What does Eastern Orthodoxy offer that Eastern Catholicism doesn't?

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1Tim215Mommy said:
Huh?
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The Catholics say they have Fullness of the Faith.

The Orthodox say they have the Fullness of the Faith.

When you ask one what the other lacks, they will tell you (in so many words):

The Fullness of the Faith.

This has been my experience, at least.
 
howirenic said:
The Catholics say they have Fullness of the Faith.

The Orthodox say they have the Fullness of the Faith.

When you ask one what the other lacks, they will tell you (in so many words):

The Fullness of the Faith.

This has been my experience, at least.
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I see what you’re saying, but I think she was looking for answers that aren’t so much about claims.
 
dzheremi said:
While I’m not EO myself, I do think the point about ecclesiology is a very good one. With ecclesiology revolving around the communion of other churches with a particular See, there is therefore a sort of “tilting” in favor of grating that See more powers or whatever you’d want to call it, such that the influence exercised by those of that particular church within the communion as a whole can be very great. The Roman Church itself seems to recognize some danger or potential danger in this by making transfer to the Latin Rite by Eastern Catholics much harder than the opposite situation (at least from what Eastern Catholics on this website have written about it), so as to attempt to preserve the patrimony of particular non-Latin churches within the Roman communion. That is a good impulse to try to nurture, I suppose, yet when compared to Orthodox ecclesiology, which does not have such a tilted communion in the first place, it does seem like such a situation can be avoided by simply…not being in that communion. Again, even as a non-EO, I feel like I can answer that question by just saying: We don’t have those kinds of issues (or at least not to that degree; there’s seemingly always something…different factions of the Syriacs in India fighting with one another over the issue of autocephaly, for instance…blargh…but at its root that is still fundamentally different than the Roman Communion’s modus operandi). That’s one thing to offer, I suppose. You’re Orthodox, and you are your own Church – still in communion with others (the other autocephalous churches, that is), but with relatively lesser threat that some bishops from outside are going to be able to affect your practice and theology to the point that they will later have to put safeguards in place in an attempt to lessen the negative side-effects that the nature of the communion itself (the aforementioned power/influence differential) is having on…itself (the other particular churches).

And that, my friends, is the nicest way I can put that. 🙂
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Some would say that Christianity had its first major stronghold in Egypt, when Mark(?) went there from the Holy Land to establish a community there soon after Christ died and was resurrected.

That is what I’ve read, anyway.

Take of it what you will.
 
Taurks said:
One becomes Eastern Catholic (and any type of Catholic) through communion with the Pope. One becomes Eastern Orthodox by maintaining the Orthodox faith. From this viewpoint, we’d say Eastern Orthodoxy offers the fullness of the faith, whereas Eastern Catholicism (in our opinion) does not.
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Some would say that IS the only difference.

The Melkite Patriarch, Blessed Gregory, was quoted as saying that basically Melkites are Orthodox in everything but communion with the Pope and Rome.

I tend to listen to what he has to say.

Personally, I consider myself Eastern Catholic.

the western side just does not “do it” for me. LOL.
 
OrdinaryMelkite said:
Some would say that IS the only difference.

The Melkite Patriarch, Blessed Gregory, was quoted as saying that basically Melkites are Orthodox in everything but communion with the Pope and Rome.
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Yes, but more importantly, the Orthodox themselves do not recognize that Melkite claim. Such one-sided declarations actually hurt relations between Orthodox and Catholics, as they essentially claim that it is possible to continue to be Orthodox after having left communion with the actual Orthodox Church, and hence do a great deal of violence to Orthodox ecclesiology, while simultaneously insulting the people they claim to be so close to by reducing the Orthodox faith to a set of presuppositions, stances, or approaches that can somehow be lived out in deliberate isolation/severance from actual Orthodox life, which can only be sustained by continual communion in and with the Orthodox Church.

So I’m glad to hear you consider yourself Catholic instead. 🙂
 
I just hope the Church gets over her asthma and breathes with both lungs again.
 
adawgj said:
I just hope the Church gets over her asthma and breathes with both lungs again.
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When the Pope made his reference about breathing from both lungs, wasn’t he referring to Eastern Catholic Churches?
 
Freedom from the Pope to declare doctrine and practice for the entire church.
 
IgnatianPhilo said:
Freedom from the Pope to declare doctrine and practice for the entire church.
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Hmmm… Too bad you need him to affirm ecumenical councils. Good luck in getting an authoritative, church-wide answer on things like contraception, which the fathers rejected, but some orthodox bishops are allowing.

Freedom from authoritative, Church-wide doctrine. Must be nice.
 
PeaceInChrist said:
Hmmm… Too bad you need him to affirm ecumenical councils. Good luck in getting an authoritative, church-wide answer on things like contraception, which the fathers rejected, but some orthodox bishops are allowing.

Freedom from authoritative, Church-wide doctrine. Must be nice.
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Well I don’t know why I need the pope to tell me the seven ecumenical councils which are accepted by all Orthodox are in fact binding and authoritative councils. I can’t really speak on contraception but yes there is more freedom in the Orthodox church for opinion concerning morality on that subject, which is rather minor when compared to something like Abortion or homosexuality, two things which are universally rejected (and if they are not by some Orthodox, that Orthodox is wrong) without the authority of a Pope.

Is that your only criticism? That there is a disagreement concerning contraception? Any others?
 
Yawn. When will some RCs learn that bishops who have left the faith (as the EO would say that the Roman Pope has) do not retain authority to declare anything one way or another? This is also why the EO do not have “episcopi vagantes” as the RC does, because the priesthood is not a thing possessed of the man such that it can exist outside of communion with the Church.

