4 ms·

The religious parts of this I'm not sure I can agree with really.... I'm orthodox if it matters or seems relevant. The catholic/orthodox differences are largel

The religious parts of this I'm not sure I can agree with really.... I'm orthodox if it matters or seems relevant. The catholic/orthodox differences are largely just because of a thousand years of divergence, of speaking different languages and having relatively little interchange, of each individually having movements in response to internal pressures and trends not experienced by the other. Not going to get into a filioque debate on HN but the initial theological dispute, however significant you find it to be, is not the source of the most tangible differences in the two branches today. They've just each been doing their own thing for a millennium and their unique histories took them to two different places during that time. I don't see how byzantine eunuchs indicates anything about priest celibacy, especially since orthodox priests are usually married. Eunuchs and celibate priests still come from families, they experience love and duty and allegiance and enmity. To the extent a position is admirable people will want to be in it and to the extent it's powerful people will use that power to benefit the people and things they value. No restriction on who can hold an office will by itself address those factors. Byzantine eunuchs got up to plenty of corruption and betrayal in their own right. I assume by "barbarians" you mean the ottoman turks, but we have to be careful in reading byzantine history not to absorb byzantine attitudes about their rivals. The ottomans were a long-lived, sophisticated, and nuanced entity in their own right. Even their precursors and other byzantine neighbors were not as simple or simply motivated as byzantine or byz-sympathetic sources would indicate.

YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
Oh yes, the Ottomans very mighty sophisticated. They just didn't know how to build cities, so they took other peoples'. Orthodox? Which kind? I grew up Greek Orthodox but then I grew up more atheist.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  I'm american and my parents were converts so I don't think of myself as being particularly affiliated with any of the ethnic jurisdictions. I usually just find a parish where I like the people and the services are in english. Often that's OCA (russian-tinged american) but in the past it has been serbian or greek. As you're probably aware it's all technically the same church so there's no barrier or ritual to changing. The differences are mostly just musical style and other aesthetic traditions.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
    Thanks, I don't really know the customs of the other Orthodox churches, but they are different organisations. I don't know them well, by any means. I'm reading about them on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_Orthodox_Churches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_Orthodox_Churches Apparently there are six Oriental Orthodox churches that are all "autocephalous" (i.e. they do their own thing). I think the Russians and Serbians are closer to the Greek church in custom. And btw, that's why I asked. The Orthodox Greek diaspora are probably the largest group of Orthodox Christians outside Russia, but I was just curious. Somehow I also find it curious that your parents were converts to an Orthodox church. I didn't think that happened. If I may pry, what were they converted from? I'm Greek, btw.
    - giraffe_lady 4y ago
      Yeah the jurisdictions are an unbelievable mess you virtually need a degree in history to understand. Downside of not being under a single bishop like the catholics. The oriental orthodox iirc reflect an even earlier schism than the one with rome, and aren't in communion with the eastern orthodox (despite those words meaning the same thing) which is the greek & russian churches mostly, plus a bunch of smaller slavic & balkan ones, plus some middle eastern churches. Within those bounds though it's different organizations but one communion eg I could receive eucharist at a greek church one week and be a godparent at a russian one the next without having to ask permission or even tell anyone. In the US there seem to be a lot of converts recently, it's a big ongoing... thing... in american orthodoxy. Most ethnic churches just serve their communities and that's that. But the OCA and antiochian archdiocese specifically try to welcome converts with some success. Orthodox is liturgically and theologically the closest thing to catholicism, so we catch a lot of people leaving that church bc of child sex abuse scandal, anger at the liberalism of the pope, or whatever. There are also a lot of ex-evangelicals but their reasons are incredibly varied in my conversations with them. Often they are extremely pious and it's part of a deep and sincere effort to connect with what they consider the true or original church founded by the apostles. Sometimes, less wholesomely, it's simply "trad" fetishism and our historical connections with slavic racial superiority movements and ethnonationalism. In cities with multiple orthodox churches there is usually an informal "convert parish" made up of at least half americans who converted as adults. My parents were devout southern baptists who left their church in disgust during the civil rights movement. Archbishop Iakovos famously marched with MLK, and I think became a sort of symbolic figure for white southern christian supporters of the civil rights movement. It's a much longer story than that but it was enough to get them to explore the greek church and eventually convert before I was born.
RadixDLT 4y ago
lol calling ottomans sophisticated and nuanced tell me you are very misguided and are influence by Turkish propaganda. Nonetheless, the ottomans were nothing more than what Russia is today, barbarians, who is always looking to control other civilizations that were more sophisticated. What you see in turkey today is the aftermath of raping and pillaging of south east Europe.

YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago

Oh yes, the Ottomans very mighty sophisticated. They just didn't know how to build cities, so they took other peoples'. Orthodox? Which kind? I grew up Greek Orthodox but then I grew up more atheist.

giraffe_lady 4y ago
I'm american and my parents were converts so I don't think of myself as being particularly affiliated with any of the ethnic jurisdictions. I usually just find a parish where I like the people and the services are in english. Often that's OCA (russian-tinged american) but in the past it has been serbian or greek. As you're probably aware it's all technically the same church so there's no barrier or ritual to changing. The differences are mostly just musical style and other aesthetic traditions.
- YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
  Thanks, I don't really know the customs of the other Orthodox churches, but they are different organisations. I don't know them well, by any means. I'm reading about them on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_Orthodox_Churches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_Orthodox_Churches Apparently there are six Oriental Orthodox churches that are all "autocephalous" (i.e. they do their own thing). I think the Russians and Serbians are closer to the Greek church in custom. And btw, that's why I asked. The Orthodox Greek diaspora are probably the largest group of Orthodox Christians outside Russia, but I was just curious. Somehow I also find it curious that your parents were converts to an Orthodox church. I didn't think that happened. If I may pry, what were they converted from? I'm Greek, btw.
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    Yeah the jurisdictions are an unbelievable mess you virtually need a degree in history to understand. Downside of not being under a single bishop like the catholics. The oriental orthodox iirc reflect an even earlier schism than the one with rome, and aren't in communion with the eastern orthodox (despite those words meaning the same thing) which is the greek & russian churches mostly, plus a bunch of smaller slavic & balkan ones, plus some middle eastern churches. Within those bounds though it's different organizations but one communion eg I could receive eucharist at a greek church one week and be a godparent at a russian one the next without having to ask permission or even tell anyone. In the US there seem to be a lot of converts recently, it's a big ongoing... thing... in american orthodoxy. Most ethnic churches just serve their communities and that's that. But the OCA and antiochian archdiocese specifically try to welcome converts with some success. Orthodox is liturgically and theologically the closest thing to catholicism, so we catch a lot of people leaving that church bc of child sex abuse scandal, anger at the liberalism of the pope, or whatever. There are also a lot of ex-evangelicals but their reasons are incredibly varied in my conversations with them. Often they are extremely pious and it's part of a deep and sincere effort to connect with what they consider the true or original church founded by the apostles. Sometimes, less wholesomely, it's simply "trad" fetishism and our historical connections with slavic racial superiority movements and ethnonationalism. In cities with multiple orthodox churches there is usually an informal "convert parish" made up of at least half americans who converted as adults. My parents were devout southern baptists who left their church in disgust during the civil rights movement. Archbishop Iakovos famously marched with MLK, and I think became a sort of symbolic figure for white southern christian supporters of the civil rights movement. It's a much longer story than that but it was enough to get them to explore the greek church and eventually convert before I was born.

RadixDLT 4y ago

lol calling ottomans sophisticated and nuanced tell me you are very misguided and are influence by Turkish propaganda. Nonetheless, the ottomans were nothing more than what Russia is today, barbarians, who is always looking to control other civilizations that were more sophisticated. What you see in turkey today is the aftermath of raping and pillaging of south east Europe.