Posted on 05/29/2005 7:55:52 AM PDT by kosta50
BARI, Italy (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI visited the eastern port of Bari on his first papal trip Sunday and pledged to make healing the 1,000-year-old rift with the Orthodox church a "fundamental" commitment of his papacy.
Benedict made the pledge in a city closely tied to the Orthodox church. Bari, on Italy's Adriatic coast, is considered a "bridge" between East and West and is home to the relics of St. Nicholas of Myra, a 4th-Century saint who is one of the most popular in both the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches.
Benedict referred to Bari as a "land of meeting and dialogue" with the Orthodox in his homily at a Mass that closed a national religious conference. It was his first pilgrimage outside Rome since being elected the 265th leader of the Roman Catholic Church on April 19.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Upon reflection, I think my last reply only tells half the story (or maybe less). You keep looking for a neat, rationally comprehensible expression of the Orthodox notion of the 'reception' of a council.
I think you quest is, in the end, just a sign of how different the phronema of our confessions are.
Quite frankly, in rational (or at least humanly rational) terms Orthodox ecclesiology makes no sense at all. We have no central authority, and yet, spread over cultures from the erudite, classically educated elites of the Empire before its fall to the subsistence hunters of the Tlingit, in circumstances as different as the presecution under the Turk and the Bolsheviks, the height of Imperial power, and the immigrant experience in the secularizing West, we confess the same faith, follow the same praxis. Those of us with an intellectual bent still get what all the old disputes were about, why various heresies are wrong, and those without such a bent more often than not have an intuitive sense. (I joke about new Orthodox being issued an "I Spy Book of Heresies".) The Latin church's structure is comprehensible in human terms without consideration of the Holy Spirit, it maps nicely onto feudalism or a corporate organizational chart. Ours, quite simply doesn't, because it really doesn't make any sense at all without the Holy Spirit keeping it all together.
As to the primacy, they declared that they would grant the pope all the privileges he had before the schism.
Nevertheless the reunion of the Churches was not yet an accomplished fact. The Greek representatives insisted that their aforesaid declarations were only their personal opinions; and as they stated that it was still necessary to obtain the assent of the Greek Church in synod assembled..
I was wondering how long it would take for someone to just come out and say the obvious! Or to put it in even more tongue-in-cheek terms, an Orthodox chanter on one of our chant discussion forums uses as his tagline the phrase: "I'm not a member of any organized religion -- I'm Orthodox."
Seriously, you did a beautiful job of describing how things are.
Indeed your position on the ecumenicity of councils is self-consistent and in accord with your ecclesiology.
Acceptance of the ecumenicity of the Palamite Synods by the West would actually be a very strong move toward unity (though I suspect it would take place only in the context of a reunion council), as it would fairly decisively address the obstacle to reunion, hitherto not considered on this thread, but most salient in the minds of our monastics (the problematic aspects of Western soteriology, including the notion of purgatory, short-handed by our more traditionally minded monastics under the title of 'created grace'). The reception of Barlaam of Calabria into the Latin church and his elevation to the rank of Cardinal left a very bad impression on our side, which has colored subsequent readings of Latin pronouncements on the nature of grace.
When I have brought up the subject before, Latin posters have objected that the phrase 'created grace' is now found in your confession's recent catechism. It is, however, easy enough (by a Google search for "created grace" and "nihil obstat") to see that the notion has sufficient currency in your confession that it is used to critique Lutherans as accepting only uncreated grace, and is identified as the "life God gives us" in some of your writings. The Orthodox understanding is that in grace, God, through His Uncreated Energies shares the Life of the Holy and Undivided Trinity with us. "What He is by nature, we shall become by grace."
This is an excellent point which Fr. Dvornik has brought to light, and which the Holy See needs to resolve. The Acta of the Council of 879-880 are a clear witness, as is the subscription of the Pope and the enrollment of the Canons of the Council into the codices of Roman Canon Law.
"The Papal Legates read: We [Pope John VIII] wish that it is declared before the Synod, that the Synod which took place against the aforementioned Patriarch Photios at the time of Hadrian, the Most holy Pope in Rome, and [the Synod] in Constantinople [869/70] should be ostracized from this present moment and be regarded as annulled and groundless, and should not be co-enumerated with any other holy Synods.
