Posted on 01/14/2006 7:11:35 PM PST by Kolokotronis
Correct. The unity can not be achieved externally, politically, or by way by choreography of convenience or mutual advantage. It must come from the heart, guided by unceasing Love of God.
Unity cannot be achieved by "absorption" as +BXVI made clearly stated, or by historical revisionism. One of you mentioned (I apologize I don't remember who it was, please give yourself credit) that a starting point where we would have clear meeting of the minds is where the break occurred, and work our way forward from that point.
Koloktronis and I have been advocating this for years now! Retrace the steps and see, with a 20/20 retrovision, where we grew apart (i.e. after the 7th Ecumenical Council). Chances are that it was gradual not sinister, but in large part due to centuries of linguistic separation, geographical barriers and political realities on the ground; slowly and imperceptibly at first, until the tumor became so big it was too late.
The important thing is that we are blessed: the Church is alive and has not succumbed to the gates of hell. As long as we treat each other as members of the same Church, and understand that withing the Church there might be different teologoumena that must be clarified or rejected by an ecumenical council, we are on the right track.
I also think that the Orthodox side has made it very clear that papal primacy is intimately tied to giving the final seal of approval and validity on the proclamations of an ecumenical council, but this is something that the Church accepted as proper, not something that was carved in stone. I will remind you all that the Great Council of Nicea was presided by the Bishop of Alexandria (a Petrine minister), with second in honor being the Bishop of Antioch (a Petrine minister) and a Bishop of Jerusalem (filling the office of St. James) and is an accepted and valid ecumenical council.
I would also like to mention a historical fact that the first Bishop of Rome to be called "pope" was Bishop Siricius, at the very end of the 4th century, and preceded by a much more prominent Petrine minister, Damasus, whose title was no different than that of any other Patriarch -- simply Episcopus Romanus.
Avoiding the scriptural disagreement, I will simply state that it is clear that the prominence of Old Rome had also a lot to do with papal primacy, and the extent of its jurisdiction and controversy, especially when part of that prominence and privilege was transferred to the Bishop of Constantinople, or New Rome.
I'm sorry, but I have to disagree that the structure of the Catholic church under John Paul II carries with it feudal elements as you seem to have meant feudal (meaning strict top-to-bottom ranking). If properly understood, it is very feudal (very ancient and traditional) in that the feudal system was a interdependent and interlocking system of cooperative authority. It did have higher and lower ranks and did have ultimate supreme authorities but not absolute and tyrannical supremacy. But that's not the way most people use the term today and I don't think you meant it that way because the way I just described it fits largely with your wheel image and you offered "feudal" as being something quite different. You may have misread what I wrote.
The "pyramid" as I employed it for Catholic church structure does not even have solely a pointed top. That's why I used "hierarchy" as my preferred term. Pyramid was Redgolum's term and I defended it but carefully explained that bishops meeting in councils, bishops as a college, are at the top and so is the Bishop of Rome as first among equals. There is both a "pointed" top (the ultimate authority of the bishop of Rome) but also a blunted top (collegial authority). This is evident when one reads Lumen Gentium together with Pastor aeternis.
Indeed, the pyramid actually is better conceived of as blunted and inverted, on which more, below. But what it clearly cannot be is an unstructured blob of indeterminacy or an amorphous mass of absolute equality or a monistic absence of distinct roles and power and authority.
And it is truly evident from JPII's way of "jurisdicting." He drove conservative Catholics--most of my friends--crazy because he would not intervene and sack malfeasant bishops. He truly believed that trying to govern the entire Catholic church directly from the Vatican not only was impossible but even if were possible would be wrong. Naming of bishops shifted from local election to centralization for the reasons I gave. But having named bishops (in consultation but with the clera authority for naming residing solely in the bishop of Rome) the bishop of then respects the fact that the health of sickness of Bishop X's or Bishop Y's diocese will fundamentally rest on the feasance or malfeasance of that bishop. Souls are at stake here, yet JPII did not intervene in cases that cried for intervention by human assessment. I am convinced he did not do so because he truly believed that there was a proper role for local episcopal governance and a proper role for papal governance and the two must not be confused or else both will go wrong. He went for the long haul, appointed better and better bishops who in turn quickly outpaced the malfeasants in recruiting good clergy and in time, these new priests from whom future bishops will come, will bring about greater health. Along the way, an awful lot of damage was done, but he believed that he could not have tried to micromanage things without causing even more damage.
Benedict XVI, incidentally, also is not proceeding heavyhandedly. But, because of the stage set by John Paul II and Ratzinger together over 20 years' time, Benedict XVI today is able to effect changes more subtly: he makes statements and the bishops who have ears to hear get the point. For 30 years, liberal, malfeasant bishops just ignored such statements and defied the pope to make martyrs of them (which would have provoked even greater division that the defacto division we now struggle with). Today, those liberal bishops can't deny to themselves that their entire "liberal project" is an exhausted one (in the words of Cardinal George of Chicago, which shocked my liberal colleagues) and the bishops in the middle get the point and are beginning to "get with the program."
Now, as far as your wheel metaphor is concerned, I have no real quarrel with it for 90.0 % of the life of the Church. But it is not incompatible with my blunted pyramid. They are two images for the same thing.
In a healthy body, all parts work together cooperatively. In a healthy family or business or army, all parts work together cooperatively and no one needs to "pull rank." That's the way it ought to be.
But rank exists in the army, in a business, in a family, in the Church and for good reasons--for occasions of division and dispute, especially honest, good-faith disputes (and the Protestant Reformation began as a good-faith dispute; even Arius began in good faith--he became a bad-faith disputer when he was instructed by his proper superior and rebelled).
I agree with your metaphor but would point out that it has a center distinct from the rim and spokes. Each has a role to play and you are right, each must play it's proper role or the wheel cannot function.
But that is equally true of a pyramid. The (blunt) tip of the pyramid cannot do it's tip-role without the existence of the bulk of the structure holding it up. And if the structure of the pyramid were not built up toward a top/blunt tip, the stones would not stand in order but be scattered in an ill-defined mass.
I never claimed that the body of the church is unncessary to the head of the visible church. Without the visible body the visible head has nothing to be head of. But being head is not lording it over the body. Remember, I insisted that the sole purpose of identifying a head as distinct from non-head (center as distinct from rim and spokes, to use your image) is unity. And the body needs unity to be what it is--the visible body of Christ on earth.
