Shame the council fathers didn’t get that right either!
That’s a strawman. Per Filio is a valid interpretation. After all, anathemizing Filioque means anathemizing St. Athanasius.
one of us has to be Pure Church and Bride of Christ; we can’t both be if we believe contradictory things (“Is Christ divided?” - 1 Cor. 1:13) and so we believe we have it fully correct.
I agree with that sentiment. It would be unwise to pretend Schism is internal or that it’s just issue of upper management. Hell and Heaven differ mainly by upper management too. Not to say any of our Churches is Hell, but that upper management does matter.
With issue of legalism, it tends to be prevalent in West. But it isn’t true Spirit of Latin Christianity. You see, Priest in our Church can’t assign different Fasts to each person- there are far too many for Priest to handle. We are expected some minimum required by canons (and even that can be excused for a good reason), but we are also expected to discipline ourselves. We are expected to Fast as we can, to pray as we can. To reduce Latin Law to Legalism is missing the point. Concept of Economia exists inside Latin Law, not outside it like in the East.
We had much more time to develop rules and canons for universal Latin Church than Orthodoxy had for national Churches. After all Orthodoxy had rough time with Ottoman regime, Communist regime etc. Funnily enough, Orthodoxy (and East pre-schism) before those trials was much more legalistic than West. Even things such as allowing subsequent marriages after divorce by Economia was mandated by Imperial Court and opposed by Byzantine Churchmen at large. Caesaropapism made Byzantine Church legalistic, but persecution and lack of (reliable) leadership during persecution washed that legalism away.
It is sad that Latin Christianity is perceived as legalistic- especially when it is perceived as such by Latin Christians themselves. At traditional Parish I often feel that this legalism isn’t present, as true spirit of canons is understood by those people. Be it EF or OF community, more traditional things get, less legalism I perceive. Because you are right about thing that our fathers in Faith knew- thing that Sacred Tradition tells us if we listen. Legalism itself is not sufficient to understand God. While we can not get by without law, we can’t be all about law either. Orthodoxy understands this as canons play role in it too. God is not Law, but Love.
