Orthodoxy, Papacy

[prodromos]

In light of the Vincentian canon, it says a lot.

What we see here are marginal elements who are using it, as we know the church of Seleucia-Ctesiphon (the later Church of the East/Nestorian) was completely independent of the rest of the church, across the border in Persia, and they did not keep the filioque (if that is what it was) for any length of time but dropped it on their own.

I would like to see the wording to see just what exactly they did say which is called a filioque, since they were not using English, a literal translation into Greek and then English might look a bit different than a dynamic translation into Latin and then English (which may be what we are dealing with).

From what I can recall it said the Holy Spirit is from the Son. It did not say the Holy Spirit “proceeds” from the Son, so it is not, as some would have us believe, an early examply of the “filioque”

John

 

[Ferde_Rombola]

There was never a disagreement in teachings.

Well as a matter of fact at the most recent pre-conciliar conference preparing for the upcoming Great and Holy Council this very subject was addressed. The Mother Church’s Synod will make the decision on potential autocephaly and forward a favorable decision to the Ecumenical Patriarch. The EP will then notify and seek the consensus of the other Autocephalous Churches. If there is consensus the EP will issue a Tomos of Autocephaly signed by the other Autocephalous Churches.

I’ll be on the edge of my seat for that one. Will there be a website available to follow the proceedings? If so, would you post it? Thanks.

 

[prodromos]

Unless of course, you are Macedonian Orthodox.

The so called “Macedonian Orthodox” are the creation of a Communist state to help in creating a national ‘ethnic’ conciousness where one never existed before. They did the same with their language, artificially changing spelling and grammar so they could claim as a seperate language what was merely a Serbian/Bulgarian dialect. They have been fed for decades the propaganda that they are descended from the people of Alexander the Great. Some of them could be because many Greek Communists fled to Yugoslavia after losing the civil war in Greece and settled in the region which is now claiming to be the Republic of Macedonia. Most of them however are of Serbian or Bulgarian descent, apart from the numerous Albanians, but they don’t claim to be ‘ethnic’ Macedonians.

John

 

[Ferde_Rombola]

From what I can recall it said the Holy Spirit is from the Son. It did not say the Holy Spirit “proceeds” from the Son, so it is not, as some would have us believe, an early examply of the “filioque”

“It is useful to note that a regional council in Persia in 410 introduced one of the earliest forms of the filioque in the Creed; the council specified that the Spirit proceeds from the Father “and from the Son.” Coming from the rich theology of early East Syrian Christianity, this expression in this context is authentically Eastern. Therefore, the filioque cannot be attacked as a solely Western innovation, nor as something created by the Pope.”

                                            Orthodox Wiki

That appears at the beginning of the site’s history of the controversy. Its conclusion is, of course, in line with yours, but it does say clearly the doctrine arose in the East and is, therefore, an Eastern idea,

Further, there is much support for the authenticity of the doctrine from the Eastern Fathers, which the Orthodox prefer to ignore. Bishop Kallistas Ware, who wrote against the filioque many years ago, has recanted his former position and now teaches that this controversy is far less important than it’s made to be and is not sufficient to keep our Churches separated.

There are other things that separate us, of course, but this one should be eliminated.

 

[Nine_Two]

That appears at the beginning of the site’s history of the controversy. Its conclusion is, of course, in line with yours, but it does say clearly the doctrine arose in the East and is, therefore, an Eastern idea,

That does not mean it should be accepted. Christianity itself and almost every doctrine, both heretical and Orthodox out there originated in the East in the First Millennium, with the possible exceptions of Pelagianism and Ultramontanism.

 

[Ferde_Rombola]

That [the filioque arose in the East] does not mean it should be accepted. Christianity itself and almost every doctrine, both heretical and Orthodox out there originated in the East in the First Millennium, with the possible exceptions of Pelagianism and Ultramontanism.

Of course. That’s a given. The point is, it’s not the Western invention you claim it is

As to whether it should be accepted, what do the passages “Anyone who has seen the Father, has seen me.”; “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” and “The Father and I are One.” mean to you?

This is a theological matter which deserves far, FAR more importance than I’ve seen it given by any Orthodox layman and most Orthodox clergy on this or any site. All you guys seem to want to do is point fingers, score points and make accusations. Let’s bring Scripture into the game and have a serious discussion.

