The early church fathers and the roman catholic church

[OrbisNonSufficit]

Calling that bull “finalizing” is even overstating it . . . it took centuries more before schism was taken all that seriously, with intercommunion remaining the norm.

That’s true.

There are various arguments for when the split became “real”, with the failure of Florence certainly showing that the schism was now real, but earlier dates are offered.

Actually, even fact Florence / Lyons was attempt for reunification means that is when people already were aware of reality of Schism. Otherwise no one would have tried reunification.

 

[dochawk]

It was known long before them . . . but was commonly ignored.

(and it wasn’t about “reunification” but re-establishing [formal] communion.)

 

[OrbisNonSufficit]

My bad, I am very unused to distinguishing between reunification and communion, as I from my understanding communion brings and is needed for unity (unity as mark of the Church “one” describes it).

 

[dochawk]

To be clear, there was never a time that the One, Holy, and Apostolic Church was not composed of multiple institutions in communion, as opposed to some kind of union.

It’s all about putting the pieces back where they have their proper and ancient relations . . .

(otherwise, we wouldn’t have two dozen or so Catholic Churches in communion, but would have a single institution . . .)

 

[OrbisNonSufficit]

In the end, that is pretty dependent on how Church is defined- there is One True Church of all who are inside it’s communion, there is Church Sui Iuris which is Church in communion with other Sui Iuris Churches that make up One True Church, there is particular Church with Bishop, Presbyters and Deacons…

But yeah, communion was what defined unity. Single entity was never what made up Catholic Church anyway.

 

[stpurl]

Came where?

 

[Wandile]

It can’t mean the Roman Catholic Church specially because the Church is much larger then just Rome.

Kata + Holon = “Pertaining to the whole; fullness”. As used by Ignatius of Antioch, the term “Katholike Ekklesia” meant the “fullness of the Church”. There was no notion of universality, but rather the notion that through the Eucharist the totality of the Church was present wherever the Eucharist was being celebrated. The universal dimension of the Church was manifested by the communion of all rightly ordained bishops with each other, not with one particular bishop.

ZP

Catholic also means universal as it also contains the meaning “in general” thus universal as the catholic faith is meant for the whole world.

Secondly the universal dimension was manifested by communion with one bishop. The Roman bishop:

St Cyprian of Carthage :

“… the throne of Peter, and to the chief church whence priestly unity takes its source ; and not to consider that these were the Romans whose faith was praised in the preaching of the Apostle, to whom faithlessness could have no access.”

Metropolitan Sergius of Cyprus says in 649, in a letter read in Session 2 of the Council of the Lateran [Letter to Pope Theodore I of Rome in Mansi X:914]:

“O Holy Head, Christ our God hath destined thy Apostolic See to be an immovable foundation and a pillar of the Faith. For thou art, as the Divine Word truly saith, Peter, and on thee as a foundation-stone have the pillars of the Church been fixed."

 

[ziapueblo]

At the same time Cyprian writes that all bishops are St Peter’s successors.

ZP

 

[Wandile]

At the same time Cyprian writes that all bishops are St Peter’s successors.

ZP

Yes but he clearly shows how uniquely that Petrine unity takes its source in Rome. IOW to have catholicity, you must be united to the source of sacerdotal unity; Rome.

This is why, in following the fathers such as St Cyrpian, the CCC defines schism as:

“… schism is the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him. “

 

[ziapueblo]

“… schism is the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him. “

The East never submitted to Rome as the Chieti document confirms. The early fathers never speak of submitting to Rome. Rome was of course important but total and supreme jurisdiction?

ZP

 

[Wandile]

Wandile:

“… schism is the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him. “

The East never submitted to Rome as the Chieti document confirms. The early fathers never speak of submitting to Rome. Rome was of course important but total and supreme jurisdiction?

ZP

“Submission” is juridical language meaning being subject to an authority. The Eastern fathers readily confessed in many instances, the authority of Rome over the church.

