Talk:Eastern Orthodox Church

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Great Commission[edit]

It seems important, when discussing Early Church development, to mention Jesus and the Great Commission for continuity, rather than jumping in with St. Paul of Tarsus. Why is St. Paul doing this? Where did his authority come from? Elizium23 (talk) 04:18, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Then it needs to be worded in a way that makes it clear that is a belief. From the perspective of historians and non-Christians, the Great Commission is not a thing that actually happened. I also don't know that it's accurate to say (as was in the sentence I deleted) that Christianity "spread rapidly" right from the start. Christianity originated as a small sect within Judaism. We need references for how quickly it spread. M.Clay1 (talk) 04:57, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
I don't get how your denial of historicity should lead to a deletion of the passage. Frame it as a belief if you want, but deleting the whole beginning context of the Eastern Orthodox Church is more like vandalism, if you ask me. Elizium23 (talk) 09:44, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

The number of adherents, again[edit]

I have just added the following commented out not: "This number (220 million) has been changed countless times in what can only be seen as a bout of pride from one or more anonymous users. Any changes you make here without proper sourcing will be reverted with expedience." --Omnipaedista (talk) 20:20, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Proposed merger with Orthodox Christianity[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The result of this discussion was NO MERGE. Omnipaedista (talk) 10:50, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
  1. Why bother merging, when Orthodox Christianity was merely a redirect as of a couple days ago? I move to restore that status.
  2. "Orthodox Christanity" is an ambiguous phrase. It does not correlate directly to the Eastern Orthodox Church. Oriental Orthodoxy and the Assyrian Churches all claim Orthodoxy for themselves. So this is not a straightforward merge. Elizium23 (talk) 02:51, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
@MarcusTraianus: The recent edit to Orthodox Christianity ‎was in clear violation of WP:CFORK (duplicating content found in Eastern Orthodox Church) and WP:POV (ignoring the fact that Oriental Orthodoxy also claims Orthodoxy for itself). --Omnipaedista (talk) 09:44, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
The article itself does not make any proper distinctions because you use sources about Eastern Orthodox Church to back up claims about Eastern Orthodoxy in general; this practice is also in violation of WP:INTEGRITY. --Omnipaedista (talk) 12:04, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Unclear what all this is about, but any recent undiscussed changes should be reverted/restored. Johnbod (talk) 12:17, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
@Elizium23 and Omnipaedista:. Thank you for starting a discussion.

>Why bother merging, when Orthodox Christianity was merely a redirect as of a couple days ago? I move to restore that status.

Well, it's not an argument. We redirect or leave pages after discussion about its importance, not because it was (or is) a redirect.

>"Orthodox Christanity" is an ambiguous phrase. It does not correlate directly to the Eastern Orthodox Church. Oriental Orthodoxy and the Assyrian Churches all claim Orthodoxy for themselves. So this is not a straightforward merge.

I cannot agree. It's a self-name of a denomination, and if we want to decolonize the vocabular of our encyclodepia, we need to acept that name. Moreover, it's an academic word. Second of all, how can you translate word Russian: Православие, Pravoslaviye in English? It's not Russian: Восточное Православие, Vostochnoye Pravoslaviye that would correlate with the term "Eastern Orthodoxy".

Third moment. I cannot agree to merge the Orthodox Christianity and the Orthodox Church articles, because:

  1. It's not homogenous (e. g. Old Believers, Old Calendarists, True Orthodoxy), that covers Orthodox Christanity article;
  2. Orthodox Christanity article covers such topic as a rivalry between Moscow and Constantinople Orthodox systems.