 

[oneGODoneCHURCH]

Outside of the Gospels, but still in scripture look to the book of Acts. the frist 6 chapters clearly show that Peter was the leader and final word. Look real close at chapter 5. It was before Peter that Ananias and Saphira were brought, not before the 12 as a whole. Paul say after his conversion. we must go to Jerusalem and see Peter and the 11( not jsut go see the 12). It would also be wrong though to look Peter and the papucy as an authcratic supreme ruler. It is Just the last word. The leader of the leaders.

 

[Joseph_L_Varga]

And what does that prove? All over Chicagoland Catholics are passing by other Catholic parishes to reach the SSPX chapel, and sometimes these types are the first ‘Catholics’ an inquirer will come to know…

Little anecdotal stories like this are not helpful at all.

OK, after reading your post and other posters’ comments who insist that ROCOR is a fringe group, not representative of worldwide Orthodoxy, I finally get your point. I was truly under the impression that Russian people, as a whole, reject the New Calendar and anyone who follows the New Calendar. But now, thinking more about it, I realize that I met only a handful of Russian people and they attended ROCOR. Thus the question remains to be answered, would the tens of millions of other Russian people affiliated with the MP, and would the Russian priests of the MP reject the New Calendar EO Churches, as fallen away from true Orthodoxy? I realize now that I don’t know the answer, because I haven’t met enough Russian people, and haven’t attended the MP’s churches.

I found this article, it describes very accurately my own traumatic experience with ROCOR:

schmemann.org/byhim/sorrowfulepistle.html

Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann
On The ‘Sorrowful Epistle’ of Metropolitan Philaret
Fr. Alexander Schmemann Expresses Some Thoughts on —

The ‘Sorrowful Epistle’ of Metropolitan Philaret

The “Sorrowful Epistle” addressed by “Humble Philaret, Metropolitan of the Russian Church Outside Russia” to “Their Holinesses and Their Beatitudes, the Primates of the Holy Orthodox Churches, the Most Reverend Metropolitans, Archbishops and Bishops” is the last and probably the most important document in the long series of statements emanating from the “Russian Church Outside Russia,” and which, in the last years, tried to arouse the Orthodox opinion by affirming:

— that the Orthodox Church is falling prey to the “heresy of Ecumenism,” and

— that this “heresy” is spread within the Church, primarily by the Patriarch of Constantinople Athenagoras I and his Exarch in America, Archbishop Iakovos.

More specifically, the “Sorrowful Epistle” claims that by signing, or at least by not objecting to, the decisions of last year’s Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Uppsala, its Orthodox participants have betrayed the original and somewhat more acceptable basis for the Orthodox participation in the ecumenical movement.

Grave Accusations

These, as one can see, are very grave accusations. The entire Orthodox Church is implied since virtually all autocephalous Churches were represented in Uppsala, sometimes by their highest hierarchs. Patriarch Gherman of Serbia was even elected to the presidency of the WCC. These accusations, moreover, create a malaise among the Orthodox and threaten the very unity of the Church. They must be taken seriously and discussed at the highest possible level.
…

continued…

 

[Joseph_L_Varga]

…continued

Schism in the Making

One may ask, to which “brothers,” to which “Primates” is the “Sorrowful Epistle” addressed? The hierarchs of the Churches behind the Iron Curtain being disqualified as canonical bishops on political grounds; Constantinople as being already condemned; who remains? The Bishops of the Church of Serbia, whose Patriarch, by accepting the presidency of the WCC, is presumably guilty of some heresy? The Church of Greece, where the Church of Metropolitan Philaret openly supports the Old-Calendarists? The Church of Finland which not only has accepted the new calendar but even celebrates Easter according to the Western computation? The Patriarchs of Jerusalem, Antioch and Alexandria who are in communion with both Constantinople and Moscow? Once more, the “Russian Church Outside Russia” may be right or wrong in her doctrinal stand — this is for the entire Church to decide — but on purely canonical grounds and of her own volition , she is in schism with the totality of the Orthodox Episcopate and her appeal to it as “brothers” is, to say the least, illogical and meaningless. One cannot at the same time be in and out. One cannot claim the right to judge the entire Church and at the same time appeal to her. One cannot pretend to uphold the canons and at the same time deny canonical protection to those whom she has already condemned.

