I’m also not completely understanding why we are comparing theology vs canon law. They are not the same thing. Frankly it makes me sad. The Latin Church is so big and pervasive that the vast majority of it’s members, at least from the evidence on these forums, are so ignorant of Church history.
That’s not unique to Latin Christians. I deal regularly with Orthodox, particularly Russian Orthodox, and haven’t found a vast repository of Church history, even among clergy.
In the United States, parochial Catholic schools traditionally have taught on three phases of Church history: the early Church and its founding by Our Lord, the abbreviated Catholic version of the schism in 1054, and the abbreviated Catholic take on the so-called Reformation. Going beyond those is probably restricted to people who do post-secondary education in history and theology.
There were always different schools of theology with different emphases. The Church was never as Rome centric as it is today. You had an seemingly endless stream of arguments between various bishops over countless issues including popes being called to task. You have long periods of time where various patriarchs would strike other patriarchs from the diptychs thereby breaking communion. That doesn’t exclude the pope either by the way. He was struck from the diptychs on a number of occasions too. Could you imagine that happening today?!
I don’t think anyone in the Catholic Church except for a few academics and folks in the Eastern rites even know what a diptych is.
The reason why the Church was not as “Rome centric” historically was that communication between the Holy Father and the bishops took months, sometimes years, to accomplish. As a result individual bishops were given a large amount of latitude and jurisdiction. Among the results of this were a series of schisms of various sizes, the rise of some particularly pervasive heresies, including Arianism, Monophysitism, Nestorianism, and so on.
Popes are still “called to task”. Take a look at the Society of Pius X for an example. That has nothing at all to do with the Holy Father’s Petrine role.
My point in saying this is not to beat up on Latin Catholics. It’s an innocent ignorance. It’s not their fault. But if the Eastern Catholic Churches are ever to assume their place as true sister Churches of the Latin Church there is going to have to be an effort on the part of Latin bishops and catechist to educate their faithful. It’s going to take more than one encyclical to do it.
In most places in the Church the Eastern rite presence is limited, and therefore the greatest need for catechesis remains educating the faithful on matters of faith and morals, followed by - for an example in the United States - catechesis on the churches of the Reformation.
In this country, the USA, the largest problems have been with the bishops themselves and their insistence that Eastern rites comport with Latin rite disciplines and rubrics. This problem seems to be largely resolved, at least officially, and going forward we can hope that the worst is behind us.
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articipation in Trinitarian life takes place through the liturgy and in a special way through the Eucharist, the mystery of communion with the glorified body of Christ, the seed of immortality.(13) In divinization and particularly in the sacraments, Eastern theology attributes a very special role to the Holy Spirit: through the power of the Spirit who dwells in man deification already begins on earth; the creature is transfigured and God’s kingdom inaugurated.