When I identified the proper role for councils as crucial to the governance of the church but not exclusively authoritative, when I insisted that for councils truly to remain unifying rather than potentially divisive they need a clear dispute-resolution source, I was saying that both bishop of Rome and bishops in council play essential roles. That's what Vatican I said, that's what Vatican II said, that's what Lateran IV said and so on and so forth. The role of the head (first among equals bishop of Rome) has been more thoroughly refined in the West than the East because of specific Western contexts but the principle was there even before the refinements.
I think that the way John Paul II and Benedict XVI governed and are governing is perfectly compatible with either your wheel or my hierarchy (blunt pyramid). The wheel has its own "hierarchy"--the center binds the spokes together--in its absence the spokes could not support the rim and the rim could not support the weight it needs to carry.
I think you may be the one who reads far more one-way, rigid, "feudal" assumptions into my pyramid structure imagery. I don't think they are implicit in it but from a worldly power standpoint, it's easy to read them in. As I read Latin writers on the topic, I see that in fact they do not read those assumptions in--some have but they are the ones who abused power and have been repudiated again and again.
Indeed, Gregory I, did use the pyramid image but inverted it: as bishop of Rome, he was like the bottom of an inverted pyramid with the weight of the visible church on his shoulders. Add my blunted top (bottom) modification and that's the image I would offer, not to replace your wheel, which I accept, but as an equally useful metaphor.
My point of contention with Redgolum was that one cannot escape one or another form of hierarchy. Pyramid (inverted or not) and wheel are all forms of structured and even ranked relationships but totally interdependent relationships, not absolutist, tyrannous, domineering relationships. My point to him was that one cannot avoid relative differences in authority and power. The challenge is to find ways that they cooperate healthily and one (extraordinary) aspect of healthy cooperation is that at points of conflict, there has to be, in advance, agreement about who ultimately is responsible for deciding issues and agreement that all will follow his determination if disunity is to be avoided. We take that for granted in our courts, our elections etc. The difference in the Church is that Orthodox and Catholics alike believe that the hierachical-in-a-cooperating-body structure was established not by mere humans but by Christ. We Orthodox and Catholics now disagree about some aspects of this--as the result of human sinfulness, on both sides, over the course of two millennia, but we agree that hierarchy is necessary and that all elements of the wheel/rungs of the ladder/stones of the pyramid are essential if the wheel is to wheel, the pyramid is to stand, the ladder is to serve as a path to Truth and Heaven.
Me neither, really. Consubstantiation means that the substance of bread and wine remain alongside the Body and Blood of Christ, once the Bread is consecrated, right?
Personally, I'm quite content to accept the mystery of how Christ becomes Real in the consecration of bread and wine and not presume to assert the necessity of any human construction of how these supernatural and inscrutible transformations occur.
Amen. I just don't understand why those who decided they needed to 'define' it, just couldn't leave it alone.
It's a mystery, and in the end not really discernable to even the best and brightest clergyman or theologian. Why can't they just leave it alone, instead of trying to de-mystify it?
One may rejoice that Western Christians have begun to recover his importance for the unity of Western Christendom, but from an Orthodox perspective it is imperative to study the primacy of Rome in the context of the primacies of the patriarchs of the East and their role in the universal Church .[29]
This is looking far more hopeful than ever.
I can think of several such "Latin bishops" who seek more power and would view this as a step backwards. Cardinal Mahony immediately springs to mind. So, essentially, such a union would be good .... very good :-). The last thing Mahony needs, is more power.
For someone from a western protestant (i.e. relatively young) perspective, this must be a concern. Although it is not widely known in our Western world, the Catholic Church is actually a communion of Churches. According to the Constitution on the Church of the Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium, the Catholic Church is understood to be "a corporate body of Churches," united with the Pope of Rome, who serves as the guardian of unity (LG, no. 23). At present there are 22 Churches that comprise the Catholic Church. The new Code of Canon Law, promulgated by Pope John Paul II, uses the phrase "autonomous ritual Churches" to describe these various Churches (canon 112). Each Church has its own hierarchy, spirituality, and theological perspective. Because of the particularities of history, there is only one Western Catholic Church, while there are 22 Eastern Catholic Churches. The Western Church, known officially as the Latin Church, is the largest of the Catholic Churches. It is immediately subject to the Roman Pontiff as Patriarch of the West. The Eastern Catholic Churches are each led by a Patriarch, Major Archbishop, or Metropolitan, who governs their Church together with a synod of bishops. Through the Congregation for Oriental Churches, the Roman Pontiff works to assure the health and well-being of the Eastern Catholic Churches.
While this diversity within the one Catholic Church can appear confusing at first, it in no way compromises the Church's unity. In a certain sense, it is a reflection of the mystery of the Trinity. Just as God is three Persons, yet one God, so the Church is 22 Churches, yet one Church.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church summarizes this nicely:
"From the beginning, this one Church has been marked by a great diversity which comes from both the variety of God's gifts and the diversity of those who receive them... Holding a rightful place in the communion of the Church there are also particular Churches that retain their own traditions. The great richness of such diversity is not opposed to the Church's unity" (CCC no. 814).
Although there are 22 Churches, there are only eight "Rites" that are used among them. A Rite is a "liturgical, theological, spiritual and disciplinary patrimony," (Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, canon 28). "Rite" best refers to the liturgical and disciplinary traditions used in celebrating the sacraments. Many Eastern Catholic Churches use the same Rite, although they are distinct autonomous Churches. For example, the Ukrainian Catholic Church and the Melkite Catholic Church are distinct Churches with their own hierarchies. Yet they both use the Byzantine Rite.
To learn more about the "two lungs" of the Catholic Church, visit this link:
The Vatican II Council declared that "all should realize it is of supreme importance to understand, venerate, preserve, and foster the exceedingly rich liturgical and spiritual heritage of the Eastern churches, in order faithfully to preserve the fullness of Christian tradition" (Unitatis Redintegrato, 15).
