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The Orthodox, continuing how the Church was administrated and operated from the NT throughout the whole first millenium and maintaining the Holy Tradition in that context, cannot be party to that eisegesis.

And, ah, poor we, the heterodox Catholic have been hoodwinked by the Vatican, and our own ignorance of history, Scripture, Tradition and the Fathers all these many centuries. It's even worse to think that our sacramental life has been devoid of grace all these years. You've laid us very low, indeed.

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Originally Posted by Utroque
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The Orthodox, continuing how the Church was administrated and operated from the NT throughout the whole first millenium and maintaining the Holy Tradition in that context, cannot be party to that eisegesis.

And, ah, poor we, the heterodox Catholic have been hoodwinked by the Vatican, and our own ignorance of history, Scripture, Tradition and the Fathers all these many centuries. It's even worse to think that our sacramental life has been devoid of grace all these years. You've laid us very low, indeed.
Done no such thing. They are what they are.

Btw, in the schema Apotheon outlined above (pretty accurately IMHO), I fall among those "that some think there is grace in Catholic sacraments." I don't go for re-baptism, re-ordination. I'm not crazy about re-chrismation. If I happen to go into a church were adoration is going on, I prostrate.

Simply put, the Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium, promulgated by the same author of Ut Unum Sint, bears no resemblance to the operation of the Church of the first millenium, whereas the Orthodox Churches still operate under that constitution of the first millenium. Holy Tradition, consisting of Scripture and the Fathers backed by history, demonstrate that.

Did the Vatican not accurately outline and portray what it sees as the workings of "both lungs" breathing together in CCEO?

Last edited by IAlmisry; 02/02/13 04:16 PM.
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Originally Posted by IAlmisry
Simply put, the Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium, promulgated by the same author of Ut Unum Sint, bears no resemblance to the operation of the Church of the first millenium, whereas the Orthodox Churches still operate under that constitution of the first millenium. Holy Tradition, consisting of Scripture and the Fathers backed by history, demonstrate that.
It is wishful thinking to claim that the body of canons of the Orthodox Churches today is completely identical to that of the early Church. New canons are established that meet new situations and needs for local Churches, and even the Church as as a whole.

So of course there are different Canons. Our Churches are living in a situation which was not the reality of the first Millenium. It is natural that the Canons should be different because our situation is different. The different canons relate to maintaining and ensuring a unity that was not an issue in the first millenium united Church (e.g., commemoration of the bishop of Rome in the Liturgy, etc.). I have hope that these particular canons will disappear once reunion is achieved. But a perceived difference in disciplinary canons is no argument that the Catholic Church has not maintained the Traditions of the Fathers.

Blessings

P.S. I'll reply to your posts soon. Thanks for the responses.

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Originally Posted by IAlmisry
Simply put, the Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium, promulgated by the same author of Ut Unum Sint, bears no resemblance to the operation of the Church of the first millenium, whereas the Orthodox Churches still operate under that constitution of the first millenium. Holy Tradition, consisting of Scripture and the Fathers backed by history, demonstrate that.

One could say the Divine Liturgy as offered today bears little resemblance to the Eucharistic assembly recorded in 1 Corinthians, Chapter 11; but to say that it bears no resemblance is rather gratuitous as is your assumption that history is on the side of the Orthodox churches with regard to this issue of ecclesiastical constitution. I am still waiting for these churches to find the same constitutional unity that the bishops of the Catholic Church found, in union with their "supreme pontiff", to make the following proclamation:

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These Churches, although separated from us, possess true sacraments, above all by apostolic succession, the priesthood and the Eucharist, whereby they are linked with us in closest intimacy.

The closest intimacy! That Rome is treated as some kind of Trojan Horse by some Orthodox circles, I find little better than something scripted by Dan Brown or Rev. Ian Paisley. I'm sure you'll come up with all the mud from the past to prove that their fears are justified. Marduk has offered some thoughtful understandings concerning Pastor Aeternus that present material for reaching some rapprochement, but you seem intent on responding with the detritus of history's ills.

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I do sometimes feel that Rome (and for that matter the whole Catholic Communion of Churches) speaks more in irenic terms towards the Orthodox Church than vice versa. She considers them "True Particular Churches" and "Sister Churches." Now, historically this has not always been the case, but it seems Rome has read the old saying that those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. I think the Catholic Church, since Vatican II, has done just that: learned from the past. Are we closer to reunion and agreement on all the issues that divide the two sister Churches? Yes and no, but Rome is doing her part.

Now, I think Rome can show her seriousness about reunion by treating the Eastern Catholic Churches as true Sister Churches, but that is a different issue all together.


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Originally Posted by mardukm
Originally Posted by IAlmisry
Simply put, the Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium, promulgated by the same author of Ut Unum Sint, bears no resemblance to the operation of the Church of the first millenium, whereas the Orthodox Churches still operate under that constitution of the first millenium. Holy Tradition, consisting of Scripture and the Fathers backed by history, demonstrate that.
It is wishful thinking to claim that the body of canons of the Orthodox Churches today is completely identical to that of the early Church.
Actually, it is literally quite easy, as the canonical collections among the Orthodox e.g. the Pedalion/Rudder , consist of only canons from the first millenium. In fact, the core collection consists of canons from the era of the first Four Ecumenical Councils, with the Pentheke and Seventh Ecumenical Councils' canons acting as capstones. There are a few canons before and after 1054, but none of much consequence. Although we have held several Pan-Orthodox synods since then, they have mostly just issued doctrinal statements or applied the canons, e.g. Constantinople 1593, which elevated Moscow into a Patriarchate.

Not adding to the texts does not make the way to keep practice identical to the practice of the Early Church, though in some ways it helps (but harms in others). When the Vatican issued its first Code of Canon Law in 1917, that did not, per se, signal a change from first millenium practice. Gratian's use of scholasticism to reconstitute the canons into an Ultramontanist framework did that in 1150.

The canons have proved reliable even until today. They have set up the road blocks to cause the problems that the Phanar faces in promoting an Ultramarist-the Phanar lies beyond the sea for most of us-agenda, very much in imitation of Old Rome. By the quirks of history, the rise of Kiev-Moscow and the decline of Constantinople's political fortunes have replicated the very circumstances in the first millenium-with the rivalry between Old Rome and New Rome-in the second millenium. Knowing that, the Great Council that Constantinople promised/threatened to hold this year will not come about: the Phanar learned at Chambesy the past few years that it cannot be guaranteed of what a Pan-Orthodox Council will do. It doesn't want Moscow granted its own modern 28 Chalcedon canon.

Originally Posted by mardukm
New canons are established that meet new situations and needs for local Churches, and even the Church as as a whole.
We could, but haven't, yet. Most do not see a need, and the Greek Church, the chief promoters of it (somewhat in imitation of Vatican II and Old Rome's Ultramontanism), now fear that they might not like the new rules-namely Moscow's role will rise at their expense.

Each autocephalous Church has issued and revised their statutes as the need has arose and situations changed, of course. But that has not changed the constitution of the Orthodox Church. Even the two centuries of the aberration of the Holy Governing Synod did not do that: the normal operation has reasserted itself and is sweeping the last vestiges away.
Originally Posted by mardukm
So of course there are different Canons.

The difference was put in place a millenium ago, not in 1990.
Originally Posted by mardukm
Our Churches are living in a situation which was not the reality of the first Millenium.
Ours are, at least again since the end of the Communist interlude. New Rome of the second Millenium does not differ much from Old Rome in the first Millenium. And the Third Rome has grown as the New Rome of the second Millenium.
Originally Posted by mardukm
It is natural that the Canons should be different because our situation is different.
Other than the conforming the canons to Pastor Aeternus, what situation "is different."
Originally Posted by mardukm
The different canons relate to maintaining and ensuring a unity that was not an issue in the first millenium united Church
that isn't any more an issue among the Orthodox Churches in the second millenium than it was in the first Millenium.
Originally Posted by mardukm
(e.g., commemoration of the bishop of Rome in the Liturgy, etc.). I have hope that these particular canons will disappear once reunion is achieved.

The reading of dyptichs date from the earliest organization of the Church, not the second half of the second millenium. The reading manifests a theology in both millenia. That called by the CCOE and the last five centuries does not match that of the first millenium, an honest admission of a real difference. We don't need to, nor should we, mask it. Unless Pastor Aeternus abandons its claims and embraces again the theology and ecclesiology of the first millenium Church.

(btw, the rules the Phanar issues for the diptychs-ignored AFAIK by the autocephalous Churches-also attempts an Ultramarist ecclesiology)

Originally Posted by mardukm
But a perceived difference in disciplinary canons is no argument that the Catholic Church has not maintained the Traditions of the Fathers.
the tradition embodied in the CCOE contradicts directly the Tradition of canons 3 of Constantinople I and 28 of Chalcedon of the Fathers of the Ecumenical Councils and the first Millenium Church.

Originally Posted by mardukm
Blessings

P.S. I'll reply to your posts soon. Thanks for the responses.
no problem. I happened on some free time (although not as much as I took).

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Originally Posted by IAlmisry
Have to break this down:
Originally Posted by mardukm
Originally Posted by IAlmisry
Originally Posted by mardukm
Jesus never left his parables unclarified, and he was rather clear on this one, as well. "Who is the wise and faithful servant whom the master will put in charge of his servants to distribute food at the proper time?"(Luke 12); ""Who is the wise and faithful servant whom the master will put in charge of his household to distribute food at the proper time?"(Matthew 24). St. John Chrysostom interpreted this to refer specifically to St. Peter and his successors.

You mean this?
No. It's from his work On the Priesthood, Book 2:
St. John writes this treatise to his friend Basil, who had been consecrated against his will as bishop of Rhaphanaea, a suffragan not only to the successor of St. Peter-the Patriarch of Antioch-but to the latter's suffragan, the Metropolitan of Apamaea.
Yes, I am aware of the context. I quoted it to demonstrate that this passage can indeed refer to St. Peter and his successors, which you were denying. It is the concept of headship that is the issue here. The passage regarding the wise and faithful servant, as I already affirmed a few times, concerns the notion of headship (VISIBLE headship, to be exact) in general, so it can indeed be used to apply to ANY hierarchical situation, which would include the situation of a bishop, who is indeed the visible head of his diocese -- but it can just as easily apply to the metropolitan, patriarchal and universal levels. St. John Chrysostom specifically mentions St. Peter and his successors to underscore the principle of headship, using St. Peter's own headship among the Apostles to demonstrate the principle of headship in the Church, a principle of headship given by Christ Himself.

I also used the passage to definitely refute the argument made by certain "non-"Catholics that to be the visible head of the ecclesia somehow deprives Christ of headship. Here we see Christ Himself establishing the principle of a visible headship for HIS household when He "leaves." Christ certainly did not think it wrong, so I don't know what possible merit can be possessed by the argument that a visible head for the ecclesia somehow deprives Christ of the true headship of the ecclesia.

