How do you think Eastern vs. Western Catholics approach their faith?

[Silyosha]

I mean this to be a very broad question. Basically, if you could summarize briefly how you think, based on experience and your observations, the ways in which both churches, east and west, approach and carry out their faith, how would you do so? What words would you use? What are the major differences, and what are the simularities?

 

[ConstantineTG]

West is very legalistic and tries to deal with the absolute. This happened, that happened, do it this way exactly, do it that way, etc. Everything is defined very specifically.

In the East its more symbolic. Absolutes are not necessary but what the symbolism of such beliefs are. I was at a Catechetical sort-of-symposium about the Great Feast of the Presentation of the Theotokos to the Temple. The entire event is based on tradition and can only be found in writing in the Protoevangelium of James which is not Sacred Scripture. And yet there is no concern if the events are indeed true or accurate or not. What is looked on is the implication of such a tradition on our faith, what it tells us and how we grow in our spirituality from it.

 

[Vico]

I mean this to be a very broad question. Basically, if you could summarize briefly how you think, based on experience and your observations, the ways in which both churches, east and west, approach and carry out their faith, how would you do so? What words would you use? What are the major differences, and what are the simularities?

Both accept directly revealed scripture and sacred tradition. The eastern approach is more mystical, where the superior knowledge of God is to be obtained through experience. Yet Meister Eckert and St. John of the Cross were western and mystical, the western trend has been synthesis of positive (scolastic) and negative (mystical) statements. The greatest mystics Hugh of St. Victor, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Bonaventure were also distinguished Scholastics.

So these trends are apparent in the various writings and practices that arose in the different areas.

 

[mardukm]

West is very legalistic and tries to deal with the absolute.

I think the word you’re looking for is “more legal.” “Legalistic” is something very different.

Are you saying that non-Latins are not governed by ecclesiastical and divine laws?

Are you saying that the Ecumenical Councils by making their definitions of Faith were “legalistic?”

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[Silyosha]

Hmm…interesting replies. So, what I’m getting thus far is: West: Scholarly/Absoluteness; East: Mystical/Experience-driven. Good food for thought.
More replies welcome!!

 

[ConstantineTG]

I think the word you’re looking for is “more legal.” “Legalistic” is something very different.

Are you saying that non-Latins are not governed by ecclesiastical and divine laws?

Are you saying that the Ecumenical Councils by making their definitions of Faith were “legalistic?”

Blessings,
Marduk

Thanks for the correction of terms.

No, I’m only talking about approaches to faith. For example, the Latin faith likes to dogmatize, define the faith very clearly and explicitly. For example Purgatory. In the Latin Church there is the belief of purgatorial fire and even indulgences which are very specific to number of days or years that are lifted from one’s stay in purgatory. Not the same nuicances of belief is required in the East, we pray for the dearly departs and trust in God’s mercy that they be in heaven soon.

 

[Cecilianus]

I would say that the East views the world and the Incarnatino from the viewpoint of transfigured reality, while the West views spiritual matters from the viewpoint of the world that receives the Incarnation. Two different, complementary perspectives.

Also, the East tends to look more at ideals (e.g., regarding fasting), whereas the West tends to look more at obligations. The East also tends to be more personal than the West, which is more anonymous (regarding confession and spiritual direction, for example, as well as the formula for administering Communion).

I would even hazard to say that the West tends to express reverence more through solemnity and silence (due to the fact that they have pews, and the Eucharistic Canon is whispered, and the use of Latin) whereas the East tends to focus on the glory and beauty of the Faith, making it more permissible for people to walk around venerating icons in Church and giving them more independence regarding standing or personal gestures. The result is that there is a stronger sense of community in the East, whereas in the West nobody cares who you are or where you came from - you’re just another anonymous Catholic filling his Sunday obligation.

 

[Cecilianus]

One related question I have is, is it possible for a single Catholic to approach his faith in BOTH ways? I would like to be a Catholic, inheriting and feeling equally comfortable with both patrimonies of the Church, rather than having one feel alien to my spirituality. I also note the words of Thomas Merton, in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (page 12):

If I can write in myself the thought and devotion of Eastern and Western Christendom, the Greek and Latin Fathers, the Russian and Spanish mystics, I can prepare in myself the reunion of divided Christians. From that secret and unspoken unity in myself can eventually come the visible and manifest unity of all Christians. We must contain all divided worlds in ourselves and transcend them in Christ.

Does anybody think this is possible?

