The Ratzinger Proposal (Orthodox apply here)

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You know, my :twocents: worth is that the Arian heretics were condemned as such for introducing degrees into the Godhead. The Father was the most divine, the Son was divine, but less so, and the Holy Spirit was the least divine. They later even changed the wording of their baptism to reflect this hierarchical concept of God.
Arianism saw the Father as the only true God. The Son was created. They rejected the Trinity.

The Trinity, on the other hand, is completely hierarchical. Christ said that the Father was greater than him. Since they are three persons but one being this can only mean greater in station. Christ compared this relationship to the relationship of husband and wife. The husband is the head of the family but obviously not greater in worth or importance. The Father is head of the Son yet they are both one God. God is hierarchical in his very essence. This is why his creation and his Church are hierarchical. They are reflections of his ordered mind.
 
Good grief my friend, your understanding of Orthodoxy is abysmal. 😦

Orthodoxy cannot be framed through a Catholic mindset. If anyone wants to understand Orthodoxy I suggest they should talk to the Orthodox. 👍

In Christ
Joe
It’s history. It has nothing to do with your theology. One only has to study the relationship between patriarch and emperor and later patriarch and Muslim rulers to understand why the east was unable to reconcile with the west. Events like the sacking of Constantinople created a lot of resentment between Greeks and Latin’s. Once the Muslims took over they made sure ties between the two Churches were severed. Any theological disagreements are merely excuses as such disagreements have existed since the beginning and didn’t lead to a complete severing of relations. Is the political turmoil that happened around the same time as the schism just a coincidence? I think not.
 
It’s history. It has nothing to do with your theology. One only has to study the relationship between patriarch and emperor and later patriarch and Muslim rulers to understand why the east was unable to reconcile with the west. Events like the sacking of Constantinople created a lot of resentment between Greeks and Latin’s. Once the Muslims took over they made sure ties between the two Churches were severed. Any theological disagreements are merely excuses as such disagreements have existed since the beginning and didn’t lead to a complete severing of relations. Is the political turmoil that happened around the same time as the schism just a coincidence? I think not.
Ok. 😉
 
The question is not that there was primacy, that’s a given. The question is “what does that entail?”, and of course, the concept of primacy as it was in the early church seems to be lost on modern Roman rite Catholics, most of whom only think of the bishop of Rome as having a primacy, and so confuse that with the exagerrations of power which have accumulated on that particular office over time.
I think the the better argument is that the concept of primacy as it was in the early church is to be lost on modern Orthodox - especially the internet polemicists with scant education on the matter. Here is an interesting paragraph from historian Stuart Koehl at byzcath:
The trouble with saying “Rome is simply in a place of honor” is the term meant something different in the first millennium than it does today. Theirs was an honor-based society, in which prestige (auctoritas) was often more important that juridical power (potestas). So, when the Councils of Constantinople and Chalcedon give Rome precedence among the patriarchates, it is something a bit more than being Lord Mayor of London and getting to cut ribbons at the opening of shopping malls. As I have repeatedly said, such auctoritas as was wielded by the Bishops of Rome meant that his opinions carried great weight and were rejected only with great trepidation. All new doctrines, opinions and teachings sought the endorsement of the Bishop of Rome, without which they were regarded with suspicion.
I think that it is also true that this same Orthodox cohort has a a strange understanding of the the Papal primacy in the Catholic church that is alien to most Catholics, who see auctoritas in a servant of the servants God, presiding in love. All the proof texting in the world doesn’t change this reality.
 
What I am saying is that from the First instant the Pope ever tried to Right a messed up situation in the east, the east has whined at him and talked about how impolite it is to try and change their traditions.

If you Have discord from the beginning (and you do) then who determines whose rights on the matter, and how?
 