There is a certain gap in the logic that would try to use the "context" of this letter to prove the Low Petrine view that the bishops as a general body cannot have a true, visible head. Namely, the logic cannot explain why St. Chrysostom singles out St. Peter (and his successors) as the exemplar for his explanation to bishop Basil. Why not use the name of any other Apostle and their successors? It is obvious that St. Chrysostom here is highlighting only the general idea of headship among any group of Christians, and sInce St. Peter was indeed the visible head of the Apostles, his name is used in particular. A bishop is a true, visible head of a diocese, so there is no question that the principle of headship applies to him. But it is a leap in logic to claim that St. Chrysostom is somehow claiming that all bishops are successors of St. Peter and that there cannot be a position of primacy among all the bishops, just as there was among all the Apostles.

I have never encountered a cogent explanation why, if all the Apostles themselves had a visible head among them, then all the bishops who are their successors cannot have a visible head among them too. Perhaps you or someone else can respond to that. It was a question, I admit, that was never in my consciousness for most of my years when I was in the Coptic Orthodox Church. I never looked beyond my local Coptic Church consciously. But when I was challenged by the idea of a Church universal, and the structure for it, I really had no response. I had no response primarily because I never thought about a visible structure for the Church universal, but also because, even after I thought about it, I could not offer any reasons to deny that the structure of the Church universal can (and should) have a structure similar to the Patriarchal Church or the Metropolitan Church. My initial impression was, of course, the usual canards by non-Catholics against the papacy - that the Pope is an absolute monarch who replaces Christ, and can do anything in the Church at his mere discretion, not constrained by anything. But as I studied the Catholic Church from her own magisterial documents (not by listening to popular opinions by non-Catholics), I discovered my initial impression was completely false.

Finally, remember that St. Chrysostom himself admitted that even though they had St. Peter, they gave him up to glorious Rome.

Originally Posted by IAlmisry
No. But instead of retreading a path already taken, I offer soemthing of interest to your Coptic past. It is from the "Life of Shenoute" by his disciple St. Besa...
Now this dates not only before the schism of East-West, and the Schism of Chalcedon, but nearly the Schism of Ephesus. Now Shmin is just a town in southern Egypt, and the bishop there just a suffragan of Alexandria. So it would seem to be odd: if the Vatican's interpretation of Matthew 16:19 were the ancient one, why this would be applied to a bishop far from Rome, in a land where St. Peter never founded any Church. But it makes perfect sense from the Orthodox interpretation of Matthew 16:19, and indeed, according to "the Catholic Encyclopedia," the overwhelming consensus of the Fathers.
I'm not at all sure what this proves. St. Shenoute was an abbot AFAIK. He was not a head bishop. So I don't know why you could possibly think a threat of an excommunication to an abbot by a bishop demonstrates that all bishops are successors of St. Peter. Please explain.

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St. John is writing to a suffragan bishop Basil, not an Archbishop Bail, let alone a Pope Basil (a Pope Basil existing only in Alexandria, never at Rome). Yet St. John justifies the forced consecration of Basil as bishop, NOT as a justification of the authority to do so, but to tell Basil he should recognize the honor in sharing in the same calling as St. Peter.
As already stated, St. John was only explaining the principle of headship, which can indeed apply to a bishop, though nothing you have stated proves that the principle of headship cannot be applied on other levels of the hierarchy (such as metropolitan, patriarch, pope, even abbot or protopriest, etc.), nor, even further, does it prove that all bishops are successors of St. Peter.

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St. Cyprian makes that clear:
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Our Lord, whose precepts and admonitions we ought to observe, describing the honour of a bishop and the order of His Church, speaks in the Gospel, and says to Peter: �I say unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.� Thence, through the changes of times and successions, the ordering of bishops and the plan of the Church flow onwards; so that the Church is founded upon the bishops, and every act of the Church is controlled by these same rulers.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf05.iv.iv.xxvi.html
FIrst of all, there is nothing here about all bishops being the successors of St. Peter.

Secondly, all it states is that bishops also possess the keys of St. Peter. which is the exact Tradition of the Catholic Church. It does nothing to refute the Catholic teaching that the bishop of Rome succeeds to the PRIMACY of St. Peter. One can also read the Tradition that ALL bishops hold the government (i.e., the keys) of the Church from the documents of Vatican 1 and 2 (if you think that precept was absent from Vatican 1, then you do not know as much about Vatican 1 as you think - you need to have knowledge of other background documents of Vatican 1 aside from Pastor Aeternus to properly assess its decrees). That ONLY the bishop of Rome possesses the keys (and hence is the monarchical, unilateral ruler of the Catholic Church) is another of the Absolutist Petrine distortions of Catholic teaching. There is nothing in Pastor Aeternus that would indicate that possession of the keys is restricted to the papacy. To claim that it does is a clear act of eisegesis.

Thirdly, what Pastor Aeternus states is merely that the bishop of Rome holds the succession of PRIMACY. It makes no statement about the apostolic succession of other bishops from St. Peter (i.e., Antioch, and maybe Alexandria, if one takes St. Peter's commission of St. Mark to go to Alexandria to be evidence of "succession" from St. Peter).

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"the Church is founded upon the bishops" NOT "the supreme pontiffs.
The premise here is erroneous. The Church is not founded upon bishops NOR the supreme pontiffs, but on the Apostles, St. Peter as their coryphaeus, with Christ as the cornerstone.

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SS. Cyprian and John speak of St. Peter as a type of the apostles and bishops, "holding each part for the many" and not for himself personally
Yes. Insofar as each bishop (including the bishop of Rome) has a responsibility to maintain unity with the Chair of Peter, and that each bishop must act as a head servant among his brother priests just as St. Peter was the head servant among the Apostles, that's exactly what the Catholic Church teaches. So what exactly is your objection? I haven't seen any objections to the actual teaching of the Catholic Church so far from you, but you have indeed expressed objections to the Absolutist Petrine misinterpretations of the Catholic Church's teaching, for which I commend you.

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nor any "successors" other than those consecrated into the Orthodox episcopate of the Catholic Church.
Not sure what you are referring to here. If you are referring to St. Cyprian's claim that every schismatic and/or heretical group cannot have true Orders, that is not the teaching of the Ecumenical Councils, and St. Cyprian was wrong on that point.

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The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church teaching no such thing, I have no understanding to misunderstand.
Yet, you cannot offer a response to the corrections I offered for (1) the misinterpretation that Pastor Aeternus teaches that the bishop of Rome is the ONLY successor of St. Peter, and for (2) the more popular misunderstanding that the term "freely" or "unhindered" means "uninhibited" (instead of its actual meaning of "uncoerced").

Originally Posted by mardukm
I'm not stuck to their perceptions, but you are (look at the anathema's in Pastor Aeternus)
Originally Posted by mardukm
Unless you can offer any well-reasoned responses to my explanations of Pastor Aeternus, it is actually you who is enslaved to the Absoutist Petrine MISinterpretations, don't you think? I know you responded more concisely in your more recent posts (while I was responding to this current set of posts from you, but I'll demonstrate soon that your responses don't demonstrate the Absolutist Petrine misunderstanding of the Catholic teaching (on some responses, you actually only avoided the issue, and did not even respond).

[quote=Ialmisry]You are misinterpreting the plain text contained in it, a novelty of a novelty.
That's exactly what the pneumatomachi, Semi-Arians, and monothelites said. They had a different understanding of prior conciliar decrees "on the face" of the texts. That goes to prove what I have been saying all along - that a particular text needs to be properly interpreted according to the context of what the Fathers at a Council state and of Sacred Tradition. The mere text of formal decrees are often not enough to obtain a proper interpretation of that text. Divorced from context, errors in the interpretation of a text will abound.

Originally Posted by IAlmisry
No, it is called conciliarity (or, if you prefer, conciliarism), and yes, that is what the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church has taught ever since her birth in the Mother Church at Jerusalem, and will teach until the descent of the Heavenly Jerusalem.
When St. Peter taught that the Gentiles should be members of the People of God, that was by no means a conciliar doctrinal teaching. And St. Paul's and St. Peter's authority were certainly not restricted to when they were in council with others. So Scripture demonstrates that neither the Church's infallibility nor her authority is restricted to councils. The Catholic Church teaches that infallibility graces the Church even outside the formal setting of a council. God protects His Church with HIS infallibility even outside the formal setting of a Council. The Catholic teaching is that not only the EXTRAordinary Magisterium of an Ecum Council or of the Pope ex cathedra, but also the universal, ORDINARY Magisterium, as well as the sensus fidei of the Church as whole, is protected by God's infallibility. If you feel that infallibility or authority is restricted to Councils, that's your prerogative, but this is not the teaching of Scripture nor of the Church down through history.

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As for collegiality, that was an invention of Vatican II at an attempt to moderate the excesses of Vatican I.
To think that the Church's infallibility and/or authority is restricted to only when she acts in council is the novelty.

Originally Posted by IAlmisry
[quote=mardukm]Each bishop has a responsibility for the whole Church, but there is one, the one who has the primacy, who has the primary responsibility for the unity of the Church, moreso than other bishops.

So you claim. However, the history of the Church knows of no fourth order of the ordained clergy of a "supreme pontiff," nor can such a consecration be found in her rites.
This statement demonstrates how much you misunderstand the Catholic position. The papacy is not a "fourth order," nor has it ever been taught as such by the Catholic Church. Nor has any Pope ever been consecrated to become Pope in the Catholic Church down to the present day - which only proves that it is not a "fourth order."

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No name of any one bishop "who has the primary responsibility for the unity of the Church" was ever raised at every Divine Liturgy in the sacrifices from the rising of the sun even unto its setting making God's name great among the nations, and in every place incense offered unto His name.
So you make the commemoration of the Pope a doctrinal matter? It seems the heresy would then lie with your pov? The commemoration per se of the bishop of Rome is only an identifier, a matter of discipline, not a doctrine.

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That came with Ultramontanism-but Ultramontanism, as a heresy, lies outside the Church.
Originally Posted by mardukm
You confuse ultramontanism with neo-ultramontanism.

Originally Posted by IAlmisry
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The body and the head always work together, never apart from each other, for the good of the whole Church.
Yes, that's the flow of ecclesiology out of Christology, as the Church flows out of Christ's side in the waters of baptism and the blood from the Cross into the chalice.
And that's the teaching of the Catholic Church, of Vatican 1 and 2.

Originally Posted by IAlmisry
[quote=mardukm]Contrary to the Low Petrine view, no local bishop and no local Church is independent from other bishops or local Churches, much less in their relation to their head bishop and the Church universal.
Laying aside the non-existence of Petrine views in Orthodox ecclesiology, and the absence of high or low petrine views in your magisterium
You focus on terminologies instead of concepts. You have yet to address the conceptual differences between the Absolutist, High and Low Petrine views. There is a difference between the view that the Pope can act unilaterally (the Absolutist Petrine view), and the view that the Pope must act collegially (the High Petrine view). And there is a difference between the view that head bishops have real jurisdiction - though different in nature from the jurisdiction of a local bishop in relation to his priests - (the High Petrine view), and the idea that only local bishops have real jurisdiction, while head bishops only have a primacy of honor (the Low Petrine view). We should apply St. Paul's scriptural exhortation not to focus on mere words in the discussion here.

