[quote author=Boricua_Orthodox link=topic=6661.msg90899#msg90899 date=1213647998] In the Name of the Father+ and the Son+ and of the Holy Spirit+, the One True God. Amen.
We have alot to pray and study about concerning this very interest topic. I believe it's over semantics (OO's say 2X2=4 AND EO's say 2+2=4) we are saying the same thing. Some people may then ask which semantic is approved by God since it was an Ecumenical Council which expounded 2 natures and one person.
I profoundly pray both our Churches may reconcile and unite since I have a deep, deep love for The Coptic Church. I admire the great piety of her people and simple devotion of her Popes and monastics! i sometimes get more spiritual food from Coptic writings thatn from some Eastern ones. But I see both as coming from the same source. I am happily Antiochian Orthodox and deeply value Chalcedonic teachings but, I am not blind that God speaks through my beloved Copts as well! I love you all!!!
We love you, too.
And I likewise have been fed from the Chalcedon Churches, too- and believe personally that God has not left our churches. That human weakness cannot bind the grace of the Lord given by our common baptism. For the failings (sins) of our church fathers over the schism over something "doubtful", I believe grace abounds more. It has exposed the weakness of the bride of Christ- and our only response therefore is to further cling to God- the Pantokrator- to strengthen us- unite us- and give us more graceful state then we believed we had on our own.
[quote author=Severus link=topic=6661.msg89069#msg89069 date=1212321377] St. Dioscorus is a saint in our Church who defended against the Dyophysites at the Council of Chalcedon. The Eastern Orthodox adhere to dyophytism. If we compare the two, there more or less identical. It really is just an issue of semantics, which is why we are working on uniting.
Are the EO still holding on to this?? (Dioscorus being a heretic [in their eyes!]?)
[quote author=QT_PA_2T link=topic=6661.msg90945#msg90945 date=1213728202] [quote author=Severus link=topic=6661.msg89069#msg89069 date=1212321377] St. Dioscorus is a saint in our Church who defended against the Dyophysites at the Council of Chalcedon. The Eastern Orthodox adhere to dyophytism. If we compare the two, there more or less identical. It really is just an issue of semantics, which is why we are working on uniting.
Are the EO still holding on to this?? (Dioscorus being a heretic [in their eyes!]?)
Hi all!! This website will help clarify the situation between our sister churches:http://www.orthodoxunity.org/index.php! Enjoy and pray for unity and for me please! GBU!
I've found a very interesting article of His Grace Metropolitan Bishoy of Damitte about wills of Jesus Christ.
"What is the natural will and what is the personal will? The natural will is the desire; the personal will is the decision.
You can say, ‘I want to drink, but I don’t want to drink’; ‘I have a will to go, but I don’t will to go.’ What does this mean? If you are fasting you say ‘I am willing to drink, but I shall not drink’? It means that ‘I desire to drink but I decided not to drink’. So, there is difference between the natural will and personal will. The personal will works with the decision, while the natural will works with the desire.
...
Are the natural wills identical? No, because if they are identical this means that we are Eutychean and that there is confusion, since the natural desire of His humanity was absorbed in His divinity. This is the heresy of Monotheletism. If the two natural energies and natural wills are reduced to one natural will, this is the Eutychean heresy. Saint Cyril of Alexandria said that the differences of the properties of the two natures were not destroyed because of the union.
...
Jesus Christ has one personal will because He is one person. Concerning the natural will we can say that they are two in one, since the two natural wills are not mixed or cancelled, but they are in a perfect union, thus they are not separated.
...
In the second agreement, it is more clear:
The one hypostasis of the Logos incarnate is always Who is acting and willing..
It is the Logos incarnate Who is the subject of all willing and acting of Jesus Christ. In other words all willing and acting are from one person. But, sometimes He acts according to His divinity; and sometimes according to His humanity. Thus the human natural will did not cease to exist, and also divine energies and human energies did not cease to exist.
