"Orthodox in communion with Rome"? How do Eastern Catholics define themselves?

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wynd said:
Not sure what you mean by the Orthodox don’t like RC converts, unless you mean former Orthodox who converted to Roman Catholicism?
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That is also their antipathy towards the eastern rite of the Catholic Church.
 
Wandile said:
On rare occasions which were more exceptions to the rule than the norm. And these people changed their practice to have a uniform practice in the west. Whereas there was a similar situation in the east up until Justinian where the emperor imposed the novelty as secular rule and the Eastern bishops as usual obliged to the emporers wishes.

Most instances and “evidence” provided are very limited and other quotes provided by certain EO don’t even support divorce and remarriage but teach against it. They force the texts to say what they don’t say despite the plain reading of those quotes teaching against remarriage, they twist and obfuscate in order to try give the texts a meaning which the texts just simply don’t convey at all. It’s almost an act of desperation to find any validity for the novelty of the Eastern practice which began in the reign of Justinian (as standard practice amongst the Greeks).

All prominent studies on this matter all accept the fact that In the west the practice was almost uniform and there is so much evidence for this. Secondly that the east changed its practice during the reign of Justinian
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Maybe but to support the Orthodox position on this, no one of the Eastern Catholic Churches annulled nor even reviewed one 're’marriage upon renewed Communion with Rome, nor was it asked of any Eastern Church. Therefore the argument could be made that even Rome tolerates the dispensation/economia described.
 
steve_b said:
Eastern Catholics have their traditions as well. But we are ONE Catholic Church because we are completely united

Maybe you didn’t see this post. I’ll let an Eastern Catholic bishop (retired) speak to this question

Retired Bishop John Alya, Melkite Bishop, answered the following Q/A

First claim: **We are the Orthodox Church in communion with Rome!” **

“When the Patriarchate of Antioch was divided into two branches in 1724, one branch kept the name Orthodox and the other branch which sealed its union with the Holy See of Rome, kept the name Melkite given to it since the Sixth Century and called itself Catholic. It became known as the Melkite Greek Catholic Church. In the Middle East, although both branches claim orthodoxy as well as catholicity, however being Catholic means not Orthodox and being Orthodox means not Catholic.
To be a Catholic Christian means that one accepts the primacy of the Pope of Rome, because he is the successor of St. Peter. To be an Orthodox Christian means that one does not recognize the primacy of the Pope of Rome, but considers him as “first among equals.”
According to the Catholic teaching, Christ did not create a church with five heads of equal importance. He established One Holy Catholic and Apostolic church whose invisible head is the Lord, but whose visible head is the Pope of Rome.
The Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches states it in these terms: “The bishop of the Church of Rome, in whom resides the office (munus) given in a special way by the Lord to Peter, first of the Apostles and to be transmitted to his successors, is head of the college of bishops, the Vicar of Christ and Pastor of the entire Church on earth; therefore in virtue of his office (munus) he enjoys supreme, full, immediate and universal ordinary power in the Church which he can always freely exercise.” (Canon 43 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches) If an Orthodox subscribes to the Canon quoted above, he/she can be called Catholic and be considered “united to Rome” or in full communion with the Catholic Church.”
(source: melkite.org/eparchy/bishop-john/are-we-orthodox-united-with-rome)

I’ll add here, the following

Claim 2: The encyclicals from the Pope of Rome is not binding upon the Catholic East.

