St. Mary the Theotokos has a special place in my heart, so Iām going to keep asking for her intercession. I went to an Eastern Orthodox liturgy yesterday (it was breathtaking in its splendour), in fact, where I lit a candle near her icon and requested my heavenly motherās prayers.
The Orthodox liturgy is nicer than anything but the Tridentine High Mass, and the Byzantine church architecture on even a mediocre or average church is more beautiful than all but the most elaborate Catholic churches, and, I believe, in most cases, nicer still, due to the tradition of covering the entire space with symbolic paintings, lots of gold and gilt, marble, the three doors, the iconostasis, etc. (you can look up āAnnunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral Columbus Ohioā, I think there are pictures: I attended there as my Orthodox Orthodox Church). Orthodox Churches in the āworship areaā (nave and altar, etc.) have a characteristic glow to them from all the gold and polished marble, and stained glass, instead of just a normal light. Heavenly looking.
If youāll be converted on the beauty of the liturgy and Church architecture alone, Roman Catholicism has not a waterdropās chance in Hell against Orthodoxy. (Some Eastern Catholic Churches are nicer than almost all Latin Catholic ones, but still not as nice as full-on Orthodox ones - like a mix of the two.
Edit: I read the rest of this thread, or most of it, and Iāll respond some tomorrow, and probably some the day after that or Thursday, as there is so much questions asked.
But do these works focus on the theology (Christian Monotheism vs. Marcionism, Trinitarianism vs. Arianism, Diaphysitism vs. Monophysitism) or the ecclesiology (Clement vs. the Corinthian church, Meletius vs. Paulinus, Vigilius vs. the emperor vs. the Fifth Ecumenical Council)?
Leo Donald Davis focuses on both, probably 65%? ecclesiastical politics. Warren Carrol is an entire history of the Church, several thousands of pages in length, but deals more with the history than the theology, but deals with the early councils in a few hundred pages at most. He deals with the theology extensively as well, but the work is not focused on it, but only includes it: it is a general history.
Jaroslav Pelikan was a Lutheran āPriestā (he actually converted to Greek Orthodoxy as a layman later in life) when he wrote his history, so heās Protestant-sympathetic and actually quite Eastern-sympathetic, but relatively ecumenical, relatively orthodox, and focuses almost entirely on doctrine/theology, probably nine parts out of ten.
The best place I think to learn early historical theology after something like Pelikan in a good manner is to hear it straight from the camelās mouth by reading the Early Church Fathers such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Athanasius, Cyril, Tertullian, Origen, Augustine, John Chrysostom, John Damascene, Clement of Rome, Bernard, Clement of Alexandria, Maximus the Confessor, Gregory Nazianzus, Gregory Nyssa, Basil, Gregory the Great, Hilary, Ambrose, Polycarp, Jerome, Cyprian, Dionysius the Areopagite, etc. - the writings of men involved in the controversies in the first place, and the Acts of the Councils. Not all were involved in the controversies, not all were completely orthodox by todayās standards, but all are incredibly important.
You can get excerpts of their writings in English in āThe Faith of the Early Fathersā by Jurgens, and the Apostolic Fathers by Penguin, and the Apothegmata Patrum by Penguin too, I think. The most complete collection that is easily available is a very biased one - the text seems good, but it includes copious footnotes to try to steer the reader away from the obviously Catholic interpretation, called āEarly Church Fathers 38 volumesā.You can get individual works in such series as āClassics of Western Spiritualityā, āAncient Christian Writersā, āFathers of the Churchā, etc.; the best collection is JP Migneās, which is over 300 volumes and ridiculously expensive, and ridiculously complete. You can get it in Greek and Latin, or Greek and Latin with Latin translation of the Greek (additional 80 volumes). It is the āPatrologiae cursus completusā, comprised of the āPatrologia latinaā (221 volumes) and the āPatrologia graeceā (85 volumes, Iām supposing itās 160-180 - roughly double - with Latin translation). Published in America by the University of Michigan. You can get the set used for maybe $3-8k (without Latin translation, mine was $4,200) depending on condition and printing (probably $6-11k with the Latin translation), and new, $17,500 without Latin and $27,000 with.
I think it is somewhere between 135,000 and 175,000 pages, of which I have read roughly one in ten to twelve.
If you trust him with your search and your journey, somehow heāll find a way to point you in the right direction at every juncture.
And while itās true that Sacred Tradition is crucial to the CC, we Catholics expect that it holds truths even in germane form not necessarily fully defined forms- Kinda like the Trinity in the first centuries before the Conciliar debates and formulations of the nature of God. But Iām Catholic, so obviously you know where my leaning is