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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Hi</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Unlike Art, I think this was a good thing to happen
as far as relations between the two sides is concerned. I have my
reservations, though - the report I read earlier today implied that it was a
case of the metropolitan self-communicating without being a concelebrating
minister. That would, as far as I know, be wrong, even in the case of a
non-concelebrating Catholic priest/bishop.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The article Art cites doesn't elaborate
more:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#008080 size=2><EM>At the consecration of the Queen
of Peace parish church in Timisoara on May 25, Orthodox Metropolitan Nicolae
Corneanu of Banat asked to share Communion. The Orthodox metropolitan approached
the altar and received the Eucharist from his own hand.</EM></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><EM><FONT color=#008080></FONT></EM> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#008080 size=2><EM>Romanian Catholic Bishop
Alexandru Mesian of Lugoj was the celebrant of the Divine Liturgy in the
Byzantine Catholic church; Archbishop Francisco-Javier Lozano, the apostolic
nuncio to Romania, was also present. </EM></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>One of the requirements for a valid consecration is
the intent of the priest to consecrate the bread and wine into the Body and
Blood of Christ. By accepting Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox
consecrations as valid, Rome at least implicitly acknowledges that they intend
to do as we do. So the Orthodox must believe as we do in order to intend
what our priests intend.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>And they do - they fully acknowledge the Real
Presence; they just do not explain it in Western terminology (Aristotelian
terminology) using terms like "substance" and "accidents." The Western
definition of transubstantiation is a collection of words describing a
dogma. The dogma is a reality, the words are the best attempt we can
make. The East and West have both made different best attempts, and, at
least as far as those in union with Rome are concerned, both attempts are
valid. They're the same in content, different in wording and underlying
philosophical concepts. Aristotelianism and Thomas Aquinas have never been
declared the sole valid means of expression of our understanding of
dogma.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>What the East is careful not to do, is explain HOW
the change occurs. They agree fully with us THAT it occurs. And the
change that both sides agree occurs is the same change we describe with the term
"transubstantiation."</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Just as the case here has frequently been made that
Protestants and Catholics may, at times, share the same teaching but phrase it
in such different ways that each side finds it hard to grasp that the two sides
are saying the same thing, so it is with the East vs West
issue.</FONT></DIV></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The term the East uses is <EM>metousiosis</EM>,
which is the Greek equivalent of the Latin <EM>transsubstantiatio</EM>, and the
East uses these terms as translations for each other when (rarely) it
translates documents across the East/West divide.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The following is about as authoritative to the
Orthodox as Trent is to us, i.e. Trent is fully authoritative to us as an
Ecumenical Council; Jerusalem is fully authoritative to them as the highest
possible council aside from the Ecumenical Councils which, to them, ceased with
Nicaea II in 787 AD:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Acts and Decrees of the Synod of Jerusalem (1672
AD), chapter 4, <A
href="http://catholicity.elcore.net/ConfessionOfDositheus.html">translated by
Robertson, 1899</A> (emphasis mine):</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#008000 size=2>DECREE XVII.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#008000></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#008000 size=2>We believe the All-holy Mystery of
the Sacred Eucharist, which we have enumerated above, fourth in order, to be
that which our Lord delivered in the night wherein He gave Himself up for the
life of the world. For taking bread, and blessing, He gave to His Holy Disciples
and Apostles, saying: “Take, eat ye; This is My Body.” {Matthew 26:26} And
taking the chalice, and giving thanks, He said: “Drink ye all of It; This is My
Blood, which for you is being poured out, for the remission of sins.” {Matthew
26:28} In the celebration whereof we believe the Lord Jesus Christ to be
present, not typically, nor figuratively, nor by superabundant grace, as in the
other Mysteries, nor by a bare presence, as some of the Fathers have said
concerning Baptism, or by impanation, so that the Divinity of the Word is united
to the set forth bread of the Eucharist hypostatically, as the followers of
Luther most ignorantly and wretchedly suppose, but truly and really, so that
after the consecration of the bread and of the wine, the bread is transmuted,
<STRONG><U>transubstantiated</U></STRONG>, converted and transformed into the
true Body Itself of the Lord, Which was born in Bethlehem of the ever-Virgin
{Mary ELC}, was baptised in the Jordan, suffered, was buried, rose again, was
received up, sitteth at the right hand of the God and Father, and is to come
again in the clouds of Heaven; and the wine is converted and transubstantiated
into the true Blood Itself of the Lord, Which as He hung upon the Cross, was
poured out for the life of the world. {John 6:51}</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#008000></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#008000 size=2>Further [we believe] that after the
consecration of the bread and of the wine, there <STRONG><U>no longer remaineth
the substance of the bread and of the wine</U></STRONG>, but the Body Itself and
the Blood of the Lord, under the species and form of bread and wine; that is to
say, under the accidents of the bread.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#008000></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#008000 size=2>Further, that the all-pure Body
