Twelve Differences Between the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches

Vivificat - News, Opinion, Commentary, Reflections and Prayer from a Personal Catholic Perspective ^ | 7 August 2009 | TDJ

[Teófilo]

Folks, Elizabeth Mahlou, my fellow blogger from Blest Atheist, asked me one of those “big questions” which necessitate its own blog post. Here is the question:

I am a Catholic who upon occasion attends Orthodox services because of my frequent travels in Eastern European countries. The differences in the masses are obvious, but I wonder what the differences in the theology are. I don't see much. Is that something that you can elucidate?

I welcome this question because, as many of you know, I belonged to the Eastern Orthodox Church for about four years and in many ways, I still am “Orthodox” (please, don’t ask me elucidate the seeming contradiction at this time, thank you). This question allows me to wear my “Orthodox hat” which still fits me, I think. If you are an Orthodox Christian and find error or lack of clarity in what I am about to say, feel free to add your own correction in the Comments Section.

Orthodox Christians consider the differences between the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches as both substantial and substantive, and resent when Catholics trivialize them. Though they recognize that both communions share a common “Tradition” or Deposit of Faith, they will point out that the Roman Catholic Church has been more inconsistently faithful – or more consistently unfaithful – to Tradition than the Orthodox Church has been in 2000 years of Christian history. Generally, all Orthodox Christians would agree, with various nuances, with the following 12 differences between their Church and the Catholic Church. I want to limit them to 12 because of its symbolic character and also because it is convenient and brief:

1. The Orthodox Church of the East is the Church that Christ founded in 33 AD. She is the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church confessed in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. All other churches are separated from by schism, heresy, or both, including the Roman Catholic Church.

2. Jesus Christ, as Son of God is divine by nature, as born of the Virgin Mary, True Man by nature, alone is the head of the Church. No hierarch, no bishop, no matter how exalted, is the earthly head of the Church, since Jesus Christ’s headship is enough.

3. All bishops are equal in their power and jurisdiction. Precedence between bishops is a matter of canonical and therefore of human, not divine law. “Primacies” of honor or even jurisdiction of one bishop over many is a matter of ecclesiastical law, and dependent bishops need to give their consent to such subordination in synod assembled.

4. The Church is a communion of churches conciliar in nature; it is not a “perfect society” arranged as a pyramid with a single monarchical hierarch on top. As such, the Orthodox Church gives priority to the first Seven Ecumenical Councils as having precedent in defining the nature of Christian belief, the nature and structure of the Church, and the relationship between the Church and secular government, as well as the continuation of synodal government throughout their churches to this day.

5. Outside of the Seven Ecumenical Councils, the Orthodox Church receives with veneration various other regional synods and councils as authoritative, but these are all of various national churches, and always secondary in authority to the first seven. They do not hold the other 14 Western Councils as having ecumenical authority.

6. Orthodox Christians do not define “authority” in quite the same way the Catholic Church would define it in terms of powers, jurisdictions, prerogatives and their interrelationships. Orthodox Christian would say that “authority” is inimical to Love and in this sense, only agape is the one firm criterion to delimit rights and responsibilities within the Church. Under this scheme, not even God himself is to be considered an “authority” even though, if there was a need of one, it would be that of God in Christ.

7. The Orthodox Church holds an anthropology different from that of the Catholic Church. This is because the Orthodox Church does not hold a forensic view of Original Sin, that is, they hold that the sin of Adam did not transmit an intrinsic, “guilt” to his descendants. “Ancestral Sin,” as they would call it, transmitted what may be termed as a “genetic predisposition” to sin, but not a juridical declaration from God that such-a-one is “born in sin.” Hyper-Augustinianism, Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed, is impossible in Orthodox anthropology because according to the Orthodox, man is still essentially good, despite his propensity to sin. By the way, even what Catholics would consider a “healthy Augustinianism” would be looked at with suspicion by most Orthodox authorities. Many trace “the fall” of the Latin Church to the adoption of St. Augustine as the West’s foremost theological authority for 1,000 years prior to St. Thomas Aquinas. The best evaluations of St. Augustine in the Orthodox Church see him as holy, well-meaning, but “heterodox” in many important details, starting with his anthropology.

