Surely you don't believe that Orthodoxy is "all over the map" and we certainly have no single living person as the authoritative judge of what the Apostolic Faith is and never have. The authoritative judge of what is The Faith is The Church, the hierarchy, the clergy and the People of God acting together in a synergy. That hardly qualifies as each of us making a private determination of what The Faith is. . . . Final point; A you have commented that the issue of the proper exercise of the Petrine Ministry will be decided by people way above our pay grades. Maybe that's true for you. It absolutely is not true for The Reader and me. In the end, in Orthodoxy, that decision will be made by all the Orthodox People of God which will include all sorts of folks just like the two of us.
Thanks for your reply. It seems to me that you talk in two different ways, depending on what you are trying to emphasize. Sometimes, as in your comments directly above, you seem to make Orthodoxy out to be egalitarian and individualistic, which [in that respect] is no different from Protestantism. It might as well be a democracy, if every individual's opinion is an equal part of the Church's judgment and "decision" of what the Faith is, unless the clergy's 'vote' is weighted more heavily than that of the laity.
But other times, unlike the Protestants, you speak of the infallibility of the Ecumenical Councils. And in practice, unlike the Protestants, you *do* seem to defer to the authority of your Patriarchs, and you even acknowledge that concilliarity implies a primus inter pares.
So from my outside, and rather uninformed perspective, it seems to me that the reason Orthodoxy is *not* all over the map (unlike Protestantism) is precisely because you *do* have a living Magisterium of bishops, and even a head of bishops of sorts. And in practice you treat your authorities as they actually are, authorities. But at other times, particularly when the issue of Catholicism is in view, you seem to talk about yourself very much like a Protestant, as if the laity in Orthodoxy have equal authority (i.e. as if Orthodoxy is a democracy). But I don't believe you. :-) I don't believe that if there was another Council today among the Orthodox, you would, like Congregationalists, just decide matters by having the entire Church vote. I think what has held Orthodoxy together (insofar as it is unified) is the [valid] authority of its bishops. It is not (in practice) as individualistic and egalitarian as you [sometimes] make it out to be; otherwise it would be no different from Protestantism, and each person would be his own pope, and it would be fragmented into thousands of pieces.
Lastly, I see no in principle difference between ex cathedra infallibility of a primus inter pares, and the infallbility of an Ecumenical Council. You accept the latter but reject the former, as if there is an principle difference between them. I just don't see that in principle difference.
I say all this with great respect and admiration, an acknowledgment of my own ignorance of the vast theological treasures of the East, and most of all with a deep desire for the reunion of all Christians.
Advent blessings to you as well.
-A8
Ah, A, you don't understand Orthodoxy at all. What you are seeing is no surprise to me nor to TRD, I suspect. Your eyes are Western, rooted in your former Protestantism and informed by your present Latin Catholicism. Orthodoxy is definitely not a democracy nor an oligarcy of hierarchs nor a monarchy of a supreme religious prelate. We don't take votes, and we submit only when our priests and hierarchs preach The Orthodox Faith. And when they don't, we straighten them out. It is, rather, a synergy, as I said; the hierarchs, clergy and laity together, each fulfilling its proper role. It is The Church, centered on the Eucharist which is Christ. This is neither Roman nor Protestant. It is 2000 year old Christian ecclesiology and it works.
The difference is not primarily in the fact that an Ecumenical Council by its membership is broadly representative of the Church--after all, 'where the bishop is, there is the catholic Church', so a single bishop may teach authoritatively--but in the fact that, as the Orthodox understand it, a council must be accepted by the whole Church, the bishops who did not attend, the ordinary clergy, the monastics, the laity, to be, in the end, regarded as ecumenical. This is not a matter of individualism or 'democracy', but of the conciliar nature of the Church. Normally all Orthodox are obedient to our bishops, but even as St. Paul cursed even himself, should he preach a different Gospel than that he had preached, my bishop has exhorted us to know the Faith and to 'show him the door' if he should ever teach heresy. In extrodinary times, the ordinary clergy, the monastics, and the laity, with a minority of bishops are often the guardians of the faith, as in the time of the iconoclasts, or following the False Union Council of Florence/Ferrar.
A blessed and merry Christmas to you and yours. (I write while lying down to rest between an early Vespers and a very early Orthros and Liturgy--beginning at 10:00 tonight.)