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no autocephalous primate bishop and no patriarchate is independent from other bishops or local or autocephalous Churches, much less the autocephalous primates relating to some head bishop with universal jurisdiction any more than they relate to the lowiest suffragan in their own local Church.
Something we agree on. But I have encountered a lot of EO who believe that each local Church is independent of other local Churches. There is even a recently-former Catholic at CAF who describes local Churches as "independent" and "wholly apart" from each other. He is currently a catechumen in the EOC. He must be getting this aberrant idea from his teachers. Or perhaps overly polemical Orthodox works. I can grant that maybe these expressions are just exaggerations, but they seem common enough for any casual observer to perhaps mistakenly assign these aberrant expressions as the teaching of the EOC as a whole. If you want to join Catholics in correcting this misunderstanding among certain Orthodox, great.

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Originally Posted by mardukm
The very reality of the ecumenical council proves the error of the Low Petrine view in this regard.
Petrine views have no reality outside your posts, and unless you're over a millenium old, you had no part in any Ecumenical Council.
Neither were you -- so what is the point of this statement?

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As a summary of St. Cyprian states:
The doctrine of St. Cyprian upon the point before us is extremely full and clear from many passages of his treatises and epistles. A remarkable passage from the treatise "de Unitate Ecclesiae," has been quoted above, in which he says plainly, that "Christ gave to all the Apostles equal authority," and that "all the other Apostles were what Peter was, endowed with an equal participation of honour and power."
I don't see anything contrary to Catholic teaching here. There is something you perhaps do not know about Catholic doctrine:
(1) All bishops are equal in sanctifying power.
(2) There is an hierarchy of jurisdiction for the sake of the good order of the Church (some bishops have greater jurisdiction than others, but only in terms of territorial extent - with the usual, imporatnt caveat that the plenary jurisdiction of a <head bishop> is different in nature from the local juirsdiction of a <bishop>).
(3) The sanctifying power is greater than the power of jurisdiction.
But your understanding is based on the misconception that the power of jurisdiction is considered the greater power in the Catholic Church. It is not. Obviously, Catholic teaching affirms that all bishops are more equal than they are not.

I also doubt whether anyone actually agrees with St. Cyprian's statement that all bishops are equal in honor. Even Low Petrine advocates admit the concept of "primacy of honor. " I think St. Cyprian was being overly polemic when he made that statement. It's obvious he recognized the bishop of Rome's primacy, having appealed to him to discipline other bishops (before the disagreement with Pope St. Stephen). But since he was on the receiving end of the correction, it seems he resorted to some exaggerated statements to get his point across.

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In other places he says...Yet St. Peter himself, whom the Lord chose first and on whom He built His Church, when afterwards Paul disputed with him about circumcision, did not claim any thing to himself so insolently or arrogantly as to say that he held a primacy, or that he ought rather to be obeyed by the present and future generation.
You're preaching to the choir. This is PERFECTLY in accord with Catholic teaching. St. Cyprian was not denying the primacy. This is impossible since we know that he appealed to Pope St. Cornelius to discpline other bishops. The context here is that St. Cyprian thought the Pope was wrong, and that the Pope should humble himself for correction, and not claim "primacy" as a pretext to be obeyed even when he is wrong. St. Cyprian was by no means advocating the idea that there can be no primacy among the bishops, or that this primacy does not entail a real authority. He was only arguing that having primacy does not mean one is always right and thus must always (i.e., "the present and future generation") be obeyed. St. Robert Bellarmine basically preached the same thing - that if a Pope is found to be tearing down the Church, Christians are bound by conscience to resist him. Ironically, future Ecumenical Councils affirmed Pope St. Stephen's position on the baptism of the Novatians, not St. Cyprian's.

Absolutist Petrine advocates might have a problem with the Pope being corrected, but High Petrine advocates do not. The correction of a head bishop (on whatever level) is a natural part of the ecclesiology of the Catholic Church - just another difference between the Absolutist and High Petrine views. And NO - Pastor Aeternus does not teach that the Pope cannot be corrected. I'll address this when I respond to your more recent posts.

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In fact, the same Ecumenical Council who declared "Peter speakes through Leo" (but only AFTER examining his tome for Orthodoxy) also acclaimed of his suffragan bishop Peter at Corinth "Peter thinks like Peter. Orthodox one you are welcome." The very reality of the ecumenical council's view in this regard proves the error of falsely attributing a different responsibility to a so-called Petrine office separate from the episcopate which assembles in Council.
I'm afraid this one passage from you is riddled with misrepresentations of the actual Catholic position. Let's assess these erroneous statements:
(1) "In fact, the same Ecumenical Council who declared "Peter speakes through Leo" (but only AFTER examining his tome for Orthodoxy)"
I don't know what you think it proves that the Council examined his Tome. The official Relatio of V1 states that in an Ecumenical Council, ALL the bishops are judges together with the Pope. So why do you think it is so strange that the bishops examined Pope St. Leo's Tome? That you think it strange only means you have a misunderstanding of the Catholic Church's teaching on infallibility.
(2) "also acclaimed of his suffragan bishop Peter at Corinth "Peter thinks like Peter. Orthodox one you are welcome."" What does it prove exactly that someone is said to "think" like Peter? I should hope every bishop thinks with the orthodoxy of St. Peter. But what do you claim that proves? Do you actually think that the Catholic Church teaches that bishops (even lay persons) do not or should not THINK (or believe) in agreement with St. Peter, or that the Pope is the ONLY one that can or should think/believe like St. Peter? That would be another erroneous misunderstanding on your part.
(3) "...the error of falsely attributing a different responsibility..."
The error here is the idea that the job of the Pope as primate of the Church universal is different from the job of an Ecumenical Council. The papacy is a function of the Church and for the Church (not for the Pope), just as the Ecumenical Council is a function of the Church and for the Church. Please define what you mean by "different responsibility?"
(4) "...to a so-called Petrine office separate from the episcopate which assembles in Council." The error here is the falseness of claiming that the Catholic Church teaches that the Pope is separated from the episcopate in his actions as primate of the Church universal. The official Relatio of V1 asserted: "We do not thereby separate the Pope from his ordinated conjunction with the Church...we do not separate the Pope infallibly defining from the co-operation and concourse of the Church...we do not exclude the co-operation of the Church, because the Pope's infallibility does not come to him by way of inspiration or revelation, but by way of divine assistance." You can also read the historic Proem of Pastor Aeternus in another thread in this forum, which refutes this idea of the Pope being separated from the Church in making an ex cathedra decree. Our canons state "The Roman Pontiff, in fulfilling the office of the supreme pastor of the Church is always united in communion with the other bishops and with the entire Church." I seriously do not know where you got your ideas, but it is certainly not from the magisterial teaching of the Catholic Church.

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Orthodox ecclesiology has no Petrine, just as the ecclesiology of Pastor Aeternus has neither what you call Low nor High Petrine views, just what you call the Absolute Petrine office. The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, outside her Orthodox episcopate, has no petrine office, low, high or absolute. Outside of your posts, no one has the conception of ecclesiology described therein.
The differences are there, despite your focus on mere terminologies.

Originally Posted by IAlmisry
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Originally Posted by Ialmisry
In Acts, the Apostles send St. Peter, he does not send them. Other than the Ecumenical Synod, the NT does not speak of any responsibility for the Church as a whole above the bishop.
Jesus did in the parable of the wise and faithful servant.
Not according to His Church, speaking through St. John Chrystom, St. Cyprian, St. Besa and Shenouti..., He didn't.
Nice try, but no cigar. wink

Originally Posted by Ialmisry
Originally Posted by mardukm
[quote=Ialmisry]The hierarchy of the bishops comes from ecclesiastical, not divine, institution.
This is true. The organization of the Church into Patriarchates and Metropolitan Sees originated from the Church, not from Christ. But the idea that there would be a head servant among the servants in his entire household originated from Christ, not the Church.

Not according to the Gospels and the Book of Acts, not to mention the Epistles and the Book of Revelation: if Matthew 16:19 said what your Pastor Aeternus claims with its eisogesis, why do the disciples ask a couple verses down (18:1) who is the greatest? And why doesn't Christ answer them (18:4) "Peter"?
Christ set up the principle of a head servant for his entire household. How does "Why doesn't Christ answer 'Peter'?" even respond to that? You seem to be avoiding the issue. But to answer your question, Christ was explaining to the Apostles what it means to be "greatest" in the Church. Christ knew their mind (i'm sure you'll agree) and realized that he first had to address what "greatest" means in His Church, because the Apostles did not have a proper understanding of "greatest" when they asked the question. If Christ intended it according to the intentions of Low Petrine advocates, he would have said, "NO ONE among you can be considered 'greatest'." But He did not do that. Instead, He gave them His condition for how one will be considered "greatest" in His Church. So the "greatest" must be a servant to others, not that there shall never be a "greatest" among them.

Originally Posted by Ialmisry
Originally Posted by mardukm
So what Christ set up was for the Church as a whole - HIS Church
Yes, His One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
Indeed, when He stated that He would set a head servant over the other servants and for HIS household, he was referring to the ONE, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. I'm glad we agree.

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When St. Peter left Jerusalem, the primacy stayed with her, not him (Acts 12:17), and when the Church gathered to exert their primary responsibility for the unity of the Church, they did so not in Antioch, where St. Peter was (Gal. 2:11) but Jerusalem (Acts 15:2), where, as Holy Tradition tells us "that Peter and James and John after the ascension of Our Saviour, as if also preferred by Our Lord, strove not after honor, but chose James the Just bishop of Jerusalem" (St. Clement, Hypotyposes VI)
You are confusing the primacy of a particular Church with the primacy of St. Peter. Though Jerusalem held the primacy among the churches, the primacy among the Apostles stayed with St. Peter. He was always the head of the Apostles because Christ Himself established him as such. There is another EO participant here who is of the opinion that the primacy of the Church of Rome was conditioned by history, and not divinely established. I actually agree with him on that point. But this cannot be conflated with the bishop who holds the primacy, a headship that is inherited from the headship of St. Peter among the Apostles, a personal primacy that was established by Christ Himself. No matter in what city a primatial bishop (metropolitan, patriarch, pope) establishes his residence, the primacy always belongs to that bishop in a personal manner. It's not as if he loses his primacy just because he moves somewhere else. This is, btw, one of the reasons why it cannot be the case that the bishop of Antioch, though obtaining apostolic succession from St. Peter, cannot be considered to have succeeded in his primacy -- because St. Peter, who held the primacy, was still alive and kicking.

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St. Peter went to Jerusalem where the apostles and elders (i.e. their successors, the bishops) came together to consider this matter, to bear testimony in the Council, but St. James rendered the judgement of the Church and the Council's definition echoed his words in its encyclical, sent on his instruction, ex cathedra Sancti Jacobi Dei Fratris, the Apostolic See.

