Orthodox & Catholics: What Still Divides Us?

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That’s a fascinating story I have never heard, Alex. Thank you. I enjoy Father Meyendorff. I have a few of his books and have read them cover to cover. He was a great representative of the Orthodox faith…
Alexander_Roman said:
According to Fr. John Meyendorff, St Mark came to Florence as a unionist who, however, insisted that the removal of the Filioque is the “sine qua non” of church unity.

He believed that God would heal the schism but only when the united Church would return to the original Creed.

So, yes, St Mark of Ephesus would be a patron of East-West unity.

Alex
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Harpazo said:
St. Paul disagrees:

There have always been different rites, prayers, traditions, etc. but the mindset was the same until it began to diverge in the West before the schism and then afterwards (in a big way!). Until Rome returns to the Apostolic phronema it had before the schism, Orthodoxy will not be able to welcome RCs to the Chalice.

In Christ,
Andrew
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What is phronema? And how did it change after the schism?

God be with you
 
Beloved2010 said:
What is phronema? And how did it change after the schism?

God be with you
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It’s a Greek word which means, according to Thayer’s lexicon, this: what one has in mind, the thoughts and purposes. It appears in St. Paul’s letter to the Romans 8. I’ll set forth the pertinent quotes and underline the words that translate phronema:

“For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” (Romans 8:6-7)

And again:

“And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.” (Romans 8:27)

The Orthodox Christian Information Center has a webpage dealing with the Orthodox idea of phrenoma at this site: orthodoxinfo.com/phronema/

You might need to right click on that.

Quoting one Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos the webpage describes the idea this way:
Code: 
            "[Phronema means] in the biblico-patristic Tradition the whole turn of mind which prevails            in a man from the way in which he lives, and from the relationship which            he has with God.  And literally, if the *nous* * is darkened,            then the whole mind is carnal.  But if the *nous *is illuminated,            which means that is has the Holy Spirit within it, then the whole mind            is a mind of spirit and, of course, a mind of the Church....


     "When we speak of having an orthodox mind we mean chiefly that our *nous*            is the *nous* of Christ, as the Apostle Paul says, or at least            that we accept the experience of the saints and have communion with            them. This is the way of the life of the Orthodox Tradition and the            way of life of Christ's life. The orthodox mind is expressed by the            dogmas of the Church, because, on the one hand, the dogmas express the            life which the Church has and the revelation which the saints have received,            and on the other hand, they lead the passionate people and the babes            in Christ to unity and communion with God."
So what I think is being said is that the Orthodox have the mind of Christ and we don’t. They’ll know when we have the mind of Christ when we become Orthodox. So, the Pope can’t be accepted by Orthodoxy until he becomes Orthodox. In other words, there is no reunification of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. There is only the Catholics becoming Orthodox.

In my humble opinion we need to stop this. By “this” I mean this strategy of some kind of corporate reunion between the two Churches. The Patriarch of Moscow has already made it clear that he will have none of it, and he calls the shots. Most of the Orthodox posters at this forum make it clear that they will have none of it. We (the Roman Catholics) already have union with Eastern Churches. They are called Eastern Catholics. We need to attend to that union, and stop chasing this phantom, in the meantime praying that the Orthodox and everyone else in the world will see the light and join the Church that Christ founded: the Catholic Church.*
 
Alexander_Roman said:
According to Fr. John Meyendorff, St Mark came to Florence as a unionist who, however, insisted that the removal of the Filioque is the “sine qua non” of church unity.

He believed that God would heal the schism but only when the united Church would return to the original Creed.

So, yes, St Mark of Ephesus would be a patron of East-West unity.

Alex
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I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I’ll be happy to drop the filioque. I just won’t say it’s heresy, because it isn’t. I’m sorry to say, however, that I don’t think that would be enough.
 
