www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Heresy as defined by Rome

StuartK,

Perhaps you could address the original question before we discuss the topics covered in your last post. It doesn't seem anyone is willing or able to do so.

>>>Perhaps you could address the original question before we discuss the topics covered in your last post. It
doesn't seem anyone is willing or able to do so.<<<

As the original question was based on fallacious premises, there is no proper answer to it, nor any need to provide one.

StuartK,

Is it "fallicious" because the canons no longer apply or because Byzantine Catholics believe in the definitions of Rome - such as merits and indulgences?

As I posted in another board, it does indeed seem strangely odd that the acceptance or non-acceptance of certain beliefs is just not up for discussion. You know, this filioque thing, the immaculate conception and bodily assumption of Mary the Theotokos, merits & indulgences, papal infallibility, etc. etc.
If it is possible to merely enter into communion with Rome without professing the same articles of faith that all the rest of the Roman Catholic church does, then why not admit Evangelicals, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc. After all, it would be said that the 2 heretofore separate bodies who are now as one merely have members who agree to interpret certain points of belief a bit differently from each other.
If it is not possible, and Christians of the Byzantine tradition are required to profess the articles of faith as explicitly defined by the Roman See, then it would be philosophically/semantically troublesome to say: Christians of the Byzantine tradition in communion with Rome. Instead, one would have to refer to Catholics who celebrate the Byzantine liturgy and nothing more.
If we could successfully resolve this issue, we would have the argumentative arsenal, if you will, to propose to our respective communities why union is only logical and good.

When a man and a woman are crowned into marriage they become one flesh. From what I see from some of the participants here, once they are married both husband and wife automatically look identical, think identically and lose their individual abilities of thought and expression. This expectation is certainly not reflective of the elasticity that has held the various Churches within Orthodoxy together for 2,000 years. One can casually look at the Church Fathers and see that each had a unique method of expressing the Faith yet all were considered acceptable to the Church.

Stuart is quite correct in that the original question was based upon false premises. There is really nothing to discuss. I would, however, welcome cpapadopoulos to these forums and encourage him to use the search feature on this forum to see the answers to his questions.

>>>Is it "fallicious" because the canons no longer apply or because Byzantine Catholics
believe in the definitions of Rome - such as merits and indulgences?<<<

It is fallacious because it has no effect on the life of the Byzantine Catholic Churches. It isn't present in the liturgy, it isn't included in our catechetical materials, and therefore, from a practical standpoint, it is utterly irrelevant to us. That some individual Byzantine Catholics may believe some of these things is a matter of personal theological speculation, nothing more. You should note that quite a lot of the people in our Churches are actually Latin Catholics who have not formally changed their affiliation. As long as they don't make pests of themselves, they are welcome in our midsts. Their own beliefs are their own, and as long as they are not explicitly incompatible with the underlying truth of doctrine, I see no problem with them. After all, the Orthodox Church has never ruled dogmatically on any of this.

Stuart:
Fair enough.
But then why are Byzantine Catholics so maligned per se (i.e., not because of past Catholic proselytizing activity, but because of the very idea of Byzantine Catholicism) by the Orthodox (in general, though I assume some of us have actually relaxed enough to feel Love for our brethren, whoever they are... )
And, on the other hand, why did Christians of the Byzantine tradition go out of their way to establish union in the first place if doctrinal differences are moot? Why not just welcome Catholics into your churches and celebrate liturgy with them?(If there's a reason besides the primacy of Peter, etc.)

>>>Fair enough.
But then why are Byzantine Catholics so maligned per se (i.e., not because of past
Catholic proselytizing activity, but because of the very idea of Byzantine Catholicism) by
the Orthodox (in general, though I assume some of us have actually relaxed enough to
feel Love for our brethren, whoever they are... )<<<

A good question. One reasoon is that many Orthodox are actually unfamiliar with the history of the unia, and with the controversy currently surrounding the uniate Churches in Eastern Europe.

It is true that the Roman Church on occasion worked to create mirror Churches for the purposes of wooing away individual Orthodox Christians from their allegience. On the other hand, it is also true that many of the unions, most notably that of the Ukrainians and the Carpatho-Rusyn, arose as spontaneous movements within those Orthodox communities in response to very specific political, social and pastoral issues facing them.

Most of the current tensions between Orthodox and Byzantine Catholics can be attributed to the collapse of the Soviety empire and the re-emergence of the Greek Catholics from their catacomb existence.

It helps to remember that between 1947 and 1950, millions of Greek Catholics living in Ukraine, Poland, Hungary Romania and Slovakia were forcibly "converted" to the Orthodox Church when the Greek Catholic Churches were suppressed by the communist governments. In most cases, this involved nothing more than a change of the nameplate on the door, and a new priest. The people continued to worship as they always had, without ever formally renouncing their identity as Greek Catholics. A much smaller number went underground, maintaining a catacomb Church.

