If “Orthodox in communion with Rome” is false then so is the idea that we are actually eastern. We just become Latins who have retained a few eastern concepts in order to lure the Eastern ‘heretics’ into the fold under the authority of the pope. Our theology is manipulated and determined by Rome. Consequently the whole idea of a Greek Catholic is vanity. We are just playing dress up. We might as well all insert the filioque into the creed and use the Latin liturgy.
The problem that some people have with the expression “Orthodox in Communion with Rome” stems from the fact that much of what is identified as “Orthodox” today has no place in the Catholic Communion. There are definitely views that are prevalent within the Eastern Orthodox Communion, including aspects of self-identity, that no Eastern Catholic can subscribe to and remain Catholic.
That being said, I personally don’t have a problem with the expression, but only because I don’t understand “Orthodox in Communion with Rome” as being equivalent to “what the Eastern Orthodox consider Orthodox, in Communion with Rome”. That would indeed be an oxymoron, because much of what Eastern Catholics affirm by the very existence of the Eastern Catholic Churches contradicts the position of many, if not most, leading Eastern Orthodox. As I’ve said before, the very fact that “in Communion with Rome” is added indicates that there is a clear difference between Eastern Orthodox (in general) and Eastern Catholics that goes beyond merely recognizing the Pope in the Divine Liturgy; we are something
other than Eastern Orthodox, and that does not mean we are something lesser, or that we are polluted by Latinizations. Our whole understanding of the West, and of Apostolic Communion, must be different in order for us to exist at all.
This doesn’t amount to Latinization, nor does it indicate a betrayal of the “true Eastern identity”. As Sayedna Cyril Bustros said in his review of Sayedna Elias Zoghby’s work “Are We All Schismatics?”
We support the position of His Excellency and we deduce from it that the Greek Orthodox, because of their refusal of communion with Rome, – regardless of the reasons for this refusal – do not represent the Eastern tradition but partially; because the complete Eastern tradition requires absolutely the communion with Rome, although in a special way as it was in the first millennium. On the other hand, the Greek Catholics, by keeping their union with the see of Rome, have kept a fundamental principle of Eastern tradition, especially the Antiochian tradition. However this principle has been exposed in its application to different things which deformed it, so that communion almost became absorption. Therefore, the Greek Catholics also do not represent the Eastern tradition but partially. Consequently, we can affirm that neither the Greek Orthodox nor the Greek Catholic represent fully the Eastern tradition, although both churches have kept it partially.
To be Eastern Catholic means to be called to be something more than Eastern Orthodox, and something more than Latin Catholics with different prayers and decorations. It means reclaiming aspects of our traditions that have been buried both by Latinizations, and by the gradual drift of Eastern Orthodoxy away from the centering nature of a full Apostolic Communion (this is to say nothing of the negative effects this same problem has had on the Latin Church; that is a discussion for another thread, and possibly another forum). The minute we simply accept either imposition as “our own”, we lose ourselves and what it means to be Orthodox AND what it means to be Catholic.
It is not merely by ignoring authentic, Apostolic Eastern traditions that we fail ourselves and our traditions, we also fail when we cease being a moderating voice between our Apostolic brothers and sisters on both sides of the divide. If we don’t love and respect both the West and the East as our own “flesh and blood”, then we really have no business calling ourselves Christians, let alone “Orthodox in Communion with Rome” or “Eastern Catholics”.
Finally, we need to stop bringing our own understanding of terms to the discussion and putting them in the mouths of others. If “Orthodox in Communion with Rome” offends (or denying it does likewise), then let’s discuss why that’s the case, and what that expression means to us, before we get in heated arguments over something that may not even be an issue at all.
Peace and God bless!
Just a thought.