G
Ghoti
Guest
It would be hard for me to say…but a salient point would be, do the orthographic rules of modern English regarding capitalization of proper nouns apply to early Christian Greek?
Did Greek even have an upper and lower case then? (I think not.)
As I understand my history: the descriptor “Roman” was foisted on the title “Catholic Church” sometime in England, after the establishment of the CofE, when they claimed the title “Anglo-Catholic” or “English Catholic”, and used “Roman Catholic” as a parallel disambiguation. For the longest time that use of “Roman” was opposed, but it seems that that resistance has been on occasion eroded by what has become convention (especially after Vatican II).
While the title “Roman Catholic” may have some tacit acceptance through said convention, in truth it would, as mentioned before, apply only to the Latin (Roman) Rite; I doubt that the Maronite, Greek, Armenian etc Catholics classify themselves as “Roman”.
As for the Orthodox: at the time of the ECFs, there was no divide between East and West. There was only the Catholic – i.e. “Universal” – Church; I believe this is the belief held by the Orthodox as well. (What differs is whether that Church subsists now in that Church “subject to the Roman Pontiff” or in “Holy Orthodoxy”.)
In its early struggles against heresy – i.e. heterodoxy, “wrong-thinking” – the triumph of the universal – i.e. catholic – Church was the triumph of orthodoxy (i.e. “right-thinking”). That the Orthodox Churches adopted that adjective as part of their name – Orthodox Catholic (“right-thinking universal”) Church – seems to me to be an emphasis, to distinguish themselves after the fact from other Churches that claim to be catholic (I imagine specifically Rome and the non-Chalcedonian Churches); it does not in and of itself either void or validate its claim to either Orthodoxy or Catholicism. The argument that the title somehow proves the church would be negated by, say, the Church of Christ, a Protestant denomination. Also, note that the Catholics and Orthodox omit the credal “Apostolic” from their title(s), which gives some ground then to the Armenians, who include it.
The Catholic Church – or Roman Catholic, if you must – could change its name tomorrow to “The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of Real Chalcedo-Tridentine Orthodoxy and Petrine Primacy, So There ™”, and that would not affect whether or not she is the “True Church”. And David “My Mom says I’m Pope!” Bawden can call himself “His Holiness Pope Michael I, Pont. Max.” but that does not give him the Shoes of the Fisherman.
Any argument that Catholicism subsists wholly only in Rome, or Othodoxy outside of it, must come from arguments about the nature, history, and doctrines of the Churches themselves, not on something as flimsy as what name is used, else we fall into the trap that the Jehovah’s Witnesses have dug.