www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology St. Gregory Palamas

The most dangerous bigotry comes precisely from people who do know something about which they are speaking and writing. That is what lends certitude. That is what elicits credibility.

There are other indicators in the Church that this was not the universal perspective nor did it last.

As I have noted before Father Jordan Auman, OP has done a brief history on Catholic spirituality and he explains those very difficult and confusing years between 1750 and 1950. They were not good years for east-west relations. They were not good years for spiritual growth among many members of the papal Church, including monastics.

It does not surprise me in the least that you'd give benefit of doubt to one and not the other. That is called a habit of attitude and is the primary fault for continuation of the schism. None are innocent of it.

Eli

I must have missed whatever was said about Father Jordan Auman. I haven't heard of him, so I wasn't giving the benefit of the doubt to anyone. I was simply posting what is in the Catholic Encyclopedia which says Hesychasm is an erroneous view, opposed by western theology and favored by someone the authors of the Encyclopedia do not regard as a saint. All of these things obviously at one time were officially approved of.

Andrew

As I mentioned more than once on this Forum. It is one thing for something to be said by a member of the Church. It is quite another to claim it as a teaching of the universal Church.

You obviously caught and excused, with a statement of giving the benefit of the doubt, my Orthodox example. Please see your post where you give the Orthodox priest that I mentioned the benefit of the doubt. Those were your very words. Do you not pay attention to what you say?

Why would you resist doing the same for a Catholic example?

Eli

I haven't. There was no contravening example I was failing to give the benefit of the doubt to. I simply posted what the Catholic Encyclopedia says. It's a document that claims to be authoritative and bear imprimatur.

Regarding the other point, my instinct is to give the benefit of the doubt to a priest (Orthodox or Catholic) and to assume they know what they are talking about. I gave the benefit of the doubt to the Orthodox priest in the example you cited and as it happens to Fr. Fortescue in the article I posted from the Catholic Encyclopedia. I assume what we wrote was accurate in that it conformed to Catholic teaching.

I do pay attention to what I say. Thanks.

Andrew

The old Catholic Encyclopedia (1910-1919 or so) was never an publication OF the Church; it was intended to authoritative, but was a private publication, for all that the bishop have his approval.

It was VERY informative on the Eastern Churches, and surprisingly positive, but reflects view of a century ago on many subjects.

Jeff

All right. It was not clear at first. And yes you did give the benefit of the doubt to the contents of the Encyclopedia.

I hope you are as generous to the teachings of the universal Church when they are presented, as well.

Eli

This last is not accurate. None of the Old Testament saints and not all of the New Testament saints lived to be Latin rite Catholics. Nor did the eastern fathers who are now celebrated on the western Latin rite liturgical calendar. Not all saints in the Church have been canonized in the present process and not all not all saints are on the calendar at all.

Eli [/QB][/QUOTE]

Dear Eli,
Thank-you for your response. While my statement is not strictly accurate and i apologize, the examples your provide are pre-schism which is what I was tring to convery. The eastern fathers you refer to were not seperated from Rome, while St. Gregory Palamas clearly was. That was what I was tring to convey with my scepticism about the Latin Church canonizing St. Gregory Palamas.

Regarding Adrian Fortescue, while not a crack pot is polemical. If you read his article on hesychasm it is highly polemical to the point of being a caricature of hesychasm. What he says regarding hesychasm bears only a cartoonish relationship to what hesychasts themselves articulate about hesychasm. For instance read the very brief Hagioritic Tomos authored by St. Gregory Palamas. It would almost be like taking the most nominal Latin Catholic and asking him or her to explain transubstantiation or the Incarnation for that matter and then attack Catholic doctrine based on that. It is really a classic strawman job. Also countering Fortescue is the fact that St. Gregory Palamas is commemorated during Lent and so hesychasm must in some sense be considerd normative by the Church in contradiction to Mr. Fortescue's representations about it.

As noted by ByzKat, the original Catholic Encyclopedia, from which New Advent quotes, is a product of the early twentieth century. The New Catholic Enclyclopedia was produced about half a century later in 1967. Understandably, the earlier addition was showing its age and needed updating.

Its article on "Hesychasm" does not discuss the practice's relationship to western theology. The article opens by defining hesychasm as a "method of prayer in the Oriental Church." After some discussion of theological and historical controversy, the article states that "hysychasm was recognized as an official doctrine of the Orthodox Church with its center on Mt. Athos."

There is now a revised set of the New Catholic Encyclopedia. I believe it was published in 2005. It was much-needed, since the 1967 edition was published prior to the liturgical reforms in the Latin Church. I am unaware what the 2005 edition has to say about hesychasm.

Of course. I was blinded to that by my own mixed up way of not seeing the schism except when my nose gets rubbed in it. So my apologies for correcting something you never meant to say.

But he is St. Gregory no matter where I go and that's a good thing.

There has always been an apophatic and ascetic core in the monastic life of the western Church. As attitudes change among us and throughout the entire Catholic world, I think that there will be many opportunities to thank Gregory Palamas, among others in both east and west, for keeping the flame alive.

