www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology The Ecumenical Councils: Are there 21 or only 7?

Okay, let's all take a deep breath...

First, a suggestion for Roman Army...when you post your understanding, make it clear that you are posting your opinion/understanding. When you want to learn, do not present a ton of citations but, instead, simply state what you have heard/learned/believe and ask how this agrees with/contrasts with what Eastern Catholics believe.

For our esteemed Administrator: I do not believe that the post from Roman Army represented arrogance but, rather, he is reflecting the teachings of the Roman Church prior to the "modern era" of the Church since John XXIII.

Now, to address the question Roman Army asked. The term "ecumenical" from an Eastern perspective refers to the entirity of the Church, East and West. For the Latin Church it refers to the entirity of the Church in communion with Rome. Therein lies the difference. The Latin Church wants the Eastern Catholic Churches to be signs to the Orthodox that reunion is possible. AS a result, the Latin Church has begun to understand the Eastern positions and to not only empathize with us, but to recognize the truth that is present in our thinking.

With that in mind, the East generally takes the following stance: all councils after the 7th are General Councils of the West which, for the most part, addressed only the Latin Rite Church. Those doctrines presented for the whole Church are, indeed, accepted by the East but are understood from our Eastern Traditions.

I hope this helps to answer your confusion.

Fr. Deacon Edward

Okay, Thank You! That's what I wanted to hear. Remember, I don't know much about Eastern theology, so bare with me.

Now, what's the Eastern way of thinking when it comes to infallibility and authority of Councils? What makes a council infallible and binding on all the faithful?

I looked on the Melkite site and it lists Vatican II as the 21st Ecumenical Council. I think the semantics though are really beside the point. Any doctrine formulated in a council of the Catholic Church has to be accepted by all its members.

Andrew

The councils of Roman Church, which took place after the schism, are not accepted by the Eastern Orthodox, nor are they likely to ever be accepted by them. In fact the Second Council of Lyons and the Council of Florence have been explicitly rejected by the Eastern Orthodox Churches.

I don't think that the councils of the West are binding upon the Eastern Churches, because they do no reflect the theological and spiritual tradition of the East. Thus, they aren't all that important to me as a Byzantine Catholic.

I found a Q&A on the Melkite site and here's the tail end of what Bishop John Elya says about the post schism councils.

Sure sounds like Bishop Elya is saying all 21 are ecumenical and part of the deposit of faith of all Catholics, East or West. I just don't see how it could be otherwise. Papal Infallbility for instance could not be true only in the West.

The full link is here [melkite.org] .

Andrew

He has a right to his opinion, but the Roman Church itself has been moving away from the idea that the Eastern Orthodox will have to accept the Western councils. In fact there could be no theological dialogue with the Eastern Orthodox at all if their acceptance of those councils were to be required, since they have already explicitly rejected many of them.

Even in the Vatican's "clarification on the filioque" document there was no mention of the Council of Florence. The West is going to have to get used to the idea that some things that were once accepted uncritically as "ecumenical" are not. There has never been a definitive statement from the Magisterium on which councils are ecumenical.

As I have mentioned in other threads, the Orthodox have explicitly rejected several of the Western Councils because they cannot be reconciled to the Byzantine doctrine of the Trinity. As an example, the "filioque" doctrine as it was formulated by the Second Council of Lyons was rejected by the Council of Blachernae (A.D. 1285), and in response to Lyons the Blachernae Council explained the procession of the Spirit from the Father alone, while also touching on the Spirit's eternal manifestation through the Son in the divine energy.

Eastern and Western theology are different, and the West needs to come to accept that fact and embrace the idea of diversity in unity.

Now, apotheoun's posts are confusing me even further. Are Byzantine Catholics at liberty to completly reject these councils and their doctrines?

I am sorry that you are deeply offended but you are the one to cause offense.

Anyone who uses the pseudonym �Roman Army� and in his very first posts here doesn�t ask questions in a polite way but instead starts quoting things way out of context and then dares us to prove what we believe is really Catholic is really the one who is causing offense.

After 8 years of running this Forum I can discern the difference between those who are really seeking and those who are here to bait people. It appears to me that �Roman Army� is most likely a high school or post high school youth who fancies himself a Catholic soldier, a Catholic apologist and a Latin triumphalist. It is very easy to visualize �Roman Army� going from Mass to Mass to see if the priest inadvertently or intentionally does something incorrect and then writing to his bishop. It is also very easy to see �Roman Army� bating people into arguments and then sitting back and trying to look like an innocent lamb who is only a soldier in God�s Roman Catholic army.

I stand by my comments earlier and remind �Roman Army� to assume that Eastern Catholic theology is legitimately Catholic rather then to consider it to be heretical and then daring us to prove ourselves to be faithful to the Church.

Yes, Byzantine Catholics are free to reject the doctrinal formulations issued in the Western Councils, and they are able to do this because those formulations do not always reflect the understanding of the faith found within their own theological tradition. In fact, Western Catholics are free to do the same, as is clear from the Catholic / Orthodox Consultations document The Filioque: A Church Dividing Issue? [usccb.org] , which can be found on the USCCB website, because as that document clearly states: "Orthodox and Catholic theologians [must] distinguish more clearly between the divinity and hypostatic identity of the Holy Spirit, which is a received dogma of our Churches, and the manner of the Spirit�s origin, which still awaits full and final ecumenical resolution." In other words, the decrees of the Councils of Florence and Second Lyons have not definitively settled the doctrine of the Spirit's procession.