"The Holy Synod responded: We have denounced this by our actions and we eject it from the archives and anathematize the so-called [Eighth] Synod, being united to Photios our Most Holy Patriarch. We also anathematize those who fail to eject what was written or said against him by the aforementioned by yourselves, the so-called [Eighth] Synod." (Council of Constantinople 879-880, Session 3)http://www.geocities.com/trvalentine/orthodox/dragas_eighth.html
This was done under the emperor St. Constantine XI in 1452 - but the other Patriarchs had already rejected it by that time - so I give up the point, since I can't disprove that quote from the Encyclopedia. It may be a confusion from what Fr. Gill, S.J., quotes in his book on the Council:
Finally the subject of the divine essence and operation was mooted. Whereupon the Greeks took fright and replied: 'That is not for us to answer, but for the whole eastern synod', which would seem perhaps to imply that as regards the other questions discussed they had held some kind of mandate from their fellows. Of all this they gave a full report to the Emperor.
Since the Decree of Union itself declares the schism ended, and Mark of Ephesus likewise thought that such had been the intended effect of the decree.
Formal heresy seperates one from the Church. Material heresy is held innocently and ignorantly and does not do so.
Prior to Chalcedon, one could hardly accuse correctly those who did not hold the position ultimately ratified of being formal heretics, especially as it seemed at least outwardly conformable to Ephesus. Those who became the non-Chalcedonians remained members of the Church up until they formally rejected the synod once they heard of its conclusions. Therefore, a part of the Church accepted the synod, and another part fell-away, and consensus was achieved only from the falling-away, and not from universal acceptance of those who were within the Church at the time of the synod.
After all, if they had already left, there was no need for the synod to cast them out.
Florence never became official and it was a coerced council with Islam slaughtering Christians and the Pope only agreeing to help through blackmail. It was the most disgusting display of Papisim which in short order create dthe conditions that gave rise to Luther.
I believe much of the created/uncreated grace issue is additional misunderstanding of theological terms and distinctions, combined with misapplication of them in controversialism.
As I understand it, created grace is scholastic term supposed to refer to effects within the human soul caused by its reception of uncreated grace. Thus, sanctifying grace is said to be created grace because it is the effect in the soul of its reception of the indwelling of the Blessed Trinity, not because the power of God (is this equivalent to the energies?), which causes the effects of grace, is a creature. I don't think one must take this to mean it is a creature that God can create and destroy, but rather that it is something created in our soul, meaning it occurs in time with respect to ourselves. God is not busy manufacturing quantities of grace for us.
It would probably be incredibly helpful if we could first come together and agree upon what we mean when we use various theological terms. This would probably clear up 3/4ths of our disputes.
Bump for Pope Benedict XVI.
Then your message must be lost! In western cultures, pride is not a dirty word. To the contrary! It is more a mixture of arrogance and self-satisfaction.
While the person yet lives, the soul is only ill because they still have within them the breath of life
Well, what good is a dead soul? So, why speak of the souls that are forever lost and not concentrate on the souls that are in danger of dying -- the souls that are ill?
"The soul that sinneth, the same shall die" (Ezekiel 18.20)
It doesn't have to.
And the soul that is wicked is spiritually dead while the person is yet alive
That includes all of us, don't you think?
The cleansing of the stain of having a soul which is utterly devoid of the life of God. We are born with spiritually dead souls that are contaminated by the absence of God
Soul utterly devoid of the life of God is a dead soul by your own definition Hermann, and dead souls have no return ticket; only those that are ill -- that are not "utterly devoid of life of God" -- have a chance to survive.
I think we are saying the same thing, but obviously you do not like our traditional terminology of sin, stain, cleansing, death, etc
We are not saying the same thing and it's not a matter of like or dilike, Hermann; our differences are both gross and subtle.
To the Orthodox, God is not the one who put us in this position. He did not deprive us of His Grace; we did, by our own choice. We chose to love other things and even worship things other than God. Our own fall resulted in our death, as +Paul reminds us -- suggesting that the sin of one man (Adam) brought death into the world. Does that not mean that if our (Adam's) sin were taken away, and we were restored to the same state as Adam and Eve were, that we would not be mortal? So, then, if the Theotokos was indeed one such pre-Fall human being, as your Church teaches, does that not mean that she would have never died?
The Orthodox believe she was born human as we all are, who chose not to sin and, with Grace, reached full theosis, but still died of the consequences of her first parents' Fall.
If we are saying the same thing, Hermann, then welcome to Orthodoxy!
"Heresy indeed separates from the Church - but if we are to decide on a council's ecumenicity only after deciding whether the Council proclaimed the Orthodox Faith, doesn't that negate the entire point of Councils? Everything is returned to the private judgment of the individual Christian."
