EO or RC. How can a Protestant decide?

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dronald said:
This became one of the many discussions which sort of derailed a thread and I’m really interested in understanding this.

I’m an Evangelical Christian, I belong to no Apostolic Faith, whether it be Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican or whoever else claims to be #1 among the oldest Christian groups.

I often see the argument posed here that I have no true authority to interpret Scripture, nor does my Pastor. The argument is as follows; “If your Pastor has one interpretation and another Pastor has a different interpretation how can the Holy Spirit guide you to your Pastor’s interpretation and lead another to believe the other interpretation is truth?” I often reply that among Evangelicals our interpretations are extremely close but not always the exact same.

Some differences among Evangelicals are, eternal security, contraception, old earth/new earth and there could be more but most of them are small. But the question remains, “who’s Holy Spirit is right?” I trust God to guide me, I pray, keep an open mind and try to do His will, as does someone who is in another Church with another interpretation.

Now, this seems like a tough argument to address until we look at the tradition of the Catholic Church. There is the RC with its many, many members. The EO in second place, the Copts who believe that Mark personally founded their Church, and many Orthodox branches that are similar to the RC but still not the one true Church.

So for someone like myself, how can I be sure which Church to join? Perhaps it’s the persecuted Copts that I shall join, or perhaps the EO, perhaps the RC? I can pray and trust the Holy Spirit and I may be led to the RC while another is led to the EO. So what’s the difference? One of them is wrong, so how is this argument any different?
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Have you tried Catholic church approved Private Revelation.

example : divinemercy.com/faustina/
 
pocohombre said:
Ironic because sometimes I get the feeling that CC justifies itself by claiming a refuge from disagreement on faith and morals, as compared to other denominations.Other denominations must be wrong because of “disagreements”. Yet you rightly say disagreements have been around since Cain (and Eve) So, agreement (unity) or disagreement do not necessarily justify one particular church over another. The reality of disagreements is deeper than that, and lies somewhere else.
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Isaiah45_9 said:
You are looking at it the wrong way.
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I hate to say, but there’s a grain of truth to pocohombre’s objections. Just think back to several weeks ago when I gave fellow Catholics an opportunity to convince me that Ineffabilis Deus was an ex cathedra statement – the response wasn’t a logical argument, just a claim that there must be something wrong with my brain (that’s not an exact quote :)) if I don’t agree that it was ex cathedra.

The thread about the fact that we Melkites believe there have been 7 ecumenical councils (not 21 like the majority of LC believe) wasn’t much better.
 
pocohombre said:
Ironic because sometimes I get the feeling that CC justifies itself by claiming a refuge from disagreement on faith and morals, as compared to other denominations.Other denominations must be wrong because of “disagreements”. Yet you rightly say disagreements have been around since Cain (and Eve) So, agreement (unity) or disagreement do not necessarily justify one particular church over another. The reality of disagreements is deeper than that, and lies somewhere else.
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The unity should be with what the early Church believed. And the writings of the early Church fathers frequently say things that only a Catholic would ever say.
 
Isaiah45_9 said:
We have no record of the Ethiopian preaching the Gospel. And Phillip went on to Azotus and Caesarea.

But as to what was preached, I think we can have a good idea by what Ignatius Bishop of Antioch says in his letter to the Smyrnæans:
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I suppose. But the EO declare their church the Catholic Church, my buddy at work is Assyrian church of the east and she declares that HER church is the Catholic Church. Could Ignatius have been referring to either of these churches?
 
pocohombre said:
We disagree on the simplest of scripture regarding Peter, so even you quotes can reasonably be argued against. Most scholars would say the Papacy developed.At best it was silent in the beginning. Nothing is that simple. If I were Catholic I would garnish strength from quotes above for papacy, just as a protestant would against it. Right back to how to decide.
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If we start at the beginning, i.e., scripture, then we do indeed have evidence for the papacy (the first three centuries also attest that the papacy in Rome held a primacy, to what degree is what Catholics and Orthodox quibble about). And as Catholics we believe in development of doctrine, so there’s no issue with, "most scholars would say the papacy developed ".

p.s. We have a high petrine view of the primacy while the Orthodox view of primacy varies, i.e., it could be a primacy of honour and for some a primacy with real privileges.
 
House_Harkonnen said:
I suppose. But the EO declare their church the Catholic Church, my buddy at work is Assyrian church of the east and she declares that HER church is the Catholic Church. Could Ignatius have been referring to either of these churches?
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At the time of the Ethiopian and Ignatius - up to Chalcedon. The Church was one. There were always dissenting groups and heresies. But the Church was one. So at the time, Ignatius was referring to the Catholic Church.

Now are all you people that love to call us Roman Catholics will start questioning if we are Catholics…

We are the Catholic Church.
 
Peter_J said:
I hate to say, but there’s a grain of truth to pocohombre’s objections. Just think back to several weeks ago when I gave fellow Catholics an opportunity to convince me that Ineffabilis Deus was an ex cathedra statement – the response wasn’t a logical argument, just a claim that there must be something wrong with my brain (that’s not an exact quote :)) if I don’t agree that it was ex cathedra.

