What would it take for the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox to reunify?

[SeraficLeo]

Well thank you for making an exception.

 

[SeraficLeo]

In 1053, the first step was taken in

An absolutely arbitrary starting point. Rome protested as a violation of Apostolic custom Byzantium’s attempts to claim jurisdiction over Slavic converts in the 10th century. I’m sure in the century before that the Patriarch of Constantinople likely protested something the Pope did. And in the century before that…

 

[SeraficLeo]

You pick a strange form of penance to torture yourself with by reading these threads, then. Though I definitely agree that things people are passionate about can easily lead to unnecessary and often even unwitting breaches of charity and good will.

 

[AlNg]

As an Eastern Catholic, I completely disagree that this is presently the case in the Catholic Church.

I think that there are Roman Catholics who say that the Orthodox must bend to the Roman Catholic church.

you should agree that the Orthodox should be the ones to bend because the Catholic Church’s teachings are necessarily true.

 

[AlNg]

You choose the best of the best and compare it against the worst of the worst? Hardly a fair comparison.

I don’t see why. There are Orthodox who object to some of the ways in which the Catholic liturgy has been celebrated since Vatican II. Do you know of any Roman Catholics or Eastern Catholics who have objected to the way in which the Orthodox liturgy has been celebrated?

 

[ziapueblo]

Last I checked the separated EO Churches retained the written gospels that clearly attest to the primacy given to Saint Peter by Christ, granting to him both the keys to the kingdom and entrusting to his pastoral care the entirety of the Lord’s flock, without exception, which had long been received and accepted by the whole and universal Church before even any ecumenical council.

Keys (plural) which where given to all the Apostles two chapters later.

ZP

 

[SeraficLeo]

Cerularius’ excommunication applied only to the legates personally.

I think this raises the question of how could the patriarch of Constantinople excommunicate papal legates? The Justinian code of the 6th century, from sources I’ve read(1), acknowledged in imperial law the primacy of the Church of Rome and of the Pope’s personally, so even under imperial law the excommunication of the Pope’s legates by Cerularius should have effectively been invalid, definitely unenforceable and possibly even illegal, though I’m not sure what measures were included to enforce ecclesiastical discipline.

(1) See e.g. here: Answers to Eastern Orthodox Objections (Part 3) – Code of Justinian (Petrine Primacy), Conciliarism, Papalism, and Pope Honorius I | Erick Ybarra

 

[SeraficLeo]

To Peter alone were the keys given. Or else show where not only the other Apostles were given the keys but anyone else.

 

[Isaac14]

What I don’t like about the Chieti document

Finally, the document wrongly claims

The document is produced under the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Presumably it would be vetted for such errors before being published by the Vatican?

If the document is indeed wrong, what does it say about the Catholic and Orthodox bishops and theologians working on the commission?

 

[SeraficLeo]

Paragraph 15 equates the universal Church with the historical period of the ecumenical councils. The Catechism (an official teaching document of the Church) predates the Chieti document and if memory serves talks very differently about the nature of the universal Church (I mean universal Church in the sense of being in contra-distinction to local/particular Churches).

I should not have said “wrongly,” but perhaps “misleadingly,” in the case of the document claiming that throughout the period of the ecumenical councils the Church order was Rome, Constantinople… Jerusalem. At one time it was and became that but it was not so at Nicea I, for example because even if that were so it would beg the question: how did a brand new city suddenly acquire second rank in the Church without an ecumenical council elevating it to that rank, if the expression of the universal Church just is an ecumenical council? It only leads to confusion…

Edit added: I mean there already existed a Church order before Nicea I and the so-called “7 ecumenical councils of the Undivided Church” is a misleading description because there were of course already many Christian sects that were not included or represented at the first seven ecumenical councils of the Catholic Church as they did not belong to, or were not in, or were no longer in her ranks; that is, had no place or position in the Church’s Order.

 

[HopkinsReb]

I’m an Anglican. I’m simply stating the issue with the desire for doctrinal compromise.

 

[ziapueblo]

What do the “keys” represent? Again, “keys” plural.

