Question:Why be Catholic and not Eastern Orthodox?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Wesley7
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
W

Wesley7

Guest
Why be Catholic and not Eastern Orthodox?

Can experienced Catholics give some ideas and (name removed by moderator)uts ? . .
 
Thanks for the linkz but I’m eager know and read stuff typed in their own words from different individuals.
 
because the Catholic church did not split from the Orthodox . The Orthodox split from the Pope and Magisterium 10 centuries later . I have not looked too deeply into the differences tho the top ones certainly drew my attention .
Why do you ask ? Want to tell us if you feel Orthodox is the way to go and why ? thanks for the thread , hope your day is sweet and filled with Jesus hand on your shoulder .
 
Wesley7 said:
Why be Catholic and not Eastern Orthodox?

Can experienced Catholics give some ideas and (name removed by moderator)uts ? . .
Click to expand...
Haven’t there been a lot of threads on this recently?

Have you read them?
 
It boils down to whether or not you believe the Papacy is a Divinely instituted office created by Christ Himself to Shepherd His flock, along with the Bishops in union with him.
 
Deb_H said:
because the Catholic church did not split from the Orthodox . The Orthodox split from the Pope and Magisterium 10 centuries later
Click to expand...
This doesn’t make a lot of sense. Perhaps you could share the criteria that you use for deciding who split with whom.

So, for instance, in the case of Protestantism, it’s easy to say that the Protestants split from the Catholics and not the other way round (though I know a lot of Protestants, especially Lutherans and sometimes also Anglicans, who do try to argue the other way round!), because the Protestants clearly and explicitly broke with things they had previously believed. That wasn’t the case with the Orthodox.

Yes, they broke with Rome, and that’s certainly a point in your favor.
But on the other hand, Rome broke with previous beliefs and practices–most notably through adding the Filioque to the Creed, and through the Pope claiming a kind of authority he had not previously claimed.

Which of these is more decisive? It depends on your priorities.

Subsequent events seem to show that both “breaks” have had negative consequences. The Orthodox have arguably suffered in certain respects from a lack of the charism that appears to attach to Rome. But on the Western side, what seemed like small breaks with tradition in the 11th century have become bigger and bigger as time has gone on. The legalistic approach to theology characteristic of the West has run rampant, changing Atonement theology, sacramental belief and practice, penitential theology and pastoral practice, and of course ecclesiology, particularly with the definition of papal infallibility.

So it seems to me that by and large the Orthodox have the better of it. They appear to have maintained the same faith professed by the early Church much better than you guys, but under certain disadvantages (in terms of ability to resolve ecclesiastical squabbles and to resist the pretensions of the State) that point toward the likelihood that there really is a special Petrine charism given to Rome and that this departed from the Orthodox Church at the schism.

Olivier Clement’s You Are Peter seems to me to hit all the relevant nails on the head. I read it quickly some years ago and thought it was interesting but rather frustrating. I don’t know what has changed in me since, but I reread it the other day and thought it was exactly right!

Edwin
 
jam070406 said:
It boils down to whether or not you believe the Papacy is a Divinely instituted office created by Christ Himself to Shepherd His flock, along with the Bishops in union with him.
Click to expand...
This isn’t a question that can be decided a priori, in isolation from all other factors.

Lacking the personal charism of infallibility, or better yet direct contact with the mind of God, we have to look at the historical fruit of each position. There are certainly good reasons for thinking that the Papacy is divinely instituted. But there are also excellent reasons for thinking that Western Christianity has erred in some significant ways in the past millennium. It is very convenient for your case to insist that we should just dismiss all of these considerations if we think there are good reasons for believing the Papacy to be divinely instituted. But I do not think that this approach is the right one. Perhaps I am wrong in thinking the Papacy divinely instituted–I am, after all, personally fallible, whatever may be true of the Pope:p. Or perhaps the Papacy may be divinely instituted without having received the charism of infallibility. Perhaps the Church suffers as long as Rome is not fully in union with Her.

This is of course repugnant to your ecclesiology, but that’s not a decisive factor until I (or the OP) decide to accept your ecclesiology:p More to the point, many (perhaps most) of the Orthodox reject this possibility, insisting that they have all that is needed to be the Catholic Church without Rome.

Olivier Clement seems to hold this possibility, and he is apparently an Orthodox theologian in good standing, though I’m sure many Orthodox think he’s a heretic!

Edwin
 
Contarini said:
This doesn’t make a lot of sense. Perhaps you could share the criteria that you use for deciding who split with whom.

So, for instance, in the case of Protestantism, it’s easy to say that the Protestants split from the Catholics and not the other way round (though I know a lot of Protestants, especially Lutherans and sometimes also Anglicans, who do try to argue the other way round!), because the Protestants clearly and explicitly broke with things they had previously believed. That wasn’t the case with the Orthodox.

