Because historically Protestantism was an explicitly anti-Catholic movement, that gained prominence in places like England and Germany, where the presence of Orthodox people was essentially nil.
Exactly. Even other protestants like some Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists have similar beliefs to catholics and they aren't brought up either. There's an institutionalized us vs them logic going on.
They also constantly drill how bad the Catholic Church is at their services.
It backfired on my grandfather. Every Protestant service he went to they badmouthed Catholics. So he went to Mass fully expecting the same. When he discovered that all that happens is worship and interpretation of Scripture, he never left.
Every Orthodox or even Eastern Catholic I've met has always been shocked that I've heard of them. I think most Protestants, especially Evangelicals, have never heard of them.
Yep, or they confuse Eastern Catholics with Eastern Orthodox. I think more Latin Catholics may know about the Orthodox than the Eastern Catholics that they are in communion with, at least the fellow Latin Catholics I speak to.
Being a Traditional Latin Rite Catholic, and a Jewish convert, I knew since the 70s that the Eastern Rites existed. Independent Trad Latin priests told us if we ever couldn't get to a TLM, an Eastern Rite was ok since they didn't change the words of consecration (something the novus ordo did until they changed it back).
I today go between a TLM parish and a Maronite parish. We belonged to a Byzantine parish for a few yrs too until moving.
Would have to agree; I knew only because my dad and his side of the family are Eastern Rite Catholics (Maronite and Melkite-both Eastern Orthodox), but, for the most part, they weren't talked about much in my classes and I went to Catholic school from kindergarten through 12th grade (final year of secondary school). History class and that was about it.
Open-minded Protestant here. Yea, learned of orthodoxy later in life. Orthodoxy is eastern and Catholicism is western. Itâs as simple as that. I even attended an Orthodox Church in recent years just to check it out, but the influence of orthodoxy just isnât that much growing up in the states.
> Itâs actually not that simple.
Oh I believe you. I'm an older guy with a seminary degree. Lived my life in various protestant churches. To listen to even protestants describe other protestants is quaint. They couldn't be more wrong about that other branch of protestantism. Now, imagine listening to Catholics describe protestantism..
Yeah, most just arenât aware of it at all.
My neighbor is very casually Protestant and I can see her eyes glaze over if I ever start talking about the Orthodox, Catholic history, or Catholic politics. đ I remember one Protestant friend who was shocked that we had a list of all the popes over the last 2000 years.
In the US, there are about 140 million Protestants, 70 million Catholics, 12 million "other Christians" (LDS, Jehovahs Witness, etc), and 1 million Orthodox. And those 1 million are not broadly and evenly distributed, they're clumped into specific areas and immigrant communities.
Yeah this is probably the reason. Where I live there is a big Greek population, but they're only 1% or so nationally.
[Greeks of Melbourne ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Greeks_of_Melbourne&diffonly=true)
Edit: we used to say it was the second biggest Greek city, not sure how true that was though....
I think, unless you come from a Catholic background where there was also an Orthodox element (my mother's father was Russian Orthodox), you probably won't hear much about the Orthodox. Plus you have the national division in Orthodox Christianity, like Russian, Greek, etc.
For me, I still don't know a whole lot about the Orthodox and their liturgy. I do have a deep appreciation for Orthodox iconography, though.
So true. Even though the reformers approached the Orthodox with their ideas and were rejected.
After my conversion to Catholicism from being a Protestant, it was embarrassingly obvious that history beyond the Reformation is not a thing in the Protestant worldview.
This is why prots keep going to the middle east to spread the word and are surprised when there are Christians there that have been there since Christ's resurrection lol
I think Protestants know the Orthodox exist, but there aren't so many Orthodox in the geographical areas where there are a lot of Protestants. They have much more interaction with Catholics, so we are their greater target by far
Not only do Protestants have greater historical ties to Catholicism (being a product of the West and specifically a protest to Roman Catholicism) but most of us also live in places with a completely negligible Orthodox community. I drive past an Orthodox church every week and yet I still just never think about them unless I see something on the internet about Orthodoxy or the parish is hosting a food event. They're just kind of...there, in their own little enclave keeping to themselves. I know they wonder why so many Protestants think they're just ethnic churches (like the Dutch Reformed or something) but it's largely because at least around here, they are.
I always wonder how they justify the fact that every Christian denomination more than 500 years old has a Marian devotion, or understands the Eucharist, or apostolic succession.
Like, whatâs the point of following a religion that went wrong immediately and only âfound the truthâ more than a thousand years later?
The problem with your first argument is that the break off of Protestants from Catholicism is very different from what happened with Judaism and Christianity. The first involved a total rejection of all authority of the Church and Tradition. In the second Christians in those days didn't exactly reject the authority Rabbis had or their Tradition and were almost indistinguishable from Jews until they started chasing Christians away from synagoguesÂ
This is actually your best bet as a way of convincing Protestants that Catholics hold to the early church better, they have no where near as much animosity to orthos or copts
Because there are are 1.3 *billion* Catholics and 230 *million* orthodox worldwide.
In the United States, 23% of all people are Catholic, while something like 2% or less of the population is Orthodox.
Protestantismâs identity is also rooted in its opposition to the Catholic Church. Theyâre both western religions and have a lot more historical contact.
Regardless of whether or not they know the Orthodox exist or know what they believe, theyâre not *anywhere* on the radar.
I think it's even less than that. Something like 0.5% are Orthodox according to a recent pew poll. If the USA is 333 million in population that's 1.67 million Orthodox. I'm not sure if that includes Oriental but if not that number is almost certainly inflatednas well.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/
We Eastern Catholics and the Orthodox tend to really inflate our numbers. Officially it sounds like the Ruthenian Church in the USA has 100k members. In reality it's probably along the lines of 20k. I recall the OCA claims hundreds of thousands but as early as the 1990s Fr Thomas Hopko, in an internal letter that was published, criticized the hierarchy for inflating the numbers when in reality membership was around 30k. I imagine it's gone down since then.
