Orthodox Church And Ecumenical Councils

[Catholic_Dude]

I know of Catholic Apologists who believe in all sorts of crazy things, so what?

I was speaking of the high-caliber EO apologists like Perry Robinson, who believed in the Ratification-by-all-5-Patriarchs theory. I was not speaking of apologists in general.

Perhaps you ought to study your history a bit better. We have extant documents from fifteenth and sixteenth century Western canonists who refer to Florence as the ninth or sometimes tenth ecumenical council, meaning that not on the list would have been several Lateran Councils, the two councils of Lyons, etc. The confusion over what exactly constitutes an ecumenical council is a question which only received an answer in your Church perhaps five hundred years ago, when it was decided that any council presided over or approved of by a pope would be ecumenical.

I don’t know the details on those canonists, but the criteria seems pretty clear that Rome’s stamp of approval is a necessary condition. Looking back in history, that’s the only answer that makes sense, even demonstrated in Pope Leo being the one to call one such council a “Robber”. I see nothing from the EO side that even approaches an (non-circular) answer.

But this too has its own problems. What are we to make of Pope Martin’s dyothelite Synod in the Lateran? Even St. Maximus the Confessor considered this synod to be an Ecumenical Council

It was obviously an important and valid Council, but why it didn’t attain Ecumenical status must ultimately be for a reason the Pope didn’t consider it to be. One possibility is that he could have thought the issue was sufficiently settled in an early Ecumenical Council, so there was no need for another EC to say the same thing.

Your saying it does not make it so.

The autocephalous trend over the last 200 years or so is my argument.

It really isn’t, as we have no pressing need for reunion. The schism, while tragic, does not diminish the Church of Christ in any way, hence the need for healing it is only for the sake of the salvation of those who are on the other side of the schism.

Which confirms my overall points. Schism diminishes the Gospel in very serious ways, notably in the jeopardy of the salvation of souls and scandal before the world.

The Church has been inconsistent historically in how it has received those who were baptized or ordained by heretics/schismatics. St. Basil’s first canonical epistle is a good example of this. Similarly, your Church was unsure for many years of what to do with Mormon baptisms

The EO have, but not Catholics. Even today there’s disputes among EO on whether Catholics need rebaptism. Catholics don’t have that problem. In the case of Mormons, the only uncertainty would be due to them using crafty language giving the appearance of Christian baptism. There was nothing inconsistent, when Rome studied and gave an official answer, it was settled and contradicted nothing.

This is risible for several reasons. Firstly, the Russian Orthodox follow, to my knowledge, not the Protestant canon…

The Russian Orthodox Catechism of Philaret (1800s) plainly says, among other things: 34. Why is there no notice taken in this enumeration of the books of the Old Testament of the book of the Wisdom of the son of Sirach, and of certain others?
Because they do not exist in the Hebrew.

The Q right before this lists the Shorter Canon, even using the argument these books are second class because they don’t exist in Hebrew. The point isn’t that an individual Church Father said this or that, but rather that the Church has spoken “authoritatively” (e.g. Jerusalem 1672) and yet the matter is still not agreed upon.

 

[Catholic_Dude]

No, heterodoxy does not stem from the idea that the pope was first in the context that the East understood and continues to understand primacy.

My point is I’ve never seen a consistent or even official Eastern definition of what it means to be “first”. I’ve seen EO views ranging from saying Rome was just another bishop who got to speak first, up to Rome was a Patriarch, up to Rome had some kind of primacy.

Why stop with Antioch and Alexandria? Perhaps we should also mention the Byzantine Papacy, during which either the Emperor or his representative had the final say in confirming who would become the bishop of Rome.

This is a different subject (Catholicism rejects Caesaro-Papism but has let figures have (name removed by moderator)ut on candidates). My original point was that who was “first” in the early Church carried a lot of clout, so for Rawb to say Moscow being “Third Rome” is of no significance is wrong.

I would suggest you seek the beam in your eye before seeking out the spec in ours. Your system too is not exactly coherent.

It’s hard to respond since your basically jumping in to defend things you didn’t originally say (and likely would not have).

There is actually rather strong agreement between the Orthodox as to how such issues ought to be approached, which is to say that they should be approached pastorally.

The problem here is that (a) I’ve done the research and found disagreements among the RO, GO, and OCA on those moral issues (e.g. the RO say drunkneness is grounds for divorce), and (b) they generally agree on an “pastoral” approach, which translates into saying certain moral sins are acceptable as long as your priest says it’s ok. That’s not good.