Again: I'm not against the Eastern Orthodox Church article. It's an important article too. But merging them would be the same as merging Christianity and Christian Church articles. We have a Protestantism article, we can't we have an Orthodox Christianity article? And most of all, there is an item in Wikidata, that must have an article in English. No need to note that we have this article in 41 languages. MarcusTraianus (talk) 15:16, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Orthodox Christianity in English means "Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy", while Eastern Orthodoxy in English means "Eastern Orthodox Church" (see [1]). Please read WP:CFORK and WP:SYNTH. You have to provide sources to back up your claims above, not just cite Russian usages of those terms. This is the English Wikipedia. Please also see WP:BRD and WP:WEIGHT. --Omnipaedista (talk) 18:04, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
@Omnipaedista: But Orthodox Christianity article covered both Eastern and Oriental traditions, you can check it. That's why we need that article. Without any doubt, Wikipedians can challenge, remove or debate on the content of the article, but we need to have such. MarcusTraianus (talk) 19:25, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
I agree that an article about Orthodox Christianity might be a good idea in principle. However, there arise immense problems if one tries to actually create such an article. The main problem is that the use of the term in English is a recent development. [2] This means that if you try to write an article on the subject you have to search for quite recent English-speaking sources. The few sources written before the 2010s which mention Orthodox Christianity, will most likely use the term to refer to the Eastern Orthodox Church. How can you then make sure that your claims are verifiable if you use a source implicitly referring to the Eastern Orthodox Church while you are writing about Orthodox Christianity in general? I will give a very simple example: you wrote that Orthodox Christianity in the general sense is followed by 300 million people but you cite a book about Eastern Orthodox Christianity to back up your claim (which is unreliable anyway). Do you expect fellow editors to go through all your 130 citations to double check that you are not violating WP:SYNTH and WP:INTEGRITY? I am afraid that unless you can prove that there is literature about Orthodox Christianity in the general sense which does not equate Orthodox Christianity with Eastern Orthodox Christianity, your project of creating a POV-free article about Orthodox Christianity is doomed to fail. --Omnipaedista (talk) 21:10, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
@MarcusTraianus: That is basically false. Although there was a short section about "Non-Chalcedonian_Churches", everything else in the article concerned only Eastern Orthodoxy, e.g., the map "The spread of Orthodox Christianity in the world", stating "the almost exclusive use of the Byzantine Rite", the councils listed in "History of the formulation of the doctrine", the list of "Local autocephalous and autonomous churches", and so on. Vincent J. Lipsio (talk) 21:17, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
There is no reason to have a separate article with an ambiguous name. We have articles on Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, and the Church of the East. They're all different articles. They can be solved with a disambiguation page if necessary, not a 90K rambling article. Elizium23 (talk) 21:41, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
@Elizium23 and Omnipaedista: if it will be a disambiguation page, then let it be so. I can agree here. But Orthodox Christianity definitely shouldn't be a redirect. MarcusTraianus (talk) 06:22, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
Why not? What is wrong with Orthodoxy#Christianity? It features both a disambiguation hatnote and a brief explanation of what Orthodoxy means in a Christian context. Regarding Wikidata, please see this. --Omnipaedista (talk) 08:13, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
By the way, this whole thing sounds like you want to dissociate the history of the Eastern Orthodox Church from the history of the Russian Orthodox Church via content forking and original synthesis. In the process you effectively end up promoting the idea that the Russian usage of the term "Orthodox Christianity" is somehow more important than other usages. What does this have to do with building a neutral encyclopedia? --Omnipaedista (talk) 08:20, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
@Omnipaedista: Redirect to Orthodoxy is not sufficient. You see, Russian: Православие, Pravoslaviye (Orthodox Christianity) and Russian: Ортодоксия, Ortodoksiya (Orthodoxy) are different things. There is an Orthodox Marxism and Orthodox Judaism. There are other things that can be "Orthodox" or can be described as an "Orthodoxy". Disambiguation page from the Orthodox Christianity page would be the best way to resolve it. No need to mention that there is an Proto-orthodox Christianity, yet no Orthodox Christianity article. Yet I am standing on a more modest way to solve that: disambiguation page. MarcusTraianus (talk) 10:29, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
There is a reason for this asymmetry: "Proto-orthodox Christianity" and "Orthodox Judaism" are not controversial terms in English-speaking bibliography on religion; "Orthodox Christianity" is a controversial term in English-speaking bibliography on religion. Please see WP:ENGLISH. --Omnipaedista (talk) 11:14, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
@Omnipaedista: I still cannot understand what controversial about term "Orthodox Christianity". All Eastern Churches of Byzantine rite name themselves "Orthodox". We surely can say that there is a cultural and historial phenimenon as "Orthodox Christianity". Or I can make article named "Pravoslaviye" and fill it with what I have written. It will be better. MarcusTraianus (talk) 11:46, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
Let me repeat the very first thing I wrote above then: "Orthodox Christianity in English means 'Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy' [3]". The link is to the Pew Research Center, one of the most well-known public research centers around and especially renowned for their religious polling operations. Older English-speaking sources used to perpetuate the Eastern Orthodoxy bias against Oriental Orthodoxy, but contemporary English-speaking sources have rectified this. I have no strong opinions on the "dab page vs. redirect page" issue. I am just saying that whatever we do, we have to make sure that our edits reflect what the contemporary English-speaking bibliography on religion says about the matter (as per WP:SYNTH) and avoid content forking (as per WP:CFORK). --Omnipaedista (talk) 11:59, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
@Omnipaedista: Then it would be wise to delete controversial or debatable content, not to delete the entire article. I am not against Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy articles, but Orthodox Christianity article should be general article for 'Eastern Orthodoxy' + 'Oriental Orthodoxy' + 'Nestorian Churches' articles. Because that's a common religious tradition. MarcusTraianus (talk) 12:05, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
Deletion is the only option here because your article fails to comply with WP:INTEGRITY and WP:SYNTH. --Omnipaedista (talk) 12:32, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
@Omnipaedista: As I can see, there is no original research nor problems with integrity. Every note is written in English, so reader can check information. If there will be problems, then it can be deleted or challenged. MarcusTraianus (talk) 12:49, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
4 editors here plus 1 nominator are not convinced. No one is in favor of your article. Everyone agrees that your article violates core Wikipedia policies in one way or another, you have not backed up your claims here with any reliable sources, you have not addressed any of the issues raised here in a convincing way. At this point this discussion is running in circles. I can only refer you to Help:Userspace draft. --Omnipaedista (talk) 14:56, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
My WP:AGF just exploded. Elizium23 (talk) 11:59, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
Russian terminology doesn't map onto English one to one. An article on the term Pravoslaviye would be okay. Srnec (talk) 15:25, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose The term "orthodox Christianity" will mean different things to different people. To Protestants and Catholics the term is not necessarily synonymous with the Orthodox Church just as the term "catholic" is not universally employed in reference to those in communion with the Pope of Rome. This is not adequately reflected in the article section under discussion for possible merger. That needs to be fixed but is not an argument for ignoring the obvious multiple meanings. I would also note as an aside that when using the term orthodox Christianity in reference to anything other than the Orthodox Church, the word 'orthodox' is not typically capitalized unless it is the first word in a sentence. Whereas when referring to the Church and its beliefs/adherents, it is. -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:19, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

