The problem here, is that, while both Rome and Constantinople repudiated the excommunications of 1054, there are problems.

1) Much of Orthodoxy, in practice, if not in theory, has rejected the repudiations.

2) Much of Orthodoxy rejects the Patriarch of Constantinople.

The West has many problems, yes. The East has many more -- and far more serious.

David,

I have to respectfully disagree with your conclusions. I do understand from an outsider's point of view that it looks like disunity when Orthodox disagree with one another, but I think that that is one of the wonderful things about Orthodoxy; eveything is not based upon one man (the pope). The Orthodox are able to disagree with one another over various things without being in schism with one another. Even though the Ecumenical Patriarch and the Pope have lifted the anethama's on one another, that does not mean they are in communion with one another. (Again, we don't look at Apostolic Succession as mereley "legal" but also organic.)

In the west, everything is done in accordance to the Pope. In a sense (humbly speaking), he is "all in all". He alone is the final say on anything in the church. Ultimatley, there is no reason for ecumenical counsels, or a college of bishops; they are a figure-head at most.

In Orthodoxy, there is much disagreement; however, the faith remains the same. You can have disagreement when you have a college of bishops; in fact, you will have more disagreements when there is not ( and I mean this humbley) a dictatorship. We believe that ecumenical counsels are the final authority, not merely one man. In my humble opinion, I beleive that if universal jurisdiction/papal infalibility were obvious to all; 4 of the 5 historical patriarchate would not have been in opposition to Rome if this were blatantly true. It would have been obvious to everyone.

Before I go on, perhaps this should turn into another thread. Everyone, please read the last thread that I posted on the East-West relations.

As we share our ideas, I want you all to forgive me if I offend any of you. I speak from my humble opinion, and I am always open to the possibility that I may be wrong. We will only know the full truth when we die. God, loving us as sons, will surley have compassion on us all. We all make the best decisions that we know based on the limited capacity of our intellect. We all love Jesus and have experiened Him to one degree or another, otherwise none of us would have begun our journey to historic Christianity. Lord have mercy on us all!! (even our protestant brethren, whose houses of worship I first experienced the touch of our Blessed Saviour!)

Forgive Me a sinner

Orthodox Bagpiper

Well, if you think there are no disagreements within the RCC, you are definitely mistaken. If you think that all the church regards the Pope as a dictator (even in a the friendliest sense) I must not be in the RCC as I thought.

There is much disagreement in the RCC, but one faith. Some disagreements are formal, some informal. The College of Cardinals, as our Pope, the former Cardinal Ratzinger will attest, has great influence on the thinking of the Pope. There is the Magisterium, The Curia, Councils, etc. Ultimately one person makes a decision. I think that is true in Orthodoxy within each patriarchate. In other words what the Ecumenical Patriarch says and does is final within his jurisdiction, is it not, even if not acceptable to the other Patriarchs? I have always wondered about these things.

What I find appealing about the Pope, is that he, together with others (including our brother Orthodox Patriarchs) make the Church visible. That is why I never understood the CEC motto "making visible the void". Where is the void they were making visible?

I am only writing from my meager understanding, and probably should just say off this topic. I will read and learn from those of you David Orthodox Bagpiper, Ken...), with more education in this field.

My friend,

Just a couple of thoughts . . .

One, please don't worry about offending me in this thread. Likewise, I would ask for the same. Anything I would say is not intended to offend, nor directed at you personally.

Two, I seriously considered Orthodoxy some years ago -- and decided against it for a number of reasons.

Let me just address a few points here. If this gets too long, we can split up the various points. :)

One, I don't know about you, but I tend to get nervous whenever someone says "from an outsider's point of view" or something similar, because this can be very misleading. On one level, what you say is, of course, very true. On another level, it can smack of "if you were only 'in the know'" or "in the inner circle" or "have the secred decoder ring" or even "if you were only at the Patriarch's Council" you would understand, etc. It's off-putting at best.

Two, I DO state that there is enormous disunity within Orthodoxy -- and I'll further statate that this is one of the major reasons why real dialogue has not proceeded further than it has. The official Roman Catholic/Eastern Orthodox dialogue fell apart completely for several years (after the Emittsburg, Maryland meeting) not because of tensions between East and West, but rather because of absolute disunity between the various Eastern delegations -- many of whom were not even speaking to each other.

Three, I don't know how you think Catholicism is set up -- but everything is HARDLY based on one man! Not in the least!

With respect, this is simply not an accurate statement. For most of my lifetime, for example, Moscow and Constantinople have NOT been in communion with each other. There is an uneasy truce right now -- with the emphasis on the uneasy. Within the last 10 years, the Ukranian Orthodox fractured in three different directions, with each hierarch excommunicating the other two (and all their clergy).

