Greek Orthodoxy

I was bored last Sunday so I went and visited the Greek Orthodox Church in Spokane. We also have some Russian Orthodox churches and one Orthodox Church of Syria and India near my house.
I went to the Orthodox church only a year or two and then we starting going to the Lutheran church.
We have so few ehtnic Greek in my city that it gave me a chance to meet some in our community but can you answer:

What are the core beliefs of Orthodoxy?

Why do you pray to Icons- forbidden in the Protestant faith.

Is tradition equal to the Bible?

what is the Orthodox beliefs about Hell?

Father Stephen - the title of father is supposed to be forbidden in the Bible (Prostestant belief)- why do the Orthodox use this title for their Priests? (Catholics also- remember this is about Orthodoxy)

Is the Orthodox church today consistant with the Byzantine era Orthodox church?




http://www.holytrinityspokane.org/

Edited by eaglecap - 19-Jun-2007 at 14:24

1.Equality between Father(God) son(Christ) and holy spirit(peugeon lol) is the core belief-if is that what you mean- and the main theoritical difference between the orthodox and catholic dogma.

Sorry my knowledge of Orthodoxy is no where near that of some of our other members, although I must correct some things.

1) Catholics have some heretic (yes heretic!) views,

It's okay, you guys are heretics too, although the more appropriate term would be schismatic, since our issue is a matter of politics and not faith.

such us that the Pope (a mere patriarch for us orthodoxes) is representative of God on earth (hah!)

So you believe that God chose to abandon us with no one to guide us on how to live our lives? I believe that all the Patriarchs are meant to carry on the apostolic traditions set forth by Jesus' first disciples. However Peter was the First among the apostles and Peter's heirs would carry his legacy in that regard.

and makes no mistakes (HAH!)

Um....no, totally wrong in all regards. The belief in Papal Infallibility is that the Pope is removed from error when he speaks for all the Church. And to not this has only ever been used twice in the ENTIRE history of the church. That would be the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary, of course if you believe those two things to be mistakes then...

Everybody seems to be confusing 'Catholic' with 'Roman Catholic'. The Orthodox churches are just as Catholic as the Roman or indeed the Anglican.

Interesting questions eaglecap. Let us strip down some answers given to the bone and find the internal structure.

What are the core beliefs of Orthodoxy

That this is the worldwide church. (but it does help to be Greek of course) The rest are just pretenders.

Why do you pray to Icons- forbidden in the Protestant faith.

Because icons (windows) are a window to Heaven, by gazing upon them the mysteries of the faith become revealed to the believer.

Is tradition equal to the Bible

Yes, if using the original Greek bible and original Greek traditions. 

what is the Orthodox beliefs about Hell?

Fire and brimstone that are the same as in Greek mythology. What else  can there be when both agree?

I can imagine a service once again in St Sophia, eaglecap. The first time around would have been really something! The chanting the incense, the processions, the costumes and customs, the whole enchilada. But to see the church itself! Must go and visit there one day.

Your girlfriend lives in Walla Walla? Sounds like an Australian Aboriginal name for a town. We do have Wagga Wagga and so on.

This is spooky. Waggga Wagga was named by the Wiradjuri tribe that lived there until the 18th century and means place of many crows. It straddles the Murrembidgee River (part of the Murray-Darling river system) that flows from the Great Dividing Range into this natural valley and is part of the Riverina area, sometimes called the fruitbowl of Australia because of the agriculture.

Many Greeks have settled in the area. Further up this mountain range starts again as the Blue Mountains. Would you believe the similarities, but we don�t have elk, plenty of kangaroos though. At one time the place used to shelter famous Australian outlaws, we call them bushrangers, with names like Captain Moonlight and Mad Dog Morgan who held up stagecoaches and hotels.

Edited by elenos - 05-Jul-2007 at 00:18

Are you trying to test me? Huh, bring it on, but I won't answer all at once. In Greek mythology, the river  Phlegethon, (lake of fire) was one of the five rivers of the underworld, along with the rivers Styx, Lethe, Cocytus, and Acheron. �The river that flows with fire which burns and does not consume.� (Virgil VI, 265, 551). So there you go, everlasting fire!

It is said that the goddess Styx was in love with Phlegethon, but she being consumed by his flames she sent him to Hades. When Zeus accepted her river to flow through as well, they reunited.

