Definition of communion with Rome

[Alexander_Roman]

So you mean Maronite and Italo-Albanian are not Eastern Catholic?

They may be called that in generic terms and they may call themselves that. But there were no “Eastern Catholics” prior to the various unias between Rome and the Orthodox communities that came into union with them.

If it can be shown that Maronites and Italo-Albanians were never out of communion with Rome, then they should call themselves by the term they have historically called themselves - I doubt, although I could be wrong, that that term was “Eastern Catholic.”

The term “Greek Catholic” was actually devised by the Austro-Hungarian empire to differentiate between Greek and Roman Catholics.

The Ukrainian Catholic church went back to calling itself “Greek Catholic” simply because the churches taken over by the Soviets and the state-run ROC are listed as such. To change the “Greek Catholic” name would therefore pose a grave legal problem re: getting the churches back.

Alex

 

[Alexander_Roman]

There is nothing to prevent a Ukrainian Greek Catholic eparch, outside the Patriarchal territory, from exercising his power in accord with the Patriarch (M.A.), yet the Patriarch (M.A.) cannot compel him to do so. The Holy See could do so by approving a decree and make it binding throughout the world.

Historically, whenever one of our eparchs refused to listen to our Patriarch, it was the people themselves who showed their displeasure and tried to force him to compel.

Our eparchs have gotten the message . . . Hopefully, one day Rome will too!

Alex

 

[Alexander_Roman]

Yes, Pope John VIII. My Orthodox name (real name) is Adrian. I chose “JohnVIII” because I believe it can be demonstrated from historical records that Pope John VIII did not believe in the filioque at all, any more then his contemporary St Photius of Constantinople. He did believe in the primacy of the Roman See however, but I think for different reasons then many do today.

Well done, Your Holiness!!

And you are absolutely correct. It was Pope St Leo IV, I believe, who made the gold and silver copies of the Creed without the Filioque and placed them on the Tomb of St Peter.

Although he was canonized in post-schism times, I don’t see why he can’t be honoured by all Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox.

Viva Il Papa Giovanni VIII!

 

[JohnVIII]

Well done, Your Holiness!!

And you are absolutely correct. It was Pope St Leo IV, I believe, who made the gold and silver copies of the Creed without the Filioque and placed them on the Tomb of St Peter.

Although he was canonized in post-schism times, I don’t see why he can’t be honoured by all Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox.

Viva Il Papa Giovanni VIII!

I’ve been corrected on this before, but I think it was Pope Leo III that had the plates. I believe they were written in Latin (not Greek) without the filioque!

As for Pope John VIII, he had courted the Bulgarian Church and tried to persuade them to not go under the jurisdiction of Constantinople but to go under Rome. While doing this he wrote a letter to the Bulgarian king Boris and within it said that his (Pope John VIII) faith and the faith of Patriarch Photius were identical there is a reference to this in the Catholic Encyclopedia. Given that Patriarch Photius had actually excommunicated Pope John VIII’s predecessor Pope Nicholas I for advocating the filioque I’m sure Pope John VIII understood the faith of Patriarch Photius and it had to be an amazing thing at that time for Pope John VIII to say such a thing. And of course there was a letter (that some claim was a forgery) where Pope John VIII said, “We not only do not assert this idea that the Spirit proceedeth from the Son, but we judge those who first had the hardihood in their own madness to do so to be transgressors of the divine words and refashioners of the theology of the Lord Jesus Christ and of the Fathers, who, assembled together in council, imparted the Holy Creed, or Symbol of Faith, and we class them with Judas”.

 

[JackQ]

They were Christians. There was only the Church until East and West divided by mutual excommunications and each took on a label, Catholic in the West and Orthodox in the East…

The term “Roman Catholic” is quite recent, 17th century, having mainly come to the Latin Church as a label from the Church of England, replacing or in addition to the term “Papists”. Just as many of the Latin Church now happily call themselves Papists, the Latin Church has in recent years come to make use of the term “Roman Catholic”. You won’t find it in for example the Code of Canon Law: "Can. 1 The canons of this Code regard only the Latin Church."

Peter was in Antioch, modern day Turkey, long before he was in Rome.

That’s why I use the term “Roman Catholic” to mean a Catholic of the Latin rite, and I do believe that I am correct in this.

 

[Cecilianus]

We acknowlege their “pith and substance” but deny their Latin theological grounding as irrelevant to us.

We still don’t understand why you felt you had to proclaim the Marian dogmas when their “pith and substance” were always affirmed by the universal Church (other than the influence of extreme Augstinianism).