All this constitutes exactly the essence of a schism . A schismatic group claims at first to be right against the particular Church from which it secedes, be it on doctrinal or disciplinary grounds. At this stage, it may be right or wrong — the decision ultimately belonging to the Church universal. The irreparable step, however, is taken when this group does not recognize the decision of the Church as binding it, either by not waiting for that decision or by rejecting it once it is reached. The Donatists in Africa appealed to the brother-bishops in Italy and Gaul, but when the decision did not support them, they proclaimed the whole Church to be wrong and themselves to be right. At this moment, the schism inevitably becomes “heresy” because of the denial of the action of the Holy Spirit in the Church. The logic of the schism is always the same, for it is always rooted in absolute self-righteousness — and it is indeed very instructive to follow the development of that schismatic mentality within the “Russian Church Outside Russia.”
…
the “Church Outside of Russia” took a paradoxical stand: while, on the one hand claiming to belong to the Church Universal, she, on the other, openly claims to have remained the “only true church,” and on the basis of their “apostasy” denies all other Churches the right to judge and to examine her own position. Her reasons? If it is not the recognition of Moscow, it is Ecumenism; if it is not Ecumenism, it is the calendar; it is not the calendar, it is the refusal to rebaptize the heterodox; and finally if it is not all this, it is “lukewarm piety.”

Open Questions

Whether one wants to or not, there exist in the Orthodox Church several open questions on which the consensus of the Church has not been reached. A theologian, a bishop, even a local Church, may adopt or defend a particular answer to any of them, but they cannot claim that theirs is already the answer of the Church in her totality. Thus, for example, the leaders of the “Russian Church Outside of Russia” know perfectly well that the Russian Church, whose tradition they claim to maintain, for the last three hundred years did not rebaptize the heterodox whose baptism in the name of the Holy Trinity she could ascertain, and that texts for the three different rites for accepting the heterodox into the Church were approved and printed by the Holy Synod. This practice may have been wrong, for there existed other practices based on different theological presuppositions. The question, therefore, may be reopened and the consensus of the whole Church sought. But the “Church Outside of Russia,” changing the practice of the Russian Church, simply proclaims this to be the only possible practice and all those not accepting it, heretics. There is no consensus on Ecumenism, or on the calendar in the Orthodox Church, but so far, the divergence of views and practices, within a wider unity of Faith, was not considered as an obstacle to full communion, and above everything else, to a truly “Catholic” search for consensus.

 

[josephdaniel29]

OK, after reading your post and other posters’ comments who insist that ROCOR is a fringe group, not representative of worldwide Orthodoxy, I finally get your point. I was truly under the impression that Russian people, as a whole, reject the New Calendar and anyone who follows the New Calendar. But now, thinking more about it, I realize that I met only a handful of Russian people and they attended ROCOR. Thus the question remains to be answered, would the tens of millions of other Russian people affiliated with the MP, and would the Russian priests of the MP reject the New Calendar EO Churches, as fallen away from true Orthodoxy? I realize now that I don’t know the answer, because I haven’t met enough Russian people, and haven’t attended the MP’s churches.

The Russian Orthodox Church uses the Old Calendar and is in communion with all the New Calendar jurisdictions. You have to understand the historical circumstances that led to the formation of ROCOR. After the Bolshevik Revolution the Russian Church was under maybe the worst persecution in the history of Christendom. It became practically impossible for the Patriarchate to govern the Church within it’s own borders much less it’s overseas exarchates. As a result St Tikhon issued a directive that Russian jurisdictions outside of Russia were to be self governing until such time formal communication could be reestablished.

In the decades following that directive the Soviet government infiltrated what remained of the Russian Church which eventually led to schism and the formation of a church loyal to the Soviet Government, the so called “Living Church.”

What became ROCOR in particular saw itself as the continuation of the true Russian Orthodox Church in opposition to the Soviet influenced Church inside Russian. That is the explanation for some of the more isolationist tendencies within ROCOR. They were trying to protect themselves from Soviet influence and maintain the Faith so they could someday return it to Russia. That also explains the former animosity between ROCOR and the OCA. They felt that the OCA’s autocephaly was granted by a Soviet controlled Church and because of that it was illegitimate.

