The Catholic-Orthodox Dialogue: Where does it truly stand at present?

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Julia_Mae said:
And then there’s the fact that we are reading translations from ancient languages and subtle variations and connotations get lost.

I think on this role of the Bishop of Rome issue, we might be better served looking at what everyone did, rather than what they said. For instance, in the earliest Church Councils, did the Bishop of Rome make any unilateral decisions without the discussion and/or vote of the other Bishops?
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I disagree Not all decisions are reached in that manner.

Rather look at posistions held by the Bishop of Rome vs any controversial issue in the first 500-700 years of the church.
Was the eventual outcome contrary to Romes position ?
Can anyone name one instance were the Roman posisition was overuled on Docternal issue.
If there weren’t one of two things occurred.:
  1. The bishop of Rome had an uncanny abilty to pick the eventual outcome.
  2. The bishop of Rome was the influencing factor in the outcome.
    Remember its easier to pick the winner after the race or diminish those that picked the right horse.
I think 2 is far more probable.
 
Mardukm, I know patience is a virtue and all … but I can’t help feeling that you’re deliberating ignoring this,
Peter_J said:
Mardukm, I think I should have a right to know what your aim is in posting this:
Originally Posted by mardukm
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(Or should I perhaps just assume that you haven’t any good answer to that?)
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ByzCathCantor said:
Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk meets with Pope Benedict XVI

Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk addresses the Synod of Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church

source: ROC Official Website (articles dated 17 Oct 2012)
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Great stuff. Overall, a great talk by the Metropolitan in the second article. The calls to work more closely together on issues facing the Church are ones that I hope the Holy Father will move on aggressively. By working together, we can build trust, and understanding, which will be so important for the future.

In addition, the discussion and development of theological research between Catholics and Russian Orthodox is a wonderful sign.

I pray for the success of these endeavors.
 
Everyone seems to be focused on the dialogue which I pray brings about more foward progress.

I also thought the second article was well done.
 
Julia_Mae said:
Okay. So, I’m not very well-educated about this, but I want to say something. Maybe not what you wanted, but it seems to me we are nowhere. By that I mean that neither side will ever give up their position on Papal supremacy as long as the Vatican exists. So, barring a rather cataclysmic volcanic event, what if we just decide to ignore it all and simply move forward to: sharing fully in Eucharistic communion.

Why shouldn’t we? I believe I’ve read that the Orthodox don’t believe in transubstantiation. But that’s okay because most RCC don’t either, they can’t. I’ll give you a $100 if you can randomly select 10 people from a Sunday Mass and even one of them can give you a coherent explanation of what transubstantiation means or is. I can’t. Don’t care. Jesus said: “This is my body” and I believe Him. Literally.

Now - do the Orthodox? If the answer is “yes” then we have no impediments I can see. I believe I read that the “official date” of the Great Schism is whenever a bunch of Eastern Bishops walked out of a Council after the Pope, without consulting anyone, simply stuck the filioque into the Creed. I realize there were other issues and it had been coming on for a while, but let’s take that moment just before the eastern Orthodox Bishops got to their feet - at that time, wasn’t the Eucharistic communion as valid in Constantinople as in Rome?

Did you change it? Did we?

I have this great idea. Let’s just start going to each other’s churches and receiving the Sacrament and let Christ handle the whole thing. Then the theologians can keep arguing as long as they want, it makes 'em so happy after all, and we’ll just plan a damn picnic.

BTW, I’m really really sorry some Roman Catholic homicidal moron went and killed a bunch of you. This kind of stuff is so appalling. So what say? If we share Christ, all the rest is commentary.
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I love it!
 
johnnykins said:
Actually the interpretation of that phrase is more nuanced than you give it credit. The Relatio by Gasser as spokesman of the Deputation that wrote the formula of infallibility at Vatican I - given before the Council Fathers voted - and therefore expressing what the Deputation meant when it used the particular language it chose, is instructive. Bishop Vincent Gasser, in his famous defense of papal infallibility (the Relatio) at the First Vatican Council, discussed the aspects of collegiality and community as follows:

"We do defend the infallibility of the person of the Roman Pontiff, not as an individual person but as the person of the Roman Pontiff or a public person, that is, as head of the Church in his relation to the Church Universal . . .

