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

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Wandile said:
It wasn’t seen as a schism then…
It was still seen as just a dispute…
Between two bishops.
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They were common enough… The Church is always under demonic assault… Everyone knew that, and expected this fluff to pass over as do all spats… But then reality slowly set in… The Latin Church was serious about the Filioque, which could have been resolved ecumenically in a Council, but beyond that, She was serious about Papal Supremacy over the Body of Christ on all the earth… And that too could have been addressed… But then the 4th Crusade and the sack of Constantinople, and its systematic plundering, took place, and when Constantinople would still not bow Her neck to Papal Supremacy, having been sacked and looted by the West, the Latins abandoned her to the Islamic Turks, and she came under the heavy hand of the Ottomans…

And by Orthodox standards, She deserved every bit of what happened - If there had been 10 living Saints in Constantinople - Maybe even if only two or three - God would have protected her… Instead She came under Judgement, and in persecutions under the Islamic rule of the Ottomans, She repented and purified the Faith of the Orthodoxy She would not abandon via Florence…

And now there are only a handful of Orthodox Christians left in Constantinople, and the Turks have gone pretty much secular…

geo
 
George720 said:
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Wandile:
It wasn’t seen as a schism then…
It was still seen as just a dispute…
Between two bishops.
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They were common enough… The Church is always under demonic assault… Everyone knew that, and expected this fluff to pass over as do all spats… But then reality slowly set in… The Latin Church was serious about the Filioque
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Filioque really wasn’t an issue at the initial start of the split. Papal Supremacy, Azymes and Latin fasting practices were the more important issues.
George720 said:
which could have been resolved ecumenically in a Council, but beyond that, She was serious about Papal Supremacy over the Body of Christ on all the earth… And that too could have been addressed… But then the 4th Crusade and the sack of Constantinople, and its systematic plundering, took place, and when Constantinople would still not bow Her neck to Papal Supremacy, having been sacked and looted by the West, the Latins abandoned her to the Islamic Turks, and she came under the heavy hand of the Ottomans…
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This is a very polemical take on history. The sacking of Constantinople was very monetarily influenced and really had nothing to do with the schism or religious matters in its cause.
 
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Wandile said:
the Latins abandoned her to the Islamic Turks, and she came under the heavy hand of the Ottomans…
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Wow.
Over a quarter of the troops fighting to save Constantinople were foreign, many Genovese and Venetians. Cardinal Isadore, deposed by act of the Czar returned with a large contingent of archers. Hungary and Poland had already suffered massive causalities against the Ottomans in Varna and Kosovo. The Serbs who were vassals to the Ottomans supplied troops who fought for then.

There were many reasons that Constantinople fell, but blaming it on the West’s lack of help against the Trurks is uniformed, at best.
 
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dvdjs said:
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Wandile:
the Latins abandoned her to the Islamic Turks, and she came under the heavy hand of the Ottomans…
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Wow.
Over a quarter of the troops fighting to save Constantinople were foreign, many Genovese and Venetians. Cardinal Isadore, deposed by act of the Czar returned with a large contingent of archers. Hungary and Poland had already suffered massive causalities against the Ottomans in Varna and Kosovo. The Serbs who were vassals to the Ottomans supplied troops who fought for then.

There were many reasons that Constantinople fell, but blaming it on the West’s lack of help against the Trurks is uniformed, at best.
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Just FYI you quoted the wrong person 🙂
 
Wandile said:
The sacking of Constantinople was very monetarily influenced
and really had nothing to do with the schism or religious matters
in its cause.
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I would be very interested in seeing any reports of other prior Christian armies invading other Christian countries and sacking, raping, and looting them… It was this systematic sacking of Constantinople for decades following her defeat at the hands of the Crusaders that told the Orthodox that the Western Church is definitely no longer Her Sister in Christ… And especially when all the loot was tithed to the Latin Papal Church in Rome on the return of the ships to their home countries… And none of that 10% was returned to Constantinople…

You see, it was this blow that weakened Constantinople’s ability to withstand the Turks…
It brought us to the negotiation table at Florence…
It caused doctrinal capitulation on the part of the Orthodox…
Except for St. Mark of Ephesus, celebrated today, btw…
And when withdrawn, caused the Ottoman takeover…
Because Constantinople would not submit to Papal Supremacy…
dvdjs said:
Over a quarter of the troops fighting to save Constantinople were foreign, many Genovese and Venetians. Cardinal Isadore, deposed by act of the Czar returned with a large contingent of archers. Hungary and Poland had already suffered massive causalities against the Ottomans in Varna and Kosovo. The Serbs who were vassals to the Ottomans supplied troops who fought for then.
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As I understand these matters, and I could be wrong, the Council of Florence was convened because of the Ottoman threat - From the East because of this threat… Because without Papal help, Constantinople had no way to stand against the Ottomans…

And when Constantinople repudiated the Council of Florence upon the return of the Council participants, the promised help was withheld because Constantinople was held to be in willful schism with Rome… Had Constantinople embraced Florence, She would have had the military assistance needed to repel the Ottomans… The Pope would have seen to it, for Constantinople would have been a Papal dependency… But that call to arms never went out…

But still in all this, God’s hand went with Constantinople, and the Turks protected the Orthodox, at the price of persecutions and payments of monies…

This is the understanding I have of these matters… To the best of my knowledge, this is how the Orthodox understand them… If you want resolution and restoration of Communion, it is this understanding that must be addressed…

geo
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George720 said:
To the best of my knowledge, this is how the Orthodox understand them… If you want resolution and restoration of Communion, it is this understanding that must be addressed…
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Much of what you have written is not history but polemics, pure and simple. How do you think that this can be addressed? Will a study of the actual history of the time suffice?