I seriously don't know why it matters that St. James made the final decision at the Council of Jerusalem as far as a discussion on papal primacy. Yes, St. James was the bishop of the primatial Church of Jerusalem, but St. Peter was still the primatial head of the Apostles, and thus of the Church as as a whole (I don't know what you think you can say that would change this latter fact).

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St. Clement records (Hypotyposes VII) that "the Lord after His resurrection imparted knowledge to James the Just and to John and Peter, and they imparted it to the rest of the Apostles, and the rest of the apostles to the seventy, of whom Barnabas was one." Hence why SS. James, Peter (or rather Cephas) and John (in that order), as divine scripture (Gal. 2:9) tells us stood together as pillars upholding the Church as a whole. St. Paul (Eph. 2:20) identifies Christ as the cornerstone-not St. Peter (who, of course, agrees with St. Paul's identificaiton I Peter 2:4)-all the Apostles-including St. Peter-forming the foundation on Him. On this, the three-not one-pillars raise the roof of the dome of the Church, extending the right hand of fellowship to SS. Barnabas and Paul at Antioch to set up an even larger body of administration for the sake of good order of the daughter Church-where St. Peter was-being built up as the sister of the Mother Church of Jerusalem, becoming the Matron of Jerusalem once St. James was martyred and the Holy City destroyed. Indeed, before that tragedy, SS. Paul and Barnabas are sent by Antioch-not by Jerusalem, and not by St. Peter-establishing bishops in the sees they set up, and report back to the Church at Antioch-not Jerusalem (nor, as far as we know, St. Peter) Acts 14.
I don't know what you think this proves. It doesn't diminish the fact that St. Peter was the acknowledged visible head of the Apostles, who together were the foundation of the Church universal.

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The servants were masters in their own household, or rather, the servants had only One Master, and they served Him by setting up even bigger bodies of administration, not only for the sake of good order, but to manifest the nature of the Church as the Body of her One Head, Christ.
Nice theory, but Jesus Himself said He would set one servant over the other servants - no doubt to manifest the oneness that Jesus expected of His body the Church, as explained by St. Cyprian. As already explained, this principle of headship applies in many contexts and on many levels (protopriest, abbot, bishop, metropolitan, patriarch, pope, etc.). The onus is on certain "non-"Catholics to explain why it cannot apply to the papacy. I've never encountered any cogent reasons.

Originally Posted by IAlmisry
Originally Posted by mardukm
Originally Posted by IAlmisry
And when the Fathers set it up, they saw fit to specify its role. And beyond announcing to the other primates (some of which are Metropolitans, btw) the date of Pascha calculated by the Pope of Alexandria, and granting-BUT NOT HEARING-an appeal, the Fathers did not give much responsibility to the archbishop of Rome over the Church as a whole, beyond the responsibility he shared with the other primates and indeed all other bishops.
Yes, the appellate authority is a recognition of the primacy of the bishop of Rome for the whole Church.
Questionable. It had a lot to do with the immediate and absolute authority of the Emperor of Rome over the whole Empire-a connection demonstrated even in pagan days, when history records the first bishop of Rome trying to exercise authority over the whole Church, Abp. St. Victor, as also having the ear of the emperor Commodus (through Commodus' Christian mistress Marcia), which the saint put to use for the Church.
The Council of Sardica was called with the help of the Emperor, who was more than willing to promote the peace of his empire. That's about all you can cay about the Emperor's involvement. Do the canons of Sardica according to the copies possessed by the EOC say the emperor is involved in these appeals and the courts of appeal? What is your reason for saying the Canons have more to do with the Emperor than the Bishop of Rome? Doesn't seem to be based on any facts, but only on a preconceived preference to diminish the acknowledged plenary authority of the bishop of Rome in the entire Church.

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Met. Hosius presided over the Council of Sardica, which you mentioned, commissioned not only by the Archbishop of Rome (in whose jurisdiction Sardica fell under at the time), but the Emperor of the West Constans (in whose control Sardica remained) as well. And it was his support for the cause of Nicea against his brother and co-emperor the Arian Constantintius II (who ruled from New Rome over all the East), that determined the outcome of Sardica..
These facts do not touch upon the actual orthodoxy of Sardica and its Canons.

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That New Rome received equal privileges in reference to Old Rome and in its own right (i.e. the right of the appeals in cc. 9 and 17 of the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon) in reference to its resource of secular power and authority (as was referenced in canon 4 of the First Ecumenical Council) underscores that.
Constantinople was understood to only have appellate authority in all the "Eastern" Churches, not the Church as as a whole. He was second after the bishop of Rome in ecclesiastical matters, as the canon plainly states. Only the bishop of Rome had appellate authority in the Church as a whole. Even after Chalcedon, Eastern bishops were appealing to the bishop of Rome from decisions of the bishop of Constantinople, which demonstrates exactly what the Canon indicates - that the bishop of Constantinople was second after the bishop of Rome in ecclesiastical matters.

Originally Posted by Ialmisry
Originally Posted by mardukm
And your statement is a rather jaundiced account of the Sardican Canons.
Said Canons have a rather jaundiced history. Many of the leading canonists and historians (e.g. see the Excursus on the issue in the Post-Nicene Fathers http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.xv.iii.vi.html) dispute the Ecumenical status of the Council of Sardica in general, and in particular state that the canons you cite were creating, rather than recognizing, a right of the see of Old Rome. And that right they (e.g. Balsamon, Zonaras etc.) restrict to those bishops already within Old Rome's jurisdiction as Patriarch of the West,
But bishops "East" and "West" were appealing to the bishop of Rome before Sardica (I give examples later), so its canons cannot be creating this prerogative.

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...if not restrict to the particular circumstances of the time.
But bishops were appealing to the bishop of Rome before and after this time, so this cannot be the case.

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The fact cannot be disputed that the Council of Sardica failed as an Ecumenical Council
But the orthodoxy of the Council and its canons is beyond dispute. And it should be noted that the Council of Sardica failed to have Ecumenical status only because almost all the bishops in the East were Arian heretics and would not agree to the Council.

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...and its canons acquired ecumenical force only with the canons of the Council of Trullo, but there are those who dispute (not I) the ecumenical force of those canons.
The Canons of Sardica were accepted by the Fourth Ecum in its 1st Canon. "We have judged it right that the canons of the Holy Fathers made in every synod even until now, shold remain in force." This, of course, refers to orthodox local synods, of which Sardica was definitely one. I've read that the Council of Trullo makes explicit which synods are being referred to by Canon 1 of Chalcedon, though the Canon of Chalcedon does not itself do so. It was probably just common custom by which Christians at the time of Chalcedon knew which synods were referred to in Canon 1, a custom handed down by oral Tradition and finally codified at Trullo.

Besides, your statement here is inconsistent with your admission that the bishop of Constantinople was given an appellate authority similar to the bishop of Rome's. If this is so, then the Fathers of the Fourth Ecum must already have recognized the primordial appellate authority of the bishop of Rome.

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Note: the bishops of the neighboring provinces, not the bishop of Rome, retries the case, but only if it can "be established that such is the case as to merit a new trial."
The bishop of Rome can be a co-judge through his representatives, so he can retry the case (but not unilaterally, of course).

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"If it seems good...to honor the memory of St. Peter...let..." NOT "Remember St. Peter, so you must..."
First, what is the distinction between the two statements that you perceive? Second, why mention St. Peter at all?

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The bishop of Rome can hear the case only after the bishops of the surrounding regions investigate the appeal, and the accused appeals them upholding the sentence, and even then the bishop of Rome is limited in only being able "to be sent to be judges with the bishops."

That's backwards. It is the bishop of Rome who decides if the case has merit to be retried, and then he forwards it to the bishops of the neighboring provinces for the new trial, with the prerogative to send his representatives as co-judges. The initial involvement of other bishops is only to forward the request (by the accused bishop) for a retrial to the bishop of Rome, and it is the bishop of Rome who decides if the case merits a retrial. The canon makes this so plain, I am rather surprised at your claim that the bishops of the neighboring regions are the ones who decide if the case merits a new trial. That's eisegesis, brother.

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He never hears the case alone, unlike the right of Metropolitans or "the throne of the imperial capital Constantinople" to hear their local cases and their appeals.
Where is it stated that metropolitans and the bishops of Constantinople can hear cases unilaterally? Are you sure you are not an absolutist Petrine advocate? wink If it is true the bishop of Constantinople can hear local cases and their appeals by himself, that only proves the point I made earlier - that the appellate jurisdiction of Constantinople was only local (i.e., for Eastern Churches), not the Church as a whole (unlike the bishop of Rome's).

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Originally Posted by mardukm
The early Church recognized a greater authority for the bishop of Rome for matters throughout the Church, and outside of his immediate, local jurisdiction, moreso than you pretend.
Provide an example form the history of the Church.

The earliest example of such an attempt by Old Rome to exercise such an authority, the Pascha Controversy, ended in letters rebuking the Archbishop of Rome "from the whole Church." Indeed, the matter wasn't referred to Old Rome in the first place, but decided in local synods throughout the Church, and in the end the calculation of the Pope of Alexandria, not Old Rome's, that the Church adopted.
That's backwards. It was actually upon Pope St. Victor's direction that the Churches held the local synods, and thereafter report the resuilts back to him. An excerpt preserved by Eusebius from St. Polycrates, primate of the Asian Churches (who held to a different date than Rome), addressed to Pope St. Victor regarding the results of their Synod on the matter of the date of Easter testifies to this fact:
"I could mention the bishops who were present, whom I summoned at your desire, whose names, should I write them, would constitute a great multitude. And they, beholding my littleness, gave their consent to the letter, knowing that I did not bear my gray hairs in vain, but had always governed my life by the Lord Jesus."

The report of the Palestinian Synod is very interesting, as it seems to indicate that they supported an action of excommunication:
"Endeavor to send copies of our letter to every church, that we may not furnish occasion to those who easily deceive their souls. We show you indeed that also in Alexandria they keep it on the same day that we do. For letters are carried from us to them and from them to us, so that in the same manner and at the same time we keep the sacred day."

NOTE: the timeline given by the old Catholic Encyclopedia is: (1) Pope St. Victor notices disturbances in his own local Church due to the different observances by visiting Christians from Asia; (2) the Pope asks the bishops of Asia to hold a synod on the matter and report back to him; (3) the Asian Synod convenes and replies to the Pope, affirming their own practice; (4) the Pope directs all Churches to hold local synods on the matter, in order to determine what he should do; (5) the response is unanimous that Easter should be celebrated on Sunday (with some responses containing very strong language against the Quartodecimans); (6) Thereafter, the Pope gives instruction to the Asian Churches to celebrate Easter along with the rest of the Church, with a threat of excommunication; (7) Some bishops object to Pope St. Victor's threat of excommunication.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15408a.htm

The examples of the bishop of Rome's primacy being exercised with a real (yet not unilateral) authority are too numerous to recount, but some examples that immediately comes to mind, aside from the Pope St. Victor incident are: (1) Pope St. Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians; (2) St. Cyprian's appeal to Pope St. Cornelius to discipline bishops in Gaul and Spain; (3) Pope St. Cyril's appeal to Pope St. Celestine on the matter of Nestorius; (4) the correction of Pope St. Dionysius of Alexandria by Pope St. Dionysius of Rome; (5) the appeals of Eutyches and St. Flavian to Pope St. Leo. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc., said appeals contributing to the formation of the Fourth Ecum at the behest of Pope St. Leo (though the Emperor did not hold it in the West); etc.; etc; etc; etc. This is not to mention the numerous appeals to bishops of Rome by bishops from the East (e.g., St. John Chrysostom's appeal to Pope St. Innocent to fix the ecclesiastical problems in the East, the Council of Carthage's appeal to Pope St. Damasus to confirm its canon of Scripture, St. Photius' appeal to Pope St. Innocent to confirm his patriarchal status, etc. etc., etc., etc. - appeals that indicate a recognition of primacy with actual authority).

