Toll-House Doctrine?

[Fuerza]

Wrong. Protestantism is an offshoot from RC. It was a rebellion that reculted in a reformation and a counter reformation. They are your wayward children. Orthodaox never dealt with such a rebellion unless you are sayin that Roman Catholicism rebelled against the East. Protestanism proceeded to throw the baby out with bath water as they also separated themselves from the Sacraments. It is not ridiculous. Protestants are your step children–what’s the big deal?

I did not say that you should be able to control the protestants?

Nor should the East think they should control Latin Catholics.

EO and Latin Catholics share much–I have never denied this-- and I do not know from where you glean your speculation.

Mickey,

It was a general reply, not aimed at you specifically. The Orthodox seem to be under the impression that protestantism is somehow the fault of the Catholic Church, pointing out, as you just did, that they are a wayward offshoot from us. They then go on to say that nothing on that scale has ever occurred within Orthodoxy, as if to insinuate that that somehow proves Orthodoxy to be true. I am simply pointing out that, according to your Church, Catholicism is a wayward offshoot from Orthodoxy. Catholicism is at least as big as protestantism, if not bigger. Therefore, that argument fails because according your logic the Catholics are your “step-children”. I guess that makes the protestants your “great step-children”.

By the way, the icon that you cut out of the quote should have been an indication that the final comment was only partly serious.

 

[Mickey]

It was a general reply, not aimed at you specifically. The Orthodox seem to be under the impression that protestantism is somehow the fault of the Catholic Church, pointing out, as you just did, that they are a wayward offshoot from us.

Assigning blame will get us nowhere. But they are your wayward children.

They then go on to say that nothing on that scale has ever occurred within Orthodoxy, as if to insinuate that that somehow proves Orthodoxy to be true.

Holy Orthodoxy dealt with many heresies (when the Church was undivided). But She surely did not have to suffer through a reformation type rebellion.

I am simply pointing out that, according to your Church, Catholicism is a wayward offshoot from Orthodoxy.

I have never heard that terminology.

Therefore, that argument fails because according your logic the Catholics are your “step-children”.

I have heard JP2 use “Sister Churches”. But I have never heard step children.

 

[mardukm]

But the reformation DID happen.

I think brother Fuerza has sufficiently responded to this point. I would add that the point is not whether it happened or not. The point is trying to blame the Latin Church for it.

Did the Roman Catholic Church attempt to stop these individual abuses?

Yes, several Western councils as well as many Popes in the Middle ages taught the sale of indulgences for profit is wrong. Here is an account of such actions from the Old Catholic Encyclopedia (at the Newadvent website):
Even in the age of the martyrs, as stated above there were practices which St. Cyprian was obliged to reprehend, yet he did not forbid the martyrs to give the libelli. In later times abuses were met by repressive measures on the part of the Church. Thus the Council of Clovesho in England (747) condemns those who imagine that they might atone for their crimes by substituting, in place of their own, the austerities of mercenary penitents. Against the excessive indulgences granted by some prelates, the Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215) decreed that at the dedication of a church the indulgence should not be for more than year, and, for the anniversary of the dedication or any other case, it should not exceed forty days, this being the limit observed by the pope himself on such occasions. The same restriction was enacted by the Council of Ravenna in 1317. In answer to the complaint of the Dominicans and Franciscans, that certain prelates had put their own construction on the indulgences granted to these Orders, Clement IV in 1268 forbade any such interpretation, declaring that, when it was needed, it would be given by the Holy See. In 1330 the brothers of the hospital of Haut-Pas falsely asserted that the grants made in their favor were more extensive than what the documents allowed: John XXII had all these brothers in France seized and imprisoned. Boniface IX, writing to the Bishop of Ferrara in 1392, condemns the practice of certain religious who falsely claimed that they were authorized by the pope to forgive all sorts of sins, and exacted money from the simple-minded among the faithful by promising them perpetual happiness in this world and eternal glory in the next. When Henry, Archbishop of Canterbury, attempted in 1420 to give a plenary indulgence in the form of the Roman Jubilee, he was severely reprimanded by Martin V, who characterized his action as “unheard-of presumption and sacrilegious audacity”. In 1450 Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, Apostolic Legate to Germany, found some preachers asserting that indulgences released from the guilt of sin as well as from the punishment. This error, due to a misunderstanding of the words “a culpa et a poena”, the cardinal condemned at the Council of Magdeburg. Finally, Sixtus IV in 1478, lest the idea of gaining indulgences should prove an incentive to sin, reserved for the judgment of the Holy See a large number of cases in which faculties had formerly been granted to confessors (Extrav. Com., tit. de poen. et remiss.)…

The Council of Trent repeated prior ordinances that the sale of indulgences for criminal profit is wrong.

