Drifting Farther and Farther Away from Our Lord: Why No Catholic Should Ever Consider Joining an Orthodox Church

(Note: Too many Catholics upset with sinful scandals, changing pastoral practices, and ambiguous statements from various Church leaders over the past several years have erroneously left the One True Church to join an Orthodox Community.  In doing so, they point out how the Orthodox Community has the seven sacraments, they have retained and offer a traditional, reverent, and beautiful liturgy, and they also maintain that the Orthodox, for the most part, teach the same essential fundamentals as the Catholic Church.  In addition, the Orthodox siren call of opposition to Papal Supremacy and Papal Infallibility (both of which are largely misunderstood by many people, including Catholics) wrongly persuade the “fed-up” Catholic that the Orthodox Church is the One True Church.

But of course it is not the One True Church, and it’s not even as close to being so as many people erroneously believe.

Now, the very important and centuries old theological differences between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church are well beyond the scope of this article, but there are plenty of good books and other studies on the topic readily available for anyone who is interested in exploring the differences further.  However, two egregious errors in moral teaching have become official moral doctrine for most if not all of Orthodoxy, and these errors by themselves demonstrate why the Orthodox Church is drifting farther away from Christ, and why no Catholic should ever consider joining the Orthodox Church because they are frustrated with Catholic Church leadership, and/or some aspects of Orthodox practice is very appealing to them.

Egregious Orthodox Church Error # 1: It is Acceptable for Married Couples to use Artificial Contraception.

As the second half of the 20th century unfolded, Orthodox teaching on the use of artificial contraception went from a Christ-centered universal forbidding of the practice by all Orthodox communities to a gradual acceptance of and permission granted to use artificial contraception throughout most if not all of Orthodoxy.  And the rationalization for the practice mirrors some Protestant and secular thinking along the following lines:

‘Marriage has many purposes, and though it should not be abused for selfish ends, the use of artificial contraception to frustrate the possibility of conception during the conjugal act is not sinful so long as the method of artificial contraception is not abortion-inducing.  Moreover, since it helps fulfill one of the ends of marriage, it is a good thing as so used.’

Of course this is problematic for many good reasons pertaining to the properties and practices of a holy marriage that artificial contraception intentionally frustrates, but one thing that is especially troubling aside from the moral malpractice in simply using contraceptives is the fact that many of them are also abortifacients even if not properly advertised as such.  As the green light is given to use artificial contraception, then either through negligence or another kind of oversight, many Orthodox couples unwittingly destroy innocent life in the mothers’ wombs all the while believing they are following sound moral advice from their Church in making use of artificial contraception to frustrate a divine purpose of marriage during a specific period of time that God has designed must especially be open to a conception.

Egregious Orthodox Church Error # 2: Acceptable for People to Divorce and Remarry up to 3 Times.

Much worse than the use of artificial contraception (those forms that are not abortifacients) is the Christ-defying, Protestantesque ACCEPTANCE OF DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE...UP TO 3 TIMES, which actually became part of Orthodox canon law by the early 10th century, with some aspects of divorce and remarriage permitted even earlier.  Accepting it even once is sinful enough, but it’s an absurdly bad joke for the Orthodox to officially accept the bigamy of divorce and remarriage up to 3 times before finally saying “enough is enough.”  Wow!  Drawing an absurd line at permitting only limited bigamy.

The basic rationale for approving this sinful behavior is a same old same old: ‘well, we don’t like it, but since people are fallen and not perfect, we need to ignore Jesus’ teaching that is just too hard for some people to handle, and so we allow divorce and remarriage if necessary.  Also, we accept the butchering of the so-called adultery exception to divorce based on a simplistic reading of the Gospel, but in practice we don’t even bother with the bogus adultery exception anymore.  Instead, we have invented an excuse for divorce wherein we recognize and declare that a particular marriage is no longer a reality.  Poof; it just disappeared.  However, to demonstrate our most serious and ongoing commitment to the sanctity of marriage, then by golly we courageously hold the line at divorce and remarriage….at 3 times max.  Anyone who claims the need for a fourth divorce and remarriage, no matter if they have even better reasons than they did for a previous divorce and remarriage, will be denied because of our firm belief in the sacredness of marriage.’
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It is of course very sad to recognize how the vast majority of the Orthodox community have gradually over many years caved into Protestantesque and secular rationalizations in direct defiance of Our Lord’s teaching.  But we cannot simply wish this away.  And no matter how many good things in Orthodoxy there may be, the exceedingly sinful and official support of contraception, and the exceedingly sinful and official support of divorce and remarriage up to 3 times should by themselves convince any faithful Catholic frustrated with Church leadership that joining an Orthodox Church is most certainly not the answer.  As always, the answer is within the One True Catholic Church centered in Rome, and working as a faithful servant to engage in prudent and respectful fraternal correction of Church leadership is the only legitimately faithful approach whenever Church leadership objectively goes awry.  Running away to an Orthodox community is not honorable nor courageous nor justifiable in any way.