Religious Factions

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Permalink Reply by Theresa on October 1, 2009 at 8:30pm

Rayab,

I found this on a website and thought it was interesting to share, hopefully it does answer your question...God bless you.

I fRoman Catholics and Eastern Greek Orthodox differences based upon tradition:

Roman Catholics and Eastern Greek Orthodox churches accuse the other of false doctrines both base upon tradition:

The Catholics reject several of the specific canons of the early ecumenical councils, but the orthodox accept them as inspired.
Catholics and Orthodox disagree on the dates of Christmas and Easter. While the Orthodox church claims council at Nice was inspired, yet is rejects the canons of Nicea on the date of Easter which the Catholics accept.
The Catholics teach purgatory, yet the Orthodox reject it.
Universal papal jurisdiction was a rather large dogfight in 588-606 AD.
Although the Orthodox reject Papal infallibility, the decisions of the orthodox synods are considered infallible.
The Immaculate Conception is utterly rejected by the Orthodox.
The orthodox baptized by full immersion (thrice), the Catholics sprinkle.
In the Orthodox Church married men can become priests. In the Catholic church married men are forbidden to marry. (except for one small part of the world)
The Roman Catholic church introduced instrumental music no earlier than the 7th century and the Orthodox church has never used instrumental music, but like the apostles, sang without instrument.
In Catholic communion, the cup is withheld from the members, while the Orthodox float the "crouton looking" bread cubes in the wine. Catholics believe the bread and wine (transubstantiation) become the literal body of Christ when the priest says, "this is my body". The Orthodox disagrees and says the change takes place at prayer. Catholics use unleavened bread, while Orthodox use leavened bread. Orthodox must keep a ridged schedule of fasts in order to have communion every week, but the most common practice is a minimum of four times a year during the four Orthodox Lents "Christmas, Easter, Peter and Paul, The virgin Mary. Catholics on the other hand, must not eat the hour before, to have communion every day. In the end, Orthodox offer communion weekly and Catholics daily. In practice most Orthodox laity have communion four times year and Catholics weekly. So which of these two traditions is the one the apostles used? All this proves that they have no valid "apostolic tradition", otherwise they would all agree! They differ on the frequency of communion, the fasting requirements and the actual method of partaking.
Transubstantiation is a false doctrine that says the bread and grape juice of the Lord's supper actually molecularly change to become the flesh and blood of Jesus. Of course this old doctrine was formulated before the advent of molecular microscopes which see no change. For Catholics the "Transubstantiation" occurs when the priest says the words, "this is my body". For Orthodox the change occurs when the priest offers the prayer of thanks.
The "Filioque" scandal: Following the Nicene creed, the Orthodox Church believed the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father alone. Then in 1054 AD the Roman church added to the wording of the Nicene creed "And the Son" or the "Filioque." The Roman church believed the Holy Spirit proceeded from BOTH the Father and the Son.
Orthodox keeps the original Nicene Creed, accepted by the Universal Church, East and West, during the first millennium without the addition of "And the Son" or the "Filioque." It accepts, on faith, Christ's words in the Gospel, that the Father is the Unoriginate Source of the Life of the Trinity, with the Only-Begotten Son and the Holy Spirit Proceeding from the Father Alone. We cannot know how the Begetting of the Son and the Proceeding of the Spirit from the same Father is different, only that it is and this distinguishes the two Persons.

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Permalink Reply by ScribeD on October 1, 2009 at 10:50pm

Which Orthodox? Greek Orthodox? Russian Orthodox? Chaldean Orthodox? Eastern Roman Orthodox?

I ask that to illustrate that the Roman church is just one of many Apostolic/Catholic churches. What made Rome unique is essentially two things:
1. they were given a combination of both Ecclesiastical and Civil authority, by the abdication of Constantine.
2. they were left as the only remaining empirical power in the "Christian world" for a long period of time, after the Turks conquered Byzantium (the eastern half of the empire).

These two factors gave the Roman Catholic Church an inflated view of their authority in the world and also led to rampant corruption of both the church by civil authority AND of civil authority by the church. It led to all sorts of problems, when they concluded that they were the "Holy Roman Empire"; which most historians agree was neither Holy nor an empire.

The fact that they existed as an empire for hundreds of years after the fall of Byzantium led to an arrogance and pride among the Bishops of the church, which led to greater corruption. This brought about an over-confidence and a sense that when Jesus gave "Apostolic" authority to Peter and the gang, he really meant "Civil" authority. And from that combined empirical power came endless abuses of civil and religious power against the true Biblical Christian faith and against people without a Christian faith.

The modern Roman Catholic Church is merely the shell of it's empirical past; no longer exercising much influence over Kings or Nations. However, it is filled with lots of man-made traditions that came out of that period, which the Roman Church attempts to bundle together with Biblical faith. Hence, you have a religious body that can affirm essential scriptural truths, such as the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection of Jesus - yet at the same time they do lots of un-Biblical practices like worshipping Mary and praying to saints.

The Orthodox churches (there are more than one) do not have that same sense of uniquely empirical power, except for the Russian church, which had exercised similar power under the Czars. However, the traditional "Orthodox" churches, like the Anglican church, still hold to some practices that are more directly connected to Medieval Roman Catholic beliefs; and less connected to Biblical faith and the life of Christian discipleship that Jesus taught. It is the result of a thousand years of history where the Word of God was less and less emphasized, while the "authority" of the church and it's traditions was more and more emphasized.

It is my opinion that centralized authoritarian structures are very prone to creating man-made traditions which become equal or more important than the Word of God to the followers of those institutions. We do need to have accountability to others and we do need to submit to Biblical leaders; however, there is nowhere that Jesus said we ought to create centralized authoritarian structures that have a single person, or as is usually true - a lone man, as the "head".

Jesus Christ is the ONLY "Head of The Church". God, his Heavenly Father, is the only "Holy Father"; no man can fill that role. Jesus made it clear that we are to consider God as "our father in Heaven" and we are to follow Jesus as our head - not some earthly authority figure. The Apostles exercised authority as the emissaries of a new covenant, but not as authoritarians trying to control people under a set of rules or tradtions. The authority they exercized was to "declare the whole counsel of God" and to faithfully deliver to us the New Covenant. Their purpose was to set people free to have a personal relationship with God, not to organize a religious institution.

So, in that way, both are institutions that cloud the real point of Biblical faith: a personal relationship to God, a personal accountability to God and a personal inspiration from God.

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