Traditional Orthodox and traditional Catholics

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Peter_J

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“Why are there so many more traditional Orthodox than there are traditional Catholics?” I’ve asked myself this question more than once in the past; but the thing that prompted me to wonder about it this time is an article I just read – quoted below, in blue.

From a Catholic point of view, the criticism of ecumenism contained in the article would be seen as radically traditionalist, yet in Orthodoxy they seem to be pretty mainstream. In fact, it’s from the conference “‘Primacy,’ Synodicality and Unity of the Church”, which was opened by no less a hierarch than His Beatitude Hieronymos, Archbishop of Athens and All Greece.

P.S. I guess I had better warn everyone that the article is riddled with anti-Catholic (especially anti-Papal) sentiments. However, setting those aside I think that a lot of his arguments against “ecumenism” are very similar to traditional Catholic thought on the matter – excepting what I already mentioned, namely that they seem to be pretty “mainstream” in Orthodoxy.

For example, “Unity of faith and worship cannot be sacrificed in order to secure unity under the Pope” and “there can be no union with the Papists without the primacy of the Pope. For it to be otherwise they would have to call an ‘ecumenical council’ to change their ecclesiology, to change the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church produced at Vatican II.”

impantokratoros.gr/false_unity_unia.en.aspx

Unia as a Model of False Unity:
The Limits of Diversity within Unity
A Talk Given by Protopresbyter Theodoros Zisis ,Professor EmerituS of the
Theological School of the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, at the
Metropolis of Piraeus’ Conference
on the Theme “‘Primacy,’ Synodicality and the Unity of the Church”
Peace and Friendship Stadium, 28 April 2010

One of the chief marks of the previous century – the twentieth – was the Christian world’s attempt to restore unity. After Papism fell away from the Church at the beginning of the second millennium (1054) and then the Protestant’s subsequent breach with Papism in the 16th century, East and West were deeply divided and the West was much divided within itself. Yet the Church lost neither its unity nor its catholicity – its wholeness: heresy and schism may wound and scar the body of the Church but they do not divide it, just as a tree is not said to be divided if someone clips off one of its branches. From this viewpoint, the oft-used terms ‘the undivided Church’ of the first ten centuries and ‘the union of the churches’ are incorrect. The Church is ever undivided, be it after the schism of 1054 or any other schism whatsoever. Moreover, there are not many churches needing to be brought together: there is the “One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church” alone, whose life continues undivided and uninterrupted in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Those heterodox Christians of the East and West who have broken away, falling into heresy and schism, cannot be called churches; they must instead seek union with the Church, denouncing heresy and delusion. Unity is not achieved by ‘uniting the churches’, but rather through ‘union with the Church’.

Following the schism, throughout the whole of the second millennium, many attempts were made at achieving unity, in particular through the calling of great synods aimed at unity such as those of Lyon (1274) and Ferreira-Florence (1438-1439). Though union between the Orthodox and the Papists was officially accepted at the later of these and almost all of the Orthodox bishops in attendance signed the terms - with the exception of Saint Mark of Ephesus and a few others - it remained unapplied: nothing more than a simple piece of paper. These councils did not aim at true Christian peace and unity - unity in truth; they did not ground themselves on the true model of unity as is found in the teaching of Christ, the Apostles and the Saints. Rather, like Unia, they were based on newly invented, false models of unity which serve ulterior motives – other malevolent, egotistical, autocratic, divisive motives. These not only failed to help the cause of unity, but enlarged the chasm and provoked new divisions. The members of the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between Orthodox and Roman Catholics concluded this unanimously at the sixth plenary session of the Commission’s General Assembly held at Freising, Germany in June 1990. The text they signed reads as follows: “Unia as a method – wherever it was applied - did not succeed in its aim of bringing about rapprochement between the churches. Conversely, it brought on new divisions. The situation that it created became the cause of conflicts and trials which have left their mark on the collective memory and consciousness of the two churches. Thus for ecclesiological reasons the conviction that other methods should be sought has been made firm.” (¶ 6c)
 
[continuation of “Unia as a Model of False Unity: The Limits of Diversity within Unity”]