“When we declared our union with Rome – in consistency with Apostolic tradition interrupted somehow by historical circumstances – we accepted the Catholic faith in its entirety.
We do recognize the authority of the Pope of Rome, including universal jurisdiction and infallibility for whatever concerns faith and morals. It is true that the Western Theologians themselves have their own debates concerning these points; so we should not be “more papist that the Pope;”
but Catholic is Catholic and truth is truth. We cannot pose as “Orthodox united to Rome” only for what suits us. I do mean it when we pray every day, at the Divine Liturgy, for “unity of faith and the communion of the Holy Spirit.”
There is no ‘Eastern truth’ vs ‘Western truth’. Truth is one. It may be articulated according to various cultural expressions, but truth is super-cultural. Truth should not be restricted by “party line” positions. We should accept or reject ideas for their worth and not for an artificial attachment to a given “identity.” The Church teaches truth. If something is true, it would be absurd to say “Oh, we don’t believe that in the East.”
This seems to be where we get short-circuited in ecumenical “dialogue.” All too frequently, such “dialogue” seems to presuppose a relativism where you speak “your truth” and I’ll speak “my truth” and we’ll just leave it at that. A sort of ecumenical schizophrenia.
Here are two relevant canons from OUR Eastern Catholic Church Law:
c. 597 CCEO: “The Roman Pontiff, in virtue of his office (munus), possesses infallible teaching authority if, as supreme pastor and teacher of all the Christian faithful who is to confirm his fellow believers in the faith, he proclaims with a definitive act that a doctrine of faith or morals is to be held.”
c. 599: :A religious obsequium of intellect and will, even if not the assent of faith, is to be paid to the teaching of faith and morals which the Roman Pontiff or the college of bishops enunciate when they exercise the authentic magisterium even if they do not intend to proclaim with a definitive act.; therefore the Christian faithful are to take care to avoid whatever is not in harmony with that teaching.”
Source: melkite.org/eparchy/bishop-john/how-do-the-popes-encyclicals-and-teachings-impact-on-the-melkites
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Thanks, but none of this addresses my question.
 
Wandile said:
On rare occasions which were more exceptions to the rule than the norm. And these people changed their practice to have a uniform practice in the west. Whereas there was a similar situation in the east up until Justinian where the emperor imposed the novelty as secular rule and the Eastern bishops as usual obliged to the emporers wishes.

Most instances and “evidence” provided are very limited and other quotes provided by certain EO don’t even support divorce and remarriage but teach against it. They force the texts to say what they don’t say despite the plain reading of those quotes teaching against remarriage, they twist and obfuscate in order to try give the texts a meaning which the texts just simply don’t convey at all. It’s almost an act of desperation to find any validity for the novelty of the Eastern practice which began in the reign of Justinian (as standard practice amongst the Greeks).

All prominent studies on this matter all accept the fact that In the west the practice was almost uniform and there is so much evidence for this. Secondly that the east changed its practice during the reign of Justinian
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This is not what the current scholarship says. Eastern tradition actually settled fairly early. Western tradition remained split until the 9th century more or less. See:

Philip Lyndon Reynolds, Marriage in the Western Church: The Christianization of Marriage During the Patristic and Early Medieval Periods (New York: E. J. Brill, 1994).

Bishop Peter L’Huillier, “The Indissolubility of Marriage in Orthodox Law and Practice,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 32 (1988): 199-221.
 
Rohzek said:
This is not what the current scholarship says. Eastern tradition actually settled fairly early. Western tradition remained split until the 9th century more or less. See:

Philip Lyndon Reynolds, Marriage in the Western Church: The Christianization of Marriage During the Patristic and Early Medieval Periods (New York: E. J. Brill, 1994).

Bishop Peter L’Huillier, “The Indissolubility of Marriage in Orthodox Law and Practice,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 32 (1988): 199-221.
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Current scholarship does actually say that that Eastern practice changed in justinainas reign. In fact an extensive study was done by the Catholic Church to counter the now dubbed “kasperite” proposal (the German theology on marriage which has been pushed by the Germans since the reign of St John Paul II) and came up with the same conclusions and the CDF condemned it. This, besides older and contemporary scholarly works which agree with this. However, I’m not going to enter into a reference war as this topic is beyond the scope of this thread.

Suffice to say Justinian was the first to advance this idea (an emperor, not a Father) and even then, it was resisted by the Eastern Churches. It wasn’t until c. the 10th century and later, gaining momentum post-Schism, that the Eastern Churches began to justify divorce/remarriage for a multiplicity of reasons, some of which, by the way, have only the most tenuous connection with adultery
 
SyroMalankara said:
Maybe but to support the Orthodox position on this, no one of the Eastern Catholic Churches annulled nor even reviewed one 're’marriage upon renewed Communion with Rome, nor was it asked of any Eastern Church. Therefore the argument could be made that even Rome tolerates the dispensation/economia described.
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That would be too much work. Although ideally this should have been done. However the Catholic Church made it an issue that from thenceforth the Easterners accept the practice of the Church which up until today they still do.
 