 

[Silyosha]

I think it’s possible. I definately see what you mean about the perceived impersonality of the Western Church, but I think more than likely, that’s at least partially due to the sheer size of the Latin Rite of the RCC. But so many conflicts and differences ride in on the varied ways in which people approach things–the ingrained ideas and customs they bring to the table–so if we could get more people used to both sides coming together, I think it would solve a lot of those problems.
How is Eastern confession different?

 

[ByzKat]

For example Purgatory. In the Latin Church there is the belief of purgatorial fire and even indulgences which are very specific to number of days or years that are lifted from one’s stay in purgatory. Not the same nuicances of belief is required in the East, we pray for the dearly departs and trust in God’s mercy that they be in heaven soon.

To be fair - the “number of days” associated with indulgences were linked to an equivalence with a length of days of public penance - that is, in the early Church, would might have been required to be among the penitents for five years for a grievous sin; performing one of the acts to which an indulgence of 100 days was attached as “as good as” doing 100 days of strict penance in the old days, on account of the prayers of the Church and of the saints. They were never intended as numbers of “days in purgatory”, though I am sure some preachers might have suggested this.

In the same way, Orthodox tradition can tell you, day by day, WHERE the soul of a departed person is for forty days after death, with great assurance. Now of course, some Orthodox theologians say this is purely figurative, but I have certainly heard preachers insist that we must never forget to offer a remembrance on the 3rd, 9th, and 40th days after death, so that the souls of our loved ones are assisted through the toll houses.

All in all, it’s dangerous to equate strictly dogmatic teaching of one Church with the practice and popular piety of another.

In Christ,
Jeff Mierzejewski

 

[Cecilianus]

I think it’s possible. I definately see what you mean about the perceived impersonality of the Western Church, but I think more than likely, that’s at least partially due to the sheer size of the Latin Rite of the RCC. But so many conflicts and differences ride in on the varied ways in which people approach things–the ingrained ideas and customs they bring to the table–so if we could get more people used to both sides coming together, I think it would solve a lot of those problems.
How is Eastern confession different?

We don’t have confessionals - which were invented by St. Robert Bellarmine at the Council of Trent, in fact - and hence confessions are never anonymous. Confessions are said standing (or in some Greek Orthodox churches, kneeling) in front of the icon of Christ in the iconastasis; the priest places his stole on the penitent’s head during the absolution (and some priests, especially those that were formerly Greek Orthodox, will place the stole on the penitent’s shoulder during the actual confession). The priest that hears the confession is often the penitent’s spiritual father. Every Eastern Christian is expected to have a spiritual father or mother (much like a spiritual director in the Western Church), who is either a priest or a monk/nun.

 

[Silyosha]

Very interesting…thanks for the information. Is the absolution similar?

 

[Cecilianus]

Very interesting…thanks for the information. Is the absolution similar?

Traditionally, no - my understanding is that the words of absolution were passive ("the servant of God is absolved") rather than “I absolve you”. However, the current practice in the Eastern Catholic churches (as required by Rome) is that the actual Roman formula for absolution be used, though the rest of the prayers before it are Byzantine. The Orthodox use the traditional Eastern formula.

I’m not sure why Rome insists on the Western formula.

CORRECTION: According to Wikipedia, the Eastern formula is

“My child, N. N., may our Lord and God Christ Jesus by the mercy of His love absolve thee from thy sins; and I, His unworthy priest, in virtue of the authority committed to me, absolve thee and declare thee absolved of thy sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.”

All Byzantine priests I have ever seen used the indicative form, however, instead of the deprecatory one.

 

[Seamus_L]

When I was at St Nicholas Cathedral in Chicago (UGCC) last Lent, they still had confessional boxes. Other churches that I’ve seen use small icon screens, which seperate the penitent from the priest. As I alluded to in a different thread, I distinctly remember some years ago when I heard an Eastern priest tell the congregation that a visiting priest would be coming for the next couple weeks, so it would be a good opportunity for those who would feel more comfortable confessing to someone they didn’t know.
As for spiritual fathers, I hear the term repeatedly online, but in person I've yet to meet an EC or an Orthodox who's admitted to having one.

 

[Cecilianus]

When I was at St Nicholas Cathedral in Chicago (UGCC) last Lent, they still had confessional boxes. Other churches that I’ve seen use small icon screens, which seperate the penitent from the priest. As I alluded to in a different thread, I distinctly remember some years ago when I heard an Eastern priest tell the congregation that a visiting priest would be coming for the next couple weeks, so it would be a good opportunity for those who would feel more comfortable confessing to someone they didn’t know.

                                As for spiritual fathers, I hear the term repeatedly online, but in person I've yet to meet an EC or an Orthodox who's admitted to having one.