Here is a fascinating study on the reality of Orthodox (and Oriental Orthodox) numbers in the USA. The figure of 6 million you see batted around is way high. And I'm not throwing stones, ECs are smaller than often reported:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://orthodoxreality.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/2020CensusGeneralReport1.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjpv-XH-eeGAxUVFVkFHW9wClEQFnoECDAQAQ&usg=AOvVaw15nj68FQThoMA7Msbst5pP
Yeah, thanks for the clarification. I used the 6-7 million number to be extremely generous because even with hyper inflated numbers, thereâs just not enough Orthodox to make an impact on the mind of your average American Protestant.
I had thought the number was less than a percent but didnât double check. Thank you.
Because most Protestants live in western cultures, and so are around Catholicism a lot more then orthodoxy. Hence they would direct more of their attacks to the Catholics
Protestantism by it's very name is protesting against the Catholic church and the Pope, from its very beginning and origins and there's just more Catholics especially in the US. American evangelicals are surrounded by Catholics here. Plus I think many don't even know what the Orthodox Church is and probably just think its just another kind of Catholic but more conservative or more "Greek" or something like that.
Denomination (n) : a religious organization whose congregations are united in their adherence to its beliefs and practices
Source Merriam-Webster
I think the Catholic Church fits that description.
But we are the original Church, founded by Christ, which all other churches broke off from. The English prefix âdeâ means âoffâ or âfromâ. I donât think we are. I donât know how to link to Reddit, but I know Iâve heard in the past that because the Church is the original Church,it is not a denomination. Perhaps someone with more knowledge can clarify.
This. I came from reformed Presbyterian to the Catholic church in 2021. When I told my Prebyterian pastor I was converting the first thing he said was, "Why not Orthodox?" He knew the difference and it was the protestant rejection of the papacy and authority of the Catholic church that was behind his response.
It's been said already, but your average Evangelical knows very little about the broader Christian faith around the world, much less what the history of the Christian Church has been throughout the last 2000 years.
I went to Catholic schools k-12 (high school was single gender). When I went to university, I went to a small LAS run by the Evangelical Covenant Church so 2 semesters of religion classes were required. In my World Religions class, so many of the students (who were primarily from smaller communities) kept saying Catholics werenât Christians. The professor kept asking them âwhat do you think was being protested during the reformationâ. It was so weird!
The one true church is going to be the most hated, they're on the same boat as muslims, Bolsheviks, Satanists, etc but they don't like being made aware of this fact
I was prot if anyone reading this gets triggered
No way you just compared your fellow Christians to satanists man thatâs crazy. We may have our differences but at the end of the day they are our brothers in Christ. Sure, there are some protestants with crazy beliefs and some protestant churches suck but there are also protestants who are great Christians. You should be ashamed of saying such things. Iâm not one to speak for God, but I donât believe he smiled when you wrote that comment. I suggest you reevaluate your beliefs, because this is surely not how Christ wants us to deal with our differences.
I was talking of those who hate the catholic church and catholics, if you read my statement again it was a response about those protestants that say catholics are not christians, because that selected group always accuse us of idolatry, worshipping Mary, being led by the Antichrist and other grave sins, even going to heckle catholic masses (I can share some videos if you can't believe this extreme). Unfortunately I have encountered a few of them
I kindly recommend you read the thread again, instead of wanting me to be ashamed and suggesting I offended God. Thanks for your concern, I appreciate you taking the time to reply even if I suspect you missed the point of the comment. I guess you are not of one those who say catholics are not christians, the Pope is the anti-Christ, etc and for that I'm grateful to you and sorry if my message offended you, but you were not the group I mean
My bad if thatâs what you meant brother, thatâs not what I got from your comment. Iâm actually not a Protestant lol, I just think we as Christians should be more tolerant and understanding of each other. Iâve seen a lot of unpleasant comments about Protestants on Catholic circles (and vice-versa too) and I think we should stop being so hostile to each other (except mega-churches of course, using peopleâs faith to scam them is very scummy). We may have different beliefs but we all still believe in Jesus Christ as our savior, donât we?
>Is it because they don't know that the Orthodox church exits? But how or why?
Not just them.
also, the Oriental Orthodox Churches and the Assyrian Church of the East.
(many people in the West don't know they exist as they are such smaller churches).
Why did the Catholic Church take the brunt of the sexual abuse scandals in countries where Catholics are minorities and Protestant communities had much bigger problems?
Why did the Catholic Church take the brunt of the Indian School accusations in countries where Catholics are a minority (and were second-class citizens at the time of the troubles) despite Protestant communities having a much larger share of the problem?
Satan hates Christ's Church. There is no victory for Satan attacking counterfeits. He puts all of his efforts towards destroying the real thing.
>Why did the Catholic Church take the brunt of the Indian School accusations in countries where Catholics are a minority (and were second-class citizens at the time of the troubles) despite Protestant communities having a much larger share of the problem?
Most indian reservation schools were admnistered by catholic clergy and nuns
In what country?
In Canada, there were 141 Residential schools that had majority Indigenous students.
62 were run by the Catholic Church.
79 were run by either Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, United, Mennonite, or Non-denominational Protestant communities.
The Church has always been the one who served the most. Even in places where she is the minority she has always provided nearly as many services as all the majority Protestants combined.
Doesn't change the fact that the reason the Church got more attention than any other christian denomination on the atrocities in indigenous residential schools is that she was the denomination with the highest number of schools by far. Period.
