Posted on 06/11/2005 7:27:43 AM PDT by sionnsar
Ten years ago or so I dreamed that I was an Orthodox priest. If you had asked me even three years ago what if I would become if I ever decided to leave the Episcopal Church, I would have replied “Eastern Orthodox.” Yet today I find myself becoming what I truly never seriously considered until the past two years.
Why did I not choose to become Orthodox? Who but God can answer? All such matters are a mystery, a mystery between the mystery of the human heart and the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Rational analysis takes one only so far. All I really know is that during the past two years, as I intently studied both Orthodoxy and Catholicism, I found myself increasingly drawn, against my will and desire, and certainly to my amazement, to Catholicism.
I love the liturgy and sacramental life of the Orthodox Church. It speaks to the depths of my heart. I long to pray the Divine Liturgy and be formed by its music, poetry, beaity, and ritual.
I love the integration of theology, dogma, spirituality, and asceticism within Orthodoxy. There is a wholeness to Orthodox experience that is compelling, powerful, and attractive on many different levels. This wholeness refuses any bifurcation between mind and heart and invites the believer into deeper reconciliation in Christ by the Spirit. This wholeness is something that Western Christians particularly need, as we confront and battle the corrosive powers of Western modernity and secularism.
I love the reverence and devotion Orthodoxy gives to the saints and church fathers, who are experienced in the Church as living witnesses to the gospel of Christ Jesus. I love the icons.
And I love the theological writings of many Orthodox writers, especially Alexander Schmemann and Georges Florovsky. For all these reasons and for many more, it would have been oh so very easy for me to become Orthodox.
But two features in particular gave me pause.
First, I am troubled by Orthodoxy’s “Easternness.” The coherence and power of Orthodoxy is partially achieved by excluding the Western tradition from its spiritual and theological life. One is hard-pressed to find an Orthodox writer who speaks highly of the Western Church, of her saints, ascetics, and theologians, of her manifold contributions to Christian religion and Western civilization. According to Orthodox consensus, Western Christianity went off the tracks somewhere along the way and must now be judged as a heresy. Understandably, Eastern Christianity considers itself the touchstone and standard by which the Western tradition is to be judged.
To put it simply, Orthodoxy has no real place for St Augustine. He is commemorated as a saint, but the bulk of his theological work is rejected. The noted scholar, Fr John Romanides, has been particularly extreme. I raised my concern about Orthodoxy and the West a year ago in my blog article Bad, bad Augustine. In that article I cited one of the few Orthodox scholars, David B. Hart, who has been willing to address Orthodox caricature of Western theologians:
The most damaging consequence, however, of Orthodoxy’s twentieth-century pilgrimage ad fontes—and this is no small irony, given the ecumenical possibilities that opened up all along the way—has been an increase in the intensity of Eastern theology’s anti-Western polemic. Or, rather, an increase in the confidence with which such polemic is uttered. Nor is this only a problem for ecumenism: the anti-Western passion (or, frankly, paranoia) of Lossky and his followers has on occasion led to rather severe distortions of Eastern theology. More to the point here, though, it has made intelligent interpretations of Western Christian theology (which are so very necessary) apparently almost impossible for Orthodox thinkers. Neo-patristic Orthodox scholarship has usually gone hand in hand with some of the most excruciatingly inaccurate treatments of Western theologians that one could imagine—which, quite apart form the harm they do to the collective acuity of Orthodox Christians, can become a source of considerable embarrassment when they fall into the hands of Western scholars who actually know something of the figures that Orthodox scholars choose to caluminiate. When one repairs to modern Orthodox texts, one is almost certain to encounter some wild mischaracterization of one or another Western author; and four figures enjoy a special eminence in Orthodox polemics: Augustine, Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, and John of the Cross.