The good news is that on May 17 2007, by the Grace of God, the schism between the Russian Orthodox Church and ROCOR was formally healed. With the signing of the Act of Canonical Communion full communion was reestablished between ROCOR and the Moscow Patriarchate and between ROCOR and the rest of the Orthodox Church, including the OCA.

In Christ
Joe

 

[Contarini]

Edwin, I’m not a silly man

I have no way of knowing that and no business making such a judgment. You may be an extremely wise person on the whole. However, you have quite consistently made silly arguments in my limited acquaintance with you online. If you don’t want to give the impression of being silly, perhaps you should listen to the chorus of posters (not just me) who point out that this particular argument is silly.

This is not an argument about names

Sure it is. You have an amazing confidence in the power of your mere word to change reality. You argue about a name for post after post, and then solemnly declare, “This isn’t about names.”

The argument is in the implication of the name ‘Catholic Church,’

Exactly. It’s an argument about names

its longevity as the ‘Catholic Church’

Oh, continuity is certainly a point in your favor. The fact that you call yourselves the Catholic Church (or that other people do so by courtesy) isn’t impressive, but the fact that you stand in clear continuity with a body calling itself the Catholic Church going back to the very beginning of the Church (insofar as we can discern such things), is very impressive indeed.

The three Eastern Communions have equally impressive degrees of continuity, however, and the fact that none of these bodies is commonly known as “the Catholic Church” is utterly irrelevant.

and the absence of any other Church, by any name, descended from Pentecost.

But there is no such “absence.” The three Eastern Communions are also “descended from Pentecost” in as direct a line as you guys are. Most Catholics I know admit this by referring to the “Apostolic churches.” Your argument to the contrary seems to be based primarily on your use of the name “Catholic Church”–and then you have the cheek to claim that this isn’t an argument about names!

Such have identified the Catholic Church as the Church the Lord came to build, for over 1500 years.

But in many ways the Eastern Churches have *more *continuity than you guys do.

I don’t agree I have to prove the Catholic Church is the same in doctrine and practice as the early Church.

It depends on the case you want to make. You have gratuitously put yourself in a position where yes, you have to do that, because you have made unnecessarily triumphalistic claims.

Of course you don’t need to make such a case in order to make a good argument for being Catholic as opposed to Orthodox.

There is very little the same today as it was in the first century and it’s silly to expect anything to be the same.

Indeed. I’m glad to hear you admit this.

You know enough to understand the Catholic Church doesn’t define doctrine unless and until it’s challenged.

Indeed–which is an argument in favor of the Orthodox being the true “Catholic Church” rather than your Communion. They maintain this principle while you have abandoned it. The Immaculate Conception was defined as a dogma not because it was being challenged (it had been common pious opinion for centuries), but as an endorsement of popular piety (as far as I can tell). Similarly with the Assumption.

Just because a doctrine wasn’t defined for eight hundred years doesn’t mean it wasn’t doctrine in the early Church

True, although if it does mean that if you later decide you don’t believe in the undefined doctrine, you can deny that it was ever a “doctrine.” So just what counts as “doctrine” is highly slippery until there’s a formal definition. Certainly the lack of definition doesn’t mean that the teaching wasn’t commonly believed–no disagreement there.

Gracious? I’d say disingenuous. You’re trying to sell the idea the name ‘The Catholic Church’ is insignificant and when you use it to identify the world’s oldest manifestation of the Christian faith, you call it courtesy??

Certainly. I refer to the “Restorationist” congregation up the road from my house as “Central Christian Church,” even though I don’t agree with the theological basis on which the “Christian churches” use that name–i.e., the claim that they have restored the simple Christianity of the New Testament, while other Christians are Christians plus various human traditions. I disagree with that claim a lot more thoroughly and with a lot more certainty than I disagree with the claim of your Church–but I generally call people what they want to be called unless it causes confusion.

I have repeatedly refused to use the phrase “Catholic Church” on this forum when I thought it might cause confusion. But it’s a convenient term and I commonly use it in non-controversial contexts, so sometimes I slip up.

