Is Orthodoxy the true Church?

[Peter_J]

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

Edwin

In my own mind, I generally think of you as an “Anglo-Papalist”, but I guess it would be presumptuous of me to call you that since I’ve never heard you call yourself that.

 

[Contarini]

But the problem is that we cannot know if Rome was correct.

Well, it’s not clear to me that we can “know” any matter of divine revelation. We have to accept it by faith in the testimony of the Church.

I don’t see why, accepting the Church’s testimony on such things as the resurrection of Jesus, I should cavil at something like this.

Later, we see that a disciplinary canon from Nicaea dictated that the Novatianists ought to be received by the laying in of hands, as St. Stephen had argued they should be received, but St. Basil simply interprets this as being for management, not for any particular doctrinal reason. Why is St. Stephen’s claim to know more credible than St. Cyprian’s belief that each bishop should be free to receive converts however he likes?

I’m unaware that Cyprian did argue this. It seems to me that St. Basil’s “economic” interpretation is just as much a modification of Cyprian as is Augustine’s interpretation. The question is: which of them is the better modification?

But we don’t know if those sacraments given by other groups have grace. Rome has not given any sort of justification for why they believe they can discern the difference.

Isn’t the promise that the Holy Spirit would guide the Church a pretty good justification?

And the theological principle involved is that the sacraments are the work of Christ. Which, I think, is an extension of the “two or three” principle I cited from the NT.

It would be absurd to think that one can come to know by empirical evidence if sacraments have grace. Even Rome, in its attempt to discern the validity or invalidity of the sacraments of certain groups, has had to make the somewhat outrageous claim to be able to read the minds of others (so as to determine intent) in order to reject both Mormon baptisms and Anglican Holy Orders, because it is impossible to make this discernment by form alone.

You misunderstand. No mind-reading is involved, only text-reading. Intention is determined from what people explicitly say they are doing. The English Reformers explicitly said that they were not consecrating bishops/priests with the power to offer sacrifice. Hence, Rome judges that our orders are invalid, even if some Anglican bishops privately “intend” to do what the Catholic Church does.

Similarly, Mormons explicitly say that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct, bodily beings, and that the concept of “three persons in one essence” is a lot of Greek philosophical mumbo-jumbo. Hence, when they baptize into “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” they are baptizing into a tritheistic association of deities and not into the one Triune God of orthodox Christianity. No mind-reading is involved. Some Mormons may privately hold to the orthodox view of the Trinity, but official Mormon teaching does not.

Even if Rome’s approach is correct, that would not settle the issue within Orthodoxy. For if the Orthodox were to descend into the absurdity of thinking that we can read the intent of others, then it could still be argued that the trinitarian baptisms of those who believe in the Filioque are invalid, because the Holy Spirit they claim to worship is not the true Holy Spirit, or that Arians should be received by baptism, because they do not worship the same Christ (the most common discipline was to receive them by the laying on of hands). This reasoning sounds absurd, of course, because it is completely absurd, but that is essentially Rome’s justification for rejecting the sacraments of groups which have proper form.

I think that these are arguments against Rome’s practice, but not against Rome’s principle.

Either Cyprian or Firmilian actually makes a comment concerning this one verse, writing that it is most often abused by those outside of the Church.

Yes. That kind of statement generally shows that the passage in question presents a problem for the existing doctrine. Hence the need for doctrinal development. I don’t find Cyprian’s dismissal of the passage convincing at all.

I simply don’t understand Rome’s reasoning on this matter. By Rome’s thinking, ecclesial communities are good, churches in schism are better and the Catholic Church is the best. Sounds like a recipe for indifferentism to me

I don’t get this. Perhaps I’m defining “indifferentism” too naively (I’m the first to condemn etymological definitions). But it seems odd on the face of it to say that it’s “indifferentist” to say that there are widely differing levels of communion with the Church.

because people lose sight of the legitimate peril those in ‘good’ and ‘better’ could possibly be in.

I’m not sure that the fact that people oversimplify a teaching and ignore its less comfortable aspects is a reason to reject the teaching.

Lumen Gentium says very clearly that if someone rejects the Church knowing it to be true, they cannot be saved.

