A Catholic View of Eastern Orthodoxy (1 of 4)

First, I shall discuss why Catholics should not only show some ecumenical concern for Orthodoxy but also treat the Orthodox as their privileged or primary ecumenical partner.

Secondly, I shall ask why the schism between the Catholic and Orthodox churches occurred, focussing as it finally did on four historic 'dividing issues'.

Thirdly, I shall evaluate the present state of Catholic-Orthodox relations, with particular reference to the problem of the 'Uniate' or Eastern Catholic churches.

Fourthly and finally, having been highly sympathetic and complimentary to the Orthodox throughout, I shall end by saying what, in my judgment, is wrong with the Orthodox Church and why it needs Catholicism for (humanly speaking) its own salvation.

Part 1 First, then, why should Catholics take the Orthodox as not only an ecumenical partner but the ecumenical partner par excellence? There are three kinds of reasons: historical, theological and practical - of which in most discussion only the historical and theological are mentioned since the third sort - what I term the 'practical' - takes us into areas of potential controversy among Western Catholics themselves.

The historical reasons for giving preference to Orthodoxy over all other separated communions turn on the fact that the schism between the Roman church and the ancient Chalcedonian churches of the East is the most tragic and burdensome of the splits in historic Christendom if we take up a universal rather than merely regional, perspective. Though segments of the Church of the Fathers were lost to the Great Church through the departure from Catholic unity of the Assyrian (Nestorian) and Oriental Orthodox (Monophysite) churches after the Councils of Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451) respectively, Christians representing the two principal cultures of the Mediterranean basin where the Gospel had its greatest flowering - the Greek and the Latin - lived in peace and unity with each other, despite occasional stirrings and some local difficulties right up until the end of the patristic epoch.

That epoch came to its climax with the Seventh Ecumenical Council, Nicaea II, in 787, the last Council Catholics and Orthodox have in common, and the Council which, in its teaching on the icon, and notably on the icon of Christ, brought to a triumphant close the series of conciliar clarifications of the Christological faith of the Church which had opened with Nicaea I in 325.

The iconography, liturgical life, Creeds and dogmatic believing of the ancient Church come down to us in forms at once Eastern and Western; and it was this rich unity of patristic culture, expressing as it did the faith of the apostolic community, which was shattered by the schism between Catholics and Orthodox, never (so far) to be repaired. And let me say at this point that Church history provides exceedingly few examples of historic schisms overcome, so if history is to be our teacher we have no grounds for confidence or optimism that this most catastrophic of all schisms will be undone. 'Catastrophic' because, historically, as the present pope has pointed out, taking up a metaphor suggested by a French ecclesiologist, the late Cardinal Yves Congar: each Church, West and East, henceforth could only breathe with one lung.

No Church could now lay claim to the total cultural patrimony of both Eastern and Western Chalcedonianism - that is, the christologically and therefore triadologically and soteriologically correct understanding of the Gospel. The result of the consequent rivalry and conflict was the creation of an invisible line down the middle of Europe. And what the historic consequences of that were we know well enough from the situation of the former Yugoslavia today.

After the historical, the theological. The second reason for giving priority to ecumenical relations with the Orthodox is theological. If the main point of ecumenism, or work for the restoration of the Church's full unity, were simply to redress historic wrongs and defuse historically generated causes of conflict, then we might suppose that we should be equally - or perhaps even more - nterested in addressing the Catholic-Protestant divide. After all, there have been no actual wars of religion - simply as such - between Catholics and Orthodox, unlike those between Catholics and Protestants in sixteenth century France or the seventeenth century Holy Roman Empire.

But theologically there cannot be any doubt that the Catholic Church must accord greater importance to dialogue with the Orthodox than to conversations with any Protestant body. For the Orthodox churches are churches in the apostolic succession; they are bearers of the apostolic Tradition, witnesses to apostolic faith, worship and order - even though they are also, and at the same time, unhappily undered from the prima sedes, the first see. Their Fathers and other ecclesiastical writers, their liturgical texts and practices, their iconographic tradition, these remain loci theologici - authoritative sources - to which the Catholic theologian can and must turn in his or her intellectual construal of Catholic Christianity. And that cannot possibly be said of the monuments of Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed or any other kind of Protestantism.