8. Since no “forensic guilt” is transmitted genetically through “Original Sin,” the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of our Blessed Mother is considered superfluous. She had no need for such an exception because there was nothing to exempt her from in the first place. Of course, Mary is Theotokos (“God-bearer”), Panagia (“All-Holy”) and proclaimed in every Liturgy as “more honorable than the Cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim,” but her sanctification is spoken about more in terms of a special, unique, total, and gratuitous bestowing and subsequent indwelling of the Spirit in her, without the need of “applying the merits of the atonement” of Christ to her at the moment of conception, in order to remove a non-existent forensic guilt from her soul, as the Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception would have it. If pressed, Orthodox authorities would point at the Annunciation as the “moment” in which this utter experience of redemption and sanctification took place in the life of the Blessed Theotokos. Although the Orthodox believe in her Assumption, they deny that any individual hierarch has any power to singly and unilaterally define it as a dogma binding on the whole Church, and that only Councils would have such power if and when they were to proclaim it and its proclamations received as such by the entire Church.

9. Although Orthodox Christians have at their disposal various institutions of learning such as schools, universities, and seminaries, and do hold “Sunday Schools,” at least in the USA, it is fair to say that the main catechetical vehicle for all Orthodox peoples is the Divine Liturgy. All the liturgical prayers are self-contained: they enshrine the history, the story, the meaning, and the practical application of what is celebrated every Sunday, major feast, and commemoration of angels, saints, and prophets. If one pays attention – and “Be attentive” is a common invitation made throughout the Divine Liturgy – the worshipper catches all that he or she needs to know and live the Orthodox faith without need for further specialized education. For this very reason, the Divine Liturgy, more than any other focus of “power and authority,” is the true locus of Orthodox unity and the principal explanation for Orthodox unity and resiliency throughout history.

10. Since the celebration of the Divine Liturgy is overwhelmingly important and indispensable as the vehicle for True Christian Worship – one of the possible translations of “orthodoxy” is “True Worship – and as a teaching vehicle – since another possible translation of “orthodoxy” is “True Teaching” – all the ecclesiastical arts are aimed at sustaining the worthy celebration of the Divine Liturgy. Iconography in the Eastern Church is a mode of worship and a window into heaven; the canons governing this art are strict and quite unchanging and the use of two-dimensional iconography in temples and chapels is mandatory and often profuse. For them, church architecture exists to serve the Liturgy: you will not find in the East “modernistic” temples resembling auditoriums. Same thing applies to music which is either plain chant, or is organically derived from the tones found in plain chant. This allows for “national expressions” of church music that nevertheless do not stray too far away from the set conventions. Organ music exists but is rare; forget guitars or any other instrument for that matter. Choral arrangements are common in Russia – except in the Old Calendarist churches – the Orthodox counterparts to Catholic “traditionalists.”

11. There are Seven Sacraments in the Orthodox Church, but that’s more a matter of informal consensus based on the perfection of the number “seven” than on a formal dogmatic declaration. Various Orthodox authorities would also argue that the tonsure of a monk or the consecration of an Emperor or other Orthodox secular monarch is also a sacramental act. Opinion in this instance is divided and the issue for them still open and susceptible to a final dogmatic definition in the future, if one is ever needed.

12. The end of man in this life and the next is similar between the Orthodox and the Catholics but I believe the Orthodox “sing it in a higher key.” While Catholics would say that the “end of man is to serve God in this life to be reasonably happy in this life and completely happy in the next,” a rather succinct explanation of what being “holy” entails, the Orthodox Church would say that the end of man is “deification.” They will say that God became man so that man may become “god” in the order of grace, not of nature of course. Men – in the Greek the word for “man” still includes “womankind” – are called to partake fully of the divine nature. There is no “taxonomy” of grace in the Orthodox Church, no “quantification” between “Sanctifying Grace” and actual grace, enabling grace, etc. Every grace is “Sanctifying Grace,” who – in this Catholic and Orthodox agree – is a Person, rather than a created power or effect geared to our sanctification. Grace is a continuum, rather than a set of discreet episodes interspersed through a Christian’s life; for an Orthodox Christian, every Grace is Uncreated. The consequences of such a view are rich, unfathomable, and rarely studied by Catholic Christians.

I think this will do it for now. I invite my Orthodox Christian brethren to agree, disagree, or add your own. Without a doubt, - I am speaking as a Catholic again - what we have in common with the Orthodox Church is immense, but what keeps us apart is important, challenging, and not to be underestimated.

Thank you Elizabeth for motivating me to write these, and may the Lord continue to bless you richly.

[MarkBsnr]

***I must say I am glad someone with the authority from the “other perspective” can tell Christians that their reading of the Tanakh is through the prism of the New Testament and that the entire perspective of the OT is thereby changed and made unrecognizable to a Jew.

And for you to compare that distortion to what the LDS are doing with Christian Scripture through the prism of the Book of Mormon is priceless.***

Very perceptive. The Christians are not Jews and do not claim to be; well, not the mainstream. The LDS are now claiming to be Christian. Very very interesting.