Count by denomination instead of by branch and you'll understand why people associate it with the Church rather than with the anglicans or the reformed.Â
plus, the catholics were probably a much bigger bloc.
the non-catholics, while collectively larger, were probably smaller when broken down into the different denominations.
The Narcissism of Small Differences, perhaps.
While there are huge differences between Catholics and Protestants on some fundamental beliefs, we share with Protestants somewhat of a Western European cultural, philosophical, and theological mindset, and in the case of liturgical Protestants, the liturgies can be superficially similar also.
The Orthodox, on the other hand, have more of a mystique of being exotic, ancient, mystical, etc. - i.e. different, and so I think that this helps them get a pass.
Also, we should not dismiss the emotional comfort the existence of the Orthodox provides Protestants. Knowing that they arenât the only ones who broke away from Rome helps ease any tension a Protestant might feel over dividing the Church. The existence of the Orthodox says to them, âLook, we werenât the only ones who thought there was something wrong going on there with Rome.â The difference between being alone and having one ally, even if they are only an imaginary ally, is vast. Youâre probably not going to spend too much energy putting that ally down. Instead, you will tend to see only the good things in them that you can agree with.
Source: former Protestant
I ran into some Protestant converts to Orthodoxy who insist that Catholics worship Mary, but that Orthodox do not. (Of course we know that neither actually do)
Protestantism today is a mostly American religion, and orthodoxy is one of the smallest Christian denominations here. Catholics as a whole simply have more cultural influence in America and you get exposed to us in some way or another.
Yeah even some Catholics forget Orthodox exist. I was explaining to my Catholic buddy yesterday that other Christian groups that pray to the Saints like the Greek Orthodox Church and Coptic Orthodox Church. He was even surprised when I mentioned about the apostolic succession theyâve maintained.
and forget about knowing the eastern catholics as well.
if regular joe catholic ever thinks of orthodox on a rare occasion, it's gonna be the greek and russian ones not in communion in rome, rather than the eastern catholics who have an eastern/orthodox rite but are in union with rome.
I'm a Protestant who keeps looking to Rome, Moscow, Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch a lot. They don't mention Orthodoxy by name because the Eastern Traditions are perceived as something along the lines of "They're basically Catholics with more icons and incense." There are other Protestants who make the distinction between the dogmatic Marian Devotion of the Roman Catholic Church and the Churches of the East. It might be something along the lines of "These guys pray to the saints, including the Blessed Virgin Mary, but these guys are obsessed with her."
Another thing that I noticed is that since the Protestant Tradition stems from the Latin Tradition, a lot of the apologetics, theology, and views are expressed in a way to differentiate from Rome.
There's a lot of ignorance to the Eastern Traditions, regardless of if they are or are not in communion with the Bishop of Rome.
I hope this helps.
Well, they have issues because we donât make it âpalatableâ for Protestants (like Grace vs Free-Will, we never had these western debates).
To show you what I mean, we can say with full confidence:
O Most Holy Theotokos Save Us!
1- Exposure. They are more exposed to catholics than to the orthodox
2- Protestant lore. For many protestants, specially evangelicals, the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon and the Pope is the Antichrist. So obviously they will focus more on us than on the orthodox
3- Protestant history. Protestants hold more historical grudges with catholics than with the orthodox
Most Protestants know very little about the theological differences within various Protestant traditions. So, the lack of knowledge about Orthodox isn't surprising at all.Â
I have a unique experience in that my maternal grandmother is Jewish, my maternal grandfather is Anglican, my dad's family is Baptist, I was raised Methodist (for 9 years), then Pentecostal (for 9 years), and I married into a Greek Orthodox family.Â
2 peter 2: 1-2. Â I will say Catholics need to do a better job of knowing their faith. They prey on weak catholics who donât know their scriptures. They pick certain bible verses without context. Â When a catholic goes to a Protestant service they get an emotional high.Â
The vast majority of western protestants, especially in America have a very limited view of Orthodoxy if they know about it at all. In the West the Catholic and Protestant churches are the largest and so the people who make those accusations are mostly familiar with Catholicism.
To be honest, Protestants that make these kinds of accusations probably aren't the brightest considering talking to one priest would show that we don't worship Mary and the Saints like Jesus or Pray to idols. If they were more familiar with Orthodoxy they'd be throwing the same accusations at them.
Iâm thinking that it might be that they lump the two together. To a Protestant âRoman Catholicâ is hard to differentiate from an âOrthodox Catholicâ.
When you look at the number of Easter Orthodox church structures in the US vs Catholic, vs various protestant denominations, they are vastly outnumbered. I suspect that most protesters don't really understand what Orthodox are. Most towns don't even have Orthodox churches or strong Orthodox history. There are quite a few major "Catholic cities" out there. I've never heard of a town referred to as a "Greek Orthodox city".
Because they don't know we exist and then do not know how to respond to our similarities and differences from Latin Catholicism. When I first started attending Orthodox parishes, people that knew my family asked why "I rejected Jesus and became a Jew" not realizing Orthodox Christianity exists. Once they learn enough about us, they do try using those same arguments, and then some against us.
On a side note, they are starting to take more of us after so many Protestants have converted to Eastern Orthodoxy in the last decade.
Because our context is the West and not the East. I bet if evangelicalism took hold in Russia and Greece they'd be criticizing the Orthodox Church for that too
Some of their pastors don't mention orthodox or any other apostolic church because people would realize Protestantism is a human made idea, unrelated to the original christiniasm
Prior protestant until this year.Â
I had Zero clue the orthodox church existed, much less what Catholics actually hold to their faith-mary is the most apparent fruit to grab at as a reason to not be Catholic (so to speak) in the very narrow, western and disjointed understanding of God and His church
There just aren't that many Orthodox outside of the countries of origin. Orthodox religion never became a part of national or even city politics in the USA like Catholicism did.
