Oriental and Eastern Orthodox: questions

[John Charmley]

Peter Farrington and I are both contributors to a site called Monachos, which can be found at: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.monachos.net">http://www.monachos.net</a><!-- m -->

One of my reasons for joining it was an interest in what still divided Eastern and Oriental Orthodox. My (no doubt) inadequate understanding was that the main divisions were now, in fact, historical. Peter and I have been trying to test this on the Monachos website, but rather frustratingly, none of our Eastern Orthodox bretheren will actually pin down where the remaining doctrinal differences are.

This leads me to the following questions:
- how do other members of the Fellowship view the relations between the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches?
- have other members of the Fellowship had experiences with the EO Churches?
- to what extent would it be true to say that the Oriental Orthodox are more open to the idea of British Orthodoxy than our EO brothers and sisters?

As far as I can discern, many of the EO converts became such because the EO churches were what they came into contact with first. For my part, I have made a conscious choice to come towards the BOC because of what I perceive as it more eirenic and sympathetic approach.

I wonder if anyone has thoughts on these matters?

In Christ,

John