I am a Roman Catholic practicing my faith in a Maronite (Eastern) Catholic Church. Of all the eastern catholic churches, the Maronite Church is the most latinized - not because it was imposed but by choice. Over the past decade, the Patriarch has launched a serious effort to restore some of the more authentic prayers. However, as a result of the Lebanese Civil War and ongoing conflicts in the middle east, many Maronites have fled Lebanon and settled on all 7 continents. This has necessitated translating the Maronite liturgy into the local vernacular. For now, the Patriarch has wisely limited these translations to English, French and Spanish. The Maronite liturgy is older than the Latin Mass, retaining the Jewish origins of christianity more than the other churches.
"I am a Roman Catholic practicing my faith in a Maronite (Eastern) Catholic Church. Of all the eastern catholic churches, the Maronite Church is the most latinized - not because it was imposed but by choice."
One might argue, NYer, that the Maronites had no choice but the choice to become Latinized after the Latins burned all the Maronites' Liturgical books and theological writings in the 17th-18th centuries and closed their seminaries or staffed them with Dominicans and Jesuits. That was a terrible thing, NYer and, I am told, events forgiven if not forgotten by Maronites to this day. It is a great tribute to the Maronites of today that they are working so hard to reconstruct their theology and liturgical practices under very difficult circumstances. It is also a sign of how much things have changed in Rome that Rome not only allows this, but actually encourages it.
I find nothing to disagree with in what Kosta said. I haven't read the rest of the thread, sorry. I will, tomorrow.
With respect, I do think you continue to read the West through Eastern eyes. I am not defending all actions by bishops and popes in the West--God knows they have often sinned. I am glad that an Eastern patriarch can discipline bishops the way you describe and that the lower clergy often are the ones calling for such discipline. You say that JPII and Benedict's approach to governing can only happen in a Western ecclesiology, well, yes, that's the point. Historical circumstances have produced both many failures of governance (plenty of them in the East, to be sure) in the West. What I am disputing is that the dogmatic developments of Vatican I are either inconsistent with previous developments or fundamentally wrong. To put it the other way, they represent appropriate and faithful development.
East and West have been cut off for a 1000 years ecclesially. The Schism itself resulted in in part from corruption of and distention of patriarchal exercise of governance as well as plenty of failure and corruption on the part of Latin bishops, nobles, kings and even popes. The East has to acknowledge not the failure of its theory but the failure of its practice by it's own governors (patriarchs) on more than one occasion--pressured, hammered by Muslims, Turks, Communists as welll as by overweeing Byzantine emperors. It developed ways of coping with all that which are also developments past the first millennium. And even late in the first millennium, eastern ecclesiology was responding to pressures arising from the Byzantine/Carolingian secular rivalry. All of that has to be factored into any assessment of just what went wrong when in both East and West, producing the Great Schism and all its sad consequences.
Straightening this mess out cannot be done unilaterally by either side, it cannot be done simply by claiming we need to return to the first millennium. The East has a lot to contribute in trying to renew and reform the exercise of papal primacy (and jurisdiction) but must do so chastened by acknowledgement of its own failures, its own disunities, and encouraged by its own examples of faithfulness and maintaining a large degree of unity.
But that is not what I was responding to in Redgolum's post. I am simply insisting that Vatican I be understood in its proper Western context, that the Western contribution to the entire Church in working out a theology of doctrinal development needs to be taken serious by Orthodox, that Westerners need to examine their own history honestly and carefully and admit their errors but not indulge in self-loathing hunger for greener pastures elsewhere, and Easterners must do the same with regard to their history.
Having done that then the best minds from East and West need to attend to what the present situation is because it no longer is that of the East struggling with the Turk in the 14thc nor the West struggling with centrifugal nationalism in the 13th-20th centuries. Elements of all that are present but the overall situation is new, global.
Please, I do not hear John Paul II or Benedict asking that Eastern Patriarchates accept the direct naming of bishops by the bishop of Rome. That was a solution needed by the circumstances of the West. The Eastern ability to sack malfeasant bishops works in a multi-patriarchal setup where each patriarch is responsible for a more limited sphere or jurisdiction--it would be equivalent in the West to turning the leading American Cardinal into a Primate and giving him authority to police the American bishops. In theory the USCC could have done some of that and chose not to. But given the scope of the Bishop of Rome's jurisdiction, necessitated by two developments totally, totally foreign to the East, the West chose a different route and is not asking the East to follow it.
1. Nationalism and absolutism meant that naming of bishops could not be left to local authorities as it was even at the height of the Gregorian Reform, so bishops are all named by the bishop of Rome to preserve against Western nationalism.
2. The immense expansion of Western (not Eastern) Europe, now riven by consolidating tyrannous nation-states who wish to dominate the Church, from the 1400s onward meant that the Roman rite expanded to dwarf all the other ancient rites. The number and range of bishops that the Bishop of Rome now is responsible for is immense. But he can't simply abdicate this responsiblity for them. He can't simply decentralize the appointment process by devolving it on national primates or on national conferences of bishops because that would simply legitimate national churches and bust up catholic unity. If the Protestant revolution had not occurred but Western Europan colonization had taken place, perhaps some sort of devolution into regional patriarchates with responsiblity for naming and disciplining local bishops along the lines you described might worked. But the Protestant-nationalist rebellion did take place. Easterners have to honestly take account of that and its implications.
There is no reason why the non-Roman rites can't have governing structures and exercise jurisdiction in ways different from those employed in the Roman rite, naming bishops, disciplining bishops etc. with the bishop of Rome as more than mere honorific, in some real sense prime--solely for the sake of unity, while the Roman rite Catholics continue with the more centralized structures that developed to cope with nationalism. Perhaps some day down the road, given globalism, the Roman rite structures also can change.
But as long as Orthodox simply look at Western/Roman polity and declare it to be illicit theological development, we'll never begin to get at the root of the problem.
If I have a single main point, it is that the Church is an incarnate, embodied reality. The historical context has to be taken account of equally, both East and West, which means that we have to bend over backwards, as an honest ethnologist and anthropolgist would do, to understand the "other" in his own context and terms and only then to propose ways of overcoming our dissensions. We cannot simply return to the first millennium although certainly careful study of the first millennium's ecclesiology and practice can be very, very helpful in understanding how we got to where we are and what we should do from here forward. But we have to move forward from where we are, not from some primitivist slice taken from the past. The East has a lot to teach the West, for sure. But development of doctrine in the West may also have some good things to teach the East as well as some cautionary tales of what not to do. But to distinguish between the good lessons and the cautionary tales requires good-faith efforts to dig deeply into the specific contexts, the specific histories of both East and West before making judgments positive or negative about what happened and what we ought to do next.