Who are you calling a hypocrit?

Those who blame the Latin Church for the Protestant Reformation but cannot admit to the blame of the Eastern Orthodox Church for the Great Schism Both ideas are crazy! I don’t support either view, but if you can’t admit to the latter, while laying the accusation of the former, then that is hypocrisy.

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[Isa_Almisry]

Mickey,

It was a general reply, not aimed at you specifically. The Orthodox seem to be under the impression that protestantism is somehow the fault of the Catholic Church, pointing out, as you just did, that they are a wayward offshoot from us. They then go on to say that nothing on that scale has ever occurred within Orthodoxy, as if to insinuate that that somehow proves Orthodoxy to be true. I am simply pointing out that, according to your Church, Catholicism is a wayward offshoot from Orthodoxy. Catholicism is at least as big as protestantism, if not bigger. Therefore, that argument fails because according your logic the Catholics are your “step-children”. I guess that makes the protestants your “great step-children”.

By the way, the icon that you cut out of the quote should have been an indication that the final comment was only partly serious.

When I was becoming Orthodox, the priest told that Protestants and the Vatican were too sides of the same coin (he came from a church that had submitted to Rome, and gone to their seminary). I didn’t say it, but I thought the statement was ridiculous. I’ve since seen his point.

The Church has always believed that a heaven and hell exists, and has always prayed for the departed.

Trent (and what preceded it) says “well, it doesn’t make sense to pray for the dead if they go to heaven or hell, so there must be an intermediate place” and invents purgatory.

Luther et alia says “well, it doesn’t make sense to pray for the dead if they go to heaven or hell, so we shouldn’t pray for the departed” and so they practically forget about the departed the moment the dirt is thrown on the coffin.

One is +
One is -

But it is the same mentality.

Which brings us back to the OP: the squabbles between the factions of the West were not our arguments, nor did we have a dog in that fight. Only the “missionaries” coming East, like carpetbaggers filled with the disputes that the West had dreamed up, and tried to sell our faithful, did it become an issue for us. It’s like Europeans taking part in the US election.

 

[mardukm]

The Church has always believed that a heaven and hell exists, and has always prayed for the departed.

Trent (and what preceded it) says “well, it doesn’t make sense to pray for the dead if they go to heaven or hell, so there must be an intermediate place” and invents purgatory.

Luther et alia says “well, it doesn’t make sense to pray for the dead if they go to heaven or hell, so we shouldn’t pray for the departed” and so they practically forget about the departed the moment the dirt is thrown on the coffin.

Wow! The mental acrobatics that some EO go through to prove invalid points (i.e., Protestantism and Catholicism are two sides of the same coin) is simply amazing.

Trent didn’t invent Purgatory. Purgatory is the Latin Church’s valid intepretation of the Patristic practice of praying for the dead. You cannot deny it is based on patristic evidence, no matter how much you disagree with her conclusions.

Luther, on the other hand, did not base his belief as regards this point on the Fathers AT ALL, but rather on the assumption that there was no connection between the Church militant and the Church triumphant.

I see similarities between the arguments proposed by EO polemicists and Protestants all the time, and not just on matters of the papacy. I’ve heard some Latins claim that based on these similarities, Orthodox are no different than Protestants. I don’t personally believe it. The syllogism used by such Catholics have the same merit as the syllogism used to attempt to make a connection between Protestantism and Latin Catholicism - which is absolutely none.

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[Mickey]

if you can’t admit to the latter, while laying the accusation of the former, then that is hypocrisy.

The Latin Catholic Church separated Herself from the other four Patriarchates. And Protestants are the wayward children of the Latin Catholics. If it makes you feel good to call me a hypocrit to justify your “translation”----then feel free.

 

[Mickey]

Which brings us back to the OP: the squabbles between the factions of the West were not our arguments, nor did we have a dog in that fight. Only the “missionaries” coming East, like carpetbaggers filled with the disputes that the West had dreamed up, and tried to sell our faithful, did it become an issue for us. It’s like Europeans taking part in the US election.

 

[mardukm]

The Latin Catholic Church separated Herself from the other four Patriarchates. And Protestants are the wayward children of the Latin Catholics. If it makes you feel good to call me a hypocrit to justify your “translation”----then feel free.