Yes, they broke with Rome, and that’s certainly a point in your favor.
But on the other hand, Rome broke with previous beliefs and practices–most notably through adding the Filioque to the Creed, and through the Pope claiming a kind of authority he had not previously claimed.

Which of these is more decisive? It depends on your priorities.

Subsequent events seem to show that both “breaks” have had negative consequences. The Orthodox have arguably suffered in certain respects from a lack of the charism that appears to attach to Rome. But on the Western side, what seemed like small breaks with tradition in the 11th century have become bigger and bigger as time has gone on. The legalistic approach to theology characteristic of the West has run rampant, changing Atonement theology, sacramental belief and practice, penitential theology and pastoral practice, and of course ecclesiology, particularly with the definition of papal infallibility.

So it seems to me that by and large the Orthodox have the better of it. They appear to have maintained the same faith professed by the early Church much better than you guys, but under certain disadvantages (in terms of ability to resolve ecclesiastical squabbles and to resist the pretensions of the State) that point toward the likelihood that there really is a special Petrine charism given to Rome and that this departed from the Orthodox Church at the schism.

Olivier Clement’s You Are Peter seems to me to hit all the relevant nails on the head. I read it quickly some years ago and thought it was interesting but rather frustrating. I don’t know what has changed in me since, but I reread it the other day and thought it was exactly right!

Edwin
Click to expand...
Why are those that defend Orthodoxy so quick to glaze over the many attempts at power grabs from Constantinople (which managed to leap frog over the other ancient Sees), yet so quick to condemn the Holy Apostolic See of Rome which many Fathers have stated gets it’s authority by Divine appoinment as the See of Peter, the blessed leader of the Apostles?
 
Contarini said:
This isn’t a question that can be decided a priori, in isolation from all other factors.

Lacking the personal charism of infallibility, or better yet direct contact with the mind of God, we have to look at the historical fruit of each position. There are certainly good reasons for thinking that the Papacy is divinely instituted. But there are also excellent reasons for thinking that Western Christianity has erred in some significant ways in the past millennium. It is very convenient for your case to insist that we should just dismiss all of these considerations if we think there are good reasons for believing the Papacy to be divinely instituted. But I do not think that this approach is the right one. Perhaps I am wrong in thinking the Papacy divinely instituted–I am, after all, personally fallible, whatever may be true of the Pope:p. Or perhaps the Papacy may be divinely instituted without having received the charism of infallibility. Perhaps the Church suffers as long as Rome is not fully in union with Her.

This is of course repugnant to your ecclesiology, but that’s not a decisive factor until I (or the OP) decide to accept your ecclesiology:p More to the point, many (perhaps most) of the Orthodox reject this possibility, insisting that they have all that is needed to be the Catholic Church without Rome.

Olivier Clement seems to hold this possibility, and he is apparently an Orthodox theologian in good standing, though I’m sure many Orthodox think he’s a heretic!

Edwin
Click to expand...
Or you could pray for that gift of grace.

If the Papacy was Divinely institued by Christ then He expects our obedience. Lack of obedience (rejection) to Christ’s appointed leaders becomes lack of obedience to Him.
 
Contarini said:
This isn’t a question that can be decided a priori, in isolation from all other factors.

Lacking the personal charism of infallibility, or better yet direct contact with the mind of God, we have to look at the historical fruit of each position. There are certainly good reasons for thinking that the Papacy is divinely instituted. But there are also excellent reasons for thinking that Western Christianity has erred in some significant ways in the past millennium. It is very convenient for your case to insist that we should just dismiss all of these considerations if we think there are good reasons for believing the Papacy to be divinely instituted. But I do not think that this approach is the right one. Perhaps I am wrong in thinking the Papacy divinely instituted–I am, after all, personally fallible, whatever may be true of the Pope:p. Or perhaps the Papacy may be divinely instituted without having received the charism of infallibility. Perhaps the Church suffers as long as Rome is not fully in union with Her.

This is of course repugnant to your ecclesiology, but that’s not a decisive factor until I (or the OP) decide to accept your ecclesiology:p More to the point, many (perhaps most) of the Orthodox reject this possibility, insisting that they have all that is needed to be the Catholic Church without Rome.

Olivier Clement seems to hold this possibility, and he is apparently an Orthodox theologian in good standing, though I’m sure many Orthodox think he’s a heretic!

Edwin
Click to expand...
Throughout the Gospels Jesus asks people, “do you believe?”
It requires assent of the will. It takes putting your belief and Trust in the Church, that it bears witness to the Truth. Faith is meant to be simple.
You either believe or refuse to believe. Those that claim the Church erred must make this claim in order to reject it.