Itself, and Blood of the Lord is imparted, and entereth into the mouths and
stomachs of the communicants, whether pious or impious. Nevertheless, they
convey to the pious and worthy remission of sins and life eternal; but to the
impious and unworthy involve condemnation and eternal punishment.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#008000></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#008000 size=2>Further, that the Body and Blood of
the Lord are severed and divided by the hands and teeth, though in accident
only, that is, in the accidents of the bread and of the wine, under which they
are visible and tangible, we do acknowledge; but <STRONG><U>in themselves to
remain entirely unsevered and undivided</U></STRONG>. Wherefore the Catholic
Church also saith: “Broken and distributed is He That is broken, yet not
severed; Which is ever eaten, yet never consumed, but sanctifying those that
partake,” that is worthily.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#008000></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#008000 size=2>Further, that in every part, or the
smallest division of the transmuted bread and wine there is not a part of the
Body and Blood of the Lord — for to say so were blasphemous and wicked — but
<STRONG><U>the entire whole Lord Christ substantially, that is, with His Soul
and Divinity, or perfect God and perfect man</U></STRONG>. So that though there
may be many celebrations in the world at one and the same hour, there are not
many Christs, or Bodies of Christ, but it is one and the same Christ that is
truly and really present; and His one Body and His Blood is in all the several
Churches of the Faithful; and this not because the Body of the Lord that is in
the Heavens descendeth upon the Altars; but because the bread of the Prothesis
set forth in all the several Churches, being changed and transubstantiated,
becometh, and is, after consecration, one and the same with That in the Heavens.
For it is one Body of the Lord in many places, and not many; and therefore this
Mystery is the greatest, and is spoken of as wonderful, and comprehensible by
faith only, and not by the sophistries of man’s wisdom; whose vain and foolish
curiosity in divine things our pious and God-delivered religion
rejecteth.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#008000></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#008000 size=2>Further, that the Body Itself of the
Lord and the Blood That are in the Mystery of the Eucharist ought to be honoured
in the highest manner, and adored with latria. For one is the adoration of the
Holy Trinity, and of the Body and Blood of the Lord. Further, that it is a true
and propitiatory Sacrifice offered for all Orthodox, living and dead; and for
the benefit of all, as is set forth expressly in the prayers of the Mystery
delivered to the Church by the Apostles, in accordance with the command they
received of the Lord.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#008000></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#008000 size=2>Further, that before Its use,
immediately after the consecration, and after Its use, What is reserved in the
Sacred Pixes for the communion of those that are about to depart [i.e. the
dying] is the true Body of the Lord, and not in the least different therefrom;
so that before Its use after the consecration, in Its use, and after Its use, It
is in all respects the true Body of the Lord.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#008000></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#008000 size=2>Further, we believe that by the word
“transubstantiation” the manner is not explained, by which the bread and wine
are changed into the Body and Blood of the Lord, — for that is altogether
incomprehensible and impossible, except by God Himself, and those who imagine to
do so are involved in ignorance and impiety, — but that the bread and the wine
are after the consecration, not typically, nor figuratively, nor by
superabundant grace, nor by the communication or the presence of the Divinity
alone of the Only-begotten, transmuted into the Body and Blood of the Lord;
neither is any accident of the bread, or of the wine, by any conversion or
alteration, changed into any accident of the Body and Blood of Christ, but
truly, and really, and substantially, doth the bread become the true Body Itself
of the Lord, and the wine the Blood Itself of the Lord, as is said above.
Further, that this Mystery of the Sacred Eucharist can be performed by none
other, except only by an Orthodox Priest, who hath received his priesthood from
an Orthodox and Canonical Bishop, in accordance with the teaching of the Eastern
Church. This is compendiously the doctrine, and true confession, and most
ancient tradition of the Catholic Church concerning this Mystery; which must not
be departed from in any way by such as would be Orthodox, and who reject the
novelties and profane vanities of heretics; but necessarily the tradition of the
institution must be kept whole and unimpaired. For those that transgress the
Catholic Church of Christ rejecteth and anathematiseth.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>(It does use terms like "accidents",
interestingly. Translations into Russian in the 1800's, to avoid being too
close to Rome, changed that wording, but continued to use
"transubstantiation.")</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The commonly seen Eastern argument that they don't
accept transubstantiation is simply an anti-Rome reaction. They accept
metousiosis, which is an identical concept, and what they reject is Rome,
Western philosophy, and Latin words, because they don't like Rome. It
really has nothing to do with differences in dogma. If it did, we would
not consider their Eucharists to be validly consecrated.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>It would be the same if they rejected the term
"mater Dei" and accepted the term "Theotokos" instead - in fact, many do object
to the Latin form. There is no doctrinal difference, it is just Latin that
is "bad" because it's Catholic and not Orthodox, and their <U>excuse</U> is that
"mater Dei" puts the emphasis on "mother" where as "Theotokos" puts the emphasis
on "God." Ironically, even those who object to "mater Dei" still use the
Greek "meter Theou" or "Theometor" which are perfect transliterations.
