What is Your Perspective of the Zoghby Initiative?

[bpbasilphx]

Today, Aug 13th , Church honoring the martyrdom of two Popes - Sts Pointian and St Hippolytus …

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**This commemoration is on the LATIN/ROMAN Calendar. On the Byzantine Calendar, it’s the Leavetaking of the Transfiguration and St. Tikhon of Zadonsk.

However, in my own life, what has really changed?

I’m keeping the same fasts I’ve always kept.

I’m saying the same prayers I’ve always said.

I’m believing the same things I’ve always believed.**

 

[Hesychios]

It isn’t “my Code of Canon Law”; instead, it is a Roman imposed document that needs to be “urgently revised.”

I have heard essentially this same comment made by a Byzantine Ruthenian Catholic priest.

It was a statement made before about a dozen people, and he suggested that it would be better if the church returned to the original Canons still in use by the Orthodox.

 

[Formosus]

I fully support the position of Archbishop Zoghby as laid out in his book.

“In other words, Rome must not require more from the East with respect to the doctrine of primacy than had been formulated and was lived in the first millennium.” - former Cardinal Ratzinger

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

The floor is all yours!

If I knew what the ZI was, I might have one ​

 

[malphono]

If I knew what the ZI was, I might have one ​

If you haven’t already done, take a look at the beginning of the thread.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Hence the rest of the Catholic Church, and esp. the pope, would tend to look down upon his denial of 14 Oecumenical Councils.

Were that possible, the Eastern Christianity Forum would not have existed in the state that it did.

One may not deny that there are positive differences between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

Is the Eastern Orthodoxy referred to:​

• the religion of those Phanariote characters who are in communion with the Athonite monks, the late Father John Romanides, etc.

or

• the religion of those characters in communion with that Vatican crowd ?

The two groups are not the same. So

• which lot does the writer mean in using the words “Eastern Orthodoxy” ? Either ? Both ? Neither ?

and

• is this a way of being in communion with both bodies above-mentioned?
• And if so, how is it possible to be in communion with both ?

**If **Rome has no objection to Eastern Catholics who are in communion with Rome being also in communion with those who are not in communion with Rome - what is Rome’s thinking (if any ?) How does it justify this “pushmi-pullyu ecclesiology” ?

http://ourfounder.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341cdbc253ef010536b74698970b-pi

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

If you haven’t already done, take a look at the beginning of the thread.

Bdeen there, done that - but TY for the thought ​

 

[bpbasilphx]

If I knew what the ZI was, I might have one ​

It has two points:

1. I believe everything the Orthodox Church believes.
2. I am in communion with the Bishop of Rome under conditions understood by the Eastern Fathers during the first 10 centuries.

 

[Cecilianus]

Two points I would like to humbly offer for consideration:

1. In order to be a Catholic, you must accept the fullness of the Catholic Faith as promulgated and taught by the Supreme Pontiff. You cannot be a “cafeteria Catholic” for any reason whatsoever, whether you are a liberal dissenter, a Lefebvrite upset about the post-Vatican II Church practically destroying everything of the entire Western tradition of the Faith, or a Melkite seeking re-communion with the Orthodox. You cannot push back the development and growth over the past thousand years that the Holy Spirit has worked in the Church, and to do so is an example of false ecumenism. Rome is ultimately the Mother Church of the Melkites as well as being our Mother Church. I understand that you feel like the Orthodox are your Mother Church and that you (incorrectly) feel like you may have compromised your ethnicity for the sake of your Catholicism, but it’s a sacrifice you have to make for Christ and His Church. I am a Swede, a cradle Lutheran; I had to make that sacrifice too. I can’t be an “Augustana Synod Lutheran in communion with Rome, according to the limits followed by the Papacy during the first 1500 years”.

Therefore, you MUST accept ALL of the Ecumenical Councils, including Trent, Florence, and Vatican I.

Schism is a sin, and schismatic tendencies are no less sinful. When Byzantine Catholics protest against certain aspects of the Faith (such as the authority of the Magisterium) as being “Latin”, I fail to understand how there is unity of faith between the Latins and Byzantines within the Catholic Church, and we are headed back on the road towards schism. I go to Liturgy every week at a Ukrainian Catholic Church on the faith that the priest and congregation is truly Catholic.

