Is there a real chance of communion between the Catholic Church and the orthodox?

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ziapueblo said:
However, we are “sister Churches.”
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By Grace of God, Catholic Church (East and West, as Maronites count as East too) was allowed to hold Ecumenical Councils and declare dogmas when confusion was rampant among the faithful. Not saying Orthodoxy did not hold local councils to battle protestantism, but they are all just local. You will notice that in history, anyone who leaves Catholic Church stops having Ecumenical Councils, simply because someone who holds Church in place, focal point of unity, is needed. Separating from that unity takes more harm than good. While I disagree with Archbishop Zoghby in many things, I know you don’t and this is also his point. Eastern Orthodoxy, by actually separating from West, lost this focal point of unity and hence lost some of advantages it brings. This nevertheless also damaged West, yes, but not to the extent it damaged East.
Iustinus1 said:
The Church never should have dogmatically defined papal infallibility like they did in my opinion.
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It is never a bad idea to define what is true, and we know it is true because Holy Spirit leads Ecumenical Councils. If Holy Spirit revealed this, He must have had a reason to do so. Perhaps there is something more to it than just pleasing those who do not want to benefit from gift of Papacy either way…
dochawk said:
The dispute is to whether that means what it did before the schism, or what Rome has declared it to be post-schism.
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Dispute is what it meant before the Schism. George the Hagiorite, Saint of Georgia who had almost no relations with the West, came to Constantinople and professed inerrancy of Roman Church after 1054. Pope St. Gregory the Great, Saint recognized by Orthodoxy too, said that he can end any Eastern synod with strike of a pen. Pope St. Gregory also respected Patriarchs and dignified them anytime he could as brothers leading the Church, so him using such language about rendering Eastern synods “null and void” so easily does say a lot about Papacy. From this we can conclude that Papacy was viewed as Patriarch who was first among equals, but if need arose and Pope thought it is necessary, he could exercise his authority anywhere and everywhere. I do not like current model of Rome being headquarters of everything and centralization, but it is not that far from historical role of the Pope either.
Isaac14 said:
Which I think is pretty fair, we Orthodox just don’t see the IC as necessary, even as we fully affirm the Theotokos was without sin.
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Therefore there should be no problem with that. Orthodoxy does believe Adam’s sin caused something, right? And we believe Theotokos was free from it’s effects. Eastern Catholic Liturgy (therefore probably also Orthodox one) attributes to Theotokos most beautiful things, and as such I just wonder why would this dogma ever be considered a problem, heh.
 
ReaderT said:
I’m not trying to sound provocative by saying that; it’s just the logical outcome of everything above.
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Yes, I agree. Same is Catholic view. What this is about is helping those “outside”. Abandoning doctrine of either side (Rome abandoning Papacy or Infallibility, or Supreme and Universal Jurisdiction) would just mean one Church converting to other. Which is not “restoring communion” what people above are talking about… perhaps figuring out something compatible with both teachings would work, as Orthodoxy has not declared anything contrary to Catholicism (because let’s face it, Orthodoxy actually defined almost nothing following the Schism). Right now Orthodox position is “this is our traditional not-binding not-infallible teaching and we will hold onto it” more than a Catholic position of “this is our teaching which we do consider binding and infallible”. Catholicism accepting Orthodoxy would make it incorrect to that point, but Orthodoxy would not suffer from that effect.
ReaderT said:
the Father begets the Son, but the Father and the Son together generate something else.
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Yes, because Son is Son because he is son of the Father. If Holy Spirit just proceeds from Father, then Holy Spirit and Son are paternal twins, and because their cause is the same and they lack nothing (as God lacks nothing), they are same. This effectively reduces God to not be Trinity, which is exactly why Athanasius of Alexandria and many other Pre-Schism Fathers did say “Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son”. This was traditional Eastern teaching, and even something Orthodoxy can agree with- and it is what Latins mean. Your picture is helpful but not very precise.

Also for everyone else, Bishop Schneider had this to say about Orthodox-Catholic unity/communion/whatever-you-want-to-call-it and relations in general.

 
It’s not clear to me. If three arrows violate divine simplicity, why do two arrows also not violate divine simplicity?
 
ziapueblo said:
I’m not sure the Catholic Church itself recognizes councils after the 7th as being “ecumenical”?
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I am sure that is their official title. Catholic Church recognizes those councils as binding in dogmatical sense, as inspired by Holy Spirit and as irrevocable.
ziapueblo said:
Many Byzantine Catholics that I know only believe that there have been 7 ecumenical councils so it’s not just the Eastern Orthodox.
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Yes, and many Latin Catholics believe abortion is ok. Popular notion does not always equate what Church really stands for, East or West.
 
OrbisNonSufficit said:
I am sure that is their official title. Catholic Church recognizes those councils as binding in dogmatical sense, as inspired by Holy Spirit and as irrevocable.
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Did you read the article? The numbering of ecumenical councils mainly has to do with the Protestant reformation.
OrbisNonSufficit said:
Yes, and many Latin Catholics believe abortion is ok. Popular notion does not always equate what Church really stands for, East or West.
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Easterners are free to believe there are only 7. The Byzantine lectionary commemorates only seven ecumenical councils at different points throughout the liturgical year.

