The problem is that the Zoghby initiative arbitrarily only includes the Fathers of the East.
If it doesn't include the Father of the whole Church, then it isn't universal!

johnzonaras:

At the risk of being presumptious, perhaps I can shed some light on this--always willing to be corrected.

There are ample examples in Russian history of bishops retiring to or being retired to a monastery. There one stays for the balance of one's life. One is then part of the monastic community--from which all Russian bishops come. It's a bit of going full circle.

The difference is that Catholic bishops do not come from that same mileau and would probably find it harsh. I think that's what I tried to suggest by my earlier post in this thread.

BOB

Bob, I realize that. I am simply asking Alexanadr what he had in mind and it was a legitimate question. The same thing happened under the Byzantine empire with clergy and the royals, although things were tougher back them (torture was used). I am quite sure he did not have this in mind. Again , Alexandr and Elizabeth Maria should be allowed to answer the questions themselves. I must say that your comments are always thoughtful and well worth considering

I've been reading this for days, and have yet to see what penance is to be done for the Eastern share of responsibility for the schism . . .

hawk

Perhaps if we all truly repent and forgive each other, that will be penance enough. It is so easy to see the speck in the eye of the other, but not the beam in our own eye.

After all, only if we forgive others will we be forgiven, and only through loving others will we gain heaven, because God is love, and love endures forever.

Those prelates found lacking in their orthodoxy would be retired to either Orthodox monasteries or cloistered Catholic monasteries, under vows of poverty, simplicity, silence and obedience to spiritual directors appointed by the synod, until such time as the Church finds them to be orthodox in word, deed and thought. At that time, they may be returned to laity, or they may choose to serve the Church in some fashion other than that of the episcopacy.

Alexandr

The East has served it's penance. The Hagarene yoke for the Greeks, and the Bolshevik yoke for the Slavs. As bronze is purified by the fire, so the Church has been purified by the blood of It's martyrs.

Alexandr

Thank you. Alexandr. Earlier Elizabeth maria said they we should pray for their conversion. It remains unclear what she means. Above, she talks about repentance, but that does not clarify her original statement.

The original post I made has nothing at all to do with the most recent post, John. That should be evident if the preceding posts is examined. Indeed, the context has changed for the two posts.

POST #1 WITH REFERENCE POSTS





I am simply asking for prayers for all unorthodox Catholic bishops, that they will be converted.


POST #2 WITH REFERENCE POSTS





In this second post referring to the schism, a penance is suggested for all Orthodox. Instead, I suggest that we all need to repent and forgive in order for unity to be re-established, so bishops, priests, and laity, Catholics and Orthodox Christians alike all need to repent and forgive. None of us are without sin.

Hope this helps,

Elizabeth

Elizabeth Maria, thank you for clarifying your position!

I’m a taker.

To suggest (as does Alexandr, in presenting his outrageous scenario of a Roman and western capitulation to everything eastern Orthodox) that Rome’s claim is heretical and without foundation is historically, patristically, theologically and scripturally dishonest. The common ground of dialogue will begin when east and west together explore how a primacy of jurisdiction was exercised in the first millennium, and how it can and should be exercised in a renewed communion of east and west in the twenty-first century.

Some time ago a questioner asked why are Eastern Catholics in communion with Rome? I think the questioner was asking one of the most fundamental and important queries asked in this forum. I would like sincerely, and as clearly as I can, answer both Alexandr’s pique with Uniates and this query from some time ago because I think they are related.

I have observed this forum, from a distance, for over a year and this is the first time I have entered a thread. I do so with some trepidation, but as the Lord encourages us: “Do not be afraid!”

I call myself “Utroque” because I have been both Russian Orthodox and am presently a Catholic of the Latin rite. I have a strong attachment to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, to boot. I have thought, prayed and studied deeply the issues that separate the two great traditions. I lived and breathed the Orthodox ethos for fifteen years, equal to the amount of time I breathed with a western lung, if you will. Yes, the two lung analogy of John Paul II is very accurate. I feel I know and breathe with both just as the Church needs to.

The reasons for being in union with Rome are biblically, patristically, historically and theologically compelling. Not to mention that the papacy remains a dynamic and vibrant institution in the world today, a phenomenon quite remarkable given its antiquity and sometimes stormy history. Some of the monks of Mt. Athos and Rev. Ian Paisley might view this as the work of the devil, but I see it as God’s work on earth.