I think that it is also true that this same Orthodox cohort has a a strange understanding of the the Papal primacy in the Catholic church that is alien to most Catholics, who see auctoritas in a servant of the servants God, presiding in love. All the proof texting in the world doesn’t change this reality.
The trouble with saying “Rome is simply in a place of honor” is the term meant something different in the first millennium than it does today. Theirs was an honor-based society, in which prestige (auctoritas) was often more important that juridical power (potestas). So, when the Councils of Constantinople and Chalcedon give Rome precedence among the patriarchates, it is something a bit more than being Lord Mayor of London and getting to cut ribbons at the opening of shopping malls. As I have repeatedly said, such auctoritas as was wielded by the Bishops of Rome meant that his opinions carried great weight and were rejected only with great trepidation. All new doctrines, opinions and teachings sought the endorsement of the Bishop of Rome, without which they were regarded with suspicion.
That’s a great quote except in the modern Catholic Church that opinion would be considered sheer heresy. In the modern Catholic Church the Bishop of Rome’s opinion can never be rejected and without his approval no doctrine can be said to be certainly true. 🤷

In Christ
Joe
 
There is not equality of members. Some are Sinners, deserving of Hell, Some are moderate, in need of theosis, Some are saints.
Orthodox doctrine teaches ALL are sinners, if the Catholic Church truly teaches that not all are sinners, then reunification cannot happen on this doctrinal ground alone.
 
No offense,but you are totally incorrect. The pope is a BISHOP and an office and the bishop belongs to the epicopal office,which stem from the original 12 who all HELD an office. All of it is in the NT. As for Peter? I can quote 50 biblical verses clearly showing Peter was in charge,you simply have not done your homework or have bought the biased views from other Orthodoxs.
I made no statements otherwise, the pope certainly is a Bishop, and Peter certainly was leader among the 12. It seems you are just looking for biases in my writing.
 
Equality? In case you have forgotten,but Jesus preached the KINGDOM of Heaven,not the democracy of Heaven. Meaning what? Only ONE is in-charge. Even the angels in Heaven have 3 choirs and 9 hiearchies.

And strangely nothing you said will change the facts of history. So yes,take your plank out of your own eye so it can allow you to see the FACTS of history!
I’m not claiming man is equal with God, I’m claiming all are equal before Christ.
 
nine_two,
Code:
      excercise constructive thought please.
I just noticed this.

You tell me to excercize “contructive thought” after you provide a clear forgery, and despite it being shown a forgery continue to insist its foundations are genuine?

When men have good arguments, they don’t resort to dishonesty to prove a point. How about you stop denegrating the Orthodox and come up with a real argument.

As to your question how do you solve questions when there are tensions… you do what the Church has always done, do it through Council.
 
That’s a great quote except in the modern Catholic Church that opinion would be considered sheer heresy. In the modern Catholic Church the Bishop of Rome’s opinion can never be rejected and without his approval no doctrine can be said to be certainly true. 🤷
So you say. But what you say is simply false. In your sentence “In the modern…”, the last part is not objectionable, but that idea also applied in the first millenium; the first part is errant nonsense.
 
I think the the better argument …
I think the better argument would be if you addressed the points in my post instead of throwing out red herrings.

Nothing you stated, which is basically just ad hominems, and nothing you quoted addresses the point I made.
 
I made no statements otherwise, the pope certainly is a Bishop, and Peter certainly was leader among the 12. It seems you are just looking for biases in my writing.
Because it is biased you do not seem to like the fact I can detect it. The fact you were a former Protestant and now an Orthodox who follows the modern notions of the papcy does not help your position at all. Again,I can discuss the numerous cases where eastern bishops explicitly took their matters to Rome to have it settled. How ironic how such historical facts make modern Orthodoxs positon fall to pieces. If the Bishop of Rome only held a position honor and not jurisdiction,how odd eastern bishops simply did not settle it in-house?
 
I’m not claiming man is equal with God, I’m claiming all are equal before Christ.
Equal? Care to tell me what other Apostle besides Peter who received the keys? Read the OT again and tell me if keys had no bearing and if Jesus’ by mere coincidence mentioned keys with no real implications?

BTW: Just say when and I’ll post 50 NT verses clearly showing Peter was the HEAD Apostle. Likewise,plenty of ECF writings confirming the same. Coincidence or facts of history or one great lie?
 
BTW: Just say when and I’ll post 50 NT verses clearly showing Peter was the HEAD Apostle. Likewise,plenty of ECF writings confirming the same. Coincidence or facts of history or one great lie?
That’s OK. Peter was Orthodox, and all bishops who share his faith are Peter.

