Heart is pulling me towards Orthodoxy

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You’re mixing up your carpatho-rusyns…

In the late 1800s St. Alexis Toth led his flock to communion with the Russian Church (becoming a large part of what is now the Orthodox Church in America) after being forbidden by Archbishop Ireland from serving the very Eastern Catholics in Minneapolis he had been sent to serve.

Several decades later Fr. Orestes Chornock led a group of parishes to communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate after a Papal directive mandated clerical celibacy for Eastern Catholic clergy becoming what is now known as the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese.
 
For me, it comes down to one huge question: which Orthodox? The most glaring divide being that between the Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox. The former accepted Chalcedon and the latter did not. The E Orthodox say Chalcedon was ecumenical because it was accepted by the Church… yet the Orientals rejected it. Catholics say it was ecumenical because it was recognized as such by Pope St Leo and those in communion with him.
 
ziapueblo said:
Palamas
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New here, but I’d really like to understand the essence energies issue.

First. Does the term ESSENCE? Equate to the term NATURE. Are those identical? Related. Similar?

And what is the difference between eternal existence eternal being and necessary existence necessary being?
 
Yes essence and nature are synonymous. That which is the divine essence is what all three persons of the trinity have in Common. That’s the same definition as the divine nature.

Nuance- essences are generally the result of mental abstraction. Now nobody has ever seen God and known or comprehended his essence. Therefore when we speak of the divine essence, it can only be analogically- God is LIKE this, but he excels it in perfection, infinitude and comprehension. So the essence of God is Good, but not with a goodness like ours, but our knowledge of goodness is an infinitely pale reflection of what the Good is and means in God.

Nature is more the thing as it is in itself considered in itself via direct experience, not so much mental abstraction. But again you’ll notice we can only speak of it in an analogical way, with similes.

The Orthodox deny the capacity to speak of God analogically, since his essence is beyond knowledge. But here they are wrong and shown to be so by St. Dionysius the Areopagite who calls God Super-Good, Super-Essential, Super-God, and a Host of analogical names while referring to the Divine Essence. Adding the prefix “Super” shows the analogy- for it is like, but unlike for it excels. As Dionysius says-

“The (Names) then, common to the whole Deity, as we have demonstrated from the Oracles, by many instances in the Theological Outlines, are the Super-Good, the Super-God, the Superessential, the Super-Living, the Super-Wise, and whatever else belongs to the superlative abstraction; with which also, all those denoting Cause, the Good, the Beautiful, the Being, the Life-producing, the Wise…”

Now that which is common to persons is the essence. Hence he nominated the essence while admitting its existence beyond name.
 
http://www.ewtn.com/v/experts/showmessage.asp?number=564735

Eastern Orthodox Essence-Energies Distinction…

'Catholic philosopher and blogger Dr. Michael Liccione argues that the Essence-Energies Distinction, as expounded by St. Gregory Palamas, is true and is compatible with the Catholic dogma of absolute divine simplicity according to the definition given at the Fourth Council of the Lateran and the First Vatican Council.

Dr. Liccione says that Divine simplicity and the distinction between the Divine Essence and the Divine Energies would be contradictory if Divine Essence is taken “to mean God as what He eternally is” because “God is actus purus, and thus has no unrealized potentialities.”

However, if we define God’s essence as what “He necessarily is apart from what He does,” then God’s “essence is incommunicable” and communication would necessitate Divine actions, or Energies.

Thus there is a real distinction between God’s Essence, what “He necessarily is apart from what He does,” and His Energies, “God as what He eternally does.”’
Understand that to mean:
  • God’s eternal essence = God’s eternal doings = God’s energies = actus purus
  • God’s necessary essence = God’s eternal essence + unrealized potentialities
 
God has no unrealized potentiality. To have such is to be a creature- a changeable being amongst other beings. But God is beyond being and beyond all creatures and time. Therefore he cannot change and is without potential. How then is he free to act? Because, being beyond all he is beyond any necessary compulsion. Who could tell God what he is to be or do? Therefore he is radically free pure act without potential beyond being and outside time.
 