[Iscool]

However Paul was ordained by the Church in the manner that all the next generation (after the Apostles) were ordained. That leads us to say that all future priests and bishops are ordained in the same fashion.

You're making that up...Paul was every bit an apostle as the rest of them were..

Paul did not request anone else's ordinatation nor did they offer it...Like the other apostles, Paul was ordained by God...Ordained to go out in to the world and preach the Gospel, to the Gentiles...

Totally unbiblical to suggest Paul was less than the greatest of the apostles...And then call him a bishop...What nonsense...Another fable...

[Iscool]

And biblical manuscripts were not?

God says He will preserve His words forever...He never said that about Ignatius' writings...

[Iscool]

***Paul was ordained from the get-go to be the apostle to the Gentiles***

Interesting. Why did Peter convert the first Gentile and why did Paul split most of the next decade or so between the Jews and Gentiles if this were truly the case?

If it were the case??? You've been show these scriptures numerous times...Apparently you just refuse to believe them...

Act 9:15 But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel:

Gal 2:7 But contrariwise, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter;

Of course Paul preached to everyone...But his mission was to inform the Gentiles they would be allowed into the family of God by adoption AND, without works, but by the grace of God...

[MarkBsnr]

***However Paul was ordained by the Church in the manner that all the next generation (after the Apostles) were ordained. That leads us to say that all future priests and bishops are ordained in the same fashion.

You’re making that up...Paul was every bit an apostle as the rest of them were..***

Really? Which of the Apostles were baptized?

***Totally unbiblical to suggest Paul was less than the greatest of the apostles...And then call him a bishop***

That would be like saying that Douglas MacArthur was not a general.

[MarkBsnr]

***Interesting. Why did Peter convert the first Gentile and why did Paul split most of the next decade or so between the Jews and Gentiles if this were truly the case?

If it were the case??? You’ve been show these scriptures numerous times...Apparently you just refuse to believe them...***

Actually I believe that Peter was the first to convert a Gentile and that Paul split his time between the Gentile and the Jew before he went to Rome.

***Of course Paul preached to everyone...But his mission was to inform the Gentiles they would be allowed into the family of God by adoption AND, without works, but by the grace of God...***

I guess that you only got part of Paul’s message.

[Petronski]

The noble Iscool . . .

ROFLMTO

[kosta50]

Hey, you're the one who told Kolokotronis to imagine an Orthodox living in Utah and he'd understand a bit how Jews feel!

Was it Kolo? I thought it was someone else...What I meant to say with what you said being priceless is is that I am no authority on Judaism, so if I make that comparison it is just me being rebellious. But to read your take on the same parallel carries more weight, I think.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Vera Lex,

I agree with some of what you wrote -
and more importantly, I appreciate that
you invested the time to do so.

I am personally unaware of any so called
“white marriages”. Is this common in your
area?

Frankly, in Greek, I just don’t see your
interpretation of Mary’s statement. Her
words literally mean, ““since I have not
known a man”. It is more specific than
saying “I have not known a man.”

I understand, from the quotes by early Church
Fathers that it was widely taught that Mary
remained a virgin forever. This was taught
at least as early as 248 AD. I don’t know yet
of any earlier references during the intervening
247 years. If you have access to any references
during that period, I would be in your debt,
if you would post them.

Thank you again for your efforts and time.

Best,
ampu

[MarkBsnr]

***Paul did not request anone else’s ordinatation ***

Doesn’t matter. It’s what God wants, not Paul, not you, not me or anyone else.

[kosta50]

Descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who have the faith of the same kind as Abraham's are "true Israel." But as to the grafting-in part, yeah ... Paul taught that in his letter to the believing assembly in Rome.

So, Christians are second-class groupies?

But let me ask you this. Would you consider an atheistic Jew a member of "true Israel?" That is to ask, do you consider someone who denies the existence of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to be a part of "true Israel?"

My understanding as far as Judaism is concerned: to the extent that he is observant of the mitzvot, yes. Even an atheist Jew can be acceptable to God. I would say as long as he did not worship false gods and lived a righteous life, he would is a part of true Israel.

You have to remember that an atheist Jew is still a Jew. A Jew who is a Christian is no longer a Jew, the way a nonpracticing Catholic is still a Catholic by baptism, but a Catholic who became an Mormon is no longer a Catholic, because he believes in an altogether different deity.

[kosta50]

correction: “he would is a part...”=”he would be a part...”

[kosta50]

Very perceptive. The Christians are not Jews and do not claim to be; well, not the mainstream. The LDS are now claiming to be Christian. Very very interesting

I knew you'd understand the difference Mark.