Every once in a while, I see threads popping up asking ‘is it ok if I become Orthodox?’ I never fail to be amazed by the number of Catholics who for whatever reason cannot say ‘no, going into schism could jeopardize your salvation’. Such a brutally honest answer, of course, does not necessitate uncharitable treatment, but it is something that needs to be said, lest we wind up forgetting where the church is (or what the truest manifestation of the Church is, to use Rome’s more inclusivist language).

I agree. I wish that the liberal Catholics who ran the RCIA program I dropped out of had been willing to say, “You are turning away from the true Church.” I was an impressionable young man (still am too impressionable and indecisive for my relative years and ostensible maturity!) and probably would have listened to them. But of course they told me how much they respected my spiritual journey, etc.

It depends on what you mean by learn. If by learn, you mean in secular arts, like philosophy, science, or even church history, then we certainly can learn things from others. Even an atheist or pagan could give us instruction in these arts (David Bentley Hart points out that this sort of academic interplay between Christians and Pagans was common in the early years of the Church). But if by learn, you mean to obtain knowledge concerning God, we must admit that we cannot learn this from others, even if we may profit from learning their philosophy, which can help us better to express the God who is revealed to us.

Apart from the question of whether one can learn something about God from pagans, the fact that you immediately leap to parallels with paganism demonstrates the huge problem I have with your position. As I said earlier, by denying that baptisms outside the Orthodox Church are intrinsically valid you are essentially saying that non-Orthodox are basically the same as pagans.

And that, to my mind, is itself a form of “indifferentism,” at least in the etymological sense–you aren’t making a difference that badly needs to be made.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

In my own mind, I generally think of you as an “Anglo-Papalist”, but I guess it would be presumptuous of me to call you that since I’ve never heard you call yourself that.

Well, I’m an odd one, because I’m a lot more of an evangelical than most Anglo-Catholics, let alone the very rarified Anglo-Catholics who are usually called “Anglo-Papalists.”

I’m an Anglican who read Newman’s Essay on Development before Anglicanism had taken much hold of me, I guess. So Anglo-Catholicism has never seemed very convincing.

So I’m a combination of evangelical and “papist” that is not really the same thing as the traditional “Anglo-Papalism.”

Msgr. Knox before his conversion, for instance, was an Anglo-Papalist. He was horrified by the idea of ecumenism with Protestants and wrote a satire on it called “Reunion All Round.”

I, on the other hand, am deeply committed to ecumenism, which is the main reason I lean toward Rome rather than orthodoxy. . . .

Edwin

 

[Peter_J]

But notice how this is not dependent on any essential “Eastern” or “Western” division.

Hmmm … are you sure about that? In the same post you mentioned “the idea that you can somehow retain your Eastern faith while being wedded to those whose theology is often in conflict with it”. (emphasis added) :ehh:

 

[Fone_Bone_2001]

It can’t be ignored. Exactly why V-II cannot be ignored.

Very true.

I don’t see that the fact of historic Roman primacy can be disputed. It’s all over the first-millennium Church, and most Orthodox writers I’ve read acknowledge it (though some question whether Rome should enjoy primacy if it were to “return to Orthodoxy” in the future, given its millennium of schism/heresy from their perspective).

It’s the nature of primacy that is in dispute.

Well said.

Rome has thought we can since the third century. I don’t see why not.

Apophaticism concerning God is admirable. Apophaticism concerning whether our brothers and sisters in Christ are really our brothers and sisters in Christ is a bit more dubious.

Exactly. You’ve put into words what I’ve always instinctively felt concerning these matters.

But this would rule out the homoousios.

Doctrinal development obviously happened in the early centuries, and I find Orthodox attempts to explain this away utterly unconvincing.

Me too. I’ve found it puzzling as well.

If in fact the Orthodox admitted this and taught what RC polemicists often claim they taught: that doctrinal development “froze” at a certain point–I might be persuaded of this (or I might not). But you’ll never persuade me that Nicea and Constantinople and Ephesus and Chalcedon just reaffirmed what everyone had always believed, with no development taking place.

(In part, I think the Orthodox often misunderstand what orthodox Catholics mean by “development.”)

Exactly.

So, for instance, I think it would be possible to say from the RC perspective that one can’t know what grace may or may not be present in Anglican Eucharists.

