Having doubts after looking at Eastern Orthodoxy, development of doctrine

[Contarini]

If I were to judge the Catholic Church by some of the Catholics on this forum then I would have a very low opinion of the Catholic Church. Unfortunately what Bluegoat described is found everywhere regardless of belief, whether Orthodox, Catholic or anything else.

I have to agree with Bluegoat that online Orthodox compare badly with online Catholics (except for Catholic traditionalists) in this regard. I think the reasons may well be cultural rather than theological. But of course that raises the point that in Orthodoxy culture and theology are probably linked more closely than in any other form of Christianity.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Orthodox: Not enough ecclesiastical authority in a central leadership to preserve unity

So why haven’t they fragmented like the Protestants have? Sure there are groups that are out of communion, but that’s true even in Catholicism. There is a clearly identifiable mainstream Orthodox Church which can trace its identity back to the early Church.

So you seem to be factually wrong on this point. They clearly do have enough ecclesiastical authority to preserve unity, because they have preserved it. (It’s unfair to define “preserve unity” as “prevent anyone from going into schism”–no one can do that without the resources of a totalitarian state at their disposal, and often not even then.)

when Jesus definately established more than a first among equals position for Peter

I’m not sure I’d say “definitely,” but then I’m not quite sure what “first among equals” means. I do think that there are good arguments for seeing papal primacy as of divine institution and not simply, as the Orthodox claim, of human origin due to the status of “old Rome” in the Empire.

many churches drawn on ethnic lines only,

I think this is true in Catholicism as well, to some extent. I agree that the problem is on the whole worse in Orthodoxy, but they are working to overcome it.

no objective method for determining what councils are eccumenical

What are your reasons for believing that there ought to be such an “objective method”?

no reasonable method for calling an eccumenical council

How specifically has it hurt them?

less interested in merging faith and reason

I used to agree with that to some extent, but as I have come to understand the Orthodox position better I’m inclined to revise that to “a better sense of the limits of reason.”

Protestant: From my perspective too many to list

Thank you everyone for pointing out these issues, now I know where to put my heart. I will found my own Church.

Just stay in communion with Rome

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

The problem is that you said " … are you saying the Pope does it on his own authority? Because that would be an incorrect understanding of Papal infallibility."

You (a Catholic) pointed out (I don’t know why you bothered) that I was misrepresenting Catholic teaching.

I have shown that I did not misrepresent Catholic teaching and now you say it doesn’t bother you.

Fine.

I think koala meant that the Pope is acting on Christ’s authority, not his own.

Of course, anyone can claim that. . . .

Edwin

 

[crazzeto]

And you have evidence toward this?

Only several join councils (ultimatly rejected on the Eastern Side), several formally seperated Eastern Churchs now in comunion, and hundreds of years of diaolog on and off which is now resurging with avengance in the wake of relativism and militant athiesm spreading over the globe like wild fire.

I’ve heard that said before, but it is irrelevant where it started, and yes I know it wasn’t in the creed to begin with, but that’s what it seemed like you were saying. As for it being “Orthodox” (Nice big “O”) it isn’t, as for being orthodox, it certainly isn’t, by admission of JPII, orthodox in Greek, and is in fact heretical.

Well first and formost, you’re the one that brought up geographic locations… I was just poitning out, geographically it did in fact originate in “your part of the world”.

No one is arguing that trying to apply greek words to the Filioque is impossible, but the Filioque isn’t in Greek is it? It is in Latin (translated into the venacular from Latin) which you can’t deny completely changes the meaning, thus the filioque is completely orthodox. In fact the Orthodox (yep, that’s a big O) can’t really deny the theology behind it, and in fact your leadership doesn’t bother trying to pretend the theology is Heretical anymore.

Any probelm there ever was with the Filioque was a problem of trying to improperly misapply Greek to it.

Yes, that says exactly what I said. What’s the issue here?

Actually, what you said doesn’t at all match up with what is in the CCC… You said we teach it’s a physical place, and that fire is literally used… The CCC says that it exists, that it is a clensing, and that scripture speaks of a cleansing fire.

 

[addictedkoala]

But you haven’t given any substantive reasons for this. All your reasons are based on preconceived assumptions about how often dogmas ought to be defined. That makes no sense.