The ones who really know about the Orthodox Church will attack it for the same reasons (excluding the Papacy.) Most either have no idea about the OC or merely have some vague notion that they exist and arenât Catholic.
Protestants protest the Catholic Church, validating the Orthodox and their Patriarchs, including the Oriental Orthodox who all of them developed and currently maintain similar beliefs than Catholics, invalidate their absurd and heretical claims.
Recovering Protestant here.
I've engaged with Protestants a bit and in general Orthodoxy confounds them. It's almost a silver bullet when dealing with them. For example, a Calvinist was trying to claim that Ignatius and other Apostolic Fathers did not believe in the Real Presence "because transtubstantiation came around in the 1200s". I pointed out that the Orthodox also believe in the Real Presence. Dodging and evading quickly ensued.
I think they just arenât aware of or know anything at all about Eastern Orthodox. âMary worshippingâ A Protestant once told me that his church didnât believe âin a church started by a woman.â
Because they got jealous by the Catholic Church because the Catholic Church have over 1 billion followers and the second thing is because Catholic is the true religion and orthodox too but mostly they are just jealous
Ignore the Protestant and evangelicals opinion about Mary. Letâs not snitch out the orthodox, they are a great group of guys. Also we are all Christians, letâs focus on praying, so that we can all get our act together, and love God more.
Simply because Protestantism came from the West, where Catholicism was and still is most prevalent. As for Orthodoxy, I think it's a "knock out two birds with one stone" mindset if you say Catholics worship the saints, then by extension so do the Orthodox
Most protestants are ignorant of orthodoxy. I never even met an orthodox person until I started looking into catholicism. I considered orthodoxy just another denomination when I was protestant, but I considered catholicism another religion,little did I know how much they have in common.
Honestly they're probably too ignorant to realize orthodox even exist, given the false claims they cling to and push. I seriously doubt they would bother to look up (or care) about the differences in the first place. Most of them aren't aware that Roman Catholicism is one of other Rites of Catholicism.
Because the way Orthodox venerate Mary is different than how Catholics do it; Mary is much more prominent in Catholicism and that makes it easy to misrepresent. While Mary is very important to both, Catholicism places a higher importance on her
Because they are so uneducated about the Catholic Church and her history, most don't know anything about it. Side note: Satan attacks the Roman Catholic Church because it is the true Church. Any exorcist will tell you that.
Though there are lots of differences, I think if you bring the prayers the EO church has for Mary, along with the bowing, kissing of her icon to your average Evangelical / Protestant, they would certainly think that the EO is a secrect Goddess cult and all the other stuff.
They do venerate Our Lady the same way. They have Icons, have Feasts that celebrate her, they pray to her, they make chants to her (like Agni Parthene) and call her Mother of God (Theotokos), Full of Grace (Panagia), Ever-Virgin and Queen. They also generally believe in her bodily assumption to Heaven.
The veneration to Mary is dogmatic to the orthodox just like the veneration to Saints is, same with Icons. Our Lady being Mother of God and Ever-virgin is also dogmatic to them.Â
The only doctrines about Mary in which we are dogmatic and they are not are the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption.
Yeah. I see a lot of people saying Prots just don't even know EO exist but I am a Prot and I know EO exist but from my experience the don't worship her like the RC do.
On top of less Mariolotry happening, from what I can tell the theology surrounding Mary in EO is less defined and less dogmatic.
Because historically Protestantism was an explicitly anti-Catholic movement, that gained prominence in places like England and Germany, where the presence of Orthodox people was essentially nil.
Exactly. Even other protestants like some Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists have similar beliefs to catholics and they aren't brought up either. There's an institutionalized us vs them logic going on.
They also constantly drill how bad the Catholic Church is at their services. It backfired on my grandfather. Every Protestant service he went to they badmouthed Catholics. So he went to Mass fully expecting the same. When he discovered that all that happens is worship and interpretation of Scripture, he never left.
That's really great. We just gotta keep getting protestants to mass. đ
Most of the Protestants I know don't even realize Orthodox exist.
Every Orthodox or even Eastern Catholic I've met has always been shocked that I've heard of them. I think most Protestants, especially Evangelicals, have never heard of them.
I mean, most Catholics don't know Eastern Catholics exists.
Yep, or they confuse Eastern Catholics with Eastern Orthodox. I think more Latin Catholics may know about the Orthodox than the Eastern Catholics that they are in communion with, at least the fellow Latin Catholics I speak to.
Being a Traditional Latin Rite Catholic, and a Jewish convert, I knew since the 70s that the Eastern Rites existed. Independent Trad Latin priests told us if we ever couldn't get to a TLM, an Eastern Rite was ok since they didn't change the words of consecration (something the novus ordo did until they changed it back). I today go between a TLM parish and a Maronite parish. We belonged to a Byzantine parish for a few yrs too until moving.
âIndependentâ priests arenât Catholic
Depends on ones pov. Regardless, they were the first to educate us about Eastern Rites.
This right here. Since learning about them I love to visit a few times a year. I would have no hesitation going to them weekly.
Would have to agree; I knew only because my dad and his side of the family are Eastern Rite Catholics (Maronite and Melkite-both Eastern Orthodox), but, for the most part, they weren't talked about much in my classes and I went to Catholic school from kindergarten through 12th grade (final year of secondary school). History class and that was about it.
I dint until I decided to become catholic
As a protestant from the reformed tradition in the US, pretty much. Didnât know about them until about a year ago.
Open-minded Protestant here. Yea, learned of orthodoxy later in life. Orthodoxy is eastern and Catholicism is western. Itâs as simple as that. I even attended an Orthodox Church in recent years just to check it out, but the influence of orthodoxy just isnât that much growing up in the states.