Many Catholics are already saying that, in a way that fully conforms with Apostolicae Curae. The so-called “Dutch Touch” and/or “Polish Pat” makes it entirely possible that in some Anglican communities, they may indeed have valid Orders, Eucharist, etc.

I’m sure you already know about those concepts, though, so unless you say you don’t I won’t explain further.

Every once in a while, I see threads popping up asking ‘is it ok if I become Orthodox?’ I never fail to be amazed by the number of Catholics who for whatever reason cannot say ‘no, going into schism could jeopardize your salvation’.

Well, that would be my response, and I think regardless of what random Internet posters say, authoritative Catholic teaching asserts exactly what you say it should assert:

Quoting Lumen Gentium, considered a Dogmatic Constitution of an Ecumenical Council by the Catholic Church, the Catechism states, Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.

So for a person who accepts in his heart specifically Catholic teachings like the papal dogmas, to enter the Orthodox Church just because you like the liturgy/praxis/whatever better would indeed be to put your salvation in jeopardy. This is not the case if a person is genuinely and innocently convinced that Holy Orthodoxy is the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

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

Very true. Branch theory is just as wrong from the Catholic perspective, no matter what some people on the Internet say.

 

[dzheremi]

Hmmm … are you sure about that? In the same post you mentioned “the idea that you can somehow retain your Eastern faith while being wedded to those whose theology is often in conflict with it”. (emphasis added) :ehh:

Indeed I did, because I was talking about Eastern Catholicism…it’s the title of the board and the theological tradition and ecclesiastical bodies (as a group) that frequent it. There are other words we could use but they’ve been banned (the dreaded “U” word, for instance). Anyway, that would not ultimately detract from my point anyway, as it was that these are convenient labels for whatever it is that might be more accurate but more of a mouthful or politically incorrect (e.g., among ourselves, we are just Orthodox, but in deference to the sensibilities of this board, I have used the term “Oriental Orthodox”, or I will occasionally get fancy and say “non-Chalcedonian Orthodox”…these are silly from the inside looking out…Egypt is not “Oriental” to Egyptians, and the non-Chalcedonian position is Orthodox to the non-Chalcedonians, so…nyeh… )

Categories are for people who like them or need them. With a broader brush however, we can only differentiate as much as is necessary, between what is Orthodox and what is not. “Easternism”, “Westernism”, etc. aren’t goals or even destinations in themselves. I’ve tried to explain this elsewhere relatively recently. I guess I’m a bad explainer. Sorry. Excuse me, I have oatmeal to tend to.

 

[tomarin]

It’s nice to see Edwin filing a brief for Catholicism, and doing it so forcefully, even if I know that his views are complicated and nuanced.

Now back to lurking for me.

 

[Cavaradossi]

Well, it’s not clear to me that we can “know” any matter of divine revelation. We have to accept it by faith in the testimony of the Church.

I don’t see why, accepting the Church’s testimony on such things as the resurrection of Jesus, I should cavil at something like this.

So what are we not free to do, under the broad license of revelation? When the Scriptures and Traditions present no clear evidence for something, we simply must confess our ignorance. Just as with the question of the fate of unbaptized children, we don’t understand how Holy Orders work, only that they are passed from one man to another by the laying on of hands (and effected by the Holy Spirit). All of this later stuff we find about limbo and ontological marks on the soul is just speculation (I have no problem with speculation, but I find trying to draw logical conclusions from speculation, especially when they are foreign to the tradition, to be disagreeable). Now if we cannot even understand how Holy Orders work, how can we expect to know what happens when those with orders go into apostasy?

I’m unaware that Cyprian did argue this. It seems to me that St. Basil’s “economic” interpretation is just as much a modification of Cyprian as is Augustine’s interpretation. The question is: which of them is the better modification?

