Good Books About Conversion from Orthodox

[Marybeloved]

And what do you call throwing out venoms like this one then signing your comments with “Peace”?

Anyway, don’t worry, this will be the last you’ll hear of me. Say hello to my ignore list.

Your tantrums are growing old. But Thank you for your offer not to speak with me again .

PEACE!!!

 

[Eric_Hilbert]

Lets knock off the personal comments and post with charity.

 

[Marybeloved]

I am not advocating an off-centered ‘Byzantine’ approach, if that is what you think. I am surely not alone in thinking that this sort of one-sidedness is bad for the community of Christians everywhere.

My friend, you and I will have to agree to disagree. You see, I don’t see Byzantine Christians who have fed and grown exclusively on the fountain of the Wisdom of the Byzantines to be off-centtre at all. Our churches, scholars, those Christians interested (I’m one of them, despite all appearances to the contrary) can look at the Eastern/Western heritage to learn- there’s much to learn.

Where we disagree is that I, in no way see those Christians (like myself) who have learned the faith from st. Thomas, Sts. John and Teresa and Therese, St. Josemaria, St. Ignatius, Francis de sales (who taught me the interior life) and many others, are for that matter “off-centre” and that’s also how I see the Byzantines and Orientals. I don’t think that people who have been nurtured in their respective traditions are off-centre for that fact, or the fact that they have fed on what was available (their tradition)- It is after all, the Apostolic faith, IMO- the same seedling and Flower planted in different soils/climates.

Peace.

 

[Anthony_V]

My friend, you and I will have to agree to disagree. You see, I don’t see Byzantine Christians who have fed and grown exclusively on the fountain of the Wisdom of the Byzantines to be off-centtre at all. Our churches, scholars, those Christians interested (I’m one of them, despite all appearances to the contrary) can look at the Eastern/Western heritage to learn- there’s much to learn.

Where we disagree is that I, in no way see those Christians (like myself) who have learned the faith from st. Thomas, Sts. John and Teresa and Therese, St. Josemaria, St. Ignatius, Francis de sales (who taught me the interior life) and many others, are for that matter “off-centre” and that’s also how I see the Byzantines and Orientals. I don’t think that people who have been nurtured in their respective traditions are off-centre for that fact, or the fact that they have fed on what was available (their tradition)- It is after all, the Apostolic faith, IMO- the same seedling and Flower planted in different soils/climates.

Peace.

While the fruits of the east and west (quantity aside) are undoubtedly the same, it is impractical to treat one like the other in terms of correctness. At times do we need to be legal in our approach against heresies that attack the Church, but when we’re dealing with such a domestic problem that resides in political division, you have to go back before the split, and when eastern and western thought were one. You have to think like an ancient semite in terms of tradition, and put political correctness in your back pocket. We’re not battling protestantism or arianism or gnosticism or iconoclasm, we’re battling political boundaries and miscommunication that has snowballed. You don’t have to favor or appreciate eastern praxis as much as latin theology, or have opinions forced upon you. What you must do, however, is be tact and understanding if you wish to engage in conversation about eastern and western relations. Put on some “eastern goggles” to study eastern praxis. Otherwise, it turns into “western view on eastern and western relations” which isn’t particlarly objective. I’ll admit, I’m guilty of being agressive in the way us latins can be (and it’s not easy), but there is more to the mystical body of Christ than latin resolve.

 

[Marybeloved]

While the fruits of the east and west (quantity aside) are undoubtedly the same, it is impractical to treat one like the other in terms of correctness. At times do we need to be legal in our approach against heresies that attack the Church, but when we’re dealing with such a domestic problem that resides in political division, you have to go back before the split, and when eastern and western thought were one. You have to think like an ancient semite in terms of tradition, and put political correctness in your back pocket. We’re not battling protestantism or arianism or gnosticism or iconoclasm, we’re battling political boundaries and miscommunication that has snowballed. You don’t have to favor or appreciate eastern praxis as much as latin theology, or have opinions forced upon you. What you must do, however, is be tact and understanding if you wish to engage in conversation about eastern and western relations. Put on some “eastern goggles” to study eastern praxis. Otherwise, it turns into “western view on eastern and western relations” which isn’t particlarly objective. I’ll admit, I’m guilty of being agressive in the way us latins can be (and it’s not easy), but there is more to the mystical body of Christ than latin resolve.