Ironically, the various contributions by Perry Robinson and Daniel Jones, here on Pontifications and elsewhere, have heightened my concern. Both have sought, in various ways, to demonstrate that Western theology is incompatible with the catholic faith. While I have neither the training nor wit to follow many of their arguments, I am convinced that their project is wrong. Both presume that one can know the catholic faith independent of ecclesial commitment and formation. If one insists, for example, that St Maximos the Confessor, read through a post-schism Eastern lens, is our authoritative guide to a proper reading of the sixth Ecumenical Council, then of course Augustinian Catholicism will come off looking badly, despite the fact that Maximos was himself a great supporter of the prerogatives of Rome and despite the fact that Rome was instrumental in the defeat of monotheletism. Yet Catholicism embraces both Augustine and Maximos as saints, even though it is clear that Maximos has had minimal influence upon Western reflection, at least until very recently. Clearly Rome did not, and does not, understand the dogmatic decrees of III Constantinople as contradicting Western christological and trinitarian commitments. As much as I respect Perry and Daniel and am grateful for both their erudition and civility and their stimulating articles on these matters, it seems to me that their conclusions are more determined by their theological and ecclesial starting points than by “neutral” scholarship. And one thing I do know: there is always a brighter guy somewhere who will contest one’s favorite thesis.
Neither Orthodoxy nor Catholicism, in my judgment, can be conclusively identified as the one and true Church by these kinds of rational arguments, as interesting and important as they may be in themselves. Arguments and reasons must be presented and considered as we seek to make the necessary choice between Rome and Constantinople, yet ultimately we are still confronted by mystery and the decision and risk of faith.
If the catholicity of Orthodoxy can only be purchased by the practical expulsion of Augustine and Aquinas, then, at least in my own mind, Orthodoxy’s claim to be the one and true Church is seriously undermined. A truly catholic Church will and must include St Augustine and St Maximos the Confessor, St Gregory Palamas and St Thomas Aquinas. A truly catholic Church will keep these great theologians in conversation with each other, and their differences and disagreements will invite the Church to a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the divine mysteries. To set one against the other is not catholic, but partisan.
Second, I am troubled by the absence of a final court of appeal in controversies of faith and morals. We Anglicans are now witnessing first-hand the disintegration of a world-wide communion partially because of the absence of a divinely instituted organ of central authority. In the first millenium the Church employed the Ecumenical Council to serve as this final authority; but for the past thirteen centuries Orthodoxy has been unable to convene such a council. Is it a matter of logistics, or is the matter perhaps more serious, a question of constitutional impotence? Or has God simply protected the Orthodox from serious church-dividing heresies during this time, thereby temporarily obviating the need for such a council? Regardless, it seems to me that if Orthodoxy truly is the one Church of Jesus Christ in the exclusive sense it claims to be, then not only would it be confident in its power and authority to convene an Ecumenical Council, but it would have done so by now.
Yet as Orthodoxy begins to seriously engage the worldview and values of modernity (and post-modernity), the need for a final tribunal will perhaps become more evident. Consider just one example—contraception. It used to be the case that all Orthodox theologians would have roundly denounced most (all?) forms of contraception. But over the past twenty years or so, we have seen a growing diversity on this issue amongst Orthodox thinkers. Some state that this is really a private matter that needs to be decided between the believer and his parish priest. Clearly this privatization of the issue accords with modern sensibilities; but I am fearful of the consequences. Given the absence of a final court of appeal, does Orthodoxy have any choice but to simply accept diversity on many of the burning ethical questions now confronting us? Can Orthodoxy speak authoritatively to any of them?
For the past two years I have struggled to discern whether to remain an Anglican (in some form or another) or to embrace either Orthodoxy or Catholicism. Both Orthodoxy and Catholicism make mutually exclusive claims to be the one and true Church of Jesus Christ. We are confronted by a stark either/or choice. An Anglican is tempted to retreat to a branch theory of the Church, and on that basis make a decision on which tradition appeals to him most; but both Orthodoxy and Catholicism emphatically reject all such branch theories. There is only one visible Church. To become either Orthodox or Catholic means accepting the claim of the respective communion to ecclesial exclusivity. How do we rightly judge between them?
One thing we cannot do. We cannot pretend that we can assume a neutral vantage point. Oh how much easier things would be for all of us if God would call us on our telephones right now and tell us what to do!
