Does the Pope have supreme universal jurisdiction over the Eastern Churches?

[ziapueblo]

But I have seen my fair share of easterners (mostly Melkite) who literally are EO in faith but in communion with Rome which would actually place them under anathema because the EO deny certain dogmas we Catholics uphold.

All this is expressed in the Eparchy of Newton’s website and yet they have not been reprimanded by Rome. Benedict XVI has said that communion will happen with the Orthodox when Rome has sees its role as it was during the first millennium. That’s what the Chieti document is all about. Sure, it’s not a magisterial document but it shows that the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Church are finding a common ground.

ZP

 

[RyanBlack]

Yes. A nuptial blessings is necessary for the validity of the marriage in the Eastern Churches, but that is entirely different from saying that the priest is the minister of the Sacrament.

The nuptial blessing is apart of the canonical form of the marriage, and not the conferral thereof. There is a distinction to be made. In addition, canonical form can be dispensed.

Again, I know my Church’s traditions, and my pastor certainly does. He affirms that the priest confers the sacrament on the couple, which is to say that the priest is the minister of the sacrament.

 

[RyanBlack]

Also, in the 1992 edition of the CCC, it is explicitly stated that the priest is the minister of the sacrament.

“In the Latin Church, it is ordinarily understood that the spouses, as ministers of Christ’s grace, mutually confer upon each other the sacrament of Matrimony by expressing their consent before the Church. In the Eastern liturgies the minister of this sacrament (which is called “Crowning”) is the priest or bishop who, after receiving the mutual consent of the spouses, successively crowns the bridegroom and the bride as a sign of the marriage covenant.” 1623

 

[twf]

I’ll repeat my earlier question. I have no issue with the Eastern theology of marriage, but I am curious how the early Church practice, East and West, of civil marriages is understood in an Eastern context? Its fine if you don’t personally have an answer.

 

[RyanBlack]

I don’t know the answer to that question, other than the practice was to have a civil marriage, then to have it blessed at church. How early that developed and what the rite looked like, I don’t know.

 

[twf]

I understood that in the earliest days the couple simply jointly received communion, shortly after their civil marriage, and it was only gradually that a formal Church blessing evolved.
If so, perhaps this is a good example of legitimate development of doctrine in the Eastern Church. (Which is totally fine as there are plenty examples of legitimate development in the Latin Church… though it irritates me when some Orthodox apologists insist that Orthodoxy has remained completely unchanged since the earliest centuries).

 

[Wandile]

Wandile:

This is absolutely NOT how dogma works. This is relativism plains and simple. We aren’t anglicans.

We are not Anglicans, and neither are the Orthodox. The problem here is not the Dogma, but the manner in which it was promulgated. It occurred after the Schism, and the Councils have been lacking in an ecumenical thoroughness ever since that time. The East and the West drifted apart from the time that the Empire fell in Rome.

They have lacked nothing they have been just as ecuemnical as the first 7. Can we say the last 5 of the first seven were lacking because the Assyrians and Oriental Orthodox were in schism and weren’t involved then?

Wandile:

So can westerners say we are not obliged to believe in the Trinity, hypostatic Union, use of icons or dyothelitism because we were barely involved in the declaration of those dogmas?

I am curious as to why you say “we were barely involved”? There was no Schism at the time. Do you believe that Latin Catholics were not present at those councils?

If you didn’t know the west practically weren’t at any of the first 7. The only one is maybe Nicaea I. The rest we weren’t present.

Wandile:

Churches outside the communion of the Catholic Church are not needed to hold an ecuemnical Council.

This is exactly my point. A truly ecumentical council includes everyone in the Church, not just one Rite, or one geographical area.

The reason why the Latins were only included was because the latin Church effectively was the church. The easterners had all gone into schism (Assyrians at 3rd Council, OO at 4th council and EO in 1054). They had left the church. The maorintes who were in communion. With us did participate at the latter councils. At Florence and Lyons II the EO were present. At Vatican I and II Eastern Catholics were very much present!

All the councils after the Schism and mutual excommunications were said to be ecumenical. That does not mean that the Easter Christians had the same level of participation as the Latins.

All the councils post schism are ecumenical.