Cyprian in his epistle to Stephen writes:3. We have brought these things, dearest brother, to your knowledge, for the sake of our mutual honour and sincere affection; believing that, according to the truth of your religion and faith, those things which are no less religious than true will be approved by you. But we know that some will not lay aside what they have once imbibed, and do not easily change their purpose; but, keeping fast the bond of peace and concord among their colleagues, retain certain things peculiar to themselves, which have once been adopted among them. In which behalf we neither do violence to, nor impose a law upon, any one, since each prelate has in the administration of the Church the exercise of his will free, as he shall give an account of his conduct to the Lord. We bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily farewell.

newadvent.org/fathers/050671.htm

Firmilian, mentions the same principle (although his tone is far more acidic and polemical):6. But that they who are at Rome do not observe those things in all cases which are handed down from the beginning, and vainly pretend the authority of the apostles; any one may know also from the fact, that concerning the celebration of Easter, and concerning many other sacraments of divine matters, he may see that there are some diversities among them, and that all things are not observed among them alike, which are observed at Jerusalem, just as in very many other provinces also many things are varied because of the difference of the places and names. And yet on this account there is no departure at all from the peace and unity of the Catholic Church, such as Stephen has now dared to make; breaking the peace against you, which his predecessors have always kept with you in mutual love and honour, even herein defaming Peter and Paul the blessed apostles, as if the very men delivered this who in their epistles execrated heretics, and warned us to avoid them.

newadvent.org/fathers/050674.htm

Isn’t the promise that the Holy Spirit would guide the Church a pretty good justification?

But that promise could mean anything from indefectibility over time to absolute infallibility.

And the theological principle involved is that the sacraments are the work of Christ. Which, I think, is an extension of the “two or three” principle I cited from the NT.

But how has that passage been interpreted historically? How many fathers interpreted this text to apply to those not visibly in union with the Church?

You misunderstand. No mind-reading is involved, only text-reading. Intention is determined from what people explicitly say they are doing. The English Reformers explicitly said that they were not consecrating bishops/priests with the power to offer sacrifice. Hence, Rome judges that our orders are invalid, even if some Anglican bishops privately “intend” to do what the Catholic Church does.

Similarly, Mormons explicitly say that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct, bodily beings, and that the concept of “three persons in one essence” is a lot of Greek philosophical mumbo-jumbo. Hence, when they baptize into “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” they are baptizing into a tritheistic association of deities and not into the one Triune God of orthodox Christianity. No mind-reading is involved. Some Mormons may privately hold to the orthodox view of the Trinity, but official Mormon teaching does not.

So then even the Catholic Church applies some form of economy, but in reverse. For it could be possible that the one conferring the sacrament of baptism could have proper intention, in which case it should be a true baptism, shouldn’t it? Or does the Holy Spirit overlook these organizations after reviewing their teaching materials and deeming them to be heterodox, even though He can read the hearts of those conferring sacraments in His name (whether vainly invoked or not)? I think the idea of judging by organizational intent is a bit strange (like the idea of impersonal guilt or impersonal sin), unless they are doing so out of oikonomia, simply because it is impossible to read the minds of those trying to confer sacraments.

Yes. That kind of statement generally shows that the passage in question presents a problem for the existing doctrine. Hence the need for doctrinal development. I don’t find Cyprian’s dismissal of the passage convincing at all.

So then we should ignore the fathers because they are unsatisfactory? Even if we develop our understanding of things, to jettison patristic interpretations for novel ones signifies that some change in faith has occurred, does it not?

I don’t get this. Perhaps I’m defining “indifferentism” too naively (I’m the first to condemn etymological definitions). But it seems odd on the face of it to say that it’s “indifferentist” to say that there are widely differing levels of communion with the Church.

I’m not saying that the teaching itself is indifferentist, I’m saying that it’s nuanced to the point that it leads people into the error of indifferentism.

I’m not sure that the fact that people oversimplify a teaching and ignore its less comfortable aspects is a reason to reject the teaching.

Yes and no. St. Cyril of Alexandria’s preferred Christological formula ‘one incarnate nature of the Word’ cannot be taught without qualification in the Eastern Orthodox Church, because people heretically interpreted it to mean that the natures mixed or that the Word became a tertium quid. The Chalcedonian definition with its ‘in two natures’ formula, cannot be taught without the clarification that it is in contemplation alone that this distinction may be made. Because of particular misinterpretations, those two statements cannot be taught unqualified any longer. The same is true in this case. Bad interpretations signal that there is something deficient with the Vatican’s choice of words.

I agree. I wish that the liberal Catholics who ran the RCIA program I dropped out of had been willing to say, “You are turning away from the true Church.” I was an impressionable young man (still am too impressionable and indecisive for my relative years and ostensible maturity!) and probably would have listened to them. But of course they told me how much they respected my spiritual journey, etc.

