www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West difference betweem Eastern Catholicism and Orthodoxy?

Yes. The services, prayers, etc. are nearly interchangeable between Ukrainian Catholics and Ukrainian Orthodox. Ditto Ruthenians. Many communities, for various reasons, switched back and forth between the communions with very little noticeable changes on the ground. My jurisdiction (ACROD) was founded by disaffected Greek Catholics who returned to Orthodoxy. We still hold a lot in common with the Byzantine Catholics and you will see both jurisdictions using each other's materials because of the common heritage.

In fact, Ukrainian Orthodox scholars (e.g. Metropolitan Ilarion Ohienko of Canada) have affirmed that the UGCC liturgical books can even be said to be "Russified."

In Ukraine itself, Orthodox scholars and prelates have said and written that the UGCC liturgical texts are excellent. Latinized devotions are often kept under separate covers for private use.

One Ukrainian Catholic prayerbook I have has both types of the Rosary, that of Pope St John Paul II AND that of St Seraphim of Sarov - including very many prayers taken from Orthodox saints of Greece and Russia as well as Ukraine.

On the other hand, there are ROC parishes in Russia that will even display RC statues like that of Our Lady of Loreto or the Pieta (as Griego Catolico here has shown with actual links).

The mainstream UGCC has done a solid job of returning to its Byzantine Orthodox liturgical heritage and it continues to develop it further.

Alex

Can someone explain me what the Eastern Churches gained by joining the Catholic Church in 1596? What i mean by that is what was the objective of the Eastern Churches in joining the Catholic Church? Was it to fulfill John 21:17?

What the Eastern Churches had to submit to other than falling under another hierarchy? Did the Catholic Church "force" them to believe in dogmas that are totally contrary to their Orthodox background?

BenJohn146,

The reasons for the 1596 union are multiple. Constantinople was a mess (have been overrun by the Muslims a century earlier). The civil authorities at that time were Roman Catholic, so there were practical benefits (and the hope they might stop being treated as second-class Christians). Some did see Rome as the ultimate arbiter of truth, but a larger number saw the union as a re-establishment of communion with Rome without loosing that communion with Constantinople.

In other words, it's complicated!

Others will post more.

John

Just to add to what the Administrator has said above, Constantinople became very suspicious of the Ruthenian Orthodox bishops (by "Ruthenian" here it is meant "Ukrainian and Belarusyan").

Constantinople and Rome acted very much alike as patriarchal centres, to be sure. There was a "pull" factor toward western Europe because of the great influence of the Jesuits via the great universities, European civilization as a whole and the better position of Catholic bishops with respect to Rome.

Constantinople actually tried to control the Ruthenian bishops to the point that it placed laymen, heads of the stauropeghial brotherhoods, OVER bishops - something that was entirely not to the Orthodox bishops' taste at all!

Today, Orthodox anti-uniate polemics attack the subservience of EC bishops, but, in fact, it was precisely such subservience toward Constantinople that tended to push the Ruthenian Orthodox bishops in Rome's direction.

I don't know what you've been reading in this connection, Ben, but I wouldn't mind having you outline what you believe are the dogmas that are entirely not in keeping with Orthodoxy at this historical juncture.

In fact, Orthodoxy at that time was heavily (and voluntarily) influenced by western Latin Catholicism.

In Greece, St Nicodemus the Hagiorite, for example, translated a number of western spiritual classics, including Loyolas' "Spiritual Exercises" although he gave the book a different title. He liked the book, even though he got into trouble once his confreres disccovered who the original author was. To this day, that book is read by even Athonite monks. The "Imitation of Christ" was also translated by him, as it was by St Peter Mohyla, Metropolitan of Kyiv. The "Unseen Warfare" was likewise translated by Nicodemus and it is the "Spiritual Combat" by Scupoli (also translated and read widely by Anglicans of the time). St Theophane the Recluse translated it into Russian with many more changes than Nicodemus had done.

I say all this to indicate that the "best of the West" was appropriated by many circles within Orthodoxy at the time of the Unia. Later, Orthodox seminarians went to study in Paris and Rome and adopted even more Western devotions such as that to the Immaculate Conception of the BVM.

St Dmitri (Tuptalenko), Metropolitan of Rostov was particularly devotion to the IC, wore a medal of the IC that was popular among the Orthodox Brotherhoods of the Immaculate Conception in and around Kyiv at the time and, upon his repose, he asked to be buried in a Church dedicated to the "Conception of St Anne."

St Peter Mohyla, the Wallachian Metropolitan of Kyiv, Halych and Rus', insisted on teaching the existence of Purgatory and resisted the efforts of the Orthodox patriarchs gathered in Jassy to approve his "Orthodox Catholic Catechism" without it. He also emphasized the procession of the Holy Spirit "through the Son" as the "Eastern way of understanding the western 'Filioque.'"

As for the papacy, it cannot be reiterated too strongly that, at that time in history, the Ruthenian bishops sought union with Rome as a way to actually liberate themselves from the annoying dominance of Constantinople over them, together with the unseemly authority that the EP's lay reps exercised over them as well.

