www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Putting the Shoe on the Eastern Foot

I am technically a Byzantine Ruthenian Catholic who is in the midst of a petition to tranfer rites to Roman Latin and increasingly think of myself as something of a Traditionalist Latin Catholic.

Without going into all of the issues, claims, counterclaims and so forth that I gather have been plowed through on this forum, I wanted to take a different tack in an effort to try to improve mutual understanding to some degree. Hence what I have composed that appears below is a future hypothetical laced with some good tongue-in-cheek humor and sarcasm (I hope) to try to convey to Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox alike what the world can look like from our perspective. Though I don't think this will solve all disputes by any means, I hope it will have some salutary effect for furthering mutual understanding.
Robster of Minneapolis
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It's some years in the future now and all rough spots between Western and Eastern Catholics have been resolved, and Eastern Orthodoxy has been fully reunited with Catholicism.

Now, we find a sizable group of Protestants that is supposedly poised to be reunited with Catholicism and in response to this, Rome has handed down an official apostolic decree for immediate implementation: there can no longer be any icons in any Catholic parishes, to help further reunion with these Protestants.

The Vatican will explain that the true essence of Nicaea II is that in abstract principle, there can be theoretical potentialities concerning imagery as having a possibly proper use for some. This band of Protestants is willing to affirm this formulation. Nothing's really changing of substance. But, we are told, we must embrace a new expression of the unchangeable substance by removing all icons from public worship and life, since they make the Protestants uncomfortable, and we do want these future Catholics to be fully comfortable regardless of which Catholic parish they walk into in the future. So the icons have to be removed - but nothing of substance is really changing; it's just a new expression of the enduring and eternal faith. Just like when the filioque was stripped from the Latin Catholic creed to pave the way for the Eastern Orthodox reunion.

Naturally some Easterners may be upset about this, but they will be patiently informed that nothing of importance is really changing. And paving the way for reunion of our separated Christian brethren is of paramount importance. Nicaea II is still technically an ecumenical council, but will informally be shunted off to the side and not have much importance or authority attached to it anymore. Just like was done with Lyon II, Florence, Trent, and Vatican I when the Eastern Orthodox returned.

One will even be able to go to websites such as ProtCath.org and hear all sorts of musings that Nicaea II was probably never really a true ecumenical council anyway. After all, nobody in Reformational authority from Augsburg, Geneva, Canterbury, or Lynchburg, Virginia, ever affirmed it at the time, did they? And a few souls will note the absence of the Oriental Orthodox and the Assyrian Church as well.

But while the Vatican will try to patiently help Eastern Christians understand this ecumenical activity, it will still expect unfailing obedience. Naturally, anybody resistant to this will be considered a reactionary schismatic who is inflexibly beholden to some archiac art forms, and refuses to affirm the critical imperative of Vatican II - That They May All Be One. Such folks may even be charged with anti-Protestant bigotry and face intense public excoriation from the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Protestant Anti-Defamation League. We may hear all sorts of 'talking heads' pontificate about the 'intolerance' intrinsic in Greek, Slavic, and Arab religious culture.

Do you recognize that there is a valid, licit Reformational expression of the faith, you'll be asked? Or are you a Trad Ap, one of those Traditionalist Apostolic Exclusivists, one who thinks there's only one expression of the Faith, one who places an inordinate importance on minor trappings of the faith that hail from the pre-1500 period, and who has little understanding and/or regard for the important insights and invaluable contributions to our theological heritage and common Christian patrimony that the Reformation bequeathed to us. Just like the West failed to appreciate the East all those centuries. Demands to absolutize provisional and transistory forms of theological expressions and constructs as normative features of the faith is not in keeping with a commitment to Vatican II and being a good 21st century Catholic.

Oh, and by the way, even with the icon issue resolved, there will still be no reunion with these Protestants, since there is still a myriad of outstanding issues to still be resolved. In fact, it's quite possible that there will never be reunion, since there are so many deep, outstanding issues remaining - though the Magesterium has reported recent progress on the matter of canonizing Martin Luther and John Calvin. But, of course, that shouldn't stop the Vatican's directive from being implemented to help pave the way for this possible reunion at some undetermined point in the future.

If there is still distaste over this, no need to worry. As you know, the Holy Father has great concern for the rightful aspirations of all the faithful and this would include Easterners who may feel a particular attachment to certain forms of Byzantine art. Therefore, if there is still continued grumbling over the parish icon ban, he will most likely at some point in the future institute an icon indult. This would mean that with the approval of your bishop and at least 70 percent of all priests, religious brothers, and religious sisters who are domiciled within a 50-mile radius, a parish would be allowed on a handful of select, special holy days to have a single icon present during the litugy. Icon veneration would be restricted to only those in receipt of Holy Orders (bishops, priests, deacons) and all veneration and references to the icon would be expected to be handled with the utmost sensitivity and concern for our Protestant brethren.

