Recently, the blogosphere has been abuzz with news and commentary regarding the Western Rite in communion with the Orthodox Eastern Churches. I refer interested readers to the following links:
http://occidentalis.blogspot.com/
http://christchurchlynchburg.org/pages/1/index.htm
http://orthodox-okie.blogspot.com/
http://raphael.doxos.com/comments.php?id=2941_0_1_0_C
http://westernorthodox.blogspot.com/
Traditional Anglicanism has always contended that she is in fact the Orthodox Church of the West. Any Byzantine Rite resistance to the Orthodox Western Rite is disappointing and disheartening, but, from an Anglican Catholic perspective at least, is not altogether surprising (see my earlier posts on Anglicanism and Eastern Orthodoxy). I honestly believe criticism, and even rejection, of the Western Rite on the part of some Byzantine Rite leaders and representatives is probably inevitable, given the extremely complex cultural and historical differences and prejudices involved. In compassion and love, orthodox Anglicans should reach out to their dear Orthodox Western Rite brethren and offer whatever support and encouragement they can. After all, from the Anglo-Catholic point of view, we are all substantially members of one another in one orthodox catholic Church, bound together by a common Western Rite and a shared fidelity to the Holy Tradition of the Undivided Church. Let us pray for one another...
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5 comments:
I would feel a whole lot safer in a WO parish than being part of a communion where a person can nearly be a baptist as well as a Papist. I learned the hard way that Anglicansism outside of WR Orthodoxy can be very confusing theologicaly. I wish there was either a WR or orthodox anglican parish in my area. All there seems t be in my area is a Charismatic Episcopal Church and honestly I am uncomfortable there.
" thorugh a thorough cleansing of Western Augustinainism from Western teaching, liturgy, and spirituality -- to begin with jettisoning the entire Counter-Reformation schema."
http://www.orthodoxresurgence.co.uk - or maybe starting from a Western Catholicism that never had Counter-Reformation, Ultramontanism, or Thomistic 'Augustinianism'?
The problem isn't that they use post-schism practices (arguing correctly that since they're orthodox then why can't the Orthodox accept them?) but when well-meaning people make claims for them that they're doing purely pre-schism liturgies, which inadvertently makes them look like liars.
As for the claim of some, including in this blog, that Anglicanism is the Orthodoxy of the West, the Articles of Religion, the story of the first Greek Orthodox church in London (forbidden by the local Anglican bishop to have icons!) and the history of the correspondence with the English Non-Jurors (who didn't convert to Orthodoxy because they couldn't accept icons and the cultus of the saints among other reasons IIRC) seem to refute it. The last two items are found in Kallistos (Ware)'s The Orthodox Church.
Thank you for the good conversation. I would assert that the Articles of Religion are 'Catholic Articles in protestant XVI century language' and therefore not fundamentally incompatible with the historic Orthodox Faith - they are undoubtedly Augustinian, and if Augustinianism is 'unorthodox' then I suppose the Articles would fall under that rubric. Father Seraphim Rose would beg to differ with those who claim that Saint Augustine was unorthodox. As to the question of the Holy Icons, I would have to assert again that the particular manifestation or use of the icon in the Orthodox Eastern Church should not be a universal litmus test of catholic orthodoxy, so long as the underlying dogmatic teaching of the Seventh Ecumenical Council of Nicea II is not rejected. Being a Anglican, for example, I am not prepared to say the Assyrian Church of the East is un-Apostolic simply because it has never had a tradition of icon usage. In point of fact, the Assyrian Church separated from communion with the wider Church before the use of icons became universal throughout the catholic world. I would say so long as Anglicans do not formally embrace the heresy of iconoclasm, we are not 'beyond the pale' so to speak. God bless you!
There's always the Tract XC explanation of the Articles - literal worship (in the word's modern sense, narrowed to latreia) and adoration of images isn't Catholic - but that's pedantry; it's obvious what the framers meant based on what they were doing in the churches (the Ornaments Rubric conveniently forgotten until the mid-1800s).
(And of course the Orthodox do believe in a presence in the images above what Westerns believe about statues and pictures. Icons are halfway between a picture and having the Sacrament in the room. It seems that classical Anglicans, even the old high churchmen, had a problem with that.)
It's like the apologia for Anglican orders that points out that the Roman Rite didn't have the disputed ceremonies (transmission of the instruments, etc.) to begin with.
The answer is to do with intent. Not having something before that thing came into being doesn't show (lack of) intent; taking that thing out to make a statement does.
I've been told by an Orthodox seminary graduate that the Assyrians don't oppose images on principle like the Articles' framers obviously did. It's simply as you said, that their tradition is older than their use.
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