www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Flashback: Melkite--Orthodox Dialogue 25 Years Ago

I can't really see why the people in those threads care. Are the Melkites really going to destroy the church like a cancer? Yeah right. They should be glad people are interested in their faith and going to church.

Ultimately people should follow the path that makes sense to them. Plenty of people live the Catholic faith in its fullness and don't feel the need to be in communion with the Roman Catholic Church. Everyone has to find their own way.

Stuart, Todd, et al, I think I should confess something here: I myself am entirely in agreement with the "Orthodox in communion with Rome crowd".

I don't have any problem with statements like "Our goal is to be Orthodox in communion with Rome" etc. But when I hear "We are Orthodox in communion with Rome" it sounds to me like they're saying "We have everything you have (or better), plus we're in communion with Rome to boot." Seems like a rather presumptuous attitude to take.

(I think it goes without saying, though, that for someone (especially a Catholic priest) to say that the "Orthodox in communion with Rome crowd" ought to leave the Church ... well, that's not even in the same ballpark.)

Nonetheless, that is precisely what His Beatitude Patriarch Gregorios has said--minus any presumption of superiority. His Beatitude Patriarch Lybomir of Kyiv is also on record as saying there are no theological issues that divine the Greek Catholics from the Orthodox.


The sad part is there are many Greek Catholics who think just that.

Alright, but I would be more inclined to argue if you had said that ECs in general who call themselves OICWR do so without presumption of superiority.

At the same time, I don't want to make this sound worse than it really is. Sure, I don't see eye-to-eye with the "OICWR crowd" ... but then, how often do any two people actually see eye-to-eye on everything anyways? Not very often (at least in healthy situations).


I have no disagreement with you there, either about "many" or about "sad".

Therein lies the irony: The talk about a "Melkite cancer" seems quite dangerous, but they-should-leave-the-Catholic-Church may actually be a lot more dangerous. Why? Because the latter is subscribed to by a great many more people than the former.

if this is true


Then the hypothetical people in question would not be leaving the "Catholic" church. They would be moving from one Catholic Church to another, putting themselves under the omophorion of a different bishop. Jurisdiction hopping more or less.

That's my general point of view. The top management doesn't matter if the two companies are offering the same thing. But it would be better if the two companies recognized this and honored each other's coupons.

I don't know any who do. Most of us desire nothing more than to make the "in communion with Rome" part redundant.


Yes, but they are mostly just grossly ignorant about the teachings of the Catholic Church in general and the Eastern Catholic Churches in particular. And that includes those Eastern Catholics who subscribe to the view.

If you excuse me for saying something that's slightly random, you just made me think of a passage I haven't thought about in quite a while: namely, St. Teresa of Avila saying that she would prefer to go to even an unlearned priest, rather than a half-learned one. Why? Because, in her experience, an unlearned priest will admit to ignorance on whatever question was posed, and then refer to someone truly learned; whereas a half-learned priest will act as though he is truly learned, and give wrong advice. (It's been more than ten years since I read that book, so I hope I'm expressing her thought rightly.)

We see the same basic problem in what we're talking about. That is to say, the problem is ignorance combined with failure-to-admit-ignorance.

Again here, I don't want to overstate the matter, but I do think "We are Orthodox in communion with Rome" can be problematic, albeit not in a major way. Especially when the same people say that they have "the best of both", since they are Eastern and in communion with Rome.

When I hear that, I always wanted to ask whether they also think that Western-Rite Orthodoxy is "the worst of both", since it is neither Eastern nor in communion with Rome.

Objectively it would be the same by the standard being talked about, since it is fully Catholic. Subjectively I would say no, it does not even approach worst. I'm sure you could think of examples of the worst in displays of the Catholic faith.

Western rite Orthodoxy is problematic, in that it is fully reflective of the "uniate" model. First, the WRV is not an independent Church, but a ritual adjunct of an Orthodox jurisdiction. Second, it has not been allowed to retain the fullness of its authentic Tradition (e.g., liturgical "byzantinizations" such as the inclusion of an epiclesis in the Roman Canon and the insertion of a Byzantine-style pre-communion prayer). Third, it was established for the express purpose of proselytizing Western Christians--understandable in the context of the time in which it was formed, but not acceptable in the present age, particularly in light of the Balamand Declaration's repudiation of anything that even smacked of proselytism--a renunciation that swings both ways.

The Western rite does not resemble any of the larger, organic movement of Eastern Orthodox into union with the Church of Rome (Brest, Uzherod, Alba Julia, the election of Cyril IV), but smaller, more aggressively missionary Churches such as those founded in Bulgaria, Poland, Belarus, and so forth.

So it's really a comparison of apples and oranges.

My question about WRO was intended more for rhetoric (if not purely for rhetoric) than for actual comparison with EC. But now that it has become a topic for discussion, I thought it would be worth its own thread, rather than further splitting the conversations on this thread:

https://www.byzcath.org/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/359673/Western%20rite%20Orthodoxy%20problem


Certainly, but that really doesn't solve my problem with the idea that Eastern Catholicism -- more specifically, being Eastern and being in communion with Rome -- is the "best of both".

Echoing what I just said to Stuart, my point earlier was not to evaluate WRO so much as to consider whether, if being Eastern and being Catholic (in the sense of being in-communion-with-Rome) are regarded as the best of Orthodoxy and Catholicism, it follows that being Western and being Orthodox are to be regarded as the worst of both worlds.

Didn't anyone notice the little "wink" after the question?

What's best is subjective. It's really what's best for you. There is no actual answer. Just opinions.

No, what's best is the ideal. The ideal is a Church in which the East is in communion with the West, and the West is in communion with the East, so that all might be one, as Christ and the Father are one. The current situation is scandalous, and if the Orthodox Church is harmed by its lack of communion with the Church of Rome, so the Church of Rome is harmed by its lack of communion with the Orthodox Church, and the Eastern Catholic Churches by their lack of communion with their Mother Churches.

Anyone who is happy with the status quo needs to examine his spiritual priorities.