Orthodoxy: Ecumenicity, Receptionism and the Councils

[Isaiah45_9]

is there something positive you can say for Catholicism on this particular issue that makes it the right choice?

On a now closed thread I had about the “Primacy or Supremacy of Rome”, not a single poster took the opportunity to present a positive message without “muddling” it with an attack, or present a Sola Scriptura argument for Peter - which I am still in shock, .

Sadly, most will look at what you wrote in the religion field and go from there and ignore the argument, taking the opportunity to attack the religion or the poster.

Or you see a Catholic poster ask a question for Protestants and most of the replies are from other Catholic posters, a lot of times even before a Protestant had a chance to interact. How exactly this invites a fruitful dialogue? The answer escapes me.

It’s just going downhill… Slowly but surely I post anymore… My prayer life is increasing, however. Praise be to God!

 

[Jon_Mallory]

It seems to me people rather enjoy voicing their frustration with the other side here. In the first thread I posted on this forum, I mentioned the danger of interfaith dialogue degenerating into a shouting match in which people talk past one another rather than engage in dialogue, whatever that means anymore. Orthodox and Catholics each have different epistemological authorities. It is absurd to ask a Catholic to see things from the Orthodox view because that would mean swapping epistemological authorities.

P.S. Cav is right Randy. No one can escape interpreting an ecclesiastical establishment’s doctrines. No one has direct access to the thing in itself and Catholicism’s rich intellectual history backs that up. All knowing is mediated–just read Aquinas. Knowing is always a risky venture and demanding 100% certainty on all religious matters is the enemy of faith.ra

 

[Expatreprocedit]

Originally Posted by Cavaradossi View Post

Randy, how do you know with certainty which teachings of the Roman church are irreformable?

I ask.
But here’s the thing, and there’s no getting around it: if I am uncertain as to whether a particular teaching is irreformable, that may be a problem, but it is solvable. I would ultimately appeal to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church for guidance.

Right, because the Roman Catholic church has definitively ruled on which of the hundreds (maybe thousands) of papal proclamations are infallible and irreformable and which are not. It has, right?

OOPS. (Sound of punctured argument deflating).

 

[Expatreprocedit]

Originally Posted by Cavaradossi View Post

Randy, how do you know with certainty which teachings of the Roman church are irreformable?

I ask.
But here’s the thing, and there’s no getting around it: if I am uncertain as to whether a particular teaching is irreformable, that may be a problem, but it is solvable. I would ultimately appeal to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church for guidance.

To follow up further on this, who precisely would you ask? The only authorities who could give you “infallible” guidance would be the Pope speaking ex cathedra, or an Ecumenical Council in union with the Pope. Neither of them has ruled on which teachings are infallible, and would hardly be available to you for an ad hoc ruling (sorry). Any number of individual RC bishops or theologians might give you an opinion (as many have), but it would remain the opinion of one individual with no guarantee of correctness. As it happens, there is currently a divergence of opinion whether, for instance, Humanae Vitae or JP II’s encyclical on women in the Church (foreclosing the possibility of women as priests) meet the criteria of V I for infallibility. So your neat solution is illusory.

 

[Randy_Carson]

P.S. Cav is right Randy. No one can escape interpreting an ecclesiastical establishment’s doctrines. No one has direct access to the thing in itself and Catholicism’s rich intellectual history backs that up. All knowing is mediated–just read Aquinas. Knowing is always a risky venture and demanding 100% certainty on all religious matters is the enemy of faith.ra

I’m doing some reading right now on Private Judgment, and I have to say that I think the problems of Orthodoxy are VERY similar to the problems of Protestantism because they both have jettisoned the Magisterium Jesus intended for His Church. I can’t decide whether they have just Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition (two of the three legs of the stool) or whether there is actually a third element that I’m calling the “Magisterium of the Dead” - a term I’m using to describe the fact that the real teaching authority in Orthodoxy has to come from the Fathers who, of course, are dead (to this world, anyway).