 

[josie_L]

But it had been accepted without formal definition before that.

Yes, but because it was not ecumenically determined the subject of what was biblical canon was still debatable (in universities and such), until Trent.

We have records of major Catholic entities, such as the Sorbonne publicly contradicting the idea of Papal infallibility without the Church trying to take any actions to censure them.

The “Western Schism” weakened no doubt the prestige of the papacy (as the present scandals would seem to undermine the CC’s moral authority), but any opposition towards papal primacy/infallibility was never more espoused then after the Reformation (by hostile Protestants and Gallicanism). Moreove, the council of Florence reaffirmed papal primacy (amongst Latins and Greeks), i.e…, “the Roman Pontiff was the foremost ecclesiastical authority in Christendom”.

 

[josie_L]

First of all, no matter how I answer, you’ll have a way out of it. If I say that Peter was wrong at the Council of Jerusalem you’ll say, “yeah, but he wasn’t teaching infallibly! He was in fact-finding mode!” or something like that. Just like with Honorius. Honorius sent his papal legate, Gaios, to the Cyprus Synod in 634 with a pro-monothelite agenda. There was a whole entourage of anti-monothelite bishops and legates present as well arguing against Honorius’s legate, Gaios. You might think he ‘never taught in an official capacity as pope the heresy of monothelitism,’ but many would say that sending a legate with the agenda of furthering a heresy as official doctrine is just as bad, right? And the emperor went with Honorius’s recommendations, right? He did a lot more than just privately endorse the heresy, he put it in writing and even sent a legate to argue in favor of it.

Where did you get the idea that Honorius sent Gaios with a pro-Monothelite agenda when Honorius in response to Sergius’s letter (in 634) neither denounced nor promoted “one operation”?

 

[Contarini]

I guess adding a generally accepted doctrine is changing the creed, but I don’t see it as the sin you and the Orthodox laity do in spite of the prejudicial anathama. BIshop Kallistas Ware, an Orthodox bishop, agrees with me.

You will need to provide evidence for that claim. If you’re talking about this citation, note that he is only talking about the question of the theological truth of the Filioque, not about the change to the Creed.

Also note that I’m not arguing (as the Orthodox traditionally argued) that change to the Creed of 1 Constantinople is automatically wrong. I think that given the time now elapsed, no such change is likely to be appropriate. But if there had been a proper consultation and consensus that the Creed should be changed–if there had been an Ecumenical Council that endorsed the Filioque–then I’d have no problem with it. (And in the highly unlikely event that such a Council should occur in the future, I’d be fine with it unless there were obvious reasons for distrusting the Council, as there are for distrusting Lyons and Florence.) What is so obviously wrong about the change in the Creed is that it was done not only without consulting the Eastern Churches, but against the decision of a previous Pope who had endorsed the unaltered version precisely because of the opposition of the Eastern Churches. Furthermore, the change coincided with the development of a new way of understanding and implementing papal authority, and with the beginning of a set of developments which led to Western Christianity becoming markedly different from the East and from its own earlier traditions in liturgy, theology, and popular devotion alike. In other words, to someone looking at the historical record to figure out which of your rival Communions has the best claim to continuity, it looks very much as if your Communion has some serious discontinuities, and as if the addition of the Filioque to the Creed at Rome played a significant role in the break in continuity with the early Church and with the Eastern Churches.

Hahafunny. It puts to bed the notion the filioque is a Catholic invention.

See–you are using the word “Catholic” in a convenient, non-theological manner (something you scoffed at me for claiming to do)–in this case to mean “the Western Church.” Surely you don’t mean to say that the filioque originated outside the Catholic Church in what both of us would consider the strict and proper sense. You mean that it wasn’t invented by Western Christians.

Yes, there’s no question the Catholic Church added the filioque to the Nicene Creed. There never was, so I don’t get the chest pounding you’re doing here

I’m saying that there are very good reasons to think that Rome was wrong to add it. I don’t know what “chest-pounding” you think I’m doing.

especially since the doctrine was not only generally accepted, it can be found in Scripture. Ask me where and it’s 20 points off.

I certainly know passages of Scripture that Western Christians have traditionally cited as supporting the Filioque

Really? Isn’t the Nicene Creed an addition to the Apostles’ Creed?

