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""It seems that after the schism, the West went on to develop its philosophy based on logic and the East on mysticism, as if the West in losing the East, lost its heart while the East lost its mind"

He then went on to say that the two halves have lost by the split and that the combined Church would be far, far greater than the sum of the two halves."

Well, anyone who has spent anytime in the kitchen of a Greek restaurant knows we Greeks lost our minds a long time ago! Seriously, this is pretty good. Actually, I think much of the theological thinking that took place in both the East and the West declined rather precipitously after the &th Ecumenical Council and took a real plunge after the Great Schism. Much of what we read, especially from councils, but also in theological writings, seem polemical and political rather than spiritual, and I mean this on both sides. Much of the stuff written in the past couple of hundred years is downright terrible because it tends more towards being apologetical in tone rather than explanatory or speculative.

I suppose that in the loss of each other we lost the ability to meet as THE CHURCH, which we were able to do before the Great Schism. We Orthodox have, since the 7th Ecumenical Council, been careful to speak only for ourselves and not make pronouncements for the whole Church. Rome, for reasons sufficient to Rome, continued to make dogma purportedly for the whole Church. Theologically, its like we've been limping along. Perhaps the Holy Spirit doesn't inspire parts of the Church as well as it does the whole Church.

Bet I get flamed for this one!