"But, ultimately, there needs to be a final voice. And that voice is the Successor of St. Peter."
A final infallible voice? That voice belongs to The Church, NYer. What you propose, Orthodoxy sees as heresy. One of the greatest Orthodox saints of the 20th century, one particularly noted for cures of all sorts of illnesses, especially cancer (the son of my secretary was cured of his terminal cancer through the intercessions of this saint) +Nektarios of Aegina wrote this:
"Through the dogma of "Infallibility" the Western church lost its spiritual freedom. It lost its beauty and balance, and was deprived of the wealth of the grace of the Holy Spirit, the presence of Christ- from spirit and soul and ended up a dead body. We are truly grieved for the injustice done to the church and we pray from the bottom of our hearts that the Holy Spirit illumine the mind and the heart of the Most Blessed Pontiff to have him return to the ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH that which he took from her, something that should never have taken place."
This is the cry of anguish of the Orthodox Church for its elder brother at Rome, NYer.
"I now know this intimately by virtue of my choosing to join the Maronite Catholic Church which has a Pariarch as its overseer."
Do you believe for one minute that +Sfeir jumps when the pope says jump, not that even +BXVI would try to tell him what to do? How long do you think it would take for the Patriarch of the Melkites to jump ship if Rome presumed to tell him what to do, let alone what to believe?
Speaking strickly in terms of practicality:
How would it work to EO satisfaction to roll back before 1054? Wouldn't they require the RC to revoke dogma?
Is there any way to meet the requirements of the Orthodox without this?
Spoken like a 'true' Protestant. Somewhere, Martin Luther is applauding. His teaching on the "priesthood of all believers" is "spiritual egalitarianism", and was what led to the anarchism of the Anabaptists and the rampant individualism of contemporary Protestantism.
Kolokotronis, listen to your Eastern fathers. Sorry NYer, but your list is somewhat wimpy compared to my list of fathers on Petrine primacy. :-) Included in my list of quotations are many Eastern fathers, and their voices could not be more explicit.
And second, you absolutely have to read Soloviev's The Russian Church and the Papacy.
What you propose, Orthodoxy sees as heresy.
Nektarios of Aegina, not being infallible, is wrong when he denies the ex cathedra infallibility of the bishop of Rome. Nektarious does not carry any weight compared to the Eastern fathers that I quote in my list. On the issue of Rome, the East has departed from what it once held, as my list of quotations shows.
It is time to get over this. It is time to stop stubbornly and repeatedly assuring us that you (plural, somehow, you think it possible for you to speak for all the EOC) will never submit to Peter's successor. It is time to start working with us at least to figure out the truth together and to find a way of reconciling with a different spirit. When you repeatedly declare that you (and all the EOC) will never submit, and that our position is "heresy", that is *not* the spirit that will lead to the reconciliation that is absolutely necessary in the body of Christ. Though you have accused us of "heresy", I will only ask of you to adopt greater humility. Read my list, and read Soloviev. Read Stephen Ray's Upon This Rock. And come to the table with a different attitude, a rolling up your shirt sleeves, lets-get-to-the-bottom-of-this, sort of attitude (since, as you said before, from your point of view, the reconciliation between is not going to happen 'above' us. Well, let it then start between you (Kolokotronis) and Pope Benedict XVI.
I'm planning on reading The Primacy of Peter: Essays in Ecclesiology and the Early Church, edited by Meyendorff. That provides an Orthodox perspective on the question. My point in mentioning that is to show that I'm working on reading *your* side. Are you willing to read *our* side? In order to work out this 953 year-old schism, we have to be willing to read each other's evidence and argumentation.
It seems to me that you have not grasped the significance of Jesus giving the keys of the kingdom to Peter. The visible Church has a head. Not every member is the head.
Blessings to you brother, on this the Lord's Day.
-A8
You apparently take offense over a claim that Rome has a monopoly on the Holy Spirit, even though Rome never claimed that. But then you do not hesitate to claim that Rome is deprived of the wealth and grace of the Holy Spirit.
Go figure. Double standards all over the place here.
-A8
-A8
Why do you speculate on the strength of this relation? Are you trying to separate what God has joined together? It is enough that there is full communion there. Something you and I presently lack. Let us not tear down what has already been joined together, by speculating about the strength of the relation, based on hypotheticals. Let us instead focus on *our* task, which is getting ourselves in full communion with each other. Satan would greatly delight in weakening or breaking those unions which the Spirit through charity and humility has effected.
-A8