Well, that would be protestantism, wouldn't it and I trust we all understand that Orthodoxy isn't protestantism. Private judgment of individual Christians isn't the test at all. Our Faith isn't determined by private individual opinions but rather it is an acceptance and living out of the Faith of the Eucharistic Community within which we work out our theosis, more the latter than the former and that may explain why our sensitivity to doctrinal error is highly tuned among the Orthodox. We all know that the words of individual Fathers are not per se declarations of the doctrines of The Church, but the consensus patrum is. Its almost the same thing when you add in the laos tou Theou. It is however, my personal, individual duty to call a spade a spade, a heresy a heresy and jump on it with full fervor when I see it. This is an obligation of all Orthodox Christians, hierarch, lower clergy, monastic or layman, no matter who or what proclaims the heresy. You need to remember that the East has far more experience with heresy, and especially heresiarchs than the West. Rather like a vast group of Grand Inquisitors, we can smell heresy. I think in part its almost like, and I really hate to use this analogy, we can sense a disturbance or disruption in "the Force" because it is at odds with the way the Eucharistic Community lives out The Faith.
Quite possibly much of the problem is largely terminological. The thing is, I think our traditionalists' critique of your soteriology under the heading of 'created grace' is broader than just objecting to the scholastic notion. As I pointed out, the reception of Barlaam of Calabria and his elevation to Cardinal left a very bad impression among the hesychasts.
The objection to purgatory (cf. St. Mark of Ephesus's Refutation) is considered under the same heading, since the Latin church, never having embraced the Palamite understanding of the Uncreated Energies, seems to teach purgation (a form of grace) by some created activity.
On that I agree with you. Absolutely. The rest is in God's hands.
-Theo
This is always a fun little quiz. Match up the source of the quote and the quotes below. No cheating!
1) "But if souls have departed this life in faith and love, while nevertheless carrying with themselves certain faults, whether small ones over which they have not repented at all, or great ones for which — even though have repented over them — they did not undertake to show fruits of repentance: such souls, we believe, must be cleansed from this kind of sins"
2) "If the baptized die truly repenant in charity before they have made satisfaction by worthy fruits of penance for sins comitted and omitted, their souls are cleansed after death by purifying punishments"
3) "All who die in God’s grace, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven."
a) Catechism of the Catholic Church
a) St. Mark of Ephesus
b) Second Council of Lyons
The first is, of course, from St. Mark of Ephesus's Refutation. I should guess on the basis of style only that the third is from your catechism, and the second from the acta of your Second Council of Lyons.
I understand by the notion of a purgatorial fire the purification of souls not by a created activity, but by their own unpreparedness to stand before our God, who "is a consumming fire" (Hebrews 12.29). The same glorious light of God that ravishes the blessed, purifies the unclean and destroys the wicked. The fire of purgatory is temporary because eventually the unclean are cleansed, and so come to full enjoyment of their salvation, not because purgatory is some locale where God roles up the welcome mat at the end of time.
St. Thomas Aquinas following Pope St. Gregory the Dialogist ("Dialogues", IV, 29) notes: "The souls of the damned ... always see the fire [of hell] as prepared for their punishment ... [, and] this vision is the immediate cause of their distress" (Summa Theologica, Supp. Q. 70, Art. 3, ad 8) St. Thomas also notes by quoting St. Augustine ("The City of God", i, 8) that: "'Even as in the same fire gold glistens and straw smokes, so in the same fire the sinner burns and the elect is cleansed.' Therefore the fire of Purgatory is the same as the fire of hell: and hence they are in the same place." (Summa Theologica Supp., Appendix II, Art. 2)
The Bible is perfectly clear that the damned will "be tormented with fire and brimstone in the sight of the holy angels and in the sight of the Lamb." They are with Jesus too, not off in some seperate place. They simply do not enjoy being with Him, since they hate Him and their fellow man. Therefore, those undergoing purification will also be in the presence of Jesus, and will receive the same punishment, though in a different spiritual quality, since they are among the saved, and not the damned.
St. Mark of Ephesus, of all people, neatly sums this up in his sermon against the purgatorial fires: "But some must be cleansed in the very departure from the body (as St. Gregory the Dialogist literally shows); while others must be cleansed after the departure from the body, before they come to worship God and are honored with the lot of the blessed, or — if their sins were more serious and bind them for a longer duration — they are kept in hell, but not in order to remain forever in fire and torment, but as it were in prison and confinement under guard. All such ones, we affirm, are helped by the prayers and Liturgies performed for them, with the cooperation of the Divine Goodness and Love for mankind. And so, we entreat God and believe to deliver the departed (from eternal torment), and not from any other torment or fire apart from those torments and that fire which have been proclaimed to be forever."
It is difficult to see the difference between what St. Mark says, and what St. Thomas says, seeing they both say the place of cleansing fire after death is hell. St. Thomas merely specifies that the state of being purified temporarily in hell is called purgatory, while St. Mark objects to this name over its then current connotation (as in Dante) of a third place besides Heaven and Hell, the apparent conception (by some) of it containing a created fire of purgation seperate from the divine energies.