1. That being said, I strongly welcome the attempts like the Zoghby initiative to heal the schism at the level most directly affected by the schism - the Melkite Church itself. I do not believe that there is any real divergence of faith between the Orthodox and the Catholics aside from misunderstandings in terminology and the unwillingness (on both parts, sometimes) to accept the other rite as being equally noble. If the Orthodox are willing to enter into communion with the Melkites, then - since the Melkites are Catholics - they are thereby entering into communion with the whole Catholic Church. But, since all Catholics have the duty to reject heresy and schism, the Orthodox who subscribe to the Zoghby initiative also must realize that the Orthodox who are not in communion with Rome are separated from them. You can’t hold communion with Catholics and with schismatics at the same time, any more than you can be a “partaker of the table of the Lord and of the table of devils” (1 Corinthians 10:21), though I hope that my words are NOT taken to imply that our Orthodox brethren are of the “table of devils” - it’s just that as a Catholic you have to renounce schism and therefore the communion of those who persist in remaining in schism from Rome. If you are Catholic, then anyone in communion with you must be in communion with Rome as well.

 

[Hesychios]

Is the Eastern Orthodoxy referred to:​

• the religion of those Phanariote characters who are in communion with the Athonite monks, the late Father John Romanides, etc.

Yes.

Archbishop Elias Zoghby (of blessed memory!) was referring to those Phanariote types

…or

• the religion of those characters in communion with that Vatican crowd ?

The two groups are not the same. So

• which lot does the writer mean in using the words “Eastern Orthodoxy” ? Either ? Both ? Neither ?

and

• is this a way of being in communion with both bodies above-mentioned?
• And if so, how is it possible to be in communion with both ?

Being in communion is not the same as being under the authority of (although most Catholics use these terms interchangeably). It is possible to share communion, even to have bishops and priests concelebrate without being part of the same corporate organization. Archbishop Elias was advocating a return to the first millenium ecclesiology.

The idea was to merge the two Melkite churches, and this new Melkite Antiochian church would have communion with both the Orthodox churches and the Catholic churches. The only way this would be possible is for the new merged Melkite church to be separate and organizationally distinct from any other Catholic or Orthodox church.

Of course, this is not possible as long as the Papal communion insists upon Universal Ordinary Jurisdiction of the Pope.

Interestingly, although neither the Orthodox nor the Papacy was going to bite on this one, the patriarch of the Melkite Catholics was reportedly willing to step down in favor of his Orthodox counterpart to make this reconciliation work.

**If **Rome has no objection to Eastern Catholics who are in communion with Rome being also in communion with those who are not in communion with Rome - what is Rome’s thinking (if any ?) How does it justify this “pushmi-pullyu ecclesiology” ?

http://ourfounder.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341cdbc253ef010536b74698970b-pi

How does the Latin church (in the USA) justify admitting PNCC members to the Holy Eucharist?

These people are Old Catholics and the Old Catholic groups specifically objected to the Papal dogmas of Vatican Council I, and still do not accept them, yet they are able to receive!

While at the same time, a Roman Catholic who does not believe in the Papal dogmas is excommunicated *latae sententiae. * So the Roman Catholic would have to remain seated in the pews while his Old Catholic PNCC neighbor could stroll up to the priest and partake.

What sense does that make?

But as a matter of fact, Rome nixed the Zoghby Initiative, and the Orthodox at present will not formally commune with any church that is willing to commune with Rome.

So the idea, as nice as it is, is basically dead in the water. People who say they support this idea are doing so in spite of the church, and perhaps they are automatically excommunicated.

