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"It certainly does appear to me that the East has been much more consistent than the Latin Church over time."

Indeed we have in both theology and praxis and the scriptures have always been available to the people. The preachers have always hammered on reading them...yet we have not chnaged our beliefs and as one other poster remarked, when the hierarchy got out of line, the people and the lower clergy straightened them out.

Here's a thought I've been pondering on. Is it possible that in fact Rome keeping the scripture from the people did contribute to the Protestant revolution in this way. By keeping the bible from the people through centuries of barbarism in the West, which the East didn't experience, the people and even the lower clergy forgot their proper role in the working of The Church. As society became feudal in the West, so did The Church there such that the people's role in The Church became like their role in society...serfs subject to the whim of their overlords. Once the people did read the bible, that knowledge gave them power and that power, once unleashed lead to a true revolution. The Church in the West, untethered from the restraining ecclesiology of the East, reacted rigidly as overlords are wont to do. By the time The Church realized the extent of the reforms necessary, a full blown "French Revolution" was underway and it was too late to stop it. In the meantime, the reformers, having cut themselves off from The Church and its "oneness" and "apostolicity" and, frankly, its holiness, spun off into all sorts of directions, leaving not only those aspects of the Latin Church which likely should have been left behind, but also those essential elements, the "esse" of The Church without which the 30,000 Protestant groups we see today became inevitable. One of the early and truly classic examples of this failure to separate the wheat from the chaff is the correspondence between the Thubingen divines a generation after Luther and the Ecumenical Patriarch Jeremias II.

Meantime, in the East, we sat and watched from our incense filled Divine Liturgies and monasteries...and didn't change.

Looking at all this today I think is difficult because the chasm which opened between Rome and the Protestant communities has become so broad and deep and what started out at base as a sort of religiously inspired social revolution, with all the excesses we usually and historically see with such revolutions has become the basis of a whole segment of Western culture. This is why I have said, sitting on the outside of all this, that it appears to me that Protestants, whether you guys notice it or not, still define yourselves as "not Roman".

I wonder what would have happened if Rome's ecclesiology had been like Orthodoxy's. Would that have made it more flexible? Would the laity have felt more confident of their to reform from within? I don't doubt that there would have been a reformation under even this scenario, but maybe it wouldn't have lead to the Protestanism we see today.

I'm pinging Alex, Blogger, HD, xzins and Jo for their comments.

This is why I have said, sitting on the outside of all this, that it appears to me that Protestants, whether you guys notice it or not, still define yourselves as "not Roman". I wonder what would have happened if Rome's ecclesiology had been like Orthodoxy's. Would that have made it more flexible?

Apologies for butting in univited (or is it 'unpingend?'). Kolo, Protestant revolt was directed, initially, at corrupt practices of a powerful Church in the West, and not at its theology. The aim was to reform the practices and not the Church.

The Church in the East was struggling for survival under Turkish occupation. Its modesty and humility have been imposed, and its suffering along with the people made it one with them (look at the Ecumenical Patriarchy even today!).

That wasn't always so. When the East was the seat of Imperial power, during the last five centuries of the 1st millennium, corruption and — indeed the worst heresies — came out of it.

It was +John Chrysostom who, as the Bishop of Imperial Constantinople, initiated first reforms with regard to the arrogance, lack of modesty and privileges practiced by the clergy and the laity. He made enemies with the highest echelons of the Imperial Court when he corrected the Empress for her bejeweled appearances in the church.

Protestant revolt, however, started off as an attempt to reform corrupt practices and ended reforming, in fact — rewriting, the 1,500 year-old theology.

When the Lutheran divines approached Ecumenical Patriarch Jeremiah II, hoping to find allies in the Eastern Church, he rebuked them — three times — not over their revolt against corrupt practices of the clergy, but over their corrupt theology.

It is their theology that makes it — ultimately — a different faith and not a disagreement over the same faith (as is the case in the Orthodox and Catholic divisions). Protestant theology is Pauline Christianity.

It was Luther's reinterpretation of theology, and not attempts to correct corrupt practices, that created Protestantism. it could have just as easily happened in the East had the East not been in virtual prison and stripped of its imperial majesty.

I don't know about defining ourselves as not-Roman. I don't think so.

I think most of us think of ourselves as God/Bible centered in faith, doctrine, practice--whether it's literally true or not is another matter of significant variance in each individual life--as is true in all confessions.

That is--either without hierarchy of any great depth or quite apart from a hierarchy seen maybe as necessary/useful idiots but not arbiters of truth--we hold the truth in our hands and can have our own sense of it apart from the professional pontificators.

Now, in practice . . . even in the loosey goosiest Pentecostal house church . . . whatever shallow hierarchy evolves is still likely to begin to think of itself more highly than it ought--especially over time . . . and too many of the flock are too likely to seek the leader's approval more than God's and to work more energetically, earnestly to people please the leaders, more than God.

On those scores, at those times, the "Roman phenomena" with the hierarchy has begun because it's a very HUMAN thing.

