The Catholic position is one more akin to the Church in the first millennium where significant theological differences existed, knowingly or unknowingly (but known to the Pope and many others), and yet the Church did not act on them because they didn't change the cor belief (which is debatable).
Thus, Pope Leo III allowed filioque but refused to make it official because it would be a violation of the unchangeable Councils to which Rome subscribed. However, he fully agreed with its theology!
The Orthodox, however, take a more rigorous stand, in line with St. Photios's way of reasoning in the 9th century (speaking of such orthodoxy, interestingly, most of the serious heresies originated in the See of Constantinople, and were stopped by the Popes!).
The midnset is: either the Church will have an identical theology, to the "t," or it is not the same Church. He even went as far as calling the Eucharistic wafer "heresy." But it is well known that in the undivided Church there were many theological opinions on both sides being proposed by various Fathers.
St. Photios, however, missed that Catholics kneel on Sundays, something that was prohibited by the First Ecumenical Council. But since many Orthodox have started using pews and kneel on Sundays themselves, all of a sudden this is not such an "important" issue!
Likewise, the only Church that strictly observes St.Paul's commandment that women should not be in church uncovered is the Russian Orthodox Church (ROCOR included). All other Orthodox Churches do, and pretend that they smply do not "see" uncovered women.
Even more disturbing is something that was already brought up (by me) in previous posts: allowing communion to the monophysites (Copts) and other non-Chalcedonians (Ethiopnians), simply because they "look" Orthodox, or something like that!
The Antiochan Orthodox Church is especially notorious for allowing Copts and Ethiopians to take communion, but I have seen OCA churches do the same as well.
Thus, one must be on guard against squeaky clean Orthodox purists who notice only those "heresies" that have not infected them — yet!
But, they will have no problem splitting hairs on some much more trivial issues (inasmuch as they do not affect our understanding of the Holy Trinity, Christolofy or the Theotokos) such as whether the fires of the Purgatory are "real" or not.
Needless to say, the Orthodox community in America (SCOBA) is dead silent on this abomination, for — although the Christilogy of the Catholics is identical to ours, unlike that of Copts or Ethiopians — they are subjected to the same "conversion" rituals that would be used on Arian heretics (by chrismation), for example, whereas so many Orthodox churches allow non-Chalcedonians to simply recite the Creed sans filioque and to receive the communion.
Instead of settling on what is expected to be the "core" and allowing theolgoumena on the rest, the idea is that we will all look, walk, kneel, sit, and pray in an identical way before we can partake of the Eucharist in each others' temples.
Interestingly, the Catholics and the Orthodox in the Middle East simply ignore both sides and happily intercommune and the Church, East and West, remains silent.
'He (St. Photius) even went as far as calling the Eucharistic wafer "heresy."'
I'm pretty sure that this is nowhere in his writings. This was a later point of contention. St. Photius in his encyclicals responded pretty specifically to the accusations of "heresy" on the part of Latin missionaries in Bulgaria.
What seems to have happened in this instance was that the East was accused of heresy, St. Photius responded, and basically what happened was in the process of examining and comparing practices and beliefs, the East became acutely aware of the divergences that had grown, perhaps for the first time, and came to the conclusion that it was actually the new practices and beliefs of Rome that should be called into question.
At that particular point in history, it was not a matter of Rome being broad-minded and inclusive, while the East was narrowly defining the faith. To think that would be reading 21st century Catholicism back into the time of St. Photius.
As far as I know, the Latins never accused the East of heresy for using leavened bread, so St. Photius wouldn't have responded regarding that. But I would be happy to be corrected on this point.
"However, he (St. Leo) fully agreed with (the filioque) theology!"
I've never heard this before. I'm certainly not contesting it, because I've not read anything written by him on the subject. Do you have a reference?
"Even more disturbing is something that was already brought up (by me) in previous posts: allowing communion to the monophysites (Copts) and other non-Chalcedonians (Ethiopnians), simply because they "look" Orthodox, or something like that!"
As you know, I am in 100% agreement on the seriousness of this, and am equally disturbed by it.
Regards