How do Orthodox explain the papacy...

How do Orthodox explain the papacy? Why did God allow the church of Rome church to survive to this day and convert the world?

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When your argument could apply equally well to Mohammedanism, might want to rethink that argument.

Not Orthodox (yet), but
Why did God allow Muhammedism to survive to this day? Or Judaism?
The Western Church had the benefits of easy access to the New World and didn't have to deal with Islam as its next door neighbor.

Islam is very fragmented, the middle east is a bunch of Arab tribes/sects that have always been fighting among themselves.

Do you think this was just a coincidence?

Catholic nations have fought amongst themselves for its whole history. Does that mean that Catholicism is "fragmented"? Political feuds don't mean that a religion is fragmented. Considering that the overwhelming majority of Muslims are mainline Sunni, I would say that Islam is probably one of the least fragmented religions. Doesn't make it the true faith.

Arabs have been far more fragmented historically, they've always been little desert tribes fighting each other constantly. They're not a monolithic religion, they're worse than even prods

Why did God allow the church of Rome church to survive to this day?
Catholicism today is not the same as catholicism 100 years ago is not the same as catholicism 1000 years ago.

It seems to me as if the Catholic church chose worldly power over Christ. And now it's coming back to bite them.

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Was my point not clear? Political disunity =\= religous disunity.

The same reason Ulfilas managed to convert the germans, while the Imperial Church was getting boxed in, or why the Spanish Armada got crushed, allowing anglicans to flourish.
His reasons alone.

What is this, Providential Germs, Guns and Steel?

I don't necessarily agree, what do you think changed regarding the gospel? It's still the same path of repentance that was given to us by Christ.

Politics aren't wholly separated from religion

No, they aren't. What's your point?

Your point is lacking.
The Mid East has more religious war than any part in the world right and ever since big M died centuries ago.
Political discourse is a ploy by polititians for their own agenda. I'd bet a very large portions of their grunts at the lowest levels see religion as a prime motivator for violence, that is exclusive for Islam.
As for Catholic nations fighting among themselves, that hasn't happened in ages. Even the last 2 world wars were in no way a religious battlefield.
In all honesty, you take the conversation somewhere it doesn't have to be and don't add anything to it.

...

The spanish built a second armada that decimated the english fleet though.

Protestantism never converted the world, they aren't even a unified church, the only people who still take it seriously are American's, the rest of the protestant world are thoroughly atheistic and replaced religion with liberalism.

the same thing could be said about Catholics and how they enable faggets and pedophiles around the world.

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Honestly, even though I'm not Orthodox, I would rejoice to see them step up their game in mission work (now that Communism took a backseat for awhile). I said in the other mission thread that Catholics should be admired for their all-encompassing missionary methods (which included infrastructure like schools and hospitals). But it isn't that I don't want the Orthodox to do that. The more, the merrier.

Have you looked up for religious statistics in LatAm? Its going to fascinate you.

You mean like it was Predestined?

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Because without free will, we would just be clever beasts.


For whatever it's worth, the new world is rapidly shifting toward prautism.


"I against my brother, my brother and I against our cousin, my brother and cousin and I against the world." -Arabs


A: "Decimated" means little between opposing sides, as a 10% loss in battle is the making of a sound victory. "Devastated" would be a better term if you're trying to express massive damage.
B: And Spain fell from the heights of power among nations in the long term. The combined Spanish&French attempt to overrun England was conclusively destroyed in the battle of Trafalgar, and another chance to convert England back to Roman Catholicism the same way it left still has yet to arrive.


Orthodox evangelism is largely a struggle against communism. All of the dirty tricks being pulled by communists in USA/EU today were practiced generations ago in the east.


The statistics on this topic are worthless. Traditionally South America was identify-as-Catholic, while typically practicing the same things their ancestors practiced before Columbus' voyage. Pseudo-religious megachurches capitalize on this to spread outside of USA and when the battle is finally won by either side it will still probably resemble the days before Columbus.

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"Behold, thou art with child and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because the Lord hath heard thy affliction. And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren." -The Messenger of the Lord

This again. It's as if all the "orthodox" on this board get their ecclesiologocal opinions from sparknotes of the brothers karamozov

Protestantism also had access to the New World, the most powerful country in the world is majority protestant, and most of the catholic countries in South America are poor, crime riddled, corrupt, and backwards in every way.
Is that a coincidence?

What's wrong about it? Desacralizing the Latin Liturgy to make it more palatable to outsiders is a great sign of that. Like what happened with the Uniates, the papacy will happily throw their rites under the bus for power. Most catholics I've met on this board would agree with that it has done that, specially with the new mass.

I would not be so confident in setting the US as an exemplary protestant country. huge self own. Also, protestantism is the majority in the poor, crime riddle countries in most of SS Africa, and will soon be majority in central america and the caribbean.


the Mahomedans got as far north as Tours and Vienna, never mind ruling Sicily and Spain for hundreds of years. The difference is the West managed to fight them off

I didn't say it was exemplary, just that it was protestant.
How many of those south american countries are exemplary catholic countries?

Kinda.
Some of the catholic campaigns against them within Europe were a disaster, they were a plague upon catholic countries for centuries and North Africa was still never recovered, and their pirates would enslave millions of euro catholics for half a millenia(which dutch and anglos also interpreted as evidence of God's wrath upon the papist idolaters), until America, of all countries, finished them off.

This type of stuff is why i hate applying narratives into history.
It always distorts and selectively picks the facts, to make some stupid hero narrative:
etc.

I'm sure you can find plenty of holes in all these stories, and that's the point.

Your argument is completely bunk. What is accentuated in Catholicism is the communion in the Body of Christ. You can have as much political disunity as you want in Catholicism. This is lacking in every other religion.

Israel is not a Protestant nation you dip

Israel is also NOT the most powerful nation in the world. that title belongs to the Philippines, home of the most powerful race in the world
duh