Edwin

Hardly, I have reasons for not being Orthodox which have not come up in this thread because they are irrelevant. Certainly their lack of definitions plays a part in my dislike of their style, but I’ll acknowledge this by itself is not a reason to disregard a Church. I merely came up with a theory about just why it is the Orthodox have had much less of it over the last thousand years. If anything I love Orthodoxy, and I admire how they managed to hold off modernism inside of their Church, something that really affected the RCC because of a council. It goes both ways, I just prefer RC scholasticism, development, morality in some issues, and the support I see for papacy in the Bible and deposit of faith. In the Orthodox church I admire their hierarchy for pragmatic (not divine) reasons, I like their conservatism, and at times I envy the mysticism. The reasons I like Orthodoxy are not reasons to convert at all. Before someone picks apart my reasons for staying Catholic, no I will not elaborate because I don’t see the need to in this thread.

 

[crazzeto]

Hardly, I have reasons for not being Orthodox which have not come up in this thread because they are irrelevant. Certainly their lack of definitions plays a part in my dislike of their style, but I’ll acknowledge this by itself is not a reason to disregard a Church. I merely came up with a theory about just why it is the Orthodox have had much less of it over the last thousand years. If anything I love Orthodoxy, and I admire how they managed to hold off modernism inside of their Church, something that really affected the RCC because of a council. It goes both ways, I just prefer RC scholasticism, development, morality in some issues, and the support I see for papacy in the Bible and deposit of faith. In the Orthodox church I admire their hierarchy for pragmatic (not divine) reasons, I like their conservatism, and at times I envy the mysticism. The reasons I like Orthodoxy are not reasons to convert at all. Before someone picks apart my reasons for staying Catholic, no I will not elaborate because I don’t see the need to in this thread.

Errrummm… I’d like to offer a correction. No Church council in true spirit nor in documentation nor teaching has ever allowed for, or encouraged modernism. In fact quite the oppisite.

What did happen was a wave of very highly unorthodox catechisis, a whole lot of lay people joining with clergy to invent a “Spirit of Vatican II” which has allowed for modernism.

Thankfully the pushback has started already, we have some great orthodox Bishops pulmigating the true spirit of the council, and pointing out how defective the supposed spirit was.

It’s so sad, that so many people wanted Vatican II to mean dispensing with the Catholic Church and replacing it with a very modern Protestant one.

 

[addictedkoala]

Errrummm… I’d like to offer a correction. No Church council in true spirit nor in documentation nor teaching has ever allowed for, or encouraged modernism. In fact quite the oppisite.

What did happen was a wave of very highly unorthodox catechisis, a whole lot of lay people joining with clergy to invent a “Spirit of Vatican II” which has allowed for modernism.

Thankfully the pushback has started already, we have some great orthodox Bishops pulmigating the true spirit of the council, and pointing out how defective the supposed spirit was.

It’s so sad, that so many people wanted Vatican II to mean dispensing with the Catholic Church and replacing it with a very modern Protestant one.

Fair enough, my point still stands that had the council never happened modernists couldn’t have taken advantage. Only trying to say that just because I accept RCC development doesn’t mean I think everything we’ve done has been prudentially great

 

[crazzeto]

Fair enough, my point still stands that had the council never happened modernists couldn’t have taken advantage. Only trying to say that just because I accept RCC development doesn’t mean I think everything we’ve done has been prudentially great

You should study the history of councils… They never are successful in immediatly crushing heritics. For instance Nicea and Constantinople (that’s right, two full councils) failed in getting rid of the Arians. What happend to Vatican II is actually very normal, the difference is that the Heresy was hidden from view, I don’t know that anyone saw it coming. The council actually seems to have flushed it out before anyone really even knew it existed.

The consequences is the Church struggled with a lot of bad teaching from the 70’s through the 90’s (finally starting to end in the mid to late 90s). But now that we know it’s there, the leadership has taken the situation in hand and is working to quell it and get us all back on the right track.

Personally rather than taking this as a sign that the spirit isn’t with us, I take it in quite the oppisite context. We needed Vatican II to know what was about to happen to the Church, with out it who knows how things would have played out? More large scale schisms? Other consequences too frightening to ponder?

 

[Bluegoat]

Orthodox: Not enough ecclesiastical authority in a central leadership to preserve unity

I think you could apply this to Catholicism too, since they had the Reformation, which is hardly preserving unity. But perhaps the assumption here that one needs central leadership is - well - an assumption?

 

[addictedkoala]

I think you could apply this to Catholicism too, since they had the Reformation, which is hardly preserving unity. But perhaps the assumption here that one needs central leadership is - well - an assumption?

Well everyone knew that protestants weren’t Catholic. I’m not refferring to prevention of schismatic groups which I don’t think it would be possible to eliminate, more like how some EO churches go in and out of communion with some but not all other EO churches. This negative kind of heterodoxy (people in questionable communion) can be easily solved with a central leadership. While that leadership is in it’s most reduced form the Pope in the RCC, it doesn’t have to be one guy.

