One thing is very interesting about (what I read of) his interpretation of what happened to the West: he does not blame it on some mysterious fatal flaw inherent in Western thought just by virtue of not being Eastern. Rather he pinpoints the misunderstandings of one theologian, a subsequent politically-driven campaign by a specific ruler, and a resulting heterodox school of thought foisted off on everyone who didn’t know better. He also says that pockets of orthodoxy have remained in Western Christianity and I don’t think he’s talking about Eastern Orthodox missions. I do think his ideas are very interesting and plausible. It would help if I had found in his articles the measured, even presentation I have come to associate with the most methodical historians. But I’m far from dismissing it. And the theology is magnificent, or at least what I understood of it is.

I’ve read most of Romanides and used him in some courses. My experience is that he often has very biting insight, but often paints the West with too broad a brush. I consider his own situation and understand. He had to defend his thesis in Greede because it disagreed with Thomas Acquinas (such was the Western Captivity of the Church). But I tend to take from him things that are useful and cut his criticisms by several factors. His positive statements might be the best way to take him and let God deal with the West. Don’t use him as fuel to chew on others.

I went and looked at some of that stuff. Romanide’s history is shocking and I don’t know what to do with it, but that theology does have the tang of Truth, doesn’t it? I’m also interested to hear what Fr. Stephen will say but as of now I’m glad to have read something that sets out theological distinctions so plainly and rigorously.

Lisa,

Thanks for your comments. I’m sure that what you are saying is true…but the difficulty for me is to conceive of God as the cause of something (me) that he is no longer able to cause without coercion. In other words, I had come up with an idea that God didn’t need to coerce me in order to ensure that I would do his will, because his sustaining grace was behind my very mind, will, heart, etc. Esp. after reading the article I just looked at, I really feel that I have no clue what I am talking about and that once I get some of my assumptions straightened out what you are saying will make a lot of sense. I’m dealing with a whole other reality than the one I had imagined.

The most helpful was revamping my understanding of the Fall itself - understanding the rift and break in relationship. And this has been over a period of years that I’ve had to refine my view of the Fall.

The marriage metaphor, with God as husband always willing and working to be reconciled and me as stubborn bride refusing His advances helped me to understand that “willing that all be saved” and “some might not be saved” doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing as when I was locked in the “drowning man” metaphor. Love is not coercive. The salvation as healing and synergy helped as well - Christ told the man to get up and walk - but what if the man didn’t attempt to get up?

Just my humble thoughts as a 7-year inquirer. Open to correction and additional explanation on all counts.

It all boils down to that: Are you experiencing a life of wholeness right now or not? If you don’t then you have got things wrong and you should either search for a different way within your own church, or search for a different way in another church.

I also sympathize. I’m so glad that my husband chose to walk this path with me. At first he was more interested than I but he casually brought it up whenever he ran across Orthodoxy in the news or in history or on the web. For over a year we talked candidly of our doubts and hopes. Sometimes he was more hopeful and I was more doubtful, and sometimes it was the other way around. Sometimes he found good sources, sometimes I called things to his attention. But on the same Sunday we walked into our present parish and said, “This is it; this is what we have been looking for.” I thank God it happened that way and pray for the same blessing for you all.

I cannot tell you to what extent the Reformers were wrong. As I mentioned it appears to me that they were addressing questions that were not necessary in the East, because they were dealing with a corruption, sometimes subtle and deeply rooted, that the East was not facing. And how we ask which questions with what assumptions does determine the answers we get.

However, that the Fathers cannot be ignored without the decay of religion resulting, history itself witnesses. “By their fruits you will know them.” I think the shift in my mind happened when I stopped trying to trace the Church backwards from where I was (such a method assumed a priori that I was in the Church) and tried instead to trace the Church forwards from the Beginning (if it had ever been anywhere, it was there.) That’s a very enlightening study; from that perspective, the Great Schism becomes definitive in answering these questions. But having married a history buff, I tend to see everything in those terms.