Alex

According to Fr. Bernard Lonergan (in Method in Theology) the reason was in order to give Papal blessing and ratification to what the Church had already defined and decreed through the piety of its people, and to confirm and bless this piety. In other words, the Pope was treating the people as a whole (the sensus fidelium) with the same dignity as an Ecumenical Council. Understood this way, it really shouldn’t be too controversial in the East given the eminent role we give to the laity (for example, in accepting or rejecting our bishops by proclaiming “axios”, or in the possibly somewhat exaggerated role given to the laity in controlling parishes - an ROC parish in town once fired their pastor for unspecified reasons, for example).

 

[Cecilianus]

The term “Roman Catholic” is quite recent, 17th century, having mainly come to the Latin Church as a label from the Church of England, replacing or in addition to the term “Papists”. Just as many of the Latin Church now happily call themselves Papists, the Latin Church has in recent years come to make use of the term “Roman Catholic”. You won’t find it in for example the Code of Canon Law: “Can. 1 The canons of this Code regard only the Latin Church.”

I do something similar and happily call myself a Uniate - but only in Roman Catholic circles where the word simply means “Greek Catholic”. “Uniatism” (Latinizations) is still a huge problem.

I find it interesting that they call themselves the “Latin Church” rather than the Roman because Orthodox discussion of the “Latins” always strikes me as extremely pejorative (only slightly less so than “Franks”).

 

[Vico]

In the Canon laws (CIC or CCEO or Pastor Bonus), Latin Church is used and Church sui iuris, and the Church and Catholic Church. Pastor Bonus uses Roman Church.

CCEO Canon 7

1. The Christian faithful are those who, incorporated in Christ through baptism, have been constituted as the people of God; for this reason, since they have become sharers in Christ’s priestly, prophetic and royal function in their own manner; they are called, in accordance with the condition proper to each, to exercise the mission which God has entrusted to the Church to fulfill in the world.
2. This Church, constituted and organized as a society in this world, subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the successor of Peter and the bishops in communion with him.

See:
vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_jp-ii_apc_19880628_pastor-bonus-general-norms_en.html

intratext.com/IXT/ENG1199/_P7.HTM#2P

vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_INDEX.HTM

 

[TrueLight]

This was posted in another thread:

Rome herself is NOT the Mother Church of the Eastern and Oriental Catholic Churches. It has been acknowledged on multiple occasions that the various Orthodox Churches (Eastern and Oriental) are the “Mother Churches” of the various Eastern Catholic Churches. Rome has explicitly stated this on a number of occasions. One needs only read the documents on the Eastern Catholic Churches.

I posted the below comment before realizing this thread existed:

Really? So what is the reason of being in communion with Rome anyway?

I have VERY limited knowledge and experience obviously, so please excuse my ignorance, but sometimes I wonder why the Pope seeks communion. It seems to me that he is making concessions just so that more of the body of Christ can be one even if the Eastern Catholic churches are one in name alone. Am I misunderstanding?

So is the mother church the orthodox church?

 

[Vico]

They may be called that in generic terms and they may call themselves that. But there were no “Eastern Catholics” prior to the various unias between Rome and the Orthodox communities that came into union with them.

If it can be shown that Maronites and Italo-Albanians were never out of communion with Rome, then they should call themselves by the term they have historically called themselves - I doubt, although I could be wrong, that that term was “Eastern Catholic.”

The term “Greek Catholic” was actually devised by the Austro-Hungarian empire to differentiate between Greek and Roman Catholics.

The Ukrainian Catholic church went back to calling itself “Greek Catholic” simply because the churches taken over by the Soviets and the state-run ROC are listed as such. To change the “Greek Catholic” name would therefore pose a grave legal problem re: getting the churches back.

Alex

Italo-Græcus is the term for those in Southern Italy, Sicily.

The Greek speaking Italians in Southern Italy and Sicily, Byzantine tradition, were under jurisdiction of the Church of Rome.
Byzantine emperor Leo III (717-741 reign) placed this area under the jurisdiction of the Patiarchate of Constantinople in the 8th century.
The Norman conquest of the 11th century placed this area under the Church of Rome again. The South Albanians the moved to Italy joined this Church with the Byzantine traditions, today known as the Italo-Albanian Greek Catholic Church sui iuris.

The sui iuris mean that the particular Church has its own laws. Each of those Church sui iuris is subject to the laws of the Supreme Pontiff so it is relative self-rule.

 

[Hesychios]

The South Albanians the moved to Italy joined this Church …

That is not quite historically accurate.

There was no ‘church’ of Byzantine tradition in Italy by the time Skanderbeg had died. There was only the Latin Catholic church, with Latin Catholic bishops.

If there were some parishes still allowed to use some form of the liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom/Saint Basil, they nevertheless did not constitute a church, and they did not have bishops. They would have been allowed their own liturgy as a type of indult. For all practical purposes that church had died after the bishops were replaced, and most of their descendants became Roman Catholics.