Papal and Patriarchal texts, studies produced by theologians and even the Theological Dialogue itself create the chimerical impression that the supposed new model of unity being sought after is the ecclesiological model of ‘sister churches’. In connection to this the aforementioned Freising text writes: “Now that our Churches have come together on the ecclesiological foundation of communion between sister churches, it would be a grievous matter to destroy the excellent work toward the unity of the Churches achieved through the Dialogue by returning to the method of Unia.” (¶ 6d) This model indeed applies when speaking about relations between the local autocephalous churches of the Orthodox Church, where conciliarity on both the local and international levels prevents anyone from asserting universal jurisdiction not only over the other patriarchs, but also over the ecumenical councils. The Vatican, on the other hand, does not accept, nor is it going to accept, the equality of the primates, or even that of the bishops, nor the supreme authority of the ecumenical councils. Such is apparent from the decisions of the Second Vatican Council as well as from its contemporary declarations and actions, like the abolition of the Pope’s ancient title ‘Patriarch of the West’ which limits his jurisdiction topically. Thus, the Vatican is deceiving us with the ‘sister churches’ model. In reality it seeks a new Unia; a Unia that is broader and elastic, having boundless diversity on matters of faith and life so long as the primacy of the Pope is recognized.

Fundamentally, this is the model espoused by the older version of Unia which allows those Christians in union with Rome to maintain their own liturgical rites, holy icons, vesture of clergy, and other customs and practices, in some cases not even demanding unity in faith. Seeing that the first model of unity that Papism used – that of Latinization – produced no long-standing results (whether applied violently, as it was during the Crusades, or through personal proselytism), the Jesuits invented the deceptive method of Unia as a more effective means of bringing about union with Rome. They did this despite the fact that Unia was neither a holy nor true means of union; but for the Jesuits ‘the end justifies the means’. According to Christian ethics, however both the means and the end must be holy. Unity of faith and worship cannot be sacrificed in order to secure unity under the Pope, whose office is itself false and contrary to the Gospel since it subverts the God-given and apostolic model of administration – the synodical – to implement the absolute monarchy of the Pope. True unity is achieved through unity of faith, worship and administration: this is the model of unity in the ancient Church, which the Orthodox Catholic Church has maintained unswervingly. The method of Unia introduces a false unity, a unity in name only, because, outside of the fact that it allows for unlimited diversity in faith and worship, it is based on heretical ecclesiology since it overturns the Church’s synodical system of administration – a divine institution – with the primacy of the Pope – a human institution. In the Church, diversity is only permitted in secondary matters of local tradition and practice, which do not touch on the fundamentals of faith and worship and administration.

Those who in our day adhere to and promote the true unity – unity in faith, worship and administration – are troubled by what has been plotted and packaged for us from above within the Theological Dialogue, without the knowledge of the people. There at the Dialogue, as expressed in the Ravenna text (which was also discussed in October 2009 in Cyprus) the Papists lured the Orthodox into discussion of the imaginary universal ‘primacy’ of the Pope, without which no proposed union can be accepted by Luciferian Papism.
 
[continuation of “Unia as a Model of False Unity: The Limits of Diversity within Unity”]

We have a new Unia at our doors; on account of this the co-chair of the Dialogue’s Mixed Committee, Cardinal Casper, expressed his satisfaction at the fact that the Orthodox discussed the universal primacy of the Pope in some form for the first time in centuries. We have been deceived by the Vatican: there can be no union with the Papists without the primacy of the Pope. For it to be otherwise they would have to call an ‘ecumenical council’ to change their ecclesiology, to change the Dogmatic Constitution on the Churchproduced at Vatican II. Even if the Roman Catholic theologians involved in the Dialogue were convinced by the Orthodox and they signed a text rejecting any form of Papal primacy, accepting that the Pope – along with the other Patriarchs – are first in honour alone, and accepting that above all is the authority of the Ecumenical Councils, this text would be immediately rejected by Rome. It would be made to disappear, as if it had never been produced. This is precisely what occurred with the Freising text of 1990 which condemned Unia. Rome rejected it, it disappeared and Rome lured us into the composition of a new text on Unia at Balamand, Lebanon in 1993. There, a reduced Orthodox delegation (without representation from six autocephalous churches) exonerated Unia along with the Papist theologians so as to be in line with Vatican II, which praises Unia, and so that it might remain a model for unity with the Orthodox as per the Ravenna and Cyprus texts. Rome, therefore, accepts only what is in line with its own innovations and rejects the things of the Gospel and of the Church. Can this facade, this caricature of a dialogue be considered a dialogue? Is it acceptable for us to participate in an ostensible, false, disingenuious dialogue, a dialogue whose outcome is already known: that is to say, the rejection of all that does not agree with Papal dogma?

