www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Immaculate Conception, Assumption of Mary, & Papal Infallibility

Joe Thur wrote:

"You are correct. I just listened to a tape of Fr. Taft's talk on Eastern Theology and he states the rhetorical question (not in the exact words): how often do we hear the West quoting their liturgical texts in theology? Yes, there is a totally different approach. It is no wonder why some may search in vain for "implied" dogmas and philosophical categories in our liturgy. Lex orandi, lex credendi is quite foreign to some in the West."

First, I have read many Latin works (mostly pre-Vatican II) which do in fact draw on the Roman Liturgy to make theological points. Second, Ignatius made a very interesting point that you simply overlooked in your response to him. His point was that "Lex orandi, lex credendi" (a Latin phrase, by the way) involves a double movement. Belief both comes out of liturgical worship and is given its formal sanction by being inserted into the liturgy. There are some prime examples of this in the early church. Prior to the Arian controversy, for instance, Christ was prayed to in the liturgy, but there were no direct references to Him as God. Such references were placed into the liturgy after the Council of Nicaea. (Interesting note: Jaroslav Pelikan points out that the Arians prayed to Christ in their worship, but refused to believe in His divinity.) Again, when the orthodox Fathers argued for the divinity of the Holy Spirit, they did not argue from the liturgy, as there was no liturgical argument to be made. It was only after the first Council of Constantinople that explicit statements of the divinity of the Holy Spirit as found in the creed were inserted into the liturgy. After that time, theologians could appeal to the liturgy as a witness to Christian belief in the divinity of the Holy Spirit. But we shouldn't forget that it wasn't explicitly there to begin with.

Ed

Greetings and peace to all!

I am a newcomer to this forum, so please forgive me if I offend anyone with my ignorance. I'm still learning...

My attention was drawn to this thread because of the issues presented. As a Latin Catholic (gasp!) with strong Eastern leanings, I'd like to ask a couple of clarifying questions:

1) Does the Eastern tradition affirm Mary's complete sinlessness? If so, is she considered to have been preserved from all sin throughout her entire life? And if she is considered sinless, is this fact primarily attributable to her own virtue and merit, or to the preveient grace of God enabling her full cooperation?

ISTM that this is the fundamental question to consider with regard to the Immaculate Conception. Granted, the Eastern conception of "original sin" is different from the Augustinian doctrine. But the dogma of the Immaculate Conception seeks to affirm and defend the absolute sinlessness of the Theotokos, and to primarily attribute her sinlessness to God's grace and mercy.

2) Does the Eastern tradition affirm the indefectability of the Church? If so, how is this expressed? Can papal infallibility be understood as a gift to the entire Church as a key element (though by no means the only one) of preserving the Church from error in essential matters of faith and morals?

Thank you. I look forward to your replies!

Dave

Olga -

News flash: Orthodoxy will never accept Rome "signing off" on every single episcopal appointee in the Orthodox Churches. That is not setting up a false barrier to ecumenism, as you have regrettably suggested here, but rather simply goes to the core issue of what the acceptable extent of Roman authority may be. And for Orthodox, Roman "approval" for every episcopal appointment goes substantially beyond what would be acceptable.

Brendan

Brendan --

New flash. The Catholic Church does not hold that the current Orthodox practice for epsicopal selection is a requirement for or a barrier to reunion. No oen is asking Orthodoxy to do anything other than follow its own best judgment for the selection of bishops.

Olga

Olga --

Perhaps then Rome should rethink its practices with respect to its "own" Eastern Churches, because it's hard for Orthodox to consider what a future communion with Rome would look like OTHER than to look at what the present communion with Rome and its own Eastern Churches looks like today. So from the ecumenical perspective, the canon in question is highly relevant, I'm afraid.

Brendan

Dear Dave,

Your points are well taken.

The Eastern tradition has ALWAYS held (Catholic and Orthodox) that the Mother of God was All Holy and Ever Immaculate. The Mother of the Word Incarnate could never be said to have ever been under satan's sway.

We celebrate Our Lady's Nativity which means that She was born Holy. From the East also came the celebration of the Conception of St Anne which also means that Conception was Holy.

Our devotion to the Mother of God is in the inner life of the Church and we don't like to define things that we've always believed.

The Church is indefectible as you said.

For the Orthodox Church, the highest expression of that is within an Ecumenical Council.

A Redemptorist priest friend of mine once said he believed the CAtholic Church should extend its doctrine of papal infallibility to say that the Pope is infallible when "he ratifies the decisions of an Ecumenical Council."

