Comments on: Met. Hierotheos Vlachos: Texts of “The Holy and Great Council” Distinguished by “Creative Ambiguity” and Other Flaws

By: Anne

Anne — Tue, 03 Oct 2017 12:17:41 +0000

Christ did not establish a multipliciry of ministeries each with its own belief systems and rituals. Christ left His Church in the hands of the Apostles and their successors who under the guidance of the Holy Spirit would establish the church in all Truth and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. Christ warned of wolves that would attempt to derail the Church. These came in the form of heresies. A heresy that gained momentum became a movement that broke away from the Church or was excommunicated from the Church forming communities/churches separated and apart from the Church. A movement away from the Church is a movement away from Christ, the Founder, Head and Life of the Church. A movement away from the Church is a movement away from the Life of the Holy Spirit. Now is it conceivable that such a heretical church admimisters valid Sacraments? What is inconceivable is that if a heretical church does have valid Sacraments the Church rejects and does not partake of these Sacraments. Because the Church does not participate in the sacramental services of heretical churches the inference is that these churches, and this includes the Roman Catholic church, do not have valid Sacraments. They have a form of baptism akin to that of John the Baptist and worship akin to the old Judaic rites all precursors to the worship, rites and Sacraments of the Church.

By: Misha

Misha — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 12:32:12 +0000

In reply to Christopher. It has to do with motivations. "Person" can and will be construed so as to legitimize pathologies of the personality. That is probably its intended effect and that is why traditionalists are wary. Better to cut it off along with the rest of the quasi-heretical nonsense.

By: Fr. James Rosselli

Fr. James Rosselli — Thu, 10 Nov 2016 07:07:47 +0000

I don’t understand the part about +Bartholomew personally vetoing a change (human person > human being) in the document. Wasn’t
that subject to a vote? Was the EP attempting a sort of Papal prono0uncement?

By: Christopher

Christopher — Tue, 04 Oct 2016 03:39:31 +0000

As a student of modern and ancient Orthodox theology(s) of Person (God and Man{anthropos}), I actually disagree with Metropolitan Heirotheos here. He is attempting to clean up a bit of a mess in Orthodox theology that goes way way back (at least to Origen) by limiting the discussion (i.e. the theology) to “human being” (which I assume in Greek is “anthropos”). It won’t work and is arbitrary – as he admits in his book “the Person in the Orthodox Tradition” there are in fact a multiplicity of theologies of Person by the Fathers and some can in no way be reconciled to others (Origen/Nyssa & Maximus for example). Even as a “fix” in the modern situation (which brings in the various “personalisms” of modernity) it would not work IMO. I hate to side with Met. Kallistos for a host of reasons, but he is right about this particular attempt to limit the theology of the Person (by limiting the terms)…