The Roman Church is in a real dialogue with the Eastern Orthodox Churches, and such a dialogue requires that both sides are open to the theological tradition of the other Church.

A dialogue that is in fact only a monologue will never bring about the restoration of communion. So, the Roman Church cannot say that it wants to dialogue with the Orthodox, but that the Orthodox must first accept councils which they have already rejected.

Nothing good will come from either side in the dialogue simply promoting old polemical positions.

Blessings to you,
Todd

In otherwords, you're basing your judgements on assumption and not giving people chances. I use this name in many Catholic forums, and in no way do I intend it as offensive, would you like me to change it? You don't even know me. I in no way was trying to enforce anything, can we have a decent conversation and maybe I can learn something about my Eastern brethren? Could you re-read my post again and see my tone that I was just expressing my very small understanding in order to be corrected? Or have you already shut your mind and judged me for my name and claim that I'm just an arrogant young overzealous Latin inquisitor? Is it because of my age?

For everyone that has ever seen me in other forums knows how I communicate. I sometimes explain my poor understanding of it in order to be corrected by those who know more.
For crying out loud, I seriously never knew that the Byzantine Church thought of councils and classified them in that way. And I was just asking truthful puzzling legitimate questions. I'm trying to learn and understand Eastern Catholicism! And plan on attending the Divine Liturgy.

Shlomo Roman Army,

Well the first thing you need to understand is that the Catholic Communion Of Churches is made up of 23 sui iuris Churches, that contain five different traditions. A great primer on Eastern Catholicism would be The One Church and the Communion of Churches.

Poosh BaShlomo,
Yuhannon

This does seem to be a fairly volatile discussion.

Yes, there is an ecclesiological problem at the root of the disagreement - what is it that makes a Council "Ecumenical"? Funnily enough, neither the East nor the West have yet offered a satisfactory answer. The modern West would claim the Pope as the touchstone of ecumenicity - but at least two of the Seven Councils (the second and the fifth) were held without benefit of the Pope.

The East reminds us, accurately enough, that Truth is its own criterion - but then appears to argue in a circle.

Both sides must deal with the historical phenomenon of Councils which claimed in their time to be Ecumenical but which neither side currently receives as such ("Ephesus II" and Hieria are cases in point). The west can be thrown into complete confusion by raising the matter of Constance.

Patience, and a willingness to attempt to understand each other might just help.

Incognitus

The questions RA asks are legitimate and inevitable for most Roman inquirers; give him a break and don't jump all over him for his use of a militant-sounding screen name.
Is it my imagination or is more patience shown to obnoxious Orthodox posters than bumbling Romans who stumble in here?
For my part, it seems that Eastern Catholics may balk at the Latin articulation of dogma in the Western Councils, but must not say they teach positive error, given their ratification by the Roman Pontiff.
The problem for many Romans is the new, for them, concept that there is a distinction between the heart of a dogma and its particular expression, which occurs in a particular cultural and theological context.
-Daniel
ps- Whatever one thinks of the Admin jumping all over this guy he apparently showed a remarkable ability to guess the fellow's age.

Dear Roman Army,

I am basing my judgments on your behavior.

Look at your posts. Instead of asking questions you made assumptions that we were unfaithful to Catholicism and then took the attitude that we must prove to you that our theology is faithful to Catholicism. Such an attitude is arrogant. In this very thread each time you have been presented with a balanced, Catholic view from the Eastern perspective your response is to quote with an overtone of �that�s not correct and here is a quote to prove you are wrong�.

You indicated: �It seems that the rejection of these councils as Ecumenical would mean that they're fallible and thus no need to believe in certain doctrines.� Such a statement is not concrete theology anywhere in the Catholic Church. The ecumenical status of a council (or not) is not related to the fallibility or infallibly of what is taught in that council. Why would you demand such a test of Eastern Catholicism when such a direct link is not found in Catholic theology?

To this point Incognitus responded: �The Church, East, West or in combination, has never specifically taught that Ecumenical Councils or General Councils are infallible.� Yet your response to this was to quote from the councils, ignoring what Incognitus wrote entirely and insisting that if we have a different understanding of �ecumenical� then we must be rejecting the teachings. You also ignored what I had written about the �ecumenical� status of councils not necessarily having anything to do with its teaching authority. Why did you ignore such major points and simply continue offering your so-called �proof texts� to support your claim that we are wrong? If you were really interested in understanding you would have immediately explored these points.

I could go on to analyze each of your posts. I find your claim that you are someone who is innocent and misunderstood to be not believable. Someone who is seeking a �decent conversation� would ask questions in a manner that indicates they are seeing answers in order to learn and understand. Yet you ask questions in a manner that demands proof of our faithfulness to Catholicism and ignore the very answers given to you to continue with more demands.

At this point I am not sure that you should continue to post here. If you wish to, I suggest that you actually try to understand some of the comments made to you instead of ignoring them to simply ask more questions.

If you wish to continue you might start by actually taking each point that Incognitus has made and examining it, providing specific teachings quoted within context to refute them since you seem to reject them (I say you seem to reject them since you have not responded to them and continue as if they were of no consequence to the points you are making). Apotheoun also provided some very excellent information that you should digest and respond to.

Finally, I really don�t care how you communicate on other forums. When you come into our house you cannot be the bull in a china shop that knocks things down and then demands that everyone else take you as you claim to be and clean up the mess you have created.

Admin