Why I Didn't Convert to Eastern Orthodoxy

[tomarin]

Sorry, I’m not saying its you, but we all know around this Forum that the Vatican II is the convenient scapegoat for many of the ills of the Roman Catholic Church. But an honest analysis of the world and the Church prior to Vatican II would reveal that we would be where we are today even though Vatican II didn’t happen.

You’re right – it’s not me.

 

[dzheremi]

Of course, I would advocate for the far more reasonable way of thinking is that we share this common patrimony of the first millennium.

Of course, this is a better way to put it, and what I should have gone for in the first place. Thanks, Cavaradossi.

On the other hand, I do not think it is wrong to call particular saints even of the first millennium “Orthodox” or even “Orthodox Catholic”, as the whole point of sticking to such saints – at least my whole point of doing so in the context of the post in which I used them as examples – is to show that these saints held to the faith that was once in common between both East and West, and therefore much liturgical patrimony thought of as “Western” by Western Christians (i.e., as evidence that the Latin Church is so much better or substantial on a world level than the Eastern, in the mind of the person I was writing to) is not in fact rooted in the West at all. St. Athanasius the Apostolic, whether you consider him an exclusively “Catholic” or “Orthodox” saint or not, was certainly not a Westerner. He was not a Latin. Ditto St. Pachomius. Of course, there is nothing wrong with being a Latin, but again, in context, I think this a distinction that should be made. If the Eastern church is so inconsequential, how come so much of the supposedly superior Western church’s practice and theology is based on what they received from the East? They’ve just largely forgotten that that’s actually what it is, is all.

 

[ConstantineTG]

None of those Saints would be Orthodox, since they were all in union with the See of St. Peter.

Such a definition never existed in the First Millennium. St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote that the catholic Church is found where the bishop is and the faithful gathered around him and the Eucharist is present. Nowhere did he mention anything about being in communion with Rome.

 

[AmbroseSJ]

Of course, this is a better way to put it, and what I should have gone for in the first place. Thanks, Cavaradossi.

On the other hand, I do not think it is wrong to call particular saints even of the first millennium “Orthodox” or even “Orthodox Catholic”, as the whole point of sticking to such saints – at least my whole point of doing so in the context of the post in which I used them as examples – is to show that these saints held to the faith that was once in common between both East and West, and therefore much liturgical patrimony thought of as “Western” by Western Christians (i.e., as evidence that the Latin Church is so much better or substantial on a world level than the Eastern, in the mind of the person I was writing to) is not in fact rooted in the West at all. St. Athanasius the Apostolic, whether you consider him an exclusively “Catholic” or “Orthodox” saint or not, was certainly not a Westerner. He was not a Latin. Ditto St. Pachomius. Of course, there is nothing wrong with being a Latin, but again, in context, I think this a distinction that should be made. If the Eastern church is so inconsequential, how come so much of the supposedly superior Western church’s practice and theology is based on what they received from the East? They’ve just largely forgotten that that’s actually what it is, is all.

I don’t have any disagreement with you here, except to say that your assumption that “they” have somehow forgotten the contributions of the Eastern Church.

In fact the Eastern Church really led the way (in a sense) through the first part of the first millennium. The West simply didn’t have the high degree of civilization and schools that were in the East. Now the West (or the Latins) look back upon those early Eastern Fathers as towering Saints, intellects and leaders of the Catholic Church. And we can use that term in its truest sense.

Our own John Henry Newman was literally immersed in the Eastern fathers. So you can imagine how it must sound to us to have someone label them as “Orthodox.” The jarring anachronism would be something like a Tea Party person saying the Boston tea party was one of their achievements.

 

[dzheremi]

I don’t have any disagreement with you here, except to say that your assumption that “they” have somehow forgotten the contributions of the Eastern Church.

So you think the person that I was responding to, who was arguing in favor of the Western Church being considered superior to the Eastern based on their supposed relative depth or importance of contributions to world Christianity, was doing so with knowledge of the Eastern roots of Western Christianity? I’m not sure how that’s possible, but okay. You are right, in so far as there are many Westerners who don’t and wouldn’t argue this way…not enough, from where I’m sitting (or maybe just not enough who show up to this place), but still many, and that shouldn’t be forgotten. My apologies for overgeneralizing.

Our own John Henry Newman was literally immersed in the Eastern fathers. So you can imagine how it must sound to us to have someone label them as “Orthodox.” The jarring anachronism would be something like a Tea Party person saying the Boston tea party was one of their achievements.

I don’t really need to imagine it…it’s just as jarring to read that your post-schism saints were somehow “literally immersed in the Eastern Fathers” (whatever that means), given that they did not follow the faith of those same Fathers (again, from an Orthodox perspective).

 

[josephback]

Such a definition never existed in the First Millennium. St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote that the catholic Church is found where the bishop is and the faithful gathered around him and the Eucharist is present. Nowhere did he mention anything about being in communion with Rome.

Ignatius didn’t, but Cyprian did. Orthodoxy and the Anglicans like to point out that Cyprian was talking about the unity of the bishops, but the point from a Catholic perspective is that he sets forth their unity as coming from adherence to one - the bishop of Rome Thus “there is one chair, and one church founded by the word of the Lord.” Those who followed Pope Cornelius were in the Church, and those who had sided with his challenger Novatian were not in the Church.

 

[josephback]

Oh, the Orthodox Church isn’t pretending that there were no schisms that happened within her. Where else did you guys think you came from?

There have been schisms from day one. Everytime there is a heresy, there is a schism. The gnostics went their own way, the Donatists when their own way, the Arians went their own way, etc.

If every individual Church with its bishop is complete and all the bishops are on a level playing fielde, how does one decide who’s in schism and heresy? Can’t anyone who objects just go off on their own?