I say this, because if Peter has nothing more than “Primacy of Honor” among the Patriarchs, then their own Patriarchs can have nothing more among the other bishops. This point, I believe, was made by James Likoudis. IOW, there IS no living Magisterium within Orthodoxy; thus, they look to the past for their only authoritative voices. But then comes Private judgment on what the Fathers said, what they meant, which Fathers are more authoritative than others, and on and on and on. Now, here is another connection: to avoid a repeat of their own heretical past as well as the chaos that is Protestantism, the EO have anchored themselves firmly in the Byzantine era while denouncing doctrinal development as nothing more than the novelties of heretics. This gives them a handy cudgel with which to bludgeon Catholics, but it also means that they cannot go forward in any meaningful way.

So, I’m still pondering these things as I read.

In the meantime, let me just say briefly in response to YOUR vote in support of Cavaradossi that there is a pretty big difference between “I’m the final arbiter on what the Church receives, and I trust myself” (Orthodox receptivity) and “Jesus promised to build a Church upon Peter, and I trust Jesus so I trust Peter”.

That may not be the ACTUAL conscious thought of most EO in the pews, but it has been told to me too many times to count in this thread and others that nothing is really certain until “the Church” receives it. That’s the receptivity theory being openly admitted here, and that’s what the EO websites plainly acknowledged as big concerns as seen in posts #1 & #96.

 

[Kosta]

I’m doing some reading right now on Private Judgment, and I have to say that I think the problems of Orthodoxy are VERY similar to the problems of Protestantism because they both have jettisoned the Magisterium Jesus intended for His Church. I can’t decide whether they simply have Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition (two of the three legs of the stool) or whether there is actually what I’m calling the “Magisterium of the Dead” which is my way of thinking about the fact that the real teaching authority in Orthodoxy has to come from the Fathers who, of course, are dead (to this world, anyway).

I say this, because if Peter has nothing more than “Primacy of Honor” among the Patriarchs, then their own Metropolitans can have nothing more among the other bishops. IOW, there IS no living Magisterium within Orthodoxy; thus, they look to the past for their only authoritative voices. But then comes Private judgment on what the Fathers said, what they meant, which Fathers are more authoritative than others, and on and on and on…

So, I’m still pondering these things as I read.

In the meantime, let me just say briefly in response to YOUR vote in support of Cavaradossi that there is a pretty big difference between “I’m the final arbiter on what the Church receives, and I trust myself” (Orthodox receptivity) and “Jesus promised to build a Church upon Peter, and I trust Jesus so I trust Peter”.

That may not be the ACTUAL conscious thought of most EO in the pews, but it has been told to me too many times to count in this thread and others that nothing is really certain until “the Church” receives it. That’s the receptivity theory being openly admitted here, and that’s what the EO websites plainly acknowledged as big concerns as seen in posts #1 & #96.

I trust Jesus Christ, too, so I trust the people with the apostolic blessing. Why don’t you trust bishops?

 

[Randy_Carson]

Since I have been asked to explain how the Catholic Answers the charge that we have the same problems created by receptivity and private judgment, I’ll this alternative approach:

THE AUTHORITY OF THE MAGISTERIUM AND PRIVATE JUDGMENT

Because the Magisterium is an essential component of the Church and authorized by God, it must have corresponding authority and must be able to bind private judgments so that they do not go beyond certain bounds. Boundless private judgment is precisely the problem God set up the Magisterium to cure. There is simply no way to harmonize the existence of a divinely authorized Magisterium and an absolute right to private judgment.

There can be and is a harmonization between the Magisterium and a limited right to private judgment, and this is what we find in the Catholic Church. Individual laymen and theologians can exercise their private judgment in reading the Scriptures all they want so long as they do not transgress what the Magisterium has settled. There is free reign for private judgment and opinion within the bounds of established Christian teaching. It is the crossing of these bounds that the Magisterium was set up to prevent.