That was what I was referring to NYer, in that some who are now Anglican rite and want to remain so are faced with the prospect that once their current priest retires or dies, they will be forced to become Latin rite. Pinging sionnsar, since I think you were the one that had posted the article about that.
For much of the history of the Maronite Catholics, they were either barely tolerated or steps were taken to try to force them to become Latin Rite. I have heard of them before, and even met a few. Memories run deep, and they still can remember the problems from the past centuries (much like my grandfather would talk of the burning of the hymnals in WWI America).
Now today, the Marionite and other Roman Catholic rites (a misnomer I know), are celebrated and held with honor, but that has only been the case relatively recently.
Dionysiusdecordealcis, I am reading your reply, and will try to formulate mine shortly.
This is an important realization. While expressing fears about the misuse of papal power many Orthodox go to the extreme to deny anything beyond a primacy of honor. Rather then debating whether there is anything unique in the Petrine office that goes beyond that shared by the other bishops and patriarchs, I believe it would be better to discuss its nature and limitations.
A part of this nature that needs to be recognized is its divine establishment. In an attempt to show that the pope does not exercise an office different than that of the other bishops Fr. Clapsis writes:
The Church built its identity on them as witnesses, and responsibility for pastoral leadership was not restricted to Peter.[11] In Matthew 16:19, Peter is explicitly commissioned to "bind and loose"; later, in Matthew 18:18, Christ directly promises all the disciples that they will do the same. Similarly, the foundation upon which the Church is built is related to Peter in Matthew 16:16, and to the whole apostolic body elsewhere in the New Testament (cf. Eph. 2:10).It is thus possible to conclude that, although the distinctive features of Peter's ministry are stressed, his ministry is that of an apostle and does not distinguish him from the ministry of the other apostles.While Eph. 2:20 does mention the foundation of the apostles it needs to be remembered that in Matt. 16:18 when our Lord says to Simon that he is Peter/the Rock and that upon this rock He would build his Church that he was speaking in the singular and doing so in the presence of the other apostles. Fr. Clapsis also fails to mention the following verse which continues:
And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.The granting of the keys to Peter is related to the same symbolic act in Isaiah:
And it will come to pass in that day, that I will call my servant Eliacim the son of Helcias, And I will cloth him with thy robe, and will strengthen him with thy girdle, and will give thy power into his hands: and the shall be as a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Juda. And I will lay the key of the house of David upon his shoulder: and he shall open, and non shall shut: and he shall shut and none shall open.It should be noted that in Isaiah the symbol of the key represents a permanent office that is removed from Shebna and given to Eliakim. This is the office of chief minister of the king and possesses plenary power in the name of the king. It is also an office that continues beyond Eliakim. In the gospel the power of the keys is given to Peter alone and not to the other apostles. Like the office held by Eliakim, that given to Peter is permanent and continues after him.
(Is. 22:20-22)
To acknowledge that Peter and his successors were given a unique authority does not describe the extent of this authority nor its relationship to the authority of the other bishops. This will have to be left to further theological reflection. We should, however, not allow the disagreements we have over these other issues to deny that whatever authority the popes do exercise is of a divine origin.
Maybe the answer lies in understanding what Melkite Pat. Gregory II Youssef meant when he wrote this reservation in signing Pastor Aeternus, "...all rights, privileges and prerogatives of the Patriarchs of the Eastern Churches being respected". Perhaps in looking at the authority of the pope we are looking at things backwards and what we should be looking at is the power of the other patriarchs and bishops.
I think that there is some real insight here. Vatican I declared:
This power of the Supreme Pontiff is so far from interfering with that power of ordinary and immediate episcopal jurisdiction by which the bishops, who "placed by the Holy Spirit" [cf. Acts 20:28], have succeeded to the places of the apostles, as true shepherds individually feed and rule the individual flocks assigned to them, that the same (power) is asserted, confirmed, and vindicated by the supreme and universal shepherd, according to the statement of Gregory the Great: "My honor is the universal honor of the Church. My honor is the solid vigor of my brothers. Then am I truly honored, when the honor due to each and everyone in not denied."The statements that the same council declared about the authority of the pope cannot be taken in isolation from what is written above. This statement is just as important and binding as those concerning the pope. Vatican II would expand on this with the following:
Bishops, as vicars and ambassadors of Christ, govern the particular churches entrusted to them by their counsel, exhortations, example, and even by their authority and sacred power, which indeed they use only for the edification of their flock in truth and holiness, remembering that he who is greater should become as the lesser and he who is the chief become as the servant. This power, which they personally exercise in Christ's name, is proper, ordinary and immediate, although its exercise is ultimately regulated by the supreme authority of the Church, and can be circumscribed by certain limits, for the advantage of the Church or of the faithful. In virtue of this power, bishops have the sacred right and the duty before the Lord to make laws for their subjects, to pass judgment on them and to moderate everything pertaining to the ordering of worship and the apostolate.It is not the fact of whether there is a unique divinely established Petrine office that should be debated but rather its scope and its relationship to the equally divinely established episcopal office.The pastoral office or the habitual and daily care of their sheep is entrusted to them completely; nor are they to be regarded as vicars of the Roman Pontiffs, for they exercise an authority that is proper to them, and are quite correctly called "prelates," heads of the people whom they govern. Their power, therefore, is not destroyed by the supreme and universal power, but on the contrary it is affirmed, strengthened and vindicated by it, since the Holy Spirit unfailingly preserves the form of government established by Christ the Lord in His Church.
(Lumen gentium, n. 27)
"With respect, I do think you continue to read the West through Eastern eyes."
Well, of course! :)
"But as long as Orthodox simply look at Western/Roman polity and declare it to be illicit theological development, we'll never begin to get at the root of the problem."
I was doubtless inarticulate as this was not my point at all. There is nothing illicit in the development of Latin ecclesiology within the Western Patriarchate. It developed the way it did for very real reasons which did not appertain in the East. That's fine. I doubt any Orthodox people say the Latin Church should adopt an Eastern ecclesiology. For starters it wouldn't work. But neither should the Latin system, a product of Western history, be applied to Orthodoxy. One problem is that the pronouncements of Roman supremacy made over the centuries have been presented as applying to the entire "oecumene" and not just the Patriarchate of the West. I'm sure you are not saying that Aeternus Pastor applies only in the Western Church, but that's where the rub lies.