It should also be noted that Eusbebius records in Book II of his Ecclesiastical History that there is an ecclesiastical canon that "commands that the churches shall not make any ordinances against the opinion of the bishop of Rome." He makes this statement in criticism of a Council of Antioch! I'm not sure what else he could be referring to except the ancient Apostolic Canon 34, which would indicate the normal understanding of that Canon for Catholics.


Originally Posted by Ialmisry
Originally Posted by mardukm
But neither is this authority unilateral and absolute as Absolutist Petrine advocates pretend. The extremes of the Absolutist and Low Petrine views really have no basis in the history of the Church.
The schema of "Petrine views" of a "Petrine office" have no basis in the history of the Church
I agree that there is not more than one Petrine view evident in Church history; the only Petrine view you will find in Church history is the High Petrine view. The Absolutist and Low Petrine views have no place in the history of the united Church, and neither can they have a place in serious attempts at reunion between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

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and Pastor Aeternusdepends on an "Absolutist Petrine" revision of history for its theology.
The fact that Absolutist Petrine advocates claim that the Pope has the power to daily intervene in the affairs of local Churches, while HH JP2 of thrice-blessed memory asserted he does not, demonstrates your claim is false.

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The apologists for your Pastor Aeternus make much (too much) of the prominence of St. Peter in the Mother Church of Jerusalem.
I've read some Absolutist Petrine advocates claim that St. Peter was the head of the Council of Jerusalem, which is obviously not true. But Low Petrine advocates go the opposite extreme and do not give any relevance to St. Peter at the Council, except as someone who gives some purely coincidental testimony.

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Yet the see of Jerusalem is never accounted a Petrine See, nor its Patriarch ever draw his authority from St. Peter,
What is the relevance of bringing up something that Catholics, even Absolutist Petrine advocates, have never claimed? That's clear evidence of eisegesis.

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although, in the theology of your Pastor Aeternus Jerusalem served as the seat of the papacy of the supreme pontiff for around a decade at least, the first decade of its supposed existence.
Can you please point out where Pastor Aeternus even mentions Jerusalem? That's very creative, I'll grant you that.

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St. Peter personally founded the see of Antioch, and your "universal calendar" celebrates his reign there. Yet Antioch does not come second after Old Rome, but after Alexandria, the see founded not by St. Peter (who never set foot in it) but his disciple St. Mark. Since, as cited above, he who is sent is not greater than he who is sent,
St. Mark was not merely the disciple of St. Peter. Tradition recounts that it was actually St. Peter who sent St. Mark to Alexandria from Rome due to a vision from God.

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the order should be, in "Petrine" order, Rome-Antioch-Alexandria, if not Antioch-Rome-Alexandria. Such has never been the case, but the order Rome-Alexandria-Antioch reflected the secular order of importance of the cities of the Empire, which of course caused their relative importance in the Church.
First, there is really no actual "ordering" of the Sees in the primordial Canons of the Second Ecum. Second, while the ordering of Sees was influenced by civil considerations, the primacy of the bishop of Rome was not. This is evident from: (1) while there was always a very evident rivalry between Alexandria, Constantinople and Antioch for ecclesiastical prominence, everyone recognized the primacy of the See of Rome; (2) When the seat of the empire was transferred to Constantinople, the bishop of Rome still retained the primacy.

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The facts of the history of the Church simply will not fit being hammered in holes of your "Petrine" schema. And the teaching of your Pastor Aeternus cannot stand without the "Absolute Petrine advocates" propping it up.
No Absolutist Petrine advocate has ever been able to refute my presentations of the HIgh Petrine teaching of the Catholic Church, and I have debated them many times at CAF. I suppose Absolutist Petrine advocates would not even venture here in Byzcath. But you represent their misunderstanding well enough (please, that is not intended as an insult). I hope that instead of mere claims from you that I am misrepresenting the Catholic teaching, and of non-analytic, overly general, quotations from Pastor Aeternus, you (or anyone else reading this) will be willing to engage in a well-reasoned discussion on Pastor Aeternus point-by-point (which is the purpose of this thread, if I'm not mistaken).

Originally Posted by IAlmisry
Originally Posted by mardukm
Originally Posted by IAlmisry
And, despite what Pastor Aeternus says, "it was through the Church that" his primacy and prerogatives were "transmitted to him in his capacity as Her minister.
I can agree that much of the way the Primacy is exercised has been conditioned by the circumstances of the Church as time progressed, not established by Christ Himself. However, the Primacy per se is from Christ.
So you (and your Pastor Aeternus) have asserted. But, according to Christ's own words "he who is sent is not greater than he who sends," and we see in the book of Acts the Apostles sending St. Peter and not the reverse.
You claim that you do not see the difference between the Petrine views, but your statement here demonstrates one of these differences. The difference evinced here is between the High Petrine view, on the one hand, and both the Absolutist and Low Petrine views, on the other. The High Petrine view (with its collegial ecclesiology) understands an action by the Church (at whatever level) as an action of the ENTIRE magisterIal authority of that Church acting in agreement with each other as a unified authority, both head and body together, NEVER APART. In distinction, Absolutist and Low Petrine advocates cannot seem to get over the notion of constantly setting the head bishop and the rest of the bishops as separate, even opposing, entities. To HIgh Petrine advocates, the action of "the Apostles sending Peter" is an action of the Apostles which includes Peter. So it was the decision of the ENTIRE body of Apostles by which St. Peter was sent out from among them. It was NOT a decision imposed on Sts. Peter and John by the "other" Apostles. Your claim here demonstrates one of the excesses of the Low Petrine view. Both your apparent position and the Absolutist Petrine view share a common penchant for splitting apart the head from the body in your ecclesiological ideologies, one setting the head over, even against, the body, and the other setting the body over, even against, the head. Both positions constantly view the head and body as separate, and oftentimes opposing, entities, instead of the unified authority it was meant to be by Christ and the Apostles.

Primacy is not meant to be the imposition of the authority of a head bishop over his orthodox brother bishops, much less an authority that is intended to be separate or separated from his brother bishops or the Church. That is the false misunderstanding of both Catholic Absolutist Petrine exaggerators and "non-"Catholic detractors of the papacy (actually, I also view Absolutist Petrine advocates as detractors of the papacy). The Primacy of any head bishop (at whatever level) is NEVER meant to be exercised at the mere and/or sole discretion of a head bishop, to impose his will on others, and this is so according to both the ecclesiastical and divine constitution of the Church. I hope you can agree with that, though you may not currently agree that this is what the CC teaches with regards to the Pope.

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Originally Posted by mardukm
And there are certain basic responsibilities that came along with this Primacy established by Christ (to confirm his brother bishops and to feed the entire household of God being the most obvious scriptural prerogatives).
as we have seen above, the preachers of the Church have applied those "scriptural prerogatives" to the lowliest of bishops. And we see SS. Paul and James exercising these prerogatives, although no one claims that they held primacy.
Where do Sts. Paul and James confirm the other Apostles in the faith? The only thing found in Scripture is that St. Paul corrected St. Peter in his actions[/i], even while admitting that St. Peter [u]taught differently from how he acted. No confirming in the faith going on there. In fact, Scripture records it was St. Paul who visited St. Peter to make sure he was himself not running in vain. And St. James instituted a disciplinary measure for certain Christians at the Council of Jerusalem. No confirming in the faith going on there either. In fact, it was St. Peter who ended the debate, based on the teaching "from his mouth" according to God's own ordinance. And what does it prove that other Apostles are feeding portions of the flock of Christ? The Catholic Church NOwhere teaches that the other Apostles (nor individual bishops) do NOT feed their flocks, but rather affirms the exact opposite. The objection here is clearly based on a distorted understanding of Catholic teaching.

Originally Posted by IAlmisry
[quote=mardukm]I think part of the eisegesis of non-Catholics comes from the idea that when canons are established, it is an indication of a novelty being introduced into the Church. Hence, the Canons of Sardica, for example, are (mis)interpreted as the first time the universal appellate authority of the bishop of Rome is established. This is an obviously false reading of the sources, as we know that bishops were appealing to the bishop of Rome long before the time of Sardica.
Oh? Name an instance then-remember, appeals from bishops in the Patriarchate of the West do not count.
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The comment about "Patrairchate of the West" is an anachronism. There was no such distinction prior to the 4th Ecum, when the Council of Constantinople (with its novel claims for the Church of Constantinople) was finally accepted by the Eastern Church in general to have ecumenical force. So any bishop appealing to the bishop of Rome, from "West" or "East," prior to that time proves the point.

Given this proper understanding of Church history, permit me to give just SOME examples (in no definite chronological order):
- Bishops appealed to Pope St. Clement to settle the matter in the Church of Corinth.
- St. Polycarp travelled all the way to Rome on the matter of the date of Easter.
- bishops from Alexandria appealed to Pope St. Dionysius of Rome about what they perceived to be incorrect teaching from Pope St. Dionysius of Alexandria. This resulted in an epistle of brotherly correction to Pope St. DIonysius of Alexandria.
- St. Cyprian appealed to Pope St. Cornelius to discipline bishops in Gaul and Spain over the Novatian heresy.
- A Council of Carthage affirmed the Pope's appellate jurisdiction in relation to bishops (but not to local priests)
- Pope St. Athanasius appealed to the bishop of Rome (even before the Council of Sardica).
- the Church of Antioch appealed to the bishop of Rome on a matter of doctrine (at the bidding of St. Basil). The result of this response was actually a basis for the Second Ecum's teaching on the divinity of the Holy Spirit - it is referred to as the Tome of Damasus. And don't bother trying to impose an Absolutist Petrine misunderstanding on me. I am a High Petrine advocate, and oppose the Absolutist Petrine excesses. I realize full well that the Tome of Damasus was produced in synod, not a unilateral production by the bishop of Rome.
- the Second Ecum itself, which tried to establish a division between "West" and "East" appealed to the bishop of Rome in 382 to confirm its decisions. There is no record of this confirmation, which is why the Third Ecum did not regard the Second Ecum at that time as an Ecum Council. This demonstrates the importance of the bishop of Rome's confirmation for a Council's decrees to be considered as having Ecumenical authority.
- the Third Ecum appealed to Pope St. Celestine to confirm its decrees. The Acts of the Third Ecum indicate clearly that the bishops understood the confirmation of the bishop of Rome to be of a different nature than the general agreement of the bishops.
- Pope St. Cyril appealed to Pope St. Celestine on the matter of Nestorius.
- Patriarch St. John Chrysostom appealed to Pope St. Innocent to redress the ills affecting the Eastern Churches.
- Both Eutyches and Patriarch St. Flavian appealed to the Pope of Rome for the actions perpetrated against them.
- Bishop Eusebius of Dorylaeum appealed to Pope St. Leo against the decisions of the Council under Pope St. Dioscorus.

