www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology "In Christ There Is No East or West"

I think that too many of us here on the forums tend to forget this.

Thus it if often said when a Catholic sites a Latin source: "Oh, that's for Latins. We Easterners don't like it and don't have to accept it."

I think it must be emphasised that the Church is a composite of spiritualities and theologies from all cultures of the world.

Thus, the words and deeds of Eastern theologians AND Western theologians apply to everybody and, when there appears to becontradiction, we must do our best to reach a consensus.

Let me submit an example:

ORIGINAL SIN

It is often said that Eastern Catholics believe different things on this than their Latin brethren.

But is this really so?

Latin theology identifies Original Sin not as a personal fault on the individual, but as the deprivation of supernatural sanctifying grace. It was the Protestants who identified it as a personal fault. In Latin theology, Original Sin is only a sin in the corporate sense, since in Adam all Humanity was one, and as a whole we share in that sin.

Eastern Catholics also agree that baptisms recieve the supernatural gift of the Holy Spirit at baptism.

Although Eastern theology may not frequently use the TERM "Original Sin", properly understood they do believe in it.

So when Latins say that Mary did not carry the stain of Original Sin, we mean that she always had that since the moment she was concieved she had the supernatural indweling of the Spirit. And what Eastern Catholic does not believe that Mary had sanctifying grace in her since her conception?

Thus it can be said that Eastern Catholics believe in the Immaculate Conception.

I believe that we must use a similar approach when we talk about things like Purgatory, Indulgences, Birth Control, Divorce/Remarriage, peoper form of sacraments, etc.

Rather than say "I'm Eastern and don't believe that!" We need to take a look at the Church's heritage as a whole and find a way to reconcile out two schools of thought.

I believe that in Christ there is no East or West (That's from an Orthodox hymn I once heard) and that the key to getting along on the forums is to understand our different traditions rather than to insist on keeping seperate.

Terminology and worship can differ, but we must share the same faith; otherwise, how are we any better than Liberal Protestants (i.e. "full communion" of Episcopal Church and ELCA)?

Hello, Lordkrishna!

Your four posts since registering (Aug 22) shows you are ready to engage in all sorts of discussions.

A lot of students these days interested in things India! Can you share with us what you know about India? I have Indian friends and teachers. What is it about India that fascinates you?


Joe




[This message has been edited by Joe Thur (edited 08-23-2001).]

Dear Theosis,

Then why do you want to join the Eastern Church if you don't see any difference between East and West?

In any event, we've had discussions here galore about Original Sin and the other issues you raise.

The differences are there and they are also differences in approaches to the same mysteries.

Alex

Truly, JOE, I don't have any particular interest in India.

I got this e-mail address about 4 years ago after watching an episode of Xena, where the Warrior Princess met Krishna and the god Hanumanan (sp?).

ORTHO, I never said there weren't any differences in emphasis or in liturgy.

I truly am enchanted with Eastern emphasis on Theosis and other ways of explaining Catholic doctrine. I like the mystical approach. But I don't see any differences whatsoever in Eastern or Western Catholic teaching, even if we soimetimes use different terminology.

There really is no difference between the Western and Eastern Catholic doctrine of Original Sin, save for some terminological differences.

I think many Eastern Christians tend to confuse the Catholic understanding with the Protestant understanding. For Protestants, Original Sin is a true sin. Not so for Catholics, East or West.

I am also attracted to Eastern Catholic liturgy, although, the Norvus Ordo is probablt closer to the Liturgy of the Early Church that John Chrysostom was.

I don't think the Apostles' liturgy was all that elaborate, especially considering that the first Divine Liturgy was a Passover Seder.

[This message has been edited by Theosis (edited 08-23-2001).]

>>>But is this really so?<<<

Yes. First read Augustine, then read Gregory of Nyssa. Contemporaries yet as different as night and day.

Now, Joe, I'm shocked...why not ask me? I'M AN INDIAN!! Hehehe...

StuartK wrote:

"Yes. First read Augustine, then read Gregory of Nyssa. Contemporaries yet as different as night and day."