Remember that Greek Orthodoxy and Slavic Orthodoxy both came under the influence of Calvinism for example, and the residue of that is still evident in Orthodoxy if you know where to look, but no scholar or knowledgeable person in their right mind would say that Orthodoxy is Calvinist.

Yes I know they deposed the miscreant{s} but they could not entirely erase the damage done by the catechetical teaching that had been promulgated.

Same thing happened in the west with the rise of humanism and nominalism in the service of the gnostic. It bled out into the population and it is impossible to erase entirely.

Doctrinal purists are like liturgical purists: frustrated throughout all time.

We will never be without our heretics which is why we so desperately need our saints.

Eli

From the article:

The other element of fourteenth-century Hesychasm was the famous real distinction between essence and attributes (specifically one attribute -- energy) in God. This theory, fundamentally opposed to the whole conception of God in the Western Scholastic system

It goes on to mention the few western theologians influenced by Hesychasm who were condemned for their belief.

I read the articles on St. Photios the Great and the "Eastern Schism" as well. They were pretty interesting.

Andrew

--
Just noticed.

The charge levelled above seems unwarranted.

Lukaris, whatever the actual level influence of Protestant though on him was, has always struck me as not being very influential himself. His ideas were immediately condemned and rejected by the church.

I don't see where the "residue of Calvinism" is in Orthodoxy. It seems to me there are few confessions of any kind that stress human freedom or the requirement of human effort to reach God more than Orthodoxy. I also don't see at all how the Slavic churches could be implicated in whatever errors Lukaris strayed in to.

There's much more of this to be had, all over the Internet, from any number of sources, including Orthodox ones. Most Orthodox laity take the position noted above, but scholars and well educated clergy are a bit more circumspect. Let me know if you'd like me to post more. Note Orthodox Bishop Ware's comments in particular below.

Eli


ORTHODOXY AND ANGLICANISM

We saw in a previous talk how the Orthodox Church came into contact with the Lutherans and Roman Catholics after the

the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in the East, and the so-called "reformation" in the West. Contact was also made with the authorities of the Church in England. Cyril Lukaris, who figured so prominently in Orthodox relations with the Lutherans, also had correspondence with George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury (1611-33), and a future Patriarch of Alexandria, Metrophanes Kritopoulos, studied at Oxford from 1617 to 1624. Like Cyril Lukaris before him, he also wrote a book called "Confessions" which was slightly Protestant in tone, but was in fact, for a while, widely used in the Orthodox Church, until his teaching was condemned. Then in 1694, a plan was put forward to establish a "Greek College" in Oxford and about ten Greek students actually arrived, but they didn't stay long -- the food and the weather put them off.

In 1688, when the Orangeman, William, came to the English throne, a group broke away from the Church of England rather than swear allegiance to him, on the grounds that by so doing, they would break their former oaths to James II and his successors. There were nine bishops (including the well-known hymn writer, Thomas Ken) and about 400 clergymen and some eminent lay people. They became known as the Non-Jurors, and between 1716 and 1725, they carried on a most interesting correspondence with the four Orthodox patriarchs (and bishops in Russia as well) in the hope of establishing communion with the Orthodox. But in the end, the Non-Jurors could not accept the Orthodox position on the presence of Christ in the Eucharist; nor were they happy about the veneration shown to the Theotokos, the saints and the Holy Icons, and the exchange ended without any agreement being reached.

Maybe, the faults were not entirely on the English side. On this episode, Bishop Kallistos makes a typical Ware comment "one is struck by the limitations of Greek theology in this period; one does not find the Orthodox tradition in its fullness". Nevertheless, the Councils of the 17th century made a permanent and constructive contribution to Orthodoxy. To quote Bishop Kallistos again: " The Reformation controversies raised problems which neither the Ecumenical Councils nor the Church of the later Byzantine Empire was called to face. In the 17th century, the Orthodox were forced to think more carefully about the nature and authority of the Church....and to define its position in relation to new teachings which had arisen in the west." (History, page 109)

It is interesting, that at the same time as the correspondence with the Non-Jurors was going on, the well-known Russian, Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk (1734 - 83), a great preacher, teacher and a fluent writer, was borrowing heavily from western books of devotion -- both German and Anglican -- and his meditations on the physical sufferings of Jesus are more typical of Roman Catholicism than Orthodoxy.

Ever since the time of the Reformation Settlement in England, there have always been Anglicans who have regarded it as temporary, and who appeal, like the Old Catholics, to the General Councils of the Church, the Fathers, and the Tradition of the 'undivided Church'. The Non-Juror, Bishop Ken, has been mentioned. He claimed:-- "I die in the faith of the Catholic Church before the division of east and west". Many Anglicans have looked with sympathy to the Orthodox Church and many scholars, especially in the last century, worked hard to translate Orthodox spiritual works into English.