I went and studied Orthodoxy for almost 3 years of my life having left RC. I had converted to RC Easter of 2014. I went and followed my heart to Orthodox. Orthodoxy is beautiful, but I found some deep rooted issues that aren’t apparent on the surface and I have since returned to Rome.

I have learned that the EO focus is more on the mystical approach to life, while the Western RC approach is both mystical and scholastic. That being said, it’s been explained to me by my EO priest that the focus of life for an EO, is on what is called the “nous” within the noetic life, “where every Christian should know right from wrong within their own heart”. That is exactly what confuses me, because I am also learned in the Latin theology, and we all here have learned that if God is truth, then anything that is not of God is not; and conversely, anything that is of truth, is in some small way of God.

If 1+1=2 and this tells us in an infinitesimal way about the beauty and truth of God expressed through mathematics, isn’t science and reason (logic) supposed to be complementary in expressing the grandeur of our Almighty God? My Orthodox priest doesn’t think so, and there are no updated teachings on ethics or science in EO I have found.

Example: Isn’t it logic that birth control has a broad range of moral issues, or that it may cause a full on abortion, and is thus considered going against the way creation is made? Doesn’t this go against the deposit of the Christian faith? EO has no teachings on this, I was told, “what is done in the bedroom is between those.”

Without generalizations, it seems as if the EO does not teach that both scholastic and mystical is part of who we are as Christians, and that doesn’t settle with me as an educator. The noetic life within EO teaches that the nous is the organ of understanding, the center of Christian mysticism. Further explained as the center of all understanding, which lies in the heart. But I know for a fact that the Bible says the heart is deceitful. Roman Catholic on the other hand seems extremely developed and current with ethics, as I see the church places a high value on human reason/ethics, how this is reconciled by logic, developed sciences, complementary through what Christ gave His followers in the mystical life.

I feel like EO teaches confusion, lack of education on current issues of morality. Esp since no formal education is available nor wanted about current issues within EO, and instead I’m left being told to use my own confirmation bias… to base moral decisions on my own deceitful heart; leaving me to figure out what is sin/is it not sin or is it? This is truly a quandary.
 
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That was my experience- and here is the gist of what you are trying to say-

The Catholic Church following Aquinas teaches that all truth is one. Therefore all truth is mutually supportive- we give the first place to revelation and use the truths of philosophy and logic to SUPPORT them and integrate them into an holistic worldview FOLLOWING the fathers. Aquinas himself is simply a patristic synthesis.

Now Orthodoxy is suspicious of philosophy and integrating philosophy into the explanations of the faith. Yet they canonize those who do such and follow them, like John of Damascus. They do not practically ACT like truth is a unified body, but that all we have is the God-inspired scriptures and the God-inspired fathers and canons.

The thing here is they draw virtually no distinction between the various levels and kinds of inspiration between Scriptures fathers and councils. This causes them to lump them together and treat them virtually as equal. And their conservatism, and especially their post-Florvsky scholastic self-hating causes them to view anyone connected with the name Augustine with suspicion.
 
The Greek ουσία = substantia, which if you look at the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed says
ομοούσιος τω Πατρί = consubtantialem Patri" = of the same substance of the Father/Being with the Father

If you look at most theological dictionaries, ουσία = substance, essence, nature

So that’s where we get translations like

“…consubstantial with the Father…”
“…one in substance with the Father…”
“…one in essence with the Father…”

I’ll take the Creed instead of Palamite theology.
 
Moreover, you will notice something-

The Schismatics are always the founders of the Church of either a single father or a selective reading.