....
Simply, the two natural wills continued to exist in the union. The two natural energies continued to exist in the union, without being separated. One person was willing and acting – the same person. Sometimes His will according to His humanity is to eat, and according to His divinity with the Father He is content to do it, so He eats according to His human desire with the consent of the Father. "
And now quotes from st.John Damascene's "An exact exposition of Orthodox Faith"
For it is to be noted s that willing and the manner of willing are not the same thing. For to will is a faculty of nature, just as seeing is, for all men possess it; but the manner of willing does not depend on nature but on our judgment, just as does also the manner of seeing, whether well or ill. For all men do not will in the same way, nor do they all see in the same way. And this also we will grant in connection with energies. For the manner of willing, or seeing, or energising, is the mode of using the faculties of will and sight and energy, belonging only to him who uses them, and marking him off from others by the generally accepted difference.
Simple willing then is spoken of as volition or the faculty of will (9), being a rational propension (1) and natural will; but in a particular way willing, or that which underlies volition, is the object of will (2), and will dependent on judgment (3). Further that which has innate in it the faculty of volition is spoken of as capable of willing (4): as for instance the divine is capable of willing, and the human in like manner. But he who exercises volition, that is to say the subsistence (hypostasis), for instance Peter, is spoken of as willing.
Since, then (5), Christ is one and His subsistence (hypostasis) is one, He also Who wills both as God and as man is one and the same. And since He has two natures endowed with volition, inasmuch as they are rational (for whatever is rational is endowed with volition and free-will), we shall postulate two volitions or natural wills in Him. For He in His own person is capable of volition in accordance with both His natures. For He assumed that faculty of volition which belongs naturally to us. And since Christ, Who in His own person wills according to either nature, is one, we shall postulate the same object of will in His case, not as though He wills only those things which He willed naturally as God (for it is no part of Godhead to will to eat or drink and so forth), but as willing also those things which human nature requires for its support (6), and this without involving any opposition in judgment, but simply as the result of the individuality of the natures. For then it was that He thus willed naturally, when His divine volition so willed and permitted the flesh to suffer and do that which was proper to it.
"Following the five holy and universal synods and the holy and accepted fathers, and defining in unison, it professes our lord Jesus Christ our true God, one of the holy Trinity, which is of one same being and is the source of life, to be perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and a body; consubstantial with the Father as regards his divinity, and the same consubstantial with us as regards his humanity, like us in all respects except for sin; begotten before the ages from the Father as regards his divinity, and in the last days the same for us and for our salvation from the holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, who is properly and truly called mother of God, as regards his humanity; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten, acknowledged in two natures which undergo no confusion, no change, no separation, no division; at no point was the difference between the natures taken away through the union, but rather the property of both natures is preserved and comes together into a single subsistent being [in unam personam et in unam subsistentiam concurrente]; he is not parted or divided into two persons, but is one and the same only-begotten Son, Word of God, lord Jesus Christ, just as the prophets taught from the beginning about him, and as Jesus the Christ himself instructed us, and as the creed of the holy fathers handed it down to us.
And we proclaim equally two natural volitions or wills in him and two natural principles of action which undergo no division, no change, no partition, no confusion, in accordance with the teaching of the holy fathers. And the two natural wills not in opposition, as the impious heretics said, far from it, but his human will following, and not resisting or struggling, rather in fact subject to his divine and all powerful will. For the will of the flesh had to be moved, and yet to be subjected to the divine will, according to the most wise Athanasius. For just as his flesh is said to be and is flesh of the Word of God, so too the natural will of his flesh is said to and does belong to the Word of God, just as he says himself: I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of the Father who sent me, calling his own will that of his flesh, since his flesh too became his own. For in the same way that his all holy and blameless animate flesh was not destroyed in being made divine but remained in its own limit and category, so his human will as well was not destroyed by being made divine, but rather was preserved, according to the theologian Gregory, who says: "For his willing, when he is considered as saviour, is not in opposition to God, being made divine in its entirety."