Wandile said:
That would be too much work. Although ideally this should have been done. However the Catholic Church made it an issue that from thenceforth the Easterners accept the practice of the Church which up until today they still do.
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Not true at all. It was not at any point mentioned in any documents of Union between the Churches, and each practiced their own manner until very recently, as late as the 1917 Code of Canons. Various Eastern Catholic Churches offered ecclesiastical divorce decrees until just about 100 years ago - a relative blip considering the centuries of previous practice
 
Wandile said:
Current scholarship does actually say that that Eastern practice changed in justinainas reign. In fact an extensive study was done by the Catholic Church to counter the now dubbed “kasperite” proposal (the German theology on marriage which has been pushed by the Germans since the reign of St John Paul II) and came up with the same conclusions and the CDF condemned it. This, besides older and contemporary scholarly works which agree with this. However, I’m not going to enter into a reference war as this topic is beyond the scope of this thread.

Suffice to say Justinian was the first to advance this idea (an emperor, not a Father) and even then, it was resisted by the Eastern Churches. It wasn’t until c. the 10th century and later, gaining momentum post-Schism, that the Eastern Churches began to justify divorce/remarriage for a multiplicity of reasons, some of which, by the way, have only the most tenuous connection with adultery
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The Western Church remained in Communion with SAINT Justinian - aka Flávios Pétros Sabbátios Ioustinianós, c. 482 – 14 November 565, traditionally known as Justinian the Great and also Saint Justinian the Great - and the Byzantine East, never condemning nor breaking Communion with him or the Eastern Roman Church over this or any other decree. So its a bit disingenuous to throw it out there as if the Roman Church was vehemently opposed.
 
SyroMalankara said:
Not true at all. It was not at any point mentioned in any documents of Union between the Churches, and each practiced their own manner until very recently, as late as the 1917 Code of Canons. Various Eastern Catholic Churches offered ecclesiastical divorce decrees until just about 100 years ago - a relative blip considering the centuries of previous practice
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Not true? The Eastern Churches don’t practice it anymore and even at the recent synod on the family the EO model was completely shut down as an option (even by the Eastern Catholic prelates) when it was proposed. Nevermind Rome completely shutting it down during the reign of Pope Benedict and St. John Paul II.

The truth is that by accepting Trent they accepted the truth of catholicpractice hence in the end even Byzantine marriage practices were reformed. How long it took is immaterial, what matters is that it happened, showing Rome’s intolerance for it.

Even at Trent the decree on marriage was written so as to not offend the churches in Cyprus who practiced divorce and remarriage yet it still condemned Remariage. The Roman Church did not show tolerance, it showed patience.
 
SyroMalankara said:
The Western Church remained in Communion with SAINT Justinian - aka Flávios Pétros Sabbátios Ioustinianós, c. 482 – 14 November 565, traditionally known as Justinian the Great and also Saint Justinian the Great - and the Byzantine East, never condemning nor breaking Communion with him or the Eastern Roman Church over this or any other decree. So its a bit disingenuous to throw it out there as if the Roman Church was vehemently opposed.
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Saint in the Eastern Byzantine Churches… never recognized as a Latin or Syriac saint. But I’ll grant him that he was quite an honorable man:thumbsup:.

The truth is much of what was done in the east was not well known or better said, understood. The west seems to have taken for granted that remarriages were being performed via an ancient annulment process. The testimony from the Latin fathers, popes and councils (barring the odd exceptions) bears this out plainly. For example Pope St Innocent of Rome said :

"The practice is observed by all of regarding as an adulteress a woman who marries a second time while her husband yet lives, and permission to do penance is not granted her until one of them is dead."

They took for granted that western practice was universal and on many occasions made such bold claims. This blatantly demonstrates their lack of understanding that in the Eastern church (forget roman law) things were being done quite differently. Although even divorce and remarriage was not widespread and only became prominent after the schism, further solidifying the proof that the east were almost the same but started drifting as the schism came closer. Which explains why Rome thought the practice was universal (maybe because it was almost universal earlier on).

When the west finally found out what was going on, then you start seeing tracts, complaints and condemnations against this practice. It’s funny that even at Trent , the fathers of that Holy Ecumenical council were not familiar with the practice and the Venetian diplomats had to explain to them the practice which made them ammend the forcefulness of the earlier decree so as to not offend the churches in Cyprus.
 
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