Should one depart from the faith, that one is no longer Peter.
 
Because it is biased you do not seem to like the fact I can detect it. The fact you were a former Protestant and now an Orthodox who follows the modern notions of the papcy does not help your position at all. Again,I can discuss the numerous cases where eastern bishops explicitly took their matters to Rome to have it settled. How ironic how such historical facts make modern Orthodoxs positon fall to pieces. If the Bishop of Rome only held a position honor and not jurisdiction,how odd eastern bishops simply did not settle it in-house?
Ahh, I am biased because I am not Catholic, while you are not biased because you have seen the truth of the Pope. And because of this you must make up arguments I have not made in this thread.

Of course I am fully biased, I will admit this, mostly because I have spent considerable time in academic study looking at the concept and understand everyone is biased (if you wish to counter this point I expect academic sources saying people can be non-biased, I’ve yet to see one.) Of course this means you are also biased, so don’t pretend that you see the full truth and everyone else is somehow delusional.

I’m curious what my “modern notion of the papacy” is - since I cannot recall ever telling you how I conceive of the papacy, and I certainly haven’t done it in this thread. So please, tell me what I think the papacy is. Without bias, if you wouldn’t mind.
 
Equal? Care to tell me what other Apostle besides Peter who received the keys? Read the OT again and tell me if keys had no bearing and if Jesus’ by mere coincidence mentioned keys with no real implications?

BTW: Just say when and I’ll post 50 NT verses clearly showing Peter was the HEAD Apostle. Likewise,plenty of ECF writings confirming the same. Coincidence or facts of history or one great lie?
Again equal BEFORE Christ.

You can post those 50 NT verses if you’d like, I’m sure some other Catholic poster has posted them thinking they showed that Peter was head over the apostles, rather than leader among the apostles.

Afterall, if Peter was head over the Apostles, why was Paul able to rebuke him? Why was James to chair the council of Jerusalem? Why did Christ warn him that he thinks of the things of man, rather than of God? So post your 50 verses if you like. It is doubtful I shall read them again though.
 
My intention was not to prove any documents validity.

That is not the point.

The Point is that the Thought and the desire for this kind of Papacy existed in the Early church to which these Various documents, whether they be forgeries or real GIVE EVIDENCE. Donation of Constantine, Pseudo Isidore, Arabic Canon 39 of Nicea, they all testify to the mindset of people in the early church. I don’t care about their Authenticity, They were written in the early church, they testify to the thoughts and desires of those in the Early Church.

But if you want genuine:

Luke Chapter 12
[41] Peter said, “Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for all?”
[42] And the Lord said, "Who then is the faithful and wise steward, whom his master will set over his household, to give them their portion of food at the proper time?
[43] Blessed is that servant whom his master when he comes will find so doing.
[44] Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions.

