Peter III of Antioch, the Filioque and Rome

Not going to excerpt this one. But it's well worth the read. 

Nicea II and Papal Supremacy

Pope Francis rejects title of "co-redemptrix" for the Virgin Mary

Vatican City, Mar 24, 2021 / 05:00 am MT (CNA).- Pope Francis on Wednesday said that Jesus entrusted the Virgin Mary to us as a Mother, “not as co-redeemer.”

Speaking at his general audience on March 24, the pope said that while Christians had always given Mary beautiful titles, it was important to remember that Christ is the only redeemer.

He was addressing a theological debate about whether the Church should issue a dogmatic definition declaring Mary “Co-Redemptrix,” in honor of her role in humanity’s salvation.

“Jesus extended Mary’s maternity to the entire Church when He entrusted her to his beloved disciple shortly before dying on the cross,” the pope noted.

“From that moment on, we have all been gathered under her mantle, as depicted in certain medieval frescoes or paintings. Even the first Latin antiphon -- sub tuum praesidium confugimus, sancta Dei Genitrix: the Madonna who ‘covers,’ like a Mother, to whom Jesus entrusted us, all of us; but as a Mother, not as a goddess, not as co-redeemer: as Mother.”

He continued: “It is true that Christian piety has always given her beautiful titles, as a child gives his or her mamma: how many beautiful things children say about their mamma whom they love so much! How many beautiful things.”

“But we need to be careful: the things the Church, the saints, say about her, beautiful things, about Mary, subtract nothing from Christ’s sole Redemption. He is the only Redeemer. They are expressions of love like a child for his or her mamma -- some are exaggerated. But love, as we know, always makes us exaggerate things, but out of love.”

Read the rest here.

On this date in 1638

Anne Hutchinson was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony as part of the resolution of the Antinomian Controversy. 

Against (re)Baptizing Converts

A cogent argument against the practice of receiving Roman Catholic and Trinitarian Protestant converts by baptism. I have been and remain ambivalent on this subject and am happy to defer to whatever my bishop says. 

P.S. See also this. 

Why I’m Not A Universalist

 Well worth a read.

The Psalms and Our Salvation with Father Patrick Reardon

Nation's Prosperity Gospel Preachers Celebrate 'Taking Tuesday'

U.S.—The nation's prosperity gospel preachers announced today they are enjoying their favorite holiday of the year: "Taking Tuesday," in which they get to cajole their followers into giving them even more of their money.

Prosperity theologians encouraged their followers to donate exorbitant amounts of cash to their ministries under the hashtag #TakingTuesday, calling the idea of enriching a few already ridiculously prosperous pastors a manifestation of the "true holiday spirit."

"In the midst of this season where it's so easy to get distracted by giving and generosity, it's nice to have a single day in which we charlatans can focus on stealing more money from people than ever before," Creflo Dollar said in a video posted to his ministry's Facebook page. "Now start sending me checks. That latest Gulfstream isn't gonna pay for itself, you know—and I'm certainly not going to work for the money."

Other prosperity preachers like Joel Osteen, Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, and Paula White also sponsored the holiday, posting on their social media accounts that "the Christmas season isn't just for remembering Christ's birth—it's about increasing our net worth."

According to inside sources, the prosperity gospel preachers had originally heard today described as "Giving Tuesday," but they were literally unable to parse the phrase, causing them to launch this new alternative holiday.

Source.

The New German Catholic Bible is... problematic

GERMANY, September 21, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — The German Bishops have presented a new “Unified Translation” of the Bible that follows a significant modernization of the language and will be binding for all German-speaking areas starting in 2017.

On Tuesday, the German Bishops Conference (DBK) presented in Fulda the fruit of many years of scientific work: a new edition of the so-called “Unified Translation” (Einheitsübersetzung) of the Bible into German. It’s called “unified” because, from the original published from 1962 onward, these editions are supposed to be used ecumenically, unifying Catholics and Protestants in Germany. The original aim, however, was thwarted in 2005 when Protestants reverted to the Luther translation.

The leader of the research project was the bishop (now emeritus) of Erfurt, Joachim Wanke, who explained that the new edition is a “moderate revision” of the older text. Wanke added that a translation is always also an interpretation. The new edition shows more “braveness” to present “biblical jargon,” he said, reported by kath.net.

According to Jewish tradition, the personal names of God cannot be pronounced, so “Yahweh” is substituted by “Lord” in the new edition. In fact, every paragraph has a change, explained Michael Theobald, president of the German Bible Association.

