[Politics Megathread] The Polis and the Laity

I mean, it's indicative of the fact that those people want to be Mormons.

Not really. It's pretty common for people in developing countries to join churches like this out of some sort of promise for aid/food/money/etc. While I'm sure the Holy Spirit is working in these people, I wouldn't be surprised if many people join Orthodox parishes in developing countries with the same hopes.

And of course, the Russian Exarchate does not preach "Russkiy Mir" in Africa, while the EP is notorious for trying as hard as possible to promote "Hellenism" (that is to say, to emphasize the Greek identity) among its dioceses throughout the world.

The Russian church is just as guilty of placing too big an emphasis on "Russian-ness" as the Greek churches are regarding Greek-ness. They probably aren't preaching Russkiy Mir in Africa, but EP mission parishes aren't preaching "Hellenism" to converts either. The ethnic issues in general are the same in both churches, though. That's the big Orthodox problem pretty much everywhere.

Alexandria threw canonical normality out the window when it betrayed the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Your arguments are not convincing. You seem to have this idea that the Russian church is infallible and cannot do wrong, and that everything bad that ever happens to them is never their fault. It's borderline fanatical. At least acknowledge that their argument regarding canonical integrity is not internally consistent. You say that this is okay because all Africa was never formally given to Alexandria? All Ukraine was never formally given to the MP. What you are doing is dishonest.

You're essentially saying that Alexandria made Russia do it. That's false. Russia could have responded in any number of ways that did not involve invading their territory, but they did anyway. Russia didn't invade Greece or Cyprus. Why not? The only reason is because they thought they would make an example out of Alexandria. They thought Alexandria was too weak to do anything about it. There is literally no reason for the MP to have done what they did that wasn't acting out of spite.

/r/OrthodoxChristianity Thread Parent