Orthocatholic? Cathorthodox?!

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Lintu47's avatar
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Mhmm, this is religion related. Have you ever thought you will read something like this from me?! I sure didn't.

Quick fact: Christian Church divided into Catholic and Orthodox in 1054.

Recently it came into my attention while randomly messing around the web that Pope Francis I met Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I and they talked about joining the Churches they represent once again.




Right?! At first i laughed. It's been almost 1000 years and they want to do this now? This is what i thought of when i first read the article:




This awkward hug perfectly sums up the situation. It makes me wonder, since the split was mostly based on politics, is this reunion also related to politics or they just realized that these two beliefs are practically the same and they can work out those differences they invented/invoked when they split? Like Catholic priests not being able to get married or that the Holy Spirit comes only form the Father, not also from the Son? I know these are not the only differences, they are just the first to cross my mind. I don't know, i'm just saying, this is not enough imo to make two different churches, but what do i know about religion.

Pope said he doesn't want Orthodox people to be engulfed into Catholicism - and this brings me to another question. How will they make this reunion if the Churches don't change? I mean, something has to change for them to reunite. Am i still going to believe that priests should be able to marry, but their priests just won't do it? Will they just erase the words Catholic and Orthodox and just call themselves Christians and that's it? Or we'll become Orthocatholic? Cathorthodox? Huh? I just hope those big heads who rule the churches will sit down at the table with the Bible in front of them and work on interpreting details together, for the sake of the people they lead.

Someone with extensive knowledge on the subject please let me know:
- what do they mean by reunite;
- what changes are needed for this to happen;
- what will happen with the Orthodox people who are so few compared to Catholics;
- how do you think this is going to end;
- what impact this will have on society.

*no propaganda for either side please or i'll turn full McGonagall mode on you*





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photofairy's avatar
I'm Serbian, so I know a lot about the split of the churches, my people (Serbs and Croatians) have suffered the consequences since it happened, one people divided by this split of the religion, thousand years later you have the 20th century Balkans.

Orthodox Christianity simply means 'closest to original teachings' so how it was supposed to work according to Christ's teachings. This is the original Christianity. When Roman side declared Pope to be 'God on Earth', the Byzantine side held the opinion that it is a heretical action, because God is God, a human can't 'be' God aka have god-like power over others. Also, due to priests being 'sort of God' they were allowed to forgive many sins. This was very attractive to the believers, and certainly, over the thousand plus years, many a criminal was a regular church-goer in a belief that as long ast hey are going, and paying, they'll get into heaven. This is also why Catholics were so successful at conquering a lot of the world with their beliefs, it's certainly a lot more attractive than orthodoxy. This became most appaling in Middle Ages, when priests put a price list and people had to pay for every act of forgiving their sins, so much so that people were starving on the streets whilst he church got obscenely rich. Obviously, orthodox side thought this is heresy, and Protestants, well, protested by distancing themselves crom RCC.

On the global level, I see many conflicts today as representative of this thousand-year long ideological battle, the US/EU-Russia, Serbs-Croats, Catholic vs Orthodox Ukraininians, etc, you can trace the animosity back to that chasm. Like in the Middle East, Shia-Sunni, more or less.

As for your questions, I think all this means is that they are trying to negotiate the end to the thousand-year long animosity. This is all apart of the offensive by the Catholic church to repair their extremely damaged reputation. As for reunification, Orthodoxy can invite them to return to original Christian values, and to repent, as they have done since the beginning, which of course Catholc church will never accept. I don't think their conversation will even go in that direction, because the outcome is so clear. It's all a performance for the cameras, imo.