No the mutual excommunications were never deemed to be ecumenical. There is no such thing as an ecumenical excommunication.

 

[Wandile]

The Latin Church acknowledges that the Orthodox have valid apostolic succession and valid sacraments, and affirms the validity of the sui juris Churches, but they were not equal participants in Councils after the first 7.

Eastern Orthodox are outside the church so their participation is not necessary for a council to be ecumenical.

The eastern Catholics were equal participants at the western councils when they came to communion. Have you ever read the acts of Vatican I and Vatican II. The reason why there weren’t any eastern cathcolics until the Vatican Councils is because the unions between Catholics and Some easterners happened after the council of Trent.

Wandile:

If such reasoning is to be embraced then we haven’t had an ecuemnical Council since Constantinople I.

Which is the position of the Orthodox, hence, the barriers that persist.

That is not their position. Constantinople I is the second ecuemnical Council. They acknowledge 7 not 2.

As long as the West continues to proclaim that the East is not “needed” for true unity and ecumenism, then the schism will persist. This is what Pope JP2 meant in Ut Unum Sint (25 May 1995) ..

It is not helpful, when trying to reach a consensus among Bishops, for certain Bishops to forcefully impose their will upon others. This is not the type of leadership Jesus described.

I’m starting to think that you aren’t aware that Catholics and Eastern Orthodox are not part of the same church. Further that Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox are two different things.

 

[Wandile]

Wandile:

Like I said we must belive the same thing. We didn’t necessarily have to formulate it the same way

Indeed, and if we arrogantly demand that the East, who have different theological language and sentiments, do it the way “Rome” does it, it is not going to be very effective, as the last 1000 years have demonstrated.[l

Nobody has ever demanded this of the easterners. Not even at the council of Florence.

 

[ziapueblo]

Eastern Orthodox are outside the church so their participation is not necessary for a council to be ecumenical.

How are the Orthodox outside the Church? VII recognizes them as “true Churches” and “Sister Churches.” I recognize the we are not in full communion but at least an incomplete communion.

ZP

 

[semper_catholicus]

An argument from authority is not sufficient.

 

[Wandile]

Wandile:

Eastern Orthodox are outside the church so their participation is not necessary for a council to be ecumenical.

How are the Orthodox outside the Church? VII recognizes them as “true Churches” and “Sister Churches.” I recognize the we are not in full communion but at least an incomplete communion.

ZP

True churches means they are valid. In that unlike Protestants they have the sacraments. Thus they can be called by definition a “church”. The Protestants aren’t truly churches as they don’t have all the sacraments so they aren’t truly churches despite being called churches in colloquial language.

Vatican II was actually one of the most strict difinitons of the Catholic Church being the only Church of Jesus Christ. When they said “the church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church” they were saying in a more emphatic way that the Catholic Church and only it can ever be the Church of Jesus Christ.

Subsisting is a special case of being . It is being in the form of a subject standing on its own. This is the issue here. The Council wants to tell us that the Church of Jesus Christ as a concrete subject in the present world can be encountered in the Catholic Church. This can occur only once and the notion that subsistit could be multiplied misses precisely what was intended. With the word subsistit , the Council wanted to express the singularity and non-multiplicability of the Catholic Church. The council wanted a stronger word than just “is” when applying the Church of Christ to the Catholic Church.

You should read Dominus Iesus which was the official clarification on who the church is after many people made the same mistake you are about the nature of the church.

We have already explained the term “sister churches” to you in the other thread. Sister churches can be applied to churches even in schism. Further the term “sister church” applies to the local diocese not the universal church. That is, the Churches of Paris, Rome, New York, Antioch, Constantinople, Johannesburg, Pretoria and London are all sister churches. However the Catholic Church is not the sister church of the Eastern Orthodox communion. At universal level the term is not correct and the CDF made this very clear.

 

[Wandile]

Wandile:

But I have seen my fair share of easterners (mostly Melkite) who literally are EO in faith but in communion with Rome which would actually place them under anathema because the EO deny certain dogmas we Catholics uphold.

All this is expressed in the Eparchy of Newton’s website and yet they have not been reprimanded by Rome. Benedict XVI has said that communion will happen with the Orthodox when Rome has sees its role as it was during the first millennium. That’s what the Chieti document is all about. Sure, it’s not a magisterial document but it shows that the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Church are finding a common ground.

