Which church did Jesus set up...the Roman Catholic Church or Eastern Orthodox Church?

[gtrenewed]

Paul C,

Everyone cuts out portions of other posts they are responding to due to size limitations and to address specific points. You also do the same, so why make accusations of dishonesty with me? Not very charitable.

Ecclesiates 3:1 says “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven -”

It seems to me we have said everything we need to say to each other and so it is time for me to stop replying to your posts.

You are Roman Catholic and I am Christian. We will have to leave it there until the Lord Jesus returns and all things will be made plain.

 

[JRKH]

gtrenewed

There are so many things mixed up in our responses to each other that I feel it is a good idea to try and consolidate things a bit and eliminate some of the secondary things that only serve to cloud the more central discussion.

First let me speak to the issue of Acts 15 and the Judaizers. You say that the reason for going to Jerusalem to get a ruling was because they came to Antioch claiming authority over the church in Antioch. (correct me if I’m wrong here) You say:
” They appealed to Jerusalem because Judaizers came from Jerusalem saying that this teaching was from Jerusalem church. Acts 15:24”
Yet even so, why would such an appeal be necessary? Was not Paul present? He, one of the elders of the Church, could easily have said, “Be off with you. You have no authority here. We each agree in Christ resurrected, and all else is secondary. So be off with you.”
Case closed….If, as you suppose, the “authority” from Jerusalem had no bearing on the Church at Antioch, this would have been a perfectly acceptable response from Paul with no need to appeal to Jerusalem to settle the matter.
Secondly in this, the issue discussed at Antioch, and at Jerusalem was not one of authority but of unity of doctrine. I have reread the chapter just this morning and find no mention of “authority” but of “teaching” by some that had “upset the brethren”. The letter from Jerusalem to Antioch clearly states that those teaching thus did so "without “instruction from us” (The Church leadership in Jerusalem). It then goes on to express what is the proper teaching from the Church leadership in Jerusalem.
So it appears that there WAS legitimate authority from the Church leadership in Jerusalem over the Church in Antioch. The problem was not one of whether the authority legitimately existed, but whether those “teaching” circumcision were doing so in accordance with said Church leadership.

The next matter deals with the Bible supposedly being kept from the faithful.

1. During much of the History of The Church, the large majority of people were illiterate. Even if they had a bible, they could not read it.
2. During the majority of the history of The Church, there were no printing presses. Copying the Bible was time and labor intensive and the resulting copies were presious and expensive.
3. This topic has come up in another thread HERE And while much of the conversation is “off topic”, I would call your attention to post number 64, which contains much information including this:
   “Versions of the whole or parts of the Bible in the language of the common people first appeared in Germany in the eighth century, in France and Hungary in the twelfth, and Italy, Spain, Holland, Poland and Bohemia in the thirteenth century (Catholic Encyclopedia). In the 1500’s in Italy, there were more than 40 Vernacular editions of the Bible, France had 18 vernacular editions before 1547, and Spain began publishing editions in 1478, with full approval of the Spanish Inquisition. In all, 198 editions of the Bible were in the language of the laity, 626 editions all together, and all before the first Protestant version, and all having the full approval of the Church. (Where we got the Bible, Tan Publishers)
   The area known as England was invaded and settled by Germanic tribes called “Saxons” who aligned with tribes from the area of Denmark called “Angles”. In the 700’s the area was speaking a German dialect. In the middle ages, between 1066-1377, there were different dialects depending on the different tribes, so Greek and Latin were most commonly used by the literate……”
   That is an awful lot of translating for a church that is supposedly keeping the Bible from the laity.

(Cont)

 

[JRKH]

(Cont)

The final thing that I’d like to address is your view of the term Church.
I expressed to you that:
” However. Trying to fit the term “Church” to soley mean this flies in the face of Mt 18:15-18. It just does not work.
If we accept your definition of Church as being those in all denominations who are on the right path, then in order to “Tell it to the Church” we would have to go around to all of these communities and gather these people together for a conference. Even then how would we know if we ONLY had actual “church” members.
To which you responded:

• Church means assembly of believers. If you have a dispute your local assembly deals with it.*
  Do you see the inconsistency of what you are saying here??? You want to define Church as an invisible group made up of "true believers’ scattered throughout the various denominations and then you want to submit disputes to a “visible” body comprised of an unknown number of true and false believers.

