Posted on 07/01/2005 2:22:18 AM PDT by kosta50
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:
Against the Greeks it suffices to call attention to the historical fact that in the Orient the Maronites and Armenians have used unleavened bread from time immemorial, and that according to Origen (In Matt., XII, n. 6) the people of the East "sometimes", therefore not as a rule, made use of leavened bread in their Liturgy.
"the canon of Trullo has no more authority over the Catholic Church than the decrees of the Robber Council of Ephesus."
Orthodox Christians regard the Council in Trullo as a continuation of the Fifth Ecumenical Council, for which reason it is also called the Quinisext Council. For Orthodox Christians, therefore, the Council in Trullo is God inspired and not open to question.
My point is simply that Canon 32 is clear evidence of the liturgical Tradition of the Church and it provides implicit evidence as to the non-employment of azymes in the liturgy. It is apparent, to me at least, that the original liturgical use at Rome, call it the Liturgy of St. Peter if you will, was derived from the Liturgy of St. James and it did not employ azymes.
Using Paul’s image of the body of Christ, Cyprian developed the idea that fullness and unity are attributes of the whole church, and each local manifestation is merely a member or part of that whole, not itself possessing catholicity. The Catholic Church is the sum of its parts, like the branches of a tree.But universal ecclesiology is not the only means to Christian unity, and it was not the pattern of the primitive church. This was eucharistic ecclesiology. In the early centuries, every local church was autonomous and independent. This was not just historical circumstance; it was a doctrinal assertion that the eucharist assembly constituted the church. The Universal Church idea, when it took hold, represented a change in both circumstance and doctrine. Recent Orthodox theology has sought to reclaim eucharistic ecclesiology as being more authentically Orthodox and more suitable to a conciliar church.
I am glad to hear that not all Orthodox hold these strange ideas about how there is no universal Church.
his words do lead to the idea of an "invisible" Church that is not identical to the visible Church
Hardly. St. Cyprian would simply say that anyone who dies outside the visible church is damned.
"admit that the Orthodox Churches erred on this point"
Erred? Did you say erred?
That's like crying in baseball.
The Church is God inspired. She does not ever err as to doctrine. Only heretics err.
The first condition of salvation is to keep the norm of the true faith and in no way to deviate from the established doctrine of the Fathers. For it is impossible that the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, who said, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church,", should not be verified. And their truth has been proved by the course of history, for in the Apostolic See the Catholic religion has always been kept unsullied. ...Following, as we have said before, the Apostolic See in all things and proclaiming all its decisions, we endorse and approve all the letters which Pope St Leo wrote concerning the Christian religion. And so I hope I may deserve to be associated with you in the one communion which the Apostolic See proclaims, in which the whole, true, and perfect security of the Christian religion resides. I promise that from now on those who are separated from the communion of the Catholic Church, that is, who are not in agreement with the Apostolic See, will not have their names read during the sacred mysteries. ...
I have signed this, my profession, with my own hand, and I have directed it to you, Hormisdas, the holy and venerable pope of Rome. (Formula of Pope St. Hormisdas, 519 AD)
One would expect that if the apostolic tradition was to use unleavened bread, the practice would have persisted in large parts of the East.
You mean like in Armenia?
Hermann, "understanding" and accepting are two different things. Just because I undersyand you doesn't mean that I accept what you are saying. That's pretty basic, or are you just obfuscating the issue?
You disappoint me gbcdoj! But I am beginning to believe that the Roman Catholics really believe the Church is (physically) in Rome, and all the other churches are "body parts." Sad, really sad.
Understood as in, accepted as being a correct way of speaking.
Yet the Apostles used Septuagint. Amazing!
Even if the Holy Spirit is third in dignity and order, why need he be third also in nature? For that he is second to the Son, having his being from him and receiving from him and announcing to us and being completely dependent on him, pious tradition recounts; but that his nature is third we are not taught by the Saints nor can we conclude logically from what has been said ... the Holy Spirit is behind the Son in order and dignity, ...
Mark of Ephesus insisted that this was a forgery, along with the writings of the Western Fathers, but modern scholarship, as well as Cardinal Bessarion's own research after the Council, has shown that the Latins at Florence were right on this issue.