And, because it's such a sinful man insideously ingrained thing . . . I believe all the more reason why God set up I Cor 12-14 quite askew from any overwhelming dependence on such a hierarchy. It is, instead, to be a hierarchy of humility and wisdom with the AUTHORITY of Holy Spirit ebbing and flowing AS HE WILLS vs as the professional pontificators or the professional magesterical wills.

There's LESS room for authoritarian grabbing, power mongering, horrendous error producing pride TAKING HEAVY HANDED CONTROL that way.

Of course, IF God flows consistently through 2-3 people in dramatic ways in any group . . . then those persons begin to be elevated whether they do so, or not. And the walk along the pride cliff is off and running. I think that's one reason why God seems at least reluctant to allow such if there's any alternative in the group at all.

imho, once the price prance along the cliff has begun, Holy Spriit begins to pull back, if not wholesale withdraw His overt operations. Folks can go through the same dance, prance and practices but the results don't flow from His Spirit.

my 25 cents worth.

Here's a thought I've been pondering on. Is it possible that in fact Rome keeping the scripture from the people did contribute to the Protestant revolution in this way. By keeping the bible from the people through centuries of barbarism in the West, which the East didn't experience, the people and even the lower clergy forgot their proper role in the working of The Church.
Scripturally, Kolo, Christians are to keep other Christians accountable. There is a certain order to things. However, think upon what had been going on for a few centuries in Catholicism in terms of immoral Popes, the "babylonian captivity at Avignon", Simony, Pluralism, Indulgences,etc., The church hierarchy had basicically become secular and had ceded their spiritual authority though they tried to utilize it as overlords over all of Europe. Gotta king who is going to do something politically that you don't like, excommunicate him? Wanna fight a war? Well, as Pope you have all of the power and influence in the world to lean on the right people and send out people yourself in order to "getter done." Need money? Not hardly, you're the Pope! Spend spend spend as much as you want and on whatever you want. Then go through and collect from the peasants who are there to serve you. I would submit that at that time the "Church" at Rome had ceased being the church at all and the only holiness one found was in pockets and in spite of Roman emphasis of the day.

Enter Luther. Luther was a man who was raised to be an attorney, but in a fit of superstition and fear promised to be a priest if St. Anne would get him out of a thunderstorm. Once there, to his credit, he took his role seriously. Yet, the more he tried to be a churchman, the more aware he was of his own sinfulness. Who tells us we are sinners in need of change? Is it Satan? Would Satan have said, Luther, you're a sinner and you need to change. Or was it God? Well, in honesty, there was a bit of both working in Luther at the time. God was showing Luther his own sinfulness in comparison to God's holiness. Satan was then taking all of the rules and regulations and superstitions and hammering Luther with them. Luther did confession to the point that his confessor became a bit aggravated with him. He tried a bit of aesceticism. He wanted to be closer to God and free from his own sinfulness but the more he did the further away God felt from him. In his desire to be nearer to God, Satan was taking the impossibility of works reconciling man to God and putting a nice little twist on it that was beginning to make Luther resent God as an impossible task master. NOTHING in the Roman system led Luther to believe otherwise. It was only through his study of Scripture that he was freed.

Luther saw "The just shall live by faith." And the words were freedom. God was no longer an impossible task master but as Luther wrote:
I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that “the just shall live by his faith.” Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning, and whereas before the “justice of God” had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love. This passage of Paul became to me a gate to heaven.

Christ desires unity in His church. But at what cost? Would you give up your beliefs in order to be unified with the Protestants? Would you drop your objections to Rome completely in order to be united with it and ignore the areas of difference? We saw earlier on where the church at that time, as far as hierarchy goes, could easily be described as satanic. A pope who not only had illegitimate kids and mistresses but supposedly had an orgy in the Vatican does not appear to be one who is operating in Christ's authority. The Shepherds of the church of Rome had become the evil Shepherds of Ezekiel 34. And God Himself raised up other Shepherds who took the authority for what they had to say strictly from the written record that God left in Scripture. Surely, Kolo, in comparison to what was, the Protestants should be seen as a vast improvement in terms of holiness and truth.

Does this mean that Luther and Calvin were perfect? Far from it. Both did some awful things. But, they were also men of their times and they didn't do anything that hadn't been done many times before in the name of Christendom. Just as when we die, none of us have reached the full santification that is entailed in being just like Christ without sin, doubt, etc., On earth, their sanctification was not fully complete either. Today, they are well aware of where they were in error as far as their treatment of their fellow man goes. There are also issues of doctrine that I believe both men erred on, but not of essential nature. I am closer to Calvin than Luther on the Lord's Supper for instance and would probably be found somewhere between Calvin and Zwingli. I believe that this is Scriptural. Other Christians disagree. For us, this is not an essential but a secondary doctrine. Important but not crucial.

society became feudal in the West, so did The Church there such that the people's role in The Church became like their role in society...serfs subject to the whim of their overlords.
This happened earlier than feudalism. It began happening in the 300s with Constantine. Whenever the church becomes synonymous with the state, there are going to be issues. It wasn't so much feudalism then, though organizationally it was to play a significant role, but rather power. Christendom, led by its Popes, kings, and princes conquered new territories and MADE THEM "Christian". My ancestor, Charlemagne was a big proponent of "Evangelism by the sword". Not one of Christianity's finer moments, but it is what it is.

