Posted on 07/01/2005 2:22:18 AM PDT by kosta50
"The Council in Trullo was never recognized by the whole Church and is not an Ecumenical Council."
See Eastern Orthodox Ecclesiology: against false unions [my title]
Posted by Graves to gbcdoj
On Religion 07/17/2005 8:18:55 PM PDT · 322 of 340
Why are the Orthodox supposed to care about this?
"We Catholics agree that each particular Church is fully the Body of Christ, but we don't view that as contradictory to the patristic idea of a "universal Church" as well. I point you to section II, "The Universal Church and Particular Churches" of the CDF Letter on Some Aspects of the Church Understood as Communion."
Yeh, well so what?
In 692 the Greek bishops, even by Orthodox standards, did not have the right to speak for the whole Church. Nor can you claim that it was a continuation of the Fifth and Sixth Ecumenical Councils. The Fifth Ecumenical Council (the Second Council of Constantinople) ended in 553. The Sixth Ecumenical Council (the Third Council of Constantinople) ended in 681. No western bishops were invited to the Council in Trullo in 692 nor was it approved by the pope or papal legates; it was clearly a local Greek affair. By your own concept of reception the Council in Trullo must be rejected as ecumenical because it was never received or accepted by the West. Or are you now positing that only reception by the Greeks is necessary: Ubi episcopi Graeci ibi Ecclesia?
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.
Even if I were to accept the ecumenical status of Trullo, nothing in the canons that you quoted gives any evidence on the nature of the bread that was used; on this point the canons are silent.
I'm not sure you are correctly paraphrasing St. Cyprian here. "St. Cyprian would simply say that anyone who dies outside the visible church is damned."
As I recall, but I may be wrong, St. Cyprian was a little more nuanced in what he said. I think what he actually said was, "He cannot have God for his Father who has not the Church for his mother. If anyone who was outside the Ark of Noah was able to escape, then whosoever is outside the Church escapes."
The Church is our means of salvation. To attempt our own salvation outside of the Church built for us for that purpose by Christ our Lord is like a person in Noah's day attempting to escape the Flood without entering the Ark of Noah.
But the Greeks did use artos to mean unleavened bread. In the Septuagint we find this usage for the unleavened shewbread: Ex. 25:30; Lev. 24:5-6; and I Sam. 21:3-6. In Matt. 12:4 when our Lord describes how David ate the unleavened consecrated bread artos is used. Josephus also uses artos for unleavened bread (Ant. 3.6.6.).
The Last Supper was the Passover. The use of leavened bread would have been highly significant and would have been expressly noted. The fact that it was not leads to the conclusion that the use of the term artos meant bread in general and withing the context of a passover meal must have been unleavened. Additionally, since all leavened bread would have to be destroyed in anticipation of Passover, leavened bread would have been unavailable.
One would expect that if the apostolic tradition was to use unleavened bread, the practice would have persisted in large parts of the East.
This would only be true if there were any real significance as to whether the bread was leavened or not. If it were understood that bread is bread then it is easy to see that they would use whatever bread was most available.
The hermaneutic of suspicion lives and breathes!
"Even if I were to accept the ecumenical status of Trullo, nothing in the canons that you quoted gives any evidence on the nature of the bread that was used; on this point the canons are silent."
The evidence is implicit in Canon 32. Note that the canon tells us that the Liturgy was given to St. James complete with directions, i.e. what we would call rubrics. These would surely have included not just the matter of mixing water with the wine, but other important details, e.g. what sort of bread could be used.
Note also that the Liturgy of St. James is seen as the root liturgy. All other liturgies of the Church, according to Canon 32, are derived from the Liturgy of St. James. Thus, the Liturgy of St. Mark in Alexandria is from the Liturgy of St. Peter in Rome which was from the Liturgy of St. James. How do we know? Tradition tells us that St. Mark the Evangelist helped St. Peter in his ministry to the people in Rome.
The Liturgy of St. Basil came from the Liturgy of St. Peter the Holy Apostle as celebrated in Antioch which came from that of St. James. The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom came from St. Basil's.
All over the Church, the various liturgies used have their origin in the Liturgy of St. James. And yet, as Agrarian noted in one of his posts, nowhere in the East, except in Armenia, do we detect the use of azymes.
That's a clue. Now apply the Vincentian Canon to the evidence and the only conclusion possible, it seems to me, is that azymes were not originally employed in Rome or in Armenia.
You are assuming that whether the bread were leavened or not was an important detail. It is just as easy to see the fact that bread is bread, leavened or not. Canon 32 is silent on this and so should we be.
"It is just as easy to see the fact that bread is bread, leavened or not. Canon 32 is silent on this and so should we be."
That's your opinion. In the Church, we do not have the luxury of personal opinions on such matters as this. According to St. Photius the Great, the use of azymes is not a minor matter. No father prior to St. Photius that I know of said, "This is but a minor matter", or words to that effect.
I do know that there was/is room for some flex in the Church as to uses from diocese to diocese, but not as to what is or is not the matter of a sacrament. The only flex I am aware of as to the matter of a sacrament has to do with baptism in extremis. But even there, such baptisms are to be reported to the authorities and may, under certain conditions, have to repeated entirely because they are not up to standard and so not baptisms at all.
The spouse of Christ cannot be adulterous; she is uncorrupted and pure. She knows one home; she guards with chaste modesty the sanctity of one couch. She keeps us for God. She appoints the sons whom she has born for the kingdom. Whoever is separated from the Church and is joined to an adulteress, is separated from the promises of the Church; nor can he who forsakes the Church of Christ attain to the rewards of Christ. He is a stranger; he is profane; he is an enemy. He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother. If any one could escape who was outside the ark of Noah, then he also may escape who shall be outside of the Church. The Lord warns, saying, "He who is not with me is against me, and he who gathereth not with me scattereth." He who breaks the peace and the concord of Christ, does so in opposition to Christ; he who gathereth elsewhere than in the Church, scatters the Church of Christ. The Lord says, "I and the Father are one; " and again it is written of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, "And these three are one." And does any one believe that this unity which thus comes from the divine strength and coheres in celestial sacraments, can be divided in the Church, and can be separated by the parting asunder of opposing wills? He who does not hold this unity does not hold God's law, does not hold the faith of the Father and the Son, does not hold life and salvation.
First, I still cannot see how you can claim that Trullo was an Ecumenical Council. Beyond that, your interpretation that Canon 32 requires unleavened bread is a personal opinion, and one that is far fethced as far as I am concerned. You are reading into the canon something that it simply does not say.
With regard to Patriarch Photius, it seems to me that you are giving to him an infallibility that you are denying to the pope. Why should the decision of the Patriarch of Constantinople be held in higher regard than that of the pope.
That being said, however, it may come as a surprise to you but Photius never condemned the West for the use of unleavened bread. That was first done by Patriarch Michael I in 1053 when he closed the Latin churches in Constantinople. Thus for hundreds of years no one thought that it was a serious matter. The novelty was the condemnation of Patriarch Michael.
And what prior Father stated that it was a major matter?
"First, I still cannot see how you can claim that Trullo was an Ecumenical Council."
I accept it as Ecumenical because the Church does. The teaching of the Church is that the Council in Trullo was a continuation of the Fifth Council that dealt with matters left unfinished at the Fifth Ecumenical Council. All of the canons in Trullo were confirmed at the Sixth Ecumenical Council.
"You are reading into [Canon 32] something that it simply does not say." Yeh, me and the rest of the Church are "reading into".
"With regard to Patriarch Photius, it seems to me that you are giving to him an infallibility that you are denying to the pope." HOGWASH. I render to him the respect that all Orthodox Christians render to him. It's the Tradition that's
infallible, not St. Photius.
"Why should the decision of the Patriarch of Constantinople be held in higher regard than that of the pope." It's the Tradition that is held in higher regard. No pope and no ecumenical patriarch can override the Tradition. I have just as hard a time with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew as I do with Pope Benedict XVI. You should hear what we say of the present EP. He is generally held in very low regard, so much so it mystifies us that Pope Benedict XVI bothers to talk with him at all. Another stinker is Patriarch Alexei II, called by some the Ghetto Orthodox Patriarch because of his past.
"That being said, however, it may come as a surprise to you but Photius never condemned the West for the use of unleavened bread."
