Originally Quoted by puzzleannie:
For someone who has studied doctrine and Church history as thoroughly as you claim to do, you display a shocking confusion over the differences between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox, which you would do well to clear up before you transmogrify.
Could you please explain what “shocking confusion” exists in my mind?
While I am not a theologian, I believe I have a working understanding of the differences between the two Churches. For one, Orthodox omit the filioque passage from the Creed, since the words “and the Son” did not appear in the ecumenical version of the creed (which stated that the creed was to remain unchanged). The words did, however, appear in local councils, especially in Spain (I believe the Council of Toledo was one such council), where the altered Creed was used to combat Arianism. Second, the Orthodox reject the notion that the bishop or Rome has an authority over all the other bishops. I’ve read several books on the early Church, including Eusebius’ early account. The idea that the bishop of Rome had any superior authority over the other churches is not present in what I have read of the early Church. Rome was seen at times as the spiritual authority, since it was relatively pure of the heresies like Arianism and Nestorianism, which especially ravaged the East; but Rome was not seen as in possession of an over-riding authority over the decisions made by previous ecumencial councils.
There are other minor differences I know of, too: The Orthodox canon contains additional OT books, the Orthodox have a different understanding of Original Sin (guilt not inherited through procreative act, as Augustine claimed), no belief in a separate place of Purgatory, different understanding of the Trinity, chrisimation immediately after baptism, different teleological understandings (primary end of marriage, for example, is cooperative spiritual development, not procreation, which is a secondary end), and the list goes on.
In any case, there are many differences between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. I am presently reading Timothy Ware’s *The Orthodox Church, *which, if naturally biased, does give some understanding of what Orthodox believe.
If you think that I would convert simply because of how I perceive people act in the Church, or because I do not “feel” satisfaction from the Church and its laws, you unfortunately do not understand me. My key problem is that I see differences between the Catholic Church and the Early Church of the first few hundred years of Christendom. Any personal feelings of dissatisfaction I might have are secondary to my pursuit of the truth. If I valued the stimulation of neurons over the truth, I would have joined an e-free church near me, which my sister and friends attend.
The one thing which bothers me most is that the Catholic Church make it seem like there is little dividing the Catholic Church from the Orthodox Church. The Catholic Church claims that there is little separating the two Churches from a common Eucharist. I do not believe the Orthodox hold the same view.
In any case, I apologize if I appear to condemn the Catholic Church. That’s not my intention. I’m just having real problems reconciling what I have learned so far concerning early Church history, and the present state of the Catholic Church.
If anything I said demonstrates a “shocking confusion” of the differences between Orthodox and Catholic beliefs, please teach me the way out of this confusion.