The migration of a new population of Orthodox into Italy in the fifteenth century began the process over again. They arrived after the Council of Florence as Orthodox under the reunion scheme. Just like their Roman Catholic counterparts from Albania, the Orthodox from Albania depended upon the Latin Catholic bishops, and perhaps also some Orthodox bishops from across the Adriatic who were willing and able to odain clergy for them in the days after Florence. There was no provision for them to have their own hierarchy (which in Italy was entirely territorial based, as in the early church), they were subject to the Latin bishops.

The two dioceses today are not so very old, that they had to be established for the remnant shows that in fact they had no church of their own, no synod, no local councils, no decision-making ability.

No church … and they were in danger of disappearing like the Italo-Greeks before them.

The eparchy of Lungro degli Italo-Albanesi dates to 1919

The eparchy of Pianadegli Italo-Albanesi dates to 1937

To this day there is no Metropolitan, and no synod. As far as I can tell (subject to correction) both Sees are at the moment vacant and administered by Latin Catholic bishops.

 

[Vico]

That is not quite historically accurate.

There was no ‘church’ of Byzantine tradition in Italy by the time Skanderbeg had died. There was only the Latin Catholic church, with Latin Catholic bishops.

If there were some parishes still allowed to use some form of the liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom/Saint Basil, they nevertheless did not constitute a church, and they did not have bishops. They would have been allowed their own liturgy as a type of indult. For all practical purposes that church had died after the bishops were replaced, and most of their descendants became Roman Catholics.

The migration of a new population of Orthodox into Italy in the fifteenth century began the process over again. They arrived after the Council of Florence as Orthodox under the reunion scheme. Just like their Roman Catholic counterparts from Albania, the Orthodox from Albania depended upon the Latin Catholic bishops, and perhaps also some Orthodox bishops from across the Adriatic who were willing and able to odain clergy for them in the days after Florence. There was no provision for them to have their own hierarchy (which in Italy was entirely territorial based, as in the early church), they were subject to the Latin bishops.

The two dioceses today are not so very old, that they had to be established for the remnant shows that in fact they had no church of their own, no synod, no local councils, no decision-making ability.

No church … and they were in danger of disappearing like the Italo-Greeks before them.

The eparchy of Lungro degli Italo-Albanesi dates to 1919

The eparchy of Pianadegli Italo-Albanesi dates to 1937

To this day there is no Metropolitan, and no synod. As far as I can tell (subject to correction) both Sees are at the moment vacant and administered by Latin Catholic bishops.

Any Church sui iuris that is not Patriarchal, Major Archepiscopal, or Metropolitan, has no head of the Church sui iuris other than the Holy See: the Congregation for Eastern Churches.

But you have forgotten Greek Abbey of St. Mary of Grottaferrata, along with Lungro and Pianadegli Italo-Albanesi. From the Grottaferrata site:

“It is also unique in that, having been founded fifty years before the Great Schism that divided Catholics and Orthodox, it remained in communion with the Church of Rome while preserving the Byzantine rite and monastic tradition of its founders.”

abbaziagreca.it/en/index.asp

gcatholic.com/dioceses/diocese/zmar9.htm

 

[Hesychios]

But you have forgotten Greek Abbey of St. Mary of Grottaferrata,

No, I have not forgotten it.

As a dependency of the bishop of Rome the place accepted Latin Catholics as monks for years, and had a highly latinized liturgy. For a long time it had become basically a Roman Catholic monastery with a unique history and strangely hybrid rite. It has no more real connection with the Albanians in the far south than it has with Albanians in Albania. In other words, any connection it has with the dioceses of Piana degli Albanesi and Lungro degli Albanesi are accidental, a political fiction that would not have been conceivable until Garibaldi unified the peninsula. The idea that these together form some kind of continuity is wishful thinking.

If the Albanian dioceses finally do die out, hundreds of years from now there may be something new for the descendants of present day Ukrainian or Romanian immigrants to Italy, and then people will probably also be claiming that it is also the same church the Italo-Greeks had in the eight century … but if so that will be just another myth.

 

[Vico]

No, I have not forgotten it.

As a dependency of the bishop of Rome the place accepted Latin Catholics as monks for years, and had a highly latinized liturgy. For a long time it had become basically a Roman Catholic monastery with a unique history and strangely hybrid rite. It has no more real connection with the Albanians in the far south than it has with Albanians in Albania. In other words, any connection it has with the dioceses of Piana degli Albanesi and Lungro degli Albanesi are accidental, a political fiction that would not have been conceivable until Garibaldi unified the peninsula. The idea that these together form some kind of continuity is wishful thinking.