I’ve seen a UGCC church that still had them as well, but it’s a Latinization - not an Eastern manner of expressing the Faith. I’ve never seen them in a Ruthenian church, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find a parish that has them.

Some Ruthenian priests will use smaller chapels (in his home across the parking lot from the church, for example) for confession if somebody else is in the main church. Otherwise, confessions can get a bit awkward if the sub-deacon decides it’s time to start chanting his prayers or something.

Other priests will bring the penitent behind the iconostas to the prothesis or to an icon behind the altar for confession (which is perfectly acceptable though not normative), especially if someone decides they need their confession heard in the middle of Liturgy or at the end when everybody is still in the church praying the “Nunc Dimittis”. (Confessions like that happen more often than you might imagine - it can be a bit awkward as an acolyte to have the priest ask you to get out and then you stand there looking like a deer in the headlights wondering why until you hear the penitent start listing off his sins.)

 

[ConstantineTG]

One related question I have is, is it possible for a single Catholic to approach his faith in BOTH ways? I would like to be a Catholic, inheriting and feeling equally comfortable with both patrimonies of the Church, rather than having one feel alien to my spirituality. I also note the words of Thomas Merton, in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (page 12):

Does anybody think this is possible?

No, there should not be a single approach. As Pope John Paul II said in Orientale Lumen:

Our Eastern Catholic brothers and sisters are very conscious of being the living bearers of this tradition, together with our Orthodox brothers and sisters. The members of the Catholic Church of the Latin tradition must also be fully acquainted with this treasure and thus feel, with the Pope, a passionate longing that the full manifestation of the Church’s catholicity be restored to the Church and to the world, expressed not by a single tradition, and still less by one community in opposition to the other; and that we too may be granted a full taste of the divinely revealed and undivided heritage of the universal Church which is preserved and grows in the life of the Churches of the East as in those of the West.

 

[Vico]

…They were never intended as numbers of “days in purgatory”, though I am sure some preachers might have suggested this…

And also, this numeric system was abolished in 1967. Indulgentarium Doctrina
newadvent.org/library/docs_pa06id.htm
Regarding partial indulgences, with the abolishment of the former determination of days and years, a new norm or measurement has been established which takes into consideration the action itself of the faithful Christian who performs a work to which an indulgence is attached.

Since by their acts the faithful can obtain, in addition to the merit which is the principal fruit of the act, a further remission of temporal punishment in proportion to the degree to which the charity of the one performing the act is greater, and in proportion to the degree to which the act itself is performed in a more perfect way, it has been considered fitting that this remission of temporal punishment which the Christian faithful acquire through an action should serve as the measurement for the remission of punishment which the ecclesiastical authority bountifully adds by way of partial indulgence.

 

[Little_Boy_Lost]

Every Eastern Christian is expected to have a spiritual father or mother (much like a spiritual director in the Western Church), who is either a priest or a monk/nun.

I completely agree Cecilianus. I think all Christians should have a spiritual father. The loss of discipleship in the Christian west is sad, but through our friendships with each other we should encourage this ancient practice. Christ chose disciples so they might learn from him and carry forth the promise. And they turn taught their own disciples. It is vital to the interior life to have direction. I would also add deacons or even lay persons can be of some benefit as temporary guides. A good friend of mine, an old Catholic woman whom I consider almost a second mother and surely my spiritual mother; through our conversations taught me much about prayer, humility and patience. Through her encouragement I came to my current parish and the spiritual father I have now.

I’m not sure why Rome insists on the Western formula.

Check out this thread.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=399749

Though it says the priest is required to say the first form, I’ve never heard my confessor say that. He only says the Nathan prayer whilst he places his stole over my head.

God through Nathan the prophet forgave David his sins; and Peter shedding bitter tears over his denial; and the Adulteress weeping at his feet; and the Publican and the Prodigalo Son. May this same God, through me, a sinner, forgive + you everything in this life and in the life to come. And may he make you stand uncondemned before his awesome judgment-seat, for he is blessed forever and ever. Amen.

 

[Silyosha]

Is the practice of spiritual mothers/fathers have anything to do with godparents? Do they take the place of godparent, or are they in addition?

 

[Cecilianus]

Is the practice of spiritual mothers/fathers have anything to do with godparents? Do they take the place of godparent, or are they in addition?

In the East they are different - godparents are a married couple and one has a spiritual father or mother (not more than one, except when required when you move out of town) who is a priest or religious. I don’t know what the role of godparents actually is in the East (I was baptized Lutheran and my godparents are Lutheran pastors - when I became Catholic I was told not to worry about it).