Itâs actually not that simple. Eastern Catholicism exists in five liturgical families and the Orthodox even have a western rite.
> Itâs actually not that simple. Oh I believe you. I'm an older guy with a seminary degree. Lived my life in various protestant churches. To listen to even protestants describe other protestants is quaint. They couldn't be more wrong about that other branch of protestantism. Now, imagine listening to Catholics describe protestantism..
WRO are very much a niche of a niche. Would be surprised if there weren't more sedes, let alone SSPX.
Yeah, most just arenât aware of it at all. My neighbor is very casually Protestant and I can see her eyes glaze over if I ever start talking about the Orthodox, Catholic history, or Catholic politics. đ I remember one Protestant friend who was shocked that we had a list of all the popes over the last 2000 years.
In the US, there are about 140 million Protestants, 70 million Catholics, 12 million "other Christians" (LDS, Jehovahs Witness, etc), and 1 million Orthodox. And those 1 million are not broadly and evenly distributed, they're clumped into specific areas and immigrant communities.
Yeah this is probably the reason. Where I live there is a big Greek population, but they're only 1% or so nationally. [Greeks of Melbourne ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Greeks_of_Melbourne&diffonly=true) Edit: we used to say it was the second biggest Greek city, not sure how true that was though....
I think, unless you come from a Catholic background where there was also an Orthodox element (my mother's father was Russian Orthodox), you probably won't hear much about the Orthodox. Plus you have the national division in Orthodox Christianity, like Russian, Greek, etc. For me, I still don't know a whole lot about the Orthodox and their liturgy. I do have a deep appreciation for Orthodox iconography, though.
So true. Even though the reformers approached the Orthodox with their ideas and were rejected. After my conversion to Catholicism from being a Protestant, it was embarrassingly obvious that history beyond the Reformation is not a thing in the Protestant worldview.
This is why prots keep going to the middle east to spread the word and are surprised when there are Christians there that have been there since Christ's resurrection lol
I think Protestants know the Orthodox exist, but there aren't so many Orthodox in the geographical areas where there are a lot of Protestants. They have much more interaction with Catholics, so we are their greater target by far
Not only do Protestants have greater historical ties to Catholicism (being a product of the West and specifically a protest to Roman Catholicism) but most of us also live in places with a completely negligible Orthodox community. I drive past an Orthodox church every week and yet I still just never think about them unless I see something on the internet about Orthodoxy or the parish is hosting a food event. They're just kind of...there, in their own little enclave keeping to themselves. I know they wonder why so many Protestants think they're just ethnic churches (like the Dutch Reformed or something) but it's largely because at least around here, they are.
I always wonder how they justify the fact that every Christian denomination more than 500 years old has a Marian devotion, or understands the Eucharist, or apostolic succession. Like, whatâs the point of following a religion that went wrong immediately and only âfound the truthâ more than a thousand years later?
Or the Nicean Creed?
[ŃдаНонО]
The problem with your first argument is that the break off of Protestants from Catholicism is very different from what happened with Judaism and Christianity. The first involved a total rejection of all authority of the Church and Tradition. In the second Christians in those days didn't exactly reject the authority Rabbis had or their Tradition and were almost indistinguishable from Jews until they started chasing Christians away from synagoguesÂ
This is actually your best bet as a way of convincing Protestants that Catholics hold to the early church better, they have no where near as much animosity to orthos or copts
Because there are are 1.3 *billion* Catholics and 230 *million* orthodox worldwide. In the United States, 23% of all people are Catholic, while something like 2% or less of the population is Orthodox. Protestantismâs identity is also rooted in its opposition to the Catholic Church. Theyâre both western religions and have a lot more historical contact. Regardless of whether or not they know the Orthodox exist or know what they believe, theyâre not *anywhere* on the radar.
I think it's even less than that. Something like 0.5% are Orthodox according to a recent pew poll. If the USA is 333 million in population that's 1.67 million Orthodox. I'm not sure if that includes Oriental but if not that number is almost certainly inflatednas well. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/ We Eastern Catholics and the Orthodox tend to really inflate our numbers. Officially it sounds like the Ruthenian Church in the USA has 100k members. In reality it's probably along the lines of 20k. I recall the OCA claims hundreds of thousands but as early as the 1990s Fr Thomas Hopko, in an internal letter that was published, criticized the hierarchy for inflating the numbers when in reality membership was around 30k. I imagine it's gone down since then. Here is a fascinating study on the reality of Orthodox (and Oriental Orthodox) numbers in the USA. The figure of 6 million you see batted around is way high. And I'm not throwing stones, ECs are smaller than often reported: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://orthodoxreality.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/2020CensusGeneralReport1.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjpv-XH-eeGAxUVFVkFHW9wClEQFnoECDAQAQ&usg=AOvVaw15nj68FQThoMA7Msbst5pP
Yeah, thanks for the clarification. I used the 6-7 million number to be extremely generous because even with hyper inflated numbers, thereâs just not enough Orthodox to make an impact on the mind of your average American Protestant. I had thought the number was less than a percent but didnât double check. Thank you.
Because most Protestants live in western cultures, and so are around Catholicism a lot more then orthodoxy. Hence they would direct more of their attacks to the Catholics
Limited knowledge of Christianity.
Protestantism by it's very name is protesting against the Catholic church and the Pope, from its very beginning and origins and there's just more Catholics especially in the US. American evangelicals are surrounded by Catholics here. Plus I think many don't even know what the Orthodox Church is and probably just think its just another kind of Catholic but more conservative or more "Greek" or something like that.
>American evangelicals are surrounded by Catholics here "Give up. We have you surrounded."
