Why not Orthodox Churches?

[Genesis315]

I tried to use the lower case to distinguish between the Catholic™ Church and catholic Church for that reason. The Catholic™ Church professes them to be one and the same of course. The word “catholic” was originally used to refer to the whole Church rather than a particular Church (e.g. Church of Rome, Church of Corinth, Church of Milan, Church of Constantinople, etc., etc.) It is an acknowledgement that the Church of Christ is not only manifested in the particular or eucharistic Church, but as a universal Church–in fact, the creed gives priority to this manifestation, as the Catholic Church does (ie the universal Church is the mother of the particular Churches).

As Christians separated themselves from the catholic Church through heresy and schism, the word “catholic” also came to mean the true Church (since heretical and schismatic communities were not united with that universal Church)

 

[Vonsalza]

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

I know this is the pot calling the kettle black, but MAN you’re so frequently vitriolic…

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).

Well of course. Just like the CoJCoLDS is clear that the BoM is genuinely divine writ. What you’ve presented here is a circular argument.

By definition “one” can only apply to one…

Sure. And by faith, yours is “the one” and by faith his is “the 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.

It’s a bit more than that, it appears. While the judgement of “licit” is withheld, the acknowledgement of “valid” is not.

Likewise, it’s not about the man you are missing, it is the office.

The office is currently filled by the Ecumenical Patriarch that carries out the same function performed by the Roman bishop before (per the EO) Rome began unacceptably consolidating its power from Constantine until the Reformation.

As to when, exactly, the schism produced discrete Churches; debates all around it seems.

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.

As someone who spent some time as an EO catechumen, this is news to me.

I had the understanding that primacy was sought and needed. It was supremacy that was rejected.

If the EO Churches are the one catholic Church professed in the Creed, where was this one catholic Church during the Bulgarian schism?

Where was the one catholic Church during the protestant reformation?

I don’t think you make a very distinctive point here beyond “They got problems!”

If that’s a deal-breaker for you then brace yourself. I have some hard news for you about the RCC…

Even our very irenical Cardinal Kasper…

Yes. A good, Catholic man through and through…

But I’ll readily agree to the notion that the EO are too leery of central authority. The east probably avoids it too much, the west probably indulges it too much.

“So it goes.”

Eastern stubbornness probably couldn’t survive reunification. Western papal infallibility probably couldn’t either.

 

[catholic1seeks]

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.

Yes, I probably wasn’t very clear. I was trying to offer a simplistic way of how we can understand the Orthodox churches as being part of the one visible Catholic Church and yet be lacking full communion. There can only be One Church of Christ, so when we regard the Orthodox as having valid bishops and Eucharists, structured as particular churches, we have to admit their communion to the one Catholic Church in some way.

In this particular context, especially with @pacloc, it might not have been helpful. But insofar as the imagination goes in trying to understand the nature of the Church, I think it’s helpful to see the Orthodox as @Spyridon said (“The Eastern Orthodox Churches are the Greco-Slavic Catholic Churches which have been in a state of impartial Communion with the rest of the Church since the 13th century.”)

 

[BlackFriar]

Very confusing.
I wish I knew what “catholic” means these days.
EO and Catholics likely mean different things.

 

[Genesis315]

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

I know this is the pot calling the kettle black, but MAN you’re so frequently vitriolic…

You don’t think the assertion that the Catholic position is that “all the world’s religions are part of the Church” is nonsense? (sorry if I came across as vitriolic).

Well of course. Just like the CoJCoLDS is clear that the BoM is genuinely divine writ. What you’ve presented here is a circular argument.

I wasn’t presenting this as an argument for the proposition. The poster I was replying to implied the Catholic Church did not view itself as the one Church or that saying so was somehow intended merely as an insult.

Sure. And by faith, yours is “the one” and by faith his is “the one”.

I think you may have missed my point. My argument was that the mark “one” could not be applied to the EO Churches based on their own ecclesiology and nature, but it could be applied to the Catholic Church as it is instituted. And by definition it cannot be applied to both the Catholic Church and the EO.

It’s a bit more than that, it appears. While the judgement of “licit” is withheld, the acknowledgement of “valid” is not.

Which is why I said the Churches exist (that’s what valid would mean in this context). The Protestants, for example, do not exist as Churches.

The office is currently filled by the Ecumenical Patriarch that carries out the same function performed by the Roman bishop before (per the EO) Rome began unacceptably consolidating its power from Constantine until the Reformation.

I don’t think that is accepted within the EO. What Constantinople is now is clearly different than what Rome was then (and now), even if we only look at how the primacy was exercised in particular circumstances. The See of Constantinople is not treated as the Church in priority whose witness and reception are necessary (a couple of the essays in the EO compilation “The Primacy of Peter” has good info on this–if I remember correctly Schmemann’s, Afanassieff’s, and possibly Meyendorff’s demonstrate priority of witness and reception from even an EO perspective, which can’t admit the logical consequences of that). Constantinople does not have the attributes necessary for this service to unity (which is what Kasper gets at more in the link earlier). If anything, this role was fulfilled by the Emperor after the schism, but it has been lacking since the dissolution of that institution.

continued…

 

[Genesis315]

As someone who spent some time as an EO catechumen, this is news to me.

I had the understanding that primacy was sought and needed. It was supremacy that was rejected.

I’ll point you again to the essays of Afanassieff and Schmemann in the Primacy of Peter–they demonstrate how a universal eccesiology necessitates the Catholic conception of primacy and therefore why this is viewed as a corruption in orthodox eccesiology when it manifests itself there (mostly manifesting itself at the national level in the over-emphasis on the autocephalous or national church).

The Catholic definitions concerning the primacy are necessary for how the primacy has been exercised in different contexts pre-and post-schism. What the Pope can do and should do are two different things–the definitions focus in the abstract on the “can” since the “should” cannot be stated for every possible situation. This changes with the circumstances. They don’t intend this, but again, the essays I referenced (by Afanassieff and Schmemann) show the EO conception of primacy in terms of witness and reception, but these things necessarily entail jurisdictional consequences. Meyendorff, on the other hand, admits a primacy with jurisdictional consequences being manifest by the Paul of Samosata episode (well before Nicea). The others, while denying the jurisdictional consequences, which to me logically flow from it, show that the witness and reception of the primatial See was evident as early as St. Clement I.

Where was the one catholic Church during the protestant reformation?

I don’t think you make a very distinctive point here beyond “They got problems!”

If that’s a deal-breaker for you then brace yourself. I have some hard news for you about the RCC…

Not in the Protestant communities that were separated, but rather in the society that remained in communion with the Church of Rome. In that case, there was a clear separation of individuals and communites from the one Church. In the EO cases I mentioned, you have some churches separating from some churches, but not from others. The RCC definitely has problems with sinners and so does the EO–we’re all human afterall. But the EO’s problem is in principles, which is what these events show. How their Churches are instituted and relate to one another–including how and when they break communion with one another–demonstrate only a multiplicity of Churches in relationship with one another, rather than one Church.

 

[Wife.of.Gabriel]

Why Not Orthodox Churches?

As someone who just left the Orthodox Church after 15 yrs and reverted back to the Catholic Church less than a week ago, I can say that for me and I can only answer for me… it’s Not Orthodox Churches because Infallibility, Supremacy, Primacy was passed on uniquely by St. Peter to all succeeding Bishops of Rome just as it was uniquely by the Keys given to St. Peter by Jesus Christ, Himself.