Why no reformation in Eastern Churches

[Mike1w]

Admins please move this if necessary. I am just wondering why there was no reformation in the Eastern Churches?

 

[ProdglArchitect]

Eastern Catholic Churches, or the Orthodox Churches?

 

[Mike1w]

to clarify, why did the reformation only take place against Rome?

 

[Salibi]

I’ve moved your thread to Eastern Catholicism.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

Because there were a number of abuses taking place in the Catholic Church at the time, and once various reformers provided an opening for national governments to take power, those governments got behind them full force, exacerbating the issue.

 

[snarflemike]

Because there were a number of abuses taking place in the Catholic Church at the time, and once various reformers provided an opening for national governments to take power, those governments got behind them full force, exacerbating the issue.

I honestly wonder if the abuses were as bad as the Protestants have been making out for the past 500 years. I’m not making a statement, just wondering if the “abuses” story contained a good helping of self-serving for them.

 

[HopkinsReb]

to clarify, why did the reformation only take place against Rome?

In part, perhaps because of the hegemony of the western Church. The RC Church was the religion in western Europe and had no competition. In the East, since the 6th century AD there was a major religion competing with the Eastern Churches. In other words, the Reformation happened in the West because there was no external threat.

Just spitballing, though. I could be completely off-base.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

There were some legitimate abuses going on, but not nearly as many or as extensively as the “reformers” wanted people to think. For instance, one of the primary issues, the selling of indulgences, was only happening in a single bishopric, and, contrary to popular belief, was not actually selling people forgiveness for sins, but rather attaching a small indulgence to monetary donations towards the construction of a new Cathedral.

It’s one of those things where there’s a kernel of truth, so it’s believable, but it’s been blown wildly out of proportion.

That being said, Rome was in a pretty bad state morally, so it’s not like the claims of abuses were totally unfounded. There were some real problems that needed solving, they just went about “solving” them in the worst possible way.

 

[fhansen]

There were instances where Catholic teaching was abused, otherwise ignored and not heeded. The problem was when the reformers wanted to change the teachings themselves rather than address wrong practices only

 

[Salibi]

In the East, since the 6th century AD there was a major religion competing with the Eastern Churches.

Agreed. People should realize that the Reformation wasn’t all religious. The Catholic Church was a very powerful political and cultural institution at that time and dominated virtually everything. Princes converted to Lutheranism in order to break free from the power of the Church. Many of them remained virtually Catholic- a common example is King Henry- except it was a sort of convenient “Catholic but without the interference of the Pope in my politics” affair.

In the East, however, the Church had been struggling against Islam since the seventh century and didn’t really exert the kind of political power the Western Church had, so there weren’t really any princes supporting breakaway movements in order to protect their power. Furthermore, being Christians whose lands just got occupied by a foreign entity probably motivated the need for solidarity and unity. A split would have been catastrophic for the East.

 

[phil19034]

In the East, however, the Church had been struggling against Islam since the seventh century and didn’t really exert the kind of political power the Western Church had, so there weren’t really any princes supporting breakaway movements in order to protect their power. Furthermore, being Christians whose lands just got occupied by a foreign entity probably motivated the need for solidarity and unity. A split would have been catastrophic for the East.

Additionally, the East did have it’s run with heresy earlier in Church history. So while they didn’t have a heretical revolt in the the 1500s, there were revolts in the 300/400s which lead to the Church of the East and the Oriental Orthodox both breaking away during this time.

 

[MiserereMeiDei]

I don’t know when they became state churches, but I would think that would have the most to do with it.

 

[Vico]

Admins please move this if necessary. I am just wondering why there was no reformation in the Eastern Churches?

There was, for example the Old Believers in 1685 due to the changes introduced to the Divine Liturgy by Patriarch Nikon of Moscow.

 

[snarflemike]

That all sounds very plausible. And the greedy princes immediately saw a chance to grab up great land and wealth (which certainly is doing them no good now).

 

[HopkinsReb]

HopkinsReb:

In the East, since the 6th century AD there was a major religion competing with the Eastern Churches.

Agreed. People should realize that the Reformation wasn’t all religious. The Catholic Church was a very powerful political and cultural institution at that time and dominated virtually everything. Princes converted to Lutheranism in order to break free from the power of the Church. Many of them remained virtually Catholic- a common example is King Henry- except it was a sort of convenient “Catholic but without the interference of the Pope in my politics” affair.