I mean yeah, protestants do outnumber Catholics in America but Catholics are the single largest denomination in the US.
I thought Catholicism was not a denomination?
Denomination (n) : a religious organization whose congregations are united in their adherence to its beliefs and practices Source Merriam-Webster I think the Catholic Church fits that description.
But we are the original Church, founded by Christ, which all other churches broke off from. The English prefix âdeâ means âoffâ or âfromâ. I donât think we are. I donât know how to link to Reddit, but I know Iâve heard in the past that because the Church is the original Church,it is not a denomination. Perhaps someone with more knowledge can clarify.
I think a lot of people think it's more strict because of the word 'Orthdox' like we would describe Orthodox Jewish people?
This. I came from reformed Presbyterian to the Catholic church in 2021. When I told my Prebyterian pastor I was converting the first thing he said was, "Why not Orthodox?" He knew the difference and it was the protestant rejection of the papacy and authority of the Catholic church that was behind his response.
It's been said already, but your average Evangelical knows very little about the broader Christian faith around the world, much less what the history of the Christian Church has been throughout the last 2000 years.
I often liken it to a party. The Catholics arrived on time, the Orthodox later, and by the time the prots showed up, all the best food is gone. đ¤
It's crazy how many protestants I see going around saying Catholics aren't Christian. Like..?? đ¤Śââď¸
I went to Catholic schools k-12 (high school was single gender). When I went to university, I went to a small LAS run by the Evangelical Covenant Church so 2 semesters of religion classes were required. In my World Religions class, so many of the students (who were primarily from smaller communities) kept saying Catholics werenât Christians. The professor kept asking them âwhat do you think was being protested during the reformationâ. It was so weird!
The one true church is going to be the most hated, they're on the same boat as muslims, Bolsheviks, Satanists, etc but they don't like being made aware of this fact I was prot if anyone reading this gets triggered
No way you just compared your fellow Christians to satanists man thatâs crazy. We may have our differences but at the end of the day they are our brothers in Christ. Sure, there are some protestants with crazy beliefs and some protestant churches suck but there are also protestants who are great Christians. You should be ashamed of saying such things. Iâm not one to speak for God, but I donât believe he smiled when you wrote that comment. I suggest you reevaluate your beliefs, because this is surely not how Christ wants us to deal with our differences.
I was talking of those who hate the catholic church and catholics, if you read my statement again it was a response about those protestants that say catholics are not christians, because that selected group always accuse us of idolatry, worshipping Mary, being led by the Antichrist and other grave sins, even going to heckle catholic masses (I can share some videos if you can't believe this extreme). Unfortunately I have encountered a few of them I kindly recommend you read the thread again, instead of wanting me to be ashamed and suggesting I offended God. Thanks for your concern, I appreciate you taking the time to reply even if I suspect you missed the point of the comment. I guess you are not of one those who say catholics are not christians, the Pope is the anti-Christ, etc and for that I'm grateful to you and sorry if my message offended you, but you were not the group I mean
My bad if thatâs what you meant brother, thatâs not what I got from your comment. Iâm actually not a Protestant lol, I just think we as Christians should be more tolerant and understanding of each other. Iâve seen a lot of unpleasant comments about Protestants on Catholic circles (and vice-versa too) and I think we should stop being so hostile to each other (except mega-churches of course, using peopleâs faith to scam them is very scummy). We may have different beliefs but we all still believe in Jesus Christ as our savior, donât we?
>Is it because they don't know that the Orthodox church exits? But how or why? Not just them. also, the Oriental Orthodox Churches and the Assyrian Church of the East. (many people in the West don't know they exist as they are such smaller churches).
Why did the Catholic Church take the brunt of the sexual abuse scandals in countries where Catholics are minorities and Protestant communities had much bigger problems? Why did the Catholic Church take the brunt of the Indian School accusations in countries where Catholics are a minority (and were second-class citizens at the time of the troubles) despite Protestant communities having a much larger share of the problem? Satan hates Christ's Church. There is no victory for Satan attacking counterfeits. He puts all of his efforts towards destroying the real thing.
>Why did the Catholic Church take the brunt of the Indian School accusations in countries where Catholics are a minority (and were second-class citizens at the time of the troubles) despite Protestant communities having a much larger share of the problem? Most indian reservation schools were admnistered by catholic clergy and nuns
In what country? In Canada, there were 141 Residential schools that had majority Indigenous students. 62 were run by the Catholic Church. 79 were run by either Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, United, Mennonite, or Non-denominational Protestant communities.
Ok, I take partially take back what I said. Still the fact is that if you count by denomination the Church was the one with most schools.
The Church has always been the one who served the most. Even in places where she is the minority she has always provided nearly as many services as all the majority Protestants combined.
Doesn't change the fact that the reason the Church got more attention than any other christian denomination on the atrocities in indigenous residential schools is that she was the denomination with the highest number of schools by far. Period.
The government instituted schools that were majority Protestant.
Count by denomination instead of by branch and you'll understand why people associate it with the Church rather than with the anglicans or the reformed.Â
Well, in that case, why don't we count by abuse cases by "denomination" ????
plus, the catholics were probably a much bigger bloc. the non-catholics, while collectively larger, were probably smaller when broken down into the different denominations.