This is the way in which the intellect of the individual is harmonized with the teaching authority of Christ, as exercised through his Church. God gave each individual a rational soul which, if it is not impeded, will enable him to learn, understand, and know the Scriptures and the teachings of Christ. This exercise of private interpretation is to be encouraged and fostered. People have been given a faculty by God, and they must be encouraged to fulfill the responsibility that comes along with that faculty.

But they were not given the faculty or the responsibility of building Christian theology from the ground up all by themselves. The average Christian was not given the responsibility to do this, nor the ability to do this. Not even the bishops who constitute the Magisterium have the responsibility or the ability to do this as individuals. Nor does even the pope himself have this responsibility or ability, since he is bound by all the previous decisions of the Magisterium. No one individual, since the day that public revelation stopped, has had the right or responsibility to decide all of the Christian faith for himself, not even the organs of the Magisterium God created.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE

Thus it is not the case that the Magisterium can simply decide what it wants people to teach and require them to believe that. The Magisterium itself is bound by its own prior infallible teachings and, while it can delve deeper into issues and add new clarity to them, it cannot deny what has once been infallibly settled (consequently, it never has). Thus, under the exercise of the divinely appointed teaching authority, Christian theology grows organically, not mutagenically. New depth, clarity, and context is added to what has been settled, but what has been settled remains settled, as was God’s intention from the very beginning.

 

[Cavaradossi]

The Magisterium of the dead, what sort of Protestant-inspired impiety is that? The saints are alive in Jesus Christ, and the continuation of their faith is the very affirmation of the Church’s catholicity. What you espouse is what some have dubbed “magisterial positivism,” not the actual principle of catholicity.

 

[Cavaradossi]

Since I have been asked to explain how the Catholic Answers the charge that we have the same problems created by receptivity and private judgment, I’ll this alternative approach:

THE AUTHORITY OF THE MAGISTERIUM AND PRIVATE JUDGMENT

Because the Magisterium is an essential component of the Church and authorized by God, it must have corresponding authority and must be able to bind private judgments so that they do not go beyond certain bounds. Boundless private judgment is precisely the problem God set up the Magisterium to cure. There is simply no way to harmonize the existence of a divinely authorized Magisterium and an absolute right to private judgment.

There can be and is a harmonization between the Magisterium and a limited right to private judgment, and this is what we find in the Catholic Church. Individual laymen and theologians can exercise their private judgment in reading the Scriptures all they want so long as they do not transgress what the Magisterium has settled. There is free reign for private judgment and opinion within the bounds of established Christian teaching. It is the crossing of these bounds that the Magisterium was set up to prevent.

This is the way in which the intellect of the individual is harmonized with the teaching authority of Christ, as exercised through his Church. God gave each individual a rational soul which, if it is not impeded, will enable him to learn, understand, and know the Scriptures and the teachings of Christ. This exercise of private interpretation is to be encouraged and fostered. People have been given a faculty by God, and they must be encouraged to fulfill the responsibility that comes along with that faculty.

But they were not given the faculty or the responsibility of building Christian theology from the ground up all by themselves. The average Christian was not given the responsibility to do this, nor the ability to do this. Not even the bishops who constitute the Magisterium have the responsibility or the ability to do this as individuals. Nor does even the pope himself have this responsibility or ability, since he is bound by all the previous decisions of the Magisterium. No one individual, since the day that public revelation stopped, has had the right or responsibility to decide all of the Christian faith for himself, not even the organs of the Magisterium God created.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE

Thus it is not the case that the Magisterium can simply decide what it wants people to teach and require them to believe that. The Magisterium itself is bound by its own prior infallible teachings and, while it can delve deeper into issues and add new clarity to them, it cannot deny what has once been infallibly settled (consequently, it never has). Thus, under the exercise of the divinely appointed teaching authority, Christian theology grows organically, not mutagenically. New depth, clarity, and context is added to what has been settled, but what has been settled remains settled, as was God’s intention from the very beginning.

