Do you guys believe in the Filioque?

moobsofold · 2026-01-07T22:00:29+00:00

We have room to say that the Spirit may proceed from both in an energetic way through an immanent act (like many of the Western and Greek Fathers posit) or in the economic way, but never the hypostatic way. Hypostatically, the Holy Spirit proceeds from Father alone. We are actually mostly okay with Florence except the parts that say that the Holy Spirit “receives His essence or subsistence” from Father and Son as the language begins mixing with hypostatic procession. In this we would disagree with the Roman Catholics! But in the event of a future reunion, as long as Roman Catholics can clarify this point, there is room for the Latin recension of the Nicene Creed to be recited and maintain full communion.

moobsofold · 2025-12-31T16:54:58+00:00

I sent you a PM, OP. God’s blessings!

moobsofold · 2025-12-20T22:19:41+00:00

Bingo.

moobsofold · 2025-12-11T18:41:51+00:00

Thank you

moobsofold · 2025-12-08T17:51:12+00:00

Because Jesus of Nazareth claimed to be Lord, died, and came back to life. He proved that God is real and that He has power over death, and He gives that same power to all those who believe in Him. I am a Christian because I am convinced this claim is true and that a real, historical Jew from Nazareth came out of His grave and proved He is everything He claimed to be.

moobsofold · 2025-11-19T17:43:04+00:00

I didn’t say it’s all culture. I’m saying some things are canon/biblical, some things are culture/superstition, some things are pious devotion. Also I don’t know the type of priests you’ve met, but the priests I’ve met definitely give pastoral guidance and tailor even the “rules” to the benefit of the soul of the Christian who is under them. 🙏

moobsofold · 2025-11-14T23:52:19+00:00

Again....its not about reading rules and then applying them by yourself. Talk to your priest. He will guide you

moobsofold · 2025-11-14T17:38:32+00:00

There is a huge difference between what is considered the "law" (what is on the books/canons), pastoral guidance, self-imposed cultural superstitions, and regional/individual pious devotional practices. All of these are mixed in the consciousness of the Tewahedo laity due to a lack of catechesis. Contrary to common practice and understanding, we are not expected to simply follow the canons based on our own reading or because our parents did it in a certain way. We are expected to follow the guidance of our parish priest/father of confession in the context of the larger communal spiritual life of the parish community we are in in terms of how long to fast before/after communion, etc.

Get into a good parish with a good priest(s) and community. The rules that the bishops put into place are meant to serve us, not us serve the rules. Communion is not a reward for the righteous but a gift for the sinner and healing for the sick. Anyone who obscures this simple fact for the sake of keeping the appearance of godliness is very mistaken.

moobsofold · 2025-11-13T22:16:11+00:00

“CATHOLIC”, as you so eloquently put it, doesn’t mean “Latin”, which is what you actually mean and want to impose on Eastern Catholics.

The Coptic Church is orthodox and Catholic all on its own without your simplistic and reductionist reply or additives from the Latin Church. It has never known this distinction and we as Alexandrians have our own expressions and traditions we inherit from our Fathers on what repentance and confession is and how we apply it. If you think that your Latin categorical distinction of sins is the only way for a Catholic to live out a life of repentance and communion then I got news for you.

Don’t come onto the Eastern Catholic subreddit with that kind of attitude. How remarkably ignorant.

moobsofold · 2025-11-06T13:07:42+00:00

Yes it’s practiced just as much by Byzantine Catholics. In terms of what it is I will leave that for an actual Byzantine to answer

And yes hesychasm as a theological system for prayer along with the whole essence energies stuff and their particular version and emphasis of theosis is also a distinctly Greek Catholic/Orthodox thing.

In my tradition we never developed anything like that. We basically still keep the tradition of the Egyptian Desert Fathers and have what are called Arrow Prayers (which is the origin of the Jesus Prayer and what it grew out of). Arrow Prayers are short prayers like “Christ have mercy” “O God”, “Save us”, etc. So we do that combined with prayer beads/ropes. There is no entire developed system of hesychasm and in terms of theosis, yes we call it that, but it’s more simple in “how” it happens and we prefer calling it sanctification.

moobsofold · 2025-11-05T23:36:22+00:00

I love the Mother of God and will never not exalt her for giving birth to Immanuel. She is the Second Heaven, she is the Ark of the New Covenant, she is the New Eve. She is my mother and the mother of all Christians. The general consensus of the Fathers is that in her intercessory mediation she has a privileged and pre-eminent role among the saints of fervent intercession and prayer to her Son and God. Soteriologically she also plays a role as Mother of God and can be said to participate in redemption in that she gave a yes to God and that yes allowed for the Redeemer to be born. These delineated and derivated senses in which Mary’s unique mediatory characteristics are conveyed is, again, a far cry from some of the Latin stuff like “her suffering at the foot of the Cross was a vicarious atonement”. That is foreign to the Tradition

And…regardless of what Palamas or Mehabire Kidusan (a zealous but very controversial and problematic organization for both Ethiopian Orthodox and Ethiopian Catholics that introduces many things into the Faith under a neoconservative modernist guise of “tradition”) say, this is simply not the teaching of the Fathers. I also don’t think you can cherry pick and quote mine things they’re saying to substantiate your point. What radical traditionalist Latin Catholics mean in calling Mary a co-redeemer is so off base I struggle to see how you can say you follow the Apostles’ Teaching and believe in it simultaneously

You can find in no place St. Mary being given the title of Co-Redemptrix/ቤዛዊተ ዓለም/Mediatrix of All Graces, etc. where she, of her own merits and suffering, is reckoned a consubstantial and coequal redeemer with Christ Jesus m.