Funny though, no one seems to have suggested that the good old Archbishop of Baalbek should be removed, at least there was no public attempt. The Melkites take care of their own

 

[Ghosty]

**Cecilianus: **You wrote:

You cannot be a “cafeteria Catholic” for any reason whatsoever, whether you are a liberal dissenter, a Lefebvrite upset about the post-Vatican II Church practically destroying everything of the entire Western tradition of the Faith, or a Melkite seeking re-communion with the Orthodox

Let me say that I don’t see any comparison between the bolded portion of your post and the other listed “cafeteria Catholics”. We seek re-communion with the Orthodox because we believe we share the same Faith, and that our seperation is a scandal. We do not seek re-communion out of dissent from Rome, quite the contrary. The very heart and origin of the modern Melkite Church is the belief that re-communion is absolutely the call of Christ, the caveat being that the Melkite Church was then Eastern Orthodox and entered union with Rome based on this belief. Don’t be so quick to knock this perspective, because it’s the reason the Melkite Catholic Church exists.

Therefore, you MUST accept ALL of the Ecumenical Councils, including Trent, Florence, and Vatican I.

We do accept all the Councils as Catholic, but we don’t accept them all as representing the wholeness and experience of Catholics. Trent is True and speaks the Faith, but it is not formed from the whole Church, but from the perspective of Catholic and Orthodox Rome. We don’t reject anything from Trent, at its root, but we might differ from Trent in how this Truth is expressed. When we say that Trent isn’t Ecumenical, we’re not saying that it isn’t True for everyone, but that it doesn’t speak from the perspective of everyone. Truth spoken in Japanese is True, but it is not the way an American would put it.

Schism is a sin, and schismatic tendencies are no less sinful. When Byzantine Catholics protest against certain aspects of the Faith (such as the authority of the Magisterium) as being “Latin”, I fail to understand how there is unity of faith between the Latins and Byzantines within the Catholic Church, and we are headed back on the road towards schism. I go to Liturgy every week at a Ukrainian Catholic Church on the faith that the priest and congregation is truly Catholic.

On this I agree 110% with you. Loyalty to the Magisterium is not Latin, it’s Catholic. It must also be understood, however, that the Magisterium is Catholic, not Latin. The Melkite Church is as much a part of the Magisterium as the Latins or the Copts.

You can’t hold communion with Catholics and with schismatics at the same time, any more than you can be a “partaker of the table of the Lord and of the table of devils” (1 Corinthians 10:21), though I hope that my words are NOT taken to imply that our Orthodox brethren are of the “table of devils” - it’s just that as a Catholic you have to renounce schism and therefore the communion of those who persist in remaining in schism from Rome. If you are Catholic, then anyone in communion with you must be in communion with Rome as well.

I agree with the letter of what you’ve said here, but I hope you understand the implication of the letter.

We Melkites ARE in direct communion with Orthodox, and I don’t just mean people who are canonically Melkite but call themselves “Orthodox in Communion with Rome”. There are Antiochian Orthodox, canonically speaking, who attend our Liturgies and are members of our parish councils. In some cases they are the most dedicated members of our communities (as in my personal experience). They Commune with Rome at every Liturgy, but insist that they are Orthodox. We don’t argue with them, but rather we welcome them as true Faithful. Unfortunately we Catholics don’t always receive the same treatment from official Antiochian Orthodox channels, but we live for Communion, not for bitter resentments (and we have enough “unofficial” recognition to regard the “official” face as merely that, a face).

We don’t renounce the Antiochians who come to the Table, even if they persist in the Eastern Orthodox lines about the Papacy. We don’t renounce them because they come to the Table just the same, and they are welcome as true believers. The Schism will be healed by showing that we’re not the enemy, not by beating others into submission. When we show that we are united because of Love, not because of mutual hate, we have demonstrated the Divine Plan, and have dealt a blow against the Schism.

Peace and God bless!

 

[Cecilianus]

We Melkites ARE in direct communion with Orthodox, and I don’t just mean people who are canonically Melkite but call themselves “Orthodox in Communion with Rome”. There are Antiochian Orthodox, canonically speaking, who attend our Liturgies and are members of our parish councils. In some cases they are the most dedicated members of our communities (as in my personal experience). They Commune with Rome at every Liturgy, but insist that they are Orthodox. We don’t argue with them, but rather we welcome them as true Faithful. Unfortunately we Catholics don’t always receive the same treatment from official Antiochian Orthodox channels, but we live for Communion, not for bitter resentments (and we have enough “unofficial” recognition to regard the “official” face as merely that, a face).