And the post you’re quoting was facetious anyway, don’t get too caught up in it

 

[josie_L]

I do believe he did, and I’m pretty sure that the EO Church doesn’t (sorry to my EO brothers/sisters here) have the fullness of the truth. Same with any form of Protestantism, but how am I supposed to know if Catholicism is completely true. You could say I’ve ruled out all the other options, but there’s a fourth, and that’s whether or not the Church founded by Jesus Christ still (fully) exists today. All of a sudden, I’m not too sure.

The Church of Christ does still (fully) exist, and it cannot teach heresy otherwise the gates of hell have prevailed.

 

[Monica4316]

I recommend reading this article:
catholic-pages.com/pope/hahn.asp

there is also a thread in another forum that lists many quotes supporting the Papacy, from the early Church and the Bible:
christianforums.com/t7464313/

 

[Monica4316]

Here is my take on it, whether it makes sense to you or not it’s the best I can do right now.

In the early church, ‘development’ was driven by the heretics. It was this tendency to want to micro define or explain everything that caused people to draw erroneous conclusions, and the church had to react.

This was always a ‘conservative’ move on the part of the church fathers, they were pruning away. Sometimes the easiest way to do that would be to positively affirm a doctrine that excludes any other interpretation, but it was always approached with reluctance, and minimally.

We know it happened, it is our history.

So in regards to Arius, the church affirmed that Jesus IS God. But they didn’t just figure this out, this was what they always believed! It is not a development that required a lot of logic to figure out, they simply had to look at the liturgical prayers and know they have always prayed to Jesus as God. This is why the first problem Arius had was with his own bishop. Arius was contradicting the belief his own bishop already held and prayed in the liturgy of his city.

But today in the western Catholic church there is a new mood, and atmosphere in place that makes it seem safe to speculate about things no one can know. I guess it’s that the old “God is on our side” mentality has got the best of them. People dream dreams and see visions that talk to them, and soon enough are joyfully advocating new dogmas be proclaimed by their infallible pontiff. They even engage in politicking for these new dogmas, sending postcards and petitions to the Vatican, and some Popes get caught up in it too, making unwise statements.

To quote Dr. Mark Miravalle:
From that time to the present, great numbers of petitions have continued to flood the Holy See for the papal definition of Our Lady’s universal mediation. Petitions for a new Marian dogma from only the last ten years (approx. 1994-2004) number over six million from over 165 countries, and include over 550 bishops and 45 cardinals. (12) Although these numbers do not include the hundreds of bishop petitions, along with the multitudinous number of clergy and lay petitions submitted to the Holy See by Cardinals Mercier, (13) Gagnon, and others prelates from 1930 to 1994, the recent petition campaign of the last decade for this fifth Marian dogma represents the largest per annum petition drive in the history of the Church.

But the question of “why” must again be addressed. If the Magisterium already teaches the truth of Marian mediation in its three components of Co-redemptrix, Mediatrix, and Advocate, then where is the need for a solemn papal definition of the same truth in the form of a dogma?

Historic graces and world peace. **With every new Marian dogma proclaimed by the successor of Peter, bearer of the keys of the kingdom, a new ocean of graces descends upon the Church and the world. **For Our Lady to exercise fully the motherly roles granted her by God, humanity must exercise its free will in accepting her roles that they may be activated on our behalf.

The whole focus is wrong. Is there a tangible benefit to knowing more minutiae … are they essential to us? That implies that the early Christians were at a serious disadvantage. Can these new dogmas save us, or are they instruments of division?

Why now? Why not at Nicea in the fourth century, or at Jerusalem in the first? Originating in the west at least one might have expected these to show up at Arles, but no, no one discussed these things at Arles either. Those poor people didn’t know what they were missing!

I keep going back to Saint Vincent of Lerins, he said it so well. Whatever was believed everywhere from the beginning is dogma.

When Catholics met with Orthodox in the first few centuries of the schism there was a tendency to shock by insisting on certain dogmas (like purgatory) which the east had never heard of and others (like the filioque) which the east had already rejected (people say it originated in the east, which is true, in Persia, and it was quickly rejected there too which is rarely mentioned).

