A Catholic View of Eastern Orthodoxy (1 of 4)

First, I shall discuss why Catholics should not only show some ecumenical concern for Orthodoxy but also treat the Orthodox as their privileged or primary ecumenical partner.

Secondly, I shall ask why the schism between the Catholic and Orthodox churches occurred, focussing as it finally did on four historic 'dividing issues'.

Thirdly, I shall evaluate the present state of Catholic-Orthodox relations, with particular reference to the problem of the 'Uniate' or Eastern Catholic churches.

Fourthly and finally, having been highly sympathetic and complimentary to the Orthodox throughout, I shall end by saying what, in my judgment, is wrong with the Orthodox Church and why it needs Catholicism for (humanly speaking) its own salvation.

Part 1 First, then, why should Catholics take the Orthodox as not only an ecumenical partner but the ecumenical partner par excellence? There are three kinds of reasons: historical, theological and practical - of which in most discussion only the historical and theological are mentioned since the third sort - what I term the 'practical' - takes us into areas of potential controversy among Western Catholics themselves.

The historical reasons for giving preference to Orthodoxy over all other separated communions turn on the fact that the schism between the Roman church and the ancient Chalcedonian churches of the East is the most tragic and burdensome of the splits in historic Christendom if we take up a universal rather than merely regional, perspective. Though segments of the Church of the Fathers were lost to the Great Church through the departure from Catholic unity of the Assyrian (Nestorian) and Oriental Orthodox (Monophysite) churches after the Councils of Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451) respectively, Christians representing the two principal cultures of the Mediterranean basin where the Gospel had its greatest flowering - the Greek and the Latin - lived in peace and unity with each other, despite occasional stirrings and some local difficulties right up until the end of the patristic epoch.

That epoch came to its climax with the Seventh Ecumenical Council, Nicaea II, in 787, the last Council Catholics and Orthodox have in common, and the Council which, in its teaching on the icon, and notably on the icon of Christ, brought to a triumphant close the series of conciliar clarifications of the Christological faith of the Church which had opened with Nicaea I in 325.

The iconography, liturgical life, Creeds and dogmatic believing of the ancient Church come down to us in forms at once Eastern and Western; and it was this rich unity of patristic culture, expressing as it did the faith of the apostolic community, which was shattered by the schism between Catholics and Orthodox, never (so far) to be repaired. And let me say at this point that Church history provides exceedingly few examples of historic schisms overcome, so if history is to be our teacher we have no grounds for confidence or optimism that this most catastrophic of all schisms will be undone. 'Catastrophic' because, historically, as the present pope has pointed out, taking up a metaphor suggested by a French ecclesiologist, the late Cardinal Yves Congar: each Church, West and East, henceforth could only breathe with one lung.

No Church could now lay claim to the total cultural patrimony of both Eastern and Western Chalcedonianism - that is, the christologically and therefore triadologically and soteriologically correct understanding of the Gospel. The result of the consequent rivalry and conflict was the creation of an invisible line down the middle of Europe. And what the historic consequences of that were we know well enough from the situation of the former Yugoslavia today.

After the historical, the theological. The second reason for giving priority to ecumenical relations with the Orthodox is theological. If the main point of ecumenism, or work for the restoration of the Church's full unity, were simply to redress historic wrongs and defuse historically generated causes of conflict, then we might suppose that we should be equally - or perhaps even more - nterested in addressing the Catholic-Protestant divide. After all, there have been no actual wars of religion - simply as such - between Catholics and Orthodox, unlike those between Catholics and Protestants in sixteenth century France or the seventeenth century Holy Roman Empire.

But theologically there cannot be any doubt that the Catholic Church must accord greater importance to dialogue with the Orthodox than to conversations with any Protestant body. For the Orthodox churches are churches in the apostolic succession; they are bearers of the apostolic Tradition, witnesses to apostolic faith, worship and order - even though they are also, and at the same time, unhappily undered from the prima sedes, the first see. Their Fathers and other ecclesiastical writers, their liturgical texts and practices, their iconographic tradition, these remain loci theologici - authoritative sources - to which the Catholic theologian can and must turn in his or her intellectual construal of Catholic Christianity. And that cannot possibly be said of the monuments of Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed or any other kind of Protestantism.

