Acknowledgement of Orthodox Saints

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Are there saints that the Eastern Orthodox Church recognize but not the Catholic Church? If so, are there any specific reasons and examples why?
 
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This is an honest question to which I haven’t the foggiest idea as to its answer: does the Catholic Church (as in the Universal Church, not the Latin Church specifically) even canonize saints for all of the particular churches to venerate, or are our canonizations Roman specific? I’m just not so sure we can categorically say that the Church “does not recognize Orthodox saints.”
 
Yes, but I was under the impression he canonized them and they are to eventually be put on the Roman calendar and so this is still a matter of the Patriarch of Rome canonizing some kind of saints for veneration in Roman praxis even though the beati themselves were not Latin. We’ve always venerated certain saints and martyrs from the East (just as they’ve done so with certain beati from the West), but in cases of individuals who don’t meet with full approbation from many particular churches I always assumed the particular churches that do venerate them were allowed to advance their causes, typically outside the limelight of a big, papal canonization in Rome tended to by all manner of journalist.
Pope Francis however would not be able to canonize Ukrainian Orthodox martyrs or Russian Orthodox martyrs or Saints from any other Orthodox confession.
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Of course.
 
My understanding is this:
  1. Any saint pre-schism is approved for both Catholic and Orthodox Church.
  2. Saints after Schism have to be Catholics to be formally canonized by Rome with all that goes with it (public veneration etc). Eastern Catholics can and are canonized. Orthodox aren’t.
  3. Nevertheless the Pope might state that someone Orthodox was saintly, for example Pope JPII said that about St Seraphim.
  4. As Catholics we can privately venerate whoever we reasonably think is in Heaven, which could include Orthodox, Protestant etc.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
My understanding is this:
  1. As Catholics we can privately venerate whoever we reasonably think is in Heaven, which could include Orthodox, Protestant etc.
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Q:​

Do you have any Church references that led you to that thinking?

Thanks in advance
 
AlbertDerGrosse said:
This is an honest question to which I haven’t the foggiest idea as to its answer: does the Catholic Church (as in the Universal Church, not the Latin Church specifically) even canonize saints for all of the particular churches to venerate, or are our canonizations Roman specific? I’m just not so sure we can categorically say that the Church “does not recognize Orthodox saints.”
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In general, it is safe to say

When the Church recognizes one is a saint, we know they are in heaven.

Although the salvation of non-Catholics is hoped for, we have no such absolute knowledge that those “canonized” by non-Catholic churches indeed are in heaven. So if we don’t have specific realities one is in heaven, why would we speculate on that?
 
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Catholic Answers/ Jimmy Akin, for starters.


I have a whole list of deceased holy non-Catholics I’ve been asking to pray for me for like over a year, including my grandma and my late husband.
 
steve-b said:
So if we don’t have specific realities one is in heaven, why would we speculate on that?
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For one thing, if nobody ever speculated, we’d have many fewer saints according to our current processes, because there needs to be evidence of cult, in other words crowds of people venerating the person, in order to even get them canonized.
 
Pope Francis made St. Gregory of Narek a Doctor of the Church - and St. Gregory was not in communion with Rome at the time of his death…
 
Eastern (Byzantine) Catholics also venerate (publicly/liturgically) St. Gregory Palamas - another Byzantine saint who was not in communion with Rome at the time of his death. And I believe St. Seraphim of Sarov is on the liturgical calendar for the Russian Catholic Church (but I’m open to correction on that).

From what I’ve seen, we Eastern Catholics “keep” all the saints that we venerated at the time of entering into communion with Rome. Traditionally canonization wasn’t something centralized from Rome, but was a local process. So it would make sense that each particular church sui iuris would have its own list of canonized and liturgically venerated saints.
 
Nope. Gregory of Narek was not a Byzantine-Orthodox saint, but an Oriental Orthodox (I believe Armenian). They were out of communion with Rome (and the Byzantine East) after the Council of Chalcedon, prior to 1054.
 
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The idea of “Doctor of the Church” is a purely Roman invention. The East really has no exact equivalent. But we do have saints whose writings we hold in high esteem for their insight and orthodoxy. Many of those saints are likewise venerated as “Doctors of the Church” in the Roman tradition (St. Basil the Great, St. John Chrysostom, St. Ephraim “the Syrian,” etc.).