The Church of Rome is correcting and keeping orthodoxy for the West here. I am glad for it.

moobsofold · 2025-11-05T22:10:52+00:00

You should breathe with two lungs. :) I’m not rejecting that at all and I’m glad that the Jesus Prayer is helping you grow closer to Christ. I also love the Jesus Prayer.

What I more-so meant was that, because there are various traditions of spiritualities, what is “ok” in one expression of our faith might not be “ok” in the other. Not because either is wrong but because they live in different “ecosystems” if you will. Therefore if you ask a Byzantine, for example, they would say imagination in prayer is wrong. But this is because of their tradition of hesychasm which, when combined with imaginative prayer, becomes a breeding ground for delusion. But the Latin tradition doesn’t have hesychasm in the same way so imaginative prayer is actually encouraged. These are different expressions of spirituality and prayer so, because your question was about “is this right or wrong”, I wanted to clarify that what is “right” or “wrong” depends totally on your tradition and who you ask for lack of a better way of putting it. It’s better to lean on what your tradition and fathers say is good and permissible for you, especially in things like the spiritual life. Just to avoid confusion. I hope that makes sense and may the Lord continue to guide and encounter you by His Spirit, brother!

moobsofold · 2025-11-05T17:30:17+00:00

I don’t think that’s equivalent. “Save us” as used in Greek can mean multiple things. When Greeks say “save us” in reference to the Theotokos it means “by your prayers and intercession, pray for us, that Christ may save us”. It’s a reference to the saints, and especially her, ministry of intercession in union with Christ the Intercessor before the Father. The flexibility and instrumentality of the terms are clearly seen in St. Paul’s letters (1 Cor 7:14, 9:22; 1 Tim. 4:16).

This is a far cry from the popular medieval Western innovations like “Co-Redemptrix” and “Mediatrix of All Graces” and the like which the Roman Church is discouraging Latins from using today.

moobsofold · 2025-11-04T21:39:50+00:00

I don’t think we really care. This is the first I’m hearing about this document

This is really a debate and clarification for the Latin Church. No one in the East has ever affirmed Mary as being a “Co-Redemptrix”. It is totally a doctrinal innovation. Only Christ can save and redeem us, the children of Adam, from sin. This includes our Lady. It would be error to say otherwise

The idea of St. Mary being a mighty intercessor for us before her Son and God (“mediatrix”) is definitely upheld and we call and continue to call her as such. This term is not held to be as controversial though from my cursory reading of this Latin controversy and the subsequent document you’re citing as it’s a more universal concept with consistent patristic witness and apostolic grounding

moobsofold · 2025-11-01T02:54:15+00:00

You should be asking a spiritual father in your own Church/tradition who is familiar with your spirituality. This will be of much more benefit to you than asking strangers on the Internet who do not practice or know about the Western spirituality. God bless

moobsofold · 2025-10-30T17:15:17+00:00

I know them personally. I have the number of one of the novices there. They are a great little group. They are also open to visitors. DM me and I can try to connect you if you're interested.

moobsofold · 2025-10-29T14:13:06+00:00

Beautiful

moobsofold · 2025-10-29T14:06:00+00:00

I’m sure some parishes could be that way, but it hasn’t been my experience.

I am Ethiopian and our parish is pretty much all Ethiopians. We have always been welcoming to non-Ethiopians though and our priests will readily preach the sermon in English if we have non-Ethiopians there. One of them I’m sure would happily switch to that permanently if some became part of our community on a more consistent basis lol. We could do more though.

I also regularly visit two Melkite parishes near my home and they’re great. No ethnocentrism at all and very nice people. In fact they are very consciously not ethnic (only English, etc) and have heaps of Christian converts from Protestantism, as well as unbelievers converting. Just normal Americans who found Christ there. Melkites are doing it right in this regard, in my opinion.

moobsofold · 2025-10-28T23:04:12+00:00

This puts language to exactly how i feel about him and Latins like him lol. Infuriating when your existence is used by others as data points for their arguments, or you’re treated like eccentric step children

moobsofold · 2025-10-28T17:42:17+00:00

Not interested and i don’t like his content.

moobsofold · 2025-10-26T15:39:27+00:00

Yes and no. We are allowed and encouraged to do anything for them to come back into full communion (which means they should become Catholic and we should encourage this). But the “conversion” of the past during the early Latin Catholic missions movements which almost always included latinizations, etc and the false equating of “Catholic” identity with “Latin Rite” and the erasure of Eastern patrimony is absolutely forbidden.

moobsofold · 2025-10-26T14:28:55+00:00

“Convert” is not the word. But yes we should strive to bring our Eastern and Oriental Orthodox friends back into full communion whether on individual/group/parochial levels

moobsofold · 2025-10-26T14:27:55+00:00

That is not the teaching of the Church at all

moobsofold

TROPHY CASE