I appreciate your advice, my friend. Good food for thought.

But you seem to operate on a certain assumption about me based on Constantine’s little slander which is simply not true. My posts say clearly that I fully appreciate the Christian East and Orient, as much as the Latin/West. I don’t think that Byzantines are missing something, and I don’t think that Latins are. I have nowhere “fought” the East as Protestants or the class of heretics you listed- I don’t know why you got that impression.

It was Constantine who turned this discussion sour by leveling his false accusations that I impose on the East, something he admitted could not be true when I challenged him, by retracting and saying that he never accused me of trying to teach or explain Eastern concepts- because I simply do not.

Go to the Eastern forum and Read the current thread on the Filioque at the Eastern forum, and you’ll see that what goes on when discussing with other Easterns on the confusions between different Eastern and Western approaches to complex issues is discussions, questioning, probing, explanations- all done in honesty and open-mindedness, without accusations and false impositions. Then read the thread on how Eastern Catholics can accept the Immaculate Conception to see what Constantine’s idea of Eastern and western “praxis” are- Basically, defining the Christian East “against” the Christian West rather than a christian heritage that stands on its own two legs, and does not need to define itself according to the West- thus reducing Eastern Christianity to another kind of protestantism. I know he’s wrong, I don’t need to put on any glasses to know that, because other non-Latins clearly do not share that misunderstanding. Remember, he’s Catholic and not Orthodox, so the idea of me treating him as protestant or heretical wouldn’t even be true- We have the same religion (To avoid any doubt, I do not view the Orthodox, Eastern & Oriental as heretical).

What happens a lot with me is defensive -of Rome and Latin Christianity, against common misrepresentations. Then some who are attached to these misrepresentations treat those misrepresentations of the West as part of faith of the East! and want to insist on it. Nowhere will you find me insisting on Easterns that their faith is this or that- I accept their explanations and we discuss them that way, but some Easterns simply will not give the West the same courtesy and when you reject their misrepresentation of Western thought, they call it impositions on the East, almost as if Easterns must believe certain things about the West as part of their faith.

It’s the same thing on this thread- Someone said that Western Christianity is off-centre, I rejected that false claim, and have been defending the West ever since, not attacking the East- Nowhere have I done so. Yet, it’s been twisted again to being a matter of “approaching the East” with Western glasses - But we are not even discussing Eastern concepts/Christianity at all! :shrug:And I have said that both are equally rich to me, and I don’t think that those raised exclusively in one, are somehow “off-centre”- How that can be about approaching the East with whatever glasses just puzzles me…

Peace.

 

[Contarini]

Whatever you mean by “off-centre for the most part”, the claim is most certainly dubious, to say the least! I have learned my faith entirely from Western Doctors and Saints, my spirituality, the road to sanctity, my prayer, my understanding of the Lord’s life and sacrifice and the mystical reality of the church- all 100% fully from Western Doctors.

I’m not talking about an individual’s piety. Obviously any of us would greatly profit if we could thoroughly live out the teachings of any of the Doctors of the Church.

Here’s a comparison that may explain better what I’m talking about.

There are three great scholastic theologians of the later Middle Ages, whose work formed the basis of influential “schools”: St. Thomas Aquinas, Blessed Duns Scotus, and William Ockham. William Ockham was excommunicated, but arguably for political rather than strictly theological reasons, and he has certainly had followers who lived and died wholly within the framework of Catholic orthodoxy. Scotus and Aquinas are both certainly orthodox–Scotus is beatified, while of course Aquinas is a saint and Doctor.

A Catholic is certainly free to follow Scotus in preference to Aquinas–indeed, on the Immaculate Conception Catholics have been required to do so for a century and a half. And one could be a Catholic and follow Ockham on many points, though this would be a somewhat more dubious effort.

Yet I think it’s safe to say that of the three, Aquinas’s work is by far the most “central” to the Catholic tradition as a whole, and that Ockham’s is the most marginal, with Scotus occupying a middle position between them. This isn’t just a matter of “preference,” like vanilla vs. strawberry.

That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about when I compare East to West.

Any claim that the theology from which their great wisdom springs is off-centre “for the most part” represents not just arrogance but great bias and prejudice.

“Prejudice” refers to dismissing a thing before judging it. It seems to me that you, not I, are the one doing this. When you say “any claim” to this effect must be wrong you are, in the most technical sense, engaging in prejudice.

I am speaking on this based on my study of the history of Christian theology and my reading of controversial materials on both sides. I may be wrong, and I certainly need to continue to study the question, but I’m not engaging in prejudice. I’m not judging the matter before examining it. I have read Orthodox claims about Western theology, and insofar as they claim that Western theology has skewed emphasis I find them largely convincing. I think many of them overstate the case, but they are onto something. I am trying to express what I think they are onto. I would welcome substantive discussion of the specific points on which my case rests: we could start with the liturgical issues I raised, or we could talk about atonement theology. But you wish to dismiss my claim without consideration, while accusing me of prejudice!

This is bizzare, to say the least- Since when did Latin theology cease to draw from the Fathers of the undivided church?

From the time of Augustine through the Renaissance at least (if not through the beginning of the 20th century), there was a serious lack of attention to the Eastern Fathers by the West. For instance, when Aquinas cites “Athanasius” in the Summa, in every case I’ve seen he is citing the Athanasian Creed. It’s not clear that he knew any of Athanasius’s authentic writings. He did know some other work by the Eastern Fathers, admittedly.

Of course, if you start from the assumption that East and West are equal, then one can point out that the East was even more ignorant of the West! (And indeed I’m not denying that this was also a bad thing.) But the Orthodox are right, it seems to me, when they point out that the West’s notion of the “Fathers” is primarily based on Augustine; that except for Augustine the Western Fathers generally can’t compare in profundity with the Eastern Fathers; and that Augustine himself was largely ignorant of Greek-language theology. All of this adds up to an impoverished sense of the Tradition within the West. Combine this with the West’s later conviction of its own superiority, and you have a very disturbing recipe.

How does that make the CCC or the Western synthesis of the faith “eastern” for that fact?

Because you can quite easily see how the renewed attention to the Eastern Fathers has led to different ways of putting things: a more ontological, therapeutic, and pneumatocentric approach as opposed to a legal, penal, and authoritarian one. Yes, the Orthodox often caricature Western theology. Yes, there are great riches to be found there. But if you compare the tone of, say, the Catholic Encyclopedia with the tone of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, there’s a huge difference.

Edwin

 

[Marybeloved]

I’m not talking about an individual’s piety. Obviously any of us would greatly profit if we could thoroughly live out the teachings of any of the Doctors of the Church.

You’re talking about western thought, and to try to separate it from its doctors makes no sense- especially when you’re going on and on about how Eastern fathers were superior to the Western. You’re also talking about the Western approach- how you can separate that from the piety- the product of that thought and approach just seems ludicrous to me.

Yet I think it’s safe to say that of the three, Aquinas’s work is by far the most “central” to the Catholic tradition as a whole,

I’m very glad about this

This isn’t just a matter of “preference,” like vanilla vs. strawberry.

How so? Are western teachings wrong? If so, I accept that it’s not vanilla vs strawberry- if not, I’ll stick to my metaphor.

“Prejudice” refers to dismissing a thing before judging it. It seems to me that you, not I, are the one doing this. When you say “any claim” to this effect must be wrong you are, in the most technical sense, engaging in prejudice.

You are yet to show that your sweeping “assessment” is actual fact- You still haven’t done so, you just keep talking about “tone”, and emphases, but I’m yet to see anything in your postings that actually show that apart from the assertions themselves- You’re the one making the claim, you can’t ask me to disprove what you haven’t even shown.

But you wish to dismiss my claim without consideration, while accusing me of prejudice!

I’m quite happy to discuss any issues with you.

Of course, if you start from the assumption that East and West are equal,

I do start from that assumption, and I’m yet to find anything to convince me that Eastern Christianity is superior to Latin.

Combine this with the West’s later conviction of its own superiority, and you have a very disturbing recipe.