If the Albanian dioceses finally do die out, hundreds of years from now there may be something new for the descendants of present day Ukrainian or Romanian immigrants to Italy, and then people will probably also be claiming that it is also the same church the Italo-Greeks had in the eight century … but if so that will be just another myth.

Re: “The South Albanians the moved to Italy joined this Church”

This is what I refer to, that the Byzantine tradition in Italy was continuous through the Italo-Greeks, and the immigrant Albanians, as described below. They are known today as the Italo-Albanian Catholic Church.
cnewa.org/default.aspx?ID=57&pagetypeID=9&sitecode=HQ&pageno=1

The Churches sui iuris are defined in such a way that a geographic area, in this case Italy, and the rite, is significant.

CCEO Canon 27
A group of Christian faithful united by a hierarchy according to the norm of law which the supreme authority of the Church expressly or tacitly recognizes as sui iuris is called in this Code a Church sui iuris.
CCEO Canon 28

1. A rite is the liturgical, theological, spiritual and disciplinary patrimony, culture and circumstances of history of a distinct people, by which its own manner of living the faith is manifested in each Church sui iuris.

 

[Cecilianus]

That is not quite historically accurate.

There was no ‘church’ of Byzantine tradition in Italy by the time Skanderbeg had died. There was only the Latin Catholic church, with Latin Catholic bishops.

If there were some parishes still allowed to use some form of the liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom/Saint Basil, they nevertheless did not constitute a church, and they did not have bishops. They would have been allowed their own liturgy as a type of indult. For all practical purposes that church had died after the bishops were replaced, and most of their descendants became Roman Catholics.

The migration of a new population of Orthodox into Italy in the fifteenth century began the process over again. They arrived after the Council of Florence as Orthodox under the reunion scheme. Just like their Roman Catholic counterparts from Albania, the Orthodox from Albania depended upon the Latin Catholic bishops, and perhaps also some Orthodox bishops from across the Adriatic who were willing and able to odain clergy for them in the days after Florence. There was no provision for them to have their own hierarchy (which in Italy was entirely territorial based, as in the early church), they were subject to the Latin bishops.

The two dioceses today are not so very old, that they had to be established for the remnant shows that in fact they had no church of their own, no synod, no local councils, no decision-making ability.

No church … and they were in danger of disappearing like the Italo-Greeks before them.

The eparchy of Lungro degli Italo-Albanesi dates to 1919

The eparchy of Pianadegli Italo-Albanesi dates to 1937

To this day there is no Metropolitan, and no synod. As far as I can tell (subject to correction) both Sees are at the moment vacant and administered by Latin Catholic bishops.

This is not correct. They had their own Greek bishops; many of the Greek sees were not suppressed until the 16th century after the Albanians came. I would like to know where you are getting your information from; most of what I know comes from David Paul Hester’s Monasticism and Spirituality of the Italo-Greeks, published (in English) by the Patriarchal Institute of Patristic Studies in Thessaloniki.

 

[5Loaves]

I do something similar and** happily call myself a Uniate** - but only in Roman Catholic circles where the word simply means “Greek Catholic”.

Hmmm… Maybe I’ll change what I list in my “religion” here.

In Roman Catholic circles they usually haven’t a clue what Greek Catholic or Uniate means.

 

[Alexander_Roman]

According to Fr. Bernard Lonergan (in Method in Theology) the reason was in order to give Papal blessing and ratification to what the Church had already defined and decreed through the piety of its people, and to confirm and bless this piety. In other words, the Pope was treating the people as a whole (the sensus fidelium) with the same dignity as an Ecumenical Council. Understood this way, it really shouldn’t be too controversial in the East given the eminent role we give to the laity (for example, in accepting or rejecting our bishops by proclaiming “axios”, or in the possibly somewhat exaggerated role given to the laity in controlling parishes - an ROC parish in town once fired their pastor for unspecified reasons, for example).

Very insightful and I agree 100%!

The same was true of Pope Pius XII when he polled the world’s bishops over dogmatizing the Assumption of the Theotokos.

Alex

 

[Alexander_Roman]

Italo-Græcus is the term for those in Southern Italy, Sicily.

The Greek speaking Italians in Southern Italy and Sicily, Byzantine tradition, were under jurisdiction of the Church of Rome.
Byzantine emperor Leo III (717-741 reign) placed this area under the jurisdiction of the Patiarchate of Constantinople in the 8th century.
The Norman conquest of the 11th century placed this area under the Church of Rome again. The South Albanians the moved to Italy joined this Church with the Byzantine traditions, today known as the Italo-Albanian Greek Catholic Church sui iuris.

The sui iuris mean that the particular Church has its own laws. Each of those Church sui iuris is subject to the laws of the Supreme Pontiff so it is relative self-rule.

You know your stuff like the back of your hand sir! Thank you!

Alex