a belief in Papal Supremacy in the Early Church would most likely have only been a small cult in the Western provinces of the Roman Empire, by no means a belief of the Church at large. I have actually brought this issue up before with a number of Catholics, and most of them haven't even attempted to defend the Church's teaching, the usual response has been that it was probably so known and assumed that no one would have seen any point in writing about it (about the most unconvincing argument one can bring) or that it wasn't actually an early church belief at all but one that developed because "Jesus originally intended it".

implying those are the only options, I think the one true church thing is mostly a false concept invented by Catholics to try to retain power after schisms.

More accurate churches? Probably a few of the protestants that preach directly from the KJV, probably some of the Coptic churches are very accurate also and likely the orthodox church. Vatican changes the rules all the time because the play with man's morals, with man's reasoning and not with God's.

two majors problems I see with modern Christianity is judaisers that Christ and Paul warned us of, these guys are mostly fucking with protestant faiths and the catholics, the other issue is really just catholics making shit up with no real basis, rosary, shroud of turin, pope having divine whatever.

>>259288

In that case, become a mormon. They preserved alot of Jesus' traditions. See, arguments for orthodoxy can as easily be called arguments for protestantism.

>>259322

The problem is that Protestantism is *not* a continuation of the Early Church. Many of them attempt to replicate it, but they don't actually descend from it. The religion Chris founded was not invented by Luther.

>>259288

>>259292

I get your point. I am not a theologian, but then why did our Lady of Fatima appear in a catholic country and asked the Pope to invite all catholic bishops over and consecrate Russia to her immatulate heart?

Why didn't she appear in Greece and asked orthodox bishops to do it? Why would she come down from heaven specifically to warn the Catholic Church about its incoming problems? Why have protestants and jews been obsessed since forever about destroying the roman papacy, whereas they never seem to give a shit about other denominations?

>>259292

What about the idea that before the fourth and fifth century the church was more underground? I mean it really doesn't seem very prudent to go around telling everyone about the supremacy of the pope when Christians were being persecuted.

I'd say letting people know that the vicar of the Man-God who all these people worship resides right in the city of Rome would lead authorities to try and find him and kill him, solve the problem. Not for nothing but so many of the early popes were martyred. More reason to try and have them killed if they were talking about supremacy

>>259347

They DID! 1st Clement was the first document to teach the papacy as such. Clement was executed for his faith.

To those who would bitch, yes I know Jesus said to Peter, keys of heaven and Earth yada yada, but this was the first time we got told all popes get this level of authority. Assuming that verse in first Clement is 100% legit, which it likely is.

How you square that away with the shit popes like John the XV or Leo X is up to you.

My take on that is if a Pope's edict contradicts Christ or the Apostles then in the trash it goes.

>>259366

>>259347

do either of you have a response to the aricle i posted here

>>258927

i am someone who hasn't converted to christianity yet, but am leaning towards orthodoxy. i'd like to hear both sides though.

>>259325

>>>259366

>I'm not sure which passage of that letter you're referring to, all it seems to imply is that Rome is looked to for advice. Which is a bit far from being explicit about the extent of the papacy.

>>>259369

>I would suggest reading this book

>http://www.amazon.com/Biblical-Basis-Papacy-John-Salza/dp/1592762840

>There is plenty of scholarship to be done here that tilts toward both sides.

>Here's some stuff

>http://scripturecatholic.com/primacy_of_peter.html

>I would also bring up this

>>>259325

>Brings good points which I feel must be assessed. To add to this, why did Our Lady of Guadalupe convert millions of indigenous peoples to the Catholic Church and not the Orthodox Church? Of course, historical and geographical circumstance have something to do with it, but it's not as if God isn't in charge of that either.

>Also, think of what it means that the Holy Spirit dictated the Acts of the Apostles starting from Jerusalem and then ends in Rome. It has real significance.

Everyone in this thread is forgetting that Orthodoxy also believes in the Pope as First among equals, and considers him the visible head of the Church on Earth. We simply do not consider him to be an infallible man with supreme, universal and unquestionable authority over the entire Church. In fact, Nicaea, which decreed the Pope as the head of the Pentarchy, also explicitly condemns the idea of one Bishop having authority over another's territory.

