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I meant the Norman part, Father. The Normans were never in Rome, though they were in Sicily (at least until the Sicilian Vespers), but that was in the thirteenth century. Perhaps you meant the Franks?

In actuality, the Emperor in Constantinople had to ratify the appointment of all patriarchs. With regard to the Patriarch of Constantinople, the Synod would propose three names, and the Emperor would pick one. If he didn't like any of those, he could make a nomination of his own. Of course, throughout the Turkocratia, the Ecumenical Patriarch was appointed and deposed by the Sultan at will. In Russia, first the Metropolitan, then the Patriarch, served at the whim of the Tsar--until, that is, Tsar Piotr Veliki abolished the Patriarchate entirely and turned the Church of Moscow into a branch of the Russian civil service.

The Emperor never had the power of nomination over the See of Rome, and the selection of a new Pope was always the prerogative of the college of Suburbicanian Bishops. After his election, the new Pope would write to the Emperor informing him of the happy event, and the Emperor would, pro forma, confirm him in his position. In the seventh and eighth centuries, the Emperor's representative, the Exarch of Ravenna, did put forward nominees, many of whom were Greeks, because after the Lombard Wars, Italy was a shambles, and Ravenna was one of the few places where you could find educated clergy. The Exarch also received the Papal letter of notification, and could ratify on behalf of the Emperor. But Ravenna fell in 751 (which, inter alia, is about a century before the Vikings first showed up in Britain, two centuries before the establishment of the Duchy of Normandy, and three centuries before the Normans arrived in Sicily).

Because of the difficulties of transportation, it was frequently months, sometimes years, before a newly elected Pope got around to telling the Emperor in Constantinople of his new situation and asking for ratification. Quite a few died before actually getting ratified. By the 9th century, with the emergence of a new imperial power in Germany, the Popes stopped asking, and there was nothing the Byzantines could do about it.

But you are quite wrong about the German emperors appointing new Popes, or even ratifying them. The relationship was quite the reverse, thanks to Pope Leo having crowned Charlemagne in 800--the Holy Roman Emperors were dependent upon the Popes to ratify their positions. The refusal of the Popes to be tools of the German emperors was the cause of continual warfare in Italy for several centuries thereafter.

The entire situation is explain quite plainly in Papadakis and Meyendorff, The Christian East and the Rise of the Papacy; and J.M. Hussey, The Orthodox Church and the Byzantine Empire. I suggest you use more scholarly sources.

A minor correction. Italy was a mess after the Gothic wars. The Lombards, of course, came down to supplant both the Goths and the Byzantines, and captured the Exarchate of Ravenna in 751. In turn, the Franks destroyed the Lombards at the behest of the Pope, for which Carolus Magnus ("Big Chuck") was so richly rewarded.

The Normans, on the other hand, did not get involved in Italy until the eleventh century, and never really ventured north of Calabria.

Father Ambrose:

Father bless!!

If you step back and look at the Cardinal's comment from another angle, it may be a compliment. The Orthodox Church does not exist if by that he means in a parallel paradigm to the Catholic Church. But the Orthodox Church DOES exist as itself, functioning and living as it has always perceived that the Church SHOULD exist and live. And the fact that this has suddenly and forcefully come to the fore is a good development because true ecumenism, as the Catholic Church has so often said, means that we bring to the table who we are, what we are, and how we view things WITHOUT any kind of sugar-coating of the reality we live as the Church.

I think the Church of Greece's statement is something they need to take back to Rome and study. And I think they need someone close to the Greek Synod to really explain it to them in as blunt a way as possible so that it might sink in. As I looked at the history of the West, the development of the papacy is closely related to a civil vacuum that was never the case in the East. And the idea that bishops would form a synod to reason together is something alien to the Western experience where the feudal model of civil society seems to have permeated the Church's way of doing business. (As an aside, at a canon law seminar held in our parish in 1983, it was remarked that the Catholic Church's diocesan model was the feudal model.)



What a profound summation!!

It occurred to me that the Orthodox Church's understanding of the petition in the Our Father "Thy Kingdom come" referring to a desire for the Holy Spirit to come and dwell in the person praying is at work in this Orthodox Reply. The Church is not some international organization, but the struggle in each of the faithful in communion with one another and with all who have gone before to acquire the Holy Spirit mentioned by St. Seraphim of Sarov. This is the Church, the Bride of Christ.

BOB

Dear Stuart, I believe that you are a military analyst and historian, with your nostrils always filled with the smell of cordite, and I defer to your greater knowledge of military history in Italy.

Actually the last time an Emperor vetoed a papal election was about one hundred years ago - the Emperor was Francis Joseph. The conclave elected somebody else, who promptly required the Hapsburgs to relinquish the right to veto a papal election.

Fr. Serge

Dear Father,

Please see the earlier message... "This was called the 'ius exclusivae' and this right was last used by the Emperor Franz Joseph to veto the election of Cardinal Rampolla in 1903(?). So he had to be discarded and the Cardinals elected the Cardinal of Venice who became Pope Pius X. Pope Pius X then abolished this right of the secular powers to veto Popes."

Nicely ducked, Father. So, tell me more about the Norman Popes.

Nice little essay.

I think that the good Cardinal's statement - although inaccurate - shows that he is no longer able to project a Western ecclesiological theory onto the Eastern Orthodox Churches.

Each local Church is the complete realization of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, which means that there is no Catholic Church above the local Churches; instead, each local Church is the Catholic Church.

I made an acknowledgement that in matters military and historical you are an expert and you see it as ducking?!

You said military history, not military and historical (though the latter is true). But again, please tell me about those Norman Popes. I must have dozed off durning that lecture.

You are much more learned, Stuart. We ought to be learning from you.

We should always learn from those who have something to teach.

Sorry to dig up an older post, but what are the time-demanding and outwardly visible activities Orthodox Churches demand from the observants? I am aware only of their fasting rule (this may be visible probably only if you check what other people eat) and the demand of confession, presence at Saturday vigils and fasting from the time of vigils before receiving Holy Communion on Sunday- but I don't know whether the latter is a general rule or only some parishes demand that.

Peter, the observant Russian Orthodox fasting is painfully obvious even to the more clueless; it is as obvious as vegan vegetarians.

No meat, milk, eggs, oil, wine, nor derivatives thereof, some even add fish, soda, and caffeine to the proscriptions... Potatoes, lentils, rice, shellfish and crusteaceans. Due to normal cooking methods, they can't eat at many restaurants. It literally is as much an obvious behavior change, especially in the meat-rich low carb diet of the Alaska Natives... only one group is more obvious in their fasts... the muslims (nothing by mouth during the day during Ramadan).

I might add to this attendance at Saturday evening Vespers (or Vigil, if you follow the Russian practice), Orthros and Divine Liturgy on Sunday that occupy, at a minimum, two and a half hours (I like the sign on a nearby Methodist church: "Sunday Service 8:30--Fellowship Breakfast 9:00"), and Feastday Liturgies that usually do not get moved to the nearest Sunday (as is common in the Latin Church). Add all of those together, you get someone who fasts roughly 180 days out of the year (Wednesdays and Fridays, plus the four fasting periods, plus some additional fast days), and who probably spends at least twice, and probably three times as many hours in church as a non-Orthodox.