Is the eastern orthodox in communion with the Roman Catholic Church?

Answer 1

No, the Eastern Orthodox Churches are NOT "in communion" with the Romn Catholic Church. As a matter of fact, according to the Holy Canons (the collection of "rules of order" for the Eastern Orthodox Churches, as fashioned in various Church Councils-Ecumenical as well as Local), a Patriarch, Metropolitan, Archishop, of Bishop, and of course any lower clergy and all layman, can be deposed (in the case of clergy) and excommunicated (clergy and laymen) for merely "praying with heretics." This means public prayer, and supposedly (by modern interpretation) when the clerrgy are "vested" for a church service. While it is true that the ideal is "that all may be one," the Eastern Orthodox Churches cannot "go into communion with" Roman Catholics, Oriental Orthodox, or Protestants on the basis of sentimentality or supposed "love." There are reasons of faith for which these organizations themselves departed from the True Church of Christ, and unitl they reject those errors of faith, they cannot again be united to the Holy Church.

In practice it is different of course, the most notable example being that of several Patriarchs of Constantinople who concelebrated the Mass with the current Pope at least once a year-the current Patriarch and Pope being no exception to this aberration. This situaition results from the adherence to the ecumenical movement by the Patriarchate of Constantinople; this has been the case since the term of Patriarch Meletios (Metaxakis) in the early 1920s. Meletios himself sdmitted in an interview that his entrance into the ecumenical movement was dictated by the suppsed "needs" of the Greek government, of which his relative, Venizelos, was head. The government of Greece under Venizelos was definitely not an "Orthodox" government, or even a government that favored the Orthodox Church. At that time, for some reason, the Greeks thought that if the Patriarch of Constantinople would "recognize Anglican orders," that is, agree Anglicans had true priests, real bishops, and were, basically, an Orthodox Church, then England would rush to Greece's aid in forcibly taking back from the Turks all the areas in Turkey where Greeks had lived and been forced out of. The Greeks-the Venizelos Govt., and the Patriarch did not realize that most Englishmen could care less if some Greek Patriarch "recognized Anglican orders," and certainly would not think it was worth shedding English blood! The reasoning behind adopting the New Calendar was the same-for Greekpolitical aspirations, thinking what the Patriarchate of Constantinople did to "get in line"with the heterodox "churches" would somehow impress the Western Powers to go "all out" for an extremely unpopular Greek Govt., that the Church in Greece did not even like. All that trouble within the Orthodox Churches for something Meletios Metaxakis did not even care about himself-just making the people who made him Patriarch of Constantinople-his relative Venizelos and supporters-happy.