For the past one week (see WP:MERGECLOSE), all the discussion posts have been against merging and no arguments in favor have been raised. Everyone agrees that "Eastern Orthodox Church" and "Christian Orthodoxy/Orthodox Christianity" have different referents. The proposal to convert the page "Orthodox Christianity" from a redirect to a dab page (or to convert it to a proper article) has also been discussed but no consensus was reached and status quo ante was restored. Omnipaedista (talk) 10:50, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

The above discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Hardon (1981), p. 217[edit]

I was going to come here to complain about a direct quote being de-capitalized, but I can see it is not a direct quote of Hardon p.217, in fact it is not in the cited source at all. Therefore, we need a new source. Elizium23 (talk) 07:01, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Just fixed it. --Omnipaedista (talk) 07:56, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

WP:NOR and WP:EDITORINTEGRITY constant violations by a few editors[edit]

We're talking here about [Roughly half of Eastern Orthodox Christians live in the territory of the former Soviet Union, most of those living in Russia] phrase used in the article — which is WP:NOR violation; original referred source ain't contain such phrase in any form of concept. So pushing this phrase or concept in any form to the article is misleading, deceitful and constitute an original research. Original phrase that was used in a referred link is [The Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church has at least 150 million followers — more than half the total of Orthodox Christians] and it was applied into article in the form [Roughly half of Eastern Orthodox Christians are parishioners of the Russian Orthodox Church] which is completely suitable, correct and fits Wikipedia's rules and pencraft in absolutely all aspects.

But some users didn't like a concept of — i would especially quote this part of discussion: «attempting to glorify a single church which shall not be named».

OKAY, so you hate Russian Church, we got it — but who cares? This is Wikipedia, WP:NPOV rule is applied here, so why you bothering us with your totally biased edits, prejudiced against Russian Church? Wikipedia editors must follow WP:EDITORINTEGRITY rule, which specifically require «presenting appropriate citations», but sadly, what we're seeing here is complete lack of respect to the Wikipedia rules.

According to WP:NPOV «All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic»; so, why then few users reject a legitimate edits just because of their hatred towards Russian Church? Is that some form of american nationalism? I want administrators of Wikipedia, preferably not american nationalists, to discuss this topic and take most strict actions against this totally biased wikipedia editors.