To put the same point in another way: the separated Western communities have Christian traditions - in the plural, with a small 't' - which may well be worthy of the Catholic theologian's interest and respect. But only the Orthodox are, along with the Catholic Church, bearers of Holy Tradition - in the singular, with a capital 'T', that is, of the Gospel in its plenary organic transmission through the entirety of the life - credal, doxological, ethical - of Christ's Church.

There is for Catholics, therefore, a theological imperative to restore unity with the Orthodox which is lacking in our attitude to Protestantism - though I should not be misinterpreted as saying that there is no theological basis for the impulse to Catholic-Protestant rapprochement for we have it in the prayer of our Lord himself at the Great Supper, 'that they all may be one'. I am emphasising the greater priority we should give to relations with the Orthodox because I do not believe the optimistic statement of many professional ecumenists to the effect that all bilateral dialogues - all negotiations with individual separated communions - feed into each other in a positive and unproblematic way.

It would be nice to think that a step towards one separated group of Christians never meant a step away from another one, but such a pious claim does not become more credible with the frequency of its repeating. The issue of the ordination of women, to take but one particularly clear example, is evidently a topic where to move closer to world Protestantism is to move further from global Orthodoxy - and vice versa.

This brings me to my third reason for advocating ecumenical rapport with Orthodoxy: its practical advantages. At the present time, the Catholic Church, in many parts of the world, is undergoing one of the most serious crises in its history, a crisis resulting from a disorienting encounter with secular culture and compounded by a failure of Christian discernment on the part of many people over the last quarter century - from the highest office holders - to the ordinary faithful. This crisis touches many aspects of Church life but notably theology and catechesis, liturgy and spirituality, Religious life and Christian ethics at large. Orthodoxy is well placed to stabilise Catholicism in most if not all of these areas.

Were we to ask in a simply empirical or phenomenological frame of mind just what the Orthodox Church is like, we could describe it as a dogmatic Church, a liturgical Church, a contemplative Church, and a monastic Church - and in all these respects it furnishes a helpful counter-balance to certain features of much western Catholicism today.

Firstly, then, Orthodoxy is a dogmatic Church. It lives from out of the fullness of the truth impressed by the Spirit on the minds of the apostles at the first Pentecost, a fullness which transformed their awareness and made possible that specifically Christian kind of thinking we call dogmatic thought.

The Holy Trinity, the God-man, the Mother of God and the saints, the Church as the mystery of the Kingdom expressed in a common life on earth, the sacraments as means to humanity's deification - our participation in the uncreated life of God himself: these are the truths among which the Orthodox live, move and have their being.

Orthodox theology in all its forms is a call to the renewal of our minds in Christ, something which finds its measure not in pure reason or secular culture but in the apostolic preaching attested to by the holy Fathers, in accord with the principal dogmata of faith as summed up in the Ecumenical Councils of the Church.

Secondly, Orthodoxy is a liturgical Church. It is a Church for which the Liturgy provides a total ambience expressed in poetry, music and iconography, text and gesture, and where the touchstone of the liturgical life is not the capacity of liturgy to express contemporary concerns legitimate though these may be in their own context), but, rather, the ability of the Liturgy to act as a vehicle of the Kingdom, our anticipated entry, even here and now, into the divine life.

Thirdly, Orthodoxy is a contemplative Church. Though certainly not ignoring the calls of missionary activity and practical charity, essential to the Gospel and the Gospel community as these are, the Orthodox lay their primary emphasis on the life of prayer as the absolutely necessary condition of all Christianity worth the name.

In the tradition of the desert fathers, and of such great theologian-mystics as the Cappadocian fathers, St Maximus and St Gregory Palamas, encapsulated as these contributions are in that anthology of Eastern Christian spirituality the Philokalia, Orthodoxy gives testimony to the primacy of what the Saviour himself called the first and greatest commandment, to love the Lord your God with your whole heart, soul, mind and strength, for it is in the light of this commandment with its appeal for a God-centred process of personal conversion and sanctification - that all our efforts to live out its companion commandment (to love our neighbour as ourself) must be guided.

