Have we ever had an Eastern Catholic Pope?

[mardukm]

Dear brother Jimmy,

What does it mean that there were eastern popes? It wasn’t like today where the Cardinals gathered and they elected a pope from among them. I think it was the Nicene Council which outlawed the transferance of a bishop from one see to another. That is why there was a controversy about Gregory of Nazianzen being bishop of Constantinople. He was already appointed the bishop of Nazianzen by St. Basil.

So what does it mean that there was an eastern pope? Does it mean that a man with Greek or Syriac blood was elected pope?

We need to look at the origins of the canon law that forbade the transfer of bishops (and clerics in general) - it was to 1) prevent the spread of heresy; 2) prevent the abandonment of a flock for “greener pastures.”. Within 2 centuries, it seemed that purpose was forgotten, and everyone started to think it was a legalistic matter concerning jurisdiction.

Personally, I don’t see the problem with the transfer of orthodox bishops when necessity requires it, and as long as the flock whom that bishop is leaving is provided for (i.e., gets a new bishop). I would think that if the Holy Spirit moves the Church to select an Eastern or Oriental bishop to be Pope, then that would count as a matter of “necessity.”

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[jimmy]

Dear brother Jimmy,

We need to look at the origins of the canon law that forbade the transfer of bishops (and clerics in general) - it was to 1) prevent the spread of heresy; 2) prevent the abandonment of a flock for “greener pastures.”. Within 2 centuries, it seemed that purpose was forgotten, and everyone started to think it was a legalistic matter concerning jurisdiction.

Personally, I don’t see the problem with the transfer of orthodox bishops when necessity requires it, and as long as the flock whom that bishop is leaving is provided for (i.e., gets a new bishop). I would think that if the Holy Spirit moves the Church to select an Eastern or Oriental bishop to be Pope, then that would count as a matter of “necessity.”

Blessings,
Marduk

I am not really concerned with whether it is acceptable to transfer a bishop, I am simply asking a question about the history. In the early Church it was the custom, and law, that a bishop not be transferred from one see to another. Rather a bishop would be raised from within the community. Considering this, who were these eastern men who were made pope? I am guessing they weren’t bishops from a different see.

I would also find it interesting to know how they were chosen. Was there a council which chose them? Or was it a statement of the people like what happened with St. Ambrose or even St. Augustine who went to Hippo and was basically forced by the people to accept ordination.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

I’m embarrassed not to know this. I tried to websearch Eastern Catholic Pope for an answer but I didn’t get one.

Also, customarily, would an Easterner elected Pope wear an Eastern cassock or would he switch to the Roman one? I’ve been watching Shoes of the Fisherman and I keep wondering that.

(And, of course, by “Pope” I mean the Bishop of Rome, not the Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria.)

There was a wave of Greeks & Syrians in the seventh & eighth centuries.​

 

[Pravoslavac]

Do a search for “Greek” Popes. We had many.

After the Great Schism??? I don’t think there has been a true Eastern Catholic pope.

 

[ziapueblo]

I heard that Cardinal Lubomyr Husar of the was a one of the front runners for the Papacy after Pope John Paul II death.

 

[Aramis]

I heard that Cardinal Lubomyr Husar of the was a one of the front runners for the Papacy after Pope John Paul II death.

Several cardinals have said so. one said the final two were Husar & Ratzinger…

 

[Cluny]

Had Patriarch Lubomir been elected, the secular media would probably have said, “Non-Catholic elected pope!”

 

[KyivAndrew]

Several cardinals have said so. one said the final two were Husar & Ratzinger…

Aramis, Ziapueblo, are you guys dead certain? I mean this would just knock me off my rocker if it were true.
I knew they made that movie starting Anthony Quinn The Shoes of the Fisherman supposedly based on the life of the recently released Cardinal Slipyj, and there was always hope since this Cardinal was the one who actually had lived the dreaded life of a Slave for Christ in the Soviet Gulag. I’m not sure if any other member of the College of Cardinals had had to go what he had to suffer in the Gulag. I’m not sure what happened to Cardinal Mindszenty in the end. But there was always a hope in the Ukrainian diaspora that the Vatican’s Ostpolitik with the Russians would come to en end if Patriarch Slipyj ever became Pope.

I know personally that my late father used to corresponded personally with Cardinal Slipyj and in my dad’s letters I notice Slipyj’s frustration with the Curia’s treatment of him and its forbidding him to proclaim a Ukrainian Catholic Patriarchate (this for the largest Eastern Catholic Church in the world without its own Patriarchate). By the early 70s, Cardinal Slipyj, in his letters to my father, just added singlehandedly the title Patriarch under his signature. The argument against a Patriarchate was always that Ukraine is not free, but NOW it is, and still no Patriarchate, probably because of some in the curia’s unfounded fear of upsetting the Russian Orthodox Church (a church, the Russian Orthodox, which had no problem with helping Stalin liquidate the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (in Halychyna, and in Subcarpathian Rus) and sending thousands of believers to their deaths.

I know that too much of this was the fault of Cardinal Cassaroli, Rome’s Vatican of State and his Ostpolitik to the Russians. Indeed, according to a recent article by the famous Catholic intellectual George Weigel in the recent edition of Britain’s Standard Journal, Weigel, John Paul II’s biographer, reports that JP2, firm anti-communist that he was, would not speak to Cardinal Cassaroli for the first 3 months of his papacy.

So hence my disbelief on hearing this story. It would help me if it’s O.K. with you guys to note your sources of infomation for Husar being on the shortlist. I assumed it was just gossip but where did you find corroboration of this? journals, media, reliable word of mouth?

Looking forward to any answers, God Bless!

 

[Aramis]

I don’t know which cardinals; one was on a TV interview; two were quoted in various media sources a couple years ago… shortly after HH B XVI’s election. The one who said it was Hussar vs Benedict was on a TV interview.

And remember, Hussar is NOT Slippij; Slippy has been quoth as saying he felt unwlecome in the conclaves. We’re dealing with, now, substantially, a generation of cardinals raised on the idea that the Eastern Churches are a vital part of Catholicism, whereas even for JP II, many were still pro-latinization.

One of the commentators during coverage of the 1st year of the new papacy that a cardinal had informed him that it was a close run between Cardinals Hussar and Ratzinger.

Officially, the count is never announced. Only the ratification of the new pope. The cardinals are not supposed to divulge the counts nor the specific ballots… a few do anyway.