[kosta50]

God says He will preserve His words forever...He never said that about Ignatius' writings...

God never spelled out what his writings are. That's why there were canon "turf wars." Who decided that Paul's letters would be scripture and Ignatius' would not? Who decided what that the Book of Enoch wold not be inspired when it was read in many churches as if it were and in the Ethiopian Church it is still considered scripture?

The only books God allegedly wrote, are the Five Books of Moses, dictated word-for-word to him, or so the Jews believe. Pretty much the way Muslims believe that Allah did the same thing to illiterate Mohammad (who, get this, memorized every word exactly, and then had a scribe write it down later! You don't believe it? I thought with God everything is possible).

So, if you really want to play it by the rules, then only the Five Books of Moses are the inspired Books. Like I said, a myth on top of a myth does not make it truth.

[MarkBsnr]

***Very perceptive. The Christians are not Jews and do not claim to be; well, not the mainstream. The LDS are now claiming to be Christian. Very very interesting

I knew you’d understand the difference Mark.***

The theology of Christianity in this aspect is an ‘also’. We ‘also’ get to share in everlasting salvation, albeit as ‘adopted sons’ rather than as true sons. In this way, we differ from the LDS; the LDS claims to be the only way and that both Christians and Jews are lesser or not fully on the correct path. We Catholics look on the Jews as ‘elder brethren’ who knew God first, and we’re just the second string, or perhaps Act II. :)

[kosta50]

The theology of Christianity in this aspect is an ‘also’. We ‘also’ get to share in everlasting salvation, albeit as ‘adopted sons’ rather than as true sons

That doesn't follow from Christian theology, Mark. How can Jews be saved if they rejected Christ?

And why are Christians "adopted sons?" Is God not their creator as well? Or were they made by someone else and had to be "adopted?"

Is Christian God not God of all people? Are not all humans his creation? If they are, how can they be "adopted?"

We Catholics look on the Jews as ‘elder brethren’ who knew God first, and we’re just the second string, or perhaps Act II.

That's good for Judeo-Christian relations, but I don't think I have ever heard a Jews refer to Christians as their "younger brothers." More like something they mention daily in their prayers by the name of minim, but can you blame them?!? Let's be honest, this "brotherhood" is a one-way affair, Mark.

And the Jews did know their God first and they say that we don't know their God at all. On the other hand, the One we call our God they say was an impostor.

We not only stole and then "adopted" their scripture and their God, but we even redefined their own vocabulary and concepts involved, including God. Comparing what we did to them and what the LDS did vis-a-vis Christianity is a joke.

And now we call them our elder brothers? Do you really think they see watered-down Judaism mixed with Platonism and Aristotelianism as something they can "relate" to, even consider it "adopted?"

Evangelicals go one step farther than that. Ann Coulter suggested that the Jews need to be "perfected" by becoming Christians (so they, too, can be saved)!

So, how is that better than what the LDS say about us? How would you feel if the Mormons arrogated that we are their elder "brethren" and that there is "hope" for us if we get "perfected" by eventually morphing into one of them?

[Guyin4Os]

Ok... in your view, God is pleased with those who do not believe in Him. What more can I say.

[Cronos]

Elaborating on my point -- with some groups that don't accept the Creed like unitarians, Mormons, Jehovah's witnesses etc, we cannot have any dialogue as we have no common ground. All I can say is "you believe what you want".

With those that say they accept the Creed but accept things likeGaay marriage etc like the ECUSA, etc., we can't have any dialogue until they change this.

With traditional anglicans, lutherans etc., there is a start of common ground (the Creed).

With Baptists -- I don't know and I'll tell you why? Because one Baptist told me that they don't recite the Creed and aren't taught it and that they do not take it as a tenet of the faith. Since I don't know if that's true or not or if that varies from Baptist group to Baptist group, I can't have an opinion.

[Cronos]

In all honesty, most Orthodox, at least the cradle ones, when we think of you folks at all, think you are a) Rome’s problem, thank God or b) Rome’s just deserts, depending on how we are feeling about Rome at the time! Its a bit like how you feel about the neighbors’ naughty kids

oye!!! :)

[Cronos]

You can even restrict it to the past 40 years. But the radical individualism was set in motion by the Reformation, it just took a while to get the ball really rolling.

As a Catholic, i'd like to agree with you, but the fact is that church attendance has dropped since the second world war -- since that event. The next generation after that was the Baby boomers

and THEY, single-handedly, made the West godless. I suspect it was because they saw the effects of WWII and the carnage, yet didn't have the discipline and the perseverence their parents had. A greedy generation (with many notable exceptions of course, but I talk in generalities here)