Posted on 08/07/2009 9:00:03 AM PDT by 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.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.
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.
Thank you Elizabeth for motivating me to write these, and may the Lord continue to bless you richly.
By what fruit and by whose standard? Just how many "fruits" do you need to "know" for sure, and by whose authority do you determine the limit?
I also spent 25 years in the military. It is a fact. How do you suggest I prove it to you?
That would be easy if that were relevant and necessary. But how do you prove that you are "one of his sheep" since it is releveant and necessary for discussions of this type?
So the sins and errors of others excuse your own leadership as well? Because your neighbor is a rapist does that mean you can be one too? Justification of the excess of riches of your own church by comparing it to others who have such excesses is hardly a Christian attitude...
I would wager that most of the Protestants in this thread have pastors and leaders who live quite modestly. My own pastor and his wife live in a smaller 2 bedroom apartment in Seattle, drive a 12 year old Kia, and have a very modest lifestyle. I know that materially I am better off than he, and he would not have it any other way.
Most pastors I know in the Pacific Northwest conference of the Free Methodist church live very modestly, at or below the median income of their counties. Home ownership is a dream for most; most live in Church-provided parsonages. Come to an annual conference and you'll see 10+ year old cars outnumber newer models by an order of magnitude.
But you go on believing your own few cherry-picked examples. As expansive and expensive any residence of Swaggart or Bakker or Osteen or Warren is, none come close to the comforts afforded the cardinals of the Catholic Church (or even the Archbishop of Seattle).
And none can hold a candle to the Vatican - which Protestant pastor has his own nation, his own army, and a private chapel decorated by Da Vinci, within the largest church in the world?
But ignore me, I'm just an illegitimate follower of evil...
The Orthodox Christians would disagree. Too bad Rome had to split from Orthodoxy and start inventing new dogmas...
“The sins of those suffering in Purgatory had been completely forgiven before they entered the Purgatory.”
Then there is no reason for Purgatory. Jesus Christ has MADE US PERFECT FOREVER.
What part of PERFECT does the Catholic Church not understand?
“That would be easy if that were relevant and necessary.”
We’ve been thru this before. You find my arguments unconvincing, as I find yours (to put it mildly). The last time, the Religion Moderator had to intervene for personal comments. Suffice it to say, there is no proof of military service I could offer on the Internet that should convince anyone...and if not that, then how prove being born again?
Jesus taught that the visible church would have a mixture of true believers and deceivers, who would be sorted out on Judgment Day. If there is no infallible test for the visible church, there certainly isn’t one for the Internet.
However, that does not mean that no one is saved...facts exist independent of the opinion of kosta50.
Unless you conform to the mind of the Church, you are perhaps a lapsed Catholic. You are correct that, in a sense, everyone who has been baptized into any community of faith is a Catholic, even if he is unconfirmed, and never set foot in a Catholic church.
That explanation makes no sense becuase nowhere else in the scripture “saved” means “suffering from eternal fire”.
That the merits of Christ santify us does not mean we are perfect until we are sanctified. Not all die saints.
That’s OK - there is no place in Scripture where being saved means ‘destined for torment in Purgatory until you are good enough for God’!
I see... And nowhere else in Scripture does the Greek word for “brother” mean cousin/kin (the virgin Mary thing).
This is a case where Rome has dictated a dogma based purely on faith, and Rome will condemn those who do not conform as heretics. On the point of faith alone.
I - the illegitimate, evil Protestant - will stand with the Orthodox (the original Church) and state that the concept of purgatory as espoused by Rome is not Biblical.
I think you missed this in Acts 2:
“37 When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the partial forgiveness of your sins. Then you can burn in Purgatory until you’ve paid the rest of the penalty for your sin. Good News, huh!”
You are probably using one of those altered Protestant Bibles.
Although, oddly enough, the New American Bible footnotes say 1 Cor 3 wasn’t written about Purgatory.
The very meaning of “saved” presupposes suffering of some kind.
annalex: “That the merits of Christ santify us does not mean we are perfect until we are sanctified. Not all die saints.”
Scripture: “12But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. 13Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, 14because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
“19Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”
“27Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.”
Sure it does. Gen 3:8.
I recommend anyone who for some reason cannot bring himself to Rome directly, convert to Orthodoxy, a part of One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church that we Latins love dearly.
So? “let us draw near to God with a sincere heart” does not sound like perfection already accomplished. Sanctification is a process. Purgatory is a part of it.
“The very meaning of “saved” presupposes suffering of some kind.”
Yes - and it assumes the saved are rescued.
It works out well when feelings are mutual.
Suffice it to say, there is no proof of military service I could offer on the Internet that should convince anyone...and if not that, then how prove being born again?
Sure there is. There are secure sites. If need be, one could establish proof of military service with proper passwords and a need to know, electornically or by mail. this information can be further corroborated by asking you relevant questions, people who know you or should know you, pictures and correspondence, court documents, if any, etc.
But why bring up claims on the regular Internet knowing you can't prove them, and knowing no one is obligated to believe them on your word alone? Anyone can claim anything behind the superficial anonymity of the Internet.
The same goes for your favorite research tool, Wikpedia. Anyone can change it. By the time it is corrected—if it is corrected!—God only knows how many people have used the information as reference!
Jesus taught that the visible church would have a mixture of true believers and deceivers, who would be sorted out on Judgment Day
First how do you know that's what Jesus taught? Second, if you were writing the New Testament, wouldn't you put that in too? Just in case...
If there is no infallible test for the visible church, there certainly isn’t one for the Internet
Thank you. Except the Internet operates also with visible evidence that can be verified with outside sources. When someone tells me he met Jesus or is guided by the Spirit, what is there to verify? The Internet operates in the real world and is subject to real world tests. That's more than one can say with confidence when it comes to someone's mental state. Apples and oranges.
And when one applies real-world test to the Church, the picture we get is a bit different than what the Church says.
However, that does not mean that no one is saved...facts exist independent of the opinion of kosta50.
How do you know for a fact that anyone is saved? Something is not a fact simply because Mr. Rogers believes it is.
The spirit of a Christian HAS BEEN perfected. We battle with sin because of our flesh, but we await that Day, when our spirits receive a new body, and the battle is over.
That is why JUSTIFICATION is past tense, and SANCTIFICATION is ongoing.
“18I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”
There are two destinations, not three: “But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 12His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
“Something is not a fact simply because Mr. Rogers believes it is. “
And a fact doesn’t cease to be simply because kosta50 doubts.
You don’t believe me, but God knows. And your doubts won’t change that fact. Doubt away. If you wish to doubt your way to hell, I cannot stop you.
Philippians 1:6 “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”
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