Comments
In the Name of the Father+ and the Son+ and of the Holy Spirit+, the One True God. Amen.
We have alot to pray and study about concerning this very interest topic. I believe it's over semantics (OO's say 2X2=4 AND EO's say 2+2=4) we are saying the same thing. Some people may then ask which semantic is approved by God since it was an Ecumenical Council which expounded 2 natures and one person.
I profoundly pray both our Churches may reconcile and unite since I have a deep, deep love for The Coptic Church. I admire the great piety of her people and simple devotion of her Popes and monastics! i sometimes get more spiritual food from Coptic writings thatn from some Eastern ones. But I see both as coming from the same source. I am happily Antiochian Orthodox and deeply value Chalcedonic teachings but, I am not blind that God speaks through my beloved Copts as well! I love you all!!!
We love you, too.
And I likewise have been fed from the Chalcedon Churches, too- and believe personally that God has not left our churches. That human weakness cannot bind the grace of the Lord given by our common baptism. For the failings (sins) of our church fathers over the schism over something "doubtful", I believe grace abounds more. It has exposed the weakness of the bride of Christ- and our only response therefore is to further cling to God- the Pantokrator- to strengthen us- unite us- and give us more graceful state then we believed we had on our own.
PPFM
St. Dioscorus is a saint in our Church who defended against the Dyophysites at the Council of Chalcedon. The Eastern Orthodox adhere to dyophytism. If we compare the two, there more or less identical. It really is just an issue of semantics, which is why we are working on uniting.
Are the EO still holding on to this?? (Dioscorus being a heretic [in their eyes!]?)
[quote author=Severus link=topic=6661.msg89069#msg89069 date=1212321377]
St. Dioscorus is a saint in our Church who defended against the Dyophysites at the Council of Chalcedon. The Eastern Orthodox adhere to dyophytism. If we compare the two, there more or less identical. It really is just an issue of semantics, which is why we are working on uniting.
Are the EO still holding on to this?? (Dioscorus being a heretic [in their eyes!]?)
Yes, just as we call their Leo a heretic.
What is the church doing RIGHT NOW to rectify all these problems/misunderstandings between the EO & OO?
I've found a very interesting article of His Grace Metropolitan Bishoy of Damitte about wills of Jesus Christ.
"What is the natural will and what is the personal will? The natural will is the desire; the personal will is the decision.
You can say, ‘I want to drink, but I don’t want to drink’; ‘I have a will to go, but I don’t will to go.’ What does this mean? If you are fasting you say ‘I am willing to drink, but I shall not drink’? It means that ‘I desire to drink but I decided not to drink’. So, there is difference between the natural will and personal will. The personal will works with the decision, while the natural will works with the desire.
...
Are the natural wills identical? No, because if they are identical this means that we are Eutychean and that there is confusion, since the natural desire of His humanity was absorbed in His divinity. This is the heresy of Monotheletism. If the two natural energies and natural wills are reduced to one natural will, this is the Eutychean heresy. Saint Cyril of Alexandria said that the differences of the properties of the two natures were not destroyed because of the union.
...
Jesus Christ has one personal will because He is one person. Concerning the natural will we can say that they are two in one, since the two natural wills are not mixed or cancelled, but they are in a perfect union, thus they are not separated.
...
In the second agreement, it is more clear:
The one hypostasis of the Logos incarnate is always Who is acting and willing..
It is the Logos incarnate Who is the subject of all willing and acting of Jesus Christ. In other words all willing and acting are from one person. But, sometimes He acts according to His divinity; and sometimes according to His humanity. Thus the human natural will did not cease to exist, and also divine energies and human energies did not cease to exist.
....