First you, and others claim that the “Church” is an invisible body of true believers and that there are true and false believers in every congregation. Then you say that, in relation to Mt 18: 15-18, disputes should be dealt with by your “local community”.
Which of course means that disputes should be decided by a local “visible” community that may contain a majority of true believers or may contain a majority of false believers. AND, of course it is impossible to know for sure which members of this “local visible community” are true or false believers since the real “church” is invisible.
Therefore it is quite impossible to put any faith in the decisions of any visible local community since one cannot know if the decision is from the “True believers”, or from the “false believers”.

This is the sort of gymnastics that happens when one begins from the premise that Christ did not institute a single, visible, unified, universal, Church to spread and guard His message. When one drops this premise one can begin to see more clearly the simple truth of what Christ tells us to do in Mt 18.
One can also readily see how the simple truth in Mt 18 is expanded upon, especially in doctrinal matters, from the local community to intercommunity discussioni (shown in Acts 15) all the way up to the universal church consensus as demonstrated by the various councils over the centuries.

Peace
James

 

[gtrenewed]

JRKH,

I don’t have much time right now but a few thoughts:

1. Paul set up elders in the church’s he founded. Paul claimed authority over those church’s. Paul did not found Antioch. He never backed down from bad practice and bad doctrine. Antioch founded from Jerusalem, Judaizers from Jerusalem, Apostle’s in Jerusalem the birthplace of Christianity, natural to appeal to them. Remember, when disputes arise in Paul’s church’s, he is the arbiter.
2. The bible translations and RCC tolerance to the vernacular I will have to restudy in order to comment on your exhaustive list, good job of research. My recollection of previous study is the persecution of some translators.
3. My explanation of "church will have to be later for I have run out of time. However, I assure you there is not inconsistancy of thought but in explaining it to someone looking from a different viewpoint. When trying to explain God to an unbeliever one of the first reasons they counter with is inconsistancies between how we see God as love and what they see in the world. So it is on this forum. Much of the continueing debates come from reading a post of one popint of view and responding with our point of view but not really able to understand each other. I was raised in the RCC pre-Vat2, so even pre and post Vat2 people can have problems communicating.

 

[jimmy]

One thing is for certain, it’s not the episcopalian church.

Why would you even say something like that. It sounds like a taunt rather than an attempt to add to the thread. What does the Episcopal Church have to do with the thread other than that Contarini happens to be Episcopalian?

 

[jimmy]

How was this definitively renounced? Could you reference the specific pronouncement that you believe did this?

Thanks,

Chuck

Conciliarity was specifically condemned by the Vatican I council and universal jurisdiction along with papal infallibility was affirmed.

 

[paul_c]

Paul C,

Everyone cuts out portions of other posts they are responding to due to size limitations and to address specific points. You also do the same, so why make accusations of dishonesty with me? Not very charitable.

Ecclesiates 3:1 says “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven -”

It seems to me we have said everything we need to say to each other and so it is time for me to stop replying to your posts.

You are Roman Catholic and I am Christian. We will have to leave it there until the Lord Jesus returns and all things will be made plain.

I’m sorry if you felt I was being uncharitable. Perhaps I was, but in my mind, I was defending my self from your charge that I wasn’t being serious in my response to you. You are of course free to respond to whatever you want.

 

[JRKH]

Originally Posted by clmowry
How was this definitively renounced? Could you reference the specific pronouncement that you believe did this?

Jimmy,
The request by clmowry was for the specific pronouncement and not for a reassertion. Please provide the specific canon that specifically condemns conciliarity.

Peace
James

 

[clmowry]

Jimmy,
The request by clmowry was for the specific pronouncement and not for a reassertion. Please provide the specific canon that specifically condemns conciliarity.

Peace
James

Yeah what he said.

Chuck

 

[paul_c]

Conciliarity was specifically condemned by the Vatican I council and universal jurisdiction along with papal infallibility was affirmed.

I don’t know that conciliarity was specifically condemned by Vatican I. It doesn’t seem that it was from this article in the Catholic encyclopedia:
newadvent.org/cathen/04423f.htm

However, it is also clear that a council’s results are not valid with Papal agreement, so the net effect is the same…

 

[paul_c]

I don’t know that conciliarity was specifically condemned by Vatican I. It doesn’t seem that it was from this article in the Catholic encyclopedia:
newadvent.org/cathen/04423f.htm

However, it is also clear that a council’s results are not valid with Papal agreement, so the net effect is the same…

I meant to say:
It is clear that a council’s results are not valid with OUT Papal agreement, so the net effect is the same.

 

[sidbrown]

Actually there is ONE Orthodox Church. As God is both one and multiple (three), so too is the Orthodox Church both one and multiple. My own parish is Greek but I am able to receive Holy Communion in any other Orthodox Church whether it be Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Antiochian, Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese, etc as long as I have properly prepared through confession, prayer and fasting. We are all in communion and all share the same faith. You cannot judge the oneness of the Orthodox Church through the lense of Papal Catholic unity.

John

Are you allowed to receive Holy Copmmunion in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church or in the Macedonian Orthodox Church or in the Genuine Orthodox Church?

 

[sidbrown]

Both have the same exact lineage and split over 1000 years after Jesus died. So how do we know which one is the real one and which one is the fake one? Because they disagree on some things, so obviously one of them is wrong and one of them is right…right? So how do you know that you are following the right one?

They can both be slightly wrong in a few issues, but both right in the majority of issues.
I think that the delivery of the bull of excommunication against Michael Cerularius in 1054 by Cardinal Humbertus was a big mistake, and in fact, it contained errors that would not apply today. Both Churches have valid Sacraments, so Christ is with both.

 

[jimmy]

Jimmy,
The request by clmowry was for the specific pronouncement and not for a reassertion. Please provide the specific canon that specifically condemns conciliarity.

Peace
James

Actually the definition of the papal dogmas was a rejection of conciliarity. That was its purpose. Have you heard of concilliarism? The idea of concilliarism is that a council is the highest authority in the Church. The purpose in the definitions of the VI council was to reject concilliarism. So you have the statement in the council that the Ecumenical Council is not a higher authority than the Roman Pontiff. Here is a link for the council.

[piar.hu/councils/ecum20.htm#Chapter 1 On the institution of the apostolic primacy in blessed Peter](http://www.piar.hu/councils/ecum20.htm#Chapter 1 On the institution of the apostolic primacy in blessed Peter)

1. • Since the Roman pontiff, by the divine right of the apostolic primacy, governs the whole church, we likewise teach and declare that
   • he is the supreme judge of the faithful [52] , and that
   • in all cases which fall under ecclesiastical jurisdiction recourse may be had to his judgment [53] .
   • The sentence of the apostolic see (than which there is no higher authority) is not subject to revision by anyone,
   • nor may anyone lawfully pass judgment thereupon [54] . And so
   • **they stray from the genuine path of truth who maintain that it is lawful to appeal from the judgments of the Roman pontiffs to an ecumenical council as if this were an authority superior to the Roman pontiff. **
   Conciliarity was condemned, or atleast reduced to the point of being an advisory board.

 

[sidbrown]

Actually the definition of the papal dogmas was a rejection of conciliarity. That was its purpose. Have you heard of concilliarism? The idea of concilliarism is that a council is the highest authority in the Church. The purpose in the definitions of the VI council was to reject concilliarism. So you have the statement in the council that the Ecumenical Council is not a higher authority than the Roman Pontiff. Here is a link for the council.

[piar.hu/councils/ecum20.htm#Chapter 1 On the institution of the apostolic primacy in blessed Peter](http://www.piar.hu/councils/ecum20.htm#Chapter 1 On the institution of the apostolic primacy in blessed Peter)

1. • Since the Roman pontiff, by the divine right of the apostolic primacy, governs the whole church, we likewise teach and declare that
   • he is the supreme judge of the faithful [52] , and that
   • in all cases which fall under ecclesiastical jurisdiction recourse may be had to his judgment [53] .
   • The sentence of the apostolic see (than which there is no higher authority) is not subject to revision by anyone,
   • nor may anyone lawfully pass judgment thereupon [54] . And so
   • **they stray from the genuine path of truth who maintain that it is lawful to appeal from the judgments of the Roman pontiffs to an ecumenical council as if this were an authority superior to the Roman pontiff. **
   Conciliarity was condemned, or atleast reduced to the point of being an advisory board.

1. 
   But consider the Council of Constance 1414-1418. Was not the authority of that particular council above that of the reigning Popes at the time?

 

[paul_c]

But consider the Council of Constance 1414-1418. Was not the authority of that particular council above that of the reigning Popes at the time?

This article covers it all pretty well.newadvent.org/cathen/04423f.htm

A council is not above the pope because it gains its validity by papal consent.

Can a council depose the pope?
This question is a legitimate one, for in the history of the Church circumstances have arisen in which several pretenders contended for papal authority and councils were called upon to remove certain claimants. The Councils of Constance and Basle, and Gallican theologians, hold that a council may depose a pope on two main grounds:

ob mores (for his conduct or behaviour, e.g. his resistance to the synod)
ob fidem (on account of his faith or rather want of faith, i.e. heresy).
In point of fact, however, heresy is the only legitimate ground. For a heretical pope has ceased to be a member of the Church, and cannot, therefore, be its head. A sinful pope, on the other hand, remains a member of the (visible) Church and is to be treated as a sinful, unjust ruler for whom we must pray, but from whom we may not withdraw our obedience.

But the question assumes another aspect when a number of claimants pretend to be the rightful occupants of the Apostolic See, and the right of each is doubtful. In such a case the council, according to Bellarmine (Disputationes, II xix, de Conciliis) has a right to examine the several claims and to depose the pretenders whose claims are unfounded. This was done at the Synod of Constance. But during this process of examination the synod is not yet Ecumenical; it only becomes so the moment the rightful pope assents to its proceedings. It is evident that this is no instance of a legitimate pope being deposed by a legitimate council, but simply the removal of pretender by those on whom he wishes to impose will.

Not even John XXIII could have been deposed at Constance, had his election not been doubtful and himself suspected of heresy. John XXIII, moreover, abdicated and by his abdication made his removal from the Apostolic See lawful. In all controversies and complaints regarding Rome the rule laid down by the Eighth General Synod should never be lost sight of: “If a universal synod be assembled and any ambiguity or controversy arise concerning the Holy Church of the Romans, the question should be examined and solved with due reverence and veneration, in a spirit of mutual helpfulness; no sentence should be audaciously pronounced against the supreme pontiff of the elder Rome” (can. xxi. Hefele, IV, 421-22).

 

[diggerdomer]

The council of Trent and the Catholic Counter-reformation are clearly important. They clarified doctrine and addressed some real issues in church practice. But clearly, the main fruit of the Reformation was the spread of heresy and the splintering of Christ’s Church into thousands of peices. This was and is a source of lament.

Fair enough. Good points. Thanks.

Just because no Protestant would claim they are following their own desires doesn’t make it any less true. You’ve been on these pages for a long time. You have seen countless Protestants and yes, sadly some Catholics, who will say that they disagree with Church teachings and go another way. It might be on divorce, or contraception or abortion or women priests or gay marriage or to claim they are saved upon declaration of belief regardless of future sin. Sure, sometimes they will try to justify their position through creative use of scripture. But in the end, where they differ from the Church’s teachings, they are following their own desires.

Again, fair enough, and good points. And, again thanks. I think my point was as you said…many (Catholic, Protestant, whatever) follow their own inclinations rather than following the Church.