We don’t renounce the Antiochians who come to the Table, even if they persist in the Eastern Orthodox lines about the Papacy. We don’t renounce them because they come to the Table just the same, and they are welcome as true believers. The Schism will be healed by showing that we’re not the enemy, not by beating others into submission. When we show that we are united because of Love, not because of mutual hate, we have demonstrated the Divine Plan, and have dealt a blow against the Schism.

Peace and God bless!

Regarding those Antiochians, if they accept communion with the Pope, then they’re Catholic. I don’t care if they still call themselves Orthodox; I (a Latin) call myself Orthodox because that’s what the Catholic Church is.

But they need to accept the fullness of the truth that the Catholic Church teaches. The Eucharist is a sign (sacrament) of unity, and not an ecumenical tool for reuniting the Churches. We do need to show them love, and renounce the hatred that led to the schism (which I think that Pope Paul VI did pretty clearly by lifting the excommunications, and which Pope John Paul II did most wonderfully in his encyclical Orientale Lumen). But we also need to - gently and charitably - lead them to fully accept the truth.

No priest should ever - under the current canon law - deny communion to an Antiochian Orthodox believer, or to a Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Assyrian, or Polish National Catholic. This is because there is only one Church and one Communion - there are not separate ecclesiastical entities called “Churches” with separate ontological channels of grace; that is, properly speaking there is no “Russian Orthodox Church” subsisting independently of the one Catholic Church - and the faithful have to judge in their own consciences whether they are committing the mortal sin of heresy or not. The same goes with the Roman Catholic who denies the Papacy. They could be invincibly ignorant.

If the Antiochian Orthodox present themselves to Catholic churches in an effort on their part to overcome the schism, then God be praised - nothing could be better. But we cannot embrace “the Orthodox faith” if by this we mean anything different than the Catholic faith (so as long as we accept the truth of both Trent and Vatican I, however we choose to formulate that truth according to the terminology of our own tradition, this won’t be a problem). We cannot say that we are in communion with those Antiochian Orthodox who won’t accept the Zoghby initiative, which is unfortunate - nor with the Russian Orthodox, who remain bitterly anti-Catholic (and generally mistaken as to what the Catholic Church actually teaches).

Is that what you think, Ghosty - or do we disagree?

 

[DixitDominus]

I reject the Zoghby Initiative as contrary to the teachings of the holy Catholic Church.

 

[LumenGent]

If the Zoghby Initiative recognises communion with the Bishop of Rome as the first among the bishops, according to the limits recognized by the Holy Fathers of the East during the first millennium, before the separation., is that another way of denying Papal Infallibility as defined by the First Vatican Council?

 

[Seamus_L]

as the first among the bishops, according to the limits recognized by the Holy Fathers of the East during the first millennium,

The above is a very subtle way of saying that the Roman Catholic Church, and particularly Pope Pius IX has erred.

 

[bpbasilphx]

If the Zoghby Initiative recognises communion with the Bishop of Rome as the first among the bishops, according to the limits recognized by the Holy Fathers of the East during the first millennium, before the separation., is that another way of denying Papal Infallibility as defined by the First Vatican Council?

The Melkite Patirarch left Vatican I before the vote was taken after being bullied by Pius IX.

When forced to sign the decree later, he added, “Without prejudice to the rights and privileges of the Eastern Patriarchs” or words to that effect.

 

[LumenGent]

bpbasilphx:

The Melkite Patirarch left Vatican I before the vote was taken after being bullied by Pius IX.

When forced to sign the decree later, he added, “Without prejudice to the rights and privileges of the Eastern Patriarchs” or words to that effect.

Are you trying to say that had the Patriarch not left, the Dogma would not have been pronounced?

Eastern Patriarchs never did have the Charism of infallibility unless they were united to the Pope in the same way as all Bishops, so the rights and privileges of the Eastern Patriarchs don’t matter.

 

[Hesychios]

If the Zoghby Initiative recognises communion with the Bishop of Rome as the first among the bishops, according to the limits recognized by the Holy Fathers of the East during the first millennium, before the separation., is that another way of denying Papal Infallibility as defined by the First Vatican Council?

It means just what it says.

A return to the early church understanding of the role of the bishop of Rome.