The idea that the existence of the Magisterium can curb private judgment does violence to any sensible understanding of hermeneutics. Even before one can give assent to a Magisterial document, he must make manifold use of his private judgment. He must use his private judgment in order to interpret the document (and indeed, there is no guarantee that he will interpret it properly), and in order to do that, he must rely on all of his past interpretations (the products also of private judgment) of the Scriptures and of other Magisterial documents, since there exists no such thing as reading something in a contextual vacuum or being able to extract meaning from a text without interpreting it.

 

[Randy_Carson]

The Magisterium of the dead, what sort of Protestant-inspired impiety is that? The saints are alive in Jesus Christ, and the continuation of their faith is the very affirmation of the Church’s catholicity. What you espouse is what some have dubbed “magisterial positivism,” not the actual principle of catholicity.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

I wrote:

the “Magisterium of the Dead” - a term I’m using to describe the fact that the real teaching authority in Orthodoxy has to come from the Fathers who, of course, are dead (to this world, anyway).

Now, why did I write that phrase highlighted in red? Because I anticipated the very nonsense of which I am now falsely accused.

Just check my threads, Cav. A quick search shows that over 40 times I have posted:

“Have you not read in the book of Moses, in the account of the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!” (Mark 12:26-27)

If you spent any time explaining prayer to the saints to Protestants in the Apologetics subforum, you would know this.

 

[Randy_Carson]

The idea that the existence of the Magisterium can curb private judgment does violence to any sensible understanding of hermeneutics. Even before one can give assent to a Magisterial document, he must make manifold use of his private judgment. He must use his private judgment in order to interpret the document (and indeed, there is no guarantee that he will interpret it properly), and in order to do that, he must rely on all of his past interpretations (the products also of private judgment) of the Scriptures and of other Magisterial documents, since there exists no such thing as reading something in a contextual vacuum or being able to extract meaning from a text without interpreting it.

In his encyclical The Splendor of Truth, Pope John Paul II wrote:

“In the Book of Genesis we read: ‘The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may eat freely of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die”‘ (Genesis 2: 16-17). With this imagery, revelation teaches that the power to decide what is good and what is evil does not belong to man, but to God alone. The man is certainly free, inasmuch as he can understand and accept God’s commands.

“And he possesses an extremely far-reaching freedom, since he can eat ‘of every tree of the garden’. But his freedom is not unlimited: it must halt before the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’, for it is called to accept the moral law given by God. In fact, human freedom finds its authentic and complete fulfillment precisely in the acceptance of that law. God, who alone is good, knows perfectly what is good for man, and by virtue of his very love proposes this good to man in the commandments. God’s law does not reduce, much less do away with human freedom; rather, it protects and promotes that freedom. In contrast, however, some present-day cultural tendencies have given rise to several currents of thought in ethics which center upon an alleged conflict between freedom and law” (Veritatis Splendor 35).

 

[GaryTaylor]

Pope Francis touched yesterday on public -private revelation.

“This too makes me think of our mother Church and of so much sterility within our Mother Church,” the Pope told those present in the Vatican’s Saint Martha guesthouse chapel Dec. 19.

He noted that when too much emphasis is placed on our ability to choose to be good by following the commandments unaided by grace, “that pelagianism that all of us carry within our bones” grows, and the Church “becomes sterile.”

The roots of this sterile pelagianism – the belief that original sin did not damage human nature, and that man is still able to choose the good without divine assistance – come “from egoism (and) from power,” the Roman Pontiff continued, lamenting that there is “so much sterility within the people of God.”

and…

It is not spiritually good to center one’s life around private
revelations. They are good when approved, and may be used, but the core is
in public revelation, especially some of the things just mentioned.
Really, the essence of spirituality is conformity of my will to the will
of God–for the only free thing in me is my free will. If I could make it
match exactly the will of God, nothing more need be done. To develop this
takes time and effort, more than just one nice prayer.

