Why not Orthodox Churches?

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catholic1seeks said:
then it wouldn’t even make sense for persons on either side to say BOTH Catholic and Orthodox churches are the “One” Church.
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Look, you all started the hatred, by attacking our claim to speak the Creed truthfully. This is a serious matter when the RCC has all of the problems that you claim that makes us unable to speak these parts of the Creed, but just because you have a Pope, that many choose to contradict, you think you are free of these problems, that have always existed even before the split. I don’t think I push it too far, but I know that I am a little blunt, so I apologize. I don’t want to be seen as one of these bad guys you always speak about, but I hope you can understand why I try to defend the Orthodox Church and explain the discrepancy between posters and teachings from the Pope and Bishops. If anything you should look back at posts started by you and Catholic1seeks and others that begin by insulting your experiences with Orthodox, how could these posts not be seen as the same thing you complain about from the Orthodox side?
 
If you chose Eastern Orthodoxy, then I would ask “why not Oriental Orthodoxy”? Without the primacy of Rome, I personally have no way to adjudicate between the Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian Orthodox Churches.
 
Look, you all started the hatred …
If anything you should look back at posts started by you and Catholic1seeks and others that begin by insulting your experiences with Orthodox, how could these posts not be seen as the same thing you complain about from the Orthodox side?
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I’m not so sure I see the hatred, especially considering one my good friends is Orthodox and I think she’s one of the loveliest persons ever.

I know it might be stressful coming to a Catholic forum and it may seem like everyone is arguing against you, but I’d be careful about letting emotions get the best of how you interpret the posts on here. I’ve tried to be objective and fair, even if critical, but I have never meant ill regard for Orthodox.

I just think the Orthodox/Catholic dialogue is important. Here’s a simple case in point: I type in “Church history” on Google Images, and nearly 9 out of 10 are Orthodox-based timelines showing the “Roman” Catholic Church shooting off of the Orthodox Church. I think this kind of defensiveness makes me, in turn, want to think through these issues more and make others aware of history, even if it is complicated.

I have never been Orthodox, so I will try to keep my place as an outsider.
 
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Nobody said the Orthodox profess the Creed untruthfully.

I can’t speak for other posters, but when I said the Orthodox lack Oneness and Catholicity I meant that they lack unity among themselves (due to having no central authority - the Pope) and they lack universality (oneness with the rest of the Church and throughout the world).

Individual Orthodox believers are not guilty of schism (as long as they aren’t actively working against healing our Churches communion) or problems with the Orthodox Churches, so they can truthfully profess to being members of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
 
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This is a pretty simple choice if you were being serious. The Oriental Church claims to believe the same theology as the Orthodox Church now. So obviously you would go to the Orthodox Church. The non-Chalcedonians split from the Church because they had a problem with the 2 natures of Christ, from my understanding this is not a problematic terminology anymore for them.
 
Genesis315 said:
Orthodox Churches lack two of the notes of the Church we profess in the Creed: they are not “one” nor are they “catholic.”
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And everyone keeps piling on. It must be hard to say you were wrong. Why would you purposely use three of the four words that describe the Holy Church and begin to express how the Orthodox Church is not these things? I’m done with this particular thread. It seemed like trouble by asking the very question.
 
You mean this?

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I like how they conveniently left out the Massacre of the Latins in 1182 which precipitated the Sack of Constantinople in 1204 (which is when I consider the schism of 1054 to have officially been “ratified.” Up until 1204, the East and West were still in communion in many places. Only after 1204 was the schism complete. When Orthodox believers come around acting like in 1053 everything was all hunky dory, then in 1055 we were in full schism, I just shake my head because they obviously don’t have a clue.)
 
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Or the one with a falling branch. But yes, I see that one a lot.

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@pacloc, do you believe that the (Roman) Catholic Church is One or Catholic or Apostolic, as defined in the Creed?
 
Arvgggh.

That illustration is painful… It’s just… So… Wrong… Errrggggh
 
His Church does, so he should.
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Well, @pacloc seems offended that I do not regard Orthodoxy as fully* One, or fully* Catholic, or fully* Apostolic

But I wonder if he acknowledges the RCC to be so. Part of my confusion in this dialogue is I don’t see how it’s a big shocker that two different churches would regard each other as not FULLY the Church. If that weren’t so — if the CC and the OC both though the other was FULLY One Holy and Catholic — then there would be no schism today.
 