To put the same point in another way: the separated Western communities have Christian traditions - in the plural, with a small 't' - which may well be worthy of the Catholic theologian's interest and respect. But only the Orthodox are, along with the Catholic Church, bearers of Holy Tradition - in the singular, with a capital 'T', that is, of the Gospel in its plenary organic transmission through the entirety of the life - credal, doxological, ethical - of Christ's Church.

There is for Catholics, therefore, a theological imperative to restore unity with the Orthodox which is lacking in our attitude to Protestantism - though I should not be misinterpreted as saying that there is no theological basis for the impulse to Catholic-Protestant rapprochement for we have it in the prayer of our Lord himself at the Great Supper, 'that they all may be one'. I am emphasising the greater priority we should give to relations with the Orthodox because I do not believe the optimistic statement of many professional ecumenists to the effect that all bilateral dialogues - all negotiations with individual separated communions - feed into each other in a positive and unproblematic way.

It would be nice to think that a step towards one separated group of Christians never meant a step away from another one, but such a pious claim does not become more credible with the frequency of its repeating. The issue of the ordination of women, to take but one particularly clear example, is evidently a topic where to move closer to world Protestantism is to move further from global Orthodoxy - and vice versa.

This brings me to my third reason for advocating ecumenical rapport with Orthodoxy: its practical advantages. At the present time, the Catholic Church, in many parts of the world, is undergoing one of the most serious crises in its history, a crisis resulting from a disorienting encounter with secular culture and compounded by a failure of Christian discernment on the part of many people over the last quarter century - from the highest office holders - to the ordinary faithful. This crisis touches many aspects of Church life but notably theology and catechesis, liturgy and spirituality, Religious life and Christian ethics at large. Orthodoxy is well placed to stabilise Catholicism in most if not all of these areas.

Were we to ask in a simply empirical or phenomenological frame of mind just what the Orthodox Church is like, we could describe it as a dogmatic Church, a liturgical Church, a contemplative Church, and a monastic Church - and in all these respects it furnishes a helpful counter-balance to certain features of much western Catholicism today.

Firstly, then, Orthodoxy is a dogmatic Church. It lives from out of the fullness of the truth impressed by the Spirit on the minds of the apostles at the first Pentecost, a fullness which transformed their awareness and made possible that specifically Christian kind of thinking we call dogmatic thought.

The Holy Trinity, the God-man, the Mother of God and the saints, the Church as the mystery of the Kingdom expressed in a common life on earth, the sacraments as means to humanity's deification - our participation in the uncreated life of God himself: these are the truths among which the Orthodox live, move and have their being.

Orthodox theology in all its forms is a call to the renewal of our minds in Christ, something which finds its measure not in pure reason or secular culture but in the apostolic preaching attested to by the holy Fathers, in accord with the principal dogmata of faith as summed up in the Ecumenical Councils of the Church.

Secondly, Orthodoxy is a liturgical Church. It is a Church for which the Liturgy provides a total ambience expressed in poetry, music and iconography, text and gesture, and where the touchstone of the liturgical life is not the capacity of liturgy to express contemporary concerns legitimate though these may be in their own context), but, rather, the ability of the Liturgy to act as a vehicle of the Kingdom, our anticipated entry, even here and now, into the divine life.

Thirdly, Orthodoxy is a contemplative Church. Though certainly not ignoring the calls of missionary activity and practical charity, essential to the Gospel and the Gospel community as these are, the Orthodox lay their primary emphasis on the life of prayer as the absolutely necessary condition of all Christianity worth the name.

In the tradition of the desert fathers, and of such great theologian-mystics as the Cappadocian fathers, St Maximus and St Gregory Palamas, encapsulated as these contributions are in that anthology of Eastern Christian spirituality the Philokalia, Orthodoxy gives testimony to the primacy of what the Saviour himself called the first and greatest commandment, to love the Lord your God with your whole heart, soul, mind and strength, for it is in the light of this commandment with its appeal for a God-centred process of personal conversion and sanctification - that all our efforts to live out its companion commandment (to love our neighbour as ourself) must be guided.

And fourthly, Orthodoxy is a monastic Church, a Church with a monastic heart where the monasteries provide the spiritual fathers of the bishops, the counsellors of the laity and the example of a Christian maximalism. A Church without a flourishing monasticism, without the lived 'martyrdom' of an asceticism inspired by the Paschal Mystery of the Lord's Cross and Resurrection, could hardly be a Church according to the mind of the Christ of the Gospels, for monasticism, of all Christian life ways, is the one which most clearly and publicly leaves all things behind for the sake of the Kingdom.