The thread about the fact that we Melkites believe there have been 7 ecumenical councils (not 21 like the majority of LC believe) wasn’t much better.
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But you need to read the rest of my post in order to put into context my reply.

I’m not denying poco’s argument validity. But its focus.
 
Isaiah45_9 said:
At the time of the Ethiopian and Ignatius - up to Chalcedon. The Church was one. There were always dissenting groups and heresies. But the Church was one. So at the time, Ignatius was referring to the Catholic Church.

Now are all you people that love to call us Roman Catholics will start questioning if we are Catholics…

We are the Catholic Church.
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The RC the EO, and my buddy’s Assyrian Church are ALL the Catholic Church?

I actually agree.

I am a part of the Catholic Church too.
 
All this stuff about who is Catholic or Orthodox is anachronistic, at least in the manner in which it is being invoked. It’s like asking if the Ethiopian would have been a Chalcedonian or not. We can’t know, but the Orthodox Church does believe that the faith that it preaches is the same faith that would’ve been taught by St. Phillip and embraced by the Ethiopian, and it is that faith he brought to Ethiopia and preached there, which is likewise the faith that was brought before King Ezana by St. Frumentius, the first bishop of Axum.

As I and others often point out on these forums, terms such as “Catholic” and “Orthodox” were understood as descriptive adjectives in the early church – they described the faith of the church which held to the faith as given by the apostles. And they still do, but of course in modern times there are certain people and ecclesiastical bodies claiming these as nouns referring to their particular church, over and against other churches. I suppose it is in some sense a natural evolution, given the certainty that heresies would arise in the church, and the history that shows that they indeed do so. But still we can and do call ourselves “Catholic” in this original, early church sense, and we know what we are referring to and what we are not referring to when we do so.

From the Coptic liturgy of St. Cyril (c.early 5th century AD): “We ask and entreat Your goodness, O Lover of mankind. Remember, O Lord, the peace of Your one, only, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church…”

^ This is what is important, not who can post the most quotes from the fathers that contain the word “Catholic” in them, as though the way that the fathers understood that term is self-evidently the same as how modern RC apologists understand it. Our faith remains the same anyway, as we are using the original 4th/5th century prayers themselves, but it’s just a bit exasperating to read more “Look! This saint wrote the word ‘Catholic’, therefore he’s clearly arguing in favor of the RCC!”

The early church fathers likely would not have recognized the modern arguments built around their words by the most polemical of either side, but I sleep soundly in the reasonable idea that they would have probably recognized their own prayers and liturgies. This is one of the reasons why it is important to get a good sense of how the churches live out their faiths. Who is living, believing and praying together with the fathers and other saints and martyrs of the early church, and bringing the unchanged and holy faith uncorrupted into the modern world, so as to baptize the whole of creation as we were commanded to do by our Lord Jesus Christ? You don’t need a faith fortified by quote wars to find that out. Just time, patience, and a willingness to be guided with humility.
 
dzheremi said:
All this stuff about who is Catholic or Orthodox is anachronistic, at least in the manner in which it is being invoked. It’s like asking if the Ethiopian would have been a Chalcedonian or not. We can’t know, but the Orthodox Church does believe that the faith that it preaches is the same faith that would’ve been taught by St. Phillip and embraced by the Ethiopian, and it is that faith he brought to Ethiopia and preached there, which is likewise the faith that was brought before King Ezana by St. Frumentius, the first bishop of Axum.

**As I and others often point out on these forums, terms such as “Catholic” and “Orthodox” were understood as descriptive adjectives in the early church – they described the faith of the church which held to the faith as given by the apostles. **And they still do, but of course in modern times there are certain people and ecclesiastical bodies claiming these as nouns referring to their particular church, over and against other churches. I suppose it is in some sense a natural evolution, given the certainty that heresies would arise in the church, and the history that shows that they indeed do so. But still we can and do call ourselves “Catholic” in this original, early church sense, and we know what we are referring to and what we are not referring to when we do so.

From the Coptic liturgy of St. Cyril (c.early 5th century AD): “We ask and entreat Your goodness, O Lover of mankind. Remember, O Lord, the peace of Your one, only, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church…”

^ This is what is important, not who can post the most quotes from the fathers that contain the word “Catholic” in them, as though the way that the fathers understood that term is self-evidently the same as how modern RC apologists understand it. Our faith remains the same anyway, as we are using the original 4th/5th century prayers themselves, but it’s just a bit exasperating to read more “Look! This saint wrote the word ‘Catholic’, therefore he’s clearly arguing in favor of the RCC!”

