Any converts from Eastern Orthodoxy?

[josie_L]

From that same article:

In their rejecting of the Filioque, do I say that the Eastern Orthodox are heretics? No, I do not say that; at least not as far as formal heresy goes – that is, heresy as a matter of direct profession, as opposed to a failure to profess or appreciate essential truth. For, officially-speaking, the Eastern Orthodox Church merely holds fast to the original, orthodox pronouncement of the Constantinopolitan Creed – the decree that the Father alone is the Cause (Aition) of the Spirit. However, in focusing on this truth and rigidly ignoring additional truth, many Eastern Orthodox come very close to heresy – that is, the sin of a schismatic mentality, which is the sin of rejecting the totality of Truth, and so dividing the unity of the Church, which is “the pillar and foundation of Truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). As a very wise priest once said, "All heresies are, in some sense, ‘true’. The problem is that they zealously stress one truth at the expense of other truths

One wonders whether this might be applied to the rejection of the development of the papacy, also.

I think it’s a great response regarding the filioque , and I remember asking Cavaradossi to read it (the last time we had a discussion on the filioque, which was in the summer of 2012), I guess he never did.

 

[mardukm]

Have you read the last few pages, i.e., he claims that at the council of Florence we Catholics have dogmatically proclaimed that the Son is the source of the Holy Spirit

I went back 3 pages (including this one) and, unless I missed it, I did not see Cavaradossi accusing Catholics of claiming the Son is the Source of the Holy Spirit (though there have been Catholics here on CAF who actually have that heterodox belief).

p.s. Would the clarification of HH JPII be “a Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, which is entitled Filioque: A Clarification.”?

Yes.

Blessings

 

[mardukm]

Dear Cavaradossi,

If Rome will condemn the proposition that the Son is cause of the Holy Spirit and that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as one principle

I just gave a “benefit-of-the-doubt” interpretation of your comment to sister Josie. If your intention is anything different, then I would disagree.

limit the papal primacy to one of mediate jurisdiction

As explained in the past, the term “immediate” has two connotations:
(1) Theologically, it means that the jurisdiction is directly from God. In the same way, the jurisdiction of every bishop is “immediate” - i.e., directly from God. In other words, it is of divine establishment. This, Catholics will never, and can never, deny because it is, to us, clearly taught by Jesus Himself in Scripture.
(2) Canonically, it refers to the direct relationship between the superior and the subject. It does not refer to the use of jurisdiction, but merely to its nature. Just because his jurisdiction is direct (i.e., immediate), that does not mean he can use it any time he pleases, or at his mere and sole discretion. The Pope has no authority to usurp the immediate and ordinary authority of a local bishop according to Pastor Aeternus, quoting Pope St. Gregory the Great in its statement (the old Catholic Encyclopedia also affirms this in its explanation of the controversy over “universal bishop” - St. Gregory understood it as involving the denial of the authority of the local diocesan (Epistle 5:21). No one, he maintains, has a right so to term himself universal bishop as to usurp that apostolically constituted power.).

I assume you disagree with the first connotation being EO, but what is it about the second connotation which you think requires correction or rejection?

return some of its later dogmata to the status of theological opinions

Why? There’s nothing doctrinally wrong with the IC correctly understood. And certainly nothing doctrinally wrong with the Assumption. Is the dogmatic content of those teachings (not the theological expressions used) heterodox or heretical in some way? If reunion is achieved, we’ll have one group saying “this should not be a dogma,” another group saying, “it is a dogma,” but both groups believe the teachings nonetheless. The dogma does not condemn anyone who believes it should not be a dogma - only someone who actually denies the actual teaching. So what’s the use of making the matter a condition for reunion?

and condemn certain errors of Aristotelian ontology

Not my field, so I can’t comment. If you can qualify this statement (i.e., exactly what points of Aristotelian ontology), maybe others can respond.

The immediate and proper jurisdiction of the papacy in all dioceses of the world similarly was not a principle intrinsic to the thought of the Latin Fathers (most scholars indeed agree that the immediate universal and proper jurisdiction of the papacy was the result of a long process of development).

“immediate” has been explained above. And it is not true that the Pope has proper jurisdiction in every diocese in the world. The correct teaching is that the Pope has proper jurisdiciton in matters pertaining to the Church universal. He also has proper jurisdiction in his own diocese – but he does not have proper jurisdiction in any other diocese.

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[Randy_Carson]

Marduk-

It is a pleasure to have you join our little firestorm; I enjoyed your comments and look forward to Cavaradossi’s responses to them.

Josie previously referenced an article by an Orthodox theologian, David Bentley Hart, and that led me to do a wee bit of reading about Vladimir Lossky (an opponent of Soloviev which explains a few things, perhaps). To be fair, I’m not at all familiar with these gentlemen beyond reading The Russian Church and the Papacy - an abridgment of Soloviev’s larger work.

Apparently, my ignorance of Lossky prevents me from fully appreciating just how wrong Hart is or from really getting anything out of his essay. Therefore, I would be interested to know if you are familiar with Hart, your opinions of him as a theologian, and what you think of his article, The Myth of Schism.

Thanks.

 

[Peter_J]

Do Roman Catholics discriminate against the Anglicans by telling them that their Holy Orders are invalid and that they eat mere bread and wine during their Eucharistic services?