In my own experience, we had Russian Orthodox exchange students at Nashotah Hosue when I was a student. In one case, the only person the seminarian despised more than the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople -- was the Pope. A sad attitude, to be sure.

Sadly, this is very true.

I understand that this is what is claimed. I do not see it in practice. In my previous example, which two of the three Ukranian hierarchs (along with their clergy) are now "organically" not clergy any more?

More later,

Many blessings,

Before offering any argument or point of view, I want to be crystal clear on something. I love you. As an Orthodox you are like a brother to me as a Catholic. As a Greek Catholic, we are like twins in the sense of sharing the same patrimony and in our fraternal closeness. Wherever you are in the world, and wherever I am (so long as we are not old calendar, hehehe) on Sundays and feast days we are praying the same prayers, hearing the same scripture, earnestly seeking salvation. Before I go further I DO want to implore you to remember this simple sinner in your prayers. I chose my pen name because it is 100% accurate.

Now to share with certitude but not be triumphal. To share light but not heat, I would like to discuss some of these points. In the course of just a few paragraphs and 410 words (I counted) you asked a lot of questions, made a lot of points and caused a lot of thinking. For me, it was A LOT of thinking… so help me if my brain overheats taking it all in, you are responsible for the care of my dogs!

The first issue that I like to consider would very well seem to be the smallest. It is in fact a word. Can’t get much smaller than a word, can you? In a word, the word is “legal”. But in fact it could be “legalism” “legalistic” or “legality”.

Before we look at any specific examples of western issues that some in the communion of Eastern Orthodox find distasteful, lets take a moment to go back in time. About 1600 years.

In 431 the third ecumenical council, the Council of Ephesus was called to deal with the issue of Nestorianism. A teaching later refuted by the Latin and Byzantines as a heresy The Patriarch of Babylon and his spiritual children parted ways by the end of the council with Rome, Alexandria and Byzantium. This rupture persists to this very day in the Assyrian Church of the East and the Church of the East & Abroad.

What was at stake in this council? What made the Babylonians walk? “The use of Theotokos was formally affirmed at the Third Ecumenical Council held at Ephesus in 431. The competing view (advocated by Nestorius, then Patriarch of Constantinople) was that Mary should be called Christotokos, meaning "Mother of Christ," to restrict her role to the mother of Christ's humanity only and not his divine nature.” Two terms so very similar, Mother of God, Mother of Christ, were so very crucial to the to the council fathers that this distinction led to a schism – one that has yet to be repaired. When you read your patristics and consider what the Early Church Fathers said about schism and schismatics, this is no light matter.

(On a separate note, for persons struggling with Marian devotion in the East and West, consider this, by 431 AD HOW she was called was so very important it lead Christians to schism, and at the time, unlike today’s denominational melee, that was no small deal. As a matter of fact, her title was rather a BIG deal. Chew on that.)

Within quarter century, actually slightly less than 25 years, another schism between the East and West was about to occur. After the council of Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon that took place from according to modern reckoning from October 8 to November 1, 451, at Chalcedon, the Oriental Orthodox departed communion from the Latin West and the Byzantine East. (I take pain to mention the dates to demonstrate that the records rulings and recollections of this council are NOT hazy or vague.) At issue was the conciliar formulations on the nature of Christ. What were they?

Well let’s consult my best friend Wikipedia for a succinct definintion on this one: “In Christian theology, the hypostatic union (also known as the personal union and the mystical union) is the dual nature of Jesus Christ as being simultaneously God and Man. What is considered to be the orthodox doctrine of the hypostatic union, especially defined by the Council of Chalcedon (451), is opposed to the doctrine that Jesus Christ has only one nature after His incarnation (monophysitism), and it is opposed to Nestorianism, which posits a mixture of the two natures but is considered to leave room for believing that Jesus Christ is two persons.” In other words, parties leaving the council in assent of the councils formularies UPHELD the notion that Christ had a dual nature. The non-conforming parties were pereplexed.

The non-conforming parties whose descendants exist to this very day as “Oriental Orthodox” denied these formulations, suspicious that the implications of these formulations were implicitly in line with Nestorian.

Oh the irony!

For 1600 years the Byzantine East and Latin west have looked at the Assyrians saying “Look at those Nestorians.” At the same time the Copts and Syrians and Indians were looking at the Assyrians and Latins and Byzantines saying “Look at those Nestorians!” The non-Chalcedonians broke with the Chalcedonians thinking the Chalcedonians had knowingling or unknowingly contradicted the teachings of the council of Ephesus some 20 some years prior!

