It appears to me that the opposite is true, that the hierarchy stiffened and overreacted, then cemented all the bad doctrine at Trent in order to differentiate themselves, thereby creating a new religion. They’ve been adding to it ever since, Mariology, primarily. Mid-1800’s saw the immaculate conception become doctrine. 1950’s saw the bodily assumption of Mary become doctrine. It now appears to be as much Marian as Christian, to those Christians who do not belong to that church.
I thought you’d claimed to be Eastern Orthodox several weeks ago, when you signed up. Aren’t there points of strong disagreement there, as well? Did Rome found a new religion when it split off from the east? The Orthodox strike me as having remained more true to the early church than Rome, honestly, your efforts at apologeticw here on FR notwithstanding.
They’ve been adding to it ever since, Mariology, primarily. Mid-1800’s saw the immaculate conception become doctrine. 1950’s saw the bodily assumption of Mary become doctrine. It now appears to be as much Marian as Christian, to those Christians who do not belong to that church.
I thought you’d claimed to be Eastern Orthodox several weeks ago, when you signed up. Aren’t there points of strong disagreement there, as well? Did Rome found a new religion when it split off from the east?
>>I’m an Eastern Catholic, which means that I adhere to the tenets of Eastern Orthodoxy and am in union with the Pope of Rome within the confines of the faith of the First Millenium.
The Roman West and the Byzantine East were always different due to culture and language. Protestants have far more in common with Roman Catholics than they do with Eastern Christians because we don’t accept St. Augustine or St. Anselm of Canterbury’s interpretation of what Christ did on the cross.
We aren’t legalistic. In fact, we reject legalism.
I’ll add that the Orthodox accept the Feast of the Assumption and have for well over 1,000 years. To us, the Immaculate Conception is really irrelevant because we don’t accept St. Augustine’s interpretation of Original Sin.
To a degree, you are right when the Latin Church responded to the Protestant Revolution by over-centralizing its authority. My Melkite Church rejected Vatican I, and our patriarch thumbed his nose at papal infallibility and had the Pope stomp on his head.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_II_Youssef
I don’t believe Rome started a new religion, but it found a way to calcify the old one.
Had the Reformantion simply been about reforming the behavior of the clergy and curtailing some of the abuses that arose due to the lack of clerical education, it would have been celebrated by Catholics alike.
There are points of disagreement between Rome and the East, but they boil down to matters of semantics and politics. But progress has been made since Pope Benedict was elected Pope.
Eastern Christians reject speculative theology.
The Melkite Patriarch is second only to the Pope in the Catholic hierarchy, and our patriarchs have not hesitated to tell the Popes off when they overplayed their hands.