For example- the Persian Church refused to give up their fascination with Theodore of Mopsuestia. His Christogy is deeply problematic and leads to the errors we condemn in Nestorius. Because the Persian Church saw Nestorius as a faithful follower of Theodore, they refused to anathematize him and, on the contrary, canonizes him. All because of a failure to look at a single ecclesial figure correctly.

The Monophysites did the same with St. Cyril of Alexandria- they put all their stock in his work “On the Unity of Christ” and forsook unity with anyone who used a different terminology to speak of the union of Humanity and Divinity in Christ, even though St. Cyril himself allowed for a diversity of expression.

Again with the iconoclasts who basically find one Church father with an iconoclast streak (St. Epiphanius of Salamis) and construct an entire icon-destroying schism.

And it is the same with the Orthodox. The appeal to fathers is limited to eastern fathers who can be easily misread to support an innovative theology- yet they can also be read to state the opposite.

The conclusion? The Church in her authoritative pronouncements is greater than any one or several fathers and can alone give the true meaning of their common teaching. Moreover, the scholastics always made a generous use of eastern fathers alongside the western fathers, and in doing this they were the more faithful, for they expounded the truth as found everywhere- not just Cappadocia.
 
Thanks for your response 🙂

I understand Palamas to have claimed & alleged, that that one singular uniting
  • Ousia
  • Essence
  • Substance
  • Physis
  • Nature
has two aspects:
  • Accessing Essence = God’s Energies / Actions / Operations / Communications into creation and the creatures therein
  • Inaccessible Essence = God’s remote transcendent nature beyond creation and all of the contemplations of all of the creatures therein
The former is the actus purus humans on earth have been made aware of – God as we know Him, in practice, defined by the specific actions He chose to manifest in creation. This more practical definition of what God means is the focus of Thomas Aquinas. In analogy, “rays of sunlight reaching earth”.

The latter includes “unrealized potentialities”, all of the other actions God could have freely chosen to manifest in creation but did not, “rays of sunlight going off in other directions and so not reaching earth”. Also includes the remote transcendent nature of God, “the sun”. More theoretical, even to the point of being impractical, this was the focus of Palamas.

As Catholic scholars have already observed, these views are not incompatible.
 
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This is very interesting, SA. Not to hijack the thread, but do you know of a good place on the net to read brief accounts of the principle heresies? What I would love would be a brief (a paragraph or two) description of what the Arians, Nestorians, Monosophites, Pelagians, etc., believed. This would be most helpful to me, as I know many of these heresies are still around, simply under different names.
 
That’s not saying much given the quality of 20th century theologians, 😉

Best Latins- Reginald Garrigou Lagrange, Joseph Clifford Fenton.

Best Orthodox- Hilarion Troitsky, Michael Pomazansky.

Best Eastern Catholic- Sheptytsky and probably the Romanian Bishops who suffered under the Orthodox.

Palamas can only be reconciled if there is an admission that the operations of God are one and identical with one another IN HIM as the Supreme Good- for if all acts of God flow from the Good and are oriented toward the Good and are essentially good, they are identical with one another via their source and their telos- the Good. They are only distinct in creatures.
 
Most modern Catholics are inadvertent pelagians. Ask them how God works in ya to save us-

“Well, God does his part to try and save ya, but the free response is up to us.”

Pelagianism. God himself is also the author of the free response and every response which yet leaves our wills free. Just watch how much people hate hearing that.
 
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How do you feel about the countless Byzantine Catholic Churches who will be celebrating St. Palamas’ feast day?

ZP
 
I feel sorry for Catholics siding with a man who fought against Catholicism and attacked the theology of saints. I don’t accept him. He was an anti-Catholic and no Catholic has any business venerating him honestly.

