Is Orthodoxy the true Church?

[Cavaradossi]

I’ve argued that case myself . But I think there is a difference. I’m not talking about the Old Calendarist position per se but the broader “anti-ecumenical” position. Generally that tends to line up with Old Calendarism for obvious reasons.

Am I wrong that monasticism is the spiritual heart of Orthodoxy, credited with often maintaining the Faith when the hierarchy has failed?

Am I wrong that Mount Athos is one of the most important centers of Orthodox monasticism?

Am I wrong that many monks of Mount Athos consider Patriarch Bartholomew a heretic?

If I’m not wrong about these things, then this is very different from the truly marginal phenomenon of Catholic sedevacantism.

Monks can be a rowdy bunch. Some monks on Mount Athos have at times refused to commemorate Patriarch Bartholomew, because they believed his actions to have crossed the line. That their commemoration of His All Holiness Bartholomew is a sort of on off affair signals that they are not thinking of him as a heretic, but that they are trying to use their clout to try to influence his decisions. Monks have been doing this sort of thing since at least the post-chalcedonian crisis.

I’m a bit baffled by this argument. If human salvation is on the line, surely uniformity is a good thing? If Bishop X is erring in admitting people without baptizing them, and thus putting his and their salvation on the line, wouldn’t it actually be a good thing to have something like the Vatican’s ability to tell Bishop X “no”?

Yes and no. We have synods which fulfill that function. The problem is that we don’t know, nor do we believe that we have a way of knowing if grace is in heterodox baptisms. It’s not as simple as holding a council, because councils are not for divining the truth. When, therefore, the tradition provides contradictory evidence, we gave to admit that we have reached the limit of human knowing. Better that some bishops could possibly be wrong than we mandate that all bishops do something which could possibly be wrong.

If one bishop admits me to Orthodoxy without baptizing me, and takes the responsibility of answering for this at the Judgment, and I then move to the jurisdiction of another bishop, wouldn’t that bishop need to rethink the whole thing or else answer at the Judgment for his laxity? Doesn’t this start to unravel the whole conception of a visible Church?

Not really. Once received, other bishops are supposed to respect the decisions of their brother bishops, precisely for the good of the unity of the church. That was Cyprian’s understanding, at least.

I feel weird making this argument, because generally on this forum I argue the merits of the Orthodox approach, and in fact I only got into this because of what I found a weird argument from jam that Rome was inconsistent. But I do find Rome’s approach preferable on this particular point. I think that “legalism” has its uses when it serves charity.

Also understood. The only thing I can say in response is that the Roman approach doesn’t generate much charity for the ‘invalid’ groups, as I have noticed here from some of the remarks posters have made about Mormons and Protestants.

 

[Trebor135]

That doesn’t make sense.

Catholics are supposed to make their case without some of the principal evidence?

If you mean “I request that this line of evidence take into account the standard objections to the standard quotations instead of starting the whole tiresome prooftexting debate from scratch,” then that’s reasonable

Catholics indeed tend to prooftext the Fathers in an indefensible manner. But the evidence you refer to is real evidence and is absolutely key to the debate.

You put the problem well, and the solution you suggest also wins my assent.

 

[Cavaradossi]

You put the problem well, and the solution you suggest also wins my assent.

Perhaps you are just looking to see a discussion happen rather than a prooftexting battle?

 

[dzheremi]

The term “schizophrenia” was used by jam about the Roman position. I pointed out that if anything such a criticism applied rather to the Orthodox. Which position is superior is a different question, although as I said above, I do see some advantages to the Roman approach in this particular issue (not necessarily in general).

Um…yep. I read the post. What’s your point?

Yes, but how much of that is cultural?

How much of our coinciding views are cultural? I don’t know. All? None? In between? I don’t know what you’re trying to get at. How much of Rome’s Orthodoxy was cultural? I’m pretty sure Orthodoxy is translatable to any culture, same as Roman Catholicism or Protestantism, though of course in most cultures a particular faith is much more popular than others.

So Christological dogma is now reduced to geography?

Something tells me you’ve missed the point of the analogy. It is to highlight everything BUT Christology, as the OO and EO do not share the same Christology.

And of course, this analogy works against you, because the geographical/cultural proximity of EO and OO is much greater than that of EO and Latin, for the most part.

Yeah, you’ve definitely missed the point. Let me help: In the analogy, the Romans are the Mongolians, and the OO and EO are neighbors. Geographical distance is metaphorically used to represent doctrinal and practical (as in praxis) difference. The abortion position stands in for the Christological differences between OO and EO.

