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Good idea Monk Elias.
Has the Patriarch of Constantinople ever had any "real" power throughout history. All that I know of is the excommunication of the Pope back in the 11th century. What were their names (the Pope and Patriarch) then?
God bless, Michael

Patriarch Kerularious (spelling?) and Pope Leo IX (if my guess is right). Plus, the Patriarch excommunicated the Cardinal and probably his company too, but certainly not the Pope, nor the Roman Church. And the Cardinal excommunicated the Patriarch, not the Church of Constantinople. Also, according to the words of one Melkite bishop, the Cardinal forged the papal seal onto the bull of excommunication; the Pope was on his death bed and allegedly didn't even have the strength to put his seal on any document.

In IC XC
Samer

SamB,
Who is the Cardinal? Pope Leo IX?

Cardinal Humbert, who "delivered" the Pope's excommunication and "presented" it to the Patriarch while he was celebrating Liturgy (if I'm not mistaken; about that last bit on the Liturgy, that is.)

In IC XC
Samer



[This message has been edited by SamB (edited 04-29-2001).]

Dear Michael LoveGod,

The Ecumenical Patriarch has the power, which he has used, to excommunicate and he has done this on occasion (e.g. the Patriarch of Jerusalem).

In terms of the "power" that the Pope wields, how does it differ today from that of the Patriarchs?

Both canonize their saints, approve episcopal candidates, issue directives and encyclicals to their faithful.

The Pope may have a greater centralized control of the Church, but I think the Vatican is recognizing that too much of this is bad for the Church.

For example, the Martyrs who will be beatified in Ukraine by the Pope were acknowledged as such by the local Eparchial process ONLY. The Pope did not require this to go any further than the local church authorities before he said that he would proceed with their beatifications.

Some have said that Rome is moving slowly in favour of Bishops and Bishops Conferences beatifying their own local saints.

And when the Pope pronounces on morality, does he have the power to make the Catholics of the West obey? Not as far as most of them are concerned (Humanae Vitae).

An Anglican friend asked me about possible problems she might encounter with the Catholic boy she is considering marrying.

I told her, half in jest, that there shouldn't be any problems since neither of those two Churches want to listen to the Pope . . .

Dominus Vobiscum!

Alex

>An Anglican friend asked me about possible problems she might encounter with the Catholic boy she is considering marrying.

I told her, half in jest, that there shouldn't be any problems since neither of those two Churches want to listen to the Pope<

Too true, too true.

"And when the Pope pronounces on morality, does he have the power to make the Catholics of the West obey? Not as far as most of them are concerned (Humanae Vitae)."

Alex,
The Pope has the power to teach on moral issues. If a Catholic goes against these teachings, he/she is committing a sin. Is this right?
God bless,
Michael

"Has the Patriarch of Constantinople ever had any "real" power throughout history"

Hi Michael --

The Ecumenical Patriarch (EP), following the separation of Rome, became the primatial hierarch in the Orthodox Church. At that time, he had significant direct jurisdictional power (the territory of the Ecumenical Patriarchate at that time included not only present-day Turkey, but present-day Greece, Romania, Ukraine, Russia). With the advent of the Ottoman Empire, the EP's office became a quasi-state office under the Ottoman "millet" system whereby the Empire was arranged according to religious grouping. At that point, the EP wielded a lot of power over all of the Orthodox Christians in the Empire, but this was not due to any inherent power in his office, but to the fact that the Turks wanted to concentrate ecclesiastical power in Istanbul so that they could control it more effectively. When the various parts of the Empire began to rebel and gain independence from Istanbul, the local Orthodox Churches in these places likewise declared their ecclesiastical independence from the EP -- a move which made sense because the EP was, in a sense, a quasi-state official. So, when the smoke was finished clearing from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, the EP didn't retain a lot of direct jursidction -- it extends today to all of Turkey, to the Dodecanese islands in the Aegean Sea, Mt. Athos, and, thanks to the Russian Revolution, to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese here in North America (the latter being the vast majority of his jurisdiction, today).

In terms of "power" over other Orthodox Churches in the sense that the Latin Church understands it, the EP enjoys virtually none. He cannot interfere in the internal matters of another Orthodox Church outside of his direct jurisdiction. The EP can, and does, write encyclical letters, travel and speak on behalf of Orthodoxy, and is probably the most visible hierarch of the Orthodox Church -- but none of these is *binding* in a formal or jurisdictional way. The EP simply has *no* jurisdiction outside of his own Patriarchate.

The precise role of the EP in the present-day Orthodox situation (really only completely up and running for ten years now) is certainly a topic on which Orthodox have different viewpoints - it's an evolving role, because for the first time since the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, Orthodoxy is in a situation where (1) the EP is not captive to the Ottoman regime and (2) the bulk of Orthodoxy is not subject to Communist dictatorship. It's time for a reassessment, therefore, and this will probably happen sometime in the next 50-100 years.

