Why no reformation in Eastern Churches

[commenter]

snarflemike:

I honestly wonder if the abuses were as bad as the Protestants have been making out for the past 500 years.

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.

Always a good idea to recommend reading original source documents! Too often we jump in with our pet theories.

 

[commenter]

I wonder if followers of Islam, which has a lot to say about Christ, would say Islam was the great Reformation for the East

In the West, there was a greater perceived need to try and define things precisely. This left the door open for Protestants to define some things different from Catholics, and from each other

Of course, the lack of precise definitions can open other kinds of doors.

 

[Prodigal1984]

It did, just not to the extant as the west.

Eastern Protestant Christianity - Wikipedia

 

[snarflemike]

I would start by reading the 95 Theses

I did read them some 20 years ago, and all I remember of my reaction is “Is this all there is? European Christendom tore itself apart over this?” I should read them again.

 

[Hodos]

I did read them some 20 years ago, and all I remember of my reaction is “Is this all there is? European Christendom tore itself apart over this ?” I should read them again.

I would say it started there, but that was the tip of the ice berg. It is illustrative however of how far doctrine and practice had wandered during the Middle Ages.

 

[twf]

Yes but the Catholic Church also teaches this. The merits of the saints (as well as our own merits) are firmly and fully rooted in the infinite merits of Christ. Think of the parable of the vine in John 15. Those branches that are on the vine bear fruit. We merit in that we freely cooperate with Christ to grow fruit, but we can’t do it apart from the grace He gives us. It is only in Christ, sharing in His divine life, that we are able to merit. Without Christ and the sacraments, our own deeds are empty.

Yet our own participation in Christ’s work can aid our brethren. Think of St Paul’s affirmation that he rejoices in his sufferings for he “makes up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ” (Col 1:24).

I’ve seen Orthodox Christians refer to this as synergy. Salvation involves cooperation between God and man. Latin theology sees that cooperation as meritorious in a secondary and derivative sense.

 

[po18guy]

It’s very complicated - the mark of the evil one’s work of division. The Holy Spirit unifies and consoles. The evil one divides and incites. He introduces complication where God planted simplicity. The Great Schism “may” be viewed as a type of “reformation” but was due to substantially different causes.

In Europe, there were political allegiances to secular rulers and geographic locations, great resistance to paying taxes to fund the Church in Rome, the cult of personality, mental instability on the part of at least one highly charismatic European reformer and almost innumerable other causes. I hesitate to call them “reasons” as the wholesale re-invention of the Christian faith was not reasonable.

But, the (Eastern) Great Schism did not throw the baby out with the bathwater, as did it’s European counterpart. Distilled to its essence, the European reformation was an assault on the Holy Eucharist - slowly at first, then with greater intensity. We see its fruits today in the rejection of the Sacraments.

 

[twf]

Yet the Byzantine Divine Liturgy has changed and evolved since the time of St John Chrysostom. Cannot the Holy Spirit inspire something for a particular time and place? Why do the Ethiopian Orthodox use a different liturgy (I realize they are not in communion with you, but they once were)? Why did the Latin Church, before the schism, not use the Byzantine Divine Liturgy?
Dogmas we can agree are unchangeable, for they are truth. But when it comes to how precisely we pray and worship, the bishops surely have some leeway. Christ gave His Church the power to bind and to loose.

 

[Justin_Mary]

In other words, the Reformation happened in the West because there was no external threat.

In the west, the threat was from within wasn’t it? In the east, the threat was external, the Muslims. The Eastern Churches survived, but the Muslim influence really expanded in the East.

 

[HopkinsReb]

In the west, the threat was from within wasn’t it?

That’s exactly what I said.

 

[Justin_Mary]

That’s exactly what I said

Yes… I’m sorry, you did.

FYI, I have trouble with doors as well.

 

[commenter]

It is illustrative however of how far doctrine and practice had wandered during the Middle Ages.

Not necessarily. You can have solid doctrine and practice in general, but at the same time some powerful individuals and religious orders that are corrupt. Then mix in political agendas.

In any event, by the time of the Reformation, Europe had been shaped for many years by post medieval influence.

 

[ReaderT]

Yes but the Catholic Church also teaches this.

Please forgive me if my wording was not clear - I mean that the Roman Catholic church is the only church that teaches “supererogatory works” (if I recall correctly, this was first mentioned in the 1200s or so)

Yet our own participation in Christ’s work can aid our brethren. Think of St Paul’s affirmation that he rejoices in his sufferings for he “makes up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ” (Col 1:24).

Oh no doubt we can aid our brethren. But the Orthodox believe we can never fully pay off our own debt to God. The Catholics do.

 

[babochka]

Oh no doubt we can aid our brethren. But the Orthodox believe we can never fully pay off our own debt to God. The Catholics do.

This is a misunderstanding of Catholic teaching. Catholics absolutely do not believe that we can pay off our own debt. That’s why we need Jesus.

 

[ReaderT]

This is a misunderstanding of Catholic teaching. Catholics absolutely do not believe that we can pay off our own debt. That’s why we need Jesus.

Forgive me, is this not the case:

“According to the classic teaching on indulgences, the works of supererogation performed by all the saints form a treasure with God, the “treasury of merit,” which the church can apply to exempt repentant sinners from the works of penitence that would otherwise be required of them to achieve full reconciliation with the church.”

Supererogation - Wikipedia

 

[twf]

That’s what I was trying to say. You are falling into the same misunderstanding of Catholic teaching that led Protestants astray. We can only merit, or “pay our debt”, with Christ’s grace. It is only in Christ and through Christ that we become capable of doing this. Thus, our salvation is still a free gift of Christ won for us through His passion and resurrection.