And fourthly, Orthodoxy is a monastic Church, a Church with a monastic heart where the monasteries provide the spiritual fathers of the bishops, the counsellors of the laity and the example of a Christian maximalism. A Church without a flourishing monasticism, without the lived 'martyrdom' of an asceticism inspired by the Paschal Mystery of the Lord's Cross and Resurrection, could hardly be a Church according to the mind of the Christ of the Gospels, for monasticism, of all Christian life ways, is the one which most clearly and publicly leaves all things behind for the sake of the Kingdom.

Practically speaking, then, the re-entry into Catholic unity of this dogmatic, liturgical, contemplative and monastic Church could only have the effect of steadying and strengthening those aspects of Western Catholicism which today are most under threat by the corrosives of secularism and theological liberalism.

"Then why not explain away to us the publicly known sexual perversion crimes..."
You refer to an accusation that was made back in 1985? To my knowledge the, investigation found canonical problems with the accusation itself and ultimately led to no final result. So there is nothing to explain away. If there is anything to these accusations, there is still a canonical process available to HTM's accusers. Since 1988, however, there has been no attempt that I know of to continue with a canonical investigation. And that tells me there's nothing to investigate.

...that lead[sic] to Holy Transfiguration Monastery being given the right foot of disfellowship by both the Greek and Russian Orthodox (ROCOR)?"
I believe it was in 1988 that the monastery, along with a number of parishes in the ROCOR, appealed to His Beatitude, Archbishop Auxentios of Athens. His Beatitude received them. The details are covered in THE STRUGGLE AGAINST ECUMENISM, q.v.

Do you remember the accusations brought against St. Athanasius by his enemies as to his criminality and corruption? Sounds sort of familiar to me.

And the Greek Orthodox Church is fully Catholic

Is it?

If I went to Greece or Cyprus (or Serbia or Russia) and asked for the Catholic Church, to where would I be directed? Will anyone in the USA direct me to the Greek Church if I ask where I might find the local Catholic Church?

"Now the Church is called Catholic because it is throughout the world from one end of the earth to the other. And since the word Church is applied to different things ... the Creed states for the sake of security the article, 'And in One Holy Catholic Church'; that you may avoid their (the heretics') wretched services and ever remain in the Holy Catholic Church in which you were regenerated. And if you are staying in any city, do not ask simply where the Lord's house is (for the sects of the profane also attempt to call their own places houses of the Lord,), nor merely where the Church is, but where is the Catholic Church. (St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures)
"Under the apostles, you will say, no one was called Catholic. Granted! But, when, after the apostles, heresies had arisen and were attempting, under various names, to tear apart and divide the dove and the queen of God, did not the apostolic people require a special name to distinguish the unity of the people who were uncorrupted. ... Suppose this very day I entered a large city. When I had met Marcionites, Apollinarians, etc., who call themselves Christians, by what name should I know the congregation of my own people unless it were named Catholic? .... Christian is my name, but Catholic is my surname. The former gives me a name; the latter distinguishes me ... Wherefore our people, then named Catholic, are separated by this appellation from the heretical sects." (St. Pacian, AD 370)
"We must hold to the Christian religion and to communication in her Church which is Catholic, and which is called Catholic not only by her own members, but even by all her enemies. For, when heretics or the adherents of schisms talk about her, not among themselves but with strangers, willy-nilly [velint nolint] they call her nothing else but Catholic. For they will not be understood unless they distinguish her by this name which the whole world employs in her regard." (St. Augustine, The True Religion, 7.12, 390 AD)
"And at last, the very name of Catholic, which, not without reason, belongs to this Church alone, in the face of so many heretics, so much so that, although all heretics want to be called Catholic, when a stranger inquires where the Catholic Church meets, none of the heretics would dare to point out his own house or basilica." (St. Augustine, Against the Letter of Mani called `The Foundation', 4.5, 397 AD)

When did the Church change its name to Orthodox? Is it not the Catholic Church which holds the Orthodox Faith?

You know, I got to thinking about it after I sent my last message, and the most likely way I could imagine your situation there would be if you had one of those intra-Ukrainian messes plus a HOCNA parish. And that's exactly what you have! Talk about having a non-harmonic convergence... :-)

As Kosta points out, the MP has officially recognized the Royal Martyrs (although they classify them, probably more appropriately in the case of most of them, as Passion-bearers -- as with SS. Boris and Gleb -- rather than Martyrs) as saints. Many OCA parishes, including ours, have icons of the Royal Martyrs/Passion-bearers of Russia.

