Really a very fascinating topic!!
This matter was given considerable attention by the EO-OO ecumenical commission in their final report.
They discussed, as an example, the person of St Dioscoros, the nephew of St Cyril of Alexandria. They concluded that in the event of reunion, he would continue, of course, to be honoured by the Oriental Churches without the need for the Byzantine side to “adopt” him into their calendar.
When Eastern Churches came into union with Rome, those saints that were particularly known for their “anti-Roman” stance were expunged from the local calendar. All the rest remained.
Today, there are EC churches like certain very Eastern Ukrainian, Byzantine and Russian Catholic ones, who honour all of the Orthodox saints in the Russian synodal calendar, even those who are canonized after the various union agreements were made. I understand that one could find an icon of the “Pillars of Orthodoxy” (I’m not referring to either Ciero or Apotheoun!
) in EC churches and monasteries.
There was an RC article about Orthodox saints who had expressed certain “misgivings” about Rome during their lives and such-like. In fact, they repeated the “prejudices of their environment” and so this didn’t take away from their sainthood etc.
But in the case of St Dioscoros and St Samuel, these were at the heart of the Christological issues of their day.
The fact remains, however, that the EO-OO commission found that the Cyrillian Christological formula was not only misunderstood in the Byzantine “province of the Church,” - it was and is perfectly Orthodox.
Language always poses a barrier that is mainly cultural (even though it can have negative impacts on the Church). Churches can be estranged from one another under mistaken pretenses. The Oriental Orthodox today regard Chalcedon as being orthodox in its expression of Christology, but would have wished it used more articulate language etc. There is also alot of emotional, historical baggage that comes with Chalcedon for the Oriental Orthodox churches which is why they don’t want to be associated with it and want to stick with the original three Ec. Councils.
However, be that as it may, there really is no reason why the Oriental Catholic and even the Roman Catholic Churches could not include these Saints in their own calendars or at least acknowledge their sanctity. In fact, one way of reestablishing union between their Churches, the EO-OO commission decided, was to simply lift the anathemas pronounced against each other’s Saints and Teachers (St Severus, for example - he is not acknowledged as a saint by the Armenian Church as well).
Saints beating up others should not be a reason not to do so. Pope St Pius X, for example, as a young curate, heard a parishioner, after Mass, would you believe, curse boldly. Being a former amateur boxer, and having grown up in a tough Italian neighbourhood, he gave a knee-jerk reaction, grabbed the feckless parishioner and knocked him out with one punch!
Somehow the Devil’s Advocate didn’t see this as a reason to stall his canonization process though . . . They realized he came up from the school of hard knocks . . .
I have an icon of St Dioscoros (on papyrus) and don’t see any reason why the nephew of St Cyril of Alexandria shouldn’t be honoured for his piety and extreme dedication to fighting the Nestorian heresy.
In the EO case, the Oriental Orthodox Church of Georgia came into union with Eastern Orthodoxy and kept all of its Oriental Saints, including some who fought long and hard with the Byzantine Chalcedonians of their day e.g. St David of Garesja who was called by Byzantine theologians “that putrefaction from Georgia.” Today, however, it is common to see St David of Garesja on all Orthodox calendars . . . And the only Saint in the Ethiopian Catholic calendar that was expunged from the Ethiopian Orthodox calendar is . . . Saint Pontius Pilate. St Gebra Manfas Keddus and St Takla Haymonot etc. are all there otherwise.
May Sts Dioscoros and Samuel pray unto God for us!
Alex
:clapping::clapping: