Posted on 02/23/2015 5:01:49 PM PST by NRx
Pope Francis has declared Gregory of Narek to be a "Doctor of the Church." This is one of the highest honors conferred by the Catholic Church on saints. Only a handful have been so honored. The only problem is that as far as I am able to tell, Gregory of Narek was not Catholic. He was a monk of the Armenian Apostolic Church, which is part of the non-Chalcedonian (Oriental Orthodox) communion. The Armenian Church has not been in communion with the Pope of Rome since at least the sixth century. The very small Armenian Catholic (Eastern Rite) Church did not come into existence until many centuries after St. Gregory's death. Clearly this man was an Oriental Orthodox saint.
So, what's going on?
So you are telling us you Catholics are imperfect ones???
So as to promote full Christian I suppose.
Welcome Back!
AUGUSTINE SAYS YOU CAN LOSE YOUR SALVATION (i.e. CAN LOSE JUSTIFYING GRACE)
“But if someone already regenerate and justified should, of his own will, relapse into his evil life, certainly that man cannot say: “I have not received”; because he lost the grace he received from God and by his own free choice went to evil.” (Augustine, “Admonition and Grace, A.D. 426 aut 427
St Augustine also believed there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church..........
Good question. Francis just named a non-Catholic, schismatic as DOCTOR OF THE (CATHOLIC) CHURCH.
However, it IS unusual for a pope to name a non-Catholic as Doctor of the Church. Think about this. This is novel.
“...Luther relied on St. Augustine...”
For fellow Catholics so that they do not fall for the spin against St. Augustine:
Of course Luther relied on St. Augustine - Luther was a failed Augustinian monk. Luther retained a certain amount of his Augustinian formation; it was the teachings Luther personally rejected with no authority to do so that are problematic; certainly the writings listed are not the least bit problematic. This is because the writings left out prove beyond question that St. Augustine was a Catholic Bishop.
To reiterate, the writings set forth prove nothing; St. Augustine was a Roman Catholic Bishop who taught without error, converted by St. Ambrose.
Just as in the MSM, what is being left OUT is extremely significant. This is also the way Luther himself operated, he was the one who edited out the relevant writings to shore up his man made religion.
St. Augustine, Sermons 227 (A.D. 411):
“What your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the body of Christ and the chalice is the blood of Christ.
Fellow Catholic and Orthodox Christians; - pay no attention to the wolves in sheep’s clothing (Matthew 7:15) trying to prove that the Church Fathers weren’t Catholic. By this I refer to the universal Church meaning of the word catholic, out of respect for our orthodox fellow Christians on this thread. In the general sense, the attempt to prove that our common Church Fathers did not recognize a sacramental apostolic Church without Bishops easily fails as absurd.
I personally own the 4 Volume set of the collected Sunday Sermons of the Church Fathers in book form, and it is obvious simply by opening the books that when one is not cherry picking from an internet search, the Fathers were without a doubt free from error in their writings.
I apologize to responding to the attempt to waylay this thread. I have taken the bait and already regret it, and will try not to do so in the future. However, I felt the need to defend St. Augustine.
On Topic: this is an excellent thread and thanks for posting. It would seem that the new Doctor is appropriately named since his teaching contained no error, and the eastern branch of the Church is the western’s other lung. Maybe this is one step closer to formal healing of the ancient schism? Although in general this Pope makes me very nervous.
NRx, you're a N00bie and probably don't know me, but I'm a relentlessly schoolmarmish old Freepageezer now sick in the rehab hospital, trying to feebly toss out baubles of wisdom as I can. I take it you're a Concerned Catholic? Sincere welcomes from all of us.
On Gregory being a member of the Armenian (Oriental Orthodox) Church, keep in mind that nobody is personally a heretic unless they have personally embraced a heresy, and have clung to it despite due warning and correction. And the same goes for schismatics: unless you personally split the Church, or knowingly joined the Split-the-Church party, you are not personally guilty of schism.
As far as I know, all of the Orthodox Churches (Chalcedonian Eastern and Oriental) have valid lines of Apostolic Succession, therefore have valid priests and bishops, valid liturgy, valid sacraments, etc.
The main divisions, as I see it, are political/cultural/lingistic, not at the level of faith and morals.
The academic theologians will wrangle forever about the difference between monophysitism, miaphysitism, and dyophysitism, but my own view is that these issues are unlikely to come up at the Last Judgement (cf Matthew 25).
All of Gregory of Narek's writings can be found online. Here's a sampler (LINK)
Let's join him in prayer. Let's honor this honorable, God-pleasing man.
> Coffee, nose etc. Glad to see you back posting!
I am so glad that you are back to posting!
See my post #47 as well - (the last line).
Thank you for links to the St. Gregory of Narek’s writings.
Actually not the last line, the next to last line of post #47.
Try 7-UP. Tingles in the nose!
I mean it. We are brain-sick and heartsick because of this loveless ecclesiastical divorce.
It is a foul odour in the nostrils of God that these shameful divisions have been allowed to continue because of unrepentant hardness of heart, turf-wars, religious nationalism, religious imperialism, bug-tussles over abstruse bafflegab ---
Now that all of Christendom east of Belgrade and south of Palermo is being exterminated by IslamoFascism--- I lack the strength to continue on this theme. For God's sake let us pray with one another and love one another.
Are you sure about that? Did he teach the supremacy of the papacy?
Hey! I KNOW you weren't present at the last Departmental Staff Meeting I was required to attend ... but that's a perfect description of it.
Excellent points. Let’s pray for Eastern and Western Christians to reunite and for the Islamofascists to return to the pit in hell that they escaped from.
As you point out, the doctrinal differences between Eastern and Western Christendom are reconcilable, as the sacraments are valid. The filoque clause difference has been discussed ad infinitum and it appears that the creedal differences can be interpreted as largely semantics (language imprecisions in translations).
“Are you sure about that?”
No, and I was tentative since as I deliberately used the words “it would seem”.
Since both churches (Latin and Orthodox) have valid apostolic succession and valid sacraments, this could be a starting point for reunion. What to do about the Bishop of Rome’s place as first among Bishops? I think it could be worked out with prayer and negotiation - let’s pray and fast this lent for something like this to occur, without changing actual doctrine, of course ...
Hi and thanks for the welcome. FYI, I am Orthodox. Catholics are of course free to believe whatever they wish and venerate whom they wish. But from the Orthodox POV there are very definitely doctrinal issues dividing us.
Glad to hear you are recovering from your indisposition.
Unity is in the Catholic Church per pre-VII popes. The Orthodox need to turn to Catholicism. This “Bishop of Rome” (and remember that is how he describes himself from the very start, not as Pope) seems to be more interested in promoting VII’s False Religion of False Ecumenism. And don’t think that wasn’t exactly why he declared a schismatic a Doctor of the Church.
Also from the Traditional Catholic POV.
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