Practically speaking, then, the re-entry into Catholic unity of this dogmatic, liturgical, contemplative and monastic Church could only have the effect of steadying and strengthening those aspects of Western Catholicism which today are most under threat by the corrosives of secularism and theological liberalism.

My feelings exactly.

I can't see a cynical reason for the Roman Catholic Church to want unity with the Orthodox. We don't need the money, the numbers, or the headache.

And yet the Pope routinely stretches out his hand in friendship, only to have it slapped away. Publicly slapped. With presses printing and cameras clicking. The Pope answers this abuse with continued charity and good will. And yet again, he receives grief and humiliation for his efforts. But he always goes back for more.

In this way he is so much like Our Lord, it is not a grandiose thing at all to say he truly is Christ on Earth. We can be so proud of dearest Papa! If I were Orthodox, on the other hand, I might very well be embarrassed by all the silly tantrum throwing.

1600 years?

What happened to the first 400 years?

Quite a sizeable gap.

And if you're ever at the Orthodox bookstore at Hellenic College in Brookline, MA, you really should pick up the little brochure there, "How to Celebrate the Divine Liturgy in About An Hour" - or something like that. I was very amused by one Orthodox priest who told our class that he omits the Litanies of the Catechumens ("We haven't got any"), and another one who told me he "reads" the silent prayers "with my eyes - Evelyn Woods' Speed Reading Dynamics". Take it easy with that "unchanging liturgy" line!

My reference point to the "one holy catholic and apostolic" church is Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Savior who commissioned Peter and his successors, "Feed my lambs, feed my sheep, tend my sheep."

For me at least, it is a surer reference point than the one enjoyed by the three churches down the street road about 1/2 hour from here, all called Orthodox, none sharing Communion - or even a civil word, for that matter - with each other.

But based on the postings here and the words from Mt. Athos and Alexy II, civil words are in short supply on your side of the mountains.

It is no blasphemy. The Pope is rightly called our "Christ on Earth" inasmuch as he is considered as representing Christ to us as his vicar. Similiarly for the bishop of a local Church:

"For when ye are obedient to the bishop as to Jesus
Christ, it is evident to me that ye are living not after
men but after Jesus Christ, who died for us, that
believing on His death ye might escape death." (St. Ignatius, To the Trallians, 2:1)

"Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let
the people be; even as where Jesus may be, there is
the universal Church." (St. Ignatius, To the Symrnaeans, 8:2)

What happened to the first 400 years?

What happened is that the Liturgy of St. James, the first Liturgy of the Church, was shortened by St. John Chrysostomos (it used to be 4 hours long -- and try standing for the entire thing) without taking out the essentials of the original. As far as I know your Church recognizes St. John Chrysostomos, so I rest my case.

As for the other anecdotal evidence you site, it is not what one father says or what even a Church Father says, it is what the Church as the Body of Christ teaches.

We know that there are apostates in both Churches, but they do not speak for nor represent the Church. You need to widen your horizons my friend.

For your information, the Orthodox recognize +Peter and his role, but not the Roman Catholic interpretation of it. You may wish to read up more on how the popes acted and how the church was before the 4th century. You will find that such "Petrine Supremacy" was not claimed by early popes, and that Petrine primacy was a different thing altogether. But that's something for another thread -- and has been regurgitated too many times to make it worthwhile.

"it is not what one father says or what even a Church Father says, it is what the Church as the Body of Christ teaches."

Ah, but each of these parishes belong to a Diocese that calls itself "Orthodox," and they do NOT teach the same things . . . to the extent that they do not even recognize the legitimacy of each other's bishops.

So who's to say that one of these bishops isn't more correct than another?

Or that one Diocese or Synod is right and the other wrong?

People on this site consider the Ecumenical Patriarch a heretic.

Others consider the monks who consider him heretical to be heretical themselves.

It seems to me perfectly borne out by both your Church and the Episcopalians that when you have no single Pope, you have a bunch of popes (bishops).

No, I'm sorry. I still think your Orthodox "unity" is theoretical and abstract, not real and incarnate.