The Pope convenes the College of Cardinals in emergency session. “I’ve got some good news and some bad news,” he says. “The good news is this: I just received a phone call from God!” Everyone cheers. “But here’s the bad news: God lives in Salt Lake City.”
I cannot see the Church from God’s perspective. I am faced with a choice. Good arguments can be presented for both Orthodoxy and Catholicism; none appear to be absolutely decisive and coercive. Moreoever, considerations that seem important to me are probably irrelevant to the large majority of people. “The Church is a house with a hundred gates,” wrote Chesterton; “and no two men enter at exactly the same angle.” Finally, I can only rely upon my reason, my intuitions, my feelings, my faith, under the grace and mercy of God. May God forgive me if I have chosen wrongly.
(cont)
Do you not believe, teach and state that God deprived humanity of His Grace? That we are born without Grace because God punished our ancestral parents?
If you do, then our theologies are reversed from the start.
Do you not believe, teach and state that our sins can be "paid off" with indulgencies, and that the departed souls in the Purgatory are subject to physical pain that lasts until God is satisfied?
Is the Immaculate Conception dogma not based on the concept of our "original sin" and God's "punishment" of death?
The entire concept of an angry God is wholly a western product that has no place in the East. This has nothing to do with "ethnic bigotry" but by opposite and incomprehensible foundations of theology that started with Saint Augustine and his rather disturbed life.
You've just disqualified First Constantinople.
Speaking as a 25 year continuer, I must say that I believe the choice is necessary. The collapse of the Anglican Communion has demonstrated, beyond doubt (IMO) that there is nowhere else to go. As much as we would like it to be, Canterbury is not an apostolic see. We must get back to the truly apostolic Church and that means being in communion with one of the apostolic sees.
Constantinople I was attended by five western bishops. I was not aware that there was a "critical mass" of bishops required to make it ecumenical. The Church of the West was represented.
See what a caricature this is?
Could not the Creator have restored His work without that difficulty? He could, but He preferred to do it at his own cost, lest any further occasion should be given for that worst and most odious vice of ingratitude in man. (St. Bernard, Serm. xi, in Cant.)A thing is said to be necessary for a certain end in two ways. First, when the end cannot be without it; as food is necessary for the preservation of human life. Secondly, when the end is attained better and more conveniently, as a horse is necessary for a journey. In the first way it was not necessary that God should become incarnate for the restoration of human nature. For God with His omnipotent power could have restored human nature in many other ways. But in the second way it was necessary that God should become incarnate for the restoration of human nature. Hence Augustine says (De Trin. xii, 10): "We shall also show that other ways were not wanting to God, to Whose power all things are equally subject; but that there was not a more fitting way of healing our misery." (St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae, III q. 1 a. 2)
developed this idea that it was God Who deprived us of His Grace and punished us with death, rather than see that we rejected God and His Grace
A way was made for us to death through sin in Adam. For, "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned." Of this way the devil was the mediator, the persuader to sin, and the caster down into death. For he, too, applied his one death to work out our double death. Since he indeed died in the spirit through ungodliness, but certainly did not die in the flesh: yet both persuaded us to ungodliness, and thereby brought it to pass that we deserved to come into the death of the flesh. We desired therefore the one through wicked persuasion, the other followed us by a just condemnation; and therefore it is written, "God made not death," since He was not Himself the cause of death; but yet death was inflicted on the sinner, through His most just retribution. Just as the judge inflicts punishment on the guilty; yet it is not the justice of the judge, but the desert of the crime, which is the cause of the punishment. (St. Augustine, De Trinitate, IV, 12:15)
Your argument is, as I read it, a protest against the idea of the loss of immortality as a divine punishment. But the Greek Fathers have the exact same doctrine!
