Posted on 07/01/2005 2:22:18 AM PDT by kosta50
Very true. I just did that this morning. :-)
This is the part that is hard to convey, but one hopes comes across with time: Catholics excel at quoting the Fathers (and are often much better at it than we are), but we breathe them. You are right that scholasticism is precisely the point.
This does not mean that there isn't a place for deep and encyclopedic knowledge of the writings of the Fathers -- there is. But the kind of knowledge of the Fathers that matters is the knowledge that a spiritual father has, knowing how to apply the insights of the Fathers to one's salvation.
I am reminded of the story from the desert fathers in which a very learned man left the world and placed himself under an unlettered monk. When friends expressed surprise, he replied that this monk was fluent in a language of which he himself did not even know the alphabet...
Ecumenical Councils do not determine the truth. The truth exists and is articulated by God-seeing Fathers prior to any Council, and heresy is likewise identified as such, albeit it in an "unofficial" way, by the Church prior to the Council, which articulates the mind of the Church in a way that is as infallible as anything that is not Scripture can be.
This is how there can be gatherings of bishops that "decide" something, and yet have it be later rejected as a false council. It was false not because of technicalities about who was or wasn't there or what the procedures at the meeting were, but rather because what it "decided" was false.
Like Scripture, even the decrees of a Council must be interpreted in the light of the writings and mind of the Fathers.
There is also a second part to every Council: official canonical action both with regard to the heresy being addressed and with regard to other issues of the time.
It is not exactly true that no Ecumenical Council has declared on the Filioque. Councils of the Orthodox Church have done so, although unlike the Catholic church, we generally refrain from coming out and calling our subsequent councils "Ecumenical."
Also, since Rome cut herself off from the Orthodox Church prior to these councils, I am not certain that the Orthodox Church attempted in any of these to take canonical action against Rome. The circumspect nature of how the Orthodox Church has acted in this regard tends to reflect, in my opinion, the hope that Rome will someday return to Orthodox belief. The fact that the Orthodox never created an Orthodox Patriarch of Rome (even though their Catholic counterparts acted with no similar restraint) reflects this.
As my postings have indicated, the Orthodox Church has issued any number of statments, either by councils, from individual bishops, or from groups of bishops, that address the filioque and other issues. The Orthodox Church has been unequivocal that the filioque is theologically incorrect.
The Latins also added "God from God" to the Creed without "authorization." We Orthodox generally don't complain about the canonicity of this (even though this addition is also an inadmissible alteration of the Creed, from a canonical standpoint) and generally choose to ignore it because it is not heretical.
The filioque *is*, however, incorrect teaching. The doctrine of God is at the heart of all theology -- it is, in the truest sense of the word, the only thing truly worthy of the name "theology -- therefore this, not canonical and juridical details, is the fundamental reason that it cannot be overlooked.
Yes, thank you.
"Truth is immediate and present"
nikolai berdyaev
Our notion of truth is presently under the spell of objectivization. Only what can be objectively verified is considered to be true, genuine, and trustworthy. The rulership of objective thinking, which plays itself out as science and technology, alienates and suffocates both the life of the spirit and the individual.
Truth has two meanings: there is truth as knowledge of reality, and truth as reality itself. (BE, 48)
Where shall we seek criteria of truth? All too often men seek these criteria in what is lower than truth, in the objective world with its compulsions, seek criteria for spirit in the material world. And they fall into a vicious circle. Discursive truth can provide no criteria for final truth: it is only at the half-way mark, and knows neither the beginning nor the end. Every proof rests upon the unproven, the postulate, the created. There is risk, and no guarantee. The very search for guarantee is wrong and really means subjecting the higher to the lower. Freedom of the spirit knows no guarantees. The sole criterion of truth is truth itself, the light which streams out of it. (BE, 49)
Truth has nothing to do with the objective world, but rather is related to spirit. Truth is something present and immediate.
Truth is the awakening of spirit in man, his communion with spirit. (BE, 48)
Truth is not of the world, but of the spirit: it is known only in transcending the objective world. Truth is the end of this objective world, it demands our consent to this end. (BE, 72)
Berdyaev on truth.
Try this for your next vacation, though.
You hit the nail on the head, MarMema! That's lovely!
So, in the western "jargon" the ousia is translated as substance? Am I to assume, then, that the substance in this case means the same as essence or nature?
Nah, Agrarian was the one who focused it on the liturgy.
I was thinking specifically of old, old stone walls with ancient icons on them.
For housekeeping's sake, can you clean up the messy headline?
What precisely happened in 1054? What were the "offenses" of the Greeks to warrant Pope Leo's (IX) excommunication of the EP? Was it his wounded pride that the Bishop of Constantinople assumed the name of the Imperial (Ecumenical) Patriarch. Imperial and Ecumenical were one and the same, and in the East, Constantinople is still referred to as the Imperial City.