"It is not the fact of whether there is a unique divinely established Petrine office that should be debated but rather its scope and its relationship to the equally divinely established episcopal office."
I agree 100%!
But as for using biblical exegesis to answer that question, I'll go with Met. John:
"Why don’t you consider the role of exegetical arguments related to the debate on primacy?
ZIZIOULAS: Biblical exegesis and history are an unsafe ground of rapprochement. Although Peter’s leading position among the Twelve is recognised more and more also by the Orthodox, the particular importance attached to him by the Roman Catholics is strongly disputed by them. The late Cardinal Yves Congar saw this very well. He wrote: «In the East, the authority of the See of Rome was never that of a monarchical prince […]. The Body of Christ has no Head other than Christ himself […]. Byzantine theologians very rarely relate the primacy of the See of Rome to the Apostle Peter, although authors of prestige like Maximus the Confessor or Theodor the Studite do, at times, say something to this effect...».
So, in that direction, the way is closed…
ZIZIOULAS: If we wait until Biblical scholars come to an agreement on the relationship between the role of Peter in the New Testament and the primacy exercised by the See of Rome, we may have to postpone the unity of the Church for another millennium, if not infinitely…"
Perhaps I should ask you what you believe papal supremacy means. I have heard more definitions of it that than I can remember, from the two keys of rule (of 100% and 100% state) from some of the SSPX people to the "It is only to rule definitely on an issue" from many other Catholics. In history, it has been presented as both.
Now the later isn't a bad thing, as long as it isn't abused. The former brings into question a lot of things that are questionable.
You point about nationalism is an interesting one. My earlier comment about WWI kind of brings that to mind.
In many if not most Lutheran and other Protestant (as in non Catholic western Christians, not as in the Calvinists) churches in the US there are two flags on either side of the altar. The left hand side has the American flag, the right typically a purple and white flag called the "Christian" flag. Now a days they have been there so long that it is hard to picture them not there. But during WWI, Wilson was very concerned that many of the local churches had ties to the churches and synods in Europe. There was a huge push to make all the churches put an American flag in the altar area, to make sure that the parishioners were "loyal". For Lutherans, many of whoms still had services in the language of the mother or father country, they were forced to have services in English. Catholics were also put under pressure, but because of the better organization were able to in part resist. It changed the face of Christianity in North America, but that is probably another thread.
I would further posit that it is important for the Orthodox to recognize this divine establishment. If the Petrine office is truly of divine origin the it cannot be viewed as something unnecessary or optional for the Church. This would give impetus to the current efforts at reconciliation. This truth also needs to be communicated to the faithful. While the theologians on both sides may be coming closer together I fear that there is still a level of hostility in the pews.
Can I ask why the hynmals were burned?
They were in German, and Pres Wilson was very afraid of that.
My earlier post talked more of it.
"I would further posit that it is important for the Orthodox to recognize this divine establishment. If the Petrine office is truly of divine origin the it cannot be viewed as something unnecessary or optional for the Church. This would give impetus to the current efforts at reconciliation. This truth also needs to be communicated to the faithful. While the theologians on both sides may be coming closer together I fear that there is still a level of hostility in the pews."
Well, when you hear it from Met. John, you are hearing the Holy Synod of Constantinople speaking; your are also hearing the voice of the InterOrthodox delegation to the dialog with the Vatican as he is the co-chair of that delegation.
Dealing with the people in the pews will take longer, but at least in Orthodoxy the process has already started. Heck, we've even started it here, with some success, I might add.
Other than resolving the filioque issue, what would the Orthodox like to see the Roman Catholic Church do?
I meant to say "for reunification of the 'two lungs' of the church to occur."
Its simple in the telling, but difficult in the accomplishing. First and foremost we need to resolve the role of the Pope which necessarily includes an agreement on where we find the fullness of The Church. If we can agree on the appropriate role of the pope, and fix it with an ecumenical council, the dogmatic differences come next. We know what we hold in common which is most everything regarding the Faith and Tradition and praxis. The West would have to be willing to submit its post Schism dogmatic pronouncements to that Great Council for determination (the East hasn't made any except, arguably those of the "Palamite Council"). Maybe the whole Church would agree, maybe it wouldn't and probably some would become theologoumenna (purgatory and indulgences spring to mind in that category, the Assumption in the category of dogma for the One Church, maybe even the Immaculate Conception and the Palamite distinctions between created and uncreated energies and essences if we can come to acceptable definitions).
In essence, its not what would Orthodoxy like the Latin Church to do or vice versa; its whether or not all of us are agreeable to letting The Church in a Great Council presided over by a Pope acting as primus decide.
Orthodoxy has had its share of nationalism problems too. Indeed they became bad enough that the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate condemned ethnophyletism as a heresy in 1872.
Here's a link to the issue:
http://www.ec-patr.gr/docdisplay.php?lang=gr&id=287&tla=en
Thank you for your helpful response.
The issue of purgatory is very interesting. As I understand it, the Orthodox do not recognize the Catholic dogmas of purgatory as defined from 1254 on, instead leaving the condition of those "asleep in the Lord" unspecified. Certainly the idea of the purification of the dead is a very early one, far predating the 1054 schism. (Didn't St. John Chrysostom preach on this?)
I'm going to do some homework on this. I understand that St. Mark of Ephesus wrote powerfully on his objections to the Latin formula, but I'm not entirely sure which of the dogmatic statements he disagreed with.
Petrosius, the Church never viewed the office of the Bishop of Rome as something unnecessary, or optional. The Orthodox Church enver made such a statement. We are not arguing over the necessity of the Petrine See, but over the scope of its jurisdiction and authority as it relates to other bishops and, specifically Patriarchates.
Surely, we must agree that the role of the Bishop of Rome should be no different with respect to the bishops than the role of +Peter was was to the other Apostles. The Church unambigiously gave the Bishop of Old Rome primacy in honor and, because of imperial majesty involved, equal privilege to the Pope and the Bishop of Constantinople.
Furthermore, by imperial a decree, the Bishop of Rome was made the most eminent of bishops, but all that in and of itself does not spell out the scope or nature of papal primacy, as say Dictatus Papae attempted to do. I think we must, as closely as possible, understand the role of the Pope in the undivided Church and start with that understanding.