As soon as you can explain to me why the Council of the Lateran of 649 is not ecumenical, perhaps then I will give stock to your criticisms. As it stands, that criticism would apply to the Church for its first 1500 years.

My answer is simple, because the Pope didn’t say it was Ecumenical, his reason is not my concern. All I need to know is the mechanism for determining Ecumenical Status, and the most essential element is Papal Ratification.

It is true that a large amount of Syriac Christians and Coptic Christians would reject what they saw as “Imperial Christianity” (hence the term “Melkite”), but then it is not true to say that Antioch and Alexandria rejected Chalcedon, when the bishops of those two cities at the time approved of the council.

The problem with this answer is that the “bishops” of those two cities were basically installed by Constantinople after the real/original bishops withdrew. It is similar to how at the time of the US civil war some Senators from the southern States withdrew from Congress, so Congress appointed their own new ‘north-friendly’ Senators, and these new Senators “approved” of Congress’ plans for the South. The schism is the very reason why there is the “Oriental Orthodox” consisting primarily of the Syriac and Coptic Patriarchates.

A new patriarch is elected who accepts the council, like what happened with Chalcedon.

But that’s a circular definition and thus an invalid answer. The “whole church” has not accepted a given Council, and to say those who didn’t accept will be replaced by those who accept doesn’t negate the fact the “whole church” at the time didn’t accept. With your definition, every gathering could be ecumenical, since all it would take is to keep kicking out those who didn’t agree until you had the voting stacked with enough to “all agree”.

the idea that ecumenical councils are doctrinally pure is derived from the fact that the Church cannot fall into error

While that is true, it doesn’t define what makes an Ecumenical Council. To say “the Church cannot fall into error” requires one to define the parameters of “the Church” in this case. It cannot be majority, since Arianism was a large percentage at one point, and it certainly cannot be Patriarchs, because they’ve fallen into heresy.

Neither is capable, however, of giving one certainty that he is in the correct Church, because both arguments in the end are founded upon a tautology: The Church will not fall into error, and only those who have not fallen into error are in the Church.

You can say Eastern Orthodoxy is founded upon a tautology, and I’d agree, but I don’t accept that for Catholicism. Circular arguments have no validity; they have no credibility behind them. To be in the Church in the fullest sense means to be in visible communion with the visible head of the Church, the Pope. Any other definition begs the question, which has been my point all along.

That is actually a rather fair historical assessment.

And this is why I’ve made the arguments I have made.

 

[Cavaradossi]

I don’t know the details on those canonists, but the criteria seems pretty clear that Rome’s stamp of approval is a necessary condition. Looking back in history, that’s the only answer that makes sense, even demonstrated in Pope Leo being the one to call one such council a “Robber”. I see nothing from the EO side that even approaches an (non-circular) answer.

Francis Dvornik documents a good case for this in his article on which councils are ecumenical. At any rate, the Roman criterion, even as you state it, does not sufficiently answer the quandary which you attempt to place on the Orthodox, because even the approval of Rome, by your admission is only necessary. Unless you are to argue that it is sufficient, in which case you run into problems, like the aforementioned Synod of the Lateran of 649. Nor can your answer be said to be non-circular, as It involves first assuming the point which you are attempting to prove (that Rome’s approval of a council is what makes the council ecumenical).

It was obviously an important and valid Council, but why it didn’t attain Ecumenical status must ultimately be for a reason the Pope didn’t consider it to be. One possibility is that he could have thought the issue was sufficiently settled in an early Ecumenical Council, so there was no need for another EC to say the same thing.

St. Maximus the Confessor, who was present at the council makes it clear that it was intended to be an ecumenical council, even referring to it in one of his letters as the “sixth synod.” Pope Theodore who was involved in convening the synod, but died before the synod could meet by all accounts intended for the council to be ecumenical. Furthermore, after the council had finished, its condemnation of monotheletism and dyothelite teaching were disseminated with a papal encyclical under the authority of Pope St. Martin, in which it was written that the faith of the council is the “faith of the universal church,” proclaimed by, “the collective power of the episcopate.” It sure seems from the authoritative nature of his encyclical that Pope St. Martin even intended for this council to be ecumenical. Furthermore, this synod was convened during the height of the monothelite controversy, meaning the claim that there was no need for the synod is inaccurate, as at the time of this synod in 649, the heresy of monothelitism was at its zenith. As a matter of fact, the monothelite heresy was so grave, that Pope St. Martin’s and St. Maximus’ action of holding this synod earned them persecution from the Emperor.

The autocephalous trend over the last 200 years or so is my argument.