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I regard the Orthodox as a collective of particular Churches within the Catholic Church which for various historical, cultural, political, and ethnolinguistic reasons are not in full communion with the rest of the Catholic Church.
 
Right, and so when I say the Orthodox churches lack the Four Marks fully, I simply mean that, ultimately, these characteristics receive full significance with the Petrine Office.

But there are other reasons too.

Like, I still maintain that catholicity with regard to both sheer number and ethnic/cultural representation, as well as the sense of “completeness” and inclusiveness, is to be found in Catholicism over Orthodoxy.
 
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But I think I am still confused on what the official Orthodox position is on the Catholic Church.

In their eyes, do we have valid bishops?

Who exactly is the (Roman) Catholic Church in their view? If we are merely in schism, does that mean we are not in any sense the visible church?
 
catholic1seeks said:
In their eyes, do we have valid bishops?

Who exactly is the (Roman) Catholic Church in their view? If we are merely in schism, does that mean we are not in any sense the visible church?
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It depends on which of their Bishops you asked.

If you asked the Ecumenical Patriarch or bishops under him, they’d probably say we have valid bishops. Patriarch Bartholomew certainly would.

But every Bishop holds different beliefs about things like this. There is no central authority so these questions go unanswered. If you don’t like the answer the Russian bishop down the street gives, go to the Greek bishop in the town next door and he’ll probably give you a different answer. The only way the Orthodox could settle a question like this would an Ecumenical Council, and every time they try to have one, it falls apart due to infighting.
 
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Genesis315 said:
The Catholic Church is one…
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But not with the Eastern Orthodox Church because they aren’t Catholic…or is that catholic 😂.

Sounds like a definitional tautology rather than a meaningful concrete proposition to me.
 
catholic1seeks said:
I think the other replies so far have explained why such a pope (assuming you mean Francis) would praise someone for being Orthodox
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Perhaps Pope Frances has said that, but I haven’t heard it.

Pope Benedict, on the other hand . . .

(and decades of instructional coming out of the Vatican, and . . .)

hawk
 
Your first sentence is nonsense. Such assertions undermine your argument.

The Catholic Church is clear that the mark of unity in the Creed can only be applied to the Catholic Church in communion with the successor of Peter (Roman Pontiff). I’m not sure why you would be insulted that Catholics believe that mark applies to the Catholic Church–don’t you profess that it belongs to your Churches and not ours? By definition “one” can only apply to one…

We do acknowledge the existence of eucharistic Churches (a bishop and baptized flock celebrating a common Eucharist) that are separated from the catholic Church. Some of my fellow Catholics in this thread erroneously referred to them as “catholic” Churches–the Catholic Church does not say this (because of the meaning of "catholic), but rather calls them “eucharistic” or “particular” Churches.

Likewise, it’s not about the man you are missing, it is the office. Men who have filled the office have had varied merits and have carried out their duties to greater or lesser extents and have benefited the Church more or less as a result, but that doesn’t mean the office is therefore unnecessary or the duties are not therefore good and important. Nor does it mean the man is sinless or omnisicent or a perfect saint. Just as EOs profess the office of bishop is necessary for a eucharistic Church, especially with regards to its unity, even though a particular bishop may or may not serve his eucharistic Church well at any point in history. So to is the primacy necessary for the catholic (universal) Church in the same way (this is why modern EOs really, really don’t like admitting any universal ecclesiology–it naturally leads to the primacy. Yet, universal ecclesiology is right there in the creed with the word “catholic.”) Even synodality needs a primacy, as the recent attempt at a pan-Orhtodox synod made painfully clear.

If the EO Churches are the one catholic Church professed in the Creed, where was this one catholic Church during the Bulgarian schism? Was it manifested in the Churches of the Bulgarian Exarchate or not? If it was, then did Greek Churches separate themselves from the catholic Church be separating from the Bulgarian Churches? Or, if it was not, did the Russian Churches separate themselves from the catholic Church by professing unity with schismatic Churches? But the Greek and Russian Churches also remained in communion with one another, so one either way, if they are really one Church, they would both have unity and schism with the catholic Church at the same time. This is by definition a contradiction and an impossibility–so they cannot be one.

Even our very irenical Cardinal Kasper, who was in charge of seeking the unity of separated Christians, and who never has a bad thing to say about any non-Catholics, had to admit “We are increasingly conscious of the fact that an Orthodox Church does not really exist.”
 
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