For the record, Rome does not have a position on whether or not Anglicans *currently *have valid orders. She has only said that they *did *lose valid orders once upon a time (and hence if they do have them now, it is only through the Old Catholics).

 

[josie_L]

I went back 3 pages (including this one) and, unless I missed it, I did not see Cavaradossi accusing Catholics of claiming the Son is the Source of the Holy Spirit (though there have been Catholics here on CAF who actually have that heterodox belief).

Well, we will have to agree to disagree, moreover, if Catholics do hold this heterodox belief it is because of poor catechesis, i.e., they just need to be guided to the right resources in order to rectify that situation. God bless!

 

[Andonios]

After leaving the Catholic Church I went to two Orthodox parishes near me for about six months. I stopped just short of asking to be a catechumens in a Russian church.

Part of the reason I stopped short is because the Orthodox parishes had essentially become social clubs for the particular ethnic group (Greek and Russian respectively). The Greek parish was icy. There were about three or four converts that kept to themselves, and they were never fully incorporated into the parish. I mentioned this issue to the priest and he actually apologized for the racism and clanish behavior of his flock. I came down to ask the question “Why would I ever want to join a parish that I could never fully be a part of?” He said good question and he didn’t blame me. The Greek parishes only “outreach” was an annual Greek festival that was more about getting hammered and less about Jesus. I went to the Russian parish which was much more welcoming. A large amount of converts who were more or less fully vested in the parish. I couldn’t get past some things in Orthodox theology and thought though.

I see this interaction, although not as much anymore, from many converts coming to established parishes. Particularly those converts from Protestant or very evangelical RC parishes who basically have the religious equivalent to a Wal-Mart greeter. From my personal dealings with this conundrum, the root of the problem is in the congregationalist approach to the Church, not the congregation itself. You aren’t ‘joining a parish’, you are being grafted into the faithful as a whole. The Life in Christ is not the life in Anytown, USA’s parish hall. Is it a benefit and encouraging to have a warm inviting group? Of course. The Life in the Church is in Her Services…in the participation of the Mysteries…We certainly can’t do it alone, but we also certainly can’t blame others for our lack of participation.

I’ve seen converts leave the Church entirely when their favorite priest is no longer serving at their home parish. This is the exact same problem that many Protestant parishes struggle with since their group is so pastor-centric. Even those who try to remedy this by having a very parish council-centric group run into the common problem of basically having a pastor-for-hire rather than a true shepherd of the flock.

 

[MommaduckofMany]

After leaving the Catholic Church I went to two Orthodox parishes near me for about six months. I stopped just short of asking to be a catechumens in a Russian church.

Part of the reason I stopped short is because the Orthodox parishes had essentially become social clubs for the particular ethnic group (Greek and Russian respectively). The Greek parish was icy. There were about three or four converts that kept to themselves, and they were never fully incorporated into the parish. I mentioned this issue to the priest and he actually apologized for the racism and clanish behavior of his flock. I came down to ask the question “Why would I ever want to join a parish that I could never fully be a part of?” He said good question and he didn’t blame me. The Greek parishes only “outreach” was an annual Greek festival that was more about getting hammered and less about Jesus. I went to the Russian parish which was much more welcoming. A large amount of converts who were more or less fully vested in the parish. I couldn’t get past some things in Orthodox theology and thought though.

The interesting thing is that this was my experience with a German Catholic parish in the midwest. It was also more of a social club where people came merely to meet certain obligations. If you weren’t related to the families in that small town, you weren’t welcome. The mass I attended, only the old ladies were in the pews (and us, at the time we were a young couple with one young child and a Catholic friend had brought us, it wasn’t his parish, but the parish we lived two doors down from). All the families were dressed for a ball game (uniforms and all) and stood in the back behind the glass windows to watch. The priest was shaking hands on the way out the door and we had hoped to introduce ourselves so we could later come and talk to him. He absolutely REFUSED to shake my husband’s hand, gave me a dirty look, and refused to even speak to us (not even a “good day” or “welcome”).

Thankfully, I knew another priest, another parish, that was very opposite and of that and were not a “culture club”. It is the same with Orthodoxy. Yes, we have a few parishes that are like culture clubs. Most are not. Our family was welcomed into a Greek parish six years ago and we were very much included in events, etc. Outreach extended beyond merely Greek bazaar. We started a preschool, we sent teams to build houses in other countries, one of our priests assisted starting the OCMC, one of his sons was a priest that helped re-establish the Church in Albania and wrote several books.

Parishes are made up of humans. Humans are flawed. Do not judge the whole by the few. I’ll be honest, at the time of our visit to that one RCC parish, we would have been open to the RCC. That candle was snuffed out pretty quickly because of that priest and we spent years wandering further into fundamentalism because of it. The EOC helped pull us out of such. By the same token, yes, there are those friends that have run into the rare EOC culture club and have found a home in the RCC. I think we need to be careful about such broadbrushing due to a singular experience.

 

[Melchizedek89]

I became Eastern Catholic after getting engaged to my wife, who is cradle Roman Catholic. She told me that she was unwilling to leave the Catholic Church, but that she was willing to worship at an Eastern Catholic parish and to raise any children we might have as Eastern Catholic, so I agreed to becoming Eastern Catholic. I often have doubts about the choice I made.

I just came across this thread, and want to let you know that you have my prayers. From experience, I know very well the difficulty of your situation…