His view, anyway.

Alex

Hello Dave --

"Does the Eastern tradition affirm Mary's complete sinlessness?"

The Orthodox tradition affirms that the Theotokos did not commit actual sin, yes.

"If so, is she considered to have been preserved from all sin throughout her entire life?"

Yes.

"And if she is considered sinless, is this fact primarily attributable to her own virtue and merit, or to the preveient grace of God enabling her full cooperation?"

Sinlessness is never a matter of personal virtue or merit -- it is a matter of one's openness to God's tranforming grace (which the Orthodox tradition calls the "uncreated divine energies"). The Theotokos is the exemplar of the person who was, in human history, most perfectly open to the uncreated divine energies, who most perfectly was transformed by grace -- so perfectly that she did not commit actual sin. The personality of the Theotokos is supremely revealed in her dialogue with the Angel Gabriel related at the outset of the Gospel according to Luke -- perfect surrender to God's will, perfect acceptance of His grace. As to the question of the root of that cooperation (herself or God) -- the answer is again a synergystic one -- that is, the act of deciding to cooperate itself is a combination of personal will and divine grace, and one in which the latter plays the dominant role.

"Does the Eastern tradition affirm the indefectability of the Church?"

As the totality of the Body of Christ, yes.

"If so, how is this expressed?"

This is the typical question asked by Latin Catholics, which is to be expected given the Latin perspective on the Church (not a bash, just an observation -- I was a Latin Catholic myself for 30 years).

The answer, which you're likely to find highly unsatisfying, is that Orthodoxy views the truth as self-authenticating. In other words, the truth of a statement does not derive from the source of the statement, but rather from its substantive content. In effect, this means that there is no external, a priori, criterion that guarantees a true outcome. Neither council nor Patriarch nor Pope nor Bishop is the institutional or personal guarantor of truth and, according to Orthodox teaching, all are subject to error. The truth is that which is acknowledged by the Church in its 'catholic' (ie, full) sense, by the pleroma of the Church. Orthodox trust in the holy spirit to act, in and through the entire Body of Christ, to prevent and uproot the growth of heresy therein. The Holy Spirit is viewed, likewise, as acting in a 'catholic' way -- that is, throughout the Body of Christ, and not confined to a certain institution. Therefore, while the normal teaching office of the Church is the hierarchy, the hierarchy itself is not beyond error, and when that error happens, the Spirit acts in the 'catholic' Body of Christ to root out the error committed. This has happened numerous times in Orthodox history (most notably in the aftermath of the Council of Florence).

Therefore, as a practical matter, the general practice is that the hierarchs in council exercise the ordinary doctrinal indefectibility of the Church -- but, as such, are capable of committing error, in which case the Spirit acts through the 'catholic' pleroma of the Church to root out the heresy. Therefore, the hierarchs are not the *sole* guardians of true doctrine in Orthodoxy, and the laity and lower clerical orders all bear responsibility for preserving the fulness of correct Orthodox doctrine. There isn't any institutional guarantee -- the guarantee resides in the fullness of the Body of Christ, guided by the Spirit to all truth. That perspective should probably preview my response to your next question.

"Can papal infallibility be understood as a gift to the entire Church as a key element (though by no means the only one) of preserving the Church from error in essential matters of faith and morals?"

Not from the Orthodox perspective, because it attempts to provide institutional guarantees that Orthodoxy does not believe in (our history tells us otherwise). We believe that the guarantee of indepfectibility resides in the pleroma of the Body of Christ, including not only the primatial bishop, not only all of the bishops together, but also the lower clerical orders, the monastics and the laity. It exists as a guarantee to the entire Body of Christ, acting in its 'catholic' sense.

Having said that, institutional arrangements can be addressed, perhaps with the Pope as spokesman for the entire Church, with the consent of the entire Church (manifested through the hierarchs). However, even such arrangements would have to leave open the possibility for the Spirit to act in His 'catholic' sense in the pleroma of the Church, rather than relying on an institutional guarantee of indefectibility based on the hierarchical or pontifical source of a given statement.

Brendan

Dear Brendan,

Thank you for that in-depth post!

However, the institutional question remains an important one for Orthodoxy as well as for RCism.

The so-called "problems" of Orthodoxy deriving from any "institutional weaknesses" it may have (do you see how ecumenical I am trying to be? ) is something that Orthodoxy wants to address.

Some have suggested that Orthodoxy had a highly developed "institutional life" when it was part of the Byzantine Empire, but no longer.

