I don't believe, that there is the danger of uniting the Orthodox with Roman Catholic and Protestant Church. I feel sure that no one envolved in the Ecumenical Dialog has this in mind. That will not happen. True union can only be if the other churches and christian communities deny their errors and come back to the fullness of the orthodox faith.
Sofia, I, too, believe, that only the Orthodox Church has this fullness of faith. The eldress of a greek monastery we viseted some time ago (herself a german and raised as protestant), said: \"Here (in the Orthodoxy) I found the christian main values in a much more intensified form. All the others are like diluted wine.\" (Weil ich hier die christlichen Grundwerte in viel intensiverer Form gefunden habe. Alles andere ist wie verdunnter Wein.\")
I think, if we speak about the difference between the orthodox and the other christian believers, then we don't have to speak about true and false, but about all this, what the others are lacking in their faith. A devout rom.catholic and even a devout protestant may well go to heaven, but they miss so much. Sometimes I think, that in countries where are hardly orthodox christians and where they have hardly the chance to get to know the orthodox faith, that there the romcath. and the protestant church are a kind of place-keeper (I don't know how to say it better in english). Were there not the protestant church in Germany in wich I was baptized and raised, I hadn't had the chance to meet God and the christian faith. There I made my first steps in the christian faith and God became my hope and the one I longed for. Sure, I also learned false things and I had to be able to do without so much of the fullness of the faith. But, being a christian and a faithful, began then and there, not only when I converted to Orthodoxy.
I think, it makes a big difference whether someone breaks with the Orthodox faith willingly and so becomes a schismatic or whether someone has grwon up in a church that almost 1000 years ago cut off, and he today knows no better.
In this sense I would consider a romcath or protestant christian my brother or sister in Christ, who is not at all damned to hell by God, not one, who has the false faith but has not yet recogniszed the fullness of the faith.
Can you agree with this?
Jannis
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