Harpazo said:
A prayer rule is a set rule of prayer that a person does daily that they receive from their spiritual father or one that they take on with the blessing of their spiritual father. Generally this is their parish priest, but it can be a monk, bishop, etc. Usually it is the Morning and Evening prayers, but practices can vary. In the familial setting, they are prayed with the whole family present in front of the icon corner as the household is the ‘little church.’ Some will pray the Hours, but generally monasteries have an easier time doing that than those of us in the world.

This, I would consider to fall under the umbrella of ascesis (along with the fasting periods of the year) that has sadly been largely lost in the Western churches, which we Orthodox would see as symptomatic of a different mindset. Lex orandi, lex credendi.

In Christ,
Andrew
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Is this common in Orthodox homes?
 
JackQ said:
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I’ll be happy to drop the filioque. I just won’t say it’s heresy, because it isn’t. I’m sorry to say, however, that I don’t think that would be enough.
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The ‘filioque’ is optional for Eastern Rite Catholics.
 
StevieD said:
The ‘filioque’ is optional for Eastern Rite Catholics.
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This is the wrong way to describe it.

The theology behind the filioque is certainly not optional. All Catholics under the Pope must believe it. There is no option to not believe it. They cannot say they don’t believe it, and they are not allowed to dispute the doctrine any more than you are.

They have the option to recite the Creed in the manner of the early church, in it’s original form. So I think you can see that this is not a very meaningful gesture.
 
JackQ said:
Indeed, I don’t think they ever opt to use it.
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Actually, I think the opposite has been true most of the time, until recently.

The missals commonly found in eastern Catholic churches contained the filioque in the Creed. In the Byzantine Catholic (Ukrainian - Ruthenian) church some of the older books still in use have it, usually scratched out these days. The new editions certainly do not include it.

Some eastern Catholics (not most, probably) think that means they don’t have to believe it any more but that is not actually the case.

I don’t know much about the Syro-Malankara, Coptic and Chaldean Catholic churches. They might still be formally taking the filioque (they certainly did in the past). It is not in my opinion possible to generalize and say that eastern Catholics probably never opt to use it.

I think at least some do, and they are all required to accept it whether they understand it or not.

To Orthodox that is not a sufficient bridge over the problem. It (the filioque) would probably be acceptable as a theologeumena I think (a pious theological opinion), but not as a dogma binding on all the faithful whether they recite it or not.
 
This is something I’ve never understood. Either the filioque is bad theology or good. Why would the CC make it standard fare for the Latin rite but allow Byzantine Catholics to omit it? The lack of consistency does bug me??:confused:
Hesychios said:
This is the wrong way to describe it.

The theology behind the filioque is certainly not optional. All Catholics under the Pope must believe it. There is no option to not believe it. They cannot say they don’t believe it, and they are not allowed to dispute the doctrine any more than you are.

They have the option to recite the Creed in the manner of the early church, in it’s original form. So I think you can see that this is not a very meaningful gesture.
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JackQ said:
StevieD;7790011:
The ‘filioque’ is optional for Eastern Rite Catholics.
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Indeed, I don’t think they ever opt to use it.
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Where I live they all DO use the filioque! I’ve attended three different Eastern Catholic Churches and they all use the filioque in the Creed. There’s a forth one that I have not had a chance to go to yet to see. This is one of many ways that they have become Latinized. 😦
 
gurneyhalleck1 said:
This is something I’ve never understood. Either the filioque is bad theology or good. Why would the CC make it standard fare for the Latin rite but allow Byzantine Catholics to omit it? The lack of consistency does bug me??:confused:
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One reason that has been given as to why Rome does not drop it is because protestants like it and they don’t wish to put that in the way of their considering returning to the Roman Church.

But there is a way that the filioque can be understood as orthodox and another way in which it can be understood as heterodox. And unfortunately I would estimate that the protestants like it because of their heterodox understanding of it.
 
And what would you say their heterodox understanding of it is, John?
JohnVIII said:
One reason that has been given as to why Rome does not drop it is because protestants like it and they don’t wish to put that in the way of their considering returning to the Roman Church.