And, that will not be easy, dear Petrosius, because the role of the Bishop of Rome, as it pertains to other bishops and to jurisdictinal issues in other Patriarchates, was not set in stone from the beginning, but rather evolved based on a number of factors, of which we can mention politics, geography, as well as theology. Of these, theology seemed to have the least prominent role to those who were in the undivided Church; politics and geography, on the other hand, stand out.
Oy, we have a problem! Most Orthodox churches don't have pews! :-)
(Sorry, couldn't resist....)
This might be true for students of theology but I often get the impression from some that the papacy is somehow alien to Orthodoxy and that they can get along very well without it. Just the acknowledgment that Bishop of Rome does indeed exercise an unique Petrine office that goes beyond merely "primus inter pares" and that this is of divine institution (without making any other statements concerning its scope or relationship with the other bishops) would be great step forward. As much as I would like to see greater agreement perhaps for this generation this is all that can be accomplished. This would be no mean achievement considering the hostility that has existed over the years.
I'm not sure that's what consubstantiation means. In transubstantiation it's claimed that the subtance changes but the accident remains the same, i.e., at consecration the bread and wine change substantially into the body and blood of Christ but empirically the bread and wine remain the same - bread and wine. But I think you're absolutely correct. I think it's the Orthodox who have the most apposite name for the Holy Eucharist --- the " Holy Mysteries".
Prayer and fasting will bring about Christian unity. That's one thing we can agree on, and one thing we can all do.
But you have missed what I was asking of you. Of course to some degree one always reads the other through one's own eyes. But I was asking us (myself included) to do what anthropologists do: when one recognizes that the other is another, one does as much as one can to learn to know him through his eyes. When I asserted that you were reading the West through Eastern eyes, I was asking you to consider whether you were not doing this to a greater degree than necessary, whether you could not bracket Eastern assumptions more than you already have (and I recognize that you have gone much farther than many Orthodox in empathetic listening to the West)--in specific points I thought you were misreading the second millennium in the West. I attempt to do exactly the same with regard to the East and I think John Paul II and Benedict XVI do that to the 'nth degree.
Doctrine is different because there the Bishop of Rome is claiming authority for the universal church as the first among equals among the patriarchates. I was, however, claiming that this is a strictly limited authority--to be used for the sake of unity. It does not apply solely to the Roman patriarchate and was not understood to be limited to the Western patriarchate in the time when there were only four or five patriarchates.
Brian Daley has an interesting article arguing that primacy of honor, within the context of a client-patron framework, carried with it not merely "honorary" authority but jurisdiction of the patron toward the client. [ee Brian E. Daley, S.J., “Position and Patronage in the Early Church: The Original Meaning of ‘Primacy of Honour’,” Journal of Theological Studies, 44, no. 2 [1993], 529-553)] that deserves consideration in this regard. The underlying point that I was making, perhaps not effectively, when I appealed to you and other Eastern brethren to try to read Western second millennium history for its own sake and then ask what its implications are for both East and West today was this:
The Eastern patriarchate system has functioned reasonably well for the Eastern churches over two millennia. It is a very historically contingent system, as is the Latin patriachate which has become the Roman Catholic rite/church. I think we need to, all of us, think about the significance that we are employing today a system of governance in the Church that originated in the concrete realities of the Graeco-Roman Mediterranean of the first four centuries. The four leading cities, to which then Constantinople was added in the 4th century, gave their names to the four great patriarchates, with accompanying major rites, which then had subdivisions reflecting the ethnic and geographical make-up of the "hinterlands" of the great cities. Constantinople was added to the list simply because of historical contingency--the Constantinian reorganization of the empire.
There's nothing bad about this. This continues the (wonderful) scandal of particularity, the scandal to the non-Christian that our faith depends on a radical contingency in history, in time and space, in Palestine, in the Roman empire of the first century. We still insist on nothing but wheat flour and nothing but grape wine for our most sacred action. People find this hard to grasp. I fully accept it and celebrate it.
At the same time, Christianity claims that the events in time and space in minute particulars have universal and cosmic significance for all time before the events and after the events. Somehow Christian discipline (structure) and doctrine has to account for development without repudiation of the concrete particularity.
The historical paths of East and West diverged--beginning precisely with Constantine (perhaps one can blame Diocletian). Difference existed between Greeks and Latins, of course, and no lack of cultural hostility, but the divergence of their historic cultural paths really took off with Constantine and accelerated over the next two or three centuries.
So both Eastern and Western have histories, have faced challenges to develop without being unfaithful to their particular, contingent common origin.
Of course to explicate this would take a book. But let me give one major example of the implications of these diverging paths: The system of four major patriarchates in the East to which then a few new ones were added as Orthodoxy spread through the Slavic world remained a relatively limited one and, because much of the heartland of the Eastern Christian world was submerged under Islam within three centuries of Constantine and for a variety of other reasons, the Orthodox patriarchates dating back to the beginning could accept a handful of newcomers to the cluster and govern the churches in these lands, maintain relative unity and faithfulness to doctrine while under pressure from Islam. The changes in culture from the fourth century Mediterranean to eighteenth-century Ottoman Asia Minor or Syria or nineteenth-century Bulgaria or even Russia were, compared to what happened in the West between 500 and 1900, relatively less. The ancient patriarchates functioned in large measure as they always had.
The West had a different history and responded differently. I don't need to rehearse all the differences, but both politically, economically, culturally (from a rival empire which permitted relatively homogenous culture across ethnic groups to rampant ethnic nationalism that saw itself opposed to a united Church and on to rampant, vicious hollowing out from within in the Enlightenment and the French Revolution--very different from the vicious oppression of the Turk or Communism), and intellectually/doctrinally (rise of Scholasticism, then the Englightenment) the West faced a very, immensely different world in 1900 than it had in 335 or even 604 when Gregory I died.
Added to this was the huge global expansion of the West politically and economically, but long before that, the global thrust of Latin Christianity had begun with the missionary friars of the 13th and 14th centuries.
