Have Eastern Orthodox ever considered that if they would join us one of their Patriarchs could one day become the Pope?

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Not that it would happen but that it could be possible some time in the future but only if they would join with Rome.
 
livingwordunity said:
Not that it would happen but that it could be possible some time in the future but only if they would join with Rome.
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Why would I want my Patriarch to become the Latin Pope? Restoration of communion would not include “assimilating those Orthodox into the RCC Borg”.

Edited to add - my Patriarch likewise wouldn’t ever be the Pope of Alexandria (many years to HH Tawadros II). That’s not how it works. 😉
 
Your addition is confusing, KnitNut. Why would HH ever be your Patriarch? You’re not Coptic Orthodox… :confused:
 
So if the Eastern Orthodox ever joined with Rome the Eastern Orthodox wouldn’t want to see one of their Patriarchs ever become the Pope? Why?
 
livingwordunity said:
So if the Eastern Orthodox ever joined with Rome the Eastern Orthodox wouldn’t want to see one of their Patriarchs ever become the Pope? Why?
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If I’m correct…
It’s because that’s not how they see the hierarchy of the Church. In their view it stops at the Patriarchs, so it would be like saying that a president/prime minister from Europe could be the next American president, it just doesn’t work like that in their eyes.

This is one of the reasons it will be hard to reconcile completely, because the orthodox do not agree with papal supremacy. To them, the Pope is the like Roman Patriarch and would be on the same authoritative level as their own Patriarch. They would see no reason to switch.
 
bzkoss236 said:
If I’m correct…
It’s because that’s not how they see the hierarchy of the Church. In their view it stops at the Patriarchs, so it would be like saying that a president/prime minister from Europe could be the next American president, it just doesn’t work like that in their eyes.

This is one of the reasons it will be hard to reconcile completely, because the orthodox do not agree with papal supremacy. To them, the Pope is the like Roman Patriarch and would be on the same authoritative level as their own Patriarch. They would see no reason to switch.
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This is a good analogy. The question makes no sense. In fact, the paradigm in which it was developed points to part of the problem.

Dzheremi, I think Knut was just saying that his patriarch becoming the Coptic Pope makes as much sense as his becoming the Roman Pope.
 
Rawb said:
This is a good analogy. The question makes no sense. In fact, the paradigm in which it was developed points to part of the problem.

Dzheremi, I think Knut was just saying that his patriarch becoming the Coptic Pope makes as much sense as his becoming the Roman Pope.
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That’s how I understood it.
 
EO Christians don’t want to be pope, but there is an interesting won’t-ever-happen-but-what-if in there.

It is curious that you ask this, because even though EO Christians don’t want to be pope…you have brought this up. So do you/would you want an EO Christian as pope? Have you thought through what that would be like for the average Roman Catholic? I haven’t, as I am neither Catholic nor Orthodox. And I don’t really think there will be unity between the two, and even if there was it would not be the kind of unity that Eastern Catholicism now has. But that is a curious thought, and I’m curious about how that follows through for you.
 
Wouldn’t such a hypothetical Orthodox patriarch becoming the Roman Pope then cease being a Byzantine patriarch? I was under the impression that the Roman Pope is the Patriarch of Rome and the head of the Latin Church. If this is the case, wouldn’t any Byzantine rite member elected to the papacy need to switch rites and become Roman?
 
St_Nephi said:
Wouldn’t such a hypothetical Orthodox patriarch becoming the Roman Pope then cease being a Byzantine patriarch? I was under the impression that the Roman Pope is the Patriarch of Rome and the head of the Latin Church. If this is the case, wouldn’t any Byzantine rite member elected to the papacy need to switch rites and become Roman?
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Well that depends on the nature of the reunion; Orthodox don’t have the idea of “Rites.” I attend a Serbian parish, but I am not “Serbian Orthodox,” I’m just Orthodox.

On the other hand clergy are Canonically tied to their Bishop who are tied to a synod, which sort of corresponds to your Rites…so maybe?
 
Rawb said:
Well that depends on the nature of the reunion; Orthodox don’t have the idea of “Rites.” I attend a Serbian parish, but I am not “Serbian Orthodox,” I’m just Orthodox.