>>258056

Protestantism

Roman Catholic

>>259406

Sooner or later you are going to have the authority to someone. A group of people is the same.

Saying "condemns the idea of one Bishop having authority over another's territory." means you think bishops can follow different dogmas depending on their "territory", so that there are local truths, and the truth changes when you move from a piece of land to another.

check it

>There is, however, one Christian body in the world which, till recently,

showed no signs of this theological disintegration, and which might yet, by

a determined effort, repel its influences; I mean that federation of

national churches around the Levant (with an outcrop in Russia) which goes

by the name of the Orthodox Church. It is hard to prophesy its future;

political alliances have ever been its besetting temptation, and, with the

breakdown of Tsarism in Russia, it has shown an increasing tendency to

fraternise with the Protestant denominations of the East. If this tendency

wins, there can be little doubt that the Orientals will sell their

birthright of orthodoxy for a mess of pottage. But that orthodoxy is itself

due, rather to the intense conservatism which has shielded them even from

liturgical development, than to any theory of ecclesiastical authority.

Orders they have, and sacraments, but they have no better claim to be a

teaching Church than have the Christianities of the West. They, too, broke

away from the unity of the Church; for them, as for the Protestants,

undivided Christendom is a memory in the past, a figment in the present, a

dream of the future; not a living reality as it is for us. They preferred

to have their own way; and he who has once made that choice will labour in

vain to impress his authority upon others.

Msgr. Ronald Knox

>>259437

Ah, but the glorious thing about Orthodoxy. All bishops have local authority, and all are united under the same beliefs. I dont know how we managed to pull it off; the Holy Spirit, perhaps?

>>259445

But the Holy Spirit obviously doesn't help you with solving your territorial disputes, with lots of different bishops setting up their own ethnic dioceses on top of each other. You need a common authority in matters other than faith and morals too. And even that is shaky some times, several bishops seem to allow divorce and re-marriage. There are clearly things that need to be clarified dogmatically, to leave everything to the individual bishops' judgement for 1229 years is just irresponsible.

>>258136

>Orthodoxy seems to state (and I am still learning) that the Holy Tradition and Church Councils are authoritative and infallible, but that bishops do not have the magisterium to define dogma.

Well, they certainly have a magisterium, based on public revelation and the first seven ecumenical councils. But this lack of charism for teaching infallibly may well be a consequence of not being in union with the Bishop of Rome and the successor of St. Peter.

>The fullness of the faith was found in the Early Church, and to be an unchanging Church is to have the fullness of the faith.

That would only make sense if the Second Council of Nicaea defined that it was indeed the final council, and there was nothing left to clarify. Which is clearly not the case, and I don't think any Orthodox canon lawyer or theologian is going to claim it is either.

The Church of Yeshua the Messiah.

>>259579

Matthew 16:18

>>259445

In matters of dogma there is no local authority because there are not several truths. There are no local dogmas so that local bishops have authority to have different beliefs.

I don't care about the "local authority" to determine how fancy hats should be

Bump

>>260559

Neither. Both have compromised on the gospel. All you have in those churches are nominal believers and LARPers.

can some one clarify my assumption that the head of the nation may intervene on the church matters in orthodoxy but the catholic church broke away for this very own reason.

the claim for the orthodox church is supported by the fact that even today its used by the government to reach its goals.

>that carefully picked tridentine image.

>OP knows that if he showed catholic mass as it is now in the majority of catholic churches, it would be too clear what church is true

>>260787

That picture, call it cherry-picked if you wish, is a much more accurate representation of what the Vatican II document Sacrosanctum Concilium and even the conciliar popes prescribe in terms of liturgy than what the majority practice.

If all the damnable blasphemy and sacrilege that goes on in much of the Catholic Church was sanctioned by the council and the popes you'd have a point, but that's not actually the case. That said I think hell has seen a great surge in episcopal souls the last 50 years.