Would you convert if EO and RCC were in full communion?

[Gabriel_of_12]

…Rome and Constantinople (or Rome and literally everybody else) do not share the same faith. No doubt to Rome this makes them the last to stand for the true faith in its entirety or something, but it doesn’t look that way from Constantinople, or Etchmiadzin, or Alexandria, or Axum, or wherever, and your posts are not exactly helping turn that around, Gabriel.

You took my post out of context from the subject it addressed to another poster.

You raise an interesting point about “Rome and Constantinople do not share the same faith”. Your faith point of differences was never a question in the Catholic Church united to the bishop of Rome, until a Patriarch in Constantinople was installed, then heretical teachings became rampant from the East and power struggles towards the bishop’s of Rome led to the schism we share today.

History records all of your Eastern Orthodox cities you mentioned above, falling in and out of the Ortrhodox “Catholic” faith, when the Bishop’s of Rome have never fallen into heresy and remain Rock in the apostolic sacred Traditional Catholic faith, long before a title of Orthodox had to be added to the Eastern Church’s who did not fall into heresy but mirrored their sister churches who did. Sure we have differences here.

Yet the Bishop of Rome nor any Orthodox Church never has the power to separate what God has joined together via the priesthood, sacraments, liturgy, apostolic succession. In these divine qualities of the mystical body of Christ I admit the Truth we share in faith.

If the Orthodox deny what the divine has established in his body the Church, never makes it so, because you a man in Orthodoxy can never change or separate what God has joined together.

Peace be with you

 

[Gabriel_of_12]

This is one of the most blatantly hypocritical statements I’ve ever encountered on this forum. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, in this thread is being any more onesided, prejudiced, and biased than you.

Well thank you RyanBlack for that blessing, this is the best blessing bar far to date Ryan that I have ever recieved. Although you put my quote in blocks that appears to remove it from the substance of the quote. The substance view of the Ortrhodox was trying to prove the bishop’s of Rome as being weak, omnipotent and igsignificant throughout history. That is what Iam contesting from my quote you chopped up.

Please indulge me of your findings

 

[Peter_J]

You took my post out of context from the subject it addressed to another poster.

You raise an interesting point about “Rome and Constantinople do not share the same faith”. Your faith point of differences was never a question in the Catholic Church united to the bishop of Rome, until a Patriarch in Constantinople was installed, then heretical teachings became rampant from the East and power struggles towards the bishop’s of Rome led to the schism we share today.

History records all of your Eastern Orthodox cities you mentioned above, falling in and out of the Ortrhodox “Catholic” faith, when the Bishop’s of Rome have never fallen into heresy and remain Rock in the apostolic sacred Traditional Catholic faith, long before a title of Orthodox had to be added to the Eastern Church’s who did not fall into heresy but mirrored their sister churches who did. Sure we have differences here.

Yet the Bishop of Rome nor any Orthodox Church never has the power to separate what God has joined together via the priesthood, sacraments, liturgy, apostolic succession. In these divine qualities of the mystical body of Christ I admit the Truth we share in faith.

If the Orthodox deny what the divine has established in his body the Church, never makes it so, because you a man in Orthodoxy can never change or separate what God has joined together.

Peace be with you

At this point, you might well expect me to repeat my earlier comment about this being ridiculous. I won’t however, because the word that comes to mind instead is: tiresome.

 

[Gabriel_of_12]

At this point, you might well expect me to repeat my earlier comment about this being ridiculous. I won’t however, because the word that comes to mind instead is: tiresome.

I know it’s difficult to try and change a rock divinely instituted by Jesus Christ. Don’t be discouraged many nations, kings, kingdoms have against her, but will never prevail.

 

[dzheremi]

You took my post out of context from the subject it addressed to another poster.

You raise an interesting point about “Rome and Constantinople do not share the same faith”. Your faith point of differences was never a question in the Catholic Church united to the bishop of Rome, until a Patriarch in Constantinople was installed, then heretical teachings became rampant from the East and power struggles towards the bishop’s of Rome led to the schism we share today.

I don’t know why you keep coming back to this idea, in blatant disregard of the facts. The “installation” of the Patriarch of Constantinople is the cause of heretical teachings? Why didn’t any of your spiritual forefathers in Rome make this point in arguing against the acceptance of the 3rd canon of Constantinople, then? Why did they remain in communion with Constantinople for nearly another seven centuries?

