The decision to keep the filioque clause in “Texts for Common Prayer” represents a victory of common sense over special interests writes George Conger and is a mark of the political and theological maturity of the Anglican Church of North America.Read the rest here.
HT: T-19
In the grand scheme of things this is neither surprising nor especially significant. Anglican deviations from Orthodoxy are innumerable, irrespective of the Filioque. But there has always been a certain clique within Orthodoxy that believes that at least some Anglicans really are only a bit removed from us and if we could just get them to make that all important symbolic change then we would be on the road to some sort of corporate reunion with a part of the Western Church. I have long suspected former Met. Jonah was among them.
In any event, this should put paid to these delusions, at least until the next Anglican splinter group pops up.
3 comments:
Yes, in the grand scheme of things, this is pretty much neither here nor there.
ACNA has many good people within its ranks, some of whom I know and respect, and I wish them well. But one only has to read articles and comments on a site like Virtue Online to realize that there is no more theological unity within the ACNA than there is in its dying parent denomination (except for rejecting the LBGTQ(etc) agenda).
Say what one will about Metropolitan Jonah, but he was, at least, clear that there was more to unity with the Orthodox Church than just cutting out the filioque. He invited the ACNA to consider what it would mean to be joined to the Orthodox Church. It was meet and right, so to do. Yet, they were pretty clear from the get-go that while they appreciated the invitation, they had their own party to throw.
St Raphael was right when he noted that Anglicans needed to have a common faith among themselves before Orthodoxy could have any serious dealings with them about reunion. Since their only real common faith remains that they have no common faith (as Orthodoxy understands it), no truly corporate dialogue (let alone reunion) is possible from the Anglican side since nobody is able to speak for the "whole."
Nicely put, Fr. Theodore. I said at Anglican Ink (they may or may not post it) that you can take the Anglicans out of the Episcopal Church but you can't take the Episcopal Church out of the Anglicans. I was told around 30 years ago the filioque was almost out of the creed in 1976, but in the wake of women's ordination passing through it was "conservatives" wh o kept it in; they didn't want anymore "changes". Well, talking to them about this shows you can't strain them too much or expect much. They're protestants. And Anglicans, so anything goes.
Metropolitan Jonah never said that there could be corporate unity with the Anglicans on the mere basis of their dropping the filioque. He was always clear that any sort of "unity", corporate or otherwise, would be based on their full acceptance of the Orthodox faith, discarding Calvinism and other heresies. Perhaps they as a body have made other choices, but that does not mean Metropolitan Jonah was wrong for extending the invitation.
Fr. Theodore Phillips says "Say what one will about Metropolitan Jonah...." It seems all sorts of problems for the church have come from people, like the OCA synod, saying what they will about Metropolitan Jonah, with no regard for the truth. That's why the OCA has had to take down their accusations against him. That to me is a much bigger deal than some heterodox deciding to continue being heterodox.
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