Because the Eastern assumption that anything uniquely Western must surely be wrong, or that anything Latin that has not been embraced by the East must be contra-tradition, isn’t disturbing at all, no? Nor even a clear display of its own laterconviction of its own superiority, right? After all, they don’t have a Pope so, surely, they can’t possibly be guilty of developing a false sense of superiority to Western Christianity in the 2nd millenium- can they?

Because you can quite easily see how the renewed attention to the Eastern Fathers has led to different ways of putting things: a more ontological, therapeutic, and pneumatocentric approach as opposed to a legal, penal, and authoritarian one. Yes, the Orthodox often caricature Western theology. Yes, there are great riches to be found there. But if you compare the tone of, say, the Catholic Encyclopedia with the tone of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, there’s a huge difference.

Funny- I have read much of the catholic encyclopedia (a source of information on Catholicism by the way, not a teaching-which is what the CCC is) and the Catechism, I don’t see what you claim to be “the clear” difference there. Perhaps you would be better of comparing the CCC with older catechisms.

Peace.

 

[theidler]

Why does an Orthodox want to convert to Catholicism?
We should work for unity, no need for conversion.

:clapping:AH! Thank you, I couldn`t agree more. I see zero, ZERO, need to be separated. Especially in these times.
I pray for that unity brother.

 

[L_piperatus]

Conversion stories from Protestantism to Catholicism are easy enough to find, but does anyone know of any good books about conversion from Eastern Orthodoxy to Catholicism?

It seems to me I recently heard of one - but I don’t remember the name or where I found it.

James Likoudis has put out extremely important work. Here is his homepage:

credo.stormloader.com/jlindex.htm

Likoudis is a convert from the Greek EOC, and has written various books and articles about the issue. Here’s a quote from one of Mr. Likoudis’s recent articles, dealing with Vladimir Soloviev - a 19th century Russian philosopher who was received in the Catholic Church and thus became a Catholic after making a formal profession of the Catholic faith - quote from catholicsocialscientists.org/CSSR/Current/Articles%20-%20Likoudis.pdf :

(Note: Vladimir Soloviev’s excellent and important book, entitled Russia and the Universal Church, is available for purchase right here on www.catholic.com )

Quote from Likoudis’ article:

Soloviev’s French Masterpiece, La Russie et l’Eglise Universelle

It was in 1889 that his remarkable work, Russia and the
Universal Church, was published. It revealed his increasingly certain
conviction that the Orthodox were in desperate need of the Petrine
primacy to perfect the earthly unity of the Church, to preserve the
freedom and independence of the Church, and to overcome the evils of
the exaggerated nationalisms that crippled the apostolic and missionary
energies of the autocephalous Eastern churches. Written in French, it
had to be published in France due to his constant battle with the censors
in Czarist Russia who were anti-Catholic nationalists and imperialists
eager to expand the Russian Empire to dominate all the Slav peoples.
They were fiercely opposed to any rapprochement with the West, and
especially with Catholicism. As von Balthasar wrote, “Soloviev’s Russia
and the Universal Church is a brilliant apologia…. In its clarity, verve
and subtlety it belongs among the masterpieces of ecclesiology.”
23
It
was in that brilliant work that Soloviev wrote:

Jesus Christ, in revealing to men the Kingdom of God which is
not of this world, gave them all the necessary means of
realizing this Kingdom in the world. Having affirmed in his
203High Priestly Prayer that the final aim of his work was the
perfect unity of all, Our Lord desired to provide an actual
organic basis for this work by founding His visible Church and
by giving it a single head in the person of St. Peter as the
guarantee of its unity. If there is in the Gospels any delegation
of authority, it is this. Jesus Christ gave no sanction or promise
whatsoever to any temporal power. He founded only the
Church, and He founded it on the monarchial power of Peter:
‘Thou art Peter, and on this Rock I will build My Church.’
24​

Soloviev struck at the very root of the caesaropapism (i.e., the
emperor or any temporal power controlling the administration and
external affairs of the church) then afflicting the Eastern churches,
leaving them enslaved or dominated by their respective governments. He
realized only too well with respect to the theoretical “symphonia” (i.e.,
one of collaboration of church and state that Byzantine theologians
traditionally professed) that that symphonia had actually masked the
subordination of the church to the emperor or to the modern state. The
Byzantine Church in its Greek or Russian form had never been able to
liberate itself from the emperors, the Ottoman sultans, the czars, or, later,
from the petty rulers of the other Slav nation-states. In contrast, Soloviev
wrote:

The Christian State … must be dependent upon the Church
founded by Christ, and the Church itself is dependent upon the
head which Christ has given it. In a word, it is through Peter that
the Christian Caesar must share in the kingship of Christ. He
can possess no authority apart from him who has received the
fullness of all authority; he cannot reign apart from him who
holds the Keys of the Kingdom. The State, if it is to be
Christian, must be subject to the Church of Christ; but if this
subjection is to be genuine, the Church must be independent of
the State, it must possess a centre of unity outside and above the
State, it must be in truth the Universal Church.
25

It was in this same work that Soloviev uttered his personal
profession of the Catholic faith from which he never swerved, despite his
receiving on his deathbed Holy Communion from a Russian Orthodox
priest. The latter event has been interpreted by various Russian Orthodox
writers as constituting a repudiation of Soloviev’s “papist” convictions,
but it is explained easily enough considering the difficulties of obtaining
the services of a Catholic priest of either Latin or Byzantine rite and
204 CATHOLIC SOCIAL SCIENCE REVIEWSoloviev’s conviction that the great Reunion Council of Florence (1439)
had never been fully abrogated by the separated Greco-Russian
Churches.
26
He was aware, too, that any Catholic in extremis could
receive the Last Rites from any validly ordained priest if access to a
Catholic priest was not possible. Then, too, there is the fact that four
years before his death, on February 18, 1896, he had made a profession
of the Catholic faith in the presence of Father Nicholas Tolstoy in the
chapel of Our Lady of Lourdes in Moscow.
27​

 

[L_piperatus]

Buy the book entitled The Russian Church And The Papacy, by Vladimir Soloviev, here: shop.catholic.com/product.php?productid=205&cat=0&page=1

Description of book - quote:

Vladimir Soloviev’s true legacy consists of three simple propositions.

• Jesus Christ instituted the universal jurisdiction and infallible teaching authority of the Papacy as a perpetual gift to His Church
• Apart from the Papacy, the Eastern churches will always remain what they are now: ethnic, national churches, totally independent and disunited
• Only in union with Rome can the separated Eastern churches become truly Catholic

Seldom, if ever, has this Catholic doctrine of the Church been stated more eloquently, more persuasively in an apologetic context than by Vladimir Soloviev. It is for this very reason that Catholic Answers felt it necessary to bring this book back into print, and recover this valuable resource for generations to come.

the book is 203 pages long, and currently costs $4.95

 

[Volodymyr]

Vladimir Soloviov

I am not sure why you think that Soloviev’s return to Orthodoxy was not as true later in life as his turn to Roman Church in earlier life. We have witness of Sergei Trubetskoi, his brother Prince Nikolai Trubetskoi and priest of Uzki CA Belyaev that Soloviev was Russian and Orthodox when Soloviov died in estate of Trubetsoki family in Uzki/ . He was buried next to his father, the great historian, in the Moscow Russian Orthodox monastery Novodivichiy Monastery semeteria. Of course, he was influential in bringing out at least one conversion to Catholicism - that of Vyacheslav Ivanov, famous poet. Ivanov died forgotten in Rome and so also died Russian Greko Catholicism… Soloviov’s was great philosopher and mystic - but he died rejecting Catholicism. But in any case his belief that the Russian Monarchy would accept Catholicism and thus begin a theokraty which would save the world - obviously did not happen, was not to happen – so finally he realized then God works often in different ways than even so great a mind as his could discern. But what if it had happened - would all of you Latin Catholics have become Russian Greko Catholics in order to fulfill Soloviov’s great view of Univerrsal Church. Probably not - what is useful to your views you like in Soloviov - what is Russian, you consider an aberration/. But read all his little book - it is about Russia and only secondarily about the Catholic Church. This is not apology for Catholic Church. It was his attempt to figure out how his belief in ultimate role in world history for Russia was to be fulfilled - for a time he believed it would happen with help of Pope of Rome.