The title Viccar of Christ is a 5th century invention of ever-growing imperial papacy.

Quoting 1st century St. Ignatius out of context and connecting it to the "Vicar of Christ" concept is misleading to say the least.

St. Ignatius worked when the Church was nascent and under persecution. In his writings, +Ignatius had to stress the necessity of following all clergy as representatives, as icons of the Lord on earth, not as personified Christ. The Church theology was as yet not clearly defined and, let's not forget, the man was a man of God, but he was no Apostle.

He is known to have said "we ought to regard the bishop as the Lord Himself." First, coming from the Church of Antioch, founded by none other than +Peter himself, it is plain that +Ignatius did not mean only Peter, but all bishops. It is also clear from his life that he did not become a saint for his teaching but for his martyrdom, and that his teaching may have taken liberties that were not uncommon in the nascent Church.

His writings are notorious for being not well thought-through, unorganized, with run-on sentences and often apparently written in haste. Thus he says

"In like manner let all men respect the deacons as Jesus Christ, even as they should respect the bishop as being a type of the Father and the presbyters as the council of God and as the college of Apostles." [my emphases]

This is quite different from the generalization quoted before.

To say that the Pope is "our" Christ on Earth is saying that the Pope and Christ are one and the same! Then the Roman Catholics should have no problems worshiping the Pope, who is then considered "God" on earth, for Christ is God and assuming his Name is blasphemy.

You can think whatever you want, the fact remains that you have various offshoots of the Roman Catholic Church as well, all of which claim to be Roman Catholic. The unity of orthodoxy is in theology and not in man made traditions. The Orthodox Churches share the same canons. I have no clue which churches you are talking about, but I would bet that some of them are in schism, just as Old Catholics are.

I'm familiar with most Orthodox jurisdictions of any size here in the US, and I have trouble thinking of 3 jurisdictions that don't recognize the others as being Orthodox. Well over 90% of American Orthodox are in one of four jurisdictions (Greek, Serb, OCA, Antiochian), all of which fully recognize each other -- and there are multiple other smaller jurisdictions that also are mutually recognized as Orthodox.

You apparently live in a very odd place, if you have three local Orthodox parishes, none of which recognize the other as being Orthodox. I'm surprised that your Orthodox bishop and priest buddies haven't been able to clarify the situation for you.

There are TWO Ukrainian Orthodox Churches. I know the problem with one (from my bishop-friend who is no longer in New England and has not been for a long time; he was moved to Chicago and is not part of any of the three at all, he's OCA) has to do with a "self-ordination" at the hand of a dead bishop. A parishioner from the other one said their priest was pushing the idea of affiliation with the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine (independent of Moscow).

And one that is affiliated with a very strict monastery in Boston (where they've always had the picture of the Czar inside the front door with an oil lamp in front of it).

None of them are OCA or Greek Archdiocese.

And one that is affiliated with a very strict monastery in Boston (where they've always had the picture of the Czar inside the front door with an oil lamp in front of it).

The Czar and his martyred family were canonized as Saints in Russia, so for his icon to be in the church with an oil lamp is nothing "unacanonical."

... pushing the idea of affiliation with the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine (independent of Moscow)

You obviously don't know much about Orthodox Church but a good summary can be found here along with a detailed list and descriptive links for each "regular" and "irregular" church.

"All that having been said, I must sadly admit that, every time I come to Free Republic and read the Orthodox postings, I wonder why the Holy Father would even bother? We surely don't need the "numbers" or the money. And do we need the grief?"

Something to remember about Free Republic and really any forum where debate is public: the debate is not about the debaters. It's about the audience. Or in net-speak, it's all about the lurkers.

You see, far more people are reading this thread than those actually posting it. And often times how we conduct ourselves tells far more about us than the content of what we actually say. You will know a tree by the fruit that it produces.

In my view, Pope Benedict is pursuing ecumenism for one reason: he thinks it's the right thing to do and what our Lord wants.

That said, it would be naive to fail to note that there are some advantages to pursuing ecumenism from both a theological and practical perspective. The author of this article very succinctly lists some of the theological advantages and I see no reason to repeat those.

What I would add to that is a brief discussion of the more subtle advantages to pursuing ecumenism in spite of the rude response being received from some members of the Orthodox church. Again, it revolves around the notion that debate is not about the debaters, but about the audience. You see, in a subtle yet very powerful way, the Catholic church through it's actions is stating to the whole world: This Is What We're About. Conversely, the Orthodox are stating the same thing. This Is What We're About.