The Western patriarchate/Roman rite had no choice but to develop new structures, new understandings of governance while retaining the ancient Roman patriarchate and ancient Roman rite. They did not simply accept everything new that came along--if they had, they'd have ended up like Protestants (who essentially floated along the tsunami crest of nationalism and Enlightenment post-Christianity). But neither could they simply retain the smaller-scale organization of the ancient patriarchates, in part because already in the fourth century, the Latin Patriarch led a much greater province/patriarchy than any of the Eastern patriarchates, though perhaps Antioch came close. One cannot govern the same way if the region one is governing/leading differs so greatly. When the Western Church spread across the Alps, the structures had to be adapted.
I think the West deserves great credit for adapting without abandoning. The Greeek expansion into Slavic areas did not occur under a Greek-Roman Empire that included the new areas. Byzantium was not capable of incorporating the Kievan Rus and the Bulgars etc. into their empire while also fighting off the Persians and Muslims. So new patriarchates emerged in the new ethnic regions of the East.
For better or for ill, the West emerged from a period of chaos with a new multi-ethnic empire (Carolingian, then [Holy] Roman German empire) that permitted the Latin rite from Rome to unite Christians under a single patriarch at Rome. Yes, there were debates and conflict over this but there would be no Western Europe and no Western European culture had the single western patriarchate not expanded to incorporate (with new methods of sub-structures) all the Christians in the Latin world. And it was a Latin world. The vernaculars did not emerge as literary carriers of culture until the Latin empire of the West was beginning to fracture and nation-state nationalism began to rise, in the twelfth and especially the thirteenth centuries.
The East was able to combine ethnic solidirity with Christian unity by the largely ethnic patriarchates staying together in fraternal unity. I do not want to explain this solely by the fact that they were under Muslim domination--because Russia and the central and northern Slavs were not under the Muslim domination. But the Turk was right on their doorstep and they knew it. Surely the existence of the Muslim adversary had much to do with the degree of unity the various patriarchates were able to maintain unity despite their ethnic diversity.
In the West it was very different. Nothing stood in the way of fragmentation, once the always fragile bonds of the German-Italian empire shattered on Frederick II's foolish effort to crush the Church once and for all, nothing stood in the way except the Church. She succeeded in half of Western Europe and failed in the other half. Part of the blame rests on sinful popes and bishops, part of the blame rests on sinful kings and princes.
But the Western Church had, long before that, chosen not to try simply to continue undeveloped the smaller scale patriarchate system that originated in the cultural geography of the Graeco-Roman Mediterranean. Yet the Western Church held on to the single patriarchate, held on to the ancient situation rather than creating as series of new ethnic patriarchates, because Western Europeans did not see themselves as distinct ethnicities until the late Middle Ages, long after the Church-structural die had been cast. So the retained the ancient vessel (a single Western patriarchate) and adapted it, not by adding new ethnic patriarchates, but by interlinking bishops from various regions and ethnicities together in communion with the bishop of Rome. They were aided in this by the emperors who had a vested interest in such a structure. But the emperor who established this (the Carolingians) in large wanted to maintain multi-ethnic imperial cultural unity because they truly did believe a single Christian Latin unity was important. In a real sense, they were simply expanding the deeply rooted Roman unity (now become a Latin Roman Christian unity) within the boundaries of the old Empire, across the Rhine, Danube, Baltic and North seas to new regions. And there never had been, within the West, truly competing ancient rites. The greater homogeneity of the Latin West going way back into the ancient Roman empire contrasts sharply with the much greater ethnic diversity in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Given these "givens," the way the Latin West adapted--retaining a single patriarchate and single rite--makes sense just as the way the East adapted--creating new ethnic-national patriarchates and maintaing Christian unity across them by fraternal comity--also makes sense.
Now, the age of European nation-state nationalism is over. Western Europe is dying if not dead already. The Western patriarchate and the Roman rite spread throughout the globe but the Bishop of Rome is also in communion with a number of other non-Roman rites. There's much still to be done in working out the proper jurisdictional relationship between the Bishop of Rome and the non-Roman rite churches in communion with him. Injustices have been done to Eastern-Rite Catholics in the past, but not every injustice alleged by Orthodox took place. John Paul II honestly undertook an examination of conscience on these matters (and on injustices toward Protestants in the West). There's plenty left to be done.
But even apart from trying to understand why the Latin patriarchate developed the structures of governance that it did, why the Roman rite remained in Latin (and the experiment with the vernaculars has helped created fragmentation in a way that the embracing of the vernacular among the Slavic converts in the ninth-century could not have done--that the West retained Latin after the Protestant revolt was a perfectly legitimate and wise move and needs to be understood within its own Western context, not simply denounced from the vantage point of the East) and so forth, quite apart from this, what Easterners can learn from reading Western history as much as possible through Western eyes is that there just might be insights helpful to them as they face a globalized world. Without abandoning the patriarchate system that originated in time and space two millennia ago, can it, should it, be modified to face the modern situation or not? Perhaps not--because the East is not the West--but perhaps mutatis mutandis, the Western story has something to teach the East.
And perhaps, now that nationalism is not the threat it once was, perhaps the West can find ways to create subsidiary forms of governance so that it's not just 4000 individual bishops and a single Patrarch in Rome. The sad experiment with national conferences of bishops after 1965 shows that nationalism was then still too strong. But simply adopting Eastern eparchies can hardly work. I would think that the Othodox themselves will eventually need to find a different solution--the eparchies (correct me if I'm wrong) grew out of the need to take care of migrating Orthodox ethnic groups in new contexts. Perhaps immigration from Orthodox regions into the West will continue indefinitely and ethnicity will remain strong enough outside the homelands to make the eparchy system function well. But if the ethnic-immigrant makeup dissipates, what then? How will unity be maintained in the diaspora? How much has the maintenance of Orthodox unity under the Greek patriarch, the Russian patriarch, the Romanian patriarch etc. been piggy-backing on existing Russian, Romanian, Greek ethnic identity in the disapora? How long can that continue? How can it, should it be modified?
The West faced not exactly the same issues but faced relatively more extensive changes in its cultural, political, economic context already in the sixth, seventh and eighth centuries. We've made our share of mistakes along the way. We should have been able to negotiate the transition to nation-state nationalism without busting up the unity of the Church in the West. It should have been possbile but it was a huge challenge and we failed. We were unfaithful to our Lord, to Jn 15-17. But that does not mean that every development in the Latin patriarchate--the extension of the Roman rite in Latin to all newly incorporated areas--were mistakes.
