[Kolokotronis]

"And I think that is also true if we each go by our own determination of the "Apostolic Faith". Without a living authoritative judge of what is the "Apostolic Faith", views will be all over the map."

Surely you don't believe that Orthodoxy is "all over the map" and we certainly have no single living person as the authoritative judge of what the Apostolic Faith is and never have. The authoritative judge of what is The Faith is The Church, the hierarchy, the clergy and the People of God acting together in a synergy. That hardly qualifies as each of us making a private determination of what The Faith is.

Certainly, the role of the Pope of Rome has been an important one in the history of The Church. On more than one occasion, before the Great Schism, it was the Pope and the Church of Rome which preserved Orthodoxy while much of the East went into the darkness of heresy. There are a number of Popes who are great saints in Orthodoxy as there are Patriarchs who are great saints of the Latin Church. I have always found it disingenuous, however, for the Latins to claim that no pope ever, ever erred on a matter of faith or morals. In Orthodoxy we have absolutely no problem whatsoever accepting +John Chrysostomos' comment that the floor of hell is paved with the skulls of bishops. He said that no merely because worldliness got them there, but more importantly because they have lead the faithful astray. For us, the ascribing of infallible powers to any bishop is a presumption against God's promise that the gates of hell would not prevail against The Church, not +Peter. The danger posed by an infallible Vicar of Christ on Earth is that one can confuse The Church with the Pope.

I have found it fascinating how well The Church worked when it was united in its Orthodoxy. On so many occasions, as I said, it was the Pope who held things together for Orthodoxy and it was the theology and spirituality of The East, most especially the consensus patrum of mostly the Eastern Fathers which tempered the influence of the Arian and pagan tribes which came gradually into The Church in the practical Latin West. Once the Great Schism took place, I think the East found that without an Orthodox pope presiding at Rome, dealing with heresy and heterodox opinions became more difficult, or perhaps better said, more cumbersome than in the past. The East lost something but it has lurched along pretty well for the past 1000 years or so with no major heresies troubling The Church. What we have found is that +Ignatius' definition of The catholic Church actually works well in the "real world", even the quite hostile real world where much of Orthodoxy has existed over the past centuries.

The Latin West, however, lost big time after 1054. Almost immediately after the schism the Dictatus Papae were written, something which the East never, ever would have tolerated. The Latin Church in its ecclesiology became distorted, a sort of top down pyramid which became increasingly authoritarian. Patristics became confused with pagan philosophy by a group of bookish monks who, at least in my opinion, misinterpreted +Thomas Aquinas and scholaticism was born, a method foreign to the theology of the pre-schism Church. Eventually matters were perceived as being so bad that the Reformation took place and like so many revolutions, went far, far beyond any reasonable reforming ends. Western Christianity plunged into a century and more of religious wars among people all claiming to be Christians and eventually Christianity in the West became the fractured disgrace we see today. If the Pope's role is as a unifier, it hasn't been effectively fulfilled. And there can be absolutely no claim made that his reputed infallibility has been rejected soundly, even by Roman Catholics. The foregoing notwithstanding, the Church of Rome abides, just as the East does because God's promise was a true one.

I think both A and The Reader are right when they speak of what the witness needs to be to the Protestants. Some, as A certainly knows from personal experience, will be attracted by the centralized authority of the Latin system. They've seen what happens when "every man's a pope" and not understanding how Orthodoxy works, they perceive there, wrongly, a very ethnic apparently dangerous religious anarchy; what they are leaving except in a foreign language. On the other hand, some Protestants will read the Fathers, eventually even the Desert Fathers, attend a Divine Liturgy or two, maybe even a Pascal Liturgy after spending Great Week praying at the services and recognize in those devotions the very Faith The Fathers write of, preserved and lived out through 2000 years without any central infallible authority. And decide that's what they want. I must say to both of you, whose pasts certainly qualify you to have your opinions, that no matter where any given Protestant ends up, Rome or Orthodoxy, I don't think we need to loose any sleep about their potential for theosis.

Final point; A you have commented that the issue of the proper exercise of the Petrine Ministry will be decided by people way above our pay grades. Maybe that's true for you. It absolutely is not true for The Reader and me. In the end, in Orthodoxy, that decision will be made by all the Orthodox People of God which will include all sorts of folks just like the two of us. Any basic assumption that the likes of us will accept a central individual infallible final word authority in The Church will inevitably lead to a big disappointment.

A Blessed Feast of the Nativity to both of you.

[adiaireton8]

Kolokotronis,

Surely you don't believe that Orthodoxy is "all over the map" and we certainly have no single living person as the authoritative judge of what the Apostolic Faith is and never have. The authoritative judge of what is The Faith is The Church, the hierarchy, the clergy and the People of God acting together in a synergy. That hardly qualifies as each of us making a private determination of what The Faith is. . . . Final point; A you have commented that the issue of the proper exercise of the Petrine Ministry will be decided by people way above our pay grades. Maybe that's true for you. It absolutely is not true for The Reader and me. In the end, in Orthodoxy, that decision will be made by all the Orthodox People of God which will include all sorts of folks just like the two of us.

Thanks for your reply. It seems to me that you talk in two different ways, depending on what you are trying to emphasize. Sometimes, as in your comments directly above, you seem to make Orthodoxy out to be egalitarian and individualistic, which [in that respect] is no different from Protestantism. It might as well be a democracy, if every individual's opinion is an equal part of the Church's judgment and "decision" of what the Faith is, unless the clergy's 'vote' is weighted more heavily than that of the laity.

But other times, unlike the Protestants, you speak of the infallibility of the Ecumenical Councils. And in practice, unlike the Protestants, you *do* seem to defer to the authority of your Patriarchs, and you even acknowledge that concilliarity implies a primus inter pares.

So from my outside, and rather uninformed perspective, it seems to me that the reason Orthodoxy is *not* all over the map (unlike Protestantism) is precisely because you *do* have a living Magisterium of bishops, and even a head of bishops of sorts. And in practice you treat your authorities as they actually are, authorities. But at other times, particularly when the issue of Catholicism is in view, you seem to talk about yourself very much like a Protestant, as if the laity in Orthodoxy have equal authority (i.e. as if Orthodoxy is a democracy). But I don't believe you. :-) I don't believe that if there was another Council today among the Orthodox, you would, like Congregationalists, just decide matters by having the entire Church vote. I think what has held Orthodoxy together (insofar as it is unified) is the [valid] authority of its bishops. It is not (in practice) as individualistic and egalitarian as you [sometimes] make it out to be; otherwise it would be no different from Protestantism, and each person would be his own pope, and it would be fragmented into thousands of pieces.

Lastly, I see no in principle difference between ex cathedra infallibility of a primus inter pares, and the infallbility of an Ecumenical Council. You accept the latter but reject the former, as if there is an principle difference between them. I just don't see that in principle difference.

I say all this with great respect and admiration, an acknowledgment of my own ignorance of the vast theological treasures of the East, and most of all with a deep desire for the reunion of all Christians.

Advent blessings to you as well.

-A8