The early church fathers likely would not have recognized the modern arguments built around their words by the most polemical of either side, but I sleep soundly in the reasonable idea that they would have probably recognized their own prayers and liturgies. This is one of the reasons why it is important to get a good sense of how the churches live out their faiths. Who is living, believing and praying together with the fathers and other saints and martyrs of the early church, and bringing the unchanged and holy faith uncorrupted into the modern world, so as to baptize the whole of creation as we were commanded to do by our Lord Jesus Christ? You don’t need a faith fortified by quote wars to find that out. Just time, patience, and a willingness to be guided with humility.
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Yep. 👍
 
dzheremi said:
All this stuff about who is Catholic or Orthodox is anachronistic, at least in the manner in which it is being invoked. It’s like asking if the Ethiopian would have been a Chalcedonian or not. We can’t know, but the Orthodox Church does believe that the faith that it preaches is the same faith that would’ve been taught by St. Phillip and embraced by the Ethiopian, and it is that faith he brought to Ethiopia and preached there, which is likewise the faith that was brought before King Ezana by St. Frumentius, the first bishop of Axum.

As I and others often point out on these forums, terms such as “Catholic” and “Orthodox” were understood as descriptive adjectives in the early church – they described the faith of the church which held to the faith as given by the apostles. And they still do, but of course in modern times there are certain people and ecclesiastical bodies claiming these as nouns referring to their particular church, over and against other churches. I suppose it is in some sense a natural evolution, given the certainty that heresies would arise in the church, and the history that shows that they indeed do so. But still we can and do call ourselves “Catholic” in this original, early church sense, and we know what we are referring to and what we are not referring to when we do so.

From the Coptic liturgy of St. Cyril (c.early 5th century AD): “We ask and entreat Your goodness, O Lover of mankind. Remember, O Lord, the peace of Your one, only, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church…”

^ This is what is important, not who can post the most quotes from the fathers that contain the word “Catholic” in them, as though the way that the fathers understood that term is self-evidently the same as how modern RC apologists understand it. Our faith remains the same anyway, as we are using the original 4th/5th century prayers themselves, but it’s just a bit exasperating to read more “Look! This saint wrote the word ‘Catholic’, therefore he’s clearly arguing in favor of the RCC!”

The early church fathers likely would not have recognized the modern arguments built around their words by the most polemical of either side, but I sleep soundly in the reasonable idea that they would have probably recognized their own prayers and liturgies. This is one of the reasons why it is important to get a good sense of how the churches live out their faiths. Who is living, believing and praying together with the fathers and other saints and martyrs of the early church, and bringing the unchanged and holy faith uncorrupted into the modern world, so as to baptize the whole of creation as we were commanded to do by our Lord Jesus Christ? You don’t need a faith fortified by quote wars to find that out. Just time, patience, and a willingness to be guided with humility.
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Yes, the words “Catholic” and “Orthodox” were used to describe the faith, but the Church itself did have a name, i.e., I can hardly imagine a Church as large and universal as she was without some name by which we could identify her.
 
josie_L said:
So you agree that the faith was interchangeably Catholic and/or Orthodox, but not Protestant? 😃
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“Protestant” is a name splintered off of another formal organizational church that was labeled The Roman Catholic Church. Most protestant churches still agree with the Apostles creed and also consider ourselves a part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. So, am I catholic? Yes. Are my views orthodox? Yes. Of course there are others who will not agree with me nor like that I use those terms to describe myself, a professed “protestant.” 🤷 I have precious little respect for labels that divide instead of unite, which was the original use of “catholic” and “orthodox.”

I got brothers and sisters in Christ with all kinds of labels attached. 😉
 
josie_L said:
Yes, the words “Catholic” and “Orthodox” were used to describe the faith, but the Church itself did have a name, i.e., I can hardly imagine a Church as large and universal as she was without some name by which we could identify her.
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Yeah, it was “the Church at ______” (location). Read the Pauline epistles. The churches were always identified that way, since the schisms had mostly yet to arrive. This is still how the Orthodox and many Catholic churches still do it: The Coptic Orthodox Church (Egypt), the Syriac Orthodox Church (the Syriac lands), the Chaldean Catholic Church (Babylon/Iraq), the Maronite Church (modern Syria/Lebanon), the Russian Orthodox Church (Russia), etc. There is a reason why these correspond to places you can find on the map. Heck, even what have dwindled down to Catholic “rites”, like the Mozarabic or the Ambrosian, are associated with particular people who live in specific places (the Iberian peninsula and certain parts of Italy, in this case). That’s not the part that says anything about their faith, but it bears repeating that this was and is the normative way of speaking about the Church. The modern apologetic point of “Catholic = Universal” is a misreading or misapplication of that, as those who apply it in a geographic sense to mean “We’re everywhere in the world, so we’re Catholic” are missing the point that “everywhere” is made up of actual, identifiable geographical locations where custom, language, hermeneutic tradition, ecclesiology, etc. differed. Hence the ecumenical councils which brought everyone together to hammer out just what we mean throughout the world when we say _____, and what is proper to governance of the Church (e.g., canonical territories and the privileges given to their bishops therein), etc.

So, yes, the Church did have a name. It was “The Church”, with further identifying information following as necessary – just like it is today. 🙂
 
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