Talk:Oriental Orthodox

Please carefully read HH Pope Shenouda III's The Nature of Christ before attacking us! Also watch HH Patriarch Bartholomew I video and his comments on the Coptic Church and her perfect Christological position. Those who invented monothelism were the Greek Orthodox. "The ease with which Egypt was conquered by Muslims appears to have been due to the treachery of the governor of Egypt, Patriarch Cyrus [1], Melchite (i.e., Byzantine/Chalcedonian Orthodox, not Coptic) Patriarch of Alexandria, and the incompetence of the generals of the Byzantine forces. Cyrus had persecuted the local Coptic Christians. He is one of the authors of monothelism, a seventh century heresy, and some supposed him to have been secretly a convert to Islam." I appeal to Fr John to interfere in this matter, and until resolved I won't be contributing to Orthodox Wiki any longer. In Christ, --Arbible

I've made some changes

I'm sorry that my changes offended you. I have further edited my previous comments in order to bring them in line with the neutrality policy of the site. Again, my apologies.

However, this is a controversial topic, and I don't believe that the only view expressed on the site should be the "pro-union" "there's no difference between the churches" view. As long as no one is attacked in an ad hominen way and the views of all are expressed, it is the right of all parties involved to truly voice why some of this issues exist. I was only trying to show that.

-Julius

Reverting

Hi Julius and Arbible,

I've reverted the paragraph in question because I think that the earlier paragraph conformed better to our policy of NPOV.
To Arbible - you don't have to react so strongly! OrthodoxWiki does not exist to take an anti-unionist position, nor do we seek a shallow union - the purpose of OrthodoxWiki is to provide information, and eventually, I hope, highlight the strongest arguments and resources on both sides of the issue.
To Julius - I would be grateful if you created a section with a separate heading, something like "Objections to Union," and summarized the main issues of the anti-unionists, offering whatever support you can, focussing on sources, data, facts rather than direct polemic. A pro-unionist case should be made the same way, while the head of the article should just give a general description of the basic picture, and perhaps an overview of the areas of agreement and disagreement.

Hope that helps! Fr. John

Thanks, and Official Statements

Many thanks, Father John and Brother Julius. Please forgive me, a great sinner, and remember me in your fervent prayers.

You may find these Official Statements useful for the ongoing discussion/planned article:

http://www.orthodoxunity.org/state01.html

http://www.orthodoxunity.org/state02.html

http://www.orthodoxunity.org/state04.html

Other related documents: http://www.orthodoxunity.org/statements.html

Please also check out 'Talk:Fourth Ecumenical Council'

Thank you very much+ arbible

Assyrian Churches

I think the wording of the paragraph on the Assyrian churches needs more nuance too, so I'm trimming it a bit. The sentence about how they "revere as saints men anathematized by the previously mentioned Churches" is more of a slam than it needs to be, since this difficulty also exists between the "Eastern" and "Oriental" Orthodox churches. As far as I'm aware, there hasn't been any agreed Christological statements (except for those Assyrians who entered into communion with Rome), but I'd be interested to know more about any dialogue that has taken place. Fr. John

New template

There is a new template available for use to mark articles or sections which represent the Non-Chalcedonian view: Template:Oriental. —Fr. Andrew ^talk contribs (THINK!) 12:48, 31 October 2005 (CST)

Scope issues

In general, I think the whole topic regarding Chalcedon is getting quite bloated on OrthodoxWiki. There is a whole series of often ambiguously-named articles that have been produced here, and there's very little in the way of encyclopedic summary. Rather than include all these articles en masse, I'd much rather have a single summary article for each side of the issue which includes external links. That, it seems to me, should be the goal. Perhaps these existing articles could be quoted appropriately in the summary articles and then deleted from the wiki. As it stands now, a reader would have a hard time getting a basic overview of the issues and would not have much context for all this other material.

Arbible, your tactic has often been to dump huge amounts of quoted material into discussions, especially regarding the well-known suffering of Non-Chalcedonian Christians; perhaps you can shift your trajectory a bit to something much more focussed. Certainly, Non-Chalcedonians are suffering for their faith and have suffered for it, but for most of this issue, that's not really directly relevant. Having martyrs in itself does not prove anything. (No doubt the Jews and Muslims could produce an impressive list of martyrs.)

At this point, the sheer amount of material we have on this topic here seems to me to be way, way out of proportion for the issue. OrthodoxWiki is not a repository for the debate (or lack thereof) over Chalcedon. Indeed, for both our communions, it is a chapter in our history, not the whole story. Let's work to get some serious trimming done. Take a look at some encyclopedias (and even at Wikipedia), and rethink what we have here. —Fr. Andrew ^talk contribs (THINK!) 14:58, 3 November 2005 (CST)