But, does this make necessarily better or more valid than the other? As so many from either the West or the East would propose?

Perhaps, just perhaps, there were always differences in the Eastern and Western expressions of Christianity and both are valid.

A lot of this official "folderol" of doctrinal this and apologetic that is the red herring that allows folks to do the sheep and goat thing.

As Byzantine/Constantinopolitan Christians, we follow the traditions and practices that we have inherited from our ancestors -- the very folks who saved us from the lunacy of the Crusaders and the evil of Islam. But we do what we do because we are 'koinotis', that is: "community".

Christ told us to love one another; and our villages and towns all through the Mid-East, the Balkans, the Levant, and up the Balkan peninsula both accepted and lived their Christianity because the whole community adopted these values. COMMUNITY.

A lot of this official "folderol" of doctrinal this and apologetic that is the red herring that allows folks to do the sheep and goat thing.

As Byzantine/Constantinopolitan Christians, we follow the traditions and practices that we have inherited from our ancestors -- the very folks who saved us from the lunacy of the Crusaders and the evil of Islam. But we do what we do because we are 'koinotis', that is: "community".

Christ told us to love one another; and our villages and towns all through the Mid-East, the Balkans, the Levant, and up the Balkan peninsula both accepted and lived their Christianity because the whole community adopted these values. COMMUNITY.

Some of our peoples have understood the command to be in communion with Peter; others have not done so. But for those who cherish communion with the See of Rome, this should not mandate a wholesale acceptance of everything that is Peter's Western patrimony. It should only mean that the community must live its life in accordance with its (Constantinopolitan)understanding of the Gospel though in communion with the See of Peter. To ask Byzantine Christians to adopt, hook, line and sinker, the world-view of the Western Church is just not acceptable to us. And, THANK GOD!!, it is not the view of the Universal Church as expressed through the Councils.

So, we'll continue to abstain from meat on Fridays (and sometimes on Wednesdays too); and we'll fast from midnight from everything --except water and perhaps toothpaste-- before communion on Sunday (be kind to your priest: floss, brush and use mouthwash); we'll continue to support the candle industry both in church and at home; we'll keep the icon-writers very busy; we'll buy the golden stick-pin crosses and ribbons for baptisms for everybody who is present in the church; we'll buy the fish for the mnemosinon(mercy meals)dinners at the church and prepare the psitari (wheat, pomegranates and sugar) for those who attend the Parastas.

Just because we feel that we must be in communion with the See of Peter, does not mean that we must abdicate who we are and who we have been.

And while many RCs believe that they truly understand who we Byzantines are, I must respectfully suggest that unless one has spent several years among our people(s), there is no way that one can truly understand and appreciate the wonderful gift that we have inherited from our persecuted ancestors.

My hat is off to our Melkite brothers and sisters; my hat is also off -- with a profound bow -- to our Ukrainian brothers and sisters -- since both (and others) have kept the Christian faith AND their ecclesiastical understanding of what the faith means among the people. THEY know. Because their faith has been tested through the blood of martyrs and the persecution of those of the Faith. (I won't even mention the persecutions that have been visited upon the Armenians).

As Easterns, we have this knowledge in our bones.

To suggest that a theological understanding of the Eastern Church and a few visits to our liturgies can adequately represent who we are is pure arrogance. It is not even a pale approximation of the truth. We are "peoples"; we are "ethnos"; we are the "remnant" in the Christian community and to suggest that we be subsumed into the "CHURCH" as many RCs would understand it, is to do violence to who we are.

I find it amusing that many contemporary RCs are very intersted in finding common ground with the peoples of other religious communities, whether Protestant, Buddhist, Hindu, Zoroastrian, Jewish or other but they are unwilling to allow other Petrine Christians to be who they are without putting them into the "Catholic Blender". It is indeed wonderful (and a sign of the HOly Spirit) that Catholics are open to working with other religious communities -- we are ALL God's children.