But when through the Devil's malice and the woman's caprice, to which she succumbed as the more tender, and which she brought to bear upon the man, as she was the more apt to persuade, alas for my weakness! (for that of my first father was mine), he forgot the Commandment which had been given to him; he yielded to the baleful fruit; and for his sin he was banished, at once from the Tree of Life, and from Paradise, and from God; and put on the coats of skins ... that is, perhaps, the coarser flesh, both mortal and contradictory. This was the first thing that he learnt--his own shame; and he hid himself from God. Yet here too he makes a gain, namely death, and the cutting off of sin, in order that evil may not be immortal. Thus his punishment is changed into a mercy; for it is in mercy, I am persuaded, that God inflicts punishment. (St. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 38, on the Theophany)
It was for this reason, too, that immediately after Adam had transgressed, as the Scripture relates, He pronounced no curse against Adam personally, but against the ground, in reference to his works, as a certain person among the ancients has observed: "God did indeed transfer the curse to the earth, that it might not remain in man." But man received, as the punishment of his transgression, the toilsome task of tilling the earth, and to eat bread in the sweat of his face, and to return to the dust from whence he was taken. (St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, III, 23:3)
But as when a law has commanded abstinence from anything, and some one has not obeyed, it is obviously not the law which causes punishment, but the disobedience and transgression;--for a father sometimes enjoins on his own child abstinence from certain things, and when he does not obey the paternal order, he is flogged and punished on account of the disobedience; and in this case the actions themselves are not the [cause of] stripes, but the disobedience procures punishment for him who disobeys;--so also for the first man, disobedience procured his expulsion from Paradise. ... And God showed great kindness to man in this, that He did not suffer him to remain in sin for ever; but, as it were, by a kind of banishment, cast him out of Paradise, in order that, having by punishment expiated, within an appointed time, the sin, and having been disciplined, he should afterwards be restored. (Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus, II, 25-26)
MAN, then, was thus snared by the assault of the arch-fiend, and broke his Creator's command, and was stripped of grace and put off his confidence with God, and covered himself with the asperities of a toilsome life (for this is the meaning of the fig-leaves); and was clothed about with death, that is, mortality and the grossness of flesh (for this is what the garment of skins signifies); and was banished from Paradise by God's just judgment, and condemned to death, and made subject to corruption. (St. John Damascene, Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, III, 1)
"An Ecumenical Council requires the presence of the Pope or his legate" - there were no legates at First Constantinople. How could the Church in the West be represented without her Patriarch, anyway?
The Immaculate Conception is based upon the idea that the Fall deprived Adam's descendants of original justice, and therefore left man condemned and subject to the devil.
Since St. Photius affirmed the Immaculate Conception before the doctrine was explicitly recognized in the West, it would be rather strange to blame it on Western theology.
That's strange since the Greek Orthodox website says the exact opposite.
PHOTIUS' ENCYCLICAL TO FIVE PATRIARCHS OF THE EAST (866) Patriarch Photius of Constantinople was an outstanding hierarch and leader who as a layman was elected patriarch by vote of the people and ecclesiastical authorities. He brought order to the Church and increased its missionary work, especially in Bulgaria. What became another major source of the teachings of the Church is the encyclical epistle of Photius sent to the Patriarchs of the East, with the consent of the Synod of Constantinople, protesting against the innovations of Pope Nicholas I of Rome: his interference in the affairs of the newly-converted nation of Bulgaria, the addition of the filioque phrase in the Nicene Creed, the issuing of the Pseudo-Isidorian Decrees and the Pseudo-Constantian Gift. This encyclical of Photius restated the correct teaching of the Nicene Creed, opposing the filioque phrase; correctly asserted the canonical jurisdictional order of administration of the Church; reaffirmed the correct teaching against the primacy of the pope, his infallibility, the riches of Christ and the saints, indulgences, purgatory, the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary and her bodily assumption. All of these innovations of the West were among the factors which ultimately led to the Great Schism in 1054, setting the stage for the Protestant movement in 1517 as well. Photius' great encyclical restated and reaffirmed the orthodox teaching of the Undivided Church, and stands as a major source of Orthodox teaching.
That page is amazingly anachronistic. The treasury of merits? That wasn't even formulated until the scholastics. St. Nicholas I never added the filioque to the Creed, etc. If you look up St. Photius' actual letter you won't find that stuff in there. The Immaculate Conception was unknown to the West in the ninth century.
Moreover, your cite claims that St. Photius wrote against the bodily Assumption of Mary!!!!! Surely you know how incorrect that must be.