Not really. The core of the Nicene Creed (particularly as emended at Constantinople) is the baptismal profession of faith, and that profession of faith goes back very early (maybe actually to the apostles, though I’m sure many scholars would scoff at me for suggesting that!). But it’s worded in different ways in different sources. The precise form of words that we now call the “Apostles’ Creed” is first found in about the sixth century, I believe.

Now THAT’s silly! The Creeds are affirmative enumerations of orthodox Christian doctrine. As such, they should be exhaustive to the extent possible.

Oh really? So tell me why the Creeds don’t mention the Eucharist? Surely we both agree that the Eucharist is a central doctrine of the Christian Faith?

I’ll tell you why I think they don’t–though I’ve never heard it explained quite this way, and I may be wrong. As I said above, it’s generally agreed that the Apostles’ Creed is a late version of the ancient baptismal profession of faith. In the early Church, unbaptized people weren’t taught about the Eucharist. So when they were “entrusted” with the Creed during Lent, shortly before baptism, they still weren’t considered ready to know about the Eucharist. Yes, it seems odd that you’d only teach them what the Eucharist was after they had received it, but that seems to have been the practice. Eucharistic theology was explained in the “mystagogy” that followed baptism. So the baptismal creeds (eventually crystallized at Rome into the “Apostles’ Creed”) weren’t intended to be exhaustive doctrinal formulas–they were summaries of what a catechumen would have been taught *up to that point. *The central mystery of Christian worship isn’t there, not because it was unimportant, but because it was too sacred.

The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed simply added teaching on the controversial question of the divinity of Christ (and at Constantinople of the Holy Spirit) to the basic framework of the baptismal profession. Again, there was clearly no intent of framing an exhaustive statement of faith. If nothing else, the continued omission of the Eucharist proves that.

 

[Contarini]

The only way they condemn error is by omission.

Not in the original Nicene Creed, which anathematized Arianism. But Constantinople was wise to take those anathemas out. Error is indeed condemned best by the affirmation of the truth. The point is that (as you yourself said earlier), the Church defines doctrine in this way only in opposition to error. Normally, the truth is expressed through worship, through theological speculation, through works of charity, through all the many acts by which the Church lives.

The fact that you deny the apophatic nature of dogma is yet another piece of evidence that the Catholicism *you *believe and profess is quite different from the Catholicism of the early Church. Over and over you yourself unwittingly demonstrate the fact that the Orthodox have a stronger claim of continuity in so many areas. No wonder that you flee to absurd arguments about names and to obsessive prooftexting of a few passages from the Gospels.

Are you suggesting, as a wild flight of fancy, if the Orthodox and the Catholics agreed a fundamental point of doctrine has been omitted from either Creed, it should not be added?

It’s not a wild flight of fancy. It’s obvious fact. The Eucharist isn’t there.

What the Orthodox do is their own business.

Indeed. But it’s my business as an Anglican convinced that Anglicanism on its own cannot stand to discern which of your “businesses” is more like the “business” of the early Church. And this is one of a number of points where it seems to me that the Orthodox clearly have the advantage.

I don’t must do what you demand I must do. The filioque is found in the Anathasian Creed and the evidence is it predated the Council.

What evidence? Even the Catholic Encyclopedia admits that it dates from the later fourth century at the earliest and is almost certainly not by Athanasius. The view I’ve heard more often (and find more convincing) is that is probably at least a century later than the CE suggests, and that it shows the influence of Augustine.

It was probably an oversight, but I can’t prove that.

Not only can’t you prove it, but you haven’t given any reason why one should entertain such a speculation.

To justify your denial, you must disprove all the evidence provided to you.

So far, I’ve only had any work to do in this regard because I’ve taken on the burden of doing your research for you–a bad habit all around. You’ve made an unsubstantiated claim about the Council of Mar Ishaq, which I have shown to be most likely erroneous (since the later and presumptively more reliable edition of the acts of this Council uses the original “Creed of the 318 Fathers”). And you have followed this up with a vague and uninformed claim about the Athanasian Creed.

Not that I’m accountable to them, but absenting specifics, it’s absurd to ask me if I agree with these friends of mine who I’ve never met and whose opinions about subjects unknown to me I’m not aware of.