This happens a lot these days, I would think.

Apart from the question of whether one can learn something about God from pagans, the fact that you immediately leap to parallels with paganism demonstrates the huge problem I have with your position. As I said earlier, by denying that baptisms outside the Orthodox Church are intrinsically valid you are essentially saying that non-Orthodox are basically the same as pagans.

And that, to my mind, is itself a form of “indifferentism,” at least in the etymological sense–you aren’t making a difference that badly needs to be made.

I think that I was unclear. I brought up pagans to counter the charge that we reject learning from non-Orthodox sources. That is categorically untrue. However, the teachings of all people, from pagans to Roman Catholics must have the truth sifted out of what we would contend is untrue. Hence, Archbishop Rowan Williams or Alister Mcgrath is a much more trustworthy source for investigating the doctrinal history of Christianity than say John Piper not only by virtue of their superb scholarship, but also of their Church affiliation which is generally more agreeable with Orthodoxy. It’s somewhat like C.S. Lewis’ comparison of the truth as being like an addition problem. There is only one right sum, but others may have come to something close.

Phillip

 

[pelinho]

Hello guys! I’m new member. I saw this subject last 2 years and i see it still alive, so i want to make some clarifications.

First of all, my English aren’t the best but i’ll try my best!

I will send you a big(bad translated) text so i can help you in the theological-docmatical part to which is true.

Catholics have Filioque. See what Christ says:
John 15:26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:

Saint Theophan the Recluse: Why Christianity should not change with the times
impantokratoros.gr/saint_theophan_christianity.en.aspx

Another subject is the language. Divine language doesn’t exist. Ie God hasn’t his own language, which gave to man nor God communicates with man in some special language, which gives to those who communicates with them. The language is a result of human needs. Ie it was modeled by the people to serve the relations and communication needs of people. So the language is not what Dante and many Protestants say, as and the Frank theologians of the Middle Ages not what Muslims say about the Quran that the language and the Quran descended (went down) from heaven and even claim that in the sky there is an uncreated Quran. Upon this issue we have a great conversation that took place between St. Gregory of Nyssa and Eunomians.

The Eunomians believed that there is a divine language, which God revealed to the Prophets. In this language, they said, are the names of God mentioned by the Prophets. So the names of God, Eunomians were saying that is the essence of God and that these names of God, which the Bible refers, are carriers of meanings, which correspond to the reality that God is. Such thing of course isn’t happening.(Patristic Theology, p.18).

Papism falsehoods: www.impantokratoros.gr/Papism-Falsehoods.en.aspx
Here are teachings that have nothing to do with Bible & Holy Tradition

The historical subject(tried to translte): "In the Seventh Ecumenical Council who were also the representatives of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church and who accepted and papists as Ecumenical Council also approved the first rule of all the Holy Canons, and the names of the apostolic Rules the previous six Ecumenical Councils and specifically the rules of the so Quinisext Ecumenical Council, which the Seventh Ecumenical uses them and is normally called the F(sixth) Ecumenical Synod, which has been demonstrated by the paper, which then existed in the Proceedings and the signatures of the sixth Ecumenical Synod of 680/81 and the Holy Canons and the Fathers of the signatures also VI called session, after 500 years named Quinisext, a name introduced by Westerners to hit the universality of this Council. With the Seventh Ecumenical Council subject was closed in the law of an ancient and undivided Church. Papal Primacy was now in front of the hurdle that had to be overridden by filarchous and ambitious popes who constantly and more like to have primacy authority. Looking for reason and thought they found it in the case of the election of St. Photios the throne of Constantinople and internal strife between his followers and Ignatianon on the Throne of Constantinople along with the filioque, the papal heresy was then introduced in Bulgaria and other reasons that will develop then led to the Schism of 867 and later the definitive schism Eastern and Western Church the sole fault of the Popes, who stepped aside the law of the Holy Canons and wanted to act unilaterally exercising Papal Primacy and its own law to dominate whole world, as evidenced by full proof.

The Great Photios, Confessor, and Saint Isapostolos destined to be one of the protagonists in the battle of Orthodoxy and the Holy Canons, who were affected hardest by Pope Nicholas I (858-867), who, with his irregular behavior and the sidelining of the Holy Canons was himself the consul of the Schism of 867.

