www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West New UGCC Catechism Reaffirms Papal Infallibility?

Well, only from about 1700 onward, and then only due to Piotr Velikij.

As for all those Latin innovations to which Apotheoun points, though, you'll find very few people in the Latin Church, from top to bottom, who hold that any of them to be "dogmatic" teachings. The Latin Church has certainly moved on a great deal from the days when Neo-Scholastic theology was the only game in town.

I think that the differences between Russian and Greek liturgy, which predate Peter the Great, show that the Russian mind has always had a more Latin slant to it. Which is fine. It made black vestments and liturgical colours take off in Russia, to start with.

That you have backwards. The Slavic Orthodox Liturgy employed by the Russian Church prior to the Nikonian Reforms actually captures more fully the usage of the Church of Constantinople in the period prior to 1453 than the Greek usage of 1650. Put another way, the Old Believers were right, and Nikon was wrong--as some of Nikon's Greek advisors tried to tell him (but he wasn't interested, because the real reasons for the reform had nothing to do with restoration of corrupted practices, and everything to do with Russian hegemony over the Orthodox world).

Paul Meyendorff documents this well in his book Russia, Ritual and Reform. The re-publication of the 1629 Liturgicon of St. Peter Moghila by Father Serge, Vladika Vsevolod and Jack Figel, as compared to Old Believer texts also demonstrates that many practices long regarded as latinizations were in fact indigenous Russian Orthodox usage, while some things in the Greek Catholic liturgy long regarded as "russifications" were also present in the pre-Nikonian rites of both Moscow and Kyiv.

To sum up, then, the changes in Russian liturgical practice resulting from the Nikonian reforms made the Russian Church more latinized, because the Greek Church itself had become more latinized as a result of the transfer of its theological and educational center of gravity from Constantinople to Italy from the late 14th century onward (a process that accelerated under the Turkokratia).

Under Peter and his successors, the latinization of the Russian Church really accelerated, as a result of Peter's suppression of the Patriarchate, the subordination of the Synod to the civil government, and the wholesale importation of Latin-trained teachers using Latin-style teaching techniques and Latin-style theological categories and reasoning. Since the language of instruction and disputation at the theological academies in 18th and 19th century Russia was Latin, what else could one expect?

It's a bit horses for courses and more complex than you put it. There are some practices that appealed to Russians more than Greeks and vice versa. Is some practices the Old Believers were "correct" (if whatever was going on in the Studium before 1453 constitutes correct) and in some areas they weren't. Either way, my essential point is that those areas of both the Old Rite and New Rite liturgies that differ from current Greek practice (and those are the ones I was referring to in the quoted passage from the link)tend to be amenable to a Roman liturgical viewpoint mroe than a greek one. I have Paul Meyendorff's book, and it is more nuanced than you put it; there were some areas where the Old believers were "wrong" if the gold standard is the Studium.

My Russian Orthodox friends would not agree that Russian Orthodox have "always been" pretty Latinized. There is no concept of "created" grace in Russian Orthodox theology, and Russian Orthodox - unlike Roman Catholics - believe that divine energy (i.e., divinity and power) is present in icons, and of course that is a belief that was condemned by the Latin bishops who met in the local Roman council held at Trent in the 16th century.

P.S. - The vast majority of Latinizations that entered the Russian Church beginning in 17th century have thankfully been expunged, although I am sure there is still more work to be done.

You're still elevating mountains out of molehills by dredging up aspects of Latin theologia secunda about which the Latin Church cares not one fig. So why bother? As I said, Neo-Scholasticism is not the only theological game in town for the Latin Church, and arguments based on the straw man of Tridentine theology are distinctly unhelpful. As I tell my Orthodox friends, if you are going to criticize the Latin Church, make sure you know what the Latin Church actually teaches, and not what you think it teaches, or someone else says it teaches.

Only because our dear friend is calling those things dogmas.

Stuart, I am sure that it is pretty obvious to you that we are in basic agreement when it comes to rejecting as unimportant those Latin innovations I mentioned in an earlier post. In fact those things are merely highly speculative theological theories, and as such they have no importance for Eastern Catholics. Heck, some of them are not that important to Roman Catholics anymore.

Well, ignore him. If the Pope does not object, then why should we bother with the prejudices of dyspeptic laymen? But I would go one further than you: outside of traditionalist Latin zealots and a few historians of the development of doctrine, matters such as "created grace" are of absolutely no interest to the Latin Church, and you could probably count on one hand the number of Latin bishops who could give a good description of the doctrine and its importance.

I suppose you're right. I shouldn't let a bigot sour my rather happy day. After all, the vision in my right eye greatly improved after my surgery earlier today.

True enough.

...In related news: water is wet.

I always thought its documents were a pretty good guide to its teaching, hence why I've quoted them frequently. I also assumed that the UGCC's documents would also reflect what it believed. My bad.

I'm not calling them dogmas, I'm assuming the UGCC considers them so since it quotes a dogmatic constitution (notice the title?) to justify believing in them. Go back to the first post in this thread if this doesn't ring any bells.

DtK,

The Melkites established communion with Rome in 1724 to be precise.

If you intend to speak for yourself, as a Melkite (if that is, in fact, your canonical enrollment), that's all well and good. However, speaking for the Melkite Greek-Catholic Church as an ecclesial entity is a reach. And telling my Melkite brother that his beliefs are or are not compatible with those of his Church, without the caveat that such is as you perceive those beliefs to be held and expressed, is really a bit much.

Many years,

Neil

The same might be the case in regard with filioque on the orthodox side!

Haha that's definitely true.