Catholic and Orthodox reunion

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Aramis said:
St Photius theological points were valid, but he was grossly misinformed, and was anti-latin to begin with; it isn’t impossible that he willfully chose to mistranslate procedit as ekorousis instead of proenai.
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So anti-Latin that he appealed to some (presumably Latin) Papal legates to act as a neutral party in a dispute…
 
Aramis said:
St Photius theological points were valid, but he was grossly misinformed, and was anti-latin to begin with; it isn’t impossible that he willfully chose to mistranslate procedit as ekorousis instead of proenai.
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If St. Photius had a negative attitude towards Latins it was because of the Latin missionaries who criticized Byzantine practices when they met Byzantine missionaries trying to covert the pagan Slavs in Bohemia and later Bulgaria. Remember the persecutions of Sts. Cyril and Methodius by the German missionaries in Bohemia. If he had an anti-Latin attitude, that attitude was reinforced when Pope Nicholas I tried to intervene in the internal affairs of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

Archpriest John W. Morris
 
frjohnmorris said:
If St. Photius had a negative attitude towards Latins it was because of the Latin missionaries who criticized Byzantine practices when they met Byzantine missionaries trying to covert the pagan Slavs in Bohemia and later Bulgaria. Remember the persecutions of Sts. Cyril and Methodius by the German missionaries in Bohemia. If he had an anti-Latin attitude, that attitude was reinforced when Pope Nicholas I tried to intervene in the internal affairs of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

Archpriest John W. Morris
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So, generally, then, history shows that Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox are not able to get along and live in peace with one another? Even though they are both apostolic Christian Churches?
 
Tomdstone said:
So, generally, then, history shows that Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox are not able to get along and live in peace with one another? Even though they are both apostolic Christian Churches?
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We got along together during the first 1,000 years of Christian history and can restore relations again on the basis of the way they were then. All kinds of factors led to the schism, not the least was Germanic imperialism.

Archpriest John W. Morris
 
Tomdstone said:
So, generally, then, history shows that Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox are not able to get along and live in peace with one another? Even though they are both apostolic Christian Churches?
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One thing we’ve always agreed on is that we are all human. Just like the Muslims with their Shia/Sunni schism or the Buddhists with their Theravada/Mahayana split (or the even earlier Hindu/Buddhist break).

I suppose it is perhaps by the grace of God that our schism has been much less violent than those two examples.
 
Wandile said:
Like it was mentioned earlier, both Ignatius and Photius petitioned Rome for adjudication.
Amen.
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That is not quite the case. They asked the papal legates who happened to be in Constantinople at the time to mediate the dispute. They did not ask the Bishop of Rome himself to get involved. The papal legates decided in favor of St. Photius. Nicholas I, who was at that time working to extend the power of the papacy, intervened without being asked and renounced their decision because he saw it as an opportunity to enlarge papal authority over the Eastern Patriarchs.

The decisions of the council of 869 ruled against St. Photius, but in no way recognized the authority of Rome to interfere in the eternal affairs of Constantinople or any of the Eastern Patriarchates.
In the ancient undivided Church the Bishop of Rome only had a primacy of honor. He did not have universal jurisdiction. Like every other Bishop, he was subject to the authority of an Ecumenical Council. The Bishop of Rome certainly neither claimed or was recognized as infallible and able to pronounce the doctrine of the Church on his own authority. Chalcedon shows that. The Tome of Leo was read, but it was not accepted as a correct expression of the Faith of the Church until it was accepted by the Council. The II Council of Constantinople demanded that Pope Vigilius accept its decrees. He hesitated, but finally under threat of excommunication signed the decree.
Whether or not Rome accepted it, Canon 28 of Chalcedon shows that the Eastern Church did not recognize the Bishop of Rome as possessing any extraordinary authority.
Several canons of the Council in Trullo criticized several Roman practices, showing that the East did not recognize the Pope as possessing universal jurisdiction. Significantly, although the East disagreed with Rome on several non dogmatic issues, the Council did not threaten to break Communion with Rome over differences in practice.
Fighting these old battles over the interpretation of history will not further the cause of unity. Instead, Orthodox and Roman Catholics should concentrate on where we are now and try to find a way to resolve our differences and restore Communion.
I am not sure that I have mentioned it here, but before I even became Orthodox and went to seminary I earned a PhD in history and taught history on the college level. Until a few years ago, I taught part time at a college near my parish assignment. I even taught church history for the adult education program of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Shreveport. As a professionally trained historian, I am the first person to recognize that history is not absolute truth. History is the opinion of historians based on the sources they use filtered through their personal biases. Two equally capable historians can look at the same sources and come away with different and conflicting opinions on what happened. That is although arguing about historical events is intellectually stimulating these arguments will not bring our Churches closer together. Again, the issue is where are we now and how can we overcome our differences and restore Communion between Orthodoxy and Rome. We can agree to disagree about specific historical events.

Archpriest John W. Morris
 
Nine_Two said:
One thing we’ve always agreed on is that we are all human. Just like the Muslims with their Shia/Sunni schism or the Buddhists with their Theravada/Mahayana split (or the even earlier Hindu/Buddhist break).