Keep this episode in mind for four reasons: (1) the Church had suffered two major schisms before the fifth century, (2) The reasons for the split(s) were Christological definitions and misdefinitions common to the baptized even today. They were so precise and heavily debated that in the end, when no conciliation could be met, parties willfully and purposefully broke communion with each other. (3) With the departure of not one but TWO communions had occurred in Christianity with parties that did not accept as obvious the notion that Ecumenical Councils bore an infailability to which all faithful must assent. (4) Make a note in the back of your mind, which ancient patriarchal sees were affected (especially post-Chalcedone) by these splits. Make a special note.

Well where am I going with this? What does this have to do with the price or rice in China let a lone my discomfort with “legal” “legalism” “Legalistic” or “legality”? It is simple. I prefer the term “precision” and if you consider the very pressing importance eastern and western Christians gave to precise definitions and understandings of the nature of Christ and the very title we were to afford Mary, well it seems that well before Aquinas or “rationalism” there was a deep-seated need for an understanding of the precise nature of certain theological concepts.

Note that no parties “left the table” because they were concearned that it “did not matter” or that too much time was being being given to any particular debate. Each party – those affirming counciliar definitions, and those dissenting from conciliar definitions broke communion over very strong preference for one definition over another in a debate of terms and understandings that were very similar but different enough to matter to them. Mother of Christ, Mother of God.

More than one Byzantine Orthodox author I have read has raised an eyebrow or expressed disenchantment with Roman certitude and persistence in defining and clarifying such concepts as “transubstantiaon”. Roman concepts of "validity" has been dismissed as "legalist" In the face of conflicting and intense debate on such issues, why should Rome be any less precise than her forebearers were at Ephesus and Chalcedon?

In the case of the differences between consubstantiaon and transubstantion, could it not be that the differences are, however very subtle, just as important as the difference between Christotokos and Theotokos? In every instance that the west came up against pressing and urgent theological debate she defined things with precision, to do less would be ahistorical and not in her nature.

In the case of valid orders, well t various times in history non-Orthodox such as (1) Greek Catholics, (2) reconciled parties from bodies seperated by Christological heresey, (3) Orthodox from autogenic bodies unrecognized by others in the Byzantine Collmunion like the Macedonian Orthodox or (to a lesser degree) ROCOR. Barring straigh re-ordination of such clerical converts, there needs to be a way to determine if what they claim to be is what they are, and what they are called to do is what they CAN do. Namely, be presbyters who offer the mysteries.

Actually, who is it with authority to recognize an organic reality?

For now, lets move on to the “Pentarchy”

You don’t use the “p-word” but you certainly imply and give reference to it when you say:

Remember how I had gently asked you to “Make a note in the back of your mind, which ancient patriarchal sees were affected (especially post-Chalcedone) by these splits. Make a special note.” It is time to pull that note up. Also have handy my assertation that “With the departure of not one but TWO communions had occurred in Christianity with parties that did not accept as obvious the notion that Ecumenical Councils bore an infailability to which all faithful must assent.” I am going to think about both for a moment.

First the Pentarchy, it is a glorious but untenable non-working institution. The idea that it was some gold standard of some "undivided church" is not founded in history, AT ALL. From the time of the Pauline Epistles to this very day, there have been parties in schism, there was NO time in the history of Christianity when all the baptized were united in faith. Most of the notable early heresies and the schismatic communities that adhered to them are in the dust. (There is a reason for that.)

Founded for political reasons the pentarchy was never a practical working reality. It was a creation of man indisputably, having no foundation in scripture or tradition. It is no more mandated than the college of cardinals or national patriarchates.

Recognizned in 451 at the Council of Chalcedon, the sees that were included are:

* Patriarch of Rome
* Patriarch of Constantinople
* Patriarch of Alexandria
* Patriarch of Antioch
* Patriarch of Jerusalem

But here is the deal, WHO decides WHICH claimant to an ancient patriarchal see is a Pentarch? Who determines which party is the legitimate claimant of a patriarchal (pentarchal) see?

Long before the Latins created a “Latin Patriarch of Constantinople” (now abolished) or a “Coptic Catholic Patriarchate of Alexandria” or the “Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem,” the pro-Chalcedonian bishops of the Hellenic colonies in, Antioch, and Alexandria, had taken patriarchal dignities for themselves. No ecumenical council had confirmed this. Today, in the 21st century, the Greek Orthodox Alexandrian Patriarchate is enjoying an all-time high of adherents at around 300,000. The Coptic patriarch counts some 6M+ souls. Both claim to be rightful heirs of the Patriarchal See of Alexandria, the throne of St. Mark. In Jersualem there are at least FOUR patriarchs today claiming the see: Armenian, Greek & Latin! (The deposed Greek patriarch still claims he is the rightful patriarch so there are two claimants today to this Greek see.)