Robster,

Good to hear from you, although you and I may not see eye-to-eye on everything here!

Is your concern that you think the Latins are being asked to give up or renounce something essential in the interest of restoring communion?

IMHO, the questions hinge on the definition of what is essential.

Certainly, for instance, there are aspects to the exercise of papal primacy that are human and temporal. But there are also aspects that are divine and unchanging...I would even argue systemic to the nature of ecclesia.

Is your issue that things are being asked of the Latins - and those in communion with them - which threaten teachings that are divine and unchanging?

Blessings, bro!

Gordo

Robster,

Interesting post. In fact, I understand your point and it is well taken. I happen to be one of those who does not think that Vatican II, and post-Vatican II, theological developments can be reconciled with pre-Vatican II Roman Catholicism. Hence, this is one reason why I categorically reject papal infallibility and I reject the western councils, post Nicea II, as being Ecumenical. This is one significant reason why I left the Melkite Church and became Orthodox. As sympathetic as I am with his grace Elias Zoghby and the Zoghby initiative; I just do not see it as being compatible with being in communion with Rome. Since I think Rome has erred in seeking to give herself more powers than is right according to Scripture and Tradition, I broke communion.

I certainly understand how traditional Catholics feel. In my mind, Vatican II and the resulting developments press the question of what constitutes excessive nuancing? When does one finesse and nuance a teaching to the point where it is really not the teaching? At what point are we dealing with smoke and mirrors? I don't know the answer to that question but I am happy in Orthodoxy.

Joe

Why is the seventh Ecumenical council so easily forgotten?

???

Yes, I'm not sure I understand the question either.

Never having forgotten the Seventh Ecumenical Council, I wouldn't know.

Fr. Serge

What council are we talking about?

Gordo

I wasn't at the Seventh Ecumenical Council myself, so obviously I don't remember it.

The Theology of Iconography is intimately interwoven with the Theology, Liturgy and Spirituality of the Churches using the Byzantine Rite. This is not comparable to the Traditionalist Catholic devotion to a particular Liturgy. [And as a side note, the Eastern Churches utilize a multiplicity of Liturgies/anaphoras, some newer than others.]

The Seventh Ecumenical Council is important, though rarely discussed nowadays, because not only does it quash iconoclasm, but places an authoritative importance on iconodulia.

Gordo: Yes, I think the issue of essentials is, well, essential, at the risk of being tautological. Just the entire way the second millienum Ecumenical Councils are approached is quite troublesome. To sit in my Byzantine Catholic parish and listen to my Catholic priest explain that the last ecumenical council was Nicaea II, that the Roman Catholic church did not know what it was talking about, and that he couldn't care less what was in the Code of Canons for the Oriental Churches was quite breath-taking. Why should a Western liberal be considered that much worse?

JSMelkiteOrthodoxy: Sounds like we're basically on the same page in the way we think, even if it's from opposite perspectives.

Laka Ya Rabb: I think Latin Catholics can make a comparable case on behalf of the distinctiveness of the Tridentine Mass compared to Novus Ordu and make an appropriate cross-comparison to icons. If icons are that essential, then so is Tridentine. If Novus Ordu is an acceptable alternative for the Catholic West in order to appeal to Protestants, so is a reducing of iconic prominence at a Byzantine liturgy.

Blessings to all,
Robster

"I think Latin Catholics can make a comparable case on behalf of the distinctiveness of the Tridentine Mass compared to Novus Ordu and make an appropriate cross-comparison to icons. If icons are that essential, then so is Tridentine. If Novus Ordu is an acceptable alternative for the Catholic West in order to appeal to Protestants, so is a reducing of iconic prominence at a Byzantine liturgy."

It is not an approriate cross-comparison and only highlights your misunderstanding of the role icons in the church. Icons are at the heart of Incarnational theology. The Tridentine Rite is simply one liturgical use of the Latin Church of which there once were many and now are about hald dozen in actual use at last count.

And let me reassure you none of my Protestant family or friends find the Novus Ordo (correctly celebrated) any more appealling than the the Tridentine.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Fr. Deacon Lance,
Does that mean that an absence of icons reflects a fundamentally flawed and defective Incarnational theology?

Your observations about Protestant views of Novus Ordo are interesting, if not sobering.

Thanks.

Robster

My two cents...yes. In fact if you read the Father's who defended the iconodule position (such as St. John of Damascus and St. Theodore the Studite), they based their case against the iconoclasts and for the Orthodox position on Christological arguments (as was the teaching of the council).

You might check out God's Human Face by Christoph Cardinal Schonborn for one of the most thorough treatments of the development the Church's teaching on icons.

Gordo

Speaking about worship, specifically, if a Western or non-Byzantine Eastern parish does not have any icons present during worship, is there any kind of defective 'representation of the Incarnation' at that worship? Is that worship somehow flawed or lacking in anything important or essential by virtue of the sanctuary having no icons?

Thanks.

Robster