But please, give us non-Roman but Petrine Christians a break. We are indeed in communion with the Holy Father; but we aren't "YOU". We are "US". And while we love the Holy Father personally (John Paul II has TRULY been a father to us in the East), we need to be understood as 'adult Christians', capable of being our own persons and our own Churches. While in communion with Rome, we are assuredly mature Christian communities who can exist on our own without being forced into lock-step uniformity with the Roman communion despite being in communion with the Holy See.

PLEASE!! Leave us to be who we are without imposing this, that or the other modality upon us. If necessary, just forget that we exist and do your stuff upon your own and leave us be.

Blessings!

Dr. John,

Amen! You GO!

Vive la difference!

God is making us whom He wants us to be. We cannot be whom He wants us to be without being ourselves.

In our being ourselves as Churches, ISTM, God is making a gift of us to each other. We may learn to look at each other in reverence and respect to find the Image that each of us reflects somewhat differently. When we learn that, we will be content to let each of us, the Churches in communion with our servant in Rome as well as our Orthodox and Oriental Sister Churches, be who we are. We will even relish rather than fear the differrence.

Until that point in God's time, it is probable that we will have to remind some of us, Westerners at this writing, of our truth.

Hopefully we will all be quick learners!

At any rate, I am very happy that you have returned to the Forum to share your special light with the rest of us in the discussions here.

Prayers for you and your mother. Remember me when you pray!

Please do not let the written expression impede the meaning and the love.

JOY!

Dear Inawe, thanks for your comments. It is good to hear your voice again. I think a lot of us have missed hearing each others voices over the past several weeks.

Blessings to you!

Glory be to Jesus Christ!

The Eastern Catholic church has the same Faith as the Latin Church; it expresses that Faith differently, but not less or more Catholic. The Eastern Catholic Church theologically is working out its position in the Mystical Body of Christ and in the process of working out its exact place many of those, including myself, have divergent opinions about its role, but theosis is the primary focus of Eastern Catholics and although we get our blood boiling about things that happened in the Church hundreds of years ago, just like true easterners; our goal is metanoia, our goal, our focus, is to be transformed by the Uncreated Divine Energy of the Holy Trinity in the Holy Mysteries - in the Church which is Life itself. So do Eastern Catholics believe that Thomistic terms to define our Faith are the ONLY way to define our Faith? some do and some don't - most are trying diligently to be witnesses for Christ about our oun Eastern Traditions and customs, theology and praxis and do not see things in terms of Trent and Thomas, but we accept all of the Truths contained therein and take the "whole Counsel of God" and the pleroma of the Catholic Magisterium, but expressed in an eastern theological manner.


In Christ


Robert, Chief Amongst Sinners

To re-formulate an old saw (and bumpersticker): A Catholic without Scholasticism is like a fish without a bicycle.

To re-state: A fish can't use a bicycle because by nature it has no arms or legs. An Eastern Christian can't use Scholasticism because we don't have the concepts or the "soul" for it. It's great for Western Christians; for us, it's like buying a sweater and boots for your dog. Quaint and cute-sy, but stupid.

As Eastern Christians, we AREN'T rejecting who Westerns are, or what Westerns believe, or even remotely suggesting that Western practices aren't good Christian practices. We're just saying: we do it differently, and please leave us alone.

What if the shoe were on the other foot and we told you that you have to crown your marriage partners or else the marriage would be invalid? Or that you have to give "confirmation" at the time of baptism, otherwise your First Communion kids would be receiving Eucharist invalidly or illicitly? Or that "First Communion" must be abolished since infants and babies are entitled to receive Holy Eucharist by virtue of their baptism? Or that your parish priest couldn't be ordained unless he were married or committed to monastic rules? Or that unless you fasted on Fridays and for 54 days prior to Pascha (Easter), then you'd be in violation of the ancient canons? Or that all statues had to go since we carry on (through the Councils!) the ancient Jewish prohibition against 3-dimensional representations? (Hey, it's SCRIPTURE!!!)

I suspect that there'd be massive revolution or at least universal grumbling and protest about this "imperious" imposition from the Eastern Churches on the West.

Do you get my point?

Blessings!!!