I would also point out that it has been the observations of many of us who travel a lot that the farther north and east one goes in America, the more the churches are tied to ethnic enclaves and the poorer the relations between parishes and jurisdictions. I know that within the ROCOR, for instance, the Eastern American diocese is notorious for the extreme tendencies of its clergy (and is where most of the opposition to reunion with the MP was centered), whereas out West, the OCA and ROCOR parishes and clergy tend to get along very nicely.

In the Seattle and SF areas, the OCA and ROCOR parishes work closely in their assistance and ministries to recent Eastern block emigres.

I've lived in 6 cities with a total of at least 18 Orthodox parishes in the nearly 2 decades that I've been attending Orthodox parishes. All have recognized the others as Orthodox, and having joint services for special occasions and during Great Lent are common. Each parish has its own "flavor," just as every individual family has its own "flavor" in an extended family.

I have never lived anywhere where there was a parish representing itself as Orthodox that was not a part of the bigger Orthodox community -- either because they believed themselves alone to be Orthodox or because the others considered them not to be Orthodox. It certainly happens, but it is not the norm of the American experience.

There have been any number of intra-ethnic "political" divisions in the "diaspora" because of Communism, but little by little they are being healed. The Serbian division was healed in recent decades, the ROCOR/MP division is nearly healed, and God willing, the Ukrainians will get things straightened out. Likewise, there are still splits within the Carpatho-Russian community.

But frankly, all of these divisions are becoming very peripheral "side-shows" on the North American Orthodox scene. A big reason for this is that virtually no converts are attracted to these jurisdictions, and even their own members and children don't want anything to do with it, frequently gravitating to healthy Greek, OCA, Serbian, ROCOR, and Antiochian parishes (and there are, of course, parishes within each of those jurisdictions that are either more, or less, healthy, as the case may be -- it varies.)

But even in the unhealthiest of situations, one is unlikely to show up at Liturgy to find things going on around and behind the altar that one encounters at our local Catholic parishes where I live. Both Catholicism and Orthodoxy in America have, in practice, plenty of warts. You obviously would rather deal with the kinds of warts that Catholicism has, I'd rather deal with the kinds of warts that Orthodoxy has to deal with. All the more reason for us all to live and let live, maintain cordial relationships, and to leave talk of any kind of union for another generation...

You know, this is interesting because it really brings out the problem you have with our language..."For, what I have pardoned, if I have pardoned any thing, for your sakes have I done it in the person of Christ" (2 Cor. 2:10)

Or could it be the problems the West has with the Greek language? Greek translations say "in the presence of Christ." The word used in Greek original is "prosopon" which is to say face, the front of the human head, countenance, look, the appearance one presents, the outward appearance...and so on.

Judging what St. Ignatius wrote in his notes on-the-fly he, at one point, he gives that "appearance," that authority to all bishops, presbyters and even deacons, not just the successor of Peter, and even that might be a stretched translation.

But it's a great stretch to go from appearance to a person. When an actor plays a historical figure we do not say that the actors is the person he portrays. The actor is the icon of the person portrayed -- he merely makes us think of the person portrayed.

And, judging how some Popes behaved and acted, that's a stretch too.

I think you were the one who called Serbian and other such Patriarchs "petit" (a shade better than "pitiful" -- unbeknownst to most on this forum), but there is no comparison. The "petit" patriarchs are not in the same position as the eastern churches embracing papacy.

I was making a point you obviously failed to grasp about titles and delusions of grandeur. In what the Great Church understood of the word Patriarch, it meant a Bishop was was set over the supervision of many provinces and many Archbishops and Bishops. Today, most Patriarchs are titles of pride and phyletic nationalism, not something the Great Church would have recognized as the purpose of a Patriarch.

The challenge these days, at least in my opinion, is to FIND the Church.

Why can you not go about any city or town and simply ask for the Catholic Church, as in the time of the Holy Fathers?

What has changed? Did the Gates of Hell prevail?