Take for example St. Maximus the Confessor, the great defender of the two wills of Christ, a resident of Constantinople, and an interpreter of Dionysius the Areopagite. He provides an example of the Byzantine doctrine of Rome’s universal jurisdiction before the polemical debates of the 9th century. The quote below is from about AD 650:
Code:
"How much more in the case of the clergy and Church of the Romans, which from old until now **presides over all **the churches which are under the sun? Having surely **received this canonicall**y, as well as from councils and the apostles, as from the princes of the latter (Peter and Paul), and being numbered in their company, ***she is subject to no writings or issues in synodical documents, on account of the eminence of her pontificate .....even as in all these things all are equally subject to her (the Church of Rome) according to sacerodotal law.*** And so when, without fear, but with all holy and becoming confidence, those ministers (the popes) are of the truly firmand immovable rock, that is of the most great and Apostolic Church of Rome." (in J.B. Mansi, ed. Amplissima Collectio Conciliorum, vol. 10)
"…Pyrrhus was now Sergius’s successor, but on the accession of the Emperor Constans in 642 he was exiled. Maximus then sent a letter to the patrician Peter, apparently the Governor of Syria and Palestine who had written to him concerning Pyrrhus, whom he now calls simply abbot. Pyrrhus was in Palestine and Peter had restrained him from putting forward his heretical views. Pyrrhus had declared that he was ready to satisfy Maximus as to his orthodoxy. The latter says he would have written to Peter before
Code:
' but I was afraid of being thought to transgress the holy laws if I were to do this without knowing the will of the most holy see of Apostolic men, who lead aright the whole plenitude of the Catholic Church, and rule it with order according to the divine law.' "
“…they have not conformed to the sense of the Apostolic see, and what is laughable, or rather lamentable, as proving their ignorance, they have not hesitated to lie against the Apostolic see itself . . . but have claimed the great Honorius on their side. . . . What did the divine Honorius do, and after him the aged Severinus, and John who followed him? Yet further, what supplication has the blessed pope, who now sits, not made? Have not the whole East and West brought their tears, laments, obsecrations, deprecations, both before God in prayer and before men in their letters? If the Roman see recognizes Pyrrhus to be not only a reprobate but a heretic, it is certainly plain that everyone who anathematizes those who have rejected Pyrrhus, anathematizes the see of Rome that is, he anathematizes the Catholic Church. I need hardly add that he excommunicates himself also, if indeed he be in communion with the Roman see and the Church of God… It is not right that one who has been condemned and cast out by the Apostolic see of the city of Rome for his wrong opinions should be named with any kind of honour, until he be received by her, having returned to her — nay, to our Lord — by a pious confession and orthodox faith, by which he can receive holiness and the title of holy… Let him hasten before all things to satisfy the Roman see, for if it is satisfied all will agree in calling him pious and orthodox. For he only speaks in vain who thinks he ought to persuade or entrap persons like myself, and does not satisfy and implore the blessed pope of the most holy Church of the Romans, that is, the Apostolic see, which from the incarnate Son of God Himself, and also by all holy synods, according to the holy canons and definitions, has received universal and supreme dominion, authority and power of binding and loosing over all the holy Churches of God which are in the whole world — for with it the Word who is above the celestial powers binds and looses in heaven also.*** For if he thinks he must satisfy others***, and fails to implore the most blessed Roman pope, he is acting like a man who, when accused of murder or some other crime, does not hasten to prove his innocence to the judge appointed by the law, but only uselessly and without profit does his best to demonstrate his innocence to private individuals, who have no power to acquit him.”

 
I think the better argument would be if you addressed the points in my post instead of throwing out red herrings.

Nothing you stated, which is basically just ad hominems, and nothing you quoted addresses the point I made.
Excuse me?
What was your point? You wrote:
The question is not that there was primacy, that’s a given. The question is “what does that entail?”, and of course, the concept of primacy as it was in the early church seems to be lost on modern Roman rite Catholics, most of whom only think of the bishop of Rome as having a primacy, and so confuse that with the exagerrations of power which have accumulated on that particular office over time.
I stated earlier in the thread that indeed the question is the Petrine primacy? Is there more? You make an assertion against modern Roman rite Catholics - is that the point that you, while criticizing perceived red herrings and ad hominems, think that I should address?

Well, I think I did. I think that the remark misses a crucial point: that the sense of primacy among the Orthodox writing on this thread is not true to the first millenium, and that Orthodox thinking on the matter has developed over the centuries - largely in response to its own internal experience: competition with Rome at the end of the first millenium; broad expansion of authority during the Ottoman era; diminution during the fall of the Ottomans and the accompanying innovative proliferation of Patriarchs; and, now, a perspectives shaped by competition Moscow and Constantinople. When people talk about adhering to the primacy of honor given to the EP, it is clear that they are just being argumentative, because they are speaking word that have no certain meaning.

I think the remark also misses the point,illustrated in josephdaniel29 post: claims about the exaggerated powers in the Papacy are, notwithstanding the kvetching about centralization and bureaucratization of operations, pretty much alien to the Catholic experience. I am weary of non-Catholics proof-texting Catholic documents with the idea of telling us how we think, what we think, what we believe, and what we must believe. For the most part it is polemically minded rubbish, that is occasionally worth objecting to, but rarely worth arguing over.
 
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