Pope Eugene IV who presided over the Council of Florence
I’m currently reading The History of the Council of Florence by Ivan Ostroumov. It’s the Greek Orthodox account of what happened at the Council of Florence in the 1400s. Four issues were discussed at this council between the Greek and Latin bishops. These are the papacy, the filioque, azymes, and purgatory. The last of these will be very important to this discussion.
In the last few days there has been a Jew named Joshua who has been commenting on some old posts. He then went off-topic and demanded that I say whether I agree with certain publications by Dr. E. Michael Jones. Although I had referenced Dr. Jones in passing, the post wasn’t about him. In addition to that he said:
On Thursday I had an interview with ex-Muslim turned Catholic Derya Little. There are a few reasons why I wanted to interview Little. The first was that I really enjoyed her book From Islam to Christ. I reviewed the book some time ago on this website.
In the last few years there has been a surge in the demand for female deacons(or deaconesses) and surprisingly not just in the Catholic Church. I’ve read articles about certain Eastern and Oriental Orthodox jurisdictions that are experimenting with it. Liberal Protestant movements have been doing this for a long time and it has yielded anything but positive results.
Some people may have heard the term Phyletism before. It’s a heresy that the Eastern Orthodox Church has had to deal with. While we Catholics typically don’t worry about it, we have a sort of pseudo-phyletism of our own. It’s not identical to what the EOC deals with but it might be just as dangerous in a different way.
The Holy Theotokos
After contrasting the views of Zechariah in Surah 19 and the Gospel of Luke, we will now discuss the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the Christian tradition, the Virgin Mary is given the title Theotokos which literally translates as God bearer. In Greece to this day the Virgin Mary is referred to as the Theotokos. Members of the Eastern Orthodox Church who speak English as a first language refer to the Virgin Mary as Theotokos. An Arab friend of mine who was raised in the Antiochian Orthodox Church told me that in the Arabic liturgy they transliterate the Greek word into the prayers. The Russian Church refers to her as Bogoroditsa and I assume the other slavic churches use that or something similar. I’m not sure if the Georgians have their own word or use Theotokos. Greek Catholics use the word, and I would imagine that at least some Oriental Orthodox do as well.
Zechariah and John The Baptist
In the Bible and the Quran, Zechariah is the father of John the Baptist. In Surah 19 we have the story of Luke 1 and it’s been radically changed. I don’t know the exact reason why the author of the Quran decided to make these changes but here are a few things that I noticed.
I listen to Andrew Klavan occasionally on his podcast. He’s part of Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire crew. He’s written many books but this book is about his faith journey from being a secular Jew who came to believe in Jesus Christ and is now an Evangelical.
Because my website is starting to get traction, I’m getting a lot of emails. One that I recently got was from a Canadian Catholic. I asked him if I could respond to the email in a post and he agreed so here is the email and my response.
Icon of St. Anne and the Blessed Virgin Mary
I had some dialogue with two people after my recent post on the second Council of Nicaea in 787 AD and the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. They both pointed out to me that this doesn’t refute the Eastern Orthodox position because they believe that the Virgin Mary was made spotless and Immaculate at the annunciation.