"The Fathers of the Church will provide those who are struggling to understand scripture the lens to understand the truth. Always refer to the Fathers to get a grasp on doctrinal matters."
Indeed they will. Their writings are among the great treasures of The Church. In the consensus patrum, they provide us not only with an understanding of scripture, but also of our ecclesiology and the origins and understanding of the proclaimations of the Ecumenical Councils (as well as many local councils too, for that matter). More than these advantages, they also provide us with a clear view of the phronema of the early Church, a phronema shared in both the East and the West and as time goes on, the gradual, generally very gradual, development in the West of a different phronema from that in the East. Vicomte13 a year or more ago posted several detailed comments on his historical view of what happened which I think were quite good. Certainly language played a major role by the time Blessed Augustine came along. His Greek was, to put it kindly, limited and thus he didn't have access to the writings of the earlier Greek Fathers when he contested with the Donatists and the Pelagians. The East sat by and said nothing because they didn't read Latin; in fact, +Augustine's works weren't widely translated into Greek until after the Great Schism!
We often think that it was the East which was under the greatest assault by heresy and as compared to the West, it was, but the West had its own heresy problems to deal with. The whole filioque issue arose because The Church in Spain felt compelled to deal with Visigothic Arians who pointed to the Creed as established by the Nicene Council as a justification for their heresy so at a local council they changed the Creed...a big mistake on any of a number of levels, not merely ecclesiological. On the other hand, in Orthodoxy we speak with undying gratitude of the "Orthodoxy" of the Church of Rome in regard to Arianism, Nestorianism, Iconoclasm and any of a number of other heresies which arose in the East and were embraced by one or more of the Eastern Patriarchs and from which a firm and Orthodox Church of Rome preserved us.
From my very personal point of view, it is a great shame that the Church of Rome came to see itself not as the primus inter pares as established by the Ecumenical Councils, but rather as a monarch with "immediate universal jurisdiction" with the power to, on its own, determine what the doctrines and dogmas of the one holy catholic and apostolic church were. This in great measure lead to the Great Schism, after which, holding local councils which purported to speak for the entire Church, we Orthodox believe, it fell into error with the Protestant revolution being the result, something which never happened in the East.
Now we see in +BXVI a pope who speaks the language of Orthodoxy...patristic and the Orthodox East is listening, listening closer than the Latin West I sometimes believe. The East and the West today have an advantages prior generations didn't have. We all have almost instantaneous access to the Fathers, our common heritage, in our native languages. In them we can see The Church as it once really was, filled with contention but ultimately united. We read and some of us pray our ancient liturgies which from Ireland in the West to India in the East are almost identical and recognize our common Eucharistic Faith, the very Eucharistic Faith which +Ignatius of Antioch wrote of within 100 years of the Mystical Supper. What we are seeing is a vision of what The Church might well look like reunited, Liturgical, Patristic, Eucharistic and Concilliar.
I would add that we also have an interest in unity that is more than abstract. The Latin Church is under relentless attack from several quarters and needs the Orthodox witness in order to point to its historical apostolic roots. It also needs to regain its own orthodoxy after the reform of the Vatican II put some segments of the Latin Church off balance. The Catholic West needs to drink from the well of Orthodoxy for its own good, now more than ever. At the same time the Orthodox Church can expect a surge thanks to the liberation of the former Soviet Union and Western converts from certain failing Protestant communities of faith. This surge will put the Orthodox in an unprecedented for them level of contact with the Reformed mindset, and the Catholic experience in that regard will be helpful.
More broadly, as the Orthodox Church penetrates the secularized neopagan West, it will have to form political alliances with all confessions that stand in defense of traditional morality and for freedom of religion. Conservative Evangelicals will naturally be a part of that movement. Here again, the Catholic experience of dialogue and coexistence with the Protestantism will be of value to the Orthodox.
Since this is our first attempt at a dual Caucus post, I intentionally avoided posting anything of a controversial nature. I'm keeping it light but there are, of course, issues that also divide us. My hesitation in posting any of those is not to incite any lurkers looking for the 'linchpin' that will bring our two Churches to fisticuffs. However, in all frankness, not posting ECF commentaries on these issues also does an injustice. How would you prefer to handle these topics - Catholic Caucus or Catholic/Orthodox Caucus?
With much respect for your decision ... NYer
One of the many aspects of Benedict XVI's writings and sayings that I find amazing is how they are simultaneously eastern and western, if you will.
patristic
And why not? The Church was one when the Early Church Fathers wrote. And, as you have pointed out, Benedict XVI is a patristic scholar (this may explain my observation above). IMHO, Benedict XVI's patristic scholarship is/was part of God's plan for him.
and the Orthodox East is listening, listening closer than the Latin West I sometimes believe.
Who really knows? There are literally millions of people in both Churches. Speaking only for myself, I have been listening much more closely to what Benedict has been saying than I ever did to JPII. I find Benedict XVI's words to be quite clear, articulate, eloquent and multileveled. When I read them again, I see things that I didn't before.
...a Catholic Church, an Orthodox Faith.