At the same time, the communist authorities, in a diabolically clever move, confiscated the properties of many Orthodox jurisdictions, as well as those of the Greek Catholics, and gave many of the latter to the Orthodox as "compensation". A great deal of property on both sides was desecrated, vandalized, or destroyed.

With the establishment of religious freedom in 1989, and then the collapse of the USSR in 1991, many of the Greek Catholic communities, especiall in Ukraine and Romania, felt free to express again the identity that they had never renounced. Overnight, in Ukraine, for instance, some 5000 parishes declared themselves to be "Greek Catholic".

This came as a major shock to both the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. The Orthodox, in the initial ecumenical discussions, had assured Rome that the uniate problem had been resolved once and for all; Rome took the Orthodox at their word on this--over the protests of Patriarch Joseph Slipji, by the way. As far as the Catholic Church knew, there were no more than a handful of uniates remaining.

Suddenly, there are literally millions of them, and they wanted back what had been taken from them. From the Orthodox position, this was catastrophic. First of all, few if any remembered that the churches which they thought were Orthodox property were actually confiscated Greek Catholic property. Secondly, the emergence of the Greek Catholic Church brought into sharp relief both the Orthodox Church's complicity in the suppression of the Greek Catholics, and their (generally) unrepented collaboration with the atheist communist regimes. Nationalist sentiment further exacerbated a volatile situation, for in Ukraine especially, the Moscow Patriarchate had used the Church to "Russify" the Ukrainian people. Now those same people saw the canonical Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine as hopeless compromised and identified with the hated Communist regime in Moscow. Hence the emergence of a variety of autocephalous movements in the Church of Kiev. And, in the midst of all that, the Greek Catholics, besides having an historical claim in Western Ukraine, also stood out as being among the few groups who did not compromise with the communists (not that they had any opportunity--they had no legal existence).

Thus, the Moscow Patriarchate, and to a lesser extent, the Romanian Patriarchate, began what amounted to a propaganda campaign against the resurgent uniates--attributing their renewal to the external influence of the Vatican. But in fact, the Vatican was just as flummoxed as anyone else. Only reluctantly did they agree to support Greek Catholic communities as they emerged, because, frankly, Rome would have been much happier had the Orthodox been correct in their assessment of the uniates' demise.

The other Orthodox communities, having little direct contact with the areas involved, simply took the Russian and Romanian propaganda at face value. How were they to know that the "Orthodox" Cathedral given to the uniates was in fact a Greek Catholic cathedral until 1948? How were they to know that the majority of the sheep supposedly stolen by Rome had never been in the Orthodox flock in the first place?

The uniates, for their part, contributed to the tensions by their obdurate demands for compensation. Romanian Greek Catholic Bishop John Michael of Canton, OH, has pointed out that the desire to acquire and retain property, and the willingness to use force to do so, are the two hands of Satan around the neck of the Church, squeezing its life out.

In addition, there was the "Rip Van Winckle" effect: the newly emergent Greek Catholic communities had had little or no contact with the mainstream of Catholic theological or ecclesiological thought. For them, it was still 1947, Vatican II had never happened, and the main purpose of the Greek Catholic Churches was the conversion of the "dissident" Orthodox schismatics. In addition, there was a real desire to differentiate themselves from the Orthodox, whom they, rightly or wrongly, saw as their oppressors. There were even splits within the Greek Catholic community, between those who had, without renouncing their Greek Catholic identity, continued to attend Orthodox churches, and those who had gone underground. A semi-Donatist movement began.

However, in most places in Eastern Europe, those tensions have subsided, and the two sides are learning to live with each other in peace. In Ukraine, relations between the Greek Catholic and Orthodox communities are cordial--the only exception being those die-hard adherents of the Moscow Patriarchate. The "proselytization" and "confiscations" of which Moscow complains are mainly inventions of a fevered Russian imagination. This is borne out by the observations of the Ukrainian Church Studies Group, a joint Orthodox-Catholic group seeking the reunification of the Church of Kiev, and by a number of outside observers. The situation in Romania is still unsettled, mainly because it has been dragged into domestic politics (Westernizers vs. Slavophiles), and because much of the ecclesiastical property taken from the Greek Catholics has not been returned, but remains unused by either community.

In the US, relations between the Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic communities is cordial. There is a great deal of cooperation at an official and unofficial level, and a good deal of intermarriage (which also leads to a great deal of intercommunion which both sides studiously avoid seeing or commenting upon).

In the Middle East, relations between the Melkite and the Antiochean communities are also very cordial, with ongoing discussions about reunification of the Church of Antioch, as well as joint collaborative ventures such as constructing common church buildings in Damascus and elsewhere.

Stuart:
Thanks for the reply.
In time, perhaps, the members of the reunited Body of Christ will look back on us and say, what were they thinking?