This is a rhetorical question of course. The “keys” represent the ability to bind and loose. Our Lord tells Saint Peter that he “will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven . . .” Will give, a future event, which he does, to Saint Peter and the rest of the Apostles in Chapter 18.

ZP

 

[Lavenderson]

about as tiny as the RCC nuts who insist that all Orthodox are doomed to damnation

A Catholic who states there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church is a nut?

 

[SeraficLeo]

To be fair, refusal to carry out an order by a superior is effectively to deny your own rank, even if you don’t deny the rank of the superior whose order you refuse to obey: Saint Augustine went so far as to threaten to resign his position if a bishop of Rome did something he personally abhorred, which is at least consistent because in refusing to follow the order of a superior he would be denying his own rank and position.

So therefore I would argue that disobedience both in practice and in principle deprives one of their own rank and authority even if one does not deny the rank of the superior while refusing to heed their order or command.

 

[SeraficLeo]

“You,” i.e. Peter, singular. The effect of the keys is the binding or loosing of sins, which the Apostles shared with Peter as their Head. Of course since nowhere else does Christ give anyone save Peter the keys to the [singular] kingdom, you have to make the power of the keys identical with its effect or consequence, and cross your fingers and hope, wish and pray that you are actually right.

You also effectively imagine that Christ made each Apostle capable of setting up a Church that even in contradiction to each other might bind or loose people’s sins, an absurd consequence that necessarily follows on your theory, though indeed a boon for sinners as if one Church didn’t forgive your sins, then there were eleven other Apostolic Churches any one of which might just!

 

[AlNg]

It was a question, not an accusation.

 

[Thomasbradley312]

We only know what Christ said from the written accounts in the canonical gospels.
For all we know he gave these keys to them all and Matthew only recorded this one event with Peter.

 

[ziapueblo]

The effect of the keys is the binding or loosing of sins, which the Apostles shared with Peter as their Head.

Saint Ignatius refutes this idea in his letter to the Smyrneans when he says that the fullness of the Church rests in the Bishops given by Christ. Not the Bishop of Rome. The Latin Father, Saint Augustine ironically says of Peter what the Orthodox say. He was an emblem or archetype for all bishops. And that fits perfectly with what Cyprian of Carthage says, that all bishops who profess the faith of Peter are Peters successors not just the Bishop in Rome.

ZP

 

[AlNg]

I am finding it difficult to have a nice day if someone is not aware of the Catholic theologians who are advocating a rereading of Vatican I in a newer context of recent ecclesiological, exegetical and historical studies.
For example, have you read the unanimous approval by the conciliar Fathers at the Council of Nicea II on October 6, 787 where there are laid out three conditions for any council to be considered ecumenical. Questions are being raised as to whether or not these three conditions have been fulfilled by Vatican I.

 

[ziapueblo]

We only know what Christ said from the written accounts in the canonical gospels.
For all we know he gave these keys to them all and Matthew only recorded this one event with Peter.

True.

Here is what some of the Fathers, Latin Fathers I might add, say about the keys:

St. Augustine

“For these keys not one man but the unity of the Church received. Hereby, then, is the excellence of Peter set forth that he was an emblem of the Church in its universality and unity, when it was said to him, I give to thee what was given to all. For that ye may know that the Church did receive the keys of the kingdom of heaven hear in another place what the Lord said to all Apostles. “Receive the Holy Ghost,” and then instantly, “whosoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them, and whosoever sins ye retain they are retained”[St. John xx. 22,23].

St. Jerome

“But you say that the Church is founded on Peter, although the same thing is done in another place upon all the Apostles, and all receive the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and the solidity of the Church is established equally upon all.”[see: S. Hieron., Adv. Jovin. i. cap. xxvi.; P.L. xxiii. 247].

St. Ambrose

“therefore the Lord gave the Apostles that which was previously part of his own juridical authority. Hear Him saying I will give the keys of the Kingdom of heaven; whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven, to thee he says, I will give the keys of the Kingdom of heaven, that you may bind and loose. What he said to peter is said to the Apostles.”[St. Ambrose, Enarratio in Psalm. xxxviii. 37; P.L. xiv. 1037].

ZP