Protestants teach that when Christ justifies us, He simply declares us just. It’s a judicial decree. Catholicism teaches that when Christ justifies us, He makes us just. It’s similar to what the East calls Theosis. Once justified, we can, through our cooperation with Christ’s grace, be said to merit, but never before. The merits of the saints in the context of indulgences must be understood in this light.

 

[ReaderT]

Catholicism teaches that when Christ justifies us, He makes us just. It’s similar to what the East calls Theosis.

Forgive me, but that doesn’t seem to be what we teach about theosis (“divinization”) - it is a long, drawn-out process. A lifelong thing - Like the steps going up St. John’s ladder it ends at the experience of the Uncreated Light. It seems your statement “when Christ justifies us, He makes us just” is not the same in time duration

We can only merit, or “pay our debt”, with Christ’s grace. It is only in Christ and through Christ that we become capable of doing this. Thus, our salvation is still a free gift of Christ won for us through His passion and resurrection.

That’s not the point I’m concerned about here - the main sticking-point that I mentioned in my last post is that you also believe Saints can do “above and beyond” what’s necessary, and that forms some sort of “Treasury of Merit” - from the link I posted:

“The works of supererogation performed by all the saints form a treasure with God, the “treasury of merit,” which the church can apply to exempt repentantsinners from the works of penitence that would otherwise be required of them to achieve full reconciliation with the church”

 

[babochka]

Agree with it or not, this concept deserves a more thorough treatment than a single paragraph in Wikipedia or Encyclopedia Britannica (the source referenced in Wikipedia).

Here is the relevant article from The Catholic Encyclopedia. Hopefully, it can bring to you a better understanding of the Latin theological perspective:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10202b.htm

In applying these notions of merit to man’s relation to God it is especially necessary to keep in mind the fundamental truth that the virtue of justicecannot be brought forward as the basis of a real title for a Divine reward either in the natural or in the supernatural order. The simple reason is that God, being self-existent, absolutely independent, and sovereign, can be in no respect bound in justice with regard to his creatures. Properly speaking, man possesses nothing of his own; all that he has and all that he does is a gift of God, and, since God is infinitely self-sufficient, there is no advantage or benefit which man can by his services confer upon Him. Hence on the part of God there can only be question of a gratuitous promise of reward for certain good works. For such works He owes the promised reward, not in justice or equity, but solely because He has freely bound himself, i.e., because of His own attributes of veracity and fidelity. It is on this ground alone that we can speak of Divine justice at all, and apply the principle: Do ut des (cf. St. Augustine, Serm. clviii, c. ii, in P.L., XXXVIII, 863).

Cont.

 

[babochka]

A third charge against the Catholic doctrine on merit is summed up in the word “self-righteousness”, as if the just man utterly disregarded the merits of Christ and arrogated to himself the whole credit of his good works. If any Catholic has ever been so pharisaical as to hold and practise this doctrine, he has certainly set himself in direct opposition to what the Church teaches. The Church has always proclaimed what St. Augustineexpresses in the words: “Non Dens coronat merita tua tanquam merita tua, sed tanquam dona sua” (De grat. et lib. arbitrio, xv), i.e., God crowns thy merits, not as thine earnings, but as His gifts. Nothing was more strong and frequently inculcated by the Council of Trent than the proposition that the faithful owe their entire capability of meriting and all their good works solely to the infinite merits of the Redeemer Jesus Christ. It is indeed clear that meritorious works, as “fruits of the justification”, cannot be anything but merits due to grace, and not merits due to nature (cf. Council of Trent, Sess. VI, cap. xvi). The Catholic certainly must rely on the merits of Christ, and, far from boasting of his own self-righteousness, he must acknowledge in all humility that even his merits, acquired with the help of grace, are full of imperfections, and that his justification is uncertain (see GRACE). Of the satisfactory works of penance the Council of Trent makes this explicit declaration: "Thus, man has not wherein to glory, but all our glorying is in Christ, in whom we live, move, and make satisfaction, bringing forth fruits worthy of penance, which from Him have their efficacy, are by Him offered to the Father, and through Him find with the Father acceptance" (Sess. XIV, cap. viii, in Denzinger, n. 904). Does this read like self-righteousness?

 

[ReaderT]

Let’s go one further - the Catechism, §§1476–1477:

" In the communion of saints, "a perennial link of charity exists between the faithful who have already reached their heavenly home, those who are expiating their sins in purgatory and those who are still pilgrims on earth. between them there is, too, an abundant exchange of all good things." In this wonderful exchange, the holiness of one profits others, well beyond the harm that the sin of one could cause others. Thus recourse to the communion of saints lets the contrite sinner be more promptly and efficaciously purified of the punishments for sin.

We also call these spiritual goods of the communion of saints the Church’s treasury, which is "not the sum total of the material goods which have accumulated during the course of the centuries. The ‘treasury of the Church’ is the infinite value, which can never be exhausted, which Christ’s merits have before God. They were offered so that the whole of mankind could be set free from sin and attain communion with the Father. In Christ, the Redeemer himself, the satisfactions and merits of his Redemption exist and find their efficacy. This treasury includes as well the prayers and good works of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They are truly immense, unfathomable, and even pristine in their value before God. In the treasury, too, are the prayers and good works of all the saints, all those who have followed in the footsteps of Christ the Lord and by his grace have made their lives holy and carried out the mission the Father entrusted to them. In this way they attained their own salvation and at the same time cooperated in saving their brothers in the unity of the Mystical Body

And that’s where I say “we don’t agree.” Nobody in the Gospels ever paid off their debt and put a surplus into the treasury for anyone else. This is not an Orthodox idea.