I believe you may want to double check that statement.
"And what prior Father stated that [unleavened bread] was a major matter?"
Implicitly, I would say St. James the Brother of the Lord appears to have done so, thus the universal practice of the East, excepting Armenia. It would be a part of what the Orthodox call the oral Tradition.
As pointed out, there are no extant instructions from him on the subject. St. James certainly would have known that both leavened and unleavened bread are just that, bread, and so both are valid matter. Implicitly, therefore, his lack of instructions to use only leavened bread shows that it doesn't matter.
To: Graves
Cyprian's words:.....
Thank you. He did have a way with words. Praise God for all things.
Sure on that?
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02172a.htmCertain it is that in the ninth century the use of unleavened bread had become universal and obligatory in the West, while the Greeks, desirous of emphasizing the distinction between the Jewish and the Christian Pasch, offered up leavened bread. Some surprise has been expressed that Photius, so alert in picking flaws in the Latin Liturgy, made no use of a point of attack which occupies so prominent a place in the polemics of the later schismatics. The obvious explanation is that Photius was shrewd and learned enough to see that the position of the Latins could not successfully be assailed. Two centuries later, the quarrel with Rome was resumed by a patriarch who was troubled with no learned scruples. As a visible symbol of Catholic unity, it had been the custom to maintain Greek churches and monasteries in Rome and some of Latin Rite in Constantinople. In 1053, Michael Cærularius ordered all the Latin churches in the Byzantine capital to be closed, and the Latin monks to be expelled. As a dogmatic justification of this violent rupture with the past, he advanced the novel tenet that the unleavened oblation of the "Franks" was not a valid Mass; and one of his chaplains, Constantine by name, with a fanaticism worthy of a Calvinist, trod the consecrated Host under his feet. The proclamation of war with the pope and the West was drawn up by his chief lieutenant, Leo of Achrida, metropolitan of the Bulgarians. It was in the form of a letter addressed to John, Bishop of Trani, in Apulia, at the time subject to the Byzantine emperor, and by decree of Leo the Isaurian attached to the Eastern Patriarchate. John was commanded to have the letter translated into Latin and communicated to the pope and the Western bishops. This was done by the learned Benedictine, Cardinal Humbert, who happened to be present in Trani when the letter arrived. Baronius has preserved the Latin version; Cardinal Hergenröther was so fortunate as to discover the original Greek text (Cornelius Will, Acta et Scripta, 51 sqq.). It is a curious sample of Greek logic. "The love of God and a feeling of friendliness impelled the writers to admonish the Bishops, clergy, monks and laymen of the Franks, and the Most Reverend Pope himself, concerning their azyms and Sabbaths, which were unbecoming, as being Jewish observances and instituted by Moses. But our Pasch is Christ. The Lord, indeed, obeyed the law by first celebrating the legal pasch; but, as we learn from the Gospel, he subsequently instituted the new pasch.... He took bread, etc., that is, a thing full of life and spirit and heat. You call bread panis; we call it artos. This from airoel (airo), to raise, signifies a something elevated, lifted up, being raised and warmed by the ferment and salt; the azym, on the other hand, is lifeless as a stone or baked clay, fit only to symbolize affliction and suffering. But our Pasch is replete with joy; it elevates usfrom the earth to heaven even as the leaven raises and warms the bread", etc. This etymological manipulation of artos from airo was about as valuable in deciding a theological controversy as Melanchthon's discovery that the Greek for "penance" is metanoia. The Latin divines found an abundance of passages in Scripture whereunleavened bread is designated as artos. Cardinal Humbert remembered immediately the places where the unleavened loaves of proposition are called artoi. If the writers of the letter had been familiar with the Septuagint, they would have recalled the artous azymous of Ex., xxix, 2.
Sometimes. When they wrote in Greek, or when their writings were translated into Greek (as St. Paul, for example, clearly dictated his letters or had them translated).
Father-Son-Holy Spirit - 1-2-3
Not:
Father-Holy Spirit-Son
Or:
Son-Holy Spirit-Father
Or:
Holy Spirit-Father-Son
Etc.
The Latin version of Dionysius Exigius contains that phrase long before those silver tablets.
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