There have been some official conferences between the two sides. In 1930, an Orthodox delegation came to England during the time of a Lambeth conference and held discussions. And this was followed by a further conference a year later. Honest attempts were made to face problems of doctrinal differences such as the relation of scripture to Tradition; the Procession of the Holy Spirit; the doctrine of the sacraments, and the Anglican idea of authority in the Church. This was followed in 1935, by a similar joint meeting with the Romanian Church in Bucharest which ended with a statement of accord but in the event, this proved premature.

Another attempt in Moscow in 1956 was more cautious than its predecessors as it tried to carry the discussion to a deeper level by reviewing the whole faith of the Churches and not just the apparent differences. In 1984, the Dublin statement of the Anglican - Orthodox Dialogue revealed widening differences in ecclesiology, and on the role of women. Also in the 20th century there have been conflicting statements from different parts of the Orthodox Church about the question of the validity of Anglican orders. The reasons for this variation in outlook is reflected in Bishop Kallistos' statement referred to just now when he talked about the "fullness of Orthodox doctrine" being recognised. On this point he comments; "This helps to explain why Constantinople in 1922 could declare favourably upon Anglican orders, and yet in practice treat them as invalid; this favourable declaration could not come properly into effect so long as the Anglican Church was not fully Orthodox in the faith". Put the other way round: Orthodox theology refuses to treat the question of Anglican orders in isolation but takes into consideration the whole faith of the Church. Even so, a negative answer at the present does not rule out hope for the future -- which puts the ball in the Anglican court.

What, then, is the chief obstacle to reunion? To quote Bishop Kallistos again:--" From the Orthodox point of view there is just one main difficulty and that is the comprehensiveness of Anglicanism; the extreme ambiguity of Anglican doctrinal formularies and the wide variety of interpretations which these formularies permit". In his book "Anglicanism and Orthodoxy" published in 1955, the Anglican Professor Hodges says:"The ecumenical problem is to be seen as the problem of bringing back the West....to a sound mind and a healthy life, and.......that Faith to which the Orthodox Fathers bear witness and of which the Orthodox Church is the abiding custodian." (ibid page 329).

Obviously, there are many Anglicans who would not agree with that statement and so the Orthodox church, though longing for re-union, cannot enter into closer relations with the Anglican communion until the Anglicans themselves are clearer about their own beliefs.

I still don�t see the influence of Calvinism here. The things I would expect to see as a result of that would be things like simplified hymnology, stress on lay involvement, churches without ornamentation or imagery (i.e. iconoclasm), de-emphasis on the sacraments and the role of the priest in the liturgy, etc. I haven�t seen any of that in Orthodoxy.

As to the other points:

That Orthodoxy underwent significant western influence in the wake of the Counter-Reformation years is no real secret. Influences came from varied sources � Latin Scholasticism and German Pietism stand out to me as being among the major influences (the latter mostly in Russia). There were varied currents at different times and in different places. Even among these western influences I would count the influence of Calvinism as a minor one personally.

So what about Anglicanism. It seems there is a long history going back to at least the Non Jurors of Anglican bishops reaching out to Eastern Bishops. Perhaps there were bishops who were truly interested in relations with the Eastern Churches, and perhaps there were others who may simply have been somewhat uneasy about the validity of their own orders. I don�t think you could really say Anglicanism has been or is a source of Calvinist influence on Orthodoxy though. Primarily because it isn�t a Calvinist church, and although the 39 articles have Calvinist elements they never adopted a confession of faith like that of the Westminster Confession. The articles were actually only ever binding on the clergy anyway, and many Anglicans rejected them outright such as the Arminian Wesleyans and later the Tractarians. It seems to me the real core of Anglicanism is it is not really sure what it is anyway, it is just primarily held together by the will of the monarch starting with the Elizabethan settlement. It�s a compromise made up of conflicting views, which now that the power and influence of the monarch is gone is starting to unravel.

This statement

Obviously, there are many Anglicans who would not agree with that statement and so the Orthodox church, though longing for re-union, cannot enter into closer relations with the Anglican communion until the Anglicans themselves are clearer about their own beliefs.

I think it�s questionable that the Orthodox Church at any point �longed� for re-union with Anglicanism. Maybe some in the church did, others like Khomiakov as evidenced in his letters with William Palmer did not. Overall my impression is there was never a significant amount of interest or expectation. I guess this is somewhat like the modern ecumenical movement. I certainly don't know of anyone who is "longing for re-union" with any or all of the Anglican Churches.

Anyway, the Anglicans don�t need to get any clearer about their beliefs. Every Orthodox hierarch I have heard speak has said dialog with them now is pointless. The best we can hope for, and it is happened in increasing numbers (such as with Bishop Kallistos himself), is that individual Anglican believers will find shelter in the Orthodox Church.

Andrew

This is all pretty much personal opinion and speculation. I'll leave you to the last word. I think Bishop Ware's comment speaks for itself in the article that I published above.

Eli

Personal opinion and speculation here?

Never.

Andrew