This is NOT the return to authentic Byzantium the Vatican would ask of an eastern Catholic. Authentic Byzantium is Akindynos, Prochoros Kydones, Demetrius Kydones, John Bekkos, and all those who fought against the innovations of the ditheistic palamites and the monopatrism of Photios while retaining an authentic Eastern Experience of theology, which is-
  1. The Emphasis on the Trihypostatic God as revealed in scriptures before all else.
  2. The Monarchy of the Father.
  3. The reality of theosis.
  4. The use of liturgy as mystagogy in theology.
  5. Following the fathers in all things where they AGREE (and I would add working hard to synthesize them where they appear to differ! For example- St. Augustine and Dionysius the Areopagite teach the same thing regarding theophanies).
  6. A special emphasis on the reality of the icon and iconographic theology (which is actually the death of Palamism, ironically, since the theology of the icon is precisely an encounter with the glorified via a created medium, the icon itself! If the icon is a window into heaven, it’s clear as day that in the theophanies of the prophets, angels presented to the minds of men images and patterns of God that acted as real mediums of communication between God and men. If you deny this, you not only deny the theological significance of the icon, you destroy the possibility of the incarnation, which is Uncreated God communicating via a created medium with men, the medium being the enhypostatized Christ! And yet the prophets really saw the Logos, just as those who saw Christ really saw the Logos, and through his created humanity no less!)
  7. A special love of and emphasis for beauty.
  8. Fidelity to dogmatic decrees wherever they are found.
Eastern Catholics ought not to pretend to be Orthodox. On the contrary, because we actually have a wider pool of saints, our theology should be way richer and founded in the best of spirituality and scholasticism. John of Damascus meets Aquinas meets Dionysius the Areopagite meets Augustine meets Leontius of Jerusalem meets Bekkos.

We have no need of anti-Catholics.
 
Too often I see people take cheap shots at any group that could be viewed as a threat to theirs, which is based in fear. Or that acknowledging what is good and admirable in an outside group is somehow showing a lack of faithfulness to their own group. I have Orthodox friends who I admire deeply- I honestly respect Orthodox Churches more than I have anything bad to say about it. I’ve considered going to the Orthodox side in the past. But I encountered too many members who presented their faith by what they are not- especially in distancing themselves from Latin Rite Catholicism, than their faith resting in who they are. Especially convert parishes- they seemed to be running from something than to something. They had a pleasure, a form of pride in distancing themselves from others and how they were better- basically a modern day Donatism. A Manichaen outlook on all things Western. And too often their ideas of Western Christianity was misrepresented- even at times arguing on what Catholics “really” believe with Catholics themselves! I’ve had mature and well informed Orthodox admit to me that there is a development of doctrine in Orthodox communions. There have been changes in teachings and rituals. What is marketed to the Orthodox masses and converts is not always accurate- it usually isn’t with any group! :). There is much I admire in eastern spirituality, perhaps I would get a better feel for Byzantine Catholic rites if there was one close to me. I prefer eastern iconography for my own usage, having such composing my prayer corner at home and I wish I could go to a local Catholic parish and hear just plainchant. I envy my Orthodox friends who being a part of a rarer religion in this country also share a deeper sense of comoroderie with their fellow members. But there’s no way my conscience could let me break the Apostles fast with them on June 29th and not be in communion with the city of Peter and Paul. There’s no way I can hang among them saying untrue things about the Latin Rite- which they do too often. There’s no way I can be in a communion that has so much forsaken authority that every member seems to view themselves as the next Mark of Ephesus, ready to point fingers even in their own communion on who isn’t “Orthodox” enough. It feels too much like being in a junior high school click and I’m a grown man with kids. I have no interest in stroking my own ego with them in their condemnation of everyone else. The problems within my communion, the Church in communion with Rome can at times burn like an affliction, but for me it’s still a purgation fire; when I was an Inquirer at a local Orthodox Church, it just began to suck my soul dry.
 
This is exactly my experience when I converted. The converts form a self-assuring minicircle that enters into conflict with the old guard and tries to win over the priest.

We DID define ourselves as “Not like those legalists” all the while trying to justify non-canonical violations quite legalistically.
 
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