>>>And, on the other hand, why did Christians of the Byzantine tradition go out of their way to
establish union in the first place if doctrinal differences are moot? Why not just welcome
Catholics into your churches and celebrate liturgy with them?(If there's a reason besides
the primacy of Peter, etc.)<<<

To the second half of the question:

Most of the important unions were the result of socio-political pressures brought to bear upon the various Orthodox communities living on the edge of the East-West divide. The Ukrainians, from the middle of the 16th century, for instance, were increasingly under the rule of the Roman Catholic Kingdom of Poland-Lithuania. In the Carpathians, the Rusyn were being pressured by the Hungarians, who were at the time divided between Romans and Calvinists. They were therefore subjected to severe legal and financial disabilities. Priests were not paid, there were no seminaries or training schools, there were no books, taxes on ecclesial properties were high. These Orthodox communities first turned towards the patriarchates that had held their allegience for centuries--the Ukrainians towards Kiev (later Moscow), the Rusyn towards Constantinople. But the former was an enemy of Poland, and thus unable to provide help, while the latter was an enfeebled puppet of the Ottoman Sultans, and equally unable to help. For their own preservation, they turned to Rome, believing that they could achieve a union on terms similar to those laid out at Florence. Unfortunately, Latin ecclesiology had changed much in response to the Reformation, and the Roman Church no longer recognized the legitimacy of any other Church. So, instead of being received into communion as a distinct ecclesial entity, with its own Tradition and hierarchy, the Ukrainians and Rusyn were received into the Roman Church as repentent schismatics. Such is the tragedy of uniatism.

In the Middle East, the Church of Antioch maintained close ties to Rome from the 16th century onward. By the beginning of the 18th century, there were quite a few Antiocheans, including patriarchs, who, tired of domination from Constintinople under the Millet system, looked to Rome as a countervailing power. When, in 1724, Constintiople tried to foist a Greek candidate upon the See, a portion of the faithful put forward an alternative Syrian candidate, who happened to be pro-union.

There were other models of uniatism, too, in which Latin missionaries, whether from the Jesuit or Redemptorist orders, would set up a parallel hierarchy and clergy, and "fish' for converts. Often very much better funded than their Orthodox counterparts, they met with mixed success, but never achieved the degree of adherence that resulted when the union was due to an indigenous movement.

Kyrie Papadopoulos,

....on the other hand, uniatism appeared at the city gates of too many Orthodox cities in the form of the infamous (but brilliant) Trojan horse. Their was a great deal of Papal duplicity involved in deceiving the "little people" among the Orthodox "victims" by (for example) telling them that the Pope had joined the Orthodox Church! Many Orthodox did not agree to the various unions and they were essentially branded outlaws; deprived of their churches; had their ecclesiastical presses destroyed or confiscated; and were even imprisoned and murdered, all with the cooperation of the church officials, including the "quisling" former Orthodox hierarchs. Orthodox hierarchs from Constantinople were prohibited from erecting Orthodox ecclesiastical church structures to serve the pastoral needs of the loyalist Orthodox.
In fact, these same Orthodox from Constantinople were stopped to the borders and prohibited from entering the "Orthodox lands."

The good news is that there were many heroic Orthodox who, like the great Greek saint St.Mark of Ephesus, resisted the apostasy of so many of their former brethren. Many Orthodox Brotherhoods were created to serve the spiritual needs of the loyal remnant and excellent educational programs were developed under difficult circumstances. The "Old Faith" did not die and go gently into night. Like true "Greeks" the loyalist Orthodox fought with pen and paper against the "New Turks" from the Latin West. And, much to chagrin of the Latins and their Uniat collaborators, Orthodoxy survived!

The air on Mount Athos is pure and clean this time of the year!

Vasili,

Don't you agree there is enough sin on both sides of the Schism?

Dave Ignatius DTBrown@aol.com

Here we go again. Yes, Yes, we all know about the wrongs commited by latins against the greeks, and wrongs commited by greeks against latins.

Vasili, since you are neither Catholic or Orthodox what is the pupose of your statements? You stated that you do not care about reconciliation between east and west, so are you just trying to sow discord between Catholics and Orthodox?

[This message has been edited by Khaled (edited 11-03-2000).]

But, Kyrie Papadopoulos is Hellenic and Orthodox and it is disrespectful not to tell the story from both sides. Yes, it is true there has been duplicity and atrocities on both sides, but the Orthodox never launched a missionary effort to subvert Rome and Roman jurisdictions and certainly never pillaged Rome. In fact, the Byzantines sent an army to the Italian peninsula to defeat a barbarian army and saved Rome. How did the pope of the day reward their efforts? He attempted to betray them to the pagan hordes! Go figure. But, I agree, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Kyrie eleison....Hospodi pomiluj.