In the East, however, the Church had been struggling against Islam since the seventh century and didn’t really exert the kind of political power the Western Church had, so there weren’t really any princes supporting breakaway movements in order to protect their power. Furthermore, being Christians whose lands just got occupied by a foreign entity probably motivated the need for solidarity and unity. A split would have been catastrophic for the East.

I also think the lack of an external religious threat allowed the Church to slip; external threats have a way of forcing groups to cling together and to make a point of clearly defining themselves in a way that they don’t tend to do when they’re hegemonous.

 

[ReaderT]

The East also has different theology than the West. Martin Luther disagreed with some part of indulgences which (correct me if I’m wrong) are supposed to come from the Treasury of the Saints - the surplus of grace produced by the saints through their work over and above what was necessary (“supererogatory works”). The East doesn’t have this concept - we believe all men are insolvent debtors before God. The Gospels say that nobody could pay off their debt, not the man who owed 50 pence, nor 500, nor certainly the one who owed 10,000 talents, let alone produce more than enough for others.

 

[Phillip_Rolfes]

One thing to keep in mind is that many/most of the Eastern Churches (of the Byzantine tradition) during the time of the Reformation were simply not in communion with Rome. If memory serves me correctly, the earliest (re)unification to take place (and actually stick) was the Union of Brest in the mid-1590s. After that came the Union of Uzhorod in the mid-1640s. So at the time of the Protestant Reformation, the majority of the Christian East was 1. not in communion with Rome, and 2. paid little attention to what was perceived as an internal matter for the Roman Church.

Another thing to bear in mind is that, thanks to our early dealings with many heretical movements, the East tends to be much quicker to recognize something as heresy (or potentially heretical) and declare a group or an entire church to be in schism.

Finally, as others have said, there was a good deal of political involvement and maneuvering that added fuel to the Protestant Reformation fires in the West. Whereas in the greater portion of the East it was very clear who was politically in charge… and it wasn’t the Christians. So the Eastern Christians were just struggling to survive.

 

[Hodos]

I honestly wonder if the abuses were as bad as the Protestants have been making out for the past 500 years. I’m not making a statement, just wondering if the “abuses” story contained a good helping of self-serving for them.

I would start by reading the 95 Theses. Since these were written before Luther gained any fame or notoriety, and because their intent was to invite an academic debate on the practice of indulgences as they were being observed in Germany at that time, they give you a good idea of some of the abuses that were occurring before the hyperbole of both sides took place in emotional responses to one another. They also demonstrate the kind of doctrinal confusion that was being propagated by the practice of indulgences and how the average parishioner were viewing them at the time.

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

Also could be cultural differences—something about the Western mind.

Germans have an interesting group psychology of being both very precise and rule-following on the one hand and at the same time revolutionary on the other.

And when other western countries saw how it played out with Martin Luther, the idea of “reform” took on its own life.

I’m going a bit off course here, but one could also ask “why did Western Europe settle the New World and not Eastern Europe or Asia or Africa?”
Although it’s not totally unrelated, because US and Canada both would up being mostly Protestant nations.

Maybe the internal restlessness that causes religious revolt and exploration is maybe a cultural or even a genetic thing.

Or not.

 

[Mary888]

Because we believe that the Holy Spirit (Who inspired all the Church after her beginning at Pentecost) never changes His mind, being hypostatic. So He cannot inspire St. John Chrysosthom “let the liturgy be this” and then years later (no matter what number of years) tell another bishop, even a holy man, “you have change this and that in the liturgy of Chrysosthom” because this would mean He has changed His mind, which He does not do.
The same way nobody can be inspired by the Holy Spirit to change anything agreed as dogma by a Synod, even if those changes are masked as nuances. If such a thing occur, that a bishop or another Synod, seeks to directly or subtly change a dogma, one must conclude that the inspiration did not come from the Holy Spirit (not that it necessarily means that it was inspired by the Enemy and such, it could have been inspired the innovative bishop’s own will, or being that he wasn’t quite prepared to translate the inspiration of the Holy Spirit into a dogma and various factors made the said bishop rush and promulgate a confusion instead of a dogma).
It sounds militaristic, I know, but you asked.
My understanding is that we are not talking about laypeople have one idea or another, we are talking about bishops, the highest rank in the Church, who are also under many temptations. So being that, it makes sense to me that God would not bring too many subtleties as inspiration to the bishops, because subtleties can easily be deceiving.