Originally Posted by IAlmisry
[quote=mardukm]The fact is, canons are more often than not merely a codification of long-standing customs/beliefs.
True enough, chief among examples c. 6 of the First Ecumenical Council and c. 8 of the Third Ecumenical Council. Your "Petrine views" face the problem that no canon codifies such customs or beliefs.

Actually, the Canons codify exactly the High Petrine view. There are no Absolutist or Low Petrine excesses that can be derived from Sacred Tradition taken in full context (though both Absolutist and Low Petrine advocates take little snippets of Sacred Tradition to support their novel views).

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Not appearing in the New Testament, that shouldn't come as a surprise. Since the Catholic Church has never been defined as "St. Peter and his successors and the bishops in communion with him," in what Ut Unum Sint calls "the very essence of this community," trying to convince the Orthodox of "Universal Responsibility of the Pope for the Unity of the Churches" inhering in the see of Old Rome, rather than trying to convince us of the Churches vesting such a responsibility in the see of Old Rome (or any other see), is doomed to failure.
I can agree that the primacy of the Church of Rome was borne of historic circumstances and can be said to be "invested by the Church." And I don't see what possible objection Catholics would have to that notion (though Absolutist Petrine advocates might have a fit). But the very concept of a head servant for the Church universal who is the successor of St. Peter in the primacy is from Christ Himself, and this, I believe, is the only non-negotiable.

Blessings

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Originally Posted by Utroque
Originally Posted by IAlmisry
Simply put, the Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium, promulgated by the same author of Ut Unum Sint, bears no resemblance to the operation of the Church of the first millenium, whereas the Orthodox Churches still operate under that constitution of the first millenium. Holy Tradition, consisting of Scripture and the Fathers backed by history, demonstrate that.

One could say the Divine Liturgy as offered today bears little resemblance to the Eucharistic assembly recorded in 1 Corinthians, Chapter 11; but to say that it bears no resemblance is rather gratuitous as is your assumption that history is on the side of the Orthodox churches with regard to this issue of ecclesiastical constitution.
Hardly. Canly you show any instance of the first Millenium Church operating in accord with the Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium?

Originally Posted by Utroque
I am still waiting for these churches to find the same constitutional unity that the bishops of the Catholic Church found, in union with their "supreme pontiff", to make the following proclamation:

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These Churches, although separated from us, possess true sacraments, above all by apostolic succession, the priesthood and the Eucharist, whereby they are linked with us in closest intimacy.
Let them confess the Orthodox Faith. We don't look for any constitutional unity elsewhere.

Originally Posted by Utroque
The closest intimacy! That Rome is treated as some kind of Trojan Horse by some Orthodox circles, I find little better than something scripted by Dan Brown or Rev. Ian Paisley. I'm sure you'll come up with all the mud from the past to prove that their fears are justified. Marduk has offered some thoughtful understandings concerning Pastor Aeternus that present material for reaching some rapprochement, but you seem intent on responding with the detritus of history's ills.
How about something from the mud of the present? Like the silence that still meets your synod of middle eastern bishops at the Vatican calling for the law promised two decades ago to allow them to exercise the rights supposedly guaranteed to them by the "supreme pontiff", and ordain married men? Has any Latin ordinary in the West been disciplined to take it upon himself to dictate to the heads of the sui juris? Why do the sui juris not have the same status in their own church when in the West that Latin ordinaries have in the sui juris homelands?

Once can debate how well the sui juris churches serve as bridges, but no one can deny they make excellent canaries in the mine shaft.

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Originally Posted by IAlmisry
Originally Posted by mardukm
Why? How does making a disciplinary matter into a dogma make it a matter of heresy?

Let the Baltimore Catechism, Q. 323, answer:
A schismatic is one who believes everything the Church teaches, but will not submit to the authority of its head�the Holy Father. Such persons do not long remain only schismatics; for once they rise up against the authority of the Church, they soon reject some of its doctrines and thus become heretics; and indeed, since Vatican Council I, all schismatics are heretics.
Actually, the Catholic Church teaches that our Churches are separated by schism, not heresy. There is also the principle of invincible ignorance to take into account. The CC understands that indoctrination can affect the free will of a person, and so does not immediately assign the accusation of heresy to those who have been born into a belief system outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church. And there is enough evidence that a lot of people reject Catholic teachings based on misunderstanding, and sincere misunderstanding is not a basis for an accusation of sinful heresy according to Catholic principles.

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One cannot require belief in heresy, without falling into heresy.
So Group A claims that for Group B to claim that the primacy was established by Christ is a heresy, but there is no patristic support to claim that it is a heresy. Wouldn't that make the claim of Group A a heresy as well?

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For I testify to every one that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book: If any man shall add to these things, God shall add unto him the plagues written in this book.Rev. 22:18

You shall not add to the word that I speak to you, neither shall you take away from it: keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.Deut. 4:2
But it was Christ who said he would set one servant over his entire household to feed the other servants. The most you can say is that there is a difference in interpretation, but you cannot definitely assign heresy to the belief that Christ Himself established the principle of primacy of a head servant for His entire Church. So these quotes biblical passages really have no relevance for the discussion.

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As St. Paphnoutios said, when mandated celibacy was proposed at the Council of Nicea I, the Church ought not to impose the burden of a yoke the Apostles did not lay on the Faithful. Mandated celibacy is a discipline: is there no end to the heretical "reasons"-such as blantant gnosticism and Manicheism-given for defending it in the West and trying to impose it on the East? Such results when one mandates what is not necessary. Even Fr. Corapi, whom I enjoy listening to, while admitting it is only a discipline, goes on to say things that seem oblivious to the fact that priests with whom he is in communion are married.
It is utterly laughable to connect the institution of celibacy in the Western Church to Gnosticism or Manicheism. The West basis it on (a perhaps extreme emphasis of) St. Paul's words that those who are unmarried will be able to focus more on their ministry than those who are married. It has nothing to do with the idea that matter or marriage is evil.

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So it is not a matter of making "making a disciplinary matter into a dogma" into "a matter of heresy", as usually the impulse to make the disciplinary matter into dogma stems from heresy, or it soon employs heresy to justify the imposition. Orthodoxy requires leaving well enough alone.
Again you seem to assume that to teach that Christ Himself established the primacy of the head servant for His Church as a whole (i.e., his household) is a heresy. Yet, there is no patristic evidence for your opinion that it is a heresy.

Blessings


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Originally Posted by IAlmisry
Originally Posted by mardukm
Originally Posted by IAlmisry
You are reading things which the Apostles did not put in the Gospel, let alone Christ.
Or perhaps you are reading things into Pastor Aeternus that was never intended by the Fathers of V1.
No, its supreme pontiff left quite a full record of what he intended.

The only one of the "Fathers of VI" that the Vatican has canonized, Archbishop Antonio Mar�a Claret y Clar� (confessor to the Spanish royal court and founder of the Claretians), when bishops fled rather than rubber stamp the approval of their supreme pontiff's Pastor Aeternus, condemned "blasphemies and heresies uttered on the floor of this Council," in a John 11:50-1 moment, that he "never heard of before." After taking the forefront in imposing the "Pastor Aeternus," he died soon thereafter.

It happened in the full light of history-at least as full as intrigue comes. It is not unknown nor a secret.
Interesting. It was actually, Cardinal Manning, Archbishop of Westminster, who was the single greatest proponent of papal infallibility at the Council. Has he been canonized?

And AFAIK, Archbishop Antonio was not even present for the voting since prior to that he was given leave due to illness to leave the Council.

Your citation of the fact of his canonization doesn't prove anything.

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Originally Posted by mardukm
It amazes me that when we assess the decrees of EVERY Council in the history of the Church, they are NEVER interpereted apart from (1) Sacred Tradition, nor (2) the background debates of the Fathers available to us. Yet both Absolutist Petrine advocates and detractors of Vatican 1 do the exact opposite with regards to V1. Why?
A more cogent question would be why and how you can make such a statement. For one, the ex cathedra statements of Unam Sanctam always come up in discussion of the tradition of Ultramontanism,
Unam Sanctam was enacted in a Roman Synod of 80 bishops, and (even apart from that consideration) its contents were written or influenced by other bishops aside from the Pope. It is laughable for Absolutist Petrine advocates to use Unam Sanctam as a testament to unilateral absolute papal power when it was not even produced under those conditions.

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and the debate over Honorius-and the forced revisionism of Hefele's work-are brought up by the supporters and opponents of your Pastor Aeternus.
Originally Posted by mardukm
The debate over Honorius was quite clear. Someone said if anyone can show a single ex cathedra statement by the Pope opposed to the Church's Sacred teachings, then papal infallibility falls on its face. Hefele proved quite ably that Honorius was condemned as a heretic, but he never actually even addressed the challenge question - i.e., he never proved that Pope Honorius had taught monothelism ex cathedra.

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[quote]We need to interpret the decrees of V1 in the context of the discussions of the Fathers of the Council and in the context of Sacred Tradition.

We do.
No you don't, as even the issue of Honorius with Bishop Hefele proves.

Originally Posted by mardukm
A lot of times, the words of a Decree can have more than one apparent meaning. Take for example the First Ecumenical Council. The semi-Arians and the Pneumatomachi had no problem appealing to its Decrees to support their own opinions, but their understanding was very different from the Faith possessed by the Fathers of Nicea.
The fact that the Semi-Arians and Pneumatomachi busied themselves in producing creeds to replace that of Nicea I (a number of which can be read here: http://www.fourthcentury.com/conciliar-creeds-of-the-fourth-century/), leading to the Fathers of Constantinople to complete the work of the Fathers of Nicea I and set their seal on the Orthodox Creed of the Catholic Church, belies your assertion here. As was pointed out then, the difference of one letter in one word, homoousios vs. homoiousios, in the Creed suffices to distinguish Orthodox from heresy.
Your argument here does not apply to the Pneumatomachi in the least. The Pneumatomachi did not think their beliefs were contrary in the least to the Nicene Creed as it was. As far as the Semi-Arians, there was a whole range of Arian philosophies. There were certain Semi-Arians such as at Antioch (during the time of St. Meletius) who adhered to the classic creed of Nicea, not the different Creed of other Arians (with the difference in iota). St. Meletius tolerated them for a while, which was A basis for the opposition of the Paulinist party.

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Your Pastor Aeternsu doesn't even approach such abstraction.
A statement that proves a lack of knowledge of what actually went on behind the scenes.