Simply, the two natural wills continued to exist in the union. The two natural energies continued to exist in the union, without being separated. One person was willing and acting – the same person. Sometimes His will according to His humanity is to eat, and according to His divinity with the Father He is content to do it, so He eats according to His human desire with the consent of the Father. "
Are you familiar with this?
For it is to be noted s that willing and the manner of willing are not the same thing. For to will is a faculty of nature, just as seeing is, for all men possess it; but the manner of willing does not depend on nature but on our judgment, just as does also the manner of seeing, whether well or ill. For all men do not will in the same way, nor do they all see in the same way. And this also we will grant in connection with energies. For the manner of willing, or seeing, or energising, is the mode of using the faculties of will and sight and energy, belonging only to him who uses them, and marking him off from others by the generally accepted difference.
Simple willing then is spoken of as volition or the faculty of will (9), being a rational propension (1) and natural will; but in a particular way willing, or that which underlies volition, is the object of will (2), and will dependent on judgment (3). Further that which has innate in it the faculty of volition is spoken of as capable of willing (4): as for instance the divine is capable of willing, and the human in like manner. But he who exercises volition, that is to say the subsistence (hypostasis), for instance Peter, is spoken of as willing.
Since, then (5), Christ is one and His subsistence (hypostasis) is one, He also Who wills both as God and as man is one and the same. And since He has two natures endowed with volition, inasmuch as they are rational (for whatever is rational is endowed with volition and free-will), we shall postulate two volitions or natural wills in Him. For He in His own person is capable of volition in accordance with both His natures. For He assumed that faculty of volition which belongs naturally to us. And since Christ, Who in His own person wills according to either nature, is one, we shall postulate the same object of will in His case, not as though He wills only those things which He willed naturally as God (for it is no part of Godhead to will to eat or drink and so forth), but as willing also those things which human nature requires for its support (6), and this without involving any opposition in judgment, but simply as the result of the individuality of the natures. For then it was that He thus willed naturally, when His divine volition so willed and permitted the flesh to suffer and do that which was proper to it.
"Following the five holy and universal synods and the holy and accepted fathers, and defining in unison, it professes our lord Jesus Christ our true God, one of the holy Trinity, which is of one same being and is the source of life, to be perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and a body; consubstantial with the Father as regards his divinity, and the same consubstantial with us as regards his humanity, like us in all respects except for sin; begotten before the ages from the Father as regards his divinity, and in the last days the same for us and for our salvation from the holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, who is properly and truly called mother of God, as regards his humanity; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten, acknowledged in two natures which undergo no confusion, no change, no separation, no division; at no point was the difference between the natures taken away through the union, but rather the property of both natures is preserved and comes together into a single subsistent being [in unam personam et in unam subsistentiam concurrente]; he is not parted or divided into two persons, but is one and the same only-begotten Son, Word of God, lord Jesus Christ, just as the prophets taught from the beginning about him, and as Jesus the Christ himself instructed us, and as the creed of the holy fathers handed it down to us.
And we proclaim equally two natural volitions or wills in him and two natural principles of action which undergo no division, no change, no partition, no confusion, in accordance with the teaching of the holy fathers. And the two natural wills not in opposition, as the impious heretics said, far from it, but his human will following, and not resisting or struggling, rather in fact subject to his divine and all powerful will. For the will of the flesh had to be moved, and yet to be subjected to the divine will, according to the most wise Athanasius. For just as his flesh is said to be and is flesh of the Word of God, so too the natural will of his flesh is said to and does belong to the Word of God, just as he says himself: I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of the Father who sent me, calling his own will that of his flesh, since his flesh too became his own. For in the same way that his all holy and blameless animate flesh was not destroyed in being made divine but remained in its own limit and category, so his human will as well was not destroyed by being made divine, but rather was preserved, according to the theologian Gregory, who says: "For his willing, when he is considered as saviour, is not in opposition to God, being made divine in its entirety."
Since I'am not a theologian, can someone help me with this?