But citing secondary sources against each other is not really going to work, is it? I'll drop you a note if I get a chance in the future to look over +Photius' homilies on the Annunciation and the Nativity of the Mother of God which Fr. Kucharek cites as teaching the Immaculate Conception.
In those days, all bishops were still considered equal, so I suppose the Romnan See did not object, and the Church did not have one Patriarch.
Councils were called to convene by the Roman Emperor, and the term ecumenical in those days was synonimous with imperial.
I am not exactly clear as to why the Latins recognize Constantinople I. Maybe you can shed some light on that. But, then, you can also disavow it as ecumenical -- it's all the same to me.
What is important, gbcdoj, and what you Latins always seem to ignore, is that the Immaculate Conception or the Filioque were not accepted by the Church officially in the first millennium, regardless of what some individual fathers said at one time or another. Fathers do not make pronouncements for the whole church. Only the Ecumenical Councils do. Fathers speak for themselves; they are not inspired and infallible.
As far as the undivided Church was concerned, neither was the Pope the Patriarch, nor was there Immaculate Conception, nor Filioque, nor indulgencies, etc. no matter what some fathers said.
Clearly, I felt the need to leave Anglicanism for Orthodoxy. I believe that the Orthodox Church is the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. This has not so much to do with technical/legalistic points of whether one is in communion with an apostolic see as it does with whether there is a true apostolic succession of the fullness of the faith, as well as of the laying on of hands.
If you believe that your Anglican bishop is a bishop in a tradition that holds the fullness of the apostolic Christian faith, then you believe that he is a successor of the apostles, and you should believe that where he and his flock are gathered together in Christ's name, there is the Church in its fullness. If one doesn't believe that one's bishop is a bishop, or that the fullness of the apostolic Christian faith is believed by that bishop and his flock, then I would think that one would choose to seek out something else. You seem to have arrived at that conclusion, or to be in the process of coming to it, and things will take their natural course as a result of it.
My point was that it is a bit presumptuous of the author in question to tell Anglicans that they *must* choose between Rome and Orthodoxy. Most obviously they need not do any such thing, unless they want to, and most don't.
Statements like the one I quoted from this author remind me of the "you Orthodox *must* be in communion with the Roman Catholic church, or you're not in the Church" stuff. It speaks of legalism, of juridical conceptions of what makes one a member of Christ's body, and generally, of putting the cart before the horse.
Ecumenical Councils are those to which the bishops, and others entitled to vote, are convoked from the whole world (oikoumene) under the presidency of the pope or his legates, and the decrees of which, having received papal confirmation, bind all Christians. ... The second rank is held by the general synods of the East or of the West, composed of but one-half of the episcopate. The Synod Of Constantinople (381) was originally only an Eastern general synod, at which were present the four patriarchs of the East (viz. of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem), with many metropolitans and bishops. It ranks as Ecumenical because its decrees were ultimately received in the West also.
From the Catholic Encyclopedia.
Might I point out that neither was the distinction between God's essence and energies - dogmatized for the Orthodox by the Palamite synods in the fourteenth century? And I think a good case can be made for official acceptance of the filioque based on the approbation of St. Cyril's second synodical letter by the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus (this was a key argument of Traversari at the Council of Florence).
At any rate, I think +Photius can safely be trusted to be free from the taint of Augustine's doctrines, and he apparently had no problem with the Immaculate Conception.
Selective reading misses the big picture. That's the problem with Protestant "Bible wars" -- there is a counter-quote for every quote.
St. John Damascene (Book II), also says "For God did not create death, neither does He take delight in the destruction of living things. But death is the work rather of man, that is, its origin is in Adam's transgression."
And what was the nature of such transgression? That transgression was not the disobedience, as the West teaches, i.e. the eating of the fruit. The disobedience did not get Adam and Eve to die!
Instead, the merciful God gave Adam a chance to repent (as He does to all of us). But, in his arrogance and pride, Adam blames God! Death came into the world when Adam and Eve separated themselves from the life-giving God, and not as a result of God taking His Grace from our ancestral parents, or even because of their disobedience.