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So when Ut Unum Sint invokes (86, 95) "the Constitution Lumen Gentium, in a fundamental affirmation echoed by the Decree Unitatis Redintegratio" to state that "For a whole millennium Christians were united in "a brotherly fraternal communion of faith and sacramental life ... If disagreements in belief and discipline arose among them, the Roman See acted by common consent as moderator"-itself an exercise of the assumed power (UUS 94) "When circumstances require it, he speaks in the name of all the Pastors in communion with him. He can also�under very specific conditions clearly laid down by the First Vatican Council� declare ex cathedra that a certain doctrine belongs to the deposit of faith" by declaring such revisionism of Church history as belonging to the deposit of Faith, we Orthodox have no choice but to stick to the Sacred Tradition of the Consensus of the Fathers, which knows of no such "common consent," much less any such divine right to a "prerogative which the only-begotten Son of God was pleased to attach to the supreme pastoral office" (PA IV 8).
Of course there is evidence of a belief that the Roman Church was somehow especially protected by God. Every Council that requested the Pope's confirmation of its decrees testifies to it. Every bishop who has appealed to the Pope on a doctrinal-related issue testifies to it. I think the issue here is a great misunderstanding that "papal infallibility" is an infallibility possessed by the Pope alone separated from the Church. That is not what the Church teaches, but I know that is what Absolutist Petrine advocates believe, and it is that Absolutist Petrine distortion that seems to be the cause of the rejection of this teaching by "non-"Catholics.

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I need to go, so I will have to respond to your other posts later in the week. Thanks for the discussion so far.

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Originally Posted by IAlmisry
Originally Posted by mardukm
Originally Posted by IAlmisry
I don't find your schema of "Absolutist Petrine," "High Petrine" and "Low Petrine" in that statement on the matter by your present "supreme pontiff" (sounds rather absolutist) while in charge of the office of propagating your doctrines.
Perhaps that's because you have not read beyond the jaundiced and non-contextual presentations of Absolutist Petrine advocates and Low Petrine detractors, who seem to be have the market as far as the popularity of opinions.
They also have the documentation to back up and substantiate their opinions, pro or con. I have read plenty of your posts on this subject, begging the question out of context.
Interesting comment. I've only come across one Absolutist Petrine advocate who has done something more than parrot the usual myopic snippets from Pastor Aeternus, V2 documents, and the Catholic canons. This one appealed to some papal statements from the 19th century. He was trying to prove the unilateral authority of the Pope. But I was able to demonstrate that he had taken it out of context. Perhaps you can present a particular example of me taking something out of context. I look forward to it.

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Why, pray tell, would an "Absolutist Petrine advocate" have a "jaundiced" presentation? Most are rather smug on the subject.
Yeah, I know. I had debated two separate Absolutist Petrine advocates on two different occasions at CAF. One believed that there can come a time when the Pope is the only orthdox bishop left on earth; another claimed there can come a time when the Pope is the only orthodox person left on earth. I told the first that it is the explicit teaching of the Catholic Church that the episcopacy, not just the papacy, is of divine institution and is, like the papacy, protected by infallibility. I asked that if the episcopacy shares in the same divine institution and infallibility as the papacy, why he believes there can ever be a time when the Pope is the ONLY orthodox bishop left on earth. He said that since the Pope is a bishop, then that preserves the teaching of the Catholic Church that the episcopacy is divinely established and possesses infallibility. The same with the other Absolutist Petrine advocate, despite the teaching of the Catholic Church that the Church AS A WHOLE is protected by infallibility. He stated that since the Pope is a member of the Church, that preserves the teaching that the Church as as a whole is protected by infallibility. AAARGH! How do you debate with such a twisted mentality about the nature of the Church?! To some (maybe most) Absolutist Petrine advocates, the Pope is the Church and the Church is the Pope! There is absolutely no way you can even begin to demonstrate that these Absolutist Petrine aberrations were the intentions of the Fathers of the Vatican Council.

Originally Posted by Ialmisry
Originally Posted by mardukm
The document you linked to represents the High Petrine view, not the Absolutist Petrine view. I'm not sure what the point of your focus on mere terminologies is.
I prefer to let people speak for themselves, and not put words in their mouths.

Take for instance, the "Byzantines" and the "Byzantine Empire." Such people and such a state never existed. Figments of Western prejudice, the concepts continue to distort historiography. Another example comes from "feudalism," another constitution which never was (see Elizabeth A. R. Brown's The Tyranny of a Construct), which not only impeded understanding of the Medieval West, but contributed to the strange ideas of Mssrs. Marx and Engels as well.
I'm not at all sure what the point of this is.

Originally Posted by Ialmisry
Originally Posted by mardukm
or (2) you read Pastor Aeternus without understanding what the Fathers of V1 debated behind the scenes.
Laying aside the facts that I understand said debates, it matters not as Pastor Aeternus has spoken, the case is closed. A document so blatantly straight-forward and explicit stands in little need of the debates behind the scenes for understanding it.
There is much reason to suspect you actually do not understand or are even aware of the relevant background debates, given the objections you have expressed (which I'll address below in the appropriate places).

Originally Posted by Ialmisry
Originally Posted by mardukm
A perfect example of point (1) is the idea that V1 taught that the Pope is the onlysuccessor of St. Peter, when there is no such statement in the Decree. Rather, the Decree states only that the bishop of Rome is the successor of St. Peter's primacy.
A distinction without a difference, as the "Petrine primacy"-or rather supremacy (and PA does use the word "supreme")-constitutes the very bone of contention.
If you doubt the Petrine primacy in particular, then the issue cannot be Petrine succession in general. So there is a distinction and a difference. Since you admit the issue is the Petrine primacy, then would you agree that the argument that "Pastor Aeternus (and the Catholic Church) dogmatically teaches that no other bishop obtained apostolic succession from St. Peter" is a straw man?

On the issue of "supremacy," I am an Oriental Christian, not Eastern. In the Oriental Tradition, the application of the term "supreme" to head bishops is rather common. Orientals do not understand the term to mean "absolute and unilateral." I understand and accept that you as an Eastern conceive of the term "supremacy" to mean the exact opposite of how I concieve of it as an Oriental. To an Oriental, "supremacy" and "primacy" can mean the same thing. It is probably harder for you to see it from my perspective than for me to see it from your perspective, so I don't mind not using the term "supremacy" when speaking to Eastern Christians about ecclesiology.

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Your present supreme pontiff, in interpreting your previous one of blessed memory, saw that (The Primacy of the Successor of Peter in the Mystery of the Church):...
Only a brief and ambiguous allusion to any other successors of St. Peter:
The episcopacy and the primacy, reciprocally related and inseparable, are of divine institution. Historically there arose forms of ecclesiastical organization instituted by the Church in which a primatial principle was also practised. In particular, the Catholic Church is well aware of the role of the apostolic sees in the early Church, especially those considered Petrine - Antioch and Alexandria - as reference-points of the Apostolic Tradition, and around which the patriarchal system developed; this system is one of the ways God's Providence guides the Church and from the beginning it has included a relation to the Petrine tradition.
"a relation to," not "a manifestion of." "Considered Petrine," not "being Petrine."
OK. Now it's my turn to say "that's a distinction without a difference." Those statements are explicitly premised on the idea that episcopacy and primacy are "reciprocally related and INSEPARABLE." I do not understand how you can misinterpret the statements "a relation to" and "considered Petrine" to mean that the bishops of Antioch and Alexandria do not actually share in the Petrine prerogative of headship.

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As Card. Ratzinger et alia referenced (Decree Eastern Churches):
By the name Eastern patriarch, is meant the bishop to whom belongs jurisdiction over all bishops, not excepting metropolitans, clergy and people of his own territory or rite, in accordance with canon law and without prejudice to the primacy of the Roman Pontiff.
The fact that your primate, alone among the "sui juris churches" cannot have the title of the see he claims-"Pope"-belies any difference that you are trying to introduce into distinctions you are reading into Pastor Aeternus.
I do not understand what you mean by "cannot have the title of the see he claims." So your final point is lost on me. Can you please explain.

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Again, what difference is there in your schema between any of the four lines of "Patriarchs of Antioch" your supreme pontiff has claimed for St. Peter's first see, and the line his Crusaders installed and your Vatican I renewed in Jerusalem which has no "sui juris" status?
I'm not sure what you are claiming here. The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem is a prelate of the Latin Rite. Why should it need to be "sui juris?" The original Latin Patriarchs set up by the Crusaders were not meant to replace the legitimate Patriarchs of those Sees. Even if some Crusaders intended it that way, the Pope never did. So what is your point?

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Why doesn't your primate Ibrahim Isaac Sidrak, who claims to succeed St. Mark the disciple of St. Peter in Alexandria, not have that see's title of "Pope", the original holder of that title? Other than primacy, what succession to St. Peter do you claim, and for whom?
I don't understand your point. The term "Pope" is a title that has at best a disciplinary relevance, and can change. I personally regard my Patriarch as the Pope of my Church, and the bishop of Rome as the Pope of the Church universal. What's the big deal with a title which has never had any doctrinal relevance attached to it?

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Originally Posted by mardukm
Another, more popular, example is the statement in the Decree that the Pope can exercise his prerogatives "freely" or "unhindered." Absolutist Petrine advocates and Low Petrine detractors misinterpret this term to mean that the Pope has absolute power without restriction. They/you think that the term "freely" means "uninhibited," when, in FACT, the word, according to the original intent of the Fathers, actually only means "uncoerced." The term "freely" means nothing more than that the Pope exercises his prerogatives with free will/volition - i.e., . The Pope cannot be FORCED to do or not do something that his office demands.
Again, the plain text of your Pastor Aeternus states it quite explicitely:
And therefore we condemn and reject the opinions of those who hold that this communication of the Supreme Head with pastors and flocks may be lawfully obstructed; or that it should be dependent on the civil power, which leads them to maintain that what is determined by the Apostolic See or by its authority concerning the government of the Church, has no force or effect unless it is confirmed by the agreement of the civil authority.
Yes, this portion of the Decree is rather explicit. That the Pope cannot be obstructed by the civil government means exactly that the Pope cannot be forced to do or not do what his office demands of him. It is eisegesis to presume this means the Pope has a laissez-faire authority to do what he wants, when he wants, where he wants at his mere discretion.

Originally Posted by Ialmisry
Originally Posted by mardukm
It does not mean the Pope can do what he wants, when he wants, where he wants.