The Church of Rome has consistently, from ancient times, upheld her prerogative of jurisdictional primacy in the universal Church. No patristic source, within the first nine centuries of church history, denies the claim with the exception, perhaps, of the ambiguous Cyprian. Yet even Cyprian concedes a very special place for the Church of Rome and her bishop, and affirms that he is successor of St. Peter in that apostolic see. In fact, the claim to primacy is supported by a number of patristic writers both in the east and in the west, not to mention the biblical support for Peter’s role among the apostles and within the early Church. That Rome was the final locale of Peter’s apostolic ministry and that he suffered martyrdom there is universally accepted by patristic writers. The shrine over his memorials was erected by the Emperor Constantine himself in the fourth century. The Bishops of Rome give ample written evidence throughout the patristic period that they have and use this authority as successors of St. Peter. Pope Leo the Great, venerated as a saint in both east and west, gives the clearest and most unabashed testimony of his authority. As holy Maximos, Confessor, implies, it is not derived from an ecumenical council, but comes from the Lord Himself. It is not meant in order to subjugate any other local church, but is rather seen as a service to all the churches bound together in love as the Catholic Church. It is certainly not a primacy of honor.

This phrase, “primacy of honor,” refers quite specifically to a status that the Church of Constantinople sought for herself and obtained at the Ecumenical Council held in that city in 381. Canon 3 of that Council can be viewed as an affirmation that the primacy of elder Rome was not one of honor but of fact, and thus, of jurisdiction. There cannot be two primacies. There can, however, be one of fact and one of honor. The effort on the part of new Rome to seek a position of honor seems to acknowledge what would be an anomaly and a disaster for the unity of the Church. In fact, at this point, the Church of Constantinople never questioned the old Roman primacy

The attempt to extend the position of Constantinople with Canon 28 at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 to a presidence of jurisdiction was another matter. It brought a swift reaction from elder Rome. Pope Leo objected and refused to accept this Canon, primarily because it did not specifically affirm that elder Rome held the primacy because of its Petrine character; seemed to undermine the ecclesiastical order established at the Council of Nicea, and, what is more, was passed in the absence of the papal legates.

The Huns became a much bigger concern in the West as Leo turned his attention to the very survival of the Church and civilization itself against the threat of the Barbarian invasion of Italy. Constantinople, enjoying her peace and prestige, exercised her new-found jurisdictional authority in the east in the absence of a recalcitrant and heretical Alexandria. The Accasian schism exacerbated the estrangement between east and west. Nor can the rise and rapid spread of Islam in the east and northern Africa be forgotten as a factor in further isolating the two great and developing traditions in the Church. Nevertheless, they remained in communion until the eleventh century.

Through all the vicissitudes of political upheaval in Italy and western Europe, the ecclesiastical turmoil of the Protestant Reformation, the discovery and colonization of a new world, and the creation of the modern national state, even her own catastrophes of exile, anti-popes and Borgian corruption, Rome has held on to her preeminent role within the church. Her sole claim today, as it was in ancient times, is not based on anything Rome was or became politically, but on the role the small community of Jewish Christians was given in the first century because the chief of the Apostles presided there, ordained its first bishop and gave up his life as a martyr therein. The addition of the presence and martyrdom of St Paul at the same time only strengthens the claim of this preeminent Church.

Keep in mind that for the first two centuries of her life the Church of Rome was severely persecuted by the Imperial powers in that city. The Church there would have little reason to believe or take any pride in, as was the case of Constantinople in the fourth century, that she held primacy in the Church because she was located in the old Imperial city. Yet it is precisely in this period of persecution that the tradition of her apostolic authority develops and flourishes!

It seems to me that it is the burden of the Orthodox east to come to grips with this testimony that comes from a time when east and west, with their respective and particular canons, customs, history and discipline, were united in one Catholic Church.

I am convinced, beyond any doubt, that St Maximos, Confessor, expresses the faith of the first seven ecumenical councils when he writes:
For, from the descent of the Incarnate Word amongst us, all the churches in every part of the world have held the greatest Church alone to be their base and foundation, seeing that, according to the promise of Christ Our Savior, the gates of hell will never prevail against her, that she has the keys of the orthodox confession and right faith in Him, that she opens the true and exclusive religion to such men as approach with piety, and she shuts up and locks every heretical mouth which speaks against the Most High. (Maximus, Opuscula theologica et polemica, Migne, Patr. Graec. vol. 90)