Since the repose of Archbishop Seraphim, our ecclesiastical leadership’s stance on these matters has been disappointing. We have even arrived at the point that many of us are considering invoking the 15th canon of the First-Second Council (called by Saint Photios in 861), which permits cessation of the commemoration of those bishops who are not upholding Orthodoxy, just as was done in 1970 when Metropolitan Augustinos of Florina, the ever-memorable Metropolitans Paul of Paramythia and Ambrose of Elevtheropolous, and almost all of the Monasteries of Mount Athos ceased commemoration of Patriarch Athenagoras.

Though the clouds of Ecumenism and Philo-Papism are yet thick, the horizon has again begun to open - there are streams of light; there is the Hierarchy of the Church of Greece’s decision from last October to provide guidelines for its representatives at the Theological Dialogue in discussions of the Pope’s ‘primacy’, returning it to the path of the Holy Fathers; there is also your strong voice, your tireless and unceasing action, Your Eminence [addressing Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus]. Your boldness and outspokenness on a host of matters of faith and life amazes us. Already you have been placed at the head of the anti-Papal and anti-ecumenical struggle as today’s conference, taking place under your patronage, proves; there are those amongst your fellow bishops who signed the Confession of Faith against Ecumenism together with you, and there are other bishops who did not sign but do agree; there are the six hagiorite and a host of other monasteries – male and female - who have signed; hundreds of abbots, hieromonks, married clergy, monks, and thousands of laity who have signed and continue to sign and who, surpassing every expectation, have flooded this great auditorium tonight.

We hope and believe that we will not be led into a new Unia, into the recognition of the universal primacy of the Pope in any form. If, however, the powerful and influential, the new Beccuses, Basserions, and Isidores, impose this development, all of us, with God’s help and the prayers of the Most-Holy Theotokos and all the saints who have struggled and confessed the faith, will once again quash it and ensure it is not applied.
 
Peter_J said:
“Why are there so many more traditional Orthodox than there are traditional Catholics?
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Probably, because the holy Tradition of the OC is seen as part of the liturgy and liturgical life.
 
the Catholic Church has been under much attack from within and without.
 
The Orthodox were simply never of the Western mindset. The West has always loved allowing bits of culture seep into the liturgy. St. Francis of Assisi was not censored when he banned Gregorian chant in his convent Mass, and allowed instrumental chansons to be used in catechesis. In the East, he would have been shunned and ostracised, especially at that time. Allowing secular terms to creep into the Church is horrifying for the Orthodox, but the West always seemed to like that sort of thing. Look at Jesuits being astronomers, physicists, geologists, and the like… have you ever heard of Orthodox hieromonks doing that?

There are more Traditional Orthodox because Orthodoxy is traditional by writ and nature. I do believe they shun anything that is not of tradition. It can become culture-oriented and xenophobic, despite the immense potential it has for good (preservation).
 
But yet they are much more open to the vernacular arn’t they?
 
GloriousOrder said:
The Orthodox were simply never of the Western mindset. The West has always loved allowing bits of culture seep into the liturgy. St. Francis of Assisi was not censored when he banned Gregorian chant in his convent Mass, and allowed instrumental chansons to be used in catechesis. In the East, he would have been shunned and ostracised, especially at that time. Allowing secular terms to creep into the Church is horrifying for the Orthodox, but the West always seemed to like that sort of thing. Look at Jesuits being astronomers, physicists, geologists, and the like… have you ever heard of Orthodox hieromonks doing that?