Frankly if the entire east had not heard of it or did not teach it (and the east is so notoriously conservative as it is), it cannot be something that was believed always and everywhere. It is new and is not then properly ‘Catholic’, certainly not Orthodox Catholic.

this is not the Catholic understanding… whenever a dogma is declared, it’s not seen as a new development, but something people already believe. Catholics didn’t start believing in the Immaculate Conception when it was made dogma…it was made dogma because they already believed it, but there was need to clarify it.

about Purgatory, the Filioque, etc, - according to my sources it’s actually more complex than this… there are quotes from the early Church fathers supporting Purgatory … and the Filioque is not heretical in Latin (it means something different than when it’s in Greek). In Persia, it was probably not in Latin, and hence had a different meaning, and maybe that’s why it was rejected. There were Eastern Fathers who didn’t reject the Filioque in the West, but agreed it was there to fight the heresy.

I’m just saying, - it’s more complex than this

 

[Monica4316]

Also, the Pope doesn’t simply get to say whatever he wants… Pope Benedict said, he’s a servant to Tradition and whenever a doctrine gets declared, it’s always backed up with ECFs, etc. In addition to this, the Pope should be in agreement with the Bishops, and they should follow the Pope… there’s a quote on this from the early Church:

Canon 34 (4th century)

The bishops of every nation must acknowledge him who is first among them and account him as their head and do nothing of consequence without his consent; but each may do those things which concern his own parish and the country places which belong to it. But neither let him who is the first do anything without the consent of all. For so there will be oneness of mind and God will be glorified through the Lord in the Holy Spirit.

I think this mirrors today’s Papacy really well the bishops follow the Pope, who is the visible head, but the Pope isn’t like a dictator who makes whatever decisions he wants, but works together with the rest of the Church

The seven church Councils were not one man defining things as if he had all the authority do do that himself.

and the Catholic Church does not say that is how it works… the Pope doesn’t define doctrines all by himself - ever. Rather, he has the final say.

 

[Hesychios]

Well everyone knew that protestants weren’t Catholic. I’m not referring to prevention of schismatic groups which I don’t think it would be possible to eliminate, more like how some EO churches go in and out of communion with some but not all other EO churches.

You need to reflect on this a little bit more, because you are misreading what is going on in Holy Orthodoxy as something inherently wrong and heretical. In fact it is part of the enforced discipline of the church. No we don’t like it, we want these problems to go away but we are working in ‘church time’ here, not ‘my time’ or ‘your time’.

There is communion and there is concelebration. When some church body disagrees with another they stop concelebrating and commemorating one another’s hierarchs until the mess is sorted out.

The people in the pews are not affected, they can visit the other churches and take communion. (One still must be prepared with confession, fasting etc.) This is not new, the church had usually worked like that when the matter is not over doctrines. It is something analogous (not the same) to the SSPX issue the Catholics have, in that it is the bishops who are excommunicated, not the laity (many of whom go back and forth).

For example, the date of 1054AD is often cited as the beginning of the schism between the Latin and Greek churches (when some Cardinals - without a Pope - initiated the break), but in fact the Popes had been off the dyptichs (and not therefore commemorated) since about 1005, because they had allowed the filioque to be recited in the liturgy at Rome. There was not a full break and communion was still available to everyone, but concelebration was seriously inhibited.

Why isn’t 1005 cited as the initiation of the schism? Because the Latin church was viewing this with the Orthodox understanding at the time. Had Rome made the necessary corrections the Pope’s name would have been restored to the dyptichs.

Even 1054AD is not accurate, for this meant that Cardinals Humbert and Frederic were excommunicated but not the entire Latin church. The patriarch of Antioch famously tried to mediate this crises and keep communion with both parties. The schism does not seem to have solidified until Cardinal Frederic was elevated to Pope and did not (or would not) reverse his earlier position.

(It is interesting to note that individually all of the other patriarchates, each of which had nothing to gain by it, eventually saw the Latin church as the guilty party in the dispute.)

This negative kind of heterodoxy (people in questionable communion) can be easily solved with a central leadership.

Heterodoxy is an inaccurate term. The disputes within Orthodoxy are generally of a disciplinary nature, not doctrinal and the salvation of souls is not endangered. The same kind of problems one might see in the western church, they are just handled differently.

I can see that you have an ideal model of leadership in your head, but historically this has not been seen to bear true. The centralization of the western leadership has also itself been a root cause of fractures.

 

[Hesychios]

Canon 34 (4th century)

The bishops of every nation must acknowledge him who is first among them and account him as their head and do nothing of consequence without his consent; but each may do those things which concern his own parish and the country places which belong to it. But neither let him who is the first do anything without the consent of all. For so there will be oneness of mind and God will be glorified through the Lord in the Holy Spirit.

This refers to Metropolitans, of which there was usually one per nation.

It adequately describes, even today, how Orthodox synods normally will function, the patriarch does not make decisions on his own authority, and what he does decide is subject to peer review by his brother bishops in the synod.