Rome surmounted this difficulty by having the Pope assume, to an extent, the role of the Emperor.

Rome may be overly bureaucratized, but isn't the lack of an institutional life in Orthodoxy a problem?

The Moscow Patriarch does tend to act very much like a Pope in Russia - not that there's anything wrong with that.

He always has and this may explain the resilience and discipline of the Russian Church.

Alex

Alex --

I would agree that Orthodoxy needs greater institutional cohesion. The institutions, however, must not be imbued with a per se institutional guaranty of infallibility. I think that was what Dan was asking.

Brendan

Dear Brendan,

Granted that that was what Dan was asking.

And granted that Orthodoxy needs greater institutional cohesion.

But it is still confusing to some as to how Orthodoxy manages to do anything as an international Body at the universal level.

For me, the strong local Church character of Orthodoxy is a manifestation of a need for something like a (reformed) Petrine Primacy that transcends narrow nationalism, ethnic limitations and historical subservience to the nation-state.

Rome has its problems, but I still believe that the ideals of universal Christian values are better expressed by it which is one of the reasons why I consciously remain a Catholic.

Alex

Dear Brendan and Alex:

Thank you so much for your replies. They were quite informative!

Brendan, in your comments on the indefectability of the Church, you speak of the collective understanding (my terminology) of the "pleroma of the Church". In your view, does this correlate to the "sensus fidelum" of the Church? According to the Catholic perspective, "By a 'supernatural sense of faith' the People of God, under the guidance of the Church's living Magisterium, 'unfailingly adheres to this faith' " (Catechism, #889). Would you say that it is possible for a Pope to express this sensus filelum with a statement that is infallible and binding upon the whole Church?

Also, Brendan, with regard to the Theotokos, I'd like to pose a follow up question. Granted the Orthodox don't accept the typical Western notion of "original sin" (at least not in its Augustinian formulation with inherited guilt). However, Catholics maintain that one of the effects of original sin is concupiscence, and that original sin deprives us of the original holiness and justice in which we were first created. With this in mind, do the Orthodox generally hold that the Blessed Virgin Mary was born without these effects? Was she preserved from the weakness that we experience as a result of Adam's sin?

Thanks again for your answers!

Dave

Hi Dave --

"In your view, does this correlate to the "sensus fidelum" of the Church?"

Only in a very inexact way, because of the practical differences. In Orthodoxy, the Holy Spirit guides the entire Church and preserves her from heresy -- not by ensuring that the laity obey the infallible magisterial office, but by ensuring that whatever means are needed -- hierarchical, monastical or lay, depending on the circumstance -- are deployed to root out and destroy the heresy. In Catholicism, the Holy Spirit guides the Church through the hierarchs, and in particular through the Pope, who in his person is the guarantor of that indefectibility. Orthodoxy believes that anyone can make errors, and that therefore the guaranty of the Holy Spirit applies to the Church as a whole and not just the Pope.

Now, to the extent that the Pope were only to make such statements with the prior approval and consent of the remainder of the church, including all particular churches ... well, then he's acting more like a spokesman. The spokesman role is less objectionable to Orthodox, but even a spokesman can make errors, and even when that spokesman has the advice and consent of all of the other heads of churches. At Florence, virtually the entire Orthodox episcopate sold the Orthodox faith down the river, and it took one headstrong Bishop and the lower clergy and laity to overturn that -- but that's the way the Holy Spirit acted in that case. With the Council of Florence as a prime example, it's very hard for us to accept that the hierarchs are per se infallible, or that one of them, even with the consent of most or all of the others, is per se infallible. The door must always be left open to the possibility of error in the hierarchy, and the possibility of correcting that through the entire Church -- from the Orthodox perspective.

"With this in mind, do the Orthodox generally hold that the Blessed Virgin Mary was born without these effects? Was she preserved from the weakness that we experience as a result of Adam's sin?"

Orthodox do not believe that the Theotokos was born without the infirmity that derives from the sin of Adam. Rather, Orthodoxy views the Theotokos as a human being, born into our frail and infirm state, who simply perfectly cooperated with God and did not sin.

Brendan

Dear Brendan,

However, Orthodoxy in her liturgical tradition DOES hold that the Theotokos experienced no pain in giving birth to Christ, which pain she would have indeed experienced had she been under the law of concupiscence.

Have a great day,

Alex

Alex, you devil! WHERE is this found? Enlighten me, please!

Nor did she have a maidenhead.