Robert Taft spoke in this matters some years ago.
His talk was reviewed here:


Money quote:
It was, Fr. Taft brutally argued, time for Orthodox polemicists to “grow up.”
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Here is a link to his book chapter:
https://www.fordham.edu/download/downloads/id/2145/robert_taft_lecture.pdf
 
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AlNg said:
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dvdjs:
It was, Fr. Taft brutally argued, time for Orthodox polemicists to “grow up.”
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This is really an outrageous comment.
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Perhaps so, but I don’t much think it is worth debating here, considering the extremely low number of posters with a positive regard for Fr. Taft.
 
Firstly, there is more to the story than the popular Orthodox polemical version of history: the Latin Church did not bless the Sack of Constantinople and the Crusaders were going against their vows for which they were excommunicated by the pope at the time. They were also avenging the Massacre of the Latins which was a Greek Orthodox attack on the Latin inhabitants of Constantinople which happened in 1182.


Secondly there is this to consider to bring us back to the present:
"Eight hundred years after the Fourth Crusade, Pope John Paul II twice expressed sorrow for the events of the Fourth Crusade. In 2001 he wrote to Christodoulos, Archbishop of Athens, saying, “It is tragic that the assailants, who set out to secure free access for Christians to the Holy Land, turned against their brothers in the faith. The fact that they were Latin Christians fills Catholics with deep regret.”[21] In 2004, while Bartholomew I, Patriarch of Constantinople, was visiting the Vatican, John Paul II asked, “How can we not share, at a distance of eight centuries, the pain and disgust?”[22][23] This has been regarded by some as an apology to the Greek Orthodox Church for the slaughter perpetrated by the warriors of the Fourth Crusade.[2]:xiii

In April 2004, in a speech on the 800th anniversary of the capture of the city, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I formally accepted the apology. “The spirit of reconciliation is stronger than hatred,” he said during a liturgy attended by Roman Catholic Archbishop Philippe Barbarin of Lyon, France. “We receive with gratitude and respect your cordial gesture for the tragic events of the Fourth Crusade. It is a fact that a crime was committed here in the city 800 years ago.” Bartholomew said his acceptance came in the spirit of Pascha. “The spirit of reconciliation of the resurrection… incites us toward reconciliation of our churches.”[24]"–Wikipedia, Sack of Constantinople
 
cont’d:

Thirdly, we as Orthodox Christians need to forgive for the sack of a city more than 800 years ago…Christ’s Church is being attacked from within and without and perpetuating old grievances over long abandoned earthly cities distracts us from our destination of the Heavenly Jerusalem. This kind of popular propaganda does not hold up to the light of serious research and only further frustrates real attempts at healing the Great Schism.

Lord have mercy! May the Lord heal the Schism and save the faithful who call upon Him.
 
dvdjs:
So much of what you have written is not history but polemics, pure and simple.
How do you think that this can be addressed?
Will a study of the actual history of the time suffice?
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Study of the histories of the time will only bog down in the opposing minutia of contrary facts… Following the perspectives of the opposing understandings… As our Jesuit friend points out in the article you cited, in his endeavor to clear the log and then assist with the splinter, the opposing understandings have attained a Mythos of irrefutability… And that is what we are encountering here… Two opposing Myths - And “Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead!”

So I am reading “Orthodox Constructions of the West” at page 38… Fr. Robert Taft has taken on a good defense of his thesis… Thank-you for the article…

Back when I finish…

Finished it - A lovely approach that encourages each side to take responsibility for its oppressions of the other, and attributing to both the willingness to impose its own point of view on the other when it has the political power to do so…

Thanks again, dvdjs…

Please forgive my polemical understanding…
We need to start from the understanding we have…
And perhaps we can then make progress…

geo
 
George720 said:
Please forgive my polemical understanding…
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Ne treba.
You wee very clear that your understating is based on what you have heard and seen.
There is a pathway out of perpetuating of unhistorical narratives that are not grounded in scholarship and only serve to divide. We can all take it.
 
Just to further add, I do think that Pope considered Constantinople to be in communion with him to the point it fell. City was kinda split into unionists and anti-unionists… but Turks endorsed the latter, to keep West under impression that there is no need to help “schismatics”. Hundreds of years later Turks would oppose Melkites joining Catholic Church when asked by Ecumenical Patriarch… it is a fact that Catholicism was thorn in their side and Orthodoxy was not. Sure, you can attribute it to many things and that does not necessarily say anything about communions themselves, but fact is that if Turks lost or were positively inclined towards West, Constantinople might have been Catholic.