Want another myth? Zeus slept with Semele secretly, His wife Hera only found out after the girl was pregnant. Hera disguised herself and persuaded Semele to demand Zeus come to her in the way he visited his wife. Semele got Zeus to swear by the river Styx that he would grant her mortal wish. However Zeus, being a god, came to her in a bolt of lightning, and Semele was an immediate pile of ashes. However, Zeus rescued the unborn child from the mother's ashes and sewed it in his thigh until born. Thus the son, Dionysus is called "the twice-born." Dionysus was raised at first by Semele's sister. As an adult, he retrieved his mother from Hades and made her a goddess called Thyone.

Quotes from Wikipedia; �Dionysus or Dionysos is the Greek god of wine. He represents not only the intoxicating power of wine, but also its social and beneficial influences. Known as Bacchus to the Romans, he was viewed as the promoter of civilization, a lawgiver, and lover of peace. He was also known as the Liberator (Eleutherios), freeing one from one's normal self, by madness, ecstasy, or wine. The divine mission of Dionysus was to mingle the music of the flute and to bring an end to care and worry. Dionysus presided over communication between the living and the dead.

The Dionysiac rites are thought to have survived into modern times in the rites of Anastenaria, still practiced by Greeks descended from Thracian populations displaced during the course of the Balkan wars. Most are of the opinion that the fire walking accompanied by ecstatic dancing, drumming, and forays into the woods or mountains by participants "possessed by the saint", as well as the preliminary animal sacrifice and distribution of meat to the village population, are at their origin not the Christian rites they are constructed as by the villagers who perform them, but the rites of Dionysus.�

Originally posted by elenos This is spooky. Waggga Wagga was named by the Wiradjuri tribe that lived there until the 18th century and means place of many crows. It straddles the <st1:place><st1:placename>Murrembidgee</st1:placename> <st1:place>River</st1:place></st1:place> (part of the Murray-Darling river system) that flows from the <st1:place>Great Dividing Range</st1:place> into this natural valley and is part of the Riverina area, sometimes called the fruitbowl of <st1:country-region><st1:place>Australia</st1:place></st1:country-region> because of the agriculture. Many Greeks have settled in the area. Further up this mountain range starts again as the <st1:place>Blue Mountains</st1:place>. Would you believe the similarities, but we don�t have elk, plenty of kangaroos though. At one time the place used to shelter famous Australian outlaws, we call them bushrangers, with names like Captain Moonlight and Mad Dog Morgan who held up stagecoaches and hotels.

Greek Australians - it is amazing how the diaspora has spread us around the world. My mother was from Corinthos and I had the chance to go there twice. We have very few Greeks in my area but there is a Greek Orthodox church. There were more Greeks years ago but the rail road jobs died off and many left for Seattle or other places. I heard the same about Walla Walla.



I go off and on to a service at the Greek church but it is small and many of the people who go there are not Greek; Anglo Americans or Slavs.

I am not sure if the Walla Walla tribe was salish or not like the Spokane Indians, also a baseball team in Spokane.

I have heard about the Blue Mountains of Australia and I would love to go there someday. Our Blue Mountains are mostly volcanic and not real big mountains. There is a large area in them set aside as wilderness, the Wenaha Tucannon wilderness area. The name Tucannon sounds indian but it came from the fact there were two cannons by what is now called the Tucannon River.

Aha, Leonindas, a classic example of the excluded middle argument. I said the Greeks did have fire as punishment, you denied it, I gave indisputable evidence. The lake of fire was one of the rivers of Hades. The ancient Greek version of hell was of Hades.

 The Homeric Hymn of Demeter may have talked of darkness and gloom, but the lake of fire was one of the rivers of Hades. Tell me what I haven�t already said, please. You said (Hades) wasn't a just a place for punishment even though parts/levels of it were described that way later on. Okay, don�t go on, prove it!

You quoted the Illiad and the Oddysey. Weren�t they written 900-800 BC? Stories about Trojan wars that happened 1200 BC perhaps? These dates are from archaic times! Many principal Greek cities had not even been built then, let alone the culture that went with them. The beginnings of Athenian Democracy began in 600 BC..

This lake of fire that you so (hotly!) dispute came at least before the Classic or Golden Age, centuries before Alexander conquered Palestine and the Jews became Hellenized. After Alexander the Great (died 323 BC) the Jews were requested to write down their religious tradition, largely unwritten beforehand. So what is your point about using these writings called the Septuagint as evidence?

Are you telling me the Greeks soldiers came trotting into Jerusalem shouting �Hey fellas, don�t you write about our current beliefs now, why not take and use those of up to a thousand years old?� And you ask why I question you? This is getting weird like some Greek drama is unfolding!