Aresenio,
The audio file is 75 minutes long...... As you know, FEW (if any) are going to passively listen to such an extremely long audio file. Could you summerize it in a post?
For years, I had a friend who is Greek and very Greek Orthodox (we met as undergrads). We had many discussions - personally and via the internet - and she was extremely helpful in gaining some understanding of a very different variety of Christianity, of the distinctions between East and West (although nearly everything you post contradicts what she said... and what my conversations with two EOC priests have said; I have no idea what to do with that). I don't agree with some things in the EOC (obviously, or I'd be Orthodox) but the form I learned from my friend and the two priests conveys MUCH that I admire (and I can understand why there are Lutherans who have "moved" that way).
When I first started listening to this talk, YOU were the first person who came to mind, besides the Latin Rite Catholic Church, who all have fits with the EOC, and see the "Greeks" as rebellious children in disobedience to the Pope. The beauty of this talk for the RCC is that it comes from a Melkite Priest out of the Papal Communion, and he very obviously has spent a great deal of time and thought on the differences between the Latin and Eastern "Rite" ways of understanding.
Aside from that, I learned some very important things about our Liturgy, which I did not know, regarding the significance of the sequencing of the parts of the Liturgy... And the meaning of the Church as the gathering of its members who each ARE the Church - The Assembly of the Faithful - Rather than the Latin understanding of it as the organization of Papal Authority acting for Christ...
In the Western Rite, the Priest CAN do the Mass alone...
In the Eastern Service, two or more must participate...
So that the Eastern is more Communal and the Western is more individual...
And indeed, the individual in the Eastern phronema is downplayed...
For we are persons, not individuals...
And as persons, we are united in the commonality that is Christ...
I found the talk compelling - Couldn't put it down...
Give it a few random moments...
They are fairly discreet...
Or give it ten minutes and see if you are not hooked...
It is long - I lost track of how long it is...
Forgive me...
Arsenios