Do you think God means to make it so hard for us? I believe that’s why He gave us the gift of Peter’s succesor. So we could have confidence in knowing where the Church is and where Truth is safeguarded. Of course I know there are those that reject this idea. Or else there wouldn’t be a split. 🙂

We also have the many testimonies of the Saints.
I trust that authority comes from God. I trust that when I die I can stand before the Lord and He’s not going to condemn me for following the Papacy. But I can tell Him, I trusted in you and the man you gave me to safeguard my Faith and soul.
 
jam070406 said:
Why are those that defend Orthodoxy so quick to glaze over the many attempts at power grabs from Constantinople (which managed to leap frog over the other ancient Sees), yet so quick to condemn the Holy Apostolic See of Rome which many Fathers have stated gets it’s authority by Divine appoinment as the See of Peter, the blessed leader of the Apostles?
Click to expand...
Because you have built a whole ecclesiology on Rome’s power grabs.

Why are you so slow to see the distinction that your own apologists make all the time between practical abuse and theological error?

Orthodox ecclesiastical politics is just as corrupt as yours. But they seem to me to have a sound ecclesiology underneath the politics. Your ecclesiology has become fundamentally tainted by your politics.

Edwin
 
Coming from athesim and after eliminating Protestantism I looked towards the Orthodox Church and comtemplated joining them. I looked into the history and read the hows and whys of the split.

It seems that the split was more political and nationalistic before it was theological. Rome proabaly helped in the split by its own charity. For one there popped up issues in the previous years about what language should be used in the Mass, Greek or Latin. The Pope obviously favored Latin yet the eastern bishops raised a stink. The Pope decided to allow the continued used of Greek. The subsequent language barrier didn’t help later on when the issue of the filioque came to a head.

Political differences between East and West, favoratism of one Emperor towards one Church and another towards another, lead to further separation.

Once the Eastern Church split it became highly nationalistic which it is even to this day. There is a level of animosity and distrust that one EO church may have against another for whatever reason.

The key for me was Peter-or where his successor-resided. The ECF’s had always been adamant that,which Cyprian of Carthage most succinctly stated, “If someone does not hold fast to this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he desert the chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, can he still be confident that he is in the Church?”

That was a big factor in my decision that the Catholic Church was the historical one.
 
Contarini said:
Olivier Clement seems to hold this possibility, and he is apparently an Orthodox theologian in good standing, though I’m sure many Orthodox think he’s a heretic!

Edwin
Click to expand...
I found his historical analysis quite good. The latter part of the book was overall good, though a few things were questionable (may have been the translation).

He makes a lot of sense and is good when taken in conjunction with views reflected by saints like Nektarios of Aegina.
 
I heard it put very well on some Catholic radio show the other day… I think it was maybe Jimmy Akin??

He said that when you look at the authority of Rome, it was there before the schism, councils were called and doctrine was made official. But when the Orthodox left, they couldn’t even call councils because there was no authority, and they were just stuck in this theological freeze frame because there was no central authority.

My point is that the early Church was obviously Catholic, not Orthodox.

That being said I love the Orthodox and eastern spirituality, and really dearly hope that we will unite again. The romantic in me wants it to happen exactly 1000 years after the schism (in my lifetime God willing!!) but we will see. Pope Benedict is working on it, and especially Patriarch Kirill is working on it too.
 
ljubim said:
I heard it put very well on some Catholic radio show the other day… I think it was maybe Jimmy Akin??

He said that when you look at the authority of Rome, it was there before the schism, councils were called and doctrine was made official. But when the Orthodox left, they couldn’t even call councils because there was no authority, and they were just stuck in this theological freeze frame because there was no central authority.

My point is that the early Church was obviously Catholic, not Orthodox.

That being said I love the Orthodox and eastern spirituality, and really dearly hope that we will unite again. The romantic in me wants it to happen exactly 1000 years after the schism (in my lifetime God willing!!) but we will see. Pope Benedict is working on it, and especially Patriarch Kirill is working on it too.
Click to expand...
The Pope of Rome did not call any of the First Seven Ecumenical Councils. The Councils were all held in the East and the Pope did not attend any of them (though he sent legates for most of them). The image of the Pope calling the shots in the East and the Eastern bishops docilely submitting to papal commands is not an accurate representation of Christianity in the 1st millenium.

Oliver Clement’s book (mentioned above in the thread) is an excellent work that is even-handed and offers recommendations for both sides.
 
Madaglan said:
The Pope of Rome did not call any of the First Seven Ecumenical Councils. The Councils were all held in the East and the Pope did not attend any of them (though he sent legates for most of them).
Click to expand...
While I have not heard it specifically said about the first seven (I at least heard it said about Nicaea), and it is true. I think that I heard it on EWTN Open Line. Back to the point though, this fact doesn’t diminishes the Pope’s authority - in fact I think it supports it. From what I figure, the Pope did not go to the councils so that he would not place pressure on the other Fathers of the council to conform to his opinion. The Pope would then (usually) agree with the council, almost as though he were ratifying their decisions… I believe a similar practice has been followed by the Pope throughout history, with Popes John XXIII and Paul VI watching the Second Vatican Council on closed-circuit television, as I heard on the radio program.

For the original poster, you might find this interesting.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top