CORONAVIRUS AND COMMUNION

by Will Cohen | Ελληνικά, Public Orthodoxy

CORONAVIRUS AND COMMUNION

by Will Cohen | Ελληνικά,
Public Orthodoxy

DIALOGUE, CHURCH TEACHING, AND THE GERMAN ORTHODOX BISHOPS’ LETTER ON LOVE, SEXUALITY, AND MARRIAGE

by Will Cohen

In a 2015 address at the University of Munich, Metropolitan John Zizioulas observed that “[t]he agenda of Theology is set by history.”  By “history” he meant the concerns and questions particular to a given age, as he underscores in adding, “This was known to the Fathers of the Church who were in constant dialogue with their time.”

If the Church’s theology must accept the questions of history in order to be vital and serve humanity, the same is not true of the conclusions history may hurriedly reach. Christians have sometimes not readily enough accepted history’s questions and sometimes too readily accepted its answers.

ORTHODOXY AND ECUMENISM IN VIEW OF THE UPCOMING GREAT AND HOLY COUNCIL

Will Cohen,

Some members of the Orthodox Church, who regard ecumenism as a heresy, have been predictably critical of the preconciliar document “Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the Christian World” since it was approved by the Orthodox primates at Chambèsy in October 2015.  In that document, the identification (¶1) of the Orthodox Church with the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church of the Nicene creed is entirely consistent with Orthodox ecumenism (¶4).  For anti-ecumenists, by contrast, this identification can only mean that all others that call themselves church are not church at all.  As the eminent Greek theologian Fr. Theodore Zizis in a recent talk on the upcoming Great and Holy Council said about Orthodox participation in the World Council of Churches, “The Church amidst 340 Protestant groups!  What business do we have there?  Are we a heresy?  Do we lump ourselves in with the heretics?”  The idea is that we know all we need to know about what other Christian traditions think and believe.  There is no reason to pay it any further attention.