www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Latin vs. Byzantine Theology

I have heard of this idea before. It is a bit confusing though because it contradicts Pope Pius XII encylical on the mystical body of Christ.

I do not agree that there is a contradiction, but you will have to bring that up with Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) and Pope John Paul II, since Communionis Notio was issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith during the pontificate of John Paul II.

Also the CDF's letter clarifying the phrase "sister churches" would also be helpful in this context and supports everything written in Communionis Notio.

Eli

I would have thought that as a seeker and a teacher you would have studied these particular documents carefully.

Could you be more spicific concerning the contradiction that you see and could you quote sections rather than just referencing the documents. I have all the documents of the past two centuries concerning the Mystical Body of Christ here in a notebook at my desk, so I don't need a general reference. I would like to have specifics please.

Eli

Dear LatinCat you said:

I say:

The Church is the whole body of believers in Christ Jesus, with some containing greater Truth and some lesser Truth. My opinion as a devout Orthodox is that we contain the 'fullness' of that Truth, and by that I mean a 'way' leading one towards theosis that is more 'complete'.

In the same sense, I perceive the Pope of Rome as being the authority of the Church in issues pertaining to present day situations and occurances in this world.

Zenovia

Dear Zenovia,

There you go again . . .

Alex

Hi Latin Cat

It is probably true that some Eastern Catholics deny the truth of these doctrines. This seems plausible given the fact that there are also RC's that reject them as well.

This is not to say that this is right. But it does emphasise that the RC church is not necesarily in a stronger state compared to EC churches. If denying these doctrines is a failing, then it seems to me that the failings are evenly distributed.

Paul Kabay

Dear LatinCat,I don't think the issue is how the eastern Catholics deviate from Catholic doctrine, but rather, how the western Catholics have drifted from traditional Catholic doctrine!

Well, I think from my studying it depends. In the West, the Church officially holds to all the dogmatic councils, not just the first seven. In this way, the west is a true bedrock of the orthodox Catholic faith. However, we have many clergy, that do not teach in union with Rome and many laity that do not believe the fullness of the faith, for example Catholics who contracept. In this way, the west is in trouble. However, the position of the east, from what I understand, is complicated. I cannot seem to pin down official Eastern Catholic teaching. If the Eastern Churches believe EVERYTHING taught by the western Church, even if they use different language to describe it, including Papal infallibility, post-death penance/purification, original sin, the immaculate conception, the filoque, etc., then the Eastern Churches are also bedrocks of orthodox Catholicism. However, if these teachings are officially rejected by the Eastern Church, then the East has fallen away from the true faith. The problem is that in the East some Catholics will say that eastern Catholics are not required to believe these things and some will say that they are? Which is it? I know that it may be true that these teachings were promulgated while many of the Eastern Churches were not in union with Rome, but the Church still remained the Church while most of the eastern churches were away.

This is just a quick thought I had this morning.

Have you gone, in your studies of course, and looked at what your Church has said over the past 50 or 60 years, concerning the very questions that you are asking here?

Clearly you are ready to "explain" the heterodoxy among members of the Latin rite who would say that you are all wet for calling it heterodoxy in the first place. So who is to say you are right and they are wrong in all things?

You see what I am suggesting?

You cannot even resolve what is going on in your own Church without consulting the Church. Why would you come to some other Church and express "confusion" when you don't show any evidence, yet, of having consulted your own Church's teachings concerning the very questions that you ask.

Eli

Dear friends,

Surely we can all agree that God can be described but not completely defined by any theology or any number of theologies? Therefore different theologies may highlight different aspects of God (historically developed in response to specific errors) without any need to regard these differences as fatal.
Or am I wrong?

That is an interesting position because most of the Eastern Orthodox Christians that I have talked to do not view things as you do exactly. Most Eastern Orthodox say that the Eastern Orthodox Church is the THE CHURCH, period. They also say that the Catholic Church is a schismatic and heretical church with invalid sacraments and no true apostolic succesion, not a part of the Church established by Jesus Christ.