--ZXBOI (talk) 01:10, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Not to mention the fact that two most active users which are completely biased against Russian Orthodox Church have a lot of warnings for Disruptive Editing, Edit Wars and also other multiple violations of Wikipedia's rules — whilst both allowed to edit this so-called "protected" article. --ZXBOI (talk) 01:45, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Hello, I did not mean any disrespect, and you cannot merely place such blame on me as I am not the originator of that statement. I merely restored it, especially upon reviewing the intentions of your contributions on your banned user account, through various editions of Wikipedia in multiple languages. I understand you are passionate about the Moscow Patriarchate, however I respectfully have to remind you that in claiming accusations of bias, that, according to your edit history you remain with as little bias as possible too. I also respectfully remind you to not come onto me and other contributors talk pages, attacking us and harassing us, demeaning us as children of Satan himself. That is fundamentalist religious thinking, and if you cannot discuss with civility, you are wasting your breath when you could be doing so many more productive things with your life (online and offline). Instead of providing aggressive edit summaries, which are not welcome, in addition to losing civility it would have been better to take this to the talk page; yet alas, by numerous warnings even on the Russian Wikipedia by seemingly other Orthodox Christian staff and non-Orthodox Christian staff, even in Russia and the Eastern European region, you forwent those warnings with a desire to spread your perspective. Concluding, I ask you to create your own competitor to Wikipedia and transfer this energy to something more meaningful in life according to your personal worldview.
As a member of the daughter of the Russian Orthodox Church (the Orthodox Church in America), I do not despise them whatsoever. Because of the Russian Orthodox, Orthodox Catholicism spread to the North American region as a hidden gem, being discovered only recently in the mainstream due to the mass influx of Greeks and Syrians within the Antiochian Archdiocese and Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. The administrators handled the matter by blocking your account, and restricting your access to contributing to this article in particular as a precautionary measure.
Regarding my contributions, I have always left the ANI noticeboard without a restriction to my account. The only warning I had was on the P'ent'ay-related articles until the administration found my innocence due to another contributor utilizing their energy for similar antics such as this. Every discussion on my talk page has been civil, until you harassed me with an anonymous IP address. Please, leave me be and do something productive. You'll stress yourself out and look at the time wasted in life fighting over an internet article on an encyclopedia (in multiple languages), with which you've had grievances with administrators and non-administrators. - TheLionHasSeen (talk) 05:05, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
@Chad The Goatman, Vif12vf, and TheLionHasSeen: What's going on here? Why are you constantly reverting to the "Soviet Union" edit that is not supported by the cited source. ZXBOI at least tried to explain his view (albeit with a lot of unnecessary accusations). You are just reverting without any explanation. This has to stop. Vanjagenije (talk) 14:53, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
Excuse me, Vanjagenije, I reverted the contribution because prior to them utilizing this, they attempted to remove "Soviet Union" and say "Commonwealth of Independent States" members. I browsed through that article, and upon searching where it mentioned ex-Soviets I sought the Pew Research Center for verification which stated most in Central and Eastern Europe, particularly Russia. The citation states: "Indeed, nearly four-in-ten of the world's Orthodox Christians live in a single country – Russia. During the Soviet era, millions of Russian Orthodox Christians moved to other parts of the Soviet Union, including Kazakhstan, Ukraine and the Baltic States, and many remain there today. Ukraine has both a substantial Russian Orthodox population and many members of its own self-governing Ukrainian Orthodox Church, with an estimated 35 million Orthodox Christians in total." Here is the additional citation I added to support that: https://www.pewforum.org/2017/11/08/orthodox-christianitys-geographic-center-remains-in-central-and-eastern-europe/. I hope this helps! PS: May we seek intervention from an impartial, non-Orthodox Christian administrator as well? Particularly not from such a region in the territory of the former Soviet Union? Just for neutrality sake, and also out of a personal fear pertaining to physical retaliation? - TheLionHasSeen (talk) 14:56, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
Here is the edit history where they added the CIS in place of the SU, which was not mentioned in the initial citation: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eastern_Orthodox_Church&diff=992697217&oldid=992598879&diffmode=source. - TheLionHasSeen (talk) 15:12, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
Gross violation of WP:INTEGRITY also occurred here. --Omnipaedista (talk) 21:04, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
TheLionHasSeen, May we seek intervention from an impartial, non-Orthodox Christian administrator as well? NO, we do not practice discrimination like this! Please never ask for this kind of thing again! Elizium23 (talk) 21:52, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
Elizium23 and Vanjagenije, please forgive my ignorance. Thank you. - TheLionHasSeen (talk) 23:22, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
Omnipaedista, how did I miss that one? Thanks! - TheLionHasSeen (talk) 23:25, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
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