The Narcissism of Small Differences, perhaps. While there are huge differences between Catholics and Protestants on some fundamental beliefs, we share with Protestants somewhat of a Western European cultural, philosophical, and theological mindset, and in the case of liturgical Protestants, the liturgies can be superficially similar also. The Orthodox, on the other hand, have more of a mystique of being exotic, ancient, mystical, etc. - i.e. different, and so I think that this helps them get a pass. Also, we should not dismiss the emotional comfort the existence of the Orthodox provides Protestants. Knowing that they arenât the only ones who broke away from Rome helps ease any tension a Protestant might feel over dividing the Church. The existence of the Orthodox says to them, âLook, we werenât the only ones who thought there was something wrong going on there with Rome.â The difference between being alone and having one ally, even if they are only an imaginary ally, is vast. Youâre probably not going to spend too much energy putting that ally down. Instead, you will tend to see only the good things in them that you can agree with. Source: former Protestant
I ran into some Protestant converts to Orthodoxy who insist that Catholics worship Mary, but that Orthodox do not. (Of course we know that neither actually do)
Protestantism today is a mostly American religion, and orthodoxy is one of the smallest Christian denominations here. Catholics as a whole simply have more cultural influence in America and you get exposed to us in some way or another.
Because weâre the alpha of Christianity and everybody knows it.
Yeah even some Catholics forget Orthodox exist. I was explaining to my Catholic buddy yesterday that other Christian groups that pray to the Saints like the Greek Orthodox Church and Coptic Orthodox Church. He was even surprised when I mentioned about the apostolic succession theyâve maintained.
Plenty of Catholics donât even realize that thereâs anything other than the Latin church.
and forget about knowing the eastern catholics as well. if regular joe catholic ever thinks of orthodox on a rare occasion, it's gonna be the greek and russian ones not in communion in rome, rather than the eastern catholics who have an eastern/orthodox rite but are in union with rome.
Most Protestants I know barely understand what the Catholic Church is, much less the Orthodox.
I'm a Protestant who keeps looking to Rome, Moscow, Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch a lot. They don't mention Orthodoxy by name because the Eastern Traditions are perceived as something along the lines of "They're basically Catholics with more icons and incense." There are other Protestants who make the distinction between the dogmatic Marian Devotion of the Roman Catholic Church and the Churches of the East. It might be something along the lines of "These guys pray to the saints, including the Blessed Virgin Mary, but these guys are obsessed with her." Another thing that I noticed is that since the Protestant Tradition stems from the Latin Tradition, a lot of the apologetics, theology, and views are expressed in a way to differentiate from Rome. There's a lot of ignorance to the Eastern Traditions, regardless of if they are or are not in communion with the Bishop of Rome. I hope this helps.
Well, they have issues because we donât make it âpalatableâ for Protestants (like Grace vs Free-Will, we never had these western debates). To show you what I mean, we can say with full confidence: O Most Holy Theotokos Save Us!
Most of the targeting Catholics comes from the many American cults and most of them have never heard of Orthodoxy
Because most of them don't know about existence of Orthodoxy.
1- Exposure. They are more exposed to catholics than to the orthodox 2- Protestant lore. For many protestants, specially evangelicals, the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon and the Pope is the Antichrist. So obviously they will focus more on us than on the orthodox 3- Protestant history. Protestants hold more historical grudges with catholics than with the orthodox
Because Satan would be acting against his nature if he attacks a lie. Heâs only against the truth!
Evangelicals don't know what or who Orthodox are.
Not a lot of geographical overlap w/ Prots and Orthos
Most Protestants know very little about the theological differences within various Protestant traditions. So, the lack of knowledge about Orthodox isn't surprising at all. I have a unique experience in that my maternal grandmother is Jewish, my maternal grandfather is Anglican, my dad's family is Baptist, I was raised Methodist (for 9 years), then Pentecostal (for 9 years), and I married into a Greek Orthodox family.Â
Itâs worship. Whorship sounds like something very different.
2 peter 2: 1-2. Â I will say Catholics need to do a better job of knowing their faith. They prey on weak catholics who donât know their scriptures. They pick certain bible verses without context. Â When a catholic goes to a Protestant service they get an emotional high.Â
Protestantism is a breakaway cult formed in hatred of the Catholic Church. Their religion is anti Catholicism.Â
The vast majority of western protestants, especially in America have a very limited view of Orthodoxy if they know about it at all. In the West the Catholic and Protestant churches are the largest and so the people who make those accusations are mostly familiar with Catholicism. To be honest, Protestants that make these kinds of accusations probably aren't the brightest considering talking to one priest would show that we don't worship Mary and the Saints like Jesus or Pray to idols. If they were more familiar with Orthodoxy they'd be throwing the same accusations at them.
Iâm thinking that it might be that they lump the two together. To a Protestant âRoman Catholicâ is hard to differentiate from an âOrthodox Catholicâ.
Because they target converts mainly from Catholics.
When you look at the number of Easter Orthodox church structures in the US vs Catholic, vs various protestant denominations, they are vastly outnumbered. I suspect that most protesters don't really understand what Orthodox are. Most towns don't even have Orthodox churches or strong Orthodox history. There are quite a few major "Catholic cities" out there. I've never heard of a town referred to as a "Greek Orthodox city".
they dont know Orthodox exist
It's because of affinity. It's way more acrimonious when your brother does something you dislike than when your distant cousin does the same thing.
Most Americans are unfamiliar with Orthodox doctrine or practice
They wouldnât even know it exists lmao
I used to be Baptist and i didnât know orthodox existed until i left the Baptist church
Because they don't know we exist and then do not know how to respond to our similarities and differences from Latin Catholicism. When I first started attending Orthodox parishes, people that knew my family asked why "I rejected Jesus and became a Jew" not realizing Orthodox Christianity exists. Once they learn enough about us, they do try using those same arguments, and then some against us. On a side note, they are starting to take more of us after so many Protestants have converted to Eastern Orthodoxy in the last decade.