There is much room for error in private revelations, even when they are
given to Saints (cf. file on discernment of spirits). Canonization of a
Saint does not at all guarantee the truth of alleged private revelations.

google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCUQFjAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ewtn.com%2Flibrary%2FSCRIPTUR%2FPRIPUB.TXT&ei=oY2VVJvaPMfCgwSijIKoBA&usg=AFQjCNGoW1KKvyFVGEhp239WChfTj39i_g

The most the Church can do on a private revelation is: 1) say it does not
clash with public revelation.

The authority to interpret scripture is left to the teaching authority of His Church in which the same is always required-obedience to it.

 

[Efnouti_Nai_Nan]

Why are cats all over this thread?

 

[Randy_Carson]

Each member of the Church, clergyman and layman, has the right and duty to protect the faith from misinterpretation and false statements. But this cannot be done without knowing what is the correct teaching of the Church. The Bible is the unmovable cornerstone which through the centuries has guided the Christian in learning the will of God. The Fathers of the Church, teachers and prophets, are the instruments by which the will of God is transmitted to the members of the Church so that they might follow the steps which Jesus Christ revealed. How important is the influence of the Church in guiding its people? The answer is in the more than 200 Christian denominations possessing the same Bible, yet who insist that their particular interpretation alone teaches the truth of the Bible. Thus they are divided. Most of them assert that the Bible can be self-taught and requires no outside interpretation while they all claim the same thing, they still are divided.

The Church - from catacombs to cathedrals, from plain teaching to dogma and doctrine, from simple directions to formal administration-follows the steps which have been revealed to it by Almighty God in a coherent continuation of its external and internal teaching of the faith.

The Christian should know and understand these facts in order to participate fully in the activities of the Church and to defend his position with authoritative explanations in times of discussion among friends of other churches. It is imperative for the Christian to know the sources of the teachings especially when he must counteract the propaganda of those who would proselytize members of the Church. This happened in the early Church and in the 17th century, and happens today. In the early Church, when the dogmas and teachings of the Church were not formally developed, there were many members of the church who turned to heretics, gnostics and other groups. Also, from the fourth century on, there appeared laymen, clergymen, even bishops and patriarchs who taught falsely the Christian faith. In the ninth century when the Great Schism began to develop between the Eastern and Western parts of the Church, and especially from the 16th century on, with the rise of Protestantism, these mistaken interpretations became more explicit. Against all these factors, the Church has fought to keep itself intact to defend the truths which had been taught it by its Founder, Jesus Christ and His Apostles, in whom the roots of the Church are to be found.

These circumstances demanded that the Church defend its teachings and set forth the sources with accurate interpretations over the centuries. It is worth stressing that the development of these sources was to counteract the false opinions of Christians themselves; opinions not based on the correct interpretation of the Church itself.

 

[Cavaradossi]

http://cdn.sheknows.com/articles/2013/06/Rebekah/catnip-cat.jpg

Infantile. Were it not for the benefit of others, that they might not be swayed by your errors, I would never bother to respond to you at all.

the “Magisterium of the Dead” - a term I’m using to describe the fact that the real teaching authority in Orthodoxy has to come from the Fathers who, of course, are dead (to this world, anyway).

And I reject your quasi-gnostic conception of death. The soul, though immaterial, is nevertheless by the power of Christ is made ever present to this world, such that the saints never leave us, but constantly show themselves to be alive by making intercession for us, guiding us when we stray, and consoling us in times of sorrow.

Now, why did I write that phrase highlighted in red? Because I anticipated the very nonsense of which I am now falsely accused.

In other words, you knew the impiety of those words, and wished somehow to qualify them. Why utter them at all?

Just check my threads, Cav. A quick search shows that over 40 times I have posted:

“Have you not read in the book of Moses, in the account of the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!” (Mark 12:26-27)

If you spent any time explaining prayer to the saints to Protestants in the Apologetics subforum, you would know this.