The “You” in the original statement you quoted was a plural, general you, and was not directed at you singularly or personally. Initially, when you stated “Protestants are the wayward children of the Latin Catholics,” I did not think it was the same as saying “the Latin Catholic Church is to be blamed for the Protestant Reformation,” for what you stated is simply a truism. Are you now stating that the two statements are to be equated? I hope not, but if so — oh well, if the shoe fits.

And btw, I translated from Oriental Orthodoxy, not Eastern Orthodoxy. Please don’t confuse the two. The relations between your Church and the Catholic Church during the Great Schism had no bearing on my translation.

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[Mickey]

Please don’t confuse the two.

I never do.

 

[Isa_Almisry]

Wow! The mental acrobatics that some EO go through to prove invalid points (i.e., Protestantism and Catholicism are two sides of the same coin) is simply amazing.

You all are the ones doing the summersalts to answer questions that the Fathers left unanswered, not us.

We could go through a long list, where all you would have to do would put a + in front of the one, and a - in front of the other to get the Vatican an Protestant positions.

Trent didn’t invent Purgatory. Purgatory is the Latin Church’s valid intepretation of the Patristic practice of praying for the dead. You cannot deny it is based on patristic evidence, no matter how much you disagree with her conclusions.

I did say “and what preceded it.”

Heretics can, and do, pull out all sort of patristic evidence for their views.

Luther, on the other hand, did not base his belief as regards this point on the Fathers AT ALL, but rather on the assumption that there was no connection between the Church militant and the Church triumphant.

From Luther’s 95 thesis:

1. The penitential canons are imposed only on the living, and,
   according to them, nothing should be imposed on the dying.
2. Ignorant and wicked are the doings of those priests who,
   in the case of the dying, reserve canonical penances for
   purgatory.
   

   11. This changing of the canonical penalty to the penalty of 
   purgatory is quite evidently one of the tares that were sown 
   while the bishops slept.  
    
   12. In former times the canonical penalties were imposed not  after, but before absolution, as tests of true contrition.

3. Who knows whether all the souls in purgatory wish to be
   bought out of it, as in the legend of Sts. Severinus and
   Paschal.
4. St. Lawrence said that the treasures of the Church were
   the Church’s poor, but he spoke according to the usage of the word in his own time.
5. Again: – “Why are the penitential canons long since in
   actual fact and through disuse abrogated and dead, now
   satisfied by the granting of indulgences, as though they were still alive and in force?”

Etc. Luther cites the Fathers (actually Augustine is his favorite, as indeed the favorite of both Protestants and their opponents. It seems Augustine’s image is what is on that coin) often. The above is just an example.

I see similarities between the arguments proposed by EO polemicists and Protestants all the time, and not just on matters of the papacy. I’ve heard some Latins claim that based on these similarities, Orthodox are no different than Protestants. I don’t personally believe it. The syllogism used by such Catholics have the same merit as the syllogism used to attempt to make a connection between Protestantism and Latin Catholicism - which is absolutely none.

Blessings,
Marduk

Oh, I can see the ultramontanist claim: if you make the pope of Rome the be all and end all of everything, then from your vantage point, or rather key hole, any opponent of that is la meme chose.

As I pointed above, one of those connections is Augustine.

Another would be Jerome: the priority of the Hebrew text was started by him, by orders of Rome, and the Protestants have only taken that to its logical conclusion, chucking the books the Jews did not admit to their canon.

Filioque, btw, is one of the reasons EP Jeremiah cut off the discussions with the Lutherans at Tubingen. The Protestants thought they would have allies of like mind in the Orthodox. They found out otherwise.

 

[Mickey]

You all are the ones doing the summersalts to answer questions that the Fathers left unanswered, not us.

My thoughts also.

 

[mardukm]

You all are the ones doing the summersalts to answer questions that the Fathers left unanswered, not us.

Don’t avoid the issue. Were talking about your own mental gymnastics to try to make a connection between Protestantism and Catholicism.

I’ll go toe to toe with you on specific issues with the Fathers on other threads.

Heretics can, and do, pull out all sort of patristic evidence for their views.

Are you calling the Latin doctrine of Purgatory a heresy? Really? As far as I know, all it states is that 1) There is a period after this life wherein the souls are made more perfect; and 2) Our prayers and suffrages can help these souls.

That’s heresy. OOOOOOKay.

From Luther’s 95 thesis:

1. The penitential canons are imposed only on the living, and,
   according to them, nothing should be imposed on the dying.
2. Ignorant and wicked are the doings of those priests who,
   in the case of the dying, reserve canonical penances for
   purgatory.
   

   11. This changing of the canonical penalty to the penalty of 
   purgatory is quite evidently one of the tares that were sown 
   while the bishops slept.  
    
