Tuesday, June 14, 2011

An Open Letter to Orthodox Anglicans

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

The 1066 and all that gets thrown around pretty freely by Orthodox. I think it would be greatly surprising to every human alive in Britain back then to learn that *anything* was "different" a year or 50 after Hastings in the ecclesiastical world. their Church was the same, some French were running things. Nobody was pining away for Constantinople. Nice letter, but try not to exaggerate. the other fertile ground for myth is the Council of Whitby where "celtic" christianity was supposedly scuttled.

Anonymous said...

Small correction: I believe Fr. Geoffrey is with the OCA.

--Stephen

John (Ad Orientem) said...

Stephen
Good catch. Thanks...

John

Dale said...

So, let's get this straight: grow a beard, buy a jangling three bared cross, celebrate the Greek liturgy (a la russe), and then try to pass all of this off as the ancient tradition of England? This man's cultural fantasy world is quite rich, not true, but rich nevertheless.

John (Ad Orientem) said...

Dale,
You are confusing (I suspect deliberately) faith with liturgical tradition. Fr. G has reverted to the faith of his ancestors. The liturgical tradition of the West has, with a few exceptions, largely fallen under the sway of heterodoxy. For those who happen to be near a parish that follows it, there is always the Orthodox Western Rite.

The issue here is the faith, not facial hair. Please try not to post silly straw man arguments that just insult people's intelligence.

In ICXC
John

Visibilium said...

Men who are lucky enough to enter the Kingdom will be rewarded with a heavenly beard.

Dale said...

Obviously, since there seems to be several self-loathing western converts on this site, one must remind that yes, faith and heritage are indeed closely intertwined. Perhaps it is not the Byzantine Church which was the ancient tradition of England, perhaps it was really the Coptic tradition...I have also heard that one as well.

John (Ad Orientem) said...

Dale,
Please read the guidelines for commenting which are linked in the sidebar. Obviously you missed them. This is the second time I have found it necessary to caution you about trolling. Kindly remember that you are a guest here. If you can not abide by the rules of the house than you should go elsewhere to post your vitriol.

Anonymous said...

I'm far more partial to the Coptic theory, if i was English I probably would of converted to the British Orthodox Church http://britishorthodox.org/

Visibilium said...

Funny, I haven't seen any self-loathing Western converts commenting here. The self-haters tend to be either dedicated counterculturalists or religion-hopping sycophants of old-country anti-Western (and especially anti-American) blowhards.

On the other hand, maybe you think that conversion, as such, involves self-hatred. That kind of thinking runs contrary to Tradition, beginning with St. Paul.