The manner itself of the "excommunication" was indiciative of the way the Latin side behaved. Never mind the fact that the act itself was invalid because Leo IX was dead and Cardinal Humbert's authorty as the papal legate had expired.
As to disallowing Latin bishops to join us so as to resolve the issues, we have been talking for the last 30 or so years in case you hadn't noticed, and we have not progressed at all. We are not one iota closer, all the statements of brotherly and mutual respect notwithstanding.
That's because we have rehashed this a million times from 1054 onward and have gotten nowehere. Why can't you just live with that? Why do your Popes continue to make overtures without any concrete offers? Why not just lay down an offer and see if there are any takers and be done with it?
You are right. I didn't realize that the HTML commands do not work in titles until after the article was posted.
Kolokotronis must be experiencing the same thing, even magnified, as I do. The Church Slavonic is simialr to what Old English might be to English speakers -- rusty but intelligible. Gramatically, it is the closest to Serbian (they both share 7 cases and an infintive that ends on "-i," as in pisati [to write] rather than pisat', as is commong in other Slavinc languages).
Thus listening to the Churhc Slavonic liturgy is like listening to your ancestors, knowing that they prayed in the same language and that makes the past seem perfectly alive and present, unchanging.
Petrosius, I am being forced here to get into territory I had hoped I would not need to penetrate, disagreement among contemporary Eastern hierarchs. Do you wish union with the Church or simply union with those hierarchs who will either agree with you or with whom you can construct an agreed statement of some sort? If the former, you can only have it through repentance. If the latter, Metropolitan John just may be your guy.
At the Council of Florence, because of the force of circumstances and the Erastian policy of the Byzantine Emperor, all of the attendees who stayed to the end - with but one exception(St. Mark of Ephesus) - finally caved in and agreed to all of the Latin demands and union was proclaimed with bells and whistles. Is that your desire? Another Florentine union? If so, it has already been accomplished with some of the Eastern jurisdictions.
But what happened after Florence? All of the bishops who agreed to the Latin demands were defrocked and sent back to the monasteries to live out the rest of their lives in shame. The Ecumenical Patriarch died in Florence and was there buried. A few, such as Metropolitan Bessarion, were paid off with Latin jurisdictions or red hats.
My point is that everything you have brought up has already been covered ad infinitum by others far wiser than me. The best and the brightest hashed all of this out at Florence. And the best of them all was St. Mark of Ephesus. Instead of beating your brains out against poor little old me, read the History of the Council of Florence by Ivan Ostroumoff. Then, and only then, if you still think you have something to say, say it.
Or maybe not.
What are you doing for the 4th? Will you celebrate it this year?
bookmark
That certainly sounds reasonable.
With that then there would be no reason we could not once again celebrate the liturgy together.
But there's a problem. So long as dogmatic differences exist, we are not united in faith and discipline.
Can you imagine how the tension level would rise in every liturgy as the words "Who proceeds from the Father" are spoken?
We don't disallow the possibility but we acknowledge the reality that the Greeks could not cede on certain issues the Latins would demand and vice-versa.
I'm sorry fellas, but as to co-celebrations of the Divine Liturgy, that's impossible. In fact, even joint prayers are impossible. Why, we do not even agree on the nature of the Godhead. Our differences as to ecclesiology generate differences as to Christology. Our differences as to the procession of the Holy Spirit generate differences as to Triadology. And so when we address the Holy Trinity, our prayers do not go at all in the same direction. One set goes to the Holy Trinity as it is and another to the "Holy Trinity" as the other person believes it to be. One set goes to God and the other to a demon. We can be polite and not call one another heretics, but this politeness masks a reality and, by doing so, encourages the party in error to think there is no problem. That does a disservice to him.
A concurring statement from yours truly FormerLib. As to our bishops in a pow wow with the RC bishops, "been there-done that"(Florence). No thanks.
If I make an overture to someone it is because I want something from that person. The recepient of my overtures expects me to state exactly what I am offering. Thus, when the Roman Catholics continue to approach the Orthodox with overtures of reconciliation, we assume they have something to offer that will make reconciliantion a realistic possibility.
As soon as it becomes obvious that all they want is for the Orthodox to recognize the Pope as they see him, the Orthodox lose interest, because it is the same-old-same-old bait that has been thrown at us repeatedly, but someone always falls for it and starts negotiating until they too learn that this is the same old stale cracker they have thrown at us all along.
Let them list our "offenses" and we will list theirs. If neither side is willing to make mends on them -- and neither side is, trust me -- the overture is DOA.
We are not asking anyone to become Orthodox. If they are interested we tell them about it. Those who are ready to come back will come back with or without negotiations.
In the military they used to say "mind over matter -- I don't mind and they don't matter." It may not be the best PC statement but it's true.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.