When the apostle Paul calls two new followers, they are not two men anymore, Andronicus and Junias; rather, a new discovery showed that apparently it was one man and one woman, hence Andronicus and Junia. This led to the discussion that the word “apostle” must be applied to women as well as men (Author’s note: In German, different genders of the word exist and usually gender-ideologists insist on using male and female forms).

Other changes are more ideological.

Most frightening is the change to the iconic Isaiah passage (7:14): “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son” (NIV) will now read: “The virgin has conceived and gives birth to a son.” The change seems to suggest that the virgin is not at all a virgin anymore (after having conceived) and at the same time removes the prophetic impetus by putting the words from the future into the past. This trend continues and a note from the translators explains that the Hebrew word “almáh” means “young woman” instead of “virgin,” as it has been reported. This change goes back to an old — and refuted — disputation of Hebrew apologists:

Read the rest here.

Ecclesiology and non-Orthodox Baptisms

I draw the reader's attention to this post over at Byzantine Texas where there is a lively and (unusual for Orthodox blogs) sober discussion of non-Orthodox baptisms and their ecclesiological implications. Please leave any comments there.

What Christ Accomplished on the Cross

The topic of today’s talk—what Christ accomplished on the Cross—is of course a prime subject of contemplation during the Lenten season, as we prepare to prayerfully commemorate Christ’s passion, death, and the inevitable consequence of His death: His holy Resurrection. As we call to mind and repent of our sins during the Holy Fast, we also call to mind that which has saved us from the eternal consequences of sin. We call to mind Christ’s life-creating death on the Cross, which He underwent for the salvation of each one of us.

The Orthodox dogma of our redemption—which includes the doctrines concerning Christ’s incarnation, death and Resurrection—is the chief dogma of our Faith, together with the dogma of the Holy Trinity. I have been especially contemplating and reading Patristic writings on this subject for a few years now. It is a vast subject. In this lecture I will try to outline its main points in a linear and chronological fashion. I will speak about the state of man before the Fall and after the Fall, and then speak about how Christ saved us from the consequences of the Fall through His incarnation, death and Resurrection. Finally, I will summarize all the present and future accomplishments of Christ’s redemptive work. 

Read the rest here.

ROCOR Holy Synod on the Proposed Texts for the Great and Holy Pan-Orthodox Synod

 To the Very Reverend and Reverend Clergy, Venerable Monastics and Pious Faithful of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia:

In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit!

In light of the welcome publication of the documents to be considered by the forthcoming Pan-Orthodox Council, scheduled to take place on Crete from 16-27 June 2016, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia has undertaken to examine these texts, together with a multitude of other Hierarchs, clergy and laity who are doing the same as preparations for the Council continue, and to communicate with our God-preserved flock and others the manner of suggestions we are proposing, since the documents of the Council are the cause of interest and questioning to very many. We are reminded, in this as in all things, of the words of the Lord to the Holy Apostle St. Peter, when He pronounced that the future shepherd’s work would be to feed My sheep (John 21:17); and likewise that the food for those who love Him is to diligently preserve what Christ has taught them: If ye love me, keep my commandments (John 14:15), and If a man love me, he will keep my words (John 14:23).

It is with zeal for such divine commandments that the whole plenitude of the Hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church seeks to apply the counsel of the Righteous Solomon: incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding (Proverbs 2:2), scrutinizing the documents that have been made available to us with humility, diligence and obedience. This task is undertaken in a spirit free from fear or worldly worry, since we fervently trust that God Himself is ever the helmsman of the Church, and as He has guided her through the many centuries to our day, so He will continue to guide and preserve us now and until He comes again. Rather, we offer reflections on a few of the texts as a means of conjoining our thoughts to those of many others who are working for the good of all our inter-Orthodox endeavours, including His Holiness the Patriarch and those members of our Russian Orthodox Church who labour with him in these preparations.

While certain of the documents—which have been prepared by the Pre-Conciliar Conferences for the Council’s consideration, but which are of course not final texts and are necessarily preliminary—do not give rise for concern in our reading, and indeed contain elements of useful clarification (for example, the document “Autonomy and the Means of Proclaiming It”), the employment in others of ambiguous terminology, a lack of theological precision, and ecclesiological language foreign to the sacred tradition of the Church, demand commentary that may lead to their correction. This is most notably the case in two documents: “Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the Christian World”, and “The Mission of the Orthodox Church in Today’s World”; and a few issues arise also with the procedural text entitled “Organisation and Working Procedure of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church.”

Read the rest here.