If your Bishop is not part of their communion, why do they need him for anything? You likewise do not need any other bishop from outside of your communion to make things “official”, right? It’s not like they do not have an at least equally legitimate successor to St. Peter (again, according to them, not you) in Patriarch John X (Yazigi), so what exactly is so necessary about the Roman Pope in particular? That he is in Rome? Sure, Rome was afforded great respect as the imperial city, but obviously not so much so that this forever remained the case no matter what its bishop believed or taught, and that’s really no different than Rome’s recognition or lack thereof of the Patriarch of Constantinople, and for much the same reason – i.e., how many centuries has it been since the Ecumenical Patriarch’s name was recited in the diptych of the Roman Church? Many, many centuries, and you likewise naturally see nothing wrong with that.Is it right to say that you persist in this state out of “freedom from church-wide dogma”, or is your point that the entirety of the Church subsists in Rome herself? (That point I’d almost agree with, actually, but not in the way that RCs might conceive of it, depending.)
 
IgnatianPhilo said:
Well I don’t know why I need the pope to tell me the seven ecumenical councils which are accepted by all Orthodox are in fact binding and authoritative councils. I can’t really speak on contraception but yes there is more freedom in the Orthodox church for opinion concerning morality on that subject, which is rather minor when compared to something like Abortion or homosexuality, two things which are universally rejected (and if they are not by some Orthodox, that Orthodox is wrong) without the authority of a Pope.

Is that your only criticism? That there is a disagreement concerning contraception? Any others?
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Well, the problem from the Catholic perspective with saying that a council is ecumenical because all the bishops agree it is ecumenical, is that you have a group of bishops who begin with the premise that the council is ecumenical and kick out all the bishops who disagree. Of course if you do that, all the bishops will agree it is ecumenical because if they disagree, they have placed themselves outside the Church. Dzheremi’s communion and the Assyrians are two examples. They certainly don’t consider Nicaea II to be ecumenical. The question becomes what if your bishops are wrong. What if Dzheremi’s bishops were correct all along, the Coptic Orthodox Church is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, and your bishops are all Chalcedonian heretics? You might not think so, but Dzheremi thinks so. Whether or not you agree with Rome’s papal claims, you must admit it provides an objective principle of unity that is not present among the Orthodox.

I do not understand why you think contraception is minor compared to homosexuality since they appear to be fundamentally identical as a subversion of normal human procreation. I do not think sodomy with one’s wife is much better than sodomy with another man. What do the fathers of your church say about this?

I agree with your earlier post about freedom from outside imposition of discipline, the Eastern Code of Canon Law being one example. It doesn’t appear that the relationship of the Latin Church with her various sister churches has ever completey stabilized.
 
dzheremi said:
Yawn. When will some RCs learn that bishops who have left the faith (as the EO would say that the Roman Pope has) do not retain authority to declare anything one way or another? This is also why the EO do not have “episcopi vagantes” as the RC does, because the priesthood is not a thing possessed of the man such that it can exist outside of communion with the Church.

If your Bishop is not part of their communion, why do they need him for anything? You likewise do not need any other bishop from outside of your communion to make things “official”, right? It’s not like they do not have an at least equally legitimate successor to St. Peter (again, according to them, not you) in Patriarch John X (Yazigi), so what exactly is so necessary about the Roman Pope in particular? That he is in Rome? Sure, Rome was afforded great respect as the imperial city, but obviously not so much so that this forever remained the case no matter what its bishop believed or taught, and that’s really no different than Rome’s recognition or lack thereof of the Patriarch of Constantinople, and for much the same reason – i.e., how many centuries has it been since the Ecumenical Patriarch’s name was recited in the diptych of the Roman Church? Many, many centuries, and you likewise naturally see nothing wrong with that.Is it right to say that you persist in this state out of “freedom from church-wide dogma”, or is your point that the entirety of the Church subsists in Rome herself? (That point I’d almost agree with, actually, but not in the way that RCs might conceive of it, depending.)
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Ireneaus of Lyons, who was ordained in an eastern church:
  1. Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorized meetings; [we do this, I say,] by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. ** For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its preeminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere. **
 
QNDNNDQDCE said:
Well, the problem from the Catholic perspective with saying that a council is ecumenical because all the bishops agree it is ecumenical, is that you have a group of bishops who begin with the premise that the council is ecumenical and kick out all the bishops who disagree. Of course if you do that, all the bishops will agree it is ecumenical because if they disagree, they have placed themselves outside the Church. Dzheremi’s communion and the Assyrians are two examples. They certainly don’t consider Nicaea II to be ecumenical. The question becomes what if your bishops are wrong. What if Dzheremi’s bishops were correct all along, the Coptic Orthodox Church is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, and your bishops are all Chalcedonian heretics? You might not think so, but Dzheremi thinks so. Whether or not you agree with Rome’s papal claims, you must admit it provides an objective principle of unity that is not present among the Orthodox.

I do not understand why you think contraception is minor compared to homosexuality since they appear to be fundamentally identical as a subversion of normal human procreation. I do not think sodomy with one’s wife is much better than sodomy with another man. What do the fathers of your church say about this?

I agree with your earlier post about freedom from outside imposition of discipline, the Eastern Code of Canon Law being one example. It doesn’t appear that the relationship of the Latin Church with her various sister churches has ever completey stabilized.
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Good post.
 
josie_L said:
When the Pope made his reference about breathing from both lungs, wasn’t he referring to Eastern Catholic Churches?
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Pretty sure he was.

At any rate it isn’t a metaphor I like. It is basically saying all the east = one Rome.
 
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