For St. Basil to say that would mean that he is a heretic; so a forgery is a more logical conclusion. The Orthodox never considered the Spirit as "third" in anything; what "order" are you talking about -- eternally? The Orthodox hold that the Trinity is simultaneous and homoousious. Inserting order and degrees of dignity into one and the same Godly nature is like saying that your heart is more important than your lungs!
Oh, I understand what you are saying Hermann -- I just don't agree with you. One can state things correctly, but if the substance of the statement is incorrect, what good will being "understood" do?
St. Gregory of Nyssa in his books against Eunomius teaches an order in the Trinity, so why wouldn't St. Basil have done the same?
On the one hand, because the existence of the Son is not marked by any intervals of time, and the infinitude of His life flows back before the ages and onward beyond them in an all-pervading tide, He is properly addressed with the title of Eternal; again, on the other hand, because the thought of Him as Son in fact and title gives us the thought of the Father as inalienably joined to it, He thereby stands clear of an ungenerate existence being imputed to Him, while He is always with a Father Who always is, as those inspired words of our Master expressed it, “bound by way of generation to His Father’s Ungeneracy.” Our account of the Holy Ghost will be the same also; the difference is only in the place assigned in order. For as the Son is bound to the Father, and, while deriving existence from Him, is not substantially after Him, so again the Holy Spirit is in touch with the Only-begotten, Who is conceived of as before the Spirit’s subsistence only in the theoretical light of a cause. Extensions in time find no admittance in the Eternal Life; so that, when we have removed the thought of cause, the Holy Trinity in no single way exhibits discord with itself; and to It is glory due. (I, §42)
If you want to consider Armenia "large parts of the East," then you may certainly have the point. And if you want to appeal to Armenian beliefs and practices as authority for Roman usage, have at it.
I don't plan to read the whole article, but I note that it was by a Quaker writing about Orthodoxy, apparently with an advisor at Holy Cross (someone deeply involved in ecumenical activity of the more questionable sort.)
It would seem to reflect only one aspect of the Orthodox understanding of the Church as I tried to articulate it above, at the expense of the other.
I am not claiming that St. Cyprian believed in an invisible Church. I'm saying that if you want to believe that his statement was true *and* believe that there will be those saved who are not part of one's visible Church, however one defines it, then one is forced into the gymnastics of saying that people are members of a church to which they have not given their assent. Call it what one wills, it is an "invisible church" theology.
Many Orthodox, myself included, would prefer simply to take the attitude that his statement is incomplete or incorrect.
Actually, according to your interpretation of our interpretation, not only are we anathema to ourselves, but the Fathers of all Ecumenical Councils after the first are anathema. :-)
Obviously, the Nicean Symbol of Faith is considered by us to be complete in its Constantinopolitan form, thus the citations of the 150 fathers at subsequent Councils alongside that of the 318 when discussing the Symbol...
Had the Council in Ephesus not taken its own injunction seriously, it would have added "Theotokos" to the Symbol. By the lights of subsequent Latin interpretations of the 7th canon, the Fathers at Ephesus should have done exactly that.
It was, incidentally, my understanding that "God from God" was a later (re)addition to the Latin Creed. I suppose it is difficult to say, since it was not in liturgical use in the West as early as in the East. Where's a photo of those silver tablets of St. Leo when you need them? :-)
My point would perhaps better have been stated by saying that "God from God" is a point of divergence in the currently used text of the Creed. If the only argument of the Orthodox was that the finalized formulation of Constantinople should not have been changed, we would also at least mention this point, and the Orthodox never have, to the best of my knowledge.
Which goes back to my real point, which is that the filioque is objected to first and foremost because it is felt by the Orthodox to be incorrect doctrine.
With all due respect to the Orthodox Fathers at Florence (who were hoping for as painless a resolution as possible)and to those Orthodox today whose primary argument against the filioque is that it wasn't ratified by an Ecumenical Council, I have never felt that the strongest argument against the filioque is the procedural one.
In today's situation, we will never get to a meaningful discussion of all of this, since the filioque has been affirmed as correct doctrine by subsequent infallible Popes, so our discussions here on FR on this point are fairly moot.
Sure Hermann, that's why Luther had no problem convincing so many Germans to read his German Bible and to hear litugy in German.
Greek never held a universal placeof useage
Perhaps you "forgot" that it was Pope Victor I (at the very end of the second century) who changed the Mass from Greek to Latin.
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