Again, the plain text of your Pastor Aeternus states it quite explicitely:
Since the Roman Pontiff, by the divine right of the apostolic primacy, governs the whole Church, we likewise teach and declare that he is the supreme judge of the faithful , and that in all cases which fall under ecclesiastical jurisdiction recourse may be had to his judgment . The sentence of the Apostolic See (than which there is no higher authority) is not subject to revision by anyone, nor may anyone lawfully pass judgment thereupon. And so they stray from the genuine path of truth who maintain that it is lawful to appeal from the judgments of the Roman pontiffs to an ecumenical council as if this were an authority superior to the Roman Pontiff.
Of course, you may claim that although not subject to questioning nor responsible/answerable to anyone but God a la divine right of kings, the "successor of St. Peter" does not "do what he wants, when he wants, where he wants"...
My assertion - that this does not mean that the Pope can do what he wants, when he wants, where he wants - is not a mere claim, unlike (I must say) the eisegesis that pretends that this excerpt from Pastor Aeternus can prove the Absolutist Petrine pretensions (and the concurrent canard by "non-"Catholics). My assertion is based on the proper context of that excerpt from Pastor Aeternus and Sacred Tradition. First, notice that it explicitly asserts the context of the excerpt in the first sentence - the Pope as JUDGE. This means that the excerpt is referring to cases in lieu of APPEALS to the Pope on a matter that requires him to render a decision. This excerpt is basically a mere restatement of the Canons of Sardica. There is absolutely nothing in this excerpt from the Decree that can cause one to conclude that it is referring to some fantastic and imaginary laissez-faire authority of the Pope. The Pope is considered in the Sacred Tradition of the Church of the first millenium as the last court of appeal, the court of last resort. If one takes this excerpt in the proper context of Sacred Tradition, one will understand it already assumes that all other authorities have been tried and failed to achieve the appellant's concern. If you doubt the patristic orthodoxy of this excerpt from Pastor Aeternus, then please provide for us a single patristic canon that claims that after appeal has been made to the bishop of Rome (as court of final appeal), there is another court of appeal to which someone can resort. THIS is the proper context of the excerpt you cited, as immediately indicated in the very first sentence of the excerpt. It is an eisegetic piece of Absolutist Petrine drivel to claim that the excerpt is giving the Pope some imaginary unilateral and absolute power to do as he pleases at his mere discretion.

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no end of examples of supreme pontiffs behaving badly (have you seen "the Borgias"?) can be provided.
Facts which have no bearing on the primacy intended by Christ and taught by the Catholic Church. If a Pope is behaving badly, it is an utter non-sequitur to assume that is because of the Catholic Church's teaching on the primacy. One can see bishops on every level of the hierarchy throughout history behaving badly even without having the prerogative of being a head bishop, so the belief in primacy cannot be the cause of this bad behavior. Please explain what relevance you perceive this has.

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It would be nice if the question of why Card. Law is in Vatican City could be pursued.
Go ahead. wink

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Originally Posted by mardukm
This is actually explained in the New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law, which incorporates that very statement from the V1 Decree in the Canons.
Oh? What canon empowers the Church to judge a supreme pontiff in his doings?
None. What canon in the early Church empowers the Church to judge a bishop of Rome and depose him? Produce one if you believe there is one. There are one or two examples on how it was done in the Latin Church during the Avignon period. I'll explain it in more detail later in the appropriate section of our discussion (about the Avignon period).

In any case, this new issue is a red herring. It really has nothing to do with the fact that "freely" or "unhindered" does not mean "uninhibited." Your assumption that it does neglects the proper context of the excerpt you provided earlier that it is referring to the Pope as a JUDGE.

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As even Ut Unum Sint (88) apologizes for "certain painful recollections" in the abuse of power, alleged to be a thing of the past, we Orthodox prefer the means of dealing with it (as happened recently in Jerusalem) in the present, and of course the future.
I'm not sure the painful recollections had anything to do with "abuse of power." I think he was referring to the Crusades, an event that actually demonstrated a lack of power by the Pope more than anything else. The sacking of Constantinople, the subsequent expulsion of local hierarchs in the ancient Sees, were all done CONTRARY to explicit commands to the Crusaders by the Pope NOT do do so.

Originally Posted by IAlmisry
Originally Posted by mardukm
Originally Posted by IAlmisry
Have you debated him as well?
Why would I need to, when HH JP2 of thrice-blessed memory himself held to a High Petrine view:
"Vatican I's definition, however, does not assign to the Pope a power or responsibility to intervene daily in the local churches...The decrees of Vatican I are thus understood in a completely erroneous way when one presumes that because of them "episcopal jurisdiction has been replaced by papal jurisdiction"; that the Pope "is taking for himself the place of every bishop"; and that the bishops are merely "instruments of the Pope: they are his officials without responsibility of their own."" (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/alpha/data/aud19930224en.html)

Note that HH did not say "well, the Pope doesn't do it because it is a merely practical impossibility," which is the usual claim by both Absolutist Petrine advocates and Low Petrine detractors of the papacy. Rather he says that Vatican 1 did not give such power (i.e., to invervene daily) to the Pope.
So he says. Does he say it "ex cathedra"? We don't have a straight answer on such things.
No he didn't. That's a straight answer. But Catholics are bound by conscience to adhere to the Pope's orthodox teachings even if they are not proclaimed ex cathedra. This, one can't deny, even according to the wildest Absolutist Petrine fantasies.

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Your supreme pontiff, in your link, says
Vatican I emphasized the fullness of papal power and defined that it is not enough to recognize that the Roman Pontiff "has the principal role." One must admit instead that he "has all the fullness of this supreme power" (DS 3064)...For this reason the Council underscores that the Pope's power "is ordinary and immediate over all the churches and over each and every member of the faithful" (DS 3064). It is ordinary, in the sense that it is proper to the Roman Pontiff by virtue of the office belonging to him and not by delegation from the bishops; it is immediate, because he can exercise it directly without the bishops' permission or mediation.
IOW, his disclaimer says "Vatican I's definition, however, does not assign to the Pope a power or responsibility to intervene daily in the local churches," but if the supreme pontiff does, the local churches and their bishops have no power to stop him or hold him accountable.
That would be an interpretation wrenched out of the context of the entire Tradition of the Catholic Church. As explained to brother Otsheylnik, our canons explicitly assert that the prerogative of the Primacy rests purely in the responsibility of the Pope to RESPOND to the needs of the Church, and ALWAYS in communion with his brother bishops, not to be able to unilaterally determine what HE feels are the needs of the Church, and thereafter make up some law or impose a decision on his mere discretion. So one has to understand what are the responsibilities of "primacy" in order to properly understand what HH JP2 of thrice-blessed memory was saying. The responsibilites of the Primacy, as he already explicitly asserted, does NOT include the prerogative to daily intervene in the affairs of local Churches (contrary to the opinions of Absolutist Petrine advocates). In conjunction with our canons, this prerogative only involves an ability to RESPOND while ALWAYS in communion with his brother bishops. And in conjunction with the statement from Pastor Aeternus that the Primacy BY NO MEANS stands in the way of his brother bishops' exericse of their own immediate and ordinary jurisdiction, this means the response can only be activated when his brother bishops initiate an appeal to him.

I have to go for now, I will address the rest of your posts at the end of the week (it's Monday here in the Philippines). Thanks for your patience, and, once again, thank you for the discussion.

Blessings

Last edited by mardukm; 02/03/13 09:21 PM.
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Originally Posted by mardukm
You are confusing the primacy of a particular Church with the primacy of St. Peter. Though Jerusalem held the primacy among the churches, the primacy among the Apostles stayed with St. Peter. He was always the head of the Apostles because Christ Himself established him as such. There is another EO participant here who is of the opinion that the primacy of the Church of Rome was conditioned by history, and not divinely established. I actually agree with him on that point. But this cannot be conflated with the bishop who holds the primacy, a headship that is inherited from the headship of St. Peter among the Apostles, a personal primacy that was established by Christ Himself. No matter in what city a primatial bishop (metropolitan, patriarch, pope) establishes his residence, the primacy always belongs to that bishop in a personal manner. It's not as if he loses his primacy just because he moves somewhere else. This is, btw, one of the reasons why it cannot be the case that the bishop of Antioch, though obtaining apostolic succession from St. Peter, cannot be considered to have succeeded in his primacy -- because St. Peter, who held the primacy, was still alive and kicking.

But when St. Linus was ordained bishop of Rome (if we are to believe that Peter ordained Linus), Peter was alive then too. In fact, I am quite inclined to believe that no bishop received apostolic succession directly from Peter while he was not alive and kicking.

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Originally Posted by IAlmisry
Originally Posted by Utroque
Originally Posted by IAlmisry
Simply put, the Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium, promulgated by the same author of Ut Unum Sint, bears no resemblance to the operation of the Church of the first millenium, whereas the Orthodox Churches still operate under that constitution of the first millenium. Holy Tradition, consisting of Scripture and the Fathers backed by history, demonstrate that.

One could say the Divine Liturgy as offered today bears little resemblance to the Eucharistic assembly recorded in 1 Corinthians, Chapter 11; but to say that it bears no resemblance is rather gratuitous as is your assumption that history is on the side of the Orthodox churches with regard to this issue of ecclesiastical constitution.
Hardly. Canly you show any instance of the first Millenium Church operating in accord with the Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium?



Originally Posted by Utroque
I am still waiting for these churches to find the same constitutional unity that the bishops of the Catholic Church found, in union with their "supreme pontiff", to make the following proclamation:

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These Churches, although separated from us, possess true sacraments, above all by apostolic succession, the priesthood and the Eucharist, whereby they are linked with us in closest intimacy.
Let them confess the Orthodox Faith. We don't look for any constitutional unity elsewhere.

Originally Posted by Utroque
The closest intimacy! That Rome is treated as some kind of Trojan Horse by some Orthodox circles, I find little better than something scripted by Dan Brown or Rev. Ian Paisley. I'm sure you'll come up with all the mud from the past to prove that their fears are justified. Marduk has offered some thoughtful understandings concerning Pastor Aeternus that present material for reaching some rapprochement, but you seem intent on responding with the detritus of history's ills.
How about something from the mud of the present? Like the silence that still meets your synod of middle eastern bishops at the Vatican calling for the law promised two decades ago to allow them to exercise the rights supposedly guaranteed to them by the "supreme pontiff", and ordain married men? Has any Latin ordinary in the West been disciplined to take it upon himself to dictate to the heads of the sui juris? Why do the sui juris not have the same status in their own church when in the West that Latin ordinaries have in the sui juris homelands?

Once can debate how well the sui juris churches serve as bridges, but no one can deny they make excellent canaries in the mine shaft.

For one, the Church of the first millennium included the primatial see of Rome as does the CCEO, and her role as court of final appeal is explicitly affirmed in accordance with Canon III of Sardica in the 4th century. Do the Orthodox canons?

Not mud at all. This is a pastoral problem that arises when two distinct church disciplines come into conflict. Something Orthodoxy does not have to deal with since, as far as I know, there are no Latin eparchies, within the fold. Eastern bishops can certainly ordain married men within their own canonical territories, and I think it is a matter of time before it is openly permitted in territories that are clearly Latin. Most of the rumbling comes from individual Latin bishops, uneasy with EC neighbors, and not the Pope. Who said that Latin prelates, at least in 2013, have more latitude or status when operating in eastern canonical territories than their eastern counterparts do when in the west?

Asphyxiation is your assessment of Eastern Catholic churches, but the people of my EC church are breathing clear air, thank you.

Pace e Bene!

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