So the conclusion is that the next popes where seeking for power. Leon the third (796-816)because he knew from firsthand the pressures of the Franks in this matter proceeded to an act that reveals the full extent of the papal response to Frankish arbitrariness. Ensures the Orthodox Symbol of Faith (without the filioque)to be occupied in two silver plates (one in Latin and one in Greek) which posted a high point St. Peter to be readable by all believers. Large SILVER PLATES who wrote the Orthodox Creed had the inscription: «HAEC LEO POSUI AMORE ET CAUTELA ORTHODOXAE FIDEI» Which means:“I Leon put here (those stones) in love and protection of the Orthodox Faith”. You can find a similar report in: ITA LEONIS , LIBER PONTIFICALIS (Ed.Duchene, TII, p.26 -the source is from papic bibliography!)"

“The Roman Pope John VIII, shows his life, his love for Hellenism and Orthodox faith. The 873 pushed the franc Emperor Louis the Pious and managed to make him release the Roman Slavic missionary Methodius, who was imprisoned in Moravia by the Franks for three years [Obolensky Dimitri, «The Byzantine Commonwealth” Vanya, Thessaloniki, 1991 vol. I, p 242]. Also fought for the right to the Slavs are the sequences in their language. In this case come into sharp conflict with the Franks who supported the theory of the three sacred languages (Hebrew, Greek, Latin) [Obolensky p 244]. and he participated in the synod from st.Photios the Great(879) who condemned (the Franks) all those who didn’t accepted the synod of Nicaia (seventh) (Franks rejected it in Charlemagnes age in 794)"

 

[pelinho]

“The Birth of Frankish Culture describes in his letter the Saint Boniface to Pope Zacharias of Rome (natione Graecus) [ie born of Magna Graecia in Southern Italy.] In 741. Franks rid the Church of Franks all Roman bishops, giving themselves placed their own bishops and clergy. Snatched the property of the Church and divided her in timariums(timarithms), whose usufruct distributed as a feud, according to the degree held by each at the pinnacle of military feudal hierarchy. These Frankish bishops they had no Archbishop and they had no meet in Synod for 80 years. They were cohered by the national-ecclesiastical issues with the kings and chieftains of other colleagues. According to St.Boniface, were «Wolverines laity, clergy adulterers and drunkards, who are fighting in the army with full warfare(polemic,war) dependency and slaughter with their hands, Christians and idolaters(paganists).» [Migne PL, 89, 744; Mansi 12, 313-314 ]”

Once Fifty years later, the successors of these illiterate barbarians added the Filioque to the Creed and condemned the Eastern Roman Empire(Byzantine Romania) as heretical and “Graecian,” In such synods of Frankfurt in 794 on pictures and of Akyisgranou in 809 on the addition of Filioque in the Creed of the Second Ecumenical Council, and in time like not even knew nor a Father Ecumenical Synod. For 215 years, from 794 until 1012 the Roman Orthodox Popes refused to capitulate to the Frankish masters in matters of the Filioque and images. The last Orthodox Roman Pope mentioned the diptychs of the remaining four Roman Patriarchates is John ΙΗ’(XVIII) (1003-1009) and the first heretic Roman Pope deducted from the diptychs, after adding the Filioque to the confession of his faith, was Sergius IV ( 1009-1012), ie 42 years before the so-called schism of 1054. »
[Fr John S. Romanides “Orthodox and Vatican agreement about Union” Source: Αντίβαρο - ΟΡΘΟΔΟΞΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΒΑΤΙΚΑΝΙΟΣ ΣΥΜΦΩΝΙΑ ΠΕΡΙ ΟΥΝΙΑΣ]

The movement of the Franks, to occupy the old Rome and impose their views, was not accidental. The old Rome was surrounded with a glamor. Although the city of Rome had whole transferred, however, the occupation of the old Rome would give it (pseudo) legal erisma(exuse)( needed by Franks to be viewed as successors of the Roman Empire. Also the division of the Church, help them, because it means cutting the East and West and thus cut off from the New Rome. It was a very smart move.

