Posted on 07/18/2005 4:52:18 PM PDT by A2J
Not all harm is reducible to a single man.
Loss of Palestine and North Africa can probably be traced to weak and ineffective Byzantine emperors. Arianism and other Christological heresies facilitated apostasies to Islam.
The greatest harm to the body of Christ was done when the great schism with the Orthodox occurred. It was completely innecessary, as to this day the theological differences we have with the Orthodox, while not insignificant, are surmountable if a good conciliar atmosphere existed.
Luther, of course, is among those in modern history whose name comes up first. This is not to deny his positive contribution to the reform of the Church that occurred at Trent. His apostasy is in tampering with the Canon of the Holy Scripture and denial of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, both grave and far reaching offences foretold and condemned in the Scripture. His other opinions, such as the use of vernacular, fundamental role of faith in justification, and sufficiency of the Scripture were not by themselves harmful, were they expressed in a healthy Christian debate. Neither can Luther be responsible for further grotesque excesses of Calvin.
Reflecting on the harm done by Protestant Reformation, one must mention King Henry VIII and Elizabeth II. Unlike honest German reformers, these were driven by sheer lust for power (in case of Henry, also the old-fashioned lust) as their intent was to build a national church of whatever theological persuasion that serves the throne first. Were they to fail, -- and failing they are as is now plain to see, -- Protestantism would have remained a quaint German thing, like porcelain figurines and taste for abstract thought. They introduced Protestantism into the Anglosphere, where, combined with English mercantile republicanism it gave us the present decentralized American model of evangelical scatter, that the leviathan of the modern state can eat up one by one.
Excuse me, but when you say "to this day the theological differences we have with the Orthodox, while not insignificant, are surmountable if a good conciliar atmosphere existed", I must tell you, in love and candor, that lack of a conciliar atmosphere is not the problem.
As St. Mark of Ephesus put it, at or right after the Council of Florence, "The Latins are not only schismatics but heretics... we did not separate from them for any other reason other than the fact that they are heretics. This is precisely why we must not unite with them unless they dismiss the addition from the Creed filioque and confess the Creed as we do....It is impossible to recall peace without dissolving the cause of the schism—the primacy of the Pope exalting himself equal to God..."
But good conciliar atmosphere might discover that the Catholic Church does not hold the Pope equal to God; even that the Pope's powers over the Latin Rite Catholicism are not matched vis-a-vis the Eastern Catholic Rites.
The conciliar atmosphere is completely absent today, and I am not going to start yet another counterproductive discussion on the Papacy. The opportunity to avoid the schism was there around the time the Filioque controversy erupted, and those bishops back then are responsible for it, -- which answered the titular question.
"I am not going to start yet another counterproductive discussion on the Papacy."
Thank God for that!
"The opportunity to avoid the schism was there around the time the Filioque controversy erupted." ???
It erupted, at least in substance if not in outward manifestation, the instant that a heresy was introduced into the Nicene Creed, this would have been at the Council of Toledo A.D. 589
It erupted when Protodeacon Alcuin of York modified the Nicene Creed as recited at the Cathedral of Aachen in the 9th century.
It erupted when St. Photius the Great learned of the problem and spoke out publicly against it in the 9th century.
It erupted when the Pope of Rome failed to take appropriate action in the 9th century.
It erupted the instant the Pope of Rome was forced by the Germans to use a liturgy inclusive of the filioque heresy. That would have been at the coronation of Henry II as Holy Roman Emperor in A.D. 1014.
It continues because the bishops in the West, with the exception of the Old Catholic bishops, have done nothing to solve the problem.
It continues because even the Old Catholics have retained the filioque heresy as an optional piety.
"No[r] will I start a back-and forth on Filioque."
Thank you.
Yeh, that "Yemeni goat herder known as Mohammad" was a really bad dude. Speaking of Yemeni bad dudes, another one was Dhu Nowas. Dhu Nowas was the Jewish King of Yemen who invented the holocaust method of exterminating people of another faith, in this instance Christians.
Maybe Mohammed picked stuff up for the Koran from learning about Dhu Nowas?
"Saint Arethas and Companions: Martyrs (523), inhabitants of the Christian city of Nedshran (Negran), Arabia, killed by the Dhu Nowas (Dunawan), King of the Hymerites. Arethas, ninety-six years old, was beheaded; some of the others were burnt alive. Feast, 27 July." (New Catholic Dictionary)
According to Orthodox sources, the some others burned alive numbered 4,299.
I understood the question to refer to Christians that hurt the Church. So in my answer I list the Christian monarchs that failed to resist Islam, but not Mohammed himself.
To list outside enemies of the Church is perhaps easier.
The Devil;
The Sanhedrin;
Nero;
Mohammed;
The Seljuks;
A crew of enlightenment figures such as Voltaire and the Jacobins;
Marx;
Lenin, Stalin, their numerous minions
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