We are all disobedient. But God, in His unchanging and everlasting loving mercy makes all of us the same offer -- to repent so that we may live.
If we could just agree on what the 'whole' church is, we could understand why no ecumenical council took place after the 7th.
If you want to see what the Orthdoox Church teaches, look at her liturgical services, which are lengthy, detailed, and ancient.
I have written on this at length elsewhere. The services of the Orthodox Church for the feast of the Dormition are dominated by language about the Theotokos dying, and about Christ receiving her soul. This is depicted in every icon of the Dormition, with Christ holding an infant Theotokos in his arms, representing her soul, and a dead or dying Theotokos lying in the midst of the Apostles.
The second most common thing talked about is her "translation" from earth to heaven. The language is ambiguous -- sometimes it is clearly talking about her soul, at other times it could conceivably be her body. There are a few references in the services, though, that seem to indicate that she was taken up bodily into heaven. But even these are not crystal-clear -- and usually, when the Orthodox Church is talking about a dogma, the services are not only crystal-clear, but they approach it explicitly from so many directions that you really can't mistake it.
For instance, if one looks at the service for the Annunciation, just finished (and at the icon) -- Christ's bodily Ascension into heaven couldn't be more explicitly spelled out. There just isn't anything like that about the Theotokos.
I personally think that the witness of the Orthodox Church's tradition points to the Theotokos being resurrected and brought to heaven to be united with her soul, but it is not by any stretch the central message of the feast we commemorate on August 15.
Regarding the Immaculate Conception, I would need to see the exact quotations, in context, from St. Photius before I would believe that there was this teaching coming from him. There appears to be confusing in the Catholic Church regarding what the feast of the Conception of the Theotokos means and meant to the Orthodox. Both canons in the service for this feast are canons "of Anna," and at least the first one dates back to the 700's.
There is nothing in the services that could remotely be construed as reflecting the teaching of the Immaculate Conception, other than one hymn that speaks of the incorrupt womb of the Virgin and the corrupt womb of Anna. This would really be stretching it, since the obvious explanation is that the Theotokos lived a morally guiltless life, and that her womb was sanctified by the bodily presence of Christ, whereas we could say neither of St. Anna.
The manuscript tradition is so old, and the conservatism of our service books so great, that one can only assume that this means the Church didn't teach the IC. If it were taught, it would be at least mentioned in the service -- even if only as obliquely and ambiguously as the bodily assumption of the Theotokos is mentioned on the feast of 15 August. But rather, the miracle of the conception of the Theotokos by St. Anna that fills every corner of the services is her miraculous conception by parents too old to conceive.
This has implications, since Pius IX appeals to the Eastern origin of the feast of the Conception of the Theotokos (quite true), and furthermore he said that only two conceptions are commemorated by the Church. This is, as any Orthodox Christian, not true, since the equally miraculous conception (also by parents too old to conceive) of St. John the Baptist has its own feast in September -- a feast which homiletical evidence shows existed at least by the 5th century in the Church of Jerusalem. The main hymnography in our services date to the 700's and 800's.
My point is simply that Augustine hadn't even been translated into Greek before the fourteenth century (Fr. Romanides says this IIRC) - I doubt that a belief in the IC among post-Photian Greek authors can be attributed to Western influence. When the Feast of the Conception of the Mother of God was introduced into the West, it was immediately opposed on the basis of rejection of the IC, so it seems a bit strange that in the East it could never have carried any suggestions of the IC.
You are right that Pius IX gets it wrong in "Ineffabilis Deus":
"By this most significant fact, the Church made it clear indeed that the conception of Mary is to be venerated as something extraordinary, wonderful, eminently holy, and different from the conception of all other human beings -- for the Church celebrates only the feast days of the saints."
- all the more strange since St. John the Baptist's conception was also commemorated in the Western calendar.
The Catholic Encyclopedia argues that the IC implied in the feast of her conception: "In the Office of 9 December, however, Mary, from the time of her conception, is called beautiful, pure, holy, just, etc., terms never used in the Office of 23 September (sc. of St. John the Baptist)". Do you suppose that might have any basis?
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