𝙷𝚒𝚌𝚔𝚖𝚊𝚗@shagbark_hick
I can't understand why the EO's make a big joke about the "which Orthodox Church?" question.
If you ask 5 GOARCH Priests if ROCOR can receive Communion at their Churches, and 5 ROCOR Priests whether GOARCH can receive at their Churches, you will get ten different answers.
If that's the one, singular, unified "Church," I'm confused.
Is the sole basis of unity opposing the Bishop of Rome and doing the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom (or Divine Liturgy of St Basil)?
Can "unity" mean "we may disagree on something as fundamental as divorce, and we cannot receive Communion at each others' Churches?" Is just doing the same Liturgy enough?
Of course even with the Liturgy, the Russians have added some things to their Liturgy, the Greeks have shortened theirs, and many of the Churches disagree on which calendar to use. At times, they seem to squabble even about this. The unity they have even there is tenuous.
So the sole unifier within Eastern Orthodoxy appears to be "opposing the Bishop of Rome." Which even many early Church fathers, such as St Irenaeus of Lyons, explicitly disagreed with.
From this, are we to understand that the unifying element of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church consists of assenting to anti-Roman arguments that developed many centuries later? But if that development came later, why do so many EO oppose Rome because we've done "development of doctrine?" Why oppose development of doctrine in our case, but not in your own?
It seems to me that understanding this very strange form of "unity" requires almost limitless degrees of intensive study, or it requires more or less not caring about the question.
And if you ask these questions to the EO types online, they are far more likely to call you a retard than they are to offer a serious, helpful answer. They consider you hopelessly stupid for even asking. Offline, I find the vast majority of converts haven't really thought these kinds of questions through -- they mostly came for the aesthetics and the (very!) friendly parishioners.
Exhaustion with both the vagueness and the cagey attitude of many apologists was a large contributor to my leaving the EO catechumenate and returning to Rome.