. The above illustrates some of the ways in which both East and West must learn from their own pasts and from each others' pasts so that together (one can only hope) we can face the new global assault on the Christian faith that is picking up momentum every day.
*How does one repeal an ecumenical council?
Thanks for the ping. Dio is always worth reading. His knowledge is wide and deep
It was a rhetorical comment--he did not find it necessary to repudiate them, in other words, among the sins of which Catholics need to repent, these two councils do not belong. Some liberal Catholics think Vatican I should be repudiated, as do, perhaps a variety of non-Catholics. I was just making a rhetorical point.
Definitions became necessary when foks began to deny the esential truth of the mystery
*Is that in the Byzantine Liturgy? If it is, isn't that witness to her Imaculate Conception?
BTW, I found the apologies startling and the reaction to them by putative Christians even more so. Obviously, as the Vicar of Christ, he can apologize for the actions of any Catholic, living or dead
Thanks for all the posts you make. It is like being back in college when I run acrosss your posts. Well, not exactly like being back in College because my Profs. were woefully defecient in knowledge of the events you can, seemingly, breezily write about. Very fun and informative reading your posts. I think it'd be a gas to spend an evening with you and a few good bottles of red wine
I think, D, we have been talking right past each other. I agree with virtually everything you have said, especially the part about the world being a different place today than it was even 50 years ago. I do not think that the new "global" reality we face requires an exercise of papal authority along the lines we saw it exercised in the recent past (the last 150 years or so), let alone how it was exercised 1000 years ago. But is there a role for that primacy to be exercised and with authority? Absolutely. I think Met. John speaking for the EP and others is quite clear on that. Denying the necessity for a primus in the One Church is incorrect thinking. Orthodoxy has gotten away with it for the past 1000 years or so as much as a result of the social conditions appertaining in those areas where it existed as much as anything else and communications today being what they are, that's not a problem either. You did say this, though:
"But simply adopting Eastern eparchies can hardly work. I would think that the Othodox themselves will eventually need to find a different solution--the eparchies (correct me if I'm wrong) grew out of the need to take care of migrating Orthodox ethnic groups in new contexts. Perhaps immigration from Orthodox regions into the West will continue indefinitely and ethnicity will remain strong enough outside the homelands to make the eparchy system function well. But if the ethnic-immigrant makeup dissipates, what then? How will unity be maintained in the diaspora? How much has the maintenance of Orthodox unity under the Greek patriarch, the Russian patriarch, the Romanian patriarch etc. been piggy-backing on existing Russian, Romanian, Greek ethnic identity in the disapora? How long can that continue? How can it, should it be modified?"
The eparchies did grow out of a need to support and minister to the various Orthodox immigrant groups (except the Russian Church which came here in the 1700s as a missionary church). There are those today who assert that the eparchies should be maintained because, for example, the Greek Orthodox Church needs to foster "hellenism". That really infuriates me. The inculcation of hellenism, or any other "ism" is my job not the Church's job. Others claim that the GOA, or whoever, is a mature church and should be granted autocephally or at a minimum autonomy from the Mother Churches. This is equally ridiculous and fully apparent to anyone who knows Orthodox praxis and sees what goes on in some of our parishes today. Couple a "This is America; this is the 21st century; this isn't the Old Country, Father!" while yelling at the priest because he won't give communion to someone's spoiled rotten kid who just paraded into the Liturgy with his very pregnant girlfriend, with the non Orthodox phronema of our new converts (they usually get it, but it can take years) and some hierarchs who are afraid to slap down rich Greeks and you have a prescription for apostasy. The assurances we Orthodox in America have of faithful Orthodoxy are the continuing ties to the Mother Churches. Maybe in 100 years that will change, but not now. For now the eparchies assure Orthodoxy here.
No. I've seen that translation before and its a lousy one. In pertinent part, ("[and who] without spot of sin", I assume) it isn't what the Greek says at all. The operative word, an adverb modifying tekousan, is adiaforwV. It means "without corruption" and refers to the Virgin birth, not Panagia's state at her birth.
People still deny that essential truth, maybe even more than before, so 'defining' it doesn't seem to have helped.
One homely way we Latins think about it is that Adam was "born" from an uncursed Mother Earth while Jesus, the new Adam, was born from a sinless Mother. There is a certain complimentary justice in seeing it that way.
Ecumenical Councils were called to combat heresies, address errors and fix defintions, settle arguements etc. Accrd to your idea, they too were failures and unnecessary?
Never have attended an Eastern Orthodox mass -- have attended a Coptic mass: very beautiful
False analogy, IMO.
I don't feel like being browbeaten, so just consider that you are englightened and I'm not. I'm probably lagging about 30 IQ points behind you, so go discuss this with someone who can give you what you're looking for, that is, a good argument or agreement.
That ain't me, so leave me be.
Rome isn't making decisions. Rome is confirming the decisions made by the Bishop upon appeal by others.
And in any event, if the people of a particular parish want to stay open, why would a bishop deny that if the parishioners are willing to pay the expense?
Because the Bishop needs the money their sale will generate to pay off the supposedly molested and their lawyers.
Brother:
Was St. Mark of Ephesus unerring in all things?
Perhaps he was wrong to call the Latins heretics.
This position is a theologuemena put forth by the Counter-Reformers in the 16th and 17th centuries to objections made by the Protestants that the Council of Trent was not truly ecumenical because it did not include participation by the Eastern parts of the Church.
There is no "official list" of Ecumenical Councils (else the Council of Florence could not have styled itself the 8th Council), although the current list of the Counter Reformers has gained wide acceptance as a working list in the past 300-400 years.
All that being said, what is really at stake are the Tridentine Decrees and Canons on the Bible, Original Sin, Justification and the Sacraments, and the Vatican I Decrees on the Consitution of the Church and the Faith. Considering that the Orthodox Church accepted essentially the same Tridentine dogmatism in the Council of Jerusalem against Cyril Lukaris, and insisted on unquestioning adherence to the decree of that Council when union discussions were held with the Anglican Non-Jurors, I see this objection as moot. Holding to the essence of the Tridentine decrees does not require accepting Scholasticism or Augustinism/Thomism.
This is really the heart of the matter. The problem is not so much the central position of Rome, but rather what the central position of Rome leaves to and means for every other Bishop.
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