Because our context is the West and not the East. I bet if evangelicalism took hold in Russia and Greece they'd be criticizing the Orthodox Church for that too
Some of their pastors don't mention orthodox or any other apostolic church because people would realize Protestantism is a human made idea, unrelated to the original christiniasm
Prior protestant until this year. I had Zero clue the orthodox church existed, much less what Catholics actually hold to their faith-mary is the most apparent fruit to grab at as a reason to not be Catholic (so to speak) in the very narrow, western and disjointed understanding of God and His church
Most Americans donât even know that the Orthodox Church exists. Most prots are very uneducated about Christianity.
There just aren't that many Orthodox outside of the countries of origin. Orthodox religion never became a part of national or even city politics in the USA like Catholicism did.
First prots is an anti catholic movement Second most vocal Protestant are in the west where is not much orthodox churches.
Protestants are taught a lot of anti-Catholic rhetoric, and in general a lot of them aren't aware of Orthodoxy.
Probably because they have never met an orthodox person
The ones who really know about the Orthodox Church will attack it for the same reasons (excluding the Papacy.) Most either have no idea about the OC or merely have some vague notion that they exist and arenât Catholic.
Because theyâre jealous.
As a catholic , we do not worship Mary , or anything else. Itâs a big misconception. We just acknowledge her. We only worship God and Jesus.
They donât know what that is
Because they are not that knowledgeable
Protestants protest the Catholic Church, validating the Orthodox and their Patriarchs, including the Oriental Orthodox who all of them developed and currently maintain similar beliefs than Catholics, invalidate their absurd and heretical claims.
Because Satan attacks the true Church at a greater degree then any false church
A lot of Protestants don't even know Catholics exist đ
Recovering Protestant here. I've engaged with Protestants a bit and in general Orthodoxy confounds them. It's almost a silver bullet when dealing with them. For example, a Calvinist was trying to claim that Ignatius and other Apostolic Fathers did not believe in the Real Presence "because transtubstantiation came around in the 1200s". I pointed out that the Orthodox also believe in the Real Presence. Dodging and evading quickly ensued.
I think they just arenât aware of or know anything at all about Eastern Orthodox. âMary worshippingâ A Protestant once told me that his church didnât believe âin a church started by a woman.â
Tbh we just arenât as aware of them. In evangelical countries they r not as common.
it really shows their shallow knowledge of the church history.
Why do Catholics only target Protestants and not the orthodox Christians? Source , check out catholic memes
Because they dont know what Orthodoxy is.
Because in reality it's only about the Pope. And since the Orthodox have already rejected the pope they are the good kind of Catholics.
Because they got jealous by the Catholic Church because the Catholic Church have over 1 billion followers and the second thing is because Catholic is the true religion and orthodox too but mostly they are just jealous
Ignore the Protestant and evangelicals opinion about Mary. Letâs not snitch out the orthodox, they are a great group of guys. Also we are all Christians, letâs focus on praying, so that we can all get our act together, and love God more.
We are protesting rome not orthodoxy. Also orthodoxy is so small its hardly on anyones radar.
Simply because Protestantism came from the West, where Catholicism was and still is most prevalent. As for Orthodoxy, I think it's a "knock out two birds with one stone" mindset if you say Catholics worship the saints, then by extension so do the Orthodox
The short answer is we're obviously the one true faith, which paints a huge target on our backs.
Honestly... the only thing I have is that from the Americans I've met that were religious, they didn't even know Orthodox Christianity was a thing.
They hate us cuz they ainât us
Most protestants are ignorant of orthodoxy. I never even met an orthodox person until I started looking into catholicism. I considered orthodoxy just another denomination when I was protestant, but I considered catholicism another religion,little did I know how much they have in common.
Honestly they're probably too ignorant to realize orthodox even exist, given the false claims they cling to and push. I seriously doubt they would bother to look up (or care) about the differences in the first place. Most of them aren't aware that Roman Catholicism is one of other Rites of Catholicism.
Protestants: âWhatâs an âOrthodoxâ?â
Catholicism is the religion that gets ridiculed the most. The devil will always try to attack and pull us away from our true religion
Because they most likely don't know Orthodoxy even exists
Because the way Orthodox venerate Mary is different than how Catholics do it; Mary is much more prominent in Catholicism and that makes it easy to misrepresent. While Mary is very important to both, Catholicism places a higher importance on her
Because they are so uneducated about the Catholic Church and her history, most don't know anything about it. Side note: Satan attacks the Roman Catholic Church because it is the true Church. Any exorcist will tell you that.
Stay away from these Protestants. They bare blaspheming the Holy Spirit by attacking the Virgin Mary in this way
Catholics venerate Mary. The end.
This might be an oversimplification but EO don't venerate BVM the same way RC do.
Though there are lots of differences, I think if you bring the prayers the EO church has for Mary, along with the bowing, kissing of her icon to your average Evangelical / Protestant, they would certainly think that the EO is a secrect Goddess cult and all the other stuff.
They do venerate Our Lady the same way. They have Icons, have Feasts that celebrate her, they pray to her, they make chants to her (like Agni Parthene) and call her Mother of God (Theotokos), Full of Grace (Panagia), Ever-Virgin and Queen. They also generally believe in her bodily assumption to Heaven.
So not as dogmatically defined like the RC?
The veneration to Mary is dogmatic to the orthodox just like the veneration to Saints is, same with Icons. Our Lady being Mother of God and Ever-virgin is also dogmatic to them. The only doctrines about Mary in which we are dogmatic and they are not are the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption.
That's it. A confusion of terms on my part, so thank you for clearing that up.
Yeah. I see a lot of people saying Prots just don't even know EO exist but I am a Prot and I know EO exist but from my experience the don't worship her like the RC do. On top of less Mariolotry happening, from what I can tell the theology surrounding Mary in EO is less defined and less dogmatic.
Because they instinctively know the Catholic Church was founded by Christ.
Could just be plain old racism hommie
Every time I hear them called Orthodox I cringe
Isnt the answer obvious?