But there is a way that the filioque can be understood as orthodox and another way in which it can be understood as heterodox. And unfortunately I would estimate that the protestants like it because of their heterodox understanding of it.
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Hesychios said:
This is the wrong way to describe it.

The theology behind the filioque is certainly not optional. All Catholics under the Pope must believe it. There is no option to not believe it. They cannot say they don’t believe it, and they are not allowed to dispute the doctrine any more than you are.

They have the option to recite the Creed in the manner of the early church, in it’s original form. So I think you can see that this is not a very meaningful gesture.
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What do you mean by “this is not a very meaningful gesture?” To Latins, the theology behind filioque simply and only means that the Spirit is consubstantial with the Father AND THE SON. You mean that it is wrong for the Pope to dogmatically insist that the Spirit is consubstantial with the Father and the Son?

Either you are simply misunderstanding what the Latin Catholic teaches, or you are explicitly proposing a heresy. Which is it?

Blessings,
Marduk
 
mardukm said:
Either you are simply misunderstanding what the Latin Catholic teaches, or you are explicitly proposing a heresy. Which is it?

Blessings,
Marduk
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Simply saying “Eastern catholics don’t have to say the filioque” means nothing because they still are required to believe it as dogma.

It is an empty gesture and not sufficient basis for reconciliation.
 
Hesychios said:
Simply saying “Eastern catholics don’t have to say the filioque” means nothing because they still are required to believe it as dogma.

It is an empty gesture and not sufficient basis for reconciliation.
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So the teaching that the Holy Spirit is consubstantial to the Father AND THE SON is not dogma? Is this your personal belief or the official position of your Church?

Note that what is required here is not that the Easterns change their own theological understanding of the Creed (i.e., that ekporeusia refers to origination of hypostasis), but only that the Latin teaching is not denied.

In the Catholic Church, BOTH the LATIN teaching that the Holy Spirit is consubstantial to the Father and the Son (the Latin understanding of "proceeds from the Father and the Son), AND the BYZANTINE teaching that the Father is the one and only Source of the Son and the Holy Spirit (the Byzantine understanding of “proceeds from the Father”), are considered dogmas.

Are you proposing that the Latin teaching (that the Holy Spirit is consubstantial to the Father and the Son) is not a dogma of the Catholic Church as a whole - and even of the Eastern Orthodox Church, for that matter?

Blessings,
Marduk
 
JohnVIII said:
One reason that has been given as to why Rome does not drop it is because protestants like it and they don’t wish to put that in the way of their considering returning to the Roman Church.

But there is a way that the filioque can be understood as orthodox and another way in which it can be understood as heterodox. And unfortunately I would estimate that the protestants like it because of their heterodox understanding of it.
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I don’t think so. We already differ from the Protestants on so many things, what’s one more? Some Protestants don’t use the Nicene Creed at all.

What is the Orthodox understanding of the Filioque? I was told once that the Orthodox don’t accept the eternal procession from the Father and the Son, but accept that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son now, in time, under the New Covenant. I’m not describing what he said correctly, but perhaps you can decipher what I mean.
 
JackQ said:
What is the Orthodox understanding of the Filioque? I was told once that the Orthodox don’t accept the eternal procession from the Father and the Son, but accept that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son now, in time, under the New Covenant. I’m not describing what he said correctly, but perhaps you can decipher what I mean.
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This tread started by exuding the issue of the filioque from discussion here. A good idea too, so that we can focus on other issues that divide us. discussing the filioque will end up being all consuming. Of course this issue has to be settled before union is possible. The Eastern Churches have always believed that there can only be one good reason to justify a division in the Church, and that reason is a heresy. Convince the Orthodox that the issue of the filioque is not a matter of heresy and you will be 95% of the way down the road to union. So I would say that this thread is about the other 5%. What do you think?
 
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