It is precisely this that accounts for the interesting case in 2005 when the Jerusalem church deposed it’s own Patriarch. The Orthodox church still applies Apostolic Canon 34 as written.

the Pope doesn’t define doctrines all by himself - ever. Rather, he has the final say.

Which is to say in practical terms according to the canons of your church (written and edited by Popes) he has a line item veto over the acts of the fathers in council, and can negate entire sessions or even entire councils on his own authority.

But in fact, according to your church since 1870AD he does not need to call a council to define dogma, he can define things all by himself, and futures councils are stuck with that fait acompli.

Much earlier councils can have their work negated by a Pope simply because he codifies the canons, and can edit what he wants to right out of the code.

 

[Hesychios]

Canon 34 (4th century)

The bishops of every nation must acknowledge him who is first among them and account him as their head and do nothing of consequence without his consent; but each may do those things which concern his own parish and the country places which belong to it. But neither let him who is the first do anything without the consent of all. For so there will be oneness of mind and God will be glorified through the Lord in the Holy Spirit.

This refers to Metropolitans, of which there was usually one per nation.

It adequately describes, even today, how Orthodox synods normally will function, the patriarch does not make decisions on his own authority, and what he does decide is subject to peer review by his brother bishops in the synod.

It is precisely this that accounts for the interesting case in 2005 when the Jerusalem church deposed it’s own Patriarch. The Orthodox church still applies Apostolic Canon 34 as written.

the Pope doesn’t define doctrines all by himself - ever. Rather, he has the final say.

Which is to say in practical terms according to the canons of your church (written and edited by Popes) he has a line item veto over the acts of the fathers in council, and can negate entire sessions or even entire councils on his own authority.

But in fact, according to your church since 1870AD he does not need to call a council to define dogma, he can define things all by himself, and futures councils are stuck with that fait acompli.

Much earlier councils can have their work negated by a Pope simply because he codifies the canons, and can edit what he wants to right out of the code.

 

[Gabriel_of_12]

My next problem is the EO and RCC view of each other. While the RCC views EO sacraments as valid and that they have apostolic succession, my understanding is that orthodox EO people do not reciprocate those feelings. I was looking for an EO forum online to express some of these questions to, and I noticed a very hostile attitude toward Catholicism and use of derogatory words in contrast with the EO here who seem to be much more cordial. This got me thinking, seeing the huge similarity of our history pre-1054, choosing between these two Churches is quite an undertaking. From my point of view both were founded by Jesus, and if I could have any wish in the world it would be unification. However, objectively speaking, I seem to have statistically the best chance for salvation through the EO Church. Since both churches recognize EO sacraments but EO do not recognize the RCC. While this is not reason to convert, it has scared the pants off me as a Roman Catholic and I’m starting to struggle with living my faith as well as possible from the stress.

 

[addictedkoala]

You need to reflect on this a little bit more, because you are misreading what is going on in Holy Orthodoxy as something inherently wrong and heretical. In fact it is part of the enforced discipline of the church. No we don’t like it, we want these problems to go away but we are working in ‘church time’ here, not ‘my time’ or ‘your time’.

Lets not get carried away with my words, I don’t think it’s anywhere approaching “heresy,” it’s just cumbersome, as you admit.

I can see that you have an ideal model of leadership in your head, but historically this has not been seen to bear true. The centralization of the western leadership has also itself been a root cause of fractures.

once again, taking my words a bit too far. I would not say central leadership is ideal, I simply believe it is preferable pragmatically over the long term. Some things about the Orthodox hierarchy I do like.

Thank you for the perspective in the rest of your post. I will keep it in mind.

Personally I would think twice before placing my salvation among married priestly men who have cares of the world, a Church that approves abortion or birth control, who claims to have the authority to rebaptise validly baptised Christians, who can refuse communion to an apostolic successor to Peter, who allows divorce in a sacramental marriage? These are questions to consider. So far as these EO begin to introduce new worldly views into their Catholicity, they become more and more less Orthodox in my opinion.

 

[Nine_Two]

If you do not live in the East practicing Orthodoxy and live in the West, you probably are calling yourself EO but are practicing a Western Anglican Liturgy from the !5th century not from the Apostolic period as these EO are mislead to believe in the West.

The Western Rite is in the minority, and within the Western Rite there is a liturgy based on the Anglican Liturgy (from the early 20th century) And one based on the pre-Vat II Catholic liturgy.

The bulk of Churches use the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom which originates in the 5th century but which has seen some slight changes over the millenia. Perhaps you should do some more research on the matter of liturgy, as well as every other issue you brought up, which I’m not even going to comment on.