Look, I am not saying you guys are all messed up. God give me patience. I am just trying to understand the east a bit better. You'll have excuse my ignorance that is in the process of seeking undestanding. I just want to be sure that the OFFICIAL position of the Eastern Churches to accept at least the substance of ALL the ecumenical/dogmatic councils and the infallible pronouncements of the Pope. Goodness gracious.

I've always wondered why people feel a need to change rites from Latin to Byzantine and so on. I was raised in the Latin rite by a mother who was catechized in a shared Church in Oakland, Ca. The Church was shared by both rites. My Catholicism has always been a blend of both and ultimately led me to the Carmelites. When I was 32 I was in need of spritual direction and my priest was a lovely latin rite jesuit who said the only spiritual director he could recommend for me at the time was a Melkite! I rmember going to the Melkite Monastary and I was scared on the way because I just felt I was entering foreign territory and did not know what to expect. I arrived, was there five minutes and realized I had never left home. The rites were different, some of the expectations were different, but it was all terribly familiar. No problem at all. I remember I arrived on the Abbot's birthday. We were in the refectory and someone had sent the abbot a birthday present of new fruit of the looms. He was so thrilled to have three new pairs of underpants. And all of the monks gave a huge round of applause. And I was tickled pink as well because well it was touching and reminded me of my old latin rite Carmelite priest when he was presented with a new pair of shoes.
I have never felt any need to change as I feel I belong to both, go comfortably between both. I have both statuary and icons on my home altar. I have prayer ropes and rosaries. Sometimes the Holy Spirit calls for something a bit more contemplative and mystical and sometimes it calls for more action. The Roman Church is more boisterous and in some ways (please fellow Romans don't take offense) more immature. It is louder, and active, and sometimes noisy, and somewhat informal. The Byzantine Church is more silent, more mystical, more contemplative, more interior than the Roman. I enjoy both and I really feel sad when people feel something requires a definate change. We should be happy and at home equally in both, I think.

Howdy, LatinCat

I've read all your posts with interest. I agree with what my BC pastor in Alaska said about the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. He said he felt like the Orthodox were overly rigid regarding resistance to the concept of doctrinal development, while Catholics were overly fond of this concept while tending to give Tradition short shrift.

According to this same pastor, useage of the Filioque started out as an "indult" in different parts of the western (now Roman Catholic) Church and that at the time this indult was originally granted, the reigning Pontiff did not use the Filioque in his profession of the Creed. If the Nicene Creed started out without the Filioque, my question is how could its addition have been made binding dogmatically. After all, did it not become binding dogmatically on all Christians (eastern and western) in the undivided Church at the council of Nicea? Since there was no Filioque at Nicea, that would mean that the western Church had CHANGED A DOGMA if indeed it later made the Filioque dogmatically binding - de fide.

As far as the Immaculate Conception, to me it is the most beautiful of the Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. However, I also feel that part of the doctrine of Original Sin as expounded by St. Augustine is a bit heavy-handed. That part I'm talking about would be the idea that we've all inherited actual guilt for the sin of our first parents, Adam and Eve. I believe, and until recently actually believed the Catholic Church taught that we have all simply inherited the punishment of bodily death and the concupiscence that leads us to sin from this act of disobedience by our first parents. Long story short, I don't believe the Augustinian concept of Original Sin has ever formally been adopted as dogma by the Catholic Church. Instead, it's been adopted as the "preferred doctrine" to explain Original Sin by the Roman Church.

Having said these things, I must also say that as much as I love Orthodoxy - I'm Byzantine Catholic, after all - and with all due respect to my beloved Orthodox brothers and sisters Alice, Gordo, Zenovia, et al - I do believe some of the more polemical among the Orthodox tend to address Catholic beliefs/doctrines/dogmas as wrong because they're Catholic without bothering to explain how they differ from those of Orthodoxy. As I've said before, I feel like some of the more strident polemics must come from converts to Orthodoxy from fundamentalist and/or evangelical protestantism, since some sound very near heretical based on true Orthodox theology.

God bless you, brother in Christ.

NEMO