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It was a symbolic act, it effectively changes almost nothing.



This does not proceed, the catholic who does so is in grave sin. A Catholic can only seek the sacraments in an orthodox church only when he is in need and is physically or morally unable to receive from a Catholic minister.
The Church understands that Orthodox Christians, because they are not in communion with the legitimate bishops and because they are in error in the faith, use the sacraments improperly.

But the Church, being a merciful mother, wants to rescue those children who lost themselves, she will always seek communion.




For the Roman Catholic Church the Roman primacy is manifested in the Scriptures, in the Councils, in the Fathers, etc., and to end the doubts the dogma was solemnly defined in the First Vatican Council - so that there is no turning back in this matter.



Sorry, but this seems wishful thinking. The unity of all Christians is certainly desirable, it is a scandal that is disjointed, but unity only in truth - being realistic, I do not see how it is possible for the Church to undermine its own doctrine to please Christians who are in error, this would be a very scandal greater and would only interest the devil.

Dear Santiago Tarsicio,

No, I don't believe St Josaphat died in vain. But they died for a FORM of church communion that is no longer relevant to today. Roman Catholic theologians at Balamand and others have discussed this. The Church unias of yesteryear are no longer relevant to today's Orthodox-Catholic discussions.

As for the Marian dogmas of the West, you are looking at it with Roman Catholic eyes. The Eastern Churches do not accept the Augustinian view on the stain of Original Sin. That changes everything for the Christian East.

I know that the Filioque is dogma in the Catholic Church. But it can be "developed" to avoid the issues that divided the Church in the past. If as Swan has said here the Filioque can be "recast" as Maximos the Confessor understood it, then there could be no problem.

The removal of the Filioque from the Creed, however, is a different matter not having to do with dogma, but with canonicity. For Rome to remove the Filioque does not imply it is rejecting it - only going back to how the Nicene Creed was used for the first millennium.

Alex

Dear AJK,

Yes, I have read your comments. I've also shared them with friends who are Orthodox priests and scholars who don't agree with you (and those others).

If we are arguing that the calendar that should be in vogue is the one that is "most correct" then that is one thing. And saying the Orthodox have it backwards or are otherwise deficient here or there won't cut it - not with them (I'm not referring to "liberal Orthodox" who don't represent the positions of their Churches). Even Pope Francis has been known to favour adopting the Orthodox Easter for purposes of unity. Apart from the calculation of Pascha itself, there is the problem that the Western calculation sometimes puts Easter before Passover - I have it on good authority that the Orthodox don't accept this except for a couple of exceptions.

You expound and teach with great knowledge. But your bedside manner accusing me of not reading or understanding what you wrote is quite offensive since you don't know me, my academic background or my professional experience. If your perspective is "read it and know the truth" then that is an unacceptable paradigm of conversation for any person of some intelligence and education.

Will leave it at that as I'm getting too old for the old Byzantine Forum shenanigans. I hope an Orthodox commentator could come on and take this further. Alex

"Uniatism" as a method is not accepted even by the Eastern Greek-Catholic churches. Eastern Catholic churches are no longer understood as methods, for they are authentic living churches, living members of Christ, they have the right and duty to evangelize, they have a voice in the Church. Moreover, for example, in the case of the Ukrainian Church, the Greco-Catholics are authentic successors of the Church of the region, could very well claim the patriarchy in Kiev. Therefore, it does not make the slightest sense to encourage Eastern Catholics to leave their respective particular churches to join churches that are not in communion.


Yes, I believe that would not be a big problem for Rome, because the Creed was used in the past without the term. However, if it is an occasion for doctrinal relaxation or dubiety it is not something that must be sought.

It was most certainly not symbolic anymore than the imposition of such is or was symbolic.




Come, Brazilian brother! Even though there are restrictions, Rome does readily permit "communio in sacris" with the Orthodox brethren. I'm not sure what you mean by "morally unable", but with the scandalous behavior of some RC priests and prelates, perhaps that would be close to moral inability.
Grave sin? Lord, have mercy! Beyond the refusal to accept the Primacy of Rome as Catholics understand this, there is no "error in the faith" among them, and to say that the use the Sacraments improperly is an insult.




The Primacy of Peter may be found in Scripture, but that that Primacy has been assigned to Rome is not found there. That it is an ancient and deeply held belief of the Roman Church, and that has been affirmed by some Fathers is without question. Many are silent. I know of no Ecumenical Council within the first millennium that made any clear statement that would affirm the Roman claim. On the other hand, the Orthodox east has preserved a concept of Synodality that has recently been awakened in the Catholic west. In any case, the issue is part of the blessed dialogue that's going on. You might give it a chance.



Please do not be sorry for my wishful thinking. I always make sure that it is more than that. One does not make things happen by proposing their desirability. The Akathist Hymn and short Compline at St. Vasilios last night was truthful and beautiful, and without error. Amen

Utroque,
Hello brother, Christ lives!


Well, I think that from the Catholic point of view the excommunication of Cerularius did not immediately implicate entire territories of the Eastern world. Legend has it that Cardinal Humberto after informing Cerularius of his excommunication, followed for Kiev where it was normally received by the metropolitan of the Rus of Kiev. I think that the Eastern world has fallen into schism as the Orientals have been acquainted and taking sides in the matter.

Now, the joint declaration of Paul VI and Athenagoras says:

"They likewise regret and remove both from memory and from the midst of the Church the sentences of excommunication which followed these events, the memory of which has influenced actions up to our day and has hindered closer relations in charity; and they commit these excommunications to oblivion."

"Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I with his synod realize that this gesture of justice and mutual pardon is not sufficient to end both old and more recent differences between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church."

http://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-v...-vi_spe_19651207_common-declaration.html

What changes effectively with this? It seems to me only one: "let's forget the struggles of the past and dialogue civilly from now on."



The primacy of Rome is an important issue, but I would say that it is not the only one.

Elias Zoghby (Archbishop Greek-Melkite) proposed inter-communion among the churches, but the proposal was rejected by both the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church, for this is impossible without unity in the faith. If the proposal were implemented, a new church would be created that is neither one nor the other (or one would absorb the other).



Certainly they are beautiful, what is beautiful and true came from the one Church of Christ.

At the Council of Florence St. Mark of Ephesus proposed St. Maximus' letter as a basis of agreement, but the Latins at the time refused to consider it and insisted on the "eternal spiration from the Father and Son as from one principle."


Of course if the Catholics want to just drop the filioque, that makes things easier but if the mere presence of the term was not enough for St. Maximus to declare the Latins heretical then I don't feel a need to insist on it now. I think we should all take a step back from the 9th century polemics and realize we have no idea what anyone was talking about!


I'm not crazy about the "Orthodox in communion with Rome" thing. It strikes me as unprincipled and flakey. If you want to be in communion with Rome, own it, accept their dogmas- don't to pretend to be something else.


The EP has essentially asserted universal jurisdiction for itself (see their latest letter to the Church of Albania.) Universal jurisdiction, by any bishop, was not a generally accepted concept in the first millennium and it is definitely not Orthodox. Believe me, the objections are far from restricted to the ROC. The Phanar has now fomented a churchwide crisis and I hope a council will be convened soon to correct its error.


I've already made my thoughts on the Ukrainian situation known. My point here is that, whatever one might think of the specific question of Ukrainian autocephaly, the unilateral and arrogant manner in which Constantinople has effected it is reprehensible and comes from an underlying ecclesiological principle that is not Orthodox.

This action of the Ecumenical Patriarch is not some recent innovation. In rather recent times, the EP has rejected the autocephalous status of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) precisely because it was granted by Moscow and not Constantinople. Autocephaly has been granted a number of times by the EP, has made this known to all and nearly all in the Orthodox Church know this. Does not the term Ecumenical Patriarch imply some kind of primacy, and is not Primacy exercised in the Orthodox Church all the time? Your Canonical Territory or Mine?

This is conflating two separate issues which are 1. the EP's alleged prerogative of granting autocephaly; 2. the EP's alleged right to intervene within the canonical territory of other autocephalous churches. Both are debatable but they are different levels of power.

Regarding 1. Yes, for a while now, the EP has claimed the sole right, outside of an Ecumenical Council, to grant autocephaly. That this right is not universally accepted is proved by the ancient autocephaly of the Church of Georgia, which was granted by Georgia's mother church, Antioch. Nowadays the EP is claiming to have granted Georgia's autocephaly too but if you read the tomos the EP actually sent Georgia, it is worded more as a recognition of a historic fact. HOWEVER the EP had previously claimed that such grants of autocephaly always had to be done with conciliarity and pan-Orthodox consultation.

In the specific case of the OCA the MP of course exercised unacceptable unilateralism in declaring their autocephaly- something which Patriarch Athenagoras pointed out, saying that autocephaly should be granted only with the approval of the other Orthodox churches and the unanimous agreement of the hierarchy of the local church being granted autocephaly. Patriarch Athenagoras further goes to state that this autocephaly can only be given final legitimacy by a pan-Orthodox council.

In the case of Ukraine, the EP did not seek the approval of other Orthodox Churches, nor did it care about unanimity among the local bishops. And when several churches wrote to the EP, requesting a pan-Orthodox council to address the matter, the EP responded with a refusal to convene such a council, stating in its letter to Antioch that such a council would be pointless, as everyone would disagree anyway. And in their letter to Albania they wrote: "At the Phanar, we preach the genuine inheritance of ecclesiology because we draw from the wellspring of our Fathers and not from self-interest or other trivial motivations and political expediencies. Consequently, it is the responsibility of all others to assimilate these disclosed truths – not, of course, in order to validate them, inasmuch as they are already authentically validated by ecclesiastical practice, but rather to restore the precious and authentic experience of the Fathers, who hoped in God alone, to the proper and sanctified way." So the Phanar no longer feels any need to consult with its brother churches- it is their role to simply validate its decisions.

Regarding 2., in the aforementioned letter to Albania, the EP declares "the supervisory provision and protection of the Great Church of Christ intervenes – sometimes ex officio and out of obligation, at other times at the request of interested parties." In other words, the EP operates not only as an appellate court, receiving and resolving cases from local churches, but as holding the right to interfere in other churches as it sees necessary. This can hardly be distinguished from Rome's claim of universal jurisdiction. The only practical difference is that the other churches do not accept this and there is no mechanism in place to enforce the Phanar's will everywhere. Where the Phanar can act is where it has some friendly faction on the ground, and/ or a government willing to enforce its will, as in Ukraine. This is enough to cause plenty of chaos.

Christ is in our midst!!

This thread has moved far afield from the original topic. For that reason, I am closing it and asking the posters to consider opening new topics in the appropriate subfora.

Bob
Moderator