There are more Traditional Orthodox because Orthodoxy is traditional by writ and nature. I do believe they shun anything that is not of tradition. It can become culture-oriented and xenophobic, despite the immense potential it has for good (preservation).
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The East has more bits of culture that seeps into the liturgy. Don’t think that the Byzantine Rite Divine Liturgy is celebrated uniformly among all the Byzantine Rite Churches. Ukrainians for example will have bits and pieces of traditions within the Liturgy that you will not find with Melkites. For one thing, the Melkites do not use the Liturgical Spoon to give Communion.

I do agree with your last statement, the Orthodox and Eastern Catholics are traditional by nature. The entire theology revolves around the teachings of the Church Fathers of the First Millennium. The philosophy behind that is that the closer they are to the time of Christ and the Apostles, the less errors they have from the message received from them. And its true, today we can’t even grasp many of the aspects of the society that Christ lived in during the first century. St. Basil the Great and St.John Chrysostom knows what its like to live in the Roman Empire. A lot of the context of the writings of the Apostles were still clear to them.
 
archangel04 said:
But yet they are much more open to the vernacular arn’t they?
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Overall, yes. But its not like there are those who won’t insist on Greek only, or Church Slavonic only. But overall there is really not much fussing on language. Unlike Latin which basically fell into disuse, many Liturgical languages in the East are just older versions of the vernacular. No one in my parish would say they use Church Slavonic in the past. They will always say Ukrainian. To them its one and the same. You can’t say the same for English and Latin. A better comparison would be Shakespearean English to today’s English. Its still English.

So back home they used the language of the land. Now here in North America, they use the language of the land here. Its just that simple.
 
archangel04 said:
But yet they are much more open to the vernacular aren’t they?
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They are at least in the OCA, I know some Russian Orthodox Churches, and Antioch Orthodox churches in the US or less open, but the OCA has all English divine liturgies in most places.

Also regarding the “Tradition” I recently was talking to a Instructor at St Vladamir’s Seminary about the difference in terms of liturgy and he told me, the main thing is the Orthodox church hasn’t changed its liturgy, and he is confident it never will.
 
TradCatholic7 said:
They are at least in the OCA, I know some Russian Orthodox Churches, and Antioch Orthodox churches in the US or less open, but the OCA has all English divine liturgies in most places.

Also regarding the “Tradition” I recently was talking to a Instructor at St Vladamir’s Seminary about the difference in terms of liturgy and he told me, the main thing is the Orthodox church hasn’t changed its liturgy, and he is confident it never will.
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As I mentioned, the East always values things from the Church Fathers (and in the East, the Church Fathers are what the West considers the Early Church Fathers. I could be wrong but there are no Church Fathers after the first millennium).

There are small traditions within the Divine Liturgy that would change and they have changed in the past, and they will change in the future. But those are just tiny practices within the Liturgy. Another example I’d like to bring up, is the antidoron is not universal practice. The antidoron is sections of the same bread used for consecration which are not consecrated. It is given away at the end of the Divine Liturgy and anyone (non-Catholics, non-Orthodox) can have it because its just blessed bread (as opposed to being the Body of Christ). We (Ukrainian) do not have antidoron. Melkites do and Russians do.

The core of the Divine Liturgy probably won’t change. But its not going to be the same exact Liturgy all throughout, everywhere, for all time. There will be very minor changes.
 
I would say the reason there are more traditional Orthodox than Traditional Catholics is simply because Vatican II didn’t happen in the Orthodox Church. Whatever you may think about the council the fact is, it or certainly almost all interpretations of it over the last 50 or so years are anathema to ‘Traditional Catholicism’.

The biggest issue simply was that the council was -and to some extent still is- treated as ‘super council’, with the result that all other councils came to be ignored or forgotten. This despite the fact that it was the only council in the churches history that declared itself a pastoral council and the only council in the churches history to openly declare that some parts of it were not binding. This declaration can be found in a clarification note attached to Lumen Gentium which states '"Taking conciliar custom into consideration and also the pastoral purpose of the present Council, the sacred Council defines as binding on the Church only those things in matters of faith and morals which it shall openly declare to be binding. The rest of the things which the sacred Council sets forth, inasmuch as they are the teaching of the Church’s supreme magisterium, ought. to be accepted and embraced by each and every one of Christ’s faithful according to the mind of the sacred Council. The mind of the Council becomes known either from the matter treated or from its manner of speaking, in accordance with the norms of theological interpretation.’