Again, saying so doesn’t make it so. There already is a long history of jurisdictional arrangement like this in the ancient Church, like the Church of Cyprus’ attempt to free itself from intrusion by the Church of Antioch, an attempt which earned it its guaranteed jurisdictional independence under the Canon 8 of the Council of Ephesus. Furthermore, Chalcedon provides another canonical basis for the current divisions along national borders declaring in canon 17 that the establishment of new churches in newly established cities within the empire ought to follow municipal and political divisions (and this itself is in accordance with apostolic canon 34/35), with the principle simply being expanded beyond the borders of the empire.

Which confirms my overall points. Schism diminishes the Gospel in very serious ways, notably in the jeopardy of the salvation of souls and scandal before the world.

I don’t object to this. This is why ecumenism is not something which we can simply dismiss out of hand (as the Orthodox Old Calendarists and certain Roman Catholic Traditionalist groups do), but something we must address. On this matter, Orthodoxy and Catholicism are likely not in fundamental disagreement.

The EO have, but not Catholics. Even today there’s disputes among EO on whether Catholics need rebaptism. Catholics don’t have that problem. In the case of Mormons, the only uncertainty would be due to them using crafty language giving the appearance of Christian baptism. There was nothing inconsistent, when Rome studied and gave an official answer, it was settled and contradicted nothing.

Again, I do not think this is a fair statement, because you cannot simply disown the rest of the Church from the 3rd and 4th century as if the Roman Catholic Church isn’t descended from it (unless you would actually want to admit this). Just as St. Basil’s testimony shows, the decision on whether Arians should be rebaptized was not easily settled, and it required a synodal decision at the Council of Constantinople for an official position on the rebaptism of Arians, Sabellians, Eunomians and other heretics, and this is something that is common to the patrimony of both churches.

 

[Cavaradossi]

The Russian Orthodox Catechism of Philaret (1800s) plainly says, among other things: 34. Why is there no notice taken in this enumeration of the books of the Old Testament of the book of the Wisdom of the son of Sirach, and of certain others?
Because they do not exist in the Hebrew.

Yes, this is the reason which Ss. Athanasius and Cyril give for those deuterocanonical books being excluded from the Old Testament. This follows the long-standing convention of the Greeks of labeling the books found in the Septuagint but not the Hebrew canon as being “anagignoskomena” or “worthy of being read.” Nowhere does Filaret mention that these books ought not be read publicly or that they are not sources of doctrine (both of which are undeniably true following Orthodox liturgical praxis), only that he did not consider them to be part of the Old Testament proper. The Russian Synodal Bible, which was edited by Met. Filaret did not exclude the deuterocanonicals, and the Old Testament translations were done in a fashion similar to how Jerome did it, using the Hebrew for texts which are extant in Hebrew, and the Septuagint for texts which are not.

The Q right before this lists the Shorter Canon, even using the argument these books are second class because they don’t exist in Hebrew. The point isn’t that an individual Church Father said this or that, but rather that the Church has spoken “authoritatively” (e.g. Jerusalem 1672) and yet the matter is still not agreed upon.

Met. Filaret’s catechism, like St. Athanasius, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, and St. John of Damascus simply deal with a different concern in delineating the books of scripture (and excluding the anagignoskomena than what is used by the Council of Jerusalem (it would be utterly impious to declare that the fathers like Ss. Athanasius, Cyril and John were all in error). The Council of Jerusalem is responding to the Protestant error that the deuterocanonicals ought not be used as sources of doctrine (which conflicts with the practice of reading them liturgically). At any rate, your criticism is weak, as it equally could apply to the Early Church, which admitted a plurality, not only of books but of textual variants (like the Peshitta, the Septuagint and the Hebrew) without conflict. Attempting to establish the two as if they are in disagreement is the same error as those who read the Sacred Canons of the Councils as if they were in disagreement, ascertaining only the letter of them without ascertaining the spirit.

My point is I’ve never seen a consistent or even official Eastern definition of what it means to be “first”. I’ve seen EO views ranging from saying Rome was just another bishop who got to speak first, up to Rome was a Patriarch, up to Rome had some kind of primacy.

And what definition of the first millennium may we find for what it means to be first? It is clear that the terms of primacy different not only from time to time in the Ancient Church but even from Church to Church. For example, the primacy of the Alexandrian Patriarch differed significantly from the primacy of the Antiochian and Constantinopolitan Patriarchs, and the exercise of the Patriarch of Constantinople varied throughout time.

This is a different subject (Catholicism rejects Caesaro-Papism but has let figures have (name removed by moderator)ut on candidates).