History records all of your Eastern Orthodox cities you mentioned above

What? Do you know where Etchmiadzin, Alexandria, or Axum are? All of them are in countries with barely any recognizable EO presence. In all of Egypt, there are only about 300K Eastern Orthodox, and I’d be extremely surprised to find anything even close to that amount in Axum or Etchmiadzin (in the 2001 Armenian census, there were only 14K Russians, and 1,176 Greeks in the entire country…even put together, they’re both dwarfed by even the number of Kurds…and there are not many Kurds at all, either).

falling in and out of the Ortrhodox “Catholic” faith, when the Bishop’s of Rome have never fallen into heresy

In light of where I am posting, I can only say that this is extremely debatable.

and remain Rock in the apostolic sacred Traditional Catholic faith, long before a title of Orthodox had to be added to the Eastern Church’s who did not fall into heresy but mirrored their sister churches who did. Sure we have differences here.

What? The way this is worded makes it seem like you are saying that the Eastern Orthodox did not fall into heresy. Are you sure this is what you mean to say?

Yet the Bishop of Rome nor any Orthodox Church never has the power to separate what God has joined together via the priesthood, sacraments, liturgy, apostolic succession.

I asked this last time you alluded to that verse – what does writing on marriage have to do with the Roman Papacy?

…because you a man in Orthodoxy can never change or separate what God has joined together.

I’m not trying to break up anybody’s marriage…? Or for that matter do anything to your church. I’m just trying to get a hold on what it is you’re trying to say, but most of it is so out there and weird…it’s like trying to nail jello to the wall.

This is just getting sad and bizarre. I should probably unsubscribe from this thread. I mean, I won’t, but I probably should. (That’s sad, too.)

 

[Cavaradossi]

I am sorry that sacred scripture does not qualify to your scholary standards, would the CCC also be an incomplete source?

The historical events are not a difficulty to surface. What is difficult is finding historical facts and scholary print that the Bishop of Rome never existed before the patriarch of Constantinople.

Now to which specific historical account are you referencing pre-history of the invention of the Patriarchial office of Constantinople when it was true Orthodox to be in Union with the Bishop of Rome, or post history of Constantinople in “UNOrthodoxy” that leads to the schism with the Bishops of Rome?

I am at a disadvantage here because you are summarizing alot of history that has been said on these threads.

What the Ortrhodox posters fail to see here, is that I have not contested the historical events here, What I am contesting is the Orthodox one sided opinions from their personal view of these historical events that lack substance and scholary support from both sides of the historical event so as to draw a full and accurate conclusion, without prejudices and bias views that are UnOrthodox to the unity of all bishops united to the bishop’s of Rome.

Peace be with you

Yeah, no, I’m not letting you get off so easily. You have, consistently in this thread, made claims without citing any scholarly works or historical events to support your arguments, and when historical events are offered in contradiction to your assertions, you either ignore them (repeating the same assertions) or change the topic, making new assertions. The posters here in this thread have largely become tired (to paraphrase Peter J) of offering evidence contrary to your claims, and so we’re now asking you to substantiate your claims by offering historical evidence and opinions of scholars which agree with your opinions.

The claims you made in this post are a good enough starting point. I want for you to substantiate the claim, with the backing of historical events and with the opinions of scholars of history, that communion with Rome was believed to be “true Orthodoxy,” and then be prepared to defend your claims against rebuttals and evidence to the contrary. This is how real debate works, and frankly real debate would be a welcome change from the exchanges of the last 3 or so pages of this thread, which are filled with opinions, which are rather wanting as far as any relation to some sort of factual basis is concerned.

 

[Gabriel_of_12]

dzheremi;10709174]I don’t know why you keep coming back to this idea, in blatant disregard of the facts. The “installation” of the Patriarch of Constantinople is the cause of heretical teachings?

I said no such thing. It is not until after Constantine united the west and eastern empire and moved his capital to Constantinople, it is then we have a Patriarch of Constantinople coming into existence. Upon the lifting the persecution of the Catholic Church we now have the Emperor (secular powers) having influence over the Eastern Church’s calling councils to keep the peace as the Catholic Church begins it’s long course in defeating Eastern heresies in what is called the first Ecumenical council in the Nicene council.

What? The way this is worded makes it seem like you are saying that the Eastern Orthodox did not fall into heresy. Are you sure this is what you mean to say?

The Eastern Church’s that were dubbed Orthodox are the ones that united were united with the bishop’s of Rome defeated the Eastern heresies.

I asked this last time you alluded to that verse – what does writing on marriage have to do with the Roman Papacy?