Fair enough–it’s just rather frustrating that one Catholic will take one approach which is convenient in one context, and another will take another quite different one which is equally convenient in a different context. Can you see why I’d like to know if you guys honestly disagree with each other, or if you have all fallen into the bad habit of just using whatever approach is convenient without regard for consistency?

Your claim does two things: it makes a theological presumption which is clearly above your pay grade

No, it doesn’t. It’s odd that you would say this, since most Catholic apologists seem to rely primarily on historical arguments about authenticity to make their case. If I, as a trained church historian, can’t possibly tell from history what the true Church is, then how exactly do you expect to go about persuading people?

Oh right–they’re supposed to be convinced by your prooftexting of Matt. 16. The fundamentalists are right in their methodology and wrong in their conclusions.

and it puts a crimp in your and the Orthodox concept of an almighty, all powerful, dictatorial, ham-fisted papacy whose every sneeze is Law.

Hardly, since even by later standards Leo III’s decision wouldn’t count as infallible. And if Brian Tierney is right, originally papal infallibility was conceived of as a limit on papal authority, precisely because it would prevent popes from overturning the decrees of other Popes. (I think Tierney is probably right about the late medieval situation, but is rather cavalier in some of his assumptions and insinuations about earlier views of the Church and the Papacy.) In other words, in the eleventh-century context papal absolutism was expressed precisely through the Pope’s ability to overturn even the decisions of his predecessors. In the 19th century, when authority was seen in more epistemological terms, papal infallibility appeared in a very different light.

Edwin

 

[josie_L]

It’s not a wild flight of fancy. It’s obvious fact. The Eucharist isn’t there.
Indeed. But it’s my business as an Anglican convinced that Anglicanism on its own cannot stand to discern which of your “businesses” is more like the “business” of the early Church. And this is one of a number of points where it seems to me that the Orthodox clearly have the advantage.

Edwin

Edwin, I’m curious about something, do you still believe that women should be allowed to be priests, and if so, how does this stand in light of your search for what the early Church stood for and/or how it functioned, i.e., all this debate on your part about Orthodoxy and Catholicism seems superfluous if you hold to beliefs that neither Church holds?

 

[prodromos]

"It is useful to note that a regional council in Persia in 410 introduced one of the earliest forms of the filioque in the Creed; the council specified that the Spirit proceeds from the Father “and from the Son.”

This is not how I have seen it translated. There was no verb in the statement so to translate with “proceeds” is an obvious interpolation.

John

 

[josie_L]

Oh right–they’re supposed to be convinced by your prooftexting of Matt. 16. The fundamentalists are right in their methodology and wrong in their conclusions.

Edwin

How should Matthew 16:18 be interpreted (literally/historically), i.e., is Jesus not making it clear that Peter is the rock?

 

[Nicea325]

This is not how I have seen it translated. There was no verb in the statement so to translate with “proceeds” is an obvious interpolation.

John

Interpolation? Sorry,but what many Orthodoxs fail to comprehend is that the church had and has the authority to make changes when deemed necessary. The Creed was changed in 381 A.D. from the original in 325 A.D. Is that an interpolation? Do heretics ring a bell? The Western Church made changes due to heretical challenges,not because it wanted to be distinct from its eastern faithful.

 

[Contarini]

Edwin, I’m curious about something, do you still believe that women should be allowed to be priests, and if so, how does this stand in light of your search for what the early Church stood for and/or how it functioned, i.e., all this debate on your part about Orthodoxy and Catholicism seems superfluous if you hold to beliefs that neither Church holds?

Josie,

I’ve made the point elsewhere, so I’ll be brief.

The basic theological teachings of the early Church seem to me to imply that women should be ordained once one abandons the view that females are imperfect males.

But of course I could be wrong.

My belief in women’s ordination–and more practically, my wife’s unwillingness to consider joining a church that doesn’t ordain women, and both of our unwillingness to be Eucharistically separated–is certainly one factor in my continuing to be Episcopalian. Otherwise I’d be more likely to close my eyes and jump one way or the other.

However, at the end of the day, since I am a fallible layman no matter whether you or the Orthodox are right, I am willing to submit to the judgment of the Church. So it’s not a decisive consideration.

Edwin