Since this is public forum I won’t list the top 10 reasons I’ll never be Pope. I’ll just say my sins and stupidity should be enough to keep me out, after all its not the 14th century anymore.

I suppose that being Protestant for some three decades plus, I do not quite see the problematic envisioned by my co-blogodoxers in engaging Protestants in dialogue. Indeed, far more of my present friendships are among Protestants, than among Orthodox, and I do not know of one person with whom I interact on a regular and significant basis who is a strong Roman Catholic (although I know a lot of strong “dissenting” Catholics, which seems to my biased view to be a contradiction in terms . . . but I digress).

Although it is certainly true that Roman Catholics and Orthodox share so many fundamental assumptions that discussion can really get underway with far fewer clarifications, I believe the chief problem in dialoguing with Protestants is not differing ecclesiologies, vocabularies and soteriologies, so much as the inattention paid to Protestant assumptions. Roman Catholics and Orthodox, since they share so many of these fundamental assumptions can get right to the nitty-gritty of papal supremacy (over against Orthodox papal primacy) and infallibility, the differences between created and uncreated grace, and so forth. With Protestants, the entire process must begin with the pervasive rejection of the Tradition.
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The long-awaited Old Testament translation of the Orthodox Study Bible is coming out this summer (July I believe). This includes the Apocryphal books, and will be added to the Psalms and New Testament to make it complete. These translations are coming from the Septuagint, which was the Greek version that was in use during Christ’s time, rather than from the Masoretic Hebrew texts that date from the 9th century A.D, which the King James and other English versions are translated from.

I don’t know about you, but from the age of about three I saw the immense problems in using a Christian Bible from a Jewish translation, and was demanding to my parents that someone undertake an English translation from the Septuagint. I guess my voice was heard.