The Roman Church was rather happy to play by the rules of Caesaropapism when the Eastern Romans controlled Italy. Unless you mean the modern idea that Caesaropapism was understood as the Emperor possessing the final religious authority, an idea which it should be apparent the East never accepted.

My original point was that who was “first” in the early Church carried a lot of clout, so for Rawb to say Moscow being “Third Rome” is of no significance is wrong.

Yes, whoever carried the first position in the diptychs did carry much clout. I don’t understand why it is an issue.

The problem here is that (a) I’ve done the research and found disagreements among the RO, GO, and OCA on those moral issues (e.g. the RO say drunkneness is grounds for divorce), and (b) they generally agree on an “pastoral” approach, which translates into saying certain moral sins are acceptable as long as your priest says it’s ok. That’s not good.

No, that really involves a warped understanding of oikonomia. Frankly, I’ve given up on trying to explain the concept here, because nobody wants to learn, which is a shame.

My answer is simple, because the Pope didn’t say it was Ecumenical, his reason is not my concern. All I need to know is the mechanism for determining Ecumenical Status, and the most essential element is Papal Ratification.

As I pointed out earlier, there are problems with that, because St. Maximus the Confessor who was there present numbers it amongst the ecumenical synods, Pope Theodore intended for it to be an Ecumenical Synod, and Pope Martin indicates in his encyclical that by the power of the episcopacy, the council’s decisions represent the faith of the universal Church. I think this council likely fell into obscurity for the same reason that St. Maximus was not mentioned at the sixth ecumenical council, in order to save the imperial family from embarrassment, but then I guess you’re not able to explain it that way, since you seem to be arguing that papal ratification is not only a necessary but a sufficient criterion.

 

[Cavaradossi]

The problem with this answer is that the “bishops” of those two cities were basically installed by Constantinople after the real/original bishops withdrew. It is similar to how at the time of the US civil war some Senators from the southern States withdrew from Congress, so Congress appointed their own new ‘north-friendly’ Senators, and these new Senators “approved” of Congress’ plans for the South. The schism is the very reason why there is the “Oriental Orthodox” consisting primarily of the Syriac and Coptic Patriarchates.

Are you faithful to the council of Chalcedon or not? If you are not, then I would understand why you would disparage the legitimate Chalcedonian bishop who was installed in Alexandria, but if you are, then I can hardly understand why you would call him a “bishop,” as he, would have been the legitimate bishop of Alexandria. Now contrary to your assertion about the bishop of Antioch, the see was fully approving of Chalcedon, and Maximus was not some sort of installed bishop, but rather he was a assigned as the successor of Domnus (who was one of the ones deposed by Ephesus II), and was allowed to retain his episcopacy by the council of Chalcedon. Regardless of whether Maximus or Domnus was canonically the proper bishop of Antioch, they were both unquestionably faithful to dyophysite theology. The Antiochian schism over chalcedon would not happen until later.

But that’s a circular definition and thus an invalid answer. The “whole church” has not accepted a given Council, and to say those who didn’t accept will be replaced by those who accept doesn’t negate the fact the “whole church” at the time didn’t accept. With your definition, every gathering could be ecumenical, since all it would take is to keep kicking out those who didn’t agree until you had the voting stacked with enough to “all agree”.

Indeed, so we are left with determining by reason what the true faith is. But then you are stuck with no certain solution to the epistemological question which you pose, because before one can believe that the bishop of Rome is protected from error by the Holy Spirit, as you believe, he must determine that this is true through the use of reason. Far from solving the epistemological problem, the method of papal ratification simply places a distanciation between the mind’s encounter with a teaching and ascertaining whether that teaching is true. The epistemological uncertainty remains, but is only obscured by faith in the papacy.

While that is true, it doesn’t define what makes an Ecumenical Council. To say “the Church cannot fall into error” requires one to define the parameters of “the Church” in this case. It cannot be majority, since Arianism was a large percentage at one point, and it certainly cannot be Patriarchs, because they’ve fallen into heresy.

Nor can it be popes, as one promulgated a document which erroneously defended Theodoret’s anti-Cyrillian writings, and Ibas’ letter to Maris, while another approved (privately or not) of Sergius’ heretical formula of one will.

You can say Eastern Orthodoxy is founded upon a tautology, and I’d agree, but I don’t accept that for Catholicism. Circular arguments have no validity; they have no credibility behind them. To be in the Church in the fullest sense means to be in visible communion with the visible head of the Church, the Pope. Any other definition begs the question, which has been my point all along.

I did not say that the Church is founded upon a tautology. The Church is founded upon Christ. I simply said that the argument that the Church cannot fall into error is a tautology, because only those who teach the truth have the authority to teach in the Church.