 

[diggerdomer]

Actually the definition of the papal dogmas was a rejection of conciliarity. That was its purpose. Have you heard of concilliarism? The idea of concilliarism is that a council is the highest authority in the Church. The purpose in the definitions of the VI council was to reject concilliarism. So you have the statement in the council that the Ecumenical Council is not a higher authority than the Roman Pontiff. Here is a link for the council.

[piar.hu/councils/ecum20.htm#Chapter 1 On the institution of the apostolic primacy in blessed Peter](http://www.piar.hu/councils/ecum20.htm#Chapter 1 On the institution of the apostolic primacy in blessed Peter)

1. • Since the Roman pontiff, by the divine right of the apostolic primacy, governs the whole church, we likewise teach and declare that
   • he is the supreme judge of the faithful [52] , and that
   • in all cases which fall under ecclesiastical jurisdiction recourse may be had to his judgment [53] .
   • The sentence of the apostolic see (than which there is no higher authority) is not subject to revision by anyone,
   • nor may anyone lawfully pass judgment thereupon [54] . And so
   • **they stray from the genuine path of truth who maintain that it is lawful to appeal from the judgments of the Roman pontiffs to an ecumenical council as if this were an authority superior to the Roman pontiff. **
   Conciliarity was condemned, or atleast reduced to the point of being an advisory board.

1. 
   Ok, so that’s what Vatican I taught. Fine. The real question is, what does the Catholic Church teach? Meaning, how does the teaching of Vatican I cohere with the entire Tradition of the Catholic Church, which includes of course the teachings of Vatican II, the Catechism, etc.
   
   Current Catholic Church teaching does not oppose Papal and Conciliar teaching…right? Or can you provide a better understanding according to current Catholic teaching?
   
   I would especially love to hear any teaching of the Catholic Church that equates Ecumenical (or General) Councils with “advisory boards.” Thanks!

 

[JRKH]

Actually the definition of the papal dogmas was a rejection of conciliarity. That was its purpose. Have you heard of concilliarism? The idea of concilliarism is that a council is the highest authority in the Church. The purpose in the definitions of the VI council was to reject concilliarism. So you have the statement in the council that the Ecumenical Council is not a higher authority than the Roman Pontiff. Here is a link for the council.

[piar.hu/councils/ecum20.htm#Chapter 1 On the institution of the apostolic primacy in blessed Peter](http://www.piar.hu/councils/ecum20.htm#Chapter 1 On the institution of the apostolic primacy in blessed Peter)

1. • Since the Roman pontiff, by the divine right of the apostolic primacy, governs the whole church, we likewise teach and declare that
   • he is the supreme judge of the faithful [52] , and that
   • in all cases which fall under ecclesiastical jurisdiction recourse may be had to his judgment [53] .
   • The sentence of the apostolic see (than which there is no higher authority) is not subject to revision by anyone,
   • nor may anyone lawfully pass judgment thereupon [54] . And so
   • **they stray from the genuine path of truth who maintain that it is lawful to appeal from the judgments of the Roman pontiffs to an ecumenical council as if this were an authority superior to the Roman pontiff. **
   Conciliarity was condemned, or atleast reduced to the point of being an advisory board.

1. 
   Thank you for the clarification.
   IT appears from what you say above that the statement you made earlier, “Conciliarity was specifically condemned by the Vatican I council…” is, at least technically, in error because there is no such “specific condemnation” in any of the canons.
   Rather there is clarification of the role of councils within the Church that rightly places such councils subordinate to the Holy See.
   
   Thanks again
   
   Peace
   James

 

[clmowry]

Actually the definition of the papal dogmas was a rejection of conciliarity. That was its purpose. Have you heard of concilliarism? The idea of concilliarism is that a council is the highest authority in the Church.

Is this a definition that anyone [the orthdox] actualy adheres too?

Hasn’t the Church [Orthodox and Catholic] always held to some sort of primacy among bishops and requirement of their consent for a council to be ecumenical?

i.e. Can a group of Orthodox Bishops get together and hold a council binding on the whole Orthodox Church without the consent of the partiarchs?

Chuck