Once the people did read the bible, that knowledge gave them power and that power, once unleashed lead to a true revolution.
Very very true.

The Church in the West, untethered from the restraining ecclesiology of the East, reacted rigidly as overlords are wont to do. By the time The Church realized the extent of the reforms necessary, a full blown "French Revolution" was underway and it was too late to stop it.
They couldn't have stopped it earlier. God had engineered it. He took what was a mess and salvaged it. Read Ezekiel 34. Shepherds who do not follow the Good Shepherd are not of God at all.

In the meantime, the reformers, having cut themselves off from The Church and its "oneness" and "apostolicity"
I would submit that they had returned to the apostolicity of the church and the oneness. Just because there are many different brands of Protestantism doesn't mean on essentials we are not largely unified. Second, genealogies mean nothing if the cores have been stripped from them. I could say, I am a descendant of the kings of France and therefore am entitled to rule over the French. But though I am a biological descendant, there is nothing in me that equips me or authorizes me to lead as I am very much "not French." The Popes may be able to trace a genealogy of sorts back to the days of the early church. I would submit that their genealogy however is a broken mess. It is not an unbroken succession. Would one really consider Pope Benedict VIII who bought the papacy, Pope Benedict IX who had people murdered, Pope Boniface VIII who ordered the slaughters of every man woman and child in a certain town as did Pope Clement VI, the Borgia Pope who we have already mentioned, and many others descendants of Peter?

Just as not all are called Israel who are physically descended from Abraham, so not all are called Apostolic that are linearly descended (and most arguably) from the Apostles. A Spiritual descendency is what is important here. Our beliefs should find root in what the Apostles learned and taught in Scripture. So rather than being cut off from Apostolicity, I submit the reformers regained it.

Finally, why are there so many sects of Protestantism compared to very few varieties for Orthodoxy and Catholicism? Well, first, the shepherds over the church had done a horrific job of being shepherds. The needs of the flock were not being met spiritually, physically, or in any other way. Rather, the people were being exploited. I believe God allowed the fragmentation (while preserving unity on essentials) so that no one man or group of men could be overlord over the whole body. Second, by allowing some fragmentation it was as Iron sharpening Iron. Some Protestant sects have unfortunately become heterodox. But if you do a search on the net for statements of faith on the major denominations you will find considerable and substantial unity. We may not have a Pope or Bishop over the whole group of us, but such does not imply that we are wandering sheep without a Shepherd. We are Shepherded by Christ and the Word of God. When groups of us do wander, it is usually because we have ceded the Shepherding over to some philosophy of man and away from Scripture. Some Protestant denominations are dying because they have embraced man's methods and shunned the Word of God. They want a feel-good "fun" religion rather than one that, yes can be quite fun but can also be quite painful at times as one confronts sin in one's life.

Oh well, you asked for my input. There it is. I'm off to do my Saturday things now. Later. B.

Is it possible that in fact Rome keeping the scripture from the people did contribute to the Protestant revolution in this way? By keeping the bible from the people through centuries of barbarism in the West, which the East didn't experience, the people and even the lower clergy forgot their proper role in the working of The Church.

Yes, and I think the right word is "contribute". I agree with Blogger in his excellent 8,783 , which I commend to anyone who hasn't read it yet. There didn't appear to be any accountability of any kind. I'm not sure whether it is more correct to say that the people and lower clergy "forgot" their role, or whether it was simply snatched away from them by a corrupt hierarchy. In either case, under corruption, resentment is inevitable.

At the same time, I believe the Reformation was inevitable anyway, regardless of how "bad" it was at the time. We believe that the Reformation was instituted by God Himself. (If we believed it was man-made, then we would be dead before we started. :) He did not institute it because of any mistake that He made in guiding His Church, but rather as a correction to the mistakes of men over time. Of course, there is all sorts of Biblical precedence for the idea of "bringing back".

Naturally, this brings us to whether Reformed Protestantism (in terms of theology) was a brand new thing or was it a return to the original. There is no way I have the background to write a thesis on this, but it is clear that Calvin and Luther both found great favor with Augustine, especially as against the Pelagianism that both saw in the Church at that time. In addition, I think Kosta referred to us somewhere as practicing a "Pauline Christianity", in the sense that it was something new. I for one am absolutely fine with that label. :) Of course, I don't think it was anything new at all. Pauline Christianity is the same as Petrine Christianity, which is the same as Jamesian Christianity, etc. If the Church actually did see them as being different, then that tells me much about the first 1,500 years.

In the meantime, the reformers, having cut themselves off from The Church and its "oneness" and "apostolicity" and, frankly, its holiness, spun off into all sorts of directions, ...

I take it this relates to your hypothesis that while the Reformers may have had a good idea, they went too far and wound up throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I suppose all I can say is that IF God really did institute the Reformation, then this would not be possible. Here, I think the "Pottery Barn" rule would apply. If God ginned it up, then I don't see how He could have left its original form in ruins from the beginning. On the core issues, we claim to follow what was from the beginning.

IF, however, God did not institute the Reformation, well then, ................. that would be bad. LOL!