Apparitions

Discussion in 'Theology and Doctrine' started by Achilles Smith, Nov 20, 2017.

  1. Achilles Smith

    Achilles Smith Member Anglican

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    What stance does the Church of England take on the Marian apparitions and apparitions of Jesus that the saints had like Saint Faustina? I heard that it is common for Anglicans to dismiss these, but why dismiss them?
     
  2. anglican74

    anglican74 Well-Known Member Anglican

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    Supernatural events in general have a very high bar of credibility deficit they have to overcome. People think they see all kinds of credulous visions and have over the centuries.. UFOs, big foot.. everyone has claimed to have visions: Catholics, Quakers, Shakers, and now the Pentecostals, each time those claims had come out to be due to a human fault or credulity, not a manifestation of the supernatural... For this reason we need to see some credible proof first
     
  3. Achilles Smith

    Achilles Smith Member Anglican

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    Wouldn't it be pretty reasonable to believe Jesus or Mary appeared to a saint? I mean.. after all, they are a saint.
     
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  4. anglican74

    anglican74 Well-Known Member Anglican

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    No because a lot of the times especially in Roman Catholic history they judge people as Saints on the basis of their apparitions..

    There has been a lot of credulity in Roman Catholic history in trusting mystical visions, apparitions, there was a document that gave the whole of the Roman Empire from Emperor Constantine to the Roman Popes.., except that later it turned out that it was forged
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donation_of_Constantine

    Plus that raises the whole matter of whether Roman Catholic saints are actually saints in the proper sense of the term... Just because somebody made them saint, sometimes due to political reasons, makes no difference in the reality of the situation

    The founder of Opus Dei, (a nefarious powerful organization), was made a saint in 2000 by the pressure from his mafia towards the papacy... and sure enough they found the 'miracles' that he supposedly produced, and in a quick succession he was pushed through the sainthood process, but that's not holiness of life! And I surely don't believe he caused any miracles to happen

    http://www.newsweek.com/questionable-saint-197568

    I don't take any Roman Catholic saints as actually saints, until it is clearly demonstrated that the person lived a saintly life.. I certainly don't take Pope John XXIII as a Saint! Let the Romans do what they do, we are going to do what we are going to do
     
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  5. Lowly Layman

    Lowly Layman Well-Known Member

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    As I understand it, if your conscience has been convinced that any or all apparition testimonies are true, you are free to believe them. There is of course a biblical basis for beliving that such phenomena occur. Angelic visitations occur in various places in both the old and new testaments. And the Risen Lord appeared very powerfully to St. Paul on the road to Damascus, leading to his conversion.

    What Anglicans would say--at least this Anglican--is that such appearances and the messages recieved from them are forms of private revelation. Nothing in them can supplant, add to, distract from, or contradict the authoritative message of Holy Scripture, nor must they be believed or believed in for salvation, unless of course they are merely echoing scripture. jmo
     
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  6. Rhys

    Rhys Member

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    Sainthood is not determined by any alleged post-mortem miracles and/or apparitions. These are largely dismissed because the Popish usage of the term is not Biblical.
     
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  7. anglican74

    anglican74 Well-Known Member Anglican

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    I would agree with you that apparitions are possible... I mean of course that's inherent in God's omnipotence... I just don't think Faustina had seen any visions that the Christian people need to concern themselves with. They may be private as you say, or figments of her imagination as so many other Catholic seers have been, but the bar for what visions can be accepted by the public is exceptionally high and these visionaries just don't cross it
     
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  8. Achilles Smith

    Achilles Smith Member Anglican

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    I'm kinda in the middle. I do agree with what @anglican74 said about the apparitions though.
     
  9. SirPalomides

    SirPalomides Active Member

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  10. Aidan

    Aidan Well-Known Member

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    Also Walsingham
     
  11. SirPalomides

    SirPalomides Active Member

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    Yes the Anglicans destroyed Walsingham in the 16th century then restored it in the 20th.
     
  12. anglican74

    anglican74 Well-Known Member Anglican

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    While there is a microscopic devotion to this manifestly non-Anglican practice, it is not accepted by 90-95% of the world's Anglicans. You go to Singapore, or Kenya, or South Africa, or Brazil, or ACNA, or parts of England where Anglicanism isn't dead, and they will manifestly reject this practice. Some Orthodox are Nestorians... that does not mean that I would classify you @SirPalomides as an adherent of the Nestorian heresy...
     
  13. Religious Fanatic

    Religious Fanatic Well-Known Member

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    I wrote a poem related to this:

    THE PREMONITION OF FATIMA (by Matt M.)
    Deep within a cathedral there lies,
    a statue of the virgin shedding tears of blood.
    Awakened by the tragedies of dusk and dawn,
    which have tainted the blue sky a deep dark red.
    She brightens the sun and brings down the moon.
    An angel to some, a demon to others.
    Sister Lucia, in her grave all the while;
    eternally lulled by deceptions
    of the messenger named “Maria”.
     
  14. SirPalomides

    SirPalomides Active Member

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    Which practice specifically are you calling non-Anglican?

    And which Nestorian Orthodox do you have in mind?
     
  15. anglican74

    anglican74 Well-Known Member Anglican

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  16. SirPalomides

    SirPalomides Active Member

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    So you think Anglo-Catholics, including the ones in ACNA, are not Anglicans?

    The Assyrian Church of the East is not Orthodox...
     
  17. anglican74

    anglican74 Well-Known Member Anglican

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    Many Anglo-Catholics would repudiate the practice of Mariolatry; most certainly.

    I have known of many among them who partake of Roman Catholic events but purely symbolically, like they might go to an Adoration but would feel uncomfortable worshiping the wafer.. they'd go to the Marian shrines, but merely in solidarity and not with actual prayers to Mary herself... Those who would actually do those things would be Anglo-Papalists, with a Tridentine Chasuble etc, and those are yes, not Anglican in reality... It is in other words a very rare creature, that self-identified Anglican who will actually violate his faith and tradition in outward worship of either Mary, or the Saints, or the Wafer..

    Why not, does someone get to decide? They would say they are Orthodox
     
  18. Botolph

    Botolph Well-Known Member

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    I think the Church made that decision at the Council of Ephesus 435 AD.
     
  19. SirPalomides

    SirPalomides Active Member

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    Please offer some evidence that the pilgrims to Walsingham engage in “mariolatry”.

    The Assyrian Church of the East is not in communion with any Orthodox Church. You can’t say the same about the Anglo-Catholics in communion with you, whom you denounce as non-Anglican. Also the ACOE don’t typically name themselves Orthodox.
     
  20. DivineOfficeNerd

    DivineOfficeNerd Active Member Anglican

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    When it comes to things like S. Mary, there's a line to be drawn between the practices of the Roman Church and the reformed practice of the Caroline Divines. To quote the Rev. Mark Frank of Cambridge, "The Romanists make little less of her than a goddess" while Puritans and Dissenters do not even make her a "good woman". S. Mary is indeed the blessed theotokos, and perhaps there is some truth to the legend of Our Lady of Walsingham, but to venerate the event, or S. Mary in general, with the same devotion as the Anglo-Papalists, is to commit a grave error.

    It is the difference between saying "S. Mary, pray for us." and claiming that one can pray directly to Our Lady of (insert Roman city here), and that Christ is bound to accept the prayer due to the 6th Commandment.
     
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