What You Learned About the Middle Ages Was Wrong

Medieval Christianity is in the news. That’s exciting for me as I have a PhD in medieval theology and I teach Ancient and Medieval Church History at Covenant Seminary. Thus I have a little “skin in the game,” as the saying goes.

Earlier this week our President made some comments at the national prayer breakfast. In the spirit of hospitality and inclusion he wished to address the recent horrifically evil actions by ISIS by saying that we Christians also have also perpetrated evil in the name of our religion. He gave three examples, two of which I want to make comments on here.

Read the rest here.
HT: Dr. Tighe

FOUNTAIN OF IMMORTALITY - Meditation on the Orthodox Divine Liturgy

Dr. Adam DeVille Responds to the Russian Church's Statement on Primacy

Dr. DeVille has written a critical response to the MP's long awaited document on primacy. As I have said repeatedly, the document was only incidentally addressed to Rome. The real target was Constantinople, and it definitely got their attention. In all honesty I was not exactly bowled over by the Moscow document. It seems like a fairly cavalier and breathtakingly short document for such a weighty subject. And I don't think Adam is too far off the mark in his suggestion that Moscow is trying to reduce the Ecumenical Patriarch to an ecclesiastical equivalent to The Queen of England, i.e. a figurehead.

All of which lends further weight to my long held view that we have no business holding discussions aimed at ending a thousand year schism with Rome, until we have our own ducks in a row. Conversations with Rome should be limited to areas of mutual interest, such as charity and the collapse of western civilization before the twin threats of militant secularism and militant Islam while we sort out our internal issues.

I will be most interested to see what becomes of this much discussed but never quite materializing Pan-Orthodox Synod.

The Russian Church on Primacy

This is a new and important document that lays out the position of the Russian Orthodox Church on the subject of Primacy. I suspect (the cynic in me) that it was meant as much for Constantinople's eyes as Rome's.

HT: Byzantine Texas

When God Spoke Greek

Timothy Michael Law is a scholar interested in history, theology, and religion. Last month Oxford University Press published his book on the Septuagint, When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible. I recently got the chance to talk with Law about his new book and the importance of the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament to contemporary churches.

Where did your interest in the Septuagint begin?

One night in 2002, I was sitting with one of my best friends from college and seminary, Kyle McDaniel, and he threw (literally!) a big blue book at me from across the room. The book was Alfred Rahlfs’ handbook edition of the Greek Septuagint. We started talking about it, and both of us were uncertain whether we wanted to pursue more Hebrew or Greek, or more early Judaism or early Christianity in our graduate work. We loved all of it. We decided that one way to marry those interests was to study the Septuagint.

Why should today’s churches care about the Septuagint?

There are several reasons I think modern Christians should care about the Septuagint.

First, when a modern reader sees Paul quoting Isaiah, and then turns to Isaiah in an English translation, she notices the citation is different. Why? The Old Testament translation of almost every modern English version of the Bible is based on the Hebrew Bible, but the New Testament authors and the early Church most often used the Septuagint. Augustine and others throughout history even argued that if the New Testament authors used the Septuagint, the Church ought to affirm its authority as well. I unpack this in several chapters in the book.

Second, the Septuagint, and not the Hebrew Bible, explicitly shaped some early Christian theology. For example, it was the Septuagint version of Isaiah, not the Hebrew Bible’s version, that shaped the most theologically profound book in the history of Christianity, Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. The primacy of the Septuagint continues after the first century, and one could not imagine the development of orthodoxy without it. None of this would be terribly significant if the Septuagint were merely a translation of the Hebrew; however, the Septuagint in many places contains a different message. Sometimes the translators of the Septuagint created new meanings in their translations, but there is also another reason the Septuagint is often different.

An alternative, sometimes older, form of the Hebrew text often lies behind the Greek. When the Reformers and their predecessors talked about returning to the original Hebrew (ad fontes!), and when modern Christians talk about studying the Hebrew because it is the “original text,” they are making several mistaken assumptions. The Hebrew Bible we now use is often not the oldest form of the Hebrew text, and sometimes the Septuagint provides the only access we have to that older form.

Read the rest here.
HT: Dr. Tighe

A Must Read....

Fr. Stephen Freeman's excellent blog post on the theology of Orthodox Marriage. Among the many excellent points made is that marriage is NOT a contract and therefor claims by certain groups to equal rights under contract law do not apply.

The (Ana) Baptists Are Right!

Can the dead repent and be saved?

It's been a while since I have posted on, or linked to a weighty theological topic. I think this one fits the bill though. Please leave your comments on the respective posts.

Here  Here  and Here