   12. In former times the canonical penalties were imposed not  after, but before absolution, as tests of true contrition.

3. Who knows whether all the souls in purgatory wish to be
   bought out of it, as in the legend of Sts. Severinus and
   Paschal.
4. St. Lawrence said that the treasures of the Church were
   the Church’s poor, but he spoke according to the usage of the word in his own time.
5. Again: – “Why are the penitential canons long since in
   actual fact and through disuse abrogated and dead, now
   satisfied by the granting of indulgences, as though they were still alive and in force?”

Etc. Luther cites the Fathers (actually Augustine is his favorite, as indeed the favorite of both Protestants and their opponents. It seems Augustine’s image is what is on that coin) often. The above is just an example.

Nice quotes, but you are avoiding the issue once again. We were talking about praying for the dead, not indulgences. You show me where Luther offered patristic evidence for his denial of the efficacy of prayer for the dead, and you will have won your point.
But I pretty sure you can’t.

Oh, I can see the ultramontanist claim: if you make the pope of Rome the be all and end all of everything, then from your vantage point, or rather key hole, any opponent of that is la meme chose.

Point taken, but like I said, it’s not just that.

As I pointed above, one of those connections is Augustine.

Yes, the Protestants have utilized Augustine, but wrongly. And I’ve encountered Protestants who appeal to Eastern Fathers (wrongly, once again) for their arguments against the papacy. So I guess the Protestants are really your cousins at the very least.

Another would be Jerome: the priority of the Hebrew text was started by him, by orders of Rome, and the Protestants have only taken that to its logical conclusion, chucking the books the Jews did not admit to their canon.

But Jerome did NOT “chuck” the Deuterocanonicals. Once again, if they utilize Jerome, they have utilized him wrongly. That’s not the Catholic Church’s fault.

Filioque, btw, is one of the reasons EP Jeremiah cut off the discussions with the Lutherans at Tubingen. The Protestants thought they would have allies of like mind in the Orthodox. They found out otherwise.

Yes, Protestants accept filioque, but so what? Protestants also accept the teachings of many of the Ecumenical Councils. Does that make them apostolic Christians?

Basically, the comparisons made by non-Catholic polemicists between Catholics and Protestants are just as valid as the comparisons athiests make between paganism and Christianity. Judge with right judgment, Jesus commands us. Don’t see any of that in a paradigm that lumps Protestants and Catholics together.

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[Hesychios]

The Protestants thought they would have allies of like mind in the Orthodox. They found out otherwise.

*Therefore, going about your own ways, write no longer concerning dogmas; but if you do, write only for friendship’s sake. *

Farewell.
Jeremiah, Patriarch of Constantinople
Issued in the year 1581, June 6

 

[Zabdi_Premjit]

Truth:

It takes two to make a schism. Both the Orthodox and the Latins are responsible for the Great Schism. Also, both the Latins and the Protestants are responsible for the Protestant Reformation. Case closed.

 

[Mickey]

It takes two to make a schism. Both the Orthodox and the Latins are responsible for the Great Schism. Also, both the Latins and the Protestants are responsible for the Protestant Reformation. Case closed.

So your final conclusions are thus:
The Orthodox are partly responsible for the Great Schism.
The protestants are partly responsible for the reformation.
And the Latins are partly responsible for the Great Schism and the reformation.

Interesting.

 

[mardukm]

Truth:

It takes two to make a schism. Both the Orthodox and the Latins are responsible for the Great Schism. Also, both the Latins and the Protestants are responsible for the Protestant Reformation.

You are indeed fair and just in your assessment, brother.

Case closed.

I second.

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[Zabdi_Premjit]

So your final conclusions are thus:
The Orthodox are partly responsible for the Great Schism.
The protestants are partly responsible for the reformation.
And the Latins are partly responsible for the Great Schism and the reformation.

Interesting.

More or less.

You could even say that they are also partly responsible for the schism with the Old Catholics, while the Orthodox are also partly responsible for the schism with the Old Believers **and **Old Calendarists.

 

[Zabdi_Premjit]

You are indeed fair and just in your assessment, brother.

I second.

Blessings,
Marduk

Thank you.

Some things really aren’t worthy arguing about.

 

[Isa_Almisry]

Don’t avoid the issue. Were talking about your own mental gymnastics to try to make a connection between Protestantism and Catholicism.

No gymnastics required. For one thing, neither seems to know what to do with the Orthodox.

I’ll go toe to toe with you on specific issues with the Fathers on other threads.

