Replies

To say that the Orthodox do not hold the Catholic faith is to accuse them of heresy. When an accusation of heresy is made against a formerly Catholic party, it is incumbent upon the accuser to point to the matter of the heresy, and the date it was adopted. Can you do so with the Christians of Russia?

The Russian Orthodox Church does not believe in the universal and immediate jurisdiction of the Pope, nor the infallibility of the "ex cathedra" definitions of the Pope. Furthermore, they profess that Christian marriage can be dissolved in total contradiction to the Council of Trent, a doctrine that Leo XIII called a "baneful heresy" (Arcanum Divinae §33). That's three right there.

Make that "your" response. By the way, here are a few Catholic theologians on the matters of papal infallibility and supremacy:

"Many of the Eastern Fathers who are rightly acknowledged to be the greatest and most representative and are, moreover, so considered by the universal church, do not offer us any more evidence of the primacy. Their writings show that they recognized the primacy of the Apostle Peter, that they regarded the See of Rome as the prima sedes playing a major part in the Catholic communion-we are recalling, for example, the writings of St. John Chrysostom and of St. Basil who addressed himself to Rome in the midst of the difficulties of the schism of Antioch-but they provide us with no theological statement on the universal primacy of Rome by divine right. The same can be said of St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Basil, St. John Chrysostom, St. John Damascene" (Yves Congar, After Nine Hundred Years (New York: Fordham University, 1959), pp. 61-62).

"It does sometimes happen that some Fathers understood a passage in a way which does not agree with later church teaching. One example: the interpretation of Peter’s confession in Matthew 16:16-19. Except at Rome, this passage was not applied by the Fathers to the papal primacy; they worked out an exegesis at the level of their own ecclesiological thought, more anthropological and spiritual than juridical (Yves Congar, Tradition and Traditions" (New York: Macmillan, 1966), p. 398).

"I believe that the East had a very poor conception of the Roman primacy. The East did not see in it what Rome herself saw and what the West saw in Rome, that is to say, a continuation of the primacy of St. Peter. The bishop of Rome was more than the successor of Peter on his cathedra, he was Peter perpetuated, invested with Peter's responsibility and power. The East has never understood this perpetuity. St. Basil ignored it, as did St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. John Chrysostom. In the writings of the great Eastern Fathers, the authority of the Bishop of Rome is an authority of singular grandeur, but in these writings it is not considered so by divine right" (Catholic historian Pierre Batifoll, cited by Yves Congar, After Nine Hundred Years (New York: Fordham University, 1959), pp. 61-62).

"To my knowledge, nobody seems to have challenged Tierney's contention that the entire first millenium is entirely silent on papal infallibility and that, therefore, Vatican I's contention concerning the early roots of the doctrine is difficult to maintain. Practically the only objection of some substance raised against Tierney seems to be his interpretation of the twelfth century decretists: is the future dogma of Vatican I implicitly contained in them? Even after granting for the sake of argument that it is-something that Tierney does not concede in any way-the formidable obstacle of the first millenium remains untouched. In my opinion his critics have fired their guns on a secondary target (the medieval decretists and theologians) leaving the disturbing silence of the first millenium out of consideration. Nobody seems to have been able to adduce any documentary proof to show that this long silence was illusory, that the doctrine was-at least implicitly-already known and held in the early centuries. It is not easy to see how a given doctrine can be maintained to be of apostolic origin when a thousand years of tradition do not echo it in any way" (Catholic theologoan Luis Bermejo, Infallibility on Trial (Westminster: Christian Classics, 1992), pp. 164-165).

The Russian Orthodox Church does not believe in the universal and immediate jurisdiction of the Pope, nor the infallibility of the "ex cathedra" definitions of the Pope.

I don't believe anyone has ever asked them to accept these definitions. Bl. Pius IX certainly did not. He wrote his encyclical to the east and sent it out at large rather than to the Bishops, who of course he did not invite to Vatican I, an act tantamount to a giant slap in the face. Bl. John XXIII didn't either. He couldn't even figure out how to invite the eastern Bishops to the Vatican to address the topic beyond two comprimised Russians.

As far as the jurisdiction of Rome, the east does recognize the right of appeal, which is the only matter of jurisdiction with any real bearing upon them (unless of course an ecumenical council sees fit to reorder the jurisdictions of the Church). It is enshrined in several councils in Constantinople between 861 and 880. The ordinary and immediate jurisdiction of the Pope means that he is able to deal as the final arbiter with all Christians, not that all jurisdictional actions are rightfully his own power, and only exercised by others (like say, another Bishop), because he happens to give them some power. Maybe its too obvious to say this - but the other Apostles derived their power from Christ, not from St. Peter. So also with all Bishops.

Most of what Latin rite Catholics think of as the jurisdiction of Rome is a matter of concern only to us in so far as the Pope is Patriarch of the West, and not as Pope. The Pope does not have the right, for example, to appoint Bishops to the eastern Churches in union with Rome, unlike the Church in the US.

Ask an Orthodox though. Do they agree that when the Bishop of Rome and the Eastern Bishops were in communion, that the Bishop of Rome was the court of final appeal? If communion were restored would he be so again? I think you'll find the answer is yes, simply because it is a well established historical fact mentioned a number of times in the Canons and Councils. What we term the infallibility of the Pope flows from his possession of this right of appeal. Obviously, an inerrant Church cannot have an errant final decision maker in doctrinal matters. This is the same reason that Ecumenical Councils are infallible.

All these accusations of heresy from both sides simply cloud the actual problem - the breach in communion between Rome and the Bishops of the East.

Furthermore, they profess that Christian marriage can be dissolved in total contradiction to the Council of Trent, a doctrine that Leo XIII called a "baneful heresy" (Arcanum Divinae §33).

The definition at Trent was written with an eye towards not condemning eastern practice (the note in Denzinger reads: "This form of condemnation was chosen lest the Greeks be offended, who evidently followed a contrary practice, although they did not condemn the opposite practice of the Latin Church."). What they term "ecclesiastical divorce" is little different than what we term "annulment". Why not ask an Easterner about it instead of shading the truth?