What need has this forum of me to argue with Protestants? Your churlish demeanor towards Protestant posters here (many of whom possess a godly sort of patience) often makes me feel like playing devil’s advocate for them, frankly; Although, I refrain, knowing that I should not affirm things which I do not believe and fearing that the intricacies of different schools of thought among those who are lumped together as Protestants (like the disagreements between five point remonstrantism, five point Calvinism, confessional Lutheranism, other types of Calvinism, etc) are lost upon me.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Infantile. Were it not for the benefit of others, that they might not be swayed by your errors, I would never bother to respond to you at all.

Please don’t throw me in the Brier Patch.

But for the benefit of others, Cav, why not respond to post #233?

Is saying, “Catholics have the same problem” REALLY the best you’ve got? Is it even a response at all? Not so much.

If you want to discuss the problems of Catholicism, start a thread. It will be your fifth, I believe, though you deny one. Like the Council of Florence, you didn’t really approve it.

And I reject your quasi-gnostic conception of death. The soul, though immaterial, is nevertheless by the power of Christ is made ever present to this world, such that the saints never leave us, but constantly show themselves to be alive by making intercession for us, guiding us when we stray, and consoling us in times of sorrow.

You state what I believe very well.

In other words, you knew the impiety of those words, and wished somehow to qualify them. Why utter them at all?

1. It was 12:30am and I was tired.
2. More significantly, I had already posted and edited the post once, and my 20-minute time limit was about to expire, so I had to edit quickly. There wasn’t time to compose a theologically sound explanation of the difficulties posed by reliance upon the Fathers who are no longer walking among us in flesh and blood as the only legitimate Magisterium you recognize. So, if it were not for your exuberance to score empty debating points, I think you would have understood what I meant by “the dead”. If not, I don’t actually care because
3. I wasn’t writing to satisfy you. I was responding to someone else.

I coined the term, “Magisterium of the Dead” to describe the reality that in the absence of a connection to the infallibility of the See of Rome, Orthodoxy does not appear to have a living Magisterium with true authority. To your credit, you see the danger of your own heretical past and the fragmentation of Protestants (who have no real authority, either) and have therefore anchored yourselves to the past and you recognize only the authority of the Fathers who are alive in Christ, but not as accessible as one might like.

For this reason, I ask myself from time to time if there is not a whiff of Pharisaism in the air of these threads. The Pharisees, as you may recall, taught not with their own authority but by repeating again and again what they had received from their teachers before them. Sound familiar? Jesus brought for a new teaching and with authority; one would not expect His Church to do any less. (cf. Jn 14:12) But scripture says:

Luke 5:37-39
37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38 No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. 39 And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’”

 

[LionHeart777]

I trust Jesus Christ, too, so I trust the people with the apostolic blessing. Why don’t you trust bishops?

From a Catholic point of view, as you probably know, we believe that one among the Apostles was given a special commission by Jesus and occupies a specific office (the Papacy). And so one among the Bishops, the one who succeeded St. Peter in his unique office (i.e. the Bishop of Rome), is there to strengthen his brother Bishops. From a Catholic point of view, when the Bishops don’t agree, we know to follow the Pope and those Bishops in communion with him. There is an older argument that goes like this:

An excerpt from a letter of John de Fontibus, O.P. to the Abbot and Monks of a Monastery in Constantinople (c. 1350 A.D.):

“However, if one should claim the Roman Pontiff with the entire Latin Church to be heretical, let such a person realize he is making Christ into a liar, for He promised never to let the faith of Peter fail; but in just this way it would have already failed, and thus Christ would have lied and deceived His Church. It follows also that Christ would shepherd His Church imprudently and in an extraordinarily weak fashion; for no one for the rest could know what Church to believe, whose faith to hold. For if the Roman Church, through whom the other churches have always been confirmed and brought back to the faith from which they have fallen, should abandon this faith, how could one believe the other churches who so many times have abandoned the faith? And if that Church is not be believed which has recalled other churches from heresy, how can the judgement of that church which has so many times deserted the faith not be suspect, something that has happened, especially it seems, in the church of Constantinople…”

(Source: Likoudis, James “Ending the Byzantine Greek Schism”, St. Martin de Porres Lay Dominican Community, New Hope KY: 1992. Copy from Catholics United for the Faith Inc. New Rochelle, NY. Pgs. 210-211.) *Entire letter found there.

