Some Orthodox Christians may have been shocked to read in my post Ecumenism, Particularly Between East and West that at the Council of Florence, all but one of the Eastern bishops accepted the West’s use of the Filióque, the understanding of purgatory and papal primacy. If you are shocked, it is probably because you don’t really understand these issues and most likely are more acquainted with the distorted view of these issues. The Eastern bishops of the 15th century understood these issues; however, the Eastern laity did not; hence, lasting unity between East and West was not achieved at that time. We should do better.

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The Orthodox Church is evangelical, but not Protestant. It is orthodox, but not Jewish. It is catholic, but not Roman. It isn’t non-denominational – it is pre-denominational. It has believed, taught, preserved, defended and died for the Faith of the Apostles since the Day of Pentecost 2000 years ago.

I discovered the podcast Steve the Builder and subsequently Our Life In Christ, both of which are on Ancient Faith Radio, a while ago on, I believe, the Practical Ecumenism blog on the Holy Resurrection Monastery website; although, this blog had another name, which I can’t remember, when it directed me to the Steve the Builder podcast. Steve Robinson and Bill Gould are no longer producing the Our Life In Christ podcast; however, I’ve been going through their archives (I only have 30 more episodes to go). I thoroughly enjoy these podcasts, and even had a link to them on my list of links. I had to take this link off my list, however, as I was going through their archive of podcasts because I couldn’t in good conscience direct people there without a preface. This blog post is that preface, and the links are in this paragraph.

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The following quote of Pope Benedict XVI come from the story The Renewal Of Faith Must Be A Priority For Church Today on today’s Vatican Information Service:
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Extraordinary Prayer of all Churches for Reconciliation, Unity and Peace beginning in and proceeding from Jerusalem

I found the above website while checking my news feeds this morning. This was the headline and first paragraph of today’s top news post on this website:
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At the close of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, I want to give my thoughts on ecumenism. I must point out that these are my views and are not authoritative. I’m just a simple uneducated layman that is trying to be faithful to Christ and His Church. My views on ecumenism were a little different ten years ago, and even more different twenty years ago (it was nineteen years ago that I came into full union with the Pope of Rome). And, I predict that ten, twenty and fifty years from now, my views will be different than they are now.

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From January 18th to the 25th is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. You may want to check out some of the documents of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, particularly the  2012 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity booklet. As well, the pope dedicated his Wednesday’s General Audience to this week of prayer.

For the past 12 years, I’ve kept the picture below by my computer where I can see it when I write . It gives me hope that some day there will be unity in Christ’s Church. It was taken on January 18, 2000. On that day Bl. Pope John Paul II opened the fourth and final holy door in Rome at St. Paul’s outside the walls, a symbolic proclamation of the Jubilee year.

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Glory to Our Lord Jesus!

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

On Friday, in the Kurdish city of Zakho which is heavily populated with Assyrian Christians (also known as Chaldeans and Syriacs) there was a Fatwa (religious decree) issued by a cleric against all businesses which are against Sharia Law. Thousands of Kurdish Muslims took to the streets and attacked over 24 Christian businesses. Two days later they passed out leaflets threatening the Christian store owners will be killed if they attempt to re-open their stores.

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This is Deacon Steven Robinson’s first Vlog. The Orthodox view of salvation is the same as the Catholic view, which is quite different from the Protestant view.

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I’ve done a 180 on this issue. When you’re done reading this post, make sure you read 180 on Consubstantial.

I just finished rewriting my simple guide to the Mass, Why do Catholics bounce on one knee?, a couple of days ago. In case you didn’t hear, there’s a new translation of the Roman Missal. In the United States, they’ll be using the new translation by Advent of 2011, so I thought I better rewrite my guide a year before people will actually need it (I don’t know when the new translation will be approved in Canada; hopefully soon). There’s been a lot of talk about this new translation. It seems that many don’t like it. I like it. Well, all but one word: consubstantial.

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I watched the movie  The Shoes of the Fisherman around twelve years ago, and from what I remember, I thoroughly enjoyed it. After learning more about the Eastern Churches and, in particular, the person whom the lead character of this movie is based on, I decided I would have a better appreciation for the story, so I bought the book. It was a well written book, but now that I’ve finished it, I feel that my time would have been better spent reading something more inspirational.

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