I answered that for you in a previous post. The scripture verse points to a sacramental marriage, when there is never a divorce between Jesus our bridegroom and his bride the Catholic Church, this covenant marriage is made real via the sacraments which no man can put asunder.

Peace be with you

 

[Gabriel_of_12]

The claims you made in this post are a good enough starting point. I want for you to substantiate the claim, with the backing of historical events and with the opinions of scholars of history, that communion with Rome was believed to be “true Orthodoxy,” and then be prepared to defend your claims against rebuttals and evidence to the contrary. This is how real debate works, and frankly real debate would be a welcome change from the exchanges of the last 3 or so pages of this thread, which are filled with opinions, which are rather wanting as far as any relation to some sort of factual basis is concerned.

I did not know we had entered a debate yet, I thought we were sharing our views to a. How it is claimed by Orthodoxy we do not share the same faith? I answered with the sacrament, priesthood and liturgies b. The bishop of Rome was always held in high esteem, You claim the bishop of Rome from historical events post constantinople was “impotent” is that the word you used? and only played a minor role in councils.

**I call your attention to the historical period before the time of Constantinople before there ever was any Patriarch in Constantinople, how the bishop of Rome is held in high esteem and while under the persecution of secular powers.
**
“Pope St.Victor in the last decade of the second century excommunicated Theodotous the leather-dealer for declaring that Christ was a mere man. This Theodotus we are told, was the first to deny the divinity of Christ…”,

“St.Dionysius of Alexandria in the year 260 A.D asserted that the Son was “made by God”, and did not exist till He was made”…“As soon as it became known in Rome that Dionysius was holding such views, his namesake Pope Dionysius summoned a synod and issued a memorable document to the bishops of Egypt and Lybia. “Had the Son,” writes the Pope, “been created, there would have been a time when He was not; but the Son always was”. Thereupon, the bishop of Alexandria, in two letters which he sent to Rome, explained away his former inaccurate language, and distinctly confessed the Son’s eternity”.

“About the same time, Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch taught that Christ was not real, but only the adopted Son of God. He was condemned and deposed by a council of bishops which met in Antioch in 269 A.D”. (Paul died a deposed heretic) paranthesis mine.

“Lucian, the founder of the great school of theology and Holy Scripture at Antioch, was a disciple of Paul of Samosata and imbibed some of his master’s errors concerning the Trinity…HIs most noted pupils were Eusebius of Nicomedia and Arius…”

Found on pg.104-106 Church History by an instructor on religion and professor of Psychology the Reverend John Laux, M.A.

These recorded historical events took place long before the first Ecumenical councils in Constantinople, They reveal the Pope’s display of his authority throughout the Christian regions in the East without prejudice to his letters in obedience and we find the Pope united with his brethren bishops excercising the keys of the kingdom of God in excommunication.

We learn later in history present at the Nicene Council who addressed the pupils of a condemned heretic their master Paul of Samosata by the Pope and council earlier, these pupils show up in the persons of Eusebius of Nicomedia and the Arian priest Arius. Which took on the heretical name of Arianism in the East.

The reason I reveal this history to you is because it reveals the Bishop’s of Rome protecting the apostolic teachings outside of Rome in the capacity and authority as apostolic successor to Peter, without any secular authority or Patriarch’s, just apostolic bishops united with the bishop of Rome. This is Orthodox practice long before the title Orthodox was ever needed to be applied to anyone.

I will leave you with one quote from an Early Church Father holding to the throne of Peter as pre-imenent (not impotent which is your Orthodox view) which all other church’s must follow, long, long before there was ever any Patriarch in Constantinople or any first ecumenical councils. The Bishop’s of Rome had already blazed the path to which after the persecution of the Church was lifted all councils followed Peter in the bishop of Rome. The only difference we encounter post Constantinople is that the secular powers begin the road to try and intervene in Church affairs to the dislike from the bishop’s of Rome and many of the other church fathers post-Constantinople.

St. Irenaeus (Against Heresies, Bk 3, Chap.3 203 A.D) “Since, however, it would be very tedious in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches,…(we do this, I say) by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul;…For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church,on account of it’s pre-eminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inas-much as the apostoligical tradition has been preserved continuously by those (faithful men) who exist everywhere”.

An excerpt taken out of the book The Teachings of the Church Fathers by Father John R.Willis. S.J page 68.

If you please can you give a Pre-schism- Pre-Constantinople political period between church and state interpretation of these early Church Fathers who never new of any Nicene Council nor these early Church Fathers never even heard of a Patriarch in Constantinople. So as to avoid all prejudices and bias opinions of interpretations.

Peace be with you