A similar (if not the same) argument is found in the writings of Theodore Abu Qurrah, a pre-East West schism Syrian Birshop (9th century):

"'You should understand that the head of the Apostles was St. Peter, to whom Christ said, ‘You are the rock; and on this rock I shall build my church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it.’ After his resurrection, he also said to him three times, while on the shore of the sea of Tiberius, ‘Simon, do you love me? Feed my lambs, rams and ewes.’ In another passage, he said to him, ‘Simon, Satan will ask to sift you like wheat, and I prayed that you not lose your faith; but you, at that time, have compassion on your brethren and strengthen them.’ Do you not see that St. Peter is the foundation of the church, selected to shepherd it, that those who believe in his faith will never lose their faith, and that he was ordered to have compassion on his brethren and to strengthen them? As for Christ’s words, ‘I have prayed for you, that you not lose your faith; but you, have compassion on your brethren, at that time, and strengthen them’, we do not think that he meant St. Peter himself. Rather, he meant nothing more than the holders of the seat of St. Peter, that is, Rome. Just as when he said to the apostles, ‘I am with you always, until the end of the age’, he did not mean just the apostles themselves, but also those who would be in charge of their seats and their flocks; in the same way, when he spoke his last words to St. Peter, ‘Have compassion, at that time, and strengthen your brethren; and your faith will not be lost’, he meant by this nothing other than the holders of his seat.

Yet another indication of this is the fact that among the apostles it was St. Peter alone who lost his faith and denied Christ, which Christ may have allowed to happen to Peter so as to teach us that it was not Peter that he meant by these words. Moreover, we know of no apostle who fell and needed St. Peter to strengthen him.** If someone says that Christ meant by these words only St. Peter himself, this person causes the church to lack someone to strengthen it after the death of St. Peter. How could this happen, especially when we see all the sifting of the church that came from Satan after the apostles’ death? All of this indicates that Christ did not mean them by these words. Indeed, everyone knows that the heretics attacked the church only after the death of the apostles – Paul of Samosata, Arius, Macedonius, Eunomius, Sabelllius, Apollinaris, Origen, and others. If he meant by these words in the gospel only St. Peter, the church would have been deprived of comfort and would have had no one to deliver her from those heretics, whose heresies are truly ‘the gates of hell’, which Christ said would not overcome the church. Accordingly, there is no doubt that he meant by these words nothing other than the holders of the seat of St. Peter, who have continually strengthened their brethren and will not cease to do so as long as this present age lasts.**’ (pp. 68-69)" (Emphasis mine)

Source: credo.stormloader.com/Ecumenic/theodore.htm

 

[wynd]

I coined the term, “Magisterium of the Dead” to describe the reality that in the absence of a connection to the infallibility of the See of Rome, Orthodoxy does not appear to have a living Magisterium with true authority.

I like it. Reminds me of Chesterton’s quote on the value of Tradition.

“Tradition means giving a vote to most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.”

 

[Randy_Carson]

I like it. Reminds me of Chesterton’s quote on the value of Tradition.

“Tradition means giving a vote to most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.”

:clapping:

I had forgotten that quote, and I’m glad you reminded us. Perhaps I’m not in such bad company, after all.

 

[GKC]

:clapping:

I had forgotten that quote, and I’m glad you reminded us. Perhaps I’m not in such bad company, after all.

Of course you aren’t.

Though the first sentence in the original reads “giving votes”.

ORTHODOXY, Chap. IV (Ethics of Elfland), p.83.

GKC