We do not exclude the cooperation of the Church because the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff does not come to him in the manner of inspiration or of revelation but through a divine assistance. Therefore, the Pope, by reason of his office and the gravity of the matter, is held to use the means suitable for properly discerning and aptly enunciating the truth. These means are councils, or the advice of the bishops, cardinals, theologians, etc. Indeed the means are diverse according to the diversity of situations, and we should piously believe that, in the divine assistance promised to Peter and his successors by Christ, there is simultaneously contained a promise about the means which are necessary and suitable to make an infallible pontifical judgment.

**Finally we do not separate the Pope, even minimally, from the consent of the Church, as long as that consent is not laid down as a condition which is either antecedent or consequent. We are not able to separate the Pope from the consent of the Church because this consent is never able to be lacking to him. Indeed, since we believe that the Pope is infallible through the divine assistance, by that very fact we also believe that the assent of the Church will not be lacking to his definitions since it is not able to happen that the body of bishops be separated from its head, and since the Church universal is not able to fail. **(11)" emphasis added
Here is a site for the Relatio matt1618.freeyellow.com/treatise16.html
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The Relatio is not part of the definition, and is not, in the Catholic view “infallible”. It is commentary, nothing else. Also, it really doesn’t add much “nuance” to the bare definition itself. It says that consent of the Church cannot be “laid down” as a condition, just like the definition does.
 
In my opinion, the next step will have to be some indication of a willingness by Rome to walk back some parts of its dogmatic definitions since the schism. There has to be union of faith, and these definitions are an obstacle to that. I suppose it could be phrased as “understanding them differently”.
 
Schism_hater said:
I love it!
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That’s probably a bad idea, given that you’d be lying to your bishop or priest. I’d love to commune with my wife, too, but ultimately this is not for me to figure out, but rather for the bishops (and if the schism shouldn’t exist even though we say it should, the Lord will have a thousand years of dues to collect, and may He have mercy).
 
fatherdavidbirdosb.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-greek-and-latin-traditions.html
The Holy Father, in the homily he gave in St Peter Basilica on 29 June in the presence of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, expressed a desire that “the traditional doctrine of the Filioque, present in the liturgical version of the Latin Credo, [be clarified] in order to highlight its full harmony with what the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople of 381 confesses in its creed: the Father as the source of the whole Trinity, the one origin both of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”.
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What is published here is the clarification he has asked for, which has been undertaken by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. It is intended as a contribution to the dialogue which is carried out by the Joint International Commission between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church…
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…The Catholic Church acknowledges the conciliar, ecumenical, normative and irrevocable value, as expression of the one common faith of the Church and of all Christians, of the Symbol professed in Greek at Constantinople in 381 by the Second Ecumenical Council. No profession of faith peculiar to a particular liturgical tradition can contradict this expression of the faith taught and professed by the undivided Church.
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On the basis of Jn 15:26, this Symbol confesses the Spirit “to ek tou PatroV ekporeuomenon” (“who takes his origin from the Father”). The Father alone is the principle without principle (arch anarcoV) of the two other persons of the Trinity, the sole source (phgh) of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit therefore takes his origin from the Father alone (ek monou tou PatroV) in a principal, proper and immediate manner.1
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The Greek Fathers and the whole Christian Orient speak, in this regard, of the “Father’s monarchy”, and the Western tradition, following St Augustine, also confesses that the Holy Spirit takes his origin from the Father “principaliter”, that is, as principle (De Trinitate XV, 25, 47, PL 42, 1094-1095). In this sense, therefore, the two traditions recognize that the “monarchy of the Father” implies that the Father is the sole Trinitarian Cause (Aitia) or principle (principium) of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…
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Link to full article above.
 
Schism_hater said:
In my opinion, the next step will have to be some indication of a willingness by Rome to walk back some parts of its dogmatic definitions since the schism. There has to be union of faith, and these definitions are an obstacle to that. I suppose it could be phrased as “understanding them differently”.
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How far back? The filioque dogma was declared in 447 A.D. by Pope Leo I, a synod at Constantinople in 867 excommunicated Nicholas I for heresy regarding the filioque.
 