On the other hand clergy are Canonically tied to their Bishop who are tied to a synod, which sort of corresponds to your Rites…so maybe?
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Fair enough, but it’s not like the Orthodox Metropolitan or Patriarch would then (once the Bishop of Rome) continue celebrating Divine Liturgy according to St. John Chrysostom, for example. He would be bound to wear Latin vestments and celebrate according to the Roman Rite, no?
 
St_Nephi said:
Fair enough, but it’s not like the Orthodox Metropolitan or Patriarch would then (once the Bishop of Rome) continue celebrating Divine Liturgy according to St. John Chrysostom, for example. He would be bound to wear Latin vestments and celebrate according to the Roman Rite, no?
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Well, it really depends.

Most Orthodox I’ve talked to would love to see an increase in the Western Rite, and a re-establishment of Western Orthodoxy throughout Europe. They would love to see the Western Patriarch re-established. This fantasy future doesn’t, however, usually involve reunion with Rome. Most I’ve talked to don’t take reunion as a serious possibility. They would support, however, in this (rather bizarre) scenario, the new Roman Pope adopting Western Orthodox practices (but I rather doubt that’d be the Novus Ordo. No Orthodox I’ve yet accept the Novus Ordo as an acceptable Orthodox Liturgy).

Yet there are also those who don’t accept Western Orthodoxy and would encourage this new Western Patriarch to adopt the “tried and true” Eastern practices. The Greeks are rather well known for this position, and are the friendliest with Rome and, of course, His All Holiness is the most likely to be this new Eastern Western Patriarch. So there’s a wrench there.

Really I could go on and on. There’s a million different ways this scenario could be played out, and I’ve only touched on the Ortho-centric ones.
 
Monergistic said:
EO Christians don’t want to be pope, but there is an interesting won’t-ever-happen-but-what-if in there.

It is curious that you ask this, because even though EO Christians don’t want to be pope…you have brought this up. So do you/would you want an EO Christian as pope? Have you thought through what that would be like for the average Roman Catholic? I haven’t, as I am neither Catholic nor Orthodox. And I don’t really think there will be unity between the two, and even if there was it would not be the kind of unity that Eastern Catholicism now has. But that is a curious thought, and I’m curious about how that follows through for you.
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I think it would be the same as if an Eastern Catholic Patriarch became the Pope which could have happened at the most recent Papal election.
 
We don’t want to become popes (well maybe the alexandrian church does), we want our hierachs to stay within their diocese and handle their own affairs. At least thats what I want.
 
If our patriach became a Pope could he infallibly speak against what rome has proclaimed for the past thousand or so years?
 
IgnatianPhilo said:
If our patriach became a Pope could he infallibly speak against what rome has proclaimed for the past thousand or so years?
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No, because that would be speaking against what has already been declared as doctrine, and therefore wouldn’t be able to be considered infallible. Even our popes can’t do that.
 
Rawb said:
Well that depends on the nature of the reunion; Orthodox don’t have the idea of “Rites.” I attend a Serbian parish, but I am not “Serbian Orthodox,” I’m just Orthodox.

On the other hand clergy are Canonically tied to their Bishop who are tied to a synod, which sort of corresponds to your Rites…so maybe?
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I have to disagree with what you’re saying here Rawb. Since you guys have WRO (Western-Rite Orthodox), clearly you do have to idea of “Rites”.

What you don’t have is the idea that Eastern churches only uses Eastern rites, and Western churches only use Western rites. (Thus, for example, the Antiochian Orthodox Church has Western-Rite parishes; but there are no Western-Rite parishes in the Melkite Catholic Church. All Melkite parishes use the Byzantine Rite. Conversely, the Latin Catholic Church only uses Western rites – the Roman Rite, the Ambrosian Rite, the Bragan Rite etc.)
 
Monergistic said:
EO Christians don’t want to be pope, but there is an interesting won’t-ever-happen-but-what-if in there.

It is curious that you ask this, because even though EO Christians don’t want to be pope…you have brought this up. So do you/would you want an EO Christian as pope? Have you thought through what that would be like for the average Roman Catholic? I haven’t, as I am neither Catholic nor Orthodox. And I don’t really think there will be unity between the two, and even if there was it would not be the kind of unity that Eastern Catholicism now has. But that is a curious thought, and I’m curious about how that follows through for you.
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This piece discusses the possibility of the non-Catholic becoming Pope (or, more precisely, a new Catholic becoming Pope).

Be forewarned that it gets a bit dry and philosophical.
 
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