The other issue was that Traditional Catholicism only survived by being disobedient (I will not go into whether it was justified disobedience or not because thats material for a whole new thread), namely in the person of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and such ‘disobedience’ is anathema to the mindset of many Catholics. Simply put many Catholics believed -and many still do- that no error can come out of the Vatican or the pope (I humbly submit that its necessary for me to point out that this has never been the Catholic belief) and so without stopping to think about what was being done in the name of the council blindly obeyed. Those that resisted were labelled ‘disobedient’ ‘schismatics’ ‘herectics’ and ‘rebels’, that said the Traditional Catholic ‘Movement’ if it can be so called is certainly experiencing exponential growth both in terms of the number of adherents and the influence it wields within the Church. The former can be seen by the growth of movements such as the SSPX, FSSP and The Institute of Christ The King The Sovereign Priest and the latter by the Popes freeing of the ‘Tridentine Mass’.
 
Well, I’ll take a different tack and say it is because they do not have a top-down hierarchy. In order to make major “up-dates” of liturgy or doctrine, the whole Orthodox Church must agree to it, and that is pretty hard to do. It requires a big push, like a major heresy, to create the momentum for it to be worked out.

In the Western Roman model, the leadership can make decision and impose them in a way that would never be tolerated in the East - the bishops in question would be run out of town on a rail.

You see the same heritage in the Protestant churches, where an individual leader or leadership group gets a new idea and imposes it or breaks off. There is no idea that serious changes are only acceptable if everyone accepts them. So even in a situation like the Lutherans or Anglicans, where the structure was purposely set up to try to recreate the Eastern situation, you have this Western tendency for top-down decision making in evidence.
 
TrentCath said:
I would say the reason there are more traditional Orthodox than Traditional Catholics is simply because Vatican II didn’t happen in the Orthodox Church. Whatever you may think about the council the fact is, it or certainly almost all interpretations of it over the last 50 or so years are anathema to ‘Traditional Catholicism’.
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Trent also didn’t happen in the Orthodox Church. Thing is, everything in the Eastern faith (I say Eastern to point to the Orthodox and the Eastern Catholics) has been defined well before the end of the first millennium. The emphasis again is on the Church Fathers. The Liturgy is essentially the same since St. John Chrysostom wrote his Divine Liturgy. Even then it wasn’t an original, but a revision of St. Basil the Great’s Divine Liturgy.
TrentCath said:
The biggest issue simply was that the council was -and to some extent still is- treated as ‘super council’, with the result that all other councils came to be ignored or forgotten. This despite the fact that it was the only council in the churches history that declared itself a pastoral council and the only council in the churches history to openly declare that some parts of it were not binding. This declaration can be found in a clarification note attached to Lumen Gentium which states '"Taking conciliar custom into consideration and also the pastoral purpose of the present Council, the sacred Council defines as binding on the Church only those things in matters of faith and morals which it shall openly declare to be binding. The rest of the things which the sacred Council sets forth, inasmuch as they are the teaching of the Church’s supreme magisterium, ought. to be accepted and embraced by each and every one of Christ’s faithful according to the mind of the sacred Council. The mind of the Council becomes known either from the matter treated or from its manner of speaking, in accordance with the norms of theological interpretation.’
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You can also say that the Roman Church has disregarded many earlier councils even before Vatican II. The Council of Nicea called for standing on Sundays. And of course that little issue with the Filioque.
TrentCath said:
The other issue was that Traditional Catholicism only survived by being disobedient (I will not go into whether it was justified disobedience or not because thats material for a whole new thread), namely in the person of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and such ‘disobedience’ is anathema to the mindset of many Catholics. Simply put many Catholics believed -and many still do- that no error can come out of the Vatican or the pope (I humbly submit that its necessary for me to point out that this has never been the Catholic belief) and so without stopping to think about what was being done in the name of the council blindly obeyed. Those that resisted were labelled ‘disobedient’ ‘schismatics’ ‘herectics’ and ‘rebels’, that said the Traditional Catholic ‘Movement’ if it can be so called is certainly experiencing exponential growth both in terms of the number of adherents and the influence it wields within the Church. The former can be seen by the growth of movements such as the SSPX, FSSP and The Institute of Christ The King The Sovereign Priest and the latter by the Popes freeing of the ‘Tridentine Mass’.
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But disobedience isn’t the mark of the faith. Being obedient to the Pope and submitting to his authority is one of the pre-Vatican II dogmas. This is an oxymoron really. How can you be disobedient and be traditional when tradition calls for respecting the Primacy of the Pope? By going against the Canons and even some claiming the 1983 Canons do not apply to them is not traditional at all.
 