By the time of the Pentarchy’s creation, the Assyrian Church of the East in the Persian Empire and the Oriental Orthodox (Copts & Syrians) were out the door. The Pentarchy, like the College of Cardinals, was a creation of the church, not something handed down by Christ Himself.

By the time of 1054, the members of the Pentarchy cited by the EO were in fact the Greek Patriarch in Constantinople, and his the bishops of the Hellenic communities (mostly trading colonies) in Alexandria & and Antioch set up to rival the non-Chalcedonian bodies.

My point? Well to be fair and compare apples to apples, oranges to oranges, is it fair or accurate to paint a picture of a solitary Roman patriarch breaking communion with 4 undivided historic Eastern sees? In my view or history it is more accurate to say that when the Constanipolitan and the Roman patriarchs (once again) suffered the indignity of schism in 1054 (*), it was between those TWO sees and the Hellenic bishops of Jerusalem, Alexandria & Antioch sided rather naturally with the Byzantine elder brother – the patriarch of the imperial city of the Greek empire. Not exactly four neutral and equally powerful parties there.

But on the matter of “4 out of 5 against 1” this argument in your original quote was only a part of your point. To review:

In looking at this quote a second time, I want to consider a second point that I gently asked you to make note of. Namely “With this last departure of not one but TWO communions had occurred in Christianity with parties that did not accept as obvious the notion that Ecumenical Councils bore an infailability to which all faithful must assent.”

Well I ask you this: how can you use as a litmus test the “obvious test” What seems rather naturally obvious to the Byzantine Orthodox who look to the first 7 (or 9 depending on whose counting!) ecumenical councils as having a weight an authority that must be adheard to through the ages. Really, how is obvious that it is (1) a true Ecumenical Council (2) and carries an authority that the baptized are bound to through the ages?

It isn’t that the councils themselves were broadly attended. At any given council there were less than 20% attendance on the part of the hierarchs of the Church. And western attendance was even less. In some councils about 1%. A stalwart member of ROCOR who was an ex-Episcopalian always told me he felt it ludicrous that a pope could have power that only the universal college of bishops acting in toto could wield. Yet that has NEVER happened. Ever. There has been no council universally attended. But when you consider travel and communication and the political realities of persecution in Babylon, the West, Egypt, how could universal attendance have even been possible?

But also problematic to me is the idea that

Well here in the US we believe the Constitution is the final law of the land… But who has an authority to interpret it? Plainly, there is a difference between what is authoritatively to be believed, and authority. One could turn around and ask the Byzantine Orthodox, why have ranking bishops either? Why have Patriarchs, metropolitans, archbishops, etc. Why not just have a house of bishops that includes every living bishop, and a system to put issues to a vote?

Slavish adhearance for two millennia has been inpracticle and impossible. Take a look at a very breif summary of the chalcedonian canons.. Those counciliar canons just for that one council certainly can and have offered challenges. If for example a bishop does NOT adhear to the canon “twice a year the bishops shall conduct a synod,” Well, who is it that calls him on this, enforces it or offer disciplinary measures as needed? And of the canon that the clergy are prohinited to serve in the military? Certainly this does not include a prohibition on priests serving as military chaplians.

And the last point to touch on...

Why have any courts but the Supreme Court?
Why have parish councils if a priest has authority in a church?
Why have synods if the bishop has authority in his eparchy?

It is a bit of a false dichotomy to say that IF someone has a final say THAN why have any others saying anything at all? Of course we both believe Jesus sent Jesus sent out the Apostles. As Catholics, we believe that just as Old Israel had a head priest who sat on the Throne of Moses who was a final arbiter, the New Israel has a bishop who sits on the Throne of Peter as a final arbiter.

The Apostles were sent, and they were sent with a leader - St. Peter, first pope.

-simple sinner

Greetings, Simple Sinner,

An excellent and loving analysis.

I was going to post something very similar with regard to the issue of the Pentarchy -- you beat me to it!

Constantinople only achieved "Patriarchal" status in AD 381, and, as you noted, the schism began in AD 431. If one is generous, the "Pentarchy" existed only until AD 451.

I've started another thread on the relationship between the Oriental and the Orthodox churches, and am hoping that both you and Orthodox Bagpiper will comment.

Blessings,

Greetings everyone,


I have been very sick latley, and have not have the oportunity to post. I will reply later when I am better. Please keep me a sinner like me in your prayers. I will respond in the near future, but I am unable to in the present.

Forgive me a sinner

Orthodox Bagpiper

Many, many prayers for your speedy recovery. Have a blessed and joyous season.

In Christ,