ZP

Rome does not micromanage and monitor every diocese and their websites. If you see all the nonsense some latin bishops say without reprimand one would be left wondering if Catholics even belive in the real presence. Right now there is priest openly preaching homesexuality very publicly without reprimand

The Chieti document belongs to the commission and the commission alone. It’s not a megesterial document and has absolutely zero ecclesiastical force in both the Catholic Church and the EO.

The eparchy of Newton are wrong

 

[RyanBlack]

An argument from authority is not sufficient.

I have provided a quote from the Catechism that directly states that in the Eastern Churches, the priest is the minister of matrimony. Is the authority of the Church not sufficient?

 

[twf]

Some Latins question the authority of the CCC when it conflicts with their understanding of the “Pre-Vatican II” teaching.

 

[semper_catholicus]

With regards to the catechism, I would say that true teachings are supposed to be put in the catechism becuase they are true. They don’t just become true becuase they’re in the catechism. Similarly, if something false is put in the catechism, it does not mean that it becomes true.

“Although the Church realized from the first the complete sacramentality of Christian marriage, yet for a time there was some uncertainty as to what in the marriage contract is the realessence of the sacrament; as to its matter and form, and its minister. From the earliest times this fundamental proposition has been upheld: Matrimonium facit consensus , i.e. Marriage is contracted through the mutual, expressed consent. Therein is contained implicitly the doctrine that the persons contracting marriage are themselves the agents or ministers of thesacrament. However, it has been likewise emphasized that marriage must be contracted with the blessing of the priest and the approbation of the Church, for otherwise it would be a source not of Divine grace, but of malediction. Hence it might easily be inferred that the sacerdotal blessing is the grace-giving element, or form of the sacrament, and that the priest is the minister. But this is a false conclusion. The first theologian to designate clearly and distinctly the priest as the minister of the Sacrament and his blessing as the sacramental form was apparently Melchior Canus (d. 1560).”

 

[semper_catholicus]

Moreover, in the canons on marriage in the Eastern Code of Canon Law, it is clear that the Nuptial blessing has to do with the canonical form and not the conferral of the Sacrament.

 

[RyanBlack]

What is the source of this quote?

 

[semper_catholicus]

I apologize. I meant to provide that:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09707a.htm

 

[babochka]

Don’t worry, I have been researching it.

The only places I’ve ever heard that the priest was the minister of Matrimony in the Eastern Churches was here on CAF and on Wikipedia.

So now you’ve heard it here on CAF, on Wikipedia, and from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
The Eparchy of Newton says this:

Saint Thomas Aquinas (13th Century) said that the vows were the essential matter of the sacrament; this led to them receiving more importance and the other parts of the ceremony being diminished. According to the Canon Law of the Eastern Catholic churches, the essential elements of our ceremony are the consent, the prayers and blessings of the priest, and the marriage crowns.

Since vows are not (usually) included in the Byzantine crowning, how can they be essential to the sacrament? Consent is essential, vows are not.

You seem to only view a source as authoritative if it comes from Rome, and not always then. With this view, Eastern Catholics can never adequately speak for themselves in the absence of affirmation from Rome. The problem is, Rome doesn’t work this way when it comes to Eastern theology. Rome is never going to provide a defense of Eastern theology because it is not her theology. If Rome has an objection to some Eastern theology because it contradicts dogma, Rome will speak.

As Eastern Catholics, we often look to Orthodox sources to learn our own theology. English language sources are limited. I could direct you to any number of Orthodox sources, but you would reject them. It seems that nothing will satisfy you in this. I understand that it is an apparent contradiction and quite puzzling. I have asked my own priest, and others about this contradiction and how to make sense of it. I have not received a completely satisfactory answer, but I am able to trust those who have more knowledge, more understanding and more authority than I have. Every source of authority that I have consulted, from my pastor, to an FSSP priest, to my own bishop, has confirmed that the priest is the minister of the sacrament in the East. Perhaps my understanding will grow someday. If not, I can still accept this teaching because I accept the knowledge and authority of those who teach it. Of course, this is not enough for you and I understand this. I do wonder what is enough for you, though?