So, here's back at you. I quoted St. Vincent of Lerins

St. Vincent of Lerins? The same saint who says of the Popes of Rome that they are "the Head" of the Church (Book 2, Chapter 30, 79). The one who knows of the authority of Rome as "the Apostolic See", the Prelatic holder of which "exceeded all others in the authority of his place" (Book 1, Chapter 6, 15-16). Are we really talking about the same saint and his beliefs about the Church and Faith?

"I guess you have not read books on the evolution and development of the Eastern Liturgy?"

Actually, I did look at one. It was very scholarly and well written and by a Uniate priest or bishop surprisingly. I was impressed, but I found he had the same attitude as Dom Gregory Dix, the Anglican authority on the liturgy, the same set of glasses that caused him to see everything as something that developed over time. Dr. John Henry Newman takes the same approach as to Christian doctrine. Some of what this writer said as to the liturgy was in flat out opposition to Canon 32 of the Council in Trullo.

His attitude did not come across to me as Orthodox or as being sympathetic to Orthodoxy, but instead as essentially Western. And so I threw the book away.

"Why can you not go about any city or town and simply ask for the Catholic Church, as in the time of the Holy Fathers?"

As we find from reading church history, it was not always that easy in the 4th and 5th centuries! You are looking through rose colored glasses. Moreoever, time is finite. The End will come. And, who knows, we could be getting very near. A number of passages in Holy Scripture and also prophecies in the Tradition warn us that the Church will be very dificult to find in the Last Days.

"Did the Gates of Hell prevail?"
One might think so when looking at the Roman Catholic denomination. But no, the gates of hell have not prevailed. There is no need, for example, to unite the Church for Pope Benedict XVI because she is united now and always has been.

"St. Vincent of Lerins? The same saint who says of the Popes of Rome that they are "the Head" of the Church (Book 2, Chapter 30, 79). The one who knows of the authority of Rome as "the Apostolic See", the Prelatic holder of which "exceeded all others in the authority of his place" (Book 1, Chapter 6, 15-16). Are we really talking about the same saint and his beliefs about the Church and Faith?"
Yes. Same man. What is your point?

RE: the Divine Liturgies of East or West being unchanged since the apostolic age

In general, the ancient structural core of the Divine Liturgies of both East and West is identical with the Eucharist of the apostolic age. Several important factors must be taken into consideration concerning liturgical development.

Liturgical language and popular language: When the language of the Liturgy is popular there is a centrifugal tendency to move liturgy to reflect current concerns. This centrifugal process of liturgical change may be sudden or gradual but always at work. In general, Western liturgy ceased being in the popular tongue about the 6th century (and has only recently returned). A special liturgical language for the West then replaced the popular tongue in worship bringing to a halt this sort of liturgical development. In the East special liturgical languages developed later, after the 15th century, in general. Therefore the period of liturgical development of this kind was more protracted in the East than in the West.

Nature of liturgical worship: Divine worship develops and grows in a special way in monastic communities, state courts and Patriarchal sees. Monks have a tendency to mold worship to fit their own circumstances. This process of change may be seen in the variation of worship among the various monastic communities. During the Middle Ages in the West and afterwards in the East monastic communities exerted a profound influence on the shape of divine worship. The variation of monastic worship after 1453 is one of the challenges that those who have sought to codify Eastern worship into a single tome have experienced. State courts profoundly effect worship. Byzantine, Frankish and Anglican Imperial courts have all impressed their own stamp on worship. Finally, Patriarchal sees each have an effect, over time, on liturgical worship. Patriarchs have impressed the episcopal worship of their sees on those in other localities. Historically, worship has had 2 major poles. Christians have experienced the various developements of Latinization or Hellenization. In the West, Rome has engaged in 3 major reforms of worship: Gregorian, Tridentine and Paulan (Vatican 2). In the East there have been local attempts to either codify or reform worship, but none have addressed the various major imprints that Imperial, monastic and Patriarchal have left on Eastern worship. The delicate balance that must be struck by those that celebrate a living liturgy faces both East and West, today.