Start with the Fathers on whom Dante based his Purgatorio.

Are you calling the Latin doctrine of Purgatory a heresy? Really? As far as I know, all it states is that 1) There is a period after this life wherein the souls are made more perfect; and 2) Our prayers and suffrages can help these souls.

That’s heresy. OOOOOOKay.

Actually that’s not. But then, it’s not the Latin dogma either.

On a forum gone by, someone no longer with us posted for you several Latin Fathers, etc. which insisted on material fire, Purgatory as a place (not a period) etc. I remember the material fire was from Pope St. Gregory’s Dialogues, and the council of Florence.

One reason why I don’t even consider Majagorje (spllng?) is that the ‘seers’ talk of visions of heaven, hell, and purgatory, as have others (I think the nun associated with the Cult of the Divine Mercy had similar things). No such place.

Nice quotes, but you are avoiding the issue once again. We were talking about praying for the dead, not indulgences. You show me where Luther offered patristic evidence for his denial of the efficacy of prayer for the dead, and you will have won your point.
But I pretty sure you can’t.

I’d look first into what Nihil Obstat says, before bothering with Luther.

Finally, some indulgences are granted in behalf of the living only, while others may be applied in behalf of the souls departed. It should be noted, however, that the application has not the same significance in both cases. The Church in granting an indulgence to the living exercises her jurisdiction; over the dead she has no jurisdiction and therefore makes the indulgence available for them by way of suffrage (per modum suffragii), i.e. she petitions God to accept these works of satisfaction and in consideration thereof to mitigate or shorten the sufferings of the souls in Purgatory.
“We being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another” (Romans 12:5). As each organ shares in the life of the whole body, so does each of the faithful profit by the prayers and good works of all the rest-a benefit which accrues, in the first instance, to those who are in the state of grace, but also, though less fully, to the sinful members.
newadvent.org/cathen/07783a.htm
Catholic teaching regarding prayers for the dead is bound up inseparably with the doctrine of purgatory and the more general doctrine of the communion of the saints, which is an article of the Apostle’s Creed.
Without entering into the subject here, we would remark that the application of Indulgences for the dead, when properly understood and explained, introduces no new principle, but is merely an extension of the general principle underlying the ordinary practice of prayer and good works for the dead. The church claims no power of absolving the souls in purgatory from their pains, as on earth she absolves men from sins. It is only per modum suffragii, i.e. by way of prayer, that Indulgences avail for the dead, the Church adding her official or corporate intercession to that of the person who performs and offers the indulgenced work, and beseeching God to apply, for the relief of those souls whom the offerer intends, some portion of the superabundant satisfactions of Christ and His saints, or, in view of those same satisfactions, to remit some portion of their pains, in what measure may seem good to His own infinite mercy and love.
newadvent.org/cathen/04653a.htm

Point taken, but like I said, it’s not just that.

No, it’s not. But it is the heart of the matter.

Yes, the Protestants have utilized Augustine, but wrongly.

Your view.

And I’ve encountered Protestants who appeal to Eastern Fathers (wrongly, once again) for their arguments against the papacy. So I guess the Protestants are really your cousins at the very least.

When they start trying to push all theology through those Fathers, as you and they both do with Augustine, you’ll have a point.

But Jerome did NOT “chuck” the Deuterocanonicals. Once again, if they utilize Jerome, they have utilized him wrongly. That’s not the Catholic Church’s fault.

They only followed Jerome to his logical conclusion, as St. Augustine pointed out (both you and they ignored Augustine’s warning on this matter).

Yes, Protestants accept filioque, but so what? Protestants also accept the teachings of many of the Ecumenical Councils. Does that make them apostolic Christians?

The filioque is but one point that you and they share, to the exclusion of all the rest of Christendom.

Basically, the comparisons made by non-Catholic polemicists between Catholics and Protestants are just as valid as the comparisons athiests make between paganism and Christianity. Judge with right judgment, Jesus commands us. Don’t see any of that in a paradigm that lumps Protestants and Catholics together.

Blessings,
Marduk

Yes, the further out you go, the more similarities between different things you can see. But you have to come in close to distinguish between you and the Protestants. You ask the same questions, just get different answers.

 

[Mickey]

You could even say that they are also partly responsible for the schism with the Old Catholics, while the Orthodox are also partly responsible for the schism with the Old Believers **and **Old Calendarists.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion. Others might say that if one entity separates itself from the true Church–the true Church does not carry responsibility. In which case the Latin Catholics would claim no responsibility for the reformation and the Orthodox would claim no responsibility for the Latins.