Brendan

>>>It's time
for a reassessment, therefore, and this will probably happen sometime in the next 50-100 years.<<<

As Treebeard the Ent would say, "Hoo-hom! But you are hasty folks."

This is just something that I thought of as I was reading Brendan's post. Can any truth as to where the true Christian Church resides be extrapolated from the fact that after the Great Schism, the Church led by the Pope began to dominate whereas, the Eastern Churches not in communion with him became subject to Muslim power? What do you think?
God bless, Michael

Hi Michael --

History as determinism, you mean?

This view was trotted out to me by my Roman Catholic uncle-in-law as well at the time I joined the Orthodox Church -- basically the fact that the Ottomans eventually triumphed in the East, while the Roman Catholic powers were conquering the world and bringing their priests with them, is a sign that the Orthodox were wrong and that Rome was right. After all, God has to be on the side of Rome to have allowed Rome that level of relative success. In short, historical determinism.

It's a pretty humorous point of view, but I'm not offended by it. The Church, as you know, has never sought worldly success, although it has accepted it when it came. The Church persists in spite of its worldly success or oppression -- that's the sign of the strength of the Church, not its outward success. It is the spiritual health of the Church that is paramount, not its outward wealth or success.

But, in any case, if history is determinism, would you say that the Fall of Old Rome and the overrunning of the Western Church by barbarians, while the East remained imperial and learned, the true centre of the faith at the time, was also a sign that, at that time in history, the East was true and Rome was not? Was the devastating Protestant Reformation (something with no parallel in the Christian East) a similar sign of divine disfavor with Rome? And, more critically, when Islam eventually overtakes all of us Christians put together, will that be taken as a sign that, in fact, Islam is correct, and Christianity is wrong? Surely, using worldly success as a barometer of the truth of one's doctrine is a very dangerous idea, indeed.

Rome certainly rode the wave of the secular success of the Catholic powers, and used that to her advantage ecclesiastically. But the secular Western society that she helped to form eventually hounded her down as well, almost abandoning her, and certainly relegating her to a particular societal box, if you will. The outward sucess of the RCC is misleading, because spiritually there is a lot of failure in the West at this point in time, and the RCC itself finds itself in, in the eyes of many RCs, in a crisis mode, all the appearances to outward strength in statistics and so forth notwithstanding. The Western societies have come very close to forgetting about the Church, to detaching themselves from her, voluntarily. In the East, oppressive regimes tried and tried to do this, and ultimately failed.

But, finally, speaking as an Orthodox Christian, what I see as the great strength of the Orthodox Church, and a sure sign of its truthfulness, is the fact that it has persevered in the truth despite its internal divisions, its oppression by the Turks and Communists, the economic situation in general in Orthodox lands -- in fact, the Orthodox Church has persevered in the truth under much harsher conditions and a greater level of adversity than virtually any other Christian Church has had to suffer in recent centuries, and has emerged, much to everyone's surprise (and, based on the press coverage Orhtodoxy receives in the Western media, certainly to the disappointment of some), strong and robust in the faith, steadfast in the truth, steadfast in its Orthodoxy -- and staunch as ever, in that regard. We may be a poor Church, compared with the sometimes lavish wealth of Catholicism, but we are rich in spirit, we are rich in the truth, and, above all, we are rich in the blood of our martyrs.

Brendan

Brendan,
You make good points. I agree that temporal wealth should not be a determining factor in deciding which Church holds the fullness of the Faith.
I, too, however, as a Catholic, would point to the Church's continuous preaching of the truth on issues of faith and morality despite internal dissensions and schisms such as the Protestant Reformation ('Revolt'), and the numerous other heresies leading up to the present Modernism which can be found so blatantly in the West.
God bless, Michael

Rome certainly rode the wave of the secular success of the Catholic powers, and used that to her advantage ecclesiastically. But the secular Western society that she helped to form eventually hounded her down as well

Sounds like Fr Seraphim Rose. Excellent. But, for balance, one can also discuss the accusations against the Orthodox of caesaropapism and phyletism/ethnocentrism.

Serge

<A HREF="http://oldworldrus.com">Old World Rus�</A>

A difficult time during the 19th century with the rise of anti-clercialism, Kulturkampf, etc. But she bravely survived it and today has the largest following in her history. All those who predicted her destruction - Napoleon, Bismark, Hilter, Stalin, are now on the ashheap of history as she continues her divine mission over an inreasingly broad flock.

"Sounds like Fr Seraphim Rose. Excellent. But, for balance, one can also discuss the accusations against the Orthodox of caesaropapism and phyletism/ethnocentrism."

Oh I wholeheartedly agree, but the context of my statement was not to say that Orthodoxy is pristine and Catholicism is stained, but rather to respond to the preceding post by Michael to the effect that the rightness of Roman doctrine is to be judged by the expanse of the Roman Catholic Church.

Brendan