History proves that national Churches are much easier to control politically (Protestantism is also a good example of this) and as such, Catholicism where foreign Bishop is head of the Church is not best religion to let your subjects profess. Purely from secular standpoint, Orthodoxy is more favorable to the state than Catholicism even if ruler is not of said religion. And on top of that, Orthodoxy tends to be more united than Protestantism, having hierarchical structure… for this reason, autocephaly of Slavs under Ottoman Empire was abandoned and structured into single Patriarch whose position was sold and controlled, and whose seat was in Turkish capital city.
 
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By god’s Grace it is possible. There has been great progress made since the mid twentieth century . we should pray for reunion with all Christians.
God bless and Mary keep you.
 
OrbisNonSufficit said:
Orthodoxy is more favorable to the state than Catholicism
even if ruler is not of said religion.
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True enough…

We pray for our Rulers and civil authorities and armed forces…

We prayed for Obama and we pray for Trump equally…

But in Orthodoxy, unlike the Medieval Latin Church, the Patriarch did not have military authority, nor police authority… The Crusaders were Monks taking up arms… In Orthodoxy, Monks did not fight wars…

I have been doing a little research on the 4th Crusade…

It was sanctioned by the Pope, who forbade attacking any Christians…

It was intended solely to open the Holy Land to Pilgrims…

The shameful slaughter of (privileged) Latins in Constantinople by an angry local Orthodox populace-mob, unrestrained by the Emperor, raised the ire of many Crusaders… Some of whom attacked Constantinople at the invitation of the Emperor’s brother attempting a coup - He promised to pay the crusaders out of the treasury if they won… The Emperor fled with the treasury, and the Crusaders won, and were not paid… The brother died… The Pope excommunicated the invading Crusaders… The Crusaders regarded themselves as being owed payment for their efforts against the Emperor, and took payment by looting the city of its treasures…

I have so far been unable to locate research that says they did or did not tithe that loot to the Pope, but much of it did end up in Rome’s domain, saving many relics, including the Shroud of Tourin… And the matter of their re-entry into Communion is hidden so far as well…

All of which clearly shows that Constantinople needed to fall to the Turks that some might be saved, even though the Christian population would be decimated across time, as it has been…

Many Crusaders did honor the Pope by NOT attacking Constantinople… It was the slaughter of the privileged Latins residing there that motivated some who did not share this honoring of the Pope to attack, enact revenge, and loot the city for decades…

Interesting history…

geo
 
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George720 said:
We pray for our Rulers and civil authorities and armed forces…
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I like that in Byzantine liturgy. We also usually pray for them in Latin Rite, because usually Priests include such prayers into liturgy… but they are not required to, officially.
George720 said:
The Crusaders were Monks taking up arms…
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Not entirely. Many Crusaders were nobility or even peasants who came to fight. Anyhow, military orders such as templars were made to fight and defend- they were not standard order. But your point stands.
George720 said:
It was sanctioned by the Pope, who forbade attacking any Christians…
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One historical game, Europa Universalis IV provides Catholics with ability to call Crusades. If they try to call crusade against fellow Christians, tooltip says “however tempting, we may not declare crusade upon fellow Christians, heretics or not”.

Historically, there were crusades against internal heretics, but Orthodoxy was not regarded as such. Also, Crusaders were excommunicated when they attacked Venetian rebels- fellow Christians. Venice promised Crusaders to pay for their transport to Jerusalem if they dealt with their rebels… which they did. However, Pope did not like Venice using Crusaders to solve internal disputes and as such condemned this action. Crusaders had ability to get to Holy Land now, but were basically excommunicated… and then Emperor’s brother came into picture and gave them new purpose.

I also read somewhere that Emperor’s brother (then also Emperor) actually gave Crusaders high positions at court and in administration to pay his debt to them. After his death though, local populace did not like this and as such wanted to drive Crusaders away. And such attempt was once rewarded with sack of Constantinople…

My sources (or memory!) might be a bit wrong though, so if anyone spots mistakes or shortcommings, please do correct me.
George720 said:
Interesting history…
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Indeed, and also very unfortunate.
George720 said:
But in Orthodoxy, unlike the Medieval Latin Church, the Patriarch did not have military authority, nor police authority…
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Officially that is true, but there were many occasions where this was not the case. Patriarch Photius basically arranged occupation of Bulgaria to force them into Greek Rite instead of Latin one, where they canonically belonged. Same way, Ecumenical Patriarch tried to prevent Melkites from union with Rome by appealing to government, and government used armed forces. They did not control armies directly… but.
 
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OrbisNonSufficit said:
Historically, there were crusades against internal heretics, but Orthodoxy was not regarded as such.
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It wasn’t? I thought that during the Inquisitions in the Italian peninsula, there were Catholics who were charged with adopting the “Greek heresy”?
 
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