Add to this the fact that many Ruthenian bishops were quite enthusiastic about closer ties to Europe rather than with Constantinople under the Turks or with "barbaric Muscovy" at the time where, for example, neither education nor cultural refinement were that Church's strongpoints.

As for the later Latinizations that gripped the "Orthodox in communion with Rome" (for that is how the original EC's of Ruthenia called themselves - Russian Catholics to this day call themselves "Russian Orthodox in communion with Rome" or "Russian Orthodox-Catholics"), Orthodoxy itself was not immune to them.

Anti-EC Orthodox polemics likes to say that this was "imposed" by Rome when, in fact, Rome had nothing to do with Latinization at all. The King of Poland had an interest in making his Orthodox subjects into Catholics, but when this caused real division, even the Poles rejected the Unia.

Anti-EC Orthodox polemics, among many other myths that they spread, affirm that EC's had a privileged position under RC-controlled areas. And this is a complete fabrication since, for example, the EC Metropolitan followed RC episcopal processions in last place, even after the lowliest RC bishop!

In terms of faith differences, the Ruthenian Orthodox bishops at Brest saw a real agreement in terms of faith that was already achieved at the Council of Florence - but which was rejected by the radical Orthodox faction, at the council and in Greece and Russia. If there was any kind of wide disparity between Rome and Orthodoxy in terms of faith and practice, the Ruthenian Orthodox who came into union with Rome didn't see it.

Again, anti-EC Orthodox polemics wildly insists that the Catholic Church imposed this and that on the EC's, when, in fact, it was the Ruthenian Orthodox bishops, in the points of the Union of Brest itself, who asked that the Kingdom of Poland prevent Constantinople's "policemen" from entering and causing further disruptions to the life of their Church! If anything, this showed how anxious those Orthodox bishops were to move as far away from the EP's authoritarianism and from "barbaric Muscovy's" political influence as possible.

There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that the Ruthenian Orthodox bishops saw in the Union of Brest anything other than a practical renewal of the decrees of the Council of Florence and that of Lyons earlier (which were signed by St Peter (Akerovych) Metropolitan of Kyiv - an Orthodox Saint even though he never repudiated his personal communion with Rome stemming from Lyons). And they saw such a Union as bringing the benefits of European spiritual and cultural life to their Church and people within the same unified Church that existed before the East-West schism - and there was never any agreement as to when that finally occurred - there were Orthodox who argued that it NEVER occurred as far as the Church of Kyiv was concerned and that the Union of Brest was but a formal reaffirmation of such communion with Rome, especially as the Sixth Ecumenical Council had underlined earlier.

Alex

Wow thank you! So much clearer! From what i understand, it is really from a cultural and geographical point of view that these Eastern Churches got linked with Orthodoxy... right?(I'm just confirming that its what i have understand, English is not my first tongue.)

Alex,

Thank you for this wonderful summary of the Union of Brest! I wonder if you might recommend any texts on the same theme but about other Eastern & Oriental Catholic Churches (Melkites, Romanians, Syro-Malankar Catholics, etc.)?

Thank you!

Messdiener

I take exception to the idea that the union of Florence was rejected by "Orthodox radicals." True, there was some stubbornness on both sides, but the ball was plainly in Rome's court, since they are the ones who provoked the schism and the onus was on them to satisfy the Orthodox that the filioque was in accord with the catholic faith. When the Orthodox brought out Saint Maximus' letter to Marinus, with its explanation of the filioque, as a basis for union, the Latins rejected it, thereby greatly strengthening the suspicion that the filioque was to be interpreted as making the Son a cause of the Spirit. The Latins clearly wanted nothing but total submission from the Orthodox. And, while I think some of the arguments against the filioque might be over the top, I think the Orthodox fathers were right to see, behind the filioque, an alarming aggrandizement of power on the part of Rome. This suspicion was vindicated by later Latin councils, especially the unequivocal proclamations of Vatican I on papal supremacy.

Dear Swan,

Sorry - I should have used "Orthodox radical" in the singular!

Fr. John Meyendorff (+memory eternal!) would have agreed with the Orthodox side at Florence, but he himself, in at least two places in his publications, took strong exception to St Mark of Ephesus' methodology which he felt was severely limited.

Also, we know today that the West developed the Filioque as part and parcel of its particular Triadology i.e. the inner Life of the Trinity (I forget the exact terminology, haven't reviewed it in a while).

But Meyendorff and others agreed that both sides could have come to an agreement on the procession of the Spirit "Through the Son" while Rome could have removed the Filioque unilaterally. That didn't happen and that really isn't germane to the topic here.

The Ruthenian Orthodox Bishops of the late sixteenth century who considered the Union of Florence as their real "template" of unity were content to leave the Latin Creed with its Filioque alone, as long as they didn't need to include it in the "Greek version." Clearly, THEY believed there was no real conflict, especially since the majority of Greek bishops who had participated in the Florentine Council signed its decrees. And those decrees followed the same pattern - Rome can do as it wishes so long as it doesn't impose the Filioque and the purgatorial fire et alia on the East.