The fact that Pope St Gregory the great (a Greek pope mind you) could say this without a single rebuke from an eastern bishop is evidence enough:

“ For as to what they say about the Church of Constantinople, who can doubt that it is subject to the Apostolic See, as both the most pious lord the emperor and our brother the bishop of that city continually acknowledge?”
(Book 9, letter 2)

In another letter Pope St Gregory makes allusion to the fact that prior popes annulled eastern synods with the stroke of a pen:

“ When our predecessor Pelagius of blessed memory became aware of this, he annulled by a fully valid censure all the proceedings of that same synod, . . .”
(Book 9, 68)

The popes could not have been able to annul eastern synods without jurisdiction over the east.

Let’s not stop there, even eastern bishops admitted Popes had authority over the church:

Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus in Syria (450):

“I therefore beseech your holiness to persuade the most holy and blessed bishop (Pope Leo) to use his Apostolic power, and to order me to hasten to your Council. For that most holy throne (Rome) has the sovereignty over the churches throughout the universe on many grounds.” (Theodoret, Tom. iv. Epist. cxvi. Renato, p. 1197).”

*Flavian, Patriarch of Constantinople (449): …writing to Pope Leo: *

"When I began to appeal to the throne of the Apostolic See of Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, and to the whole sacred synod, which is obedient to Your Holiness, at once a crowd of soldiers surrounded me and barred my way when I wished to take refuge at the holy altar. …Therefore, I beseech Your Holiness not to permit these things to be treated with indifference …but to rise up first on behalf of the cause of our orthodox Faith, now destroyed by unlawful acts. …Further to issue an authoritative instruction …so that a like faith may everywhere be preached by the assembly of an united synod of fathers, both Eastern and Western. Thus the laws of the fathers may prevail and all that has been done amiss be rendered null and void. Bring healing to this ghastly wound. (Patriarch Flavian of Constantinople to Pope Leo, 449).

 

[Wandile]

St. Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople (758-828):

“Without whom (the Romans presiding in the seventh Council) a doctrine brought forward in the Church could not, even though confirmed by canonical decrees and by ecclesiastical usuage, ever obtain full approval or currency. For it is they (the Popes of Rome) who have had assigned to them the rule in sacred things, and who have received into their hands the dignity of headship among the Apostles.” (Nicephorus, Niceph. Cpl. pro. s. imag. c 25 [Mai N. Bibl. pp. ii. 30]).

St Theodore the Studite :

“Let him (Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople) assemble a synod of those with whom he has been at variance, if it is impossible that representatives of the other Patriarchs should be present, a thing which might certainly be if the Emperor should wish the Western Patriarch (the Roman Pope) to be present, to whom is given authority over an ecumenical synod, but let him make peace and union by sending his synodical letters to the prelate of the First See." (Theodore the Studite, Patr. Graec. 99, 1420)

 

[Thom18]

Yes and no. The Catholic Church of the first two centuries is very different in doctrine and in practice than the Roman Catholic Church of today.

Only inasmuch as almost two millennia have passed since then, and we have had sufficient time to develop doctrine and respond to heresies. The only difference (as far as this argument is concerned) between the Catholic Church then and the Catholic Church now is that the Church is no longer in its infancy. Just as there was a period in the Church before the gospels, epistles and letters were written (and before the doctrine contained therein was declared), there was a time before the Council of Jerusalem, Trent, Vatican II, etc.

 

[Vico]

…
I dont know how to answer.

Do you refer only to the time before the Edict of Milan in 313 that gave the right of open and free observance of Christian (and other) worship?

 

[ziapueblo]

Look at this beautiful language used by St. Avitus of Vienne in a letter to the Pope.

“Your Apostleship exercises a primacy granted by God, and seeks to show not by your privileges alone, but also by your merits that you hold pride of place in the Universal Church of God. Your See adorns our law and your person your See. I am bound to your worthy self by the debt I owe your generosity, and I offer you thanks through the messenger who brought the gifts, gifts that are to be valued not in price, but in the rewards of salvation. You have enriched the poverty of the end of the earth with your holy resources, and you have touched the darkness of the setting sun by sharing the light of its rising with us. The brightness of your gift has cleansed the rust of devotion grown sluggish from our provinces, and by watering it with a stream of goodness has granted a gift for our faith to contemplate. On the occasion when, once the inner regions of the celestial treasure-houses had been opened by Your Piety, we gazed upon what we, as Catholics, are ordered to worship. All that remains is for you to pray that you have sent the gifts to worthy recipients; commend us to the mystic objects that you have seen fit to entrust to us. Let our devotion be built on them; let our region be defended by them, so that, once the life-giving token has been grant to us, you render us, whom you have not deemed worthy to share in the company of the earthly Jerusalem, fit to live in the supernal and celestial one.”

Wait, this was to the Patriarch of Jerusalem, not the Pope. Guess flowerly language of “a primacy granted by God” doesn’t mean what Catholics think it does.

I am in no way undermining the Pope of Rome, and some of the flowery language does have clout, Rome is the Primatial See of the Universal Church, but to say universal jurisdiction, which was never exercised in the early Church. I’ve read the 7 councils and still have not come across it.

ZP

 

[ziapueblo]

I’ll stick with Cardinal Ratzinger, “Rome must not require more from the East with respect to the doctrine of primacy than what had been formulated and was lived in the first millennium . . .“

ZP

 

[Wandile]

Look at this beautiful language used by St. Avitus of Vienne in a letter to the Pope.

“Your Apostleship exercises a primacy granted by God, and seeks to show not by your privileges alone, but also by your merits that you hold pride of place in the Universal Church of God. Your See adorns our law and your person your See. I am bound to your worthy self by the debt I owe your generosity, and I offer you thanks through the messenger who brought the gifts, gifts that are to be valued not in price, but in the rewards of salvation. You have enriched the poverty of the end of the earth with your holy resources, and you have touched the darkness of the setting sun by sharing the light of its rising with us. The brightness of your gift has cleansed the rust of devotion grown sluggish from our provinces, and by watering it with a stream of goodness has granted a gift for our faith to contemplate. On the occasion when, once the inner regions of the celestial treasure-houses had been opened by Your Piety, we gazed upon what we, as Catholics, are ordered to worship. All that remains is for you to pray that you have sent the gifts to worthy recipients; commend us to the mystic objects that you have seen fit to entrust to us. Let our devotion be built on them; let our region be defended by them, so that, once the life-giving token has been grant to us, you render us, whom you have not deemed worthy to share in the company of the earthly Jerusalem, fit to live in the supernal and celestial one.”

Wait, this was to the Patriarch of Jerusalem, not the Pope. Guess flowerly language of “a primacy granted by God” doesn’t mean what Catholics think it does.

I am in no way undermining the Pope of Rome, and some of the flowery language does have clout, Rome is the Primatial See of the Universal Church, but to say universal jurisdiction, which was never exercised in the early Church. I’ve read the 7 councils and still have not come across it.

ZP

Pride of place (Obviously alluding to Jerusalem as the mother church) does not equate to the jurisdictional attributes given to the pope by easterners

You said in the councils it’s not there. The council of Chalcedon blatantly acknowledges that the acts must have confirmation from the Roman bishop for their validity.

 

[Wandile]

I’ll stick with Cardinal Ratzinger, “Rome must not require more from the East with respect to the doctrine of primacy than what had been formulated and was lived in the first millennium . . .“

ZP

Exactly and the east were very much aware of Roman jurisdiction and affirmed it in letters and ecumenical councils. Not mere honorifics but actual acknowledgement of Roman jurisdiction in eastern territories as those letters show.

 

[ziapueblo]

It seems East in West would be in communion if that were the case.

ZP

 

[Wandile]

It seems East in West would be in communion if that were the case.

ZP

Sadly the east changed their understanding of primacy as a whole starting around the time of St Photius which solidified by the time of Michael Cerularius. There were still voices in the east around the time of Cerularius who rebuked him for rejecting the authority of Rome like George the Hagiorite. George was one of the few clerics in the Byzantine world who had deplored Michael I Cerularius’s stance towards the Western brethren aloud, and asserted, in 1064, in the presence of the Byzantine emperor Constantine X, the inerrancy of the Roman church.