Even "Dei genetrix" is objected to, because it's Latin, with the excuse that
"genetrix" is a noun, Mary, whereas "tokos" is only a suffix.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>My point with that is that it is anger, not
doctrine, that prevents them from acknowledging our language, and that allows
them to maintain a distance that is not really there.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Worth reading: Phil Porvaznik (<A
href="http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/num31.htm">http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/num31.htm</A>)
defends the Orthodox belief as being substantially the same, in spite of wording
being an issue at times. The context is the equivalent situation with
Anglicanism.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>God bless,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Stephen</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=arthurkelly@yahoo.com href="mailto:arthurkelly@yahoo.com">Art
Kelly</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=apologetics@gathman.org
href="mailto:apologetics@gathman.org">Apologetics Group</A> ; <A
title=jmurf80@bellsouth.net href="mailto:jmurf80@bellsouth.net">Jim Murphy</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, May 28, 2008 6:29
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [Apologetics] Fw: CWNews:
Orthodox bishop shares Communion with Catholics</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
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<P>See my comment on this article at</P>
<P><A
href="http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=58680">http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=58680</A></P>
<P>(Scroll down for the comments at the bottom.)<BR></P>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT color=#0000ff size=3>Art</FONT></STRONG></DIV><BR>---
On <B>Tue, 5/27/08, CWNews.com <I><<A
href="mailto:subs@cwnews.com">subs@cwnews.com</A>></I></B> wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(16,16,255) 2px solid">From:
CWNews.com <<A
href="mailto:subs@cwnews.com">subs@cwnews.com</A>><BR>Subject:
CWNews: Orthodox bishop shares Communion with Catholics<BR>To: <A
href="mailto:arthurkelly@yahoo.com">arthurkelly@yahoo.com</A><BR>Date:
Tuesday, May 27, 2008, 5:30 PM<BR><BR>
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<DIV class=email_header>CWNews: Orthodox bishop shares Communion
with Catholics</DIV>
<P>Art:
<P>Amazing news from Romania today! When an Orthodox bishop asks
to share the Eucharist with his Catholic counterparts, that's
big news. When it happens in Romania-- where the Orthodox Church
is dominant, and often hostile to Catholics-- it's astonishing.
Is Metropolitan Corneanu signaling a desire to enter into full
communion with the Catholic Church? Will his Romanian Orthodox
confreres tolerate his action? We'll be watching this story with
keen interest.<BR><BR>- Phil Lawler <BR><BR><BR>
<P>
<P>Today's Headlines:
<P>
<UL>
<LI><A
href="http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=58680"
target=_blank rel=nofollow>Orthodox bishop shares Communion
with Catholics</A>
<LI><A
href="http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=58683"
target=_blank rel=nofollow>English Church forced to drop
adoption services</A>
<LI><A
href="http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=58681"
target=_blank rel=nofollow>Church growing in Africa, receding
in Europe, data show</A>
<LI><A
href="http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=58684"
target=_blank rel=nofollow>Ahmadinejad wants meeting with Pope
Benedict</A>
<LI><A
href="http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=58682"
target=_blank rel=nofollow>Australian Anglican cleric raps
World Youth Day protestors</A>
<LI><A
href="http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=58685"
target=_blank rel=nofollow>California poll shows small
majority favoring marriage amendment</A>
<LI><A
href="http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=58687"
target=_blank rel=nofollow>Russia to support reconstruction of
Orthodox churches in Kosovo</A>
<LI><A
href="http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=58688"
target=_blank rel=nofollow>Canadian bishops question "Body
Worlds" exhibit</A> </LI></UL><FONT
face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=2>In <EM>Off
the Record</EM> today:
<P>
<UL>
<LI><A
href="http://www.cwnews.com/offtherecord/offtherecord.cfm?task=singledisplay&recnum=4740"
target=_blank rel=nofollow>contradiction</A> </LI></UL></FONT>
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