ConstantineTG said:
Trent also didn’t happen in the Orthodox Church. Thing is, everything in the Eastern faith (I say Eastern to point to the Orthodox and the Eastern Catholics) has been defined well before the end of the first millennium. The emphasis again is on the Church Fathers. The Liturgy is essentially the same since St. John Chrysostom wrote his Divine Liturgy. Even then it wasn’t an original, but a revision of St. Basil the Great’s Divine Liturgy.

You can also say that the Roman Church has disregarded many earlier councils even before Vatican II. The Council of Nicea called for standing on Sundays. And of course that little issue with the Filioque.

**Canons are reformable, Dogma isnt. Dogmatic canons are as a result irreformable but disciplinary canons are. **

But disobedience isn’t the mark of the faith. Being obedient to the Pope and submitting to his authority is one of the pre-Vatican II dogmas. This is an oxymoron really. How can you be disobedient and be traditional when tradition calls for respecting the Primacy of the Pope? By going against the Canons and even some claiming the 1983 Canons do not apply to them is not traditional at all.**I am not going to say whether I agree or not with what some groups did merely show that the obedience owed to the pope is not without limits and disobedience can albeit rarely be legitimate

Second off here is the opinion of several theologians quoted by Blessed Cardinal Henry Newman who in his letter to the duke of Norfolk refers to several weighty authorities that explain when it is legitmate to disobey the pope '…In support of what I have been saying, I refer to one or two weighty authorities:—

Cardinal Turrecremata says, “Although it clearly follows from the circumstance that the Pope can err at times, and command things which must not be done, that we are not to be simply obedient to him in all things, that does not show that he must not be obeyed by all when his commands are good. To know in what cases he is to be obeyed and in what not … it is said in the Acts of the Apostles, ‘One ought to obey God rather than man:’ therefore, were the Pope to command anything against Holy Scripture, or the articles of faith, or the truth of the Sacraments, or the commands of the natural or divine law, he ought not to be obeyed, but in such commands is to be passed over (despiciendus).”—Summ. de Eccl., pp. 47, 48.

Bellarmine, speaking of resisting the Pope, says, {243} “In order to resist and defend oneself no authority is required … Therefore, as it is lawful to resist the Pope, if he assaulted a man’s person, so it is lawful to resist him, if he assaulted souls, or troubled the state (turbanti rempublicam), and much more if he strove to destroy the Church. It is lawful, I say, to resist him, by not doing what he commands, and hindering the execution of his will.”—De Rom. Pont., ii. 29.

Archbishop Kenrick says, “His power was given for edification, not for destruction. If he uses it from the love of domination (quod absit) scarcely will he meet with obedient populations.”—Theolog. Moral., t. i. p. 158…’

Less explicitly but clearly based on the same principle is the teaching of St Thomas Aquinas on the issue 'Are Subjects bound to obey their superiors in all things? He says "On like manner there are two reasons, for which a subject may not be bound to obey his superior in all things. First on account of the command of a higher power. For as a gloss says on Romans 13:2, “They that resist [Vulgate: ‘He that resisteth’] the power, resist the ordinance of God” (cf. St. Augustine, De Verb. Dom. viii). “If a commissioner issue an order, are you to comply, if it is contrary to the bidding of the proconsul? Again if the proconsul command one thing, and the emperor another, will you hesitate, to disregard the former and serve the latter? Therefore if the emperor commands one thing and God another, you must disregard the former and obey God.” (from the Summa)

**
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