So ask yourself: which church is sending the more positive message? Which church would you rather be associated with? Which church is going to attract the people that you would want to be associated with?

There are ALWAYS people watching.

"Your Church looks great on paper, sounds great in theory. It's just nothing I recognize as 'one, holy, catholic and apostolic.'"
What is it that you are inspecting? I look at a lot of Eastern jurisdictions that I myself do not recognize any more than you as One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. I look at some that come close but don't quite measure up, and I look at some that don't even come close.
So I have to ask you, other than union with your pope, what do your require to persuade you that a jurisdiction is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic?

"So who's to say that one of these bishops isn't more correct than another?" TaxachusettsMan

Finally, you ask an intelligent question. I will endeavor to provide an intelligent answer, courtesy of a Western saint whom most Pope-worshipping azymites devoutly wish would go away.

"What is to be done if one or more dissent from the rest

What then will a Catholic Christian do, if a small portion of the Church have cut itself off from the communion of the universal faith? What, surely, but prefer the soundness of the whole body to the unsoundness of a pestilent and corrupt member? What, if some novel contagion seek to infect not merely an insignificant portion of the Church, but the whole? Then it will be his care to cleave to antiquity, which at this day cannot possibly be seduced by any fraud of novelty.

But what, if in antiquity itself there be found error on the part of two or three men, or at any rate of a city or even of a province? Then it will be his care by all means, to prefer the decrees, if such there be, of an ancient General Council to the rashness and ignorance of a few. But what, if some error should spring up on which no such decree is found to bear? Then he must collate and consult and interrogate the opinions of the ancients, of those, namely, who, though living in divers times and places, yet continuing in the communion and faith of the one Catholic Church, stand forth acknowledged and approved authorities: and whatsoever he shall ascertain to have been held, written, taught, not by one or two of these only, but by all, equally, with one consent, openly, frequently, persistently, that he must understand that he himself also is to believe without any doubt or hesitation" (St. Vincent of Lerins, "Commonitory", chapter III)

At least you don't challenge either facts: that the Pope approaches Orthodoxy with charity and good will and that Orthodoxy most often responds with nastiness and grief.

But I think RKBA Democrat has it right.

The Holy Father is doing what is right because it is right and because Our Lord asked it.

By doing this he is saying: This is what we are about.

And the nasty response he always gets, and that so many Orthodox people on this site chime in with, is saying: This is what we are about.

Thank God I'm already in the Church I want to be in.

There is nothing about the Orthodoxy I've met on this board, your own posts chief among the exhibits, that even remotely resonates with the high priestly prayer of Jesus: "that they all may be one."

Orthodoxy, at least in the USA, still strikes me as primarily a group of disgruntled converts from other denominations who, maybe a dozen years ago, didn't like Prayer Book revision and who now are re-fighting the Fourth Crusade and calling the Ecumenical Patriarch a heretic for not keeping their new-found church as strict (and as anti-their old church) as they'd like it to be. Of course, it's still "episcopalian": i.e., a plethora of bishops, with no functioning primus inter pares, grouped in various mutually-non-recognizing Synods arguing over jurisdictions, with the converts resting easy only because at least there are no female acolytes or women priests (which obsession is an entire Weltanspraung in itself!).

The whole thing strikes me as bizarre, kind of an alternative hobby, really, for people who don't like stamp-collecting or model railroading.

"The whole thing strikes me as bizarre, kind of an alternative hobby, really, for people who don't like stamp-collecting or model railroading."

Orthodoxy does not = the people who post at FR. I think your comment quite apt as applied to the people who post here, including yours truly, but I certainly would not confuse any one of us with any religion. You can tell where we come from, ideologically, and also detect our personal strengths and weaknesses sometimes, but that only tells you where to begin.
If you really want to find out what Orthodox is all about, there is only one way to do it and that is by doing it, i.e. by spitting on your current heresies and becoming an Orthodox Christian catechumen. Any number of Roman Catholics who have gone before you will tell you it was rough going in, but a great and a joyful relief once it was done. Finally, for the first time in their lives, they were able to really concentrate on theosis. And theosis, after all, is what it's all about or should be.

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