And this comports perfectly to the Roman Liturgy. In the Collect of the Funeral Mass, we pray: "... do not then let him undergo the pains of Hell ..." And we sing in the Offertory: "... free the souls of all the faithful departed from the throes of Hell, from the fathomless pit. Snatch them from the lion's mouth, lest Hell engulf them, and they sink down into darkness." And the constant refrain of the versicles in the Office of Matins and Lauds of the Dead and in the Mass: "V. From the gate of hell. R. Deliver his soul, O Lord." Purgatory is never mentioned by name once, not because it is not, but because it is not different from hell, which is mentioned quite a bit.
Those who don't repent also don't believe, so who exactly is "flamed" to pristine purity in this mysterious state called the Purgatory? For, if they feel God's fire not as loving warmth but as unbearable burning, it is because they hate Him.
The way you describe the Purgatory leaves two possibilities -- either God purifes those in the Purgatory through His will and against theirs, or they change their mind once Love sears their wicked souls. So regardless which one you choose, it seems not to be a conversion in the heart but extortion under duress.
The consensus patrum of the Eastern Fathers certainly did not include any "place" called or like purgatory. The image of God's Love as a purifying or tormenting fire is present, though and the image of fire is found throughout their writings.
"Do not deceive yourself, God is fire and when He came into the world, and became man, He sent fire on the earth, as He Himself says; this fire turns about searching to find material — that is a disposition and an intention that is good — to fall into and to kindle; and for those in whom this fire will ignite, it becomes a great flame, which reaches Heaven. ... this flame at first purifies us from the pollution of passions and then it becomes in us food and drink and light and joy, and renders us light ourselves because we participate in His light." Saint Symeon the New Theologian (Discourse 78).
Saint Basil says that "...the sword of fire was placed at the gate of paradise to guard the approach to the tree of life; it was terrible and burning toward infidels, but kindly accessible toward the faithful, bringing to them the light of day."
"I say that those who are suffering in hell, are suffering in being scourged by love. ... It is totally false to think that the sinners in hell are deprived of God's love. Love is a child of the knowledge of truth, and is unquestionably given commonly to all. But love's power acts in two ways: it torments sinners, while at the same time it delights those who have lived in accord with it." Saint Isaac the Syrian (Homily 84)
As to the Final Judgment, Archbishop St. John Maximovitch, in The Last Judgement, Orthodox Word (November-December, 1966): 177-78, though not a Father, wrote:
"“The end of the world” signifies not the annihilation of the world, but its transformation. Everything will be transformed suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye. ... And the Lord will appear in glory on the clouds. Trumpets will sound, and loud, with power! They will sound in the soul and conscience! All will become clear to the human conscience. The Prophet Daniel, speaking of the Last Judgement, relates how the Ancient of Days, the Judge, sits on His throne, and before Him is a fiery stream (Dan. 7:9-10). Fire is a purifying element; it burns sins. Woe to a man if sin has become a part of his nature: then the fire will burn the man himself.
‘This fire will be kindled within a man: seeing the Cross, some will rejoice, but others will fall into confusion, terror, and despair. Thus will men be divided instantly. The very state of a man's soul casts him to one side or the other, to right or to left.
‘The more consciously and persistently a man strives toward God in his life, the greater will be his joy when he hears “Come unto Me, ye blessed.” And conversely the same words will call the fire of horror and torture on those who did not desire Him, who fled and fought or blasphemed Him during their lifetime!
‘The Last Judgement knows of no witnesses or written protocols! Everything is inscribed in the souls of men and these records, these “books”, are opened at the Judgement. Everything becomes clear to all and to oneself.
‘And some will go to joy, while others — to horror.
‘When “the books are opened”, it will become clear that the roots of all vices lie in the human soul. Here is a drunkard or a lecher: when the body has died, some may think that sin is dead too. No! There was an inclination to sin in the soul, and that sin was sweet to the soul, and if the soul has not repented of the sin and has not freed itself from it, it will come to the Last Judgement also with the same desire for sin. It will never safisty that desire and in that soul there will be the suffering of hatred. It will accuse everyone and everything in its tortured condition, it will hate everyone and everything. “There will be gnashing of teeth” of powerless malice and the unquenchable fire of hatred. ‘A “fiery gehenna” — such is the inner fire. “Here there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” Such is the state of hell.’"
"But if souls have departed this life in faith and love, while nevertheless carrying with themselves certain faults, whether small ones over which they have not repented at all, or great ones for which — even though have repented over them — they did not undertake to show fruits of repentance: such souls, we believe, must be cleansed from this kind of sins" (St. Mark of Ephesus)
The heart was already converted, but it remained with small faults and imperfections that are cleansed away in the furnace of God's loving fire. It is not a conversion after death, but a perfection, like the refining of ore into gold - the substance is not changed but perfected.
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