I’m not Armenian, but my guess is that Armenian Catholics and Armenian Orthodox have long held the writings of St. Gregory of Narek in highest esteem - well prior to Pope Francis declaring him a Doctor of the Church.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
  1. Saints after Schism have to be Catholics to be formally canonized by Rome with all that goes with it (public veneration etc). Eastern Catholics can and are canonized. Orthodox aren’t.
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This is not true for the vast number of post-schism but pre-union saints. The Eastern Catholics brought their saints and calendars with them into communion. These saints never underwent the formal process of canonization.

When the Russian Catholic Church came into communion, the pope said, regarding the Liturgy and calendar, “Add nothing, change nothing, delete nothing.” This would include all the saints added to the Russian calendar up until the early 20th century.
 
It’s a good wish but I don’t see it happening.
The Church teaches stricter Papal Authority( officially) now than when the issues of the schism occurred.
The Orthodox have a different view of the Bishop of Rome, which is now for them the Patrairch of Constantinople, aka New Rome. He is considered first only in a symbolic sense and all bishops are equal.
The notion that the pope is the end all leader, and especially now, infallible, would never be something they would accept.
I think in order to have a reunion between east and west, there would have to be a Council, and this would probably be one of the most contentious councils ever seen in the Church because the Church can’t really go back on what it teaches because then it could be seen as it saying " we were wrong", which then would lead people to question what else they were wrong about.
It would probably be solved by allowing the east to have much more sovereign status. They could keep doing what they do without the Pope changing that as long as they acknowledge the Bishop of Rome is more than just a symbolic first Bishop.
As for things like, say Orthodox Bibles tend to contain a few more books from the Septuagint than Catholic Bibles.
I don’t think the Church would say " Oh you need to remove 3 Maccabees from your Old Testament if you want to come back." The Church actually gives a lot of leeway with tradition. I believe eastern churches in communion with Rome don’t even have to use filioque when saying the creed, it is only binding on the Latin rite.

The thing is I just don’t know. I’ve read, and if you want you can search it on Google as I had, but a lot more Catholics want reunification than Orthodox too. I think the Orthodox have a very strong sense of being and in their eyes they are the true Apostolic Church, which technically both west and east can make that claim validly. It isn’t some Protestant church made up by men 1500 years later. The Catholic and Orthodox do historically go all the way back to the Apostles.
So in discussion one needs to realize it isn’t just the Catholic Church attempting to bring the Orthodox back; in their eyes they are trying to bring the Catholic Church back.
We have come a long way the past 50 years, and on paper you wouldn’t think we should be separated; but it’s just been so long. In 2054 it will be 1000 years technically, though I know the date of the schism is much more complex than the common 1054 date. There were a few councils that tried to bring reunification in the centuries immediately following but they failed. How much more difficult it would be now.
 
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Never heard this one before, but I can see how a little child would think something like this. When I was very young, I thought there was a “Chicago, New York” because the publisher of the school book appeared on the title page as being in “Chicago New York”. And I was fairly well along in grade school before I could fathom where Washington, D.C. was, because it is not in any state.

As a practical matter I have no problem with privately venerating Orthodox saints (St Seraphim of Sarov, St John Kronstadt et al), but public veneration wouldn’t be appropriate as they are not officially recognized by Rome as being saints.
 
HomeschoolDad said:
As a practical matter I have no problem with privately venerating Orthodox saints (St Seraphim of Sarov, St John Kronstadt et al), but public veneration wouldn’t be appropriate as they are not officially recognized by Rome as being saints.
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How do you reconcile this with the fact that such saints are on the liturgical calendars (public veneration) of churches in Communion with Rome?
 
babochka said:
As a practical matter I have no problem with privately venerating Orthodox saints (St Seraphim of Sarov, St John Kronstadt et al ), but public veneration wouldn’t be appropriate as they are not officially recognized by Rome as being saints.
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Are they? I didn’t know that. If they are recognized by a sui juris Eastern rite in union with Rome, then it appears that they can be public venerated by Catholics as well.
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True, but I’m sure there are some Orthodox that would privately venerate them just like many of us Byzantine Catholics venerate “post-schism” Orthodox Saints.

ZP
 
Also, we Byzantine Catholics celebrate Saint Gregory Palamas on the second Sunday of Great Lent.

ZP
 
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