I suppose it is perhaps by the grace of God that our schism has been much less violent than those two examples.
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I thought that the fourth Crusade was kind of violent, with innocent and religious Orthodox nuns being raped by Roman Catholic crusaders?
 
Tomdstone said:
I thought that the fourth Crusade was kind of violent, with innocent and religious Orthodox nuns being raped by Roman Catholic crusaders?
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Or the murder of Flavian at 2nd Council of Ephesus.
Or the icnonoclastic riots
Or the wars between Orthodox Byzantines & Nestorian Parthians, Catholic Croats & Orthodox Serbs, sometimes bloody disputes between Melkites (the Emperor’s party, not just today’s Catholic) & Coptic/Syriacs. The latter probably led to Muhammad’s conviction that Christianity is not the whole answer - would the world be different today if Christians in those days had been more charitable to each other in their schism?
The use of Arian-pagan barbarians and later Muslim as the balance of power between Catholic and Orthodox pwers, sometimes leading to the sanctioning of Muslim conquests of the other’s territory.

We definitely didn’t have a pretty history and it is clear that we continue to suffer today for the sins of our fathers. Still, I believe that we have learnt greatly from those errors and Christianity is today a force for pacificism except by those who choose to see the baggage left by our fathers rather than the tome of learning that we have today.
 
frjohnmorris said:
That is not quite the case. They asked the papal legates who happened to be in Constantinople at the time to mediate the dispute. They did not ask the Bishop of Rome himself to get involved. The papal legates decided in favor of St. Photius. Nicholas I, who was at that time working to extend the power of the papacy, intervened without being asked and renounced their decision because he saw it as an opportunity to enlarge papal authority over the Eastern Patriarchs.
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First the Emperor and then Photius sent letters to Rome and ASKED for Legates after they failed to coerce the rightful Patriarch, Ignatius, from resigning his See. Photius was raised through Holy Orders in six days, worse yet ordained by Gregory Asbestas who already been excommunicated for his insolence against his lawfully elected Patriarch, Ignatius. Photius letter at this point was quite respectful, if deceitful, and he doesn’t turn heel against Rome until his slander against Ignatius was rejected about 5 years later

Unfortunately the legates took bribes, were convicted, and degraded to lay status as a result.

During his exile, Ignatius also sent a letter to Rome in the hands of a friend. Nicholas THEN issued his opinion stating that Ignatius must be restored.
 
Nine_Two said:
So anti-Latin that he appealed to some (presumably Latin) Papal legates to act as a neutral party in a dispute…
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Only if you’re confusing cause and effect. The anti-Latin attitude didn’t happen until AFTER Rome’s rejection of his illicit usurpation of the rightful See of Ignatius. From then on, however, he nursed an anti-Roman party in the Court.
 
frjohnmorris said:
The cause of the conflict between Ignatius and St. Photius was that Ignatius and his followers advocated punishment for the Bishops and clergy who had yielded to the imperial policy of iconoclasm.
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Funny, the Latins of the day documented that it was because Ignatius dared to refuse the Eucharist to the Caesar Bardas, living in an incestuous relationship with his daughter-in-law and faced the the wrath of the secular power willfully interfering in the Church hierarchy in defiance of canon law.

Photius never published anything against the Latins before the decision against him in 862, however. Most of his rants seem petty and trivial and almost willfully deceiful, but even Cerularius seemed to have forgotten about filioque two hundred years later, mostly dwelling on azyme bread…
 
AdvocatusVerbum said:
Photius never published anything against the Latins before the decision against him in 862, however. Most of his rants seem petty and trivial and almost willfully deceiful, but even Cerularius seemed to have forgotten about filioque two hundred years later, mostly dwelling on azyme bread…
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If all of these issues are so trivial, why did the Roman Catholic Church go out of its way to excommunicate Cerularius and start the schism?
 
AdvocatusVerbum said:
Only if you’re confusing cause and effect. The anti-Latin attitude didn’t happen until AFTER Rome’s rejection of his illicit usurpation of the rightful See of Ignatius. From then on, however, he nursed an anti-Roman party in the Court.
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As long as we can agree it wasn’t simply a knee-jerk anti-Latinism as the post I was replying to seemed to indicate.

Once we’ve gotten that far perhaps we can try to discuss where the feelings came from?
 
Tomdstone said:
Have you heard of the mass murder and cruelty at the Jasenovac concentration camp, where
Roman Catholic Ustase brutally tortured and murdered Orthodox Serbs?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasenovac_concentration_camp#Mass_murder_and_cruelty
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I’m beginning to wonder if you have an agenda here. I never denied there was violence. You don’t need to reply to me several times with a new example of violence each time. Bringing up these things in this particular thread seems designed to foster bad blood.

If you don’t have an agenda, my apologies, but there is no need to list what we’ve done to each other in the past. We’re aware.
 
AdvocatusVerbum said:
Funny, the Latins of the day documented that it was because Ignatius dared to refuse the Eucharist to the Caesar Bardas, living in an incestuous relationship with his daughter-in-law and faced the the wrath of the secular power willfully interfering in the Church hierarchy in defiance of canon law.
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Have you noticed that some modern-day Latins seem to have more of an ax to grind against Pat. Photius than the Latins of his own day did?

And, of course, a (belated) welcome to the forum. 🙂
 
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