The word used in Greek original is "prosopon" which is to say "person".

persona , ae,
I. f [acc. to Gabius Bassus ap. Gell. 5, 7, 1 sq., from per-s?no, to sound through, with the second syllable lengthened].
I. A mask, esp. that used by players, which covered the whole head, and was varied according to the different characters to be represented (syn. larva), Gell. 5, 7, 1: personam tragicam forte vulpis viderat, Phaedr. 1, 7, 1 : personam capiti detrahere, Mart. 3, 43, 4 : persona adicitur capiti, Plin. 12, 14, 32, § 59 . The masks were usually made of clay: cretea persona, Lucr. 4, 297 , cf. Mart. 14, 176, 1. And sometimes of the bark of wood: oraque corticibus sumunt horrenda cavatis, Verg. G. 2, 387 : ut tragicus cantor ligno tegit ora cavato, Prud. adv Symm. 2, 646. The opening for the mouth was very large: personae pallentis hiatum formidat infans, Juv. 3, 175 : personis uti primus coepit Roscius Gallus praecipuus histrio, quod oculis obversis erat, nec satis decorus in personis nisi parasitus pronunciabat, Diom. p. 486 P. Heads with such masks were used as ornaments for water-spouts, fountains, etc.: Butades figulus primus personas tegularum extremis imbricibus imposuit, quae inter initia prostypa vocavit, Plin. 35, 12, 43, § 152 : personae, e quarum rostris aqua salire solet, Dig. 19, 1, 17 fin. : mulier nempe ipsa videtur, non person? loqui, a mask, a masked person, Juv 3, 96.--
II. Transf., a personage, character, part, represented by an actor: parasiti persona, Ter. Eun. prol. 26 sq. : sub person? militis, Gell. 13, 22, 11 : (tragici) nihil ex person? poëtae dixerunt, Vell. 1, 3, 2 .

prosôpon [ôps]
I. the face, visage, countenance, mostly in pl., even of a single person, Hom., Soph., etc.; blepein tina eis pr. Eur.; es pr. tinos aphikesthai to come before him, id=Eur.:-- kata pr. in front, facing, Thuc., etc.; hê kata pr. enteuxis a tete-a-tete, Plut.; also, pros to pr. Xen.; lambanein pr. tinos, prosôpolêptein tina, NTest.:--metaph., archomenou pr. ergou Pind.
II. one's look, countenance, Lat. vultus Aesch., etc.; ou to son deisas pr., cf. Hor. vultus instantis tyranni, Soph.
III. = prosôpeion, a mask, Dem., Arist.
2. outward appearance, beauty, Pind.
IV. a person, NTest., etc.; prosôpon in bodily presence, id=NTest.

at one point, he gives that "appearance," that authority to all bishops,

That's certainly true, and we do the same (Const. Lumen Gentium):

Bishops, as vicars and ambassadors of Christ, govern the particular churches entrusted to them ... This power, which they personally exercise in Christ's name, is proper, ordinary and immediate ... the faithful must cling to their bishop, as the Church does to Christ, and Jesus Christ to the Father, so that all may be of one mind through unity,(Cfr. S. Ignatius M., ad ephes. 5, 1: ed. Funk, I, p. 216.) and abound to the glory of God.

The NT Greek does not have a word persona. That word is a Latin (later-day) derivative. Taking the Greek word for "person" (which is both a person and a persona) and saying that a priest is literally Christ in person, rather than an image (which is also translated as persona, or icon) is a real stretch.

Again, without going into what the Roman Catholics believe -- the Pope is not Christ, on earth or anywhere else. First, for a couple of hundred years, he was "just" the Bishop of Rome; then he became Pope; then he became the "Viccar of Christ" (5th century); then he became "Supreme"; the he became "Imperial"; then he became "infallible"; and finally he becomes "Christ on earth."

In general, Western liturgy ceased being in the popular tongue about the 6th century (and has only recently returned

Not sure what source you are using -- NT Greek ceased to be the language of the Liturgy for the West at the end of the 2nd century, and became Latin. Latin was the "popular" language, since it was spoken by Latins (geez!), but the liturgical Latin was way above your average Roman, as any liturgical language is not the same as "vernacular," i.e. spoken language.

After that as far as I know -- until the Vatical II - (liturgical) Latin remained the language of the Latin Church universally for all liturgical and ecclesiological rituals.

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