Also, there were Greek Orthodox hierarchs, like Bessarion, who had come to consider Eastern Orthodox theology as simply, for want of a better word, "backward." They were in love with Renaissance Europe and the great strides in progress, education and culture it had made. They saw scholastic theology as superior to any other which is why they had no problem with the Filioque which, like the Latins, they came to see as "logical" based on reducing Triadology down to the inner relations of the Divine Persons etc. In other words, one could only "identify" the Persons in the Holy Trinity in these terms.

The Patristic tradition of the Cappadocian Fathers rejected that way of doing Trinitarian theology. But the disaffection with them and other aspects of Orthodoxy by both the Greeks at Lyons and Florence and the Ruthenians at Brest and later had not only political considerations (which, again, anti-EC Orthodox polemics emphasizes), but, more importantly, the cultural weltanschauung of the Greeks and Ruthenians who had become overwhelmingly attracted to a "progressive Europe" versus a "backward East" where Constantinople, under the Turkish Yoke, appeared paralyzed on all fronts to do anything for ecumenical Orthodoxy.

Even St Gennadios Scholarios, who took over from St Mark of Ephesus the defence of the Orthodox Church (and was himself a towering intellect equal to anyone in Europe in his time), expressed a profound admiration for the scholastic method of St Thomas Aquinas (something St Mark of Ephesus would never have done).

What is also fascinating about St Mark of Ephesus is that he not only opposed overtly Latin positions on Triadology and purgatory. He also opposed what he believed to have been the Latin reticence on the holy Conception of the Theotokos (something Aquinas denied). Both sides misunderstood each other on Original Sin - they only knew they disagreed with one another rather than moving to create a new synthesis on the subject. But the Immaculate Conception, which addresses primarily and only the issue of the Augustinian view on Original Sin as touching the Mother of God, was years before it was universally accepted within the RC Church.

As for papal jurisdiction - that was not the problem then that it is today, Greek suspicions notwithstanding. Even Eugenikos was willing to overlook those suspicions as long as the West accepted the historic Nicene Creed without the Filioque (his minimal requirement for church unity which he was in favour of).

St Mark of Ephesus spent the rest of his life defending his unwillingness to sign the Florentine unity decrees not only against Roman Catholic debaters, but also against those among the Greeks who truly did consider him to be a "radical."

As he lay dying, his last will and testament included his wish that no Greek bishop/theologian who was in favour of the Florentine unity Council attend his funeral.

Alex

Dear Messdiener,

There certainly are excellent studies on these other EC Churches and I will confess to having focused largely on my own Particular tradition in that respect.

I promise to time filling in my woeful ignorance on these histories!

Alex

Again, the Greeks at Florence- including St. Mark- offered a compromise where the filioque could be considered orthodox, provided that it was explained in a way that agreed with St. Maximus, who defended the filioque in his letter to Marinus. This was a great opportunity for unity which the Latins, not the Orthodox, rejected. And yes, Papal overreach was already an issue then, seeing that Rome regarded herself as having the right to unilaterally alter the ecumenical creed.

You can see that Papal supremacy was already widely believed in the Latin church at the time of the council of Lyons, even if not officially dogmatized. For instance, in Thomas Aquinas: http://dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraErrGraecorum.htm#b33

OK, but St Maximus the Confessor would more likely be a good advocate on behalf of the Latins than the Orthodox . . . That is a topic for another thread.

Suffice it to say that there truly was a missed opportunity regarding the removal of the Filioque at the time of Florence. However, the fact remains that at both Lyons and Florence there were Orthodox who believed the Filioque to be either legitimate and/or a Latin view which as long as they were not obliged to keep it, was not an insuperable obstacle to reunion. In other words, the Orthodox at Florence were divided on the issue with Mark being the dissenting voice. One could argue that politics played a great role. Others would argue that the European Renaissance played an even greater role.

As for the papacy, both sides agreed that the authority of the bishop/hierarch was and is ABSOLUTE. This goes for the very local bishop to any of the Pentarchy. HOW one interprets that was, at Florence, open to interpretation and there was more than one position taken on the papacy at that time, as Fr. Meyendorff has written about extensively (also Archbishop Kallistos).

As for the Ruthenian Orthodox bishops who signed the Union of Brest, they actually preferred Rome over Constantinople given the way the EP was treating them. They saw Rome as being in possession of a powerful jurisdictional authority - yes. But they also saw how the power of the local RC bishop was so much greater than theirs at the time where the EP had appointed lay leaders of the stauropeghial brotherhoods over them.

Apart from any discussion about the nature of the exercise of papal or patriarchal authority, the Ruthenian hierarchs were responding to the "situation on the ground" when they decided that Rome, which was further away from them than Constantinople, was the "go to" See.

Again, I'm not disagreeing with anything you've said. I'm just looking at things from a pragmatist perspective. The whole discussion of the range and nature of the exercise of papal authority was and is a prickly topic.

Alex

Alex,

Even if you do not personally know every detail about the history of these other Churches, would you know of any (introductory?) texts on the same topic? I am eager to learn!

Thank you!

Messdiener

Certainly Donald Attwater's work on the various Eastern Churches is excellent!

Alex