I hope your holidays were happy and I pray you have a peaceful and restful night. Happy new year!
I Pray Thee Well and Family This New Year coming!! Praise Jesus!!!
“So the Catholic Church does its own picking and choosing of ECFs’ thoughts and arguments over certain doctrines.””
You probably have never heard of the Consensus Patrum,dear Sister
Here is something to help you understand the Consensus Patrum from Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev
http://orthodoxeurope.org/page/11/1/2.aspx
Excerps...
This understanding of the “accord of the fathers has been criticized for allowing any church father’s private opinions - even if they disagree with those of other fathers - to be “fixed” (that is, adjusted to conform) to the “consensus”. Yet there is no talk of “fixing” things. I have expressed the view that, whilst the fathers agree on the essentials, their opinions on particular issues may vary and that, when the works of a Father present an opinion that contradicts the teaching of other Fathers, we should not too hastily reject it as a “private theological opinion” which falls outside the “accord of the fathers”. It is also pointless to try and prove, against the facts of textual criticism, that patristic texts holding such opinions have been falsely attributed or corrupted by heretics. The fact of such a theological opinion being “private”, and even contradictory, to other Fathers does not automatically mean that it falls outside the “consensus”.
As an example, let me mention the “private opinion” of St Symeon the New Theologian that the power to “bind and to loose” does not pertain to all priests but only to those who “who serve in the priestly ministry of the gospel in a spirit of humility and who live a blameless life”.[8] It is insufficient to receive “the ordination from men only” (ek anthropon heirotonian);[9] one must be “foreordained” (proheiristheis), that is, designated by God through the Holy Spirit.[10]
Neither monks for their exterior aspect, St Symeon writes, nor those ordained and elevated to the rank of priesthood, nor those granted episcopal dignity — Patriarchs, I say, metropolitans or Bishops — have received from God the power to forgive sins just like that, only in view of their ordination and dignity — this shall not be! For they are merely allowed to perform the mysteries (hierourgein), and still only those priests, bishops and monks that can be counted among the disciples of Christ for their purity.[11]
At first glance, such a point of view might seem close to Donatism, which maintained that sacraments administered by unworthy clerics and other traditores (betrayers of the faith in Christ) cannot be “effective”. There are, however, several arguments that permit us to see more in Symeon’s words than merely the Donatist affirmation that the effectiveness of the sacraments administered by a priest depends on his moral condition. First of all, the above texts by Symeon do not so much question the effectiveness of sacraments administered by unworthy priests, as emphazise the need to receive a particular calling from God before attempting the service of spiritual fatherhood; in other words, the power to “bind and to loose” must be “earned” by the priest by means of his moral self-perfection. Secondly, the Eastern tradition never expressed the opition as straightforwardly and unequivocally as the West that the effectiveness of sacraments is independent of the personal qualities of the priest.[12] Thirdly, one cannot fail to see that in expressing such thoughts, Symeon follows the teaching of earlier Fathers. Long before Symeon, St Gregory the Theologian affirmed that as long as a man has not risen above his passions and cleansed his intellect he should not take the priestly service upon himself.[13] As St Gregory says, “A man must himself be cleansed, before cleansing others: himself become wise, that he may make others wise; become light, and then give light: draw near to God, and so bring others near; be hallowed, then hallow them.”[14] Both Gregory and Symeon had a very elevated understanding of the priesthood, and both were concerned by the low moral state of the episcopate and clergy of their times.
We should also bear in mind that Symeon the New Theologian lived in post-iconoclast times, when the authority of the hierarchical clergy among simple believers was very low; many preferred to see monks, even non-ordained, for confession. The moral state of the clergy was therefore an “issue of the day”, and the fate of the church in years to come depended on its resolution. Confidence in the hierarchical priesthood could most effectively be restored through a significant rise in its moral level, which was precisely the concern of Symeon the New Theologian: it is in the light of this concern that his demanding attitude and critical assessment of the hierarchy and clergy should be understood.
One may ask with bewilderment: If two fathers of the church express contradictory opinions, where, then, is truth to be found? I consider such a question to be an inadmissible simplification. There is one truth and, as Clement of Alexandria says, “The way of truth is one.” But into it, “as into a perennial river, streams flow from all sides”.[15] One and the same truth may be expressed differently by different Fathers, in different times, in different languages, in different contexts. Besides this, one and the same truth may have several aspects, each of which may be articulated, emphasized, developed or, on the contrary, left in obscurity. The truth has many facets, many shapes, and is dialectical. For instance, the thesis that sacraments administered by a priest who has been canonically ordained by a bishop are effective and salutary is true. But no less true is the antithesis, according to which the moral countenance of the priest should correspond with the prominence of his orders and the sacraments he administers. Between both affirmations there is quite a wide expanse, wherein a theological synthesis may be sought. All that falls within that expanse belongs to the consensus patrum; all that falls beyond is heresy. Donatism, which goes beyond the framework of the “consensus”, is a heresy, whereas the teaching of St Symeon the New Theologian on the “power to bind and to loose”, which remains within that expanse, is absolutely correct - even though it is distinct from opinions expressed by other Fathers who lived in other historical contexts, wrote in other languages and emphasized other aspects of the very same truth.
Apart from this, one and the same truth may find different terminological expressions. The best known example is the teaching of the third and fourth ecumenical councils on the God-manhood of Jesus Christ. The third ecumenical council (of Ephesus) expressed this teaching in the terms of Alexandrian christology, based on the teaching of St Cyril of Alexandria (going back to Apollinarius) about the “one nature, and that incarnate, of the divine Word”. The fourth ecumenical council, on the contrary, armed itself with the Antiochene christological tradition emphasizing the “two natures” of Christ. Represented by their finest spokesmen, neither the Alexandrian nor the Antiochene tradition disputed the fullness of the divinity of Christ and the fullness of his humanity; both affirmed that Christ is “consubstantial with the Father in Godhead and the same consubstantial with us in manhood”. Yet one and the same truth of the fullness of divinity and humanity in Christ was expressed differently by two theological traditions, with both expressions proven essentially “Orthodox”.