If you need further clarification of that, find some good independent scholarship and study the role of the bishop of Rome in the first millenium. It was a different job than the one done today.

Are you trying to say that had the Patriarch not left, the Dogma would not have been pronounced?

No. He obviously was not saying that.

Eastern Patriarchs never did have the Charism of infallibility

Neither did western patriarchs, ever

But the caveat the Patriarch attached to his own signature is essentially a reservation over and against the claim of Papal Universal Ordinary Jurisdiction.

The concept of Papal Infallibility follows from that logically… if one person is responsible for everything that happens in the church, then the charism of infallibility must necessarily reside in that one person. If the concept of universal ordinary jurisdiction held by one person falls, then the concept of one person holding the church’s charism of infallibility falls with it.

…unless they were united to the Pope in the same way as all Bishops, so the rights and privileges of the Eastern Patriarchs don’t matter.

Mythmaking abounds across the west.

You cannot do anything about it, of course. It is probably what your church teaches you.

Which just demonstrates to the wider world how it is possible to be under the Pope and believe error.
*
Michael*

 

[Cecilianus]

It means just what it says.

A return to the early church understanding of the role of the bishop of Rome.

If you need further clarification of that, find some good independent scholarship and study the role of the bishop of Rome in the first millenium. It was a different job than the one done today. No. He obviously was not saying that.

The “early church understanding of the role of the bishop of Rome” was the same as that of the modern Church - the universal pontiff. He acted as the universal pontiff when he (Clement) rebuked the people of Corinth for rebelling against their bishop. The first Father of the Church to call him the “Supreme Pontiff” was, so far as I know, Tertullian (in the De Pudicitia). St. Maximos the Confessor urged Pyrrhus to prove his innocence by appealing to the See of Peter, "to which belong government, authority, and power to bind and to loose over all the churches that are in the world, in all things and in every way.” In a letter to Pope Leo III, appealing for help (in the Greek church!) against the iconoclasts, St. Theodore Studites told him, “They have not feared to hold a heretical council of their own authority, without your permission; whilst they could not hold even an orthodox one without your knowledge, according to ancient custom.” The schism in 869 ocurred because Photius, trying to secure his place as Patriarch, appealed to the Pope (who had not been involved) for confirmation of his see.

Finally, I would like to quote a Russian akathist to St. Peter, which clearly shows the indefectibility and infallibility of his see:

“O! St. Peter, prince of the apostles! Apostolic primate! Immovable rock of faith, in recompense of thy confession, eternal foundation of the Church; pastor of the speaking flock; bearer of the keys of heaven; chosen from among all the apostles to be, after Jesus Christ, the first foundation of the Holy Church - rejoice! Rejoice! ***Never-to-be-shaken pillar of the Orthodox Faith! ***Chief of the apostolic college!”

In the first millennium of the Church no less than in the second, he was considered - as the office for Thursday in the Second Week of Lent calls him, at least in Russia - the “Source of Orthodoxy”.

 

[malphono]

The “early church understanding of the role of the bishop of Rome” was the same as that of the modern Church - the universal pontiff. He acted as the universal pontiff when he (Clement) rebuked the people of Corinth for rebelling against their bishop. The first Father of the Church to call him the “Supreme Pontiff” was, so far as I know, Tertullian (in the De Pudicitia). St. Maximos the Confessor urged Pyrrhus to prove his innocence by appealing to the See of Peter, "to which belong government, authority, and power to bind and to loose over all the churches that are in the world, in all things and in every way.” In a letter to Pope Leo III, appealing for help (in the Greek church!) against the iconoclasts, St. Theodore Studites told him, “They have not feared to hold a heretical council of their own authority, without your permission; whilst they could not hold even an orthodox one without your knowledge, according to ancient custom.” The schism in 869 ocurred because Photius, trying to secure his place as Patriarch, appealed to the Pope (who had not been involved) for confirmation of his see.

The one difference that I see between “then and now” is that then it was within the “High Petrine” view. That is quite clear by the mention of “appeal” and “confirmation” etc. In the now, of course, we’re faced with the “Absolutist Petrine” view which is another ball of wax entirely.