I’m happy that many Orthodox are reaching rapprochement with the OO.

I just wish they would use some of the same charity and generosity toward Westerners that they are willing to use when dealing with the OO.

And I wish Rome and the Byzantines hadn’t accepted the Tome of Leo, wrongly deposed St. Dioscoros, and thereby split the Church at Chalcedon. If wishes were horses, etc. And anyway, why should they have to? Because you want them to? Because you don’t see it as “fair”? But of course, any difference in approach is because those EO see more in common with the OO than with the RCC. And why is that? Because there is more in common (even my very much anti-Chalcedonian priest admits that). So you don’t get the same approach without the same positions. Sorry, but you actually have to do things (i.e., repudiate the heresies that the OO and EO both do not recognize as part of the Orthodox faith); you can’t just sit there and wish.

I wish they would consider the possibility that many of these supposed huge differences with the West arise from different cultural contexts and are not in fact as unbridgeable as they may appear.

No doubt they have considered that and not come to that conclusion; not because there aren’t such cultural differences, of course, but because Orthodoxy does not allow cultural differences to trump doctrinal correctness. The cultures of the Arabs and the Slavs on the EO side, for instance, or the Armenians and the Ethiopians on the OO side, are very, very different. But they are in their respective communions because they share the same faith. None share the faith of the RCCs, for all sorts of reasons we’ve beaten into the ground over and over here. So differing cultures are not the problem, in and of themselves.

There are indeed Orthodox who take this approach: Olivier Clement and David Hart, to name two (perhaps it’s no accident that both are/were converts, although of course many converts are fiercely anti-ecumenical). But it seems very controversial in Orthodox circles.

Meh. The Coptic Orthodox Church is part of the WIC. We regularly discuss things with both EO and RC, and Protestants. We’re used to ecumenism from way back, having been on the “losing side” (on a world-wide/numbers scale, anyway) of a fierce and important Christological debate. It’s not a big deal, though of course there are many Copts who are also fiercely anti-ecumenical, and oppose the influence of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism on certain aspects of the Church (which I agree with them about, but this isn’t ecumenism), as well as the use of EO writings by many big name Coptic priest/monk writers like Matta El-Meskeen or Tadros Y. Malaty (which I again agree about, depending on the context; many times, it’s fine).

 

[Trebor135]

Perhaps you are just looking to see a discussion happen rather than a prooftexting battle?

Yes.

 

[ConstantineTG]

I am Catholic. But the modern Church has me scratching my head much of the time.
And I have a fondness for much in Orthodoxy. I don’t know that I could (or should) be able to make a leap.
I’m just being honest.

I know exactly how this feels.

 

[dzheremi]

Oops. Just realized I made a typo in my last post and it’s too late to correct. I meant to type “the Coptic Orthodox Church is part of the WCC”, meaning the World Council of Churches. Whether or not they should be is, I suppose, a different matter. (The Greek Orthodox in Egypt are, too. Didn’t know that. Thanks, website!)

 

[Credo_ergo_sum]

Perhaps you are just looking to see a discussion happen rather than a prooftexting battle?

Mmm… I like the idea.

 

[feed_me]

No, they are both 1 in the same church. No side is above the other. They both come from all 12 of the apostles.

 

[Trebor135]

No, they are both 1 in the same church. No side is above the other. They both come from all 12 of the apostles.

But they disagree strenuously with one another on important points. For a Church to be one, it must be united in faith.

 

[Peter_J]

No, they are both 1 in the same church. No side is above the other. They both come from all 12 of the apostles.

I guess the natural question is can you produce a quote, even from just one side, that says that the Catholicism and Orthodoxy are the same church?

 

[ConstantineTG]

I guess the natural question is can you produce a quote, even from just one side, that says that the Catholicism and Orthodoxy are the same church?

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.

vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_02051995_orientale-lumen_en.html

 

[Peter_J]

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.

vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_02051995_orientale-lumen_en.html

I’m not sure that takes us where FeedMe wants to go, but that’s definitely a good quote in any case.

On a side note, I wonder how the Western-Rite Orthodox feel about always being left out of such statements.

 

[dzheremi]

On a side note, I wonder how the Western-Rite Orthodox feel about always being left out of such statements.

Probably about as nonplussed as many non-Western Orthodox feel about being included in them.

 

[feed_me]

I’m not sure that takes us where FeedMe wants to go, but that’s definitely a good quote in any case.

On a side note, I wonder how the Western-Rite Orthodox feel about always being left out of such statements.

Actually the only place that I was going was to the truth, inso far as to say that just because Peter and Paul went to Rome doesn’t mean that the other apostles didn’t go the other way to evangelize Turkey, Egypt, Greece, Russia, and the other lands in the east.

Last time I checked (which was probably when Jesus was riding the dinosours ) when the Catholic church was 1 there was the 5 counsels (Jerusalem, Antioch, Constantinople, Alexanderia, and Rome,) that presided over the entire church, making laws for the whole church, and there was no east nor west.

 

[Peter_J]

Originally Posted by Peter J
On a side note, I wonder how the Western-Rite Orthodox feel about always being left out of such statements.

You’re probably right, as usual. Still, it’s interesting that the Pope’s statement mentions Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholics as bearers of the Eastern tradition, but Latin Catholics are the only bears of the Western tradition that he mentions. I guess if you want to be Western, then Latin Catholic is the only way to go.:angel1:

 

[dzheremi]

Depends on what you mean by “Western”, I guess. My smart alec side wants to say “No; you could be Protestant, instead!”, but a serious answer should take into account the Greeks in Italy, the Romans of the Egyptian desert monasteries, the potentially quite substantial debt traditional Celtic Christianity may owe to Egypt, the unique conditions surrounding the codification of the Mozarabic liturgy (nearly a full century before the arrival of the Muslim Arabs), etc. Rather than taking from the Latins the right to be called inheritors of the Western tradition, a little digging shows that the “Western” tradition, if we’re adhering to broad geographic definitions of who or what is native where, might be most accurately defined as “those traditions expressed in Latin, regardless of their origin”, rather than “the traditions adhering to what the Roman church has allowed or decreed”. (In fact, I have to believe that this is the only Orthodox way of reading Western Christian history, as, for example, both EO and RC in Spain employ the Mozarabic liturgy, recognizing it as the native Spanish liturgy just as the Mozarabs did in resisting the imposition of the ‘standard’ Roman liturgy in the first place, even if they eventually caved to Roman calls for liturgical uniformity.)

 

[Peter_J]

My smart alec side wants to say “No; you could be Protestant, instead!”

Yes, well he didn’t mention them either.

But seriously, with regard to Catholics and Orthodox, I find it interesting b/c I have complained (not too long ago in fact) that some Orthodox act like they have a monopoly on Easternness; but now I also wonder if some of us Catholics act like we have a monopoly on Westernness.

 

[Contarini]

I am Catholic. But the modern Church has me scratching my head much of the time.
And I have a fondness for much in Orthodoxy. I don’t know that I could (or should) be able to make a leap.
I’m just being honest.

Fair enough. I’m an Episcopalian who often doesn’t sound like one but has never taken the leap, so far

Edwin

 

[dzheremi]

There is also the idea that no one has a monopoly on anything, because these abstract categories don’t exist but that particular traditions and interpretations of the faith developed in certain places and not in others. Or, to put it another way, the innovations away from a common faith come not in these externals that make Christianity in Rome look, sound, and feel different than it does in Thessaloniki or Tur Abdin, but in matters of doctrine. Seems obvious, but I do wonder (since there are self-proclaimed “Orthodox in Union with Rome”, and there is the tension behind the whole Eastern Catholic idea to begin with, that is, the idea that you can somehow retain your Eastern faith while being wedded to those whose theology is often in conflict with it) how often this is kept straight, given how many converts to Eastern churches (both in union with Rome and not) are often attracted, at least initially, by what they see as a more “spiritual”, “reverent”, “beautiful”, etc. alternative to the (Western) Christianity they already know. I suppose that’s what took me ~3 years to go from the Roman Catholic Church to the Orthodox Church. It may be taken as an insult, but looking at it from a doctrinal point of view, they’re not two optional flavors of one thing, they’re two things. Orthodoxy is one faith and Catholicism is one (another) faith, and it will stay that way so long as they make mutually exclusive claims on doctrinal, dogmatic matters that neither see as able to be compromised, modified, or jettisoned.

But notice how this is not dependent on any essential “Eastern” or “Western” division. Rather, it’s all about where the true faith is. Believe me…I live in New Mexico…I pass at least a dozen Catholic and Protestant churches (probably many more) on my way to meet in a private house for the Coptic liturgy (to say nothing for the 12,000 miles I moved to be sure I could be near a Coptic community). Would that I could find the Orthodox faith a little bit closer to home…and I remain in a thoroughly “Western” society! But when you find the faith that built the Church, you go to that, whether it’s Eastern, Western, on the moon, under the sea…whatever!