Julia_Mae said:
Okay. So, I’m not very well-educated about this, but I want to say something. Maybe not what you wanted, but it seems to me we are nowhere. By that I mean that neither side will ever give up their position on Papal supremacy as long as the Vatican exists. So, barring a rather cataclysmic volcanic event, what if we just decide to ignore it all and simply move forward to: sharing fully in Eucharistic communion.

Why shouldn’t we? I believe I’ve read that the Orthodox don’t believe in transubstantiation. But that’s okay because most RCC don’t either, they can’t. I’ll give you a $100 if you can randomly select 10 people from a Sunday Mass and even one of them can give you a coherent explanation of what transubstantiation means or is. I can’t. Don’t care. Jesus said: “This is my body” and I believe Him. Literally.

Now - do the Orthodox? If the answer is “yes” then we have no impediments I can see. I believe I read that the “official date” of the Great Schism is whenever a bunch of Eastern Bishops walked out of a Council after the Pope, without consulting anyone, simply stuck the filioque into the Creed. I realize there were other issues and it had been coming on for a while, but let’s take that moment just before the eastern Orthodox Bishops got to their feet - at that time, wasn’t the Eucharistic communion as valid in Constantinople as in Rome?

Did you change it? Did we?

I have this great idea. Let’s just start going to each other’s churches and receiving the Sacrament and let Christ handle the whole thing. Then the theologians can keep arguing as long as they want, it makes 'em so happy after all, and we’ll just plan a damn picnic.

BTW, I’m really really sorry some Roman Catholic homicidal moron went and killed a bunch of you. This kind of stuff is so appalling. So what say? If we share Christ, all the rest is commentary.
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Good luck with that at an Eastern Orthodox church, where even regular parishioners havr to get their priest’s approval to commune. I’d pay to see the YouTube video of you attempting it! 😃
 
Vico said:
How far back? The filioque dogma was declared in 447 A.D. by Pope Leo I, a synod at Constantinople in 867 excommunicated Nicholas I for heresy regarding the filioque.
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With due respect, I don’t believe the first clause of your statement is correct. The filioque was not sung in Rome until about 1014 AD, and I believe the first dogmatic declaration regarding the procession of the Holy Spirit in the west was at Lateran IV, 1215 AD (“The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, equally.”)
 
Schism_hater said:
With due respect, I don’t believe the first clause of your statement is correct. The filioque was not sung in Rome until about 1014 AD, and I believe the first dogmatic declaration regarding the procession of the Holy Spirit in the west was at Lateran IV, 1215 AD (“The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, equally.”)
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OK. Just giving what the Catholic Church presents in the Catechism:247 The affirmation of the *filioque *does not appear in the Creed confessed in 381 at Constantinople. But Pope St. Leo I, following an ancient Latin and Alexandrian tradition, had already confessed it dogmatically in 447, 76 even before Rome, in 451 at the Council of Chalcedon, came to recognize and receive the Symbol of 381. The use of this formula in the Creed was gradually admitted into the Latin liturgy (between the eighth and eleventh centuries). The introduction of the filioque into the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed by the Latin liturgy constitutes moreover, even today, a point of disagreement with the Orthodox Churches.

76 Cf. Leo I, Quam laudabiliter (447): DS 284.

vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p2.htm
The source is Pope Saint Leo I, Quam laudabiliter, a letter to Bishop St. Turibius of Astoga in 447 A.D.:

Thus, in the first chapter it is shown what impious notions they hold concerning the divine Trinity, when they assert that there is one and the same person of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, as though the same God should at one time be named Father, at another time Son, at another time Holy Spirit; and as though there were not one Who begat, another Who is begotten, another Who proceeds from both.

The Latin reads,

primo itaque capitulo demonstratur quam impie sentiant de Trinitate divina, qui et Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti unam atque eandem asserunt esse personam, tamquam idem Deus nunc Pater nunc Filius nunc Spiritus Sanctus nominetur; nec alius sit qui genuit, alius qui genitus est, alius qui de utroque procedit.

catholicpatristics.blogspot.com/2009/08/filioque.html
 
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