ZP
 
OrbisNonSufficit said:
Orthodoxy does believe Adam’s sin caused something, right? And we believe Theotokos was free from it’s effects.
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We do indeed believe Adam’s sin “caused something.” Namely introducing both the propensity to sin and death. We believe the Theotokos inherited these consequences while she herself remained “All-holy, all-pure, and most blessed.” When Christ took on flesh from His Mother, He also took on these consequences so that He could destroy them through His death and resurrection. This is why Orthodox do not understand the necessity of the Immaculate Conception.
 
AlNg said:
If this decree was invalid, does that mean that the Roman Church is still united to the Orthodox Church and there is no schism and there never was a breaking of communion?
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No, stuff like implicit anathema or excommunication, or break of communion or however you wish to call it, still exists.
ziapueblo said:
Easterners are free to believe there are only 7. The Byzantine lectionary commemorates only seven ecumenical councils at different points throughout the liturgical year.
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It does, but at the same time there is nothing saying there are not more. Easterners are free to hold 7 as those which apply to them in Universal sense, however there is no real reason to stop Eastern Catholics from benefiting from Truths declared by Holy Spirit at other “Ecumenical” councils held just by Latin Church (but well, some were also attended by Maronites so I would not call them “western councils” solely).
ziapueblo said:
Did you read the article? The numbering of ecumenical councils mainly has to do with the Protestant reformation.
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Numbering might, but their truthfulness and protection by Holy Spirit remains unchanged. I’m not saying particular theology of Latin Church has to be binding for Easterners, I am saying that essence of teaching, dogmatical teaching behind what was proclaimed by Holy Spirit on those councils, is as true for East as for West. Yes, expressions, wording and understanding might differ but in essence they do not ever contradict nor is one exempt from facts.
 
Isaac14 said:
We believe the Theotokos inherited these consequences while she herself remained “All-holy, all-pure, and most blessed.”
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This means Latin Church views those consequences differently than Eastern Church, as we believe Adam’s Sin caused loss of holiness. Adam and Eve were made holy, were made perfect. Therefore when Original Sin tainted them and introduced “death” (which we also call sin, as sin is cause of death and death of the soul is sin itself), they lost this holiness. We believe that Theotokos was free from stain of it, but not freed from Original Sin itself. Does this make sense?
 
Certainly we can and should hope. When people are willing to cooperate with God it will happen very quickly! Review the way the Berlin Wall fell without a shot being fired!
 
OrbisNonSufficit said:
Original Sin tainted them and introduced “death” (which we also call sin, as sin is cause of death and death of the soul is sin itself)
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Not really. I think you are saying that death is sin…which doesn’t make sense to me. Death is the consequence of sin, not a sin itself.
OrbisNonSufficit said:
We believe that Theotokos was free from stain of it, but not freed from Original Sin itself. Does this make sense?
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Is the Theotokos subject to death? If I’m understanding what you are saying (which I may well not be), it seems like since death is a sin, the Theotokos was not subject to death.
 
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Isaac14 said:
Not really. I think you are saying that death is sin…which doesn’t make sense to me. Death is the consequence of sin, not a sin itself.
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Oh, my bad. No, metaphorically we call “Death of the Soul” the “Sin”. Death is indeed consequence of sin, but since souls can not ever perish or “die” in way they disappear or stop living, their “death” is when they are hurt by sin.
Isaac14 said:
Is the Theotokos subject to death?
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Actually debatable. While Assumption is dogma for us, her earthly death is not.
 
OrbisNonSufficit said:
Actually debatable. While Assumption is dogma for us, her earthly death is not.
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That’s interesting, particularly in light of what I wrote above. St. Gregory Nazianzus stated “that which is not assumed is not healed.” What, then, did Christ’s death and resurrection heal if death may or may not have been part of what He took on from the Theotokos?
 
He was like us in everything except sin, yet he healed us without sinning like we do. We know Christ died, and while Theotokos could have been preserved from death, I am not sure whether or not that was because of her nature (if that even happened, this is highly theoretical stuff haha).
 
Isaac14 said:
But surely you can now appreciate how/why the East doesn’t understand the need for the Immaculate Conception?
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Yes, I understand that, yet I do think that if someone presumed to deny Immaculate Conception of Theotokos, they would not be viewed as orthodox Orthodox, or would they?
 
OrbisNonSufficit said:
Yes, I understand that, yet I do think that if someone presumed to deny Immaculate Conception of Theotokos, they would not be viewed as orthodox Orthodox, or would they?
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Say what? The Orthodox do deny the Immaculate Conception, while affirming the Theotokos is most-holy and most-pure. Or am I misunderstanding what you just said?
 
But we Catholics do not belief she inherited the propensity to sin, is concupiscence.
 
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