There were another acts in history who prove that this was a game of power. They became heretics just for power…

More information:"In the 8th century. King of the Franks Charles the Great (Charlemagne 768-814) by force of arms unites almost all the peoples of Western Europe and aims to bring out a new empire, claiming the name and glory of the Roman Empire in the East. For this purpose, methodically organizing the conflict between East and West with a strategy that includes the following two components:

1. Refusal of Orthodoxy and creating a different Christianity, emphasizing the cultural specificity of the new empire. This Frankish Christianity, they plan the counselors of Charlemagne, based on theological formulations of blessed Augustine and is expressed in new forms and types of church practice: Baptism by sprinkling, obligatory celibacy of the clergy, the laity deprivation from society the Cup, shaving the clergy, etc. Within the antorthodoxis tactical Franks bishops, 794 (Synod of Frankfurt), condemning the decrees of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (787) to honor and veneration of icons in 809 (Synod of Aachen), add the holy Creed the Filioque. These two events are the first stage of the schism between the Frankish rulers and the orthodox Rome.
2. anti-Greek politics since the Greeks was the historical flesh of Orthodoxy and a component of the Roman Empire. The cultural disadvantageous Franks, therefore, begin to slander Greek culture as culture error and the Greeks called Greeks, adding however that the ancient name mocking content (Grekos = heretic, impostor).

In methodical attack the Franks, the Church of Rome is struggling to stay true to the early Christian tradition and Greek continuity, maintaining ecclesiastical communion with all Orthodox patriarchates of the East. So, for example, 816, Pope Leo III refused the addition of the Filioque, and to preserve intact the Creed of the Frankish forgeries, ordered to outline the authentic text on silver plates, which were walled in the church of St. Peter with the inscription: “These I, Leo, I put them out of love and preservation of the Orthodox faith.” Later, representatives of Pope John VIII attended the Synod of Constantinople / urban (879-880), which for Orthodoxy is the Ecumenical and in which, under the chairmanship of the Patriarch of Constantinople / city Saint Photios the Great, condemned the Frankish sects for images and the Filioque.

The 10th century. Franks intensify the war against the orthodox Romans of the West, aiming to capture the papal throne. Eventually, in 1009 occupied the Orthodox Patriarchate of Rome and uploading them to the Frankish throne Pope Sergius IV, which adds to the Creed the heretical Filioque. The Orthodox patriarchates of the East respond to the deletion of his name from the Diptychs of the Orthodox Church, so the schism becomes reality.

On 16 July 1054, the head of the papal delegation Cardinal Umberto testified to the altar of the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, the excommunication of Eastern Christianity. By his action, the Frankish Christianity was finalizing her separation from the Orthodox Church. It was not the beginning but the confirmation of a schism had been well designed 260 years earlier to the court of Charlemagne. a schism “was not between Western and Eastern Roman” as many people think, “but between Franks and Romans” (Prof. Fr John Romanidis)."

 

[pelinho]

A part of an interview of the English historian(byzantinologist) Steven Runciman(tried to translate): <<How do you see other churches ?

The Catholic church has always been a political institution, other than religious, and always interested in the law. We must remember that when the Roman empire collapsed in the West and came barbarian kingdoms , the Roman rulers were lost but the church men remained , and was also the only ones with Roman culture . So , these were used by the barbarian king to implement the law . Thus, the Western Church " mingled " with the law. Do you see the law in the Roman Catholic Church : he wants to be all regulated . In Byzantium and it is interesting how after the Turkish conquest substrates remain the Church only interested in the rule, the law of the scriptures . Not wanting to fix everything. In Western churches that broke away from the Roman Catholic , the need of law , absolute determination , inherited . It has been very interesting to study one and study long dialogue between the Anglican Church of the 17th century and the Orthodox . Anglicans were particularly upset because they could not understand what the Orthodox believe about the change of the bread and wine into blood and body. The Orthodox say " is a mystery that we can not understand . We believe it is , but how we know it . " As Anglicans and the Roman Catholics wanted a clear explanation. This is the typical difference of Churches and this is why I love the Orthodox.>>

Finally, i’d like to show and the opinon St.Ambrose